Any Protestants read the Douy Rheims Bible instead of the King James Bible?

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Out of curiosity, any Protestants here read the Douay Rheims Bible written in 1609?

Note: King James Bible was written in 1611. The language of both books are similar, except that the Douay Rheims Bible has the deutro-canonical books

Not unless they read antiquarian books The DRB has not been printed since the 18th century - what people refer to as the DRB on this site is the Challoner revision of it - or rather, one of the US editions of one the of the editions of Challoner’s revision (the history of the various editions of the Challoner Bible is as easy to follow as a ball of string after a kitten’s been at it).​

In answer to the question, yes, I read the Challoner Bible while still a Protestant. The real difficulty was the Latinisation of the names - “Oola” is not clearly the same as “Aholah”, & is a much poorer guide to the Hebrew form of the name. As for “Cocytus” & “Forrest”, neither is very helpful; one does not expect to meet a river from the Greek underworld in the Psalms.

At least Challoner is not as relentlessly Latinate as the DRB seems to have been - “He exinanited Himself” in Philippians 2 is not as clear as the AV “He emptied Himself”.

The CB is like the AV - the DRB was apparently not like the AV. Challoner was influenced by the AV, which is why his version is free of much of the excessive Latinity of the version he was revising. The men who produced the AV seem to have had a much better ear for English than their Catholic counterparts (& than most translators into English); in addition, they were indebted to William Tyndale for much of what is now the AV; his work, provided much of the groundwork for theirs. I think it says something for the CB that whereas there were only four editions of the DRB in just under 150 years, the CB has sold many more than that: & is still being published.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

No, unless of cause you believe in Sola Scriptura… The bible was written by human authors, they actually made minor mistakes, I know that is hard to believe, but it’s true. This book was canon, but once we discovered it was fictionalized, it lost it priveledge to be considered fact like the other books of the bible.

3 Maccabees is a blatantly false, fictionalized book. That is why it is now excluded from the canon. This does not mean the other books have any less of a right to be Canon… unless the silly Sola Scriptura thing comes up, which to me it doesn’t.

The other books simply are not fictionalized, they therefore retain canon status and have a right to do so. I know it is hard for Protestants to accept, but when the church finds out a book is not valid because of such and such fact, it will immediatly take that book out of the biblical canon.

3 Maccabees is canonical - for Byzantine Catholics, as much as for the Orthodox.​

As for fiction, there is plenty of that in the Bible - & why not ? (Unless one insists that because Jericho was a real place, there must have been a real Samaritan, tending a real traveller. But that is to mistake parables for history.) ##

 

[sandmountainsli]

The KJV is a bit difficult to read. I prefer the NIV or RSV, although I am considering picking up a translation that has the Apocrypha/DC books to read.

The KJV is extremely easy to read.
The NIV and RSV are poor translations which are taxing to try and muddle your way through.
WP

 

[lak611]

The KJV is extremely easy to read.

I have no problem reading the KJV, even my 1611 edition reprint which has completely different spellings of many words.

 

[Chris_LaRock]

The old grammar and use of words can be confusing.

I wonder if anyone tried making an updated Douay Bible. It could be called “The Douay for Today”, and be the Catholic equilivant of the New King James.

 

[colliric]

The old grammar and use of words can be confusing.

I wonder if anyone tried making an updated Douay Bible. It could be called “The Douay for Today”, and be the Catholic equilivant of the New King James.

The bishop Challoner version was originally like that, an 19th century update of the 1609 version. This update is the one which is now commonly sold as the “douay-Rheims” today. It was originally called “Douay-Rheims-Challoner”(To distinct itself from the 1609 edition) but the last word has been dropped, partly because the 1609 version is no longer in printing(that has changed recently and it is being published as “The original Douay-Rheims”), so for all intents and purposes that is the “Douay Rheims” or at least the one now avalible therefore most Douay versions are now that one. The english is 18th century english and grammar, not the 1609 version. And not surprisingly the Challoner version was constructed to mirror quite a bit the popular protestant grammar and poetical structure of the KJV, only with the wording of the Douay Rheims.

If they are going to do it again, they should use the 1609 version as the launch point, no need to update the update, besides it’s still very understandable.

 

[Chris_LaRock]

Not to get off topic, but I’d like to get a free catholic audio bible online. There are several free protestant audio bibles out there to download free. I searched and searched and couldn’t find any.