Are there doctrinal differences in the wording of the Old Testament in Protestant Bibles?

[DrawNearToGod]

I like listening to dramatized audio Bibles. However, the Catholic one I have is just the NT. Asides from there being missing books, is there any reason I shouldn’t listen to Protestant Bibles, (just the OT)?

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

It’s been a while since I’ve looked into this with any detail, but if memory serves, the primary OT differences are the books/partial books removed (or added, from the Protestant perspective), and the NT is more likely to have nuanced text changes that could impact doctrine.

 

[DIERM]

Shouldn’t be much argument over “listening” to a “Protestant Bible”, since audio bible don’t have footnotes, which put a “Protestant Bible” at odds with a “Catholic Bible”

Of course, the textual difference between a “Protestant Bible” NT and a “Catholic Bible” is not an issue, because when the “Catholic Bible” is talked about, the difference is really the Canon of Scripture in the OT, where “Protestant Bibles” omit the deuterocanonical books.

The “Protestant Bible” vs “Catholic Bible” isn’t the only argument you will hear…even us Catholics argue over translations…there are plenty of threads here on CAF (just search Bible Translations) showing there are several Bibles “approved” by the Catholic Church that some Catholics will tell you are not sound.

 

[Dlee]

Our priest reminded us last week that a Protestant Bible is a Catholic Bible, just missing some books. Where you will find “differences” are in translations and editor written footnotes or introductions. The Protestant Bible came from the Catholic Bible.

 

[BartholomewB]

As @DIERM and @Dlee have both pointed out, Protestant Bibles don’t have footnotes, or at least the strictly Protestant ones don’t, on the grounds that it would violate their teaching that it’s wrong to add anything to Sacred Scripture.

 

[Metis1]

Some of the Protestant Bibles do have footnotes, and some also have forwards prior to individual books or a group of books. However, since there are so many Protestant denominations, many do not include the footnotes since what they say might run against what some of them teach.

 

[Nicene]

The NKJV and ESV are imo the best translations. They both have reference notes bot not footnotes. Both are translated from the RSV. The old KJV has around 500 errors (one of the reasons the American bible society retranslated it using the RSV, and to bring the language up to date)

The Scofield bible has extensive notes utilizing Calvinist theology. It also uses old English. The rest of the translations are mediocre at best imo.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[po18guy]

Precisely. Subtle changes, and I think to myself who the most subtle of all the creatures is. One not so subtle example is the “International Standard Version” NT which makes amazing claims about itself. In this “new translation” of Matthew 16, Jesus reportedly told Saint Peter:

" I tell you that you are Peter, and it is on this rock that I will build my congregation, and the powers of hell will not conquer it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom from heaven. Whatever you prohibit on earth will have been prohibited in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will have been permitted in heaven.”

Several problems, all relating to an anti-Catholic agenda. Christ establishes only a “congregation” and not a Church. He will give Peter the keys to the Kingdom “from heaven”??? …and it goes on to state that anytihng Peter holds bound is merely a reaction to what has already occurred in heaven - thus stripping Peter, the twelve and the Church of the power of binding and loosing.

This has the effect of reducing them to spokesmen for Christ with no real authority - coincidentally just like the Evangelicals who made the translation.

That is more than a subtle change.

And that is only one verse.

 

[Dlee]

Protestant Bibles don’t have footnotes,

Oh yes they do! The Schofield Reference KJV was the gold standard for Bibles. John Schofield contributed to the teaching of the Rapture. We didn’t take it as adding, rather that it was understanding. And when it disagreed with Catholic teaching, the notes just did not address it.

 

[BartholomewB]

Yes, some do and some don’t. I thought I had made that clear in my post:

As @DIERM and @Dlee have both pointed out, Protestant Bibles don’t have footnotes, or at least the strictly Protestant ones don’t, on the grounds that it would violate their teaching that it’s wrong to add anything to Sacred Scripture.

 

[Hodos]

It depends on which versions you are using as a Catholic. There are a few places in the Vulgate which were not translated properly that later allowed for the introduction of doctrines based on those mistranslations. Genesis 3 where it speaks of whom would be the one to crush the serpents head is one example. Those who use Vulgate based translations usually attribute this to the woman rather than her seed.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Protestant Bibles don’t have footnotes, or at least the strictly Protestant ones don’t, on the grounds that it would violate their teaching that it’s wrong to add anything to Sacred Scripture.

I understand what you are saying, though, many protestant bibles are packed full of “study” notes from different authors and theologians. That is why if you purchase a protestant bible they are much larger than the Catholic bible, even though they have fewer books. Of course the study notes are all different from author to author.

 

[BartholomewB]

Prefaces and introductions, yes. Study notes, yes. But footnotes, which is what I was specifically referring to in that post, are commonly very sparse or even nonexistent in Protestant Bibles. When work started on the King James Bible, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was in overall charge of the project, stressed this point in his instructions to the translators (link below):

6. No marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot, without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.

Compare this with a Catholic Bible such as, for instance, the original 1966 Jerusalem Bible, in which the extensive footnotes are usually placed on the right-hand page only. They sometimes take up half the page or more, for example in the early chapters of John’s Gospel (pp. 147, 149, 153, 163).

http://kjv.landmarkbiblebaptist.net/kjv-instructions.html

 

[Metis1]

Exactly and well said.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Protestant church, and they sidestepped what you wrote above-- and much more. I converted to Catholicism in my early 30’s after studying the early Church and how it saw itself, thus realizing that what I was brought up to believe along these lines was simply not true.

 

[po18guy]

It depends on which versions you are using as a Catholic.

Not at all! Catholicism can be proved with the Protestant Magnum Opus, the King James Version! Q: What has happened to Protestantism since 1611? Agenda has crept in. Big time, in some cases.

There are a few places in the Vulgate which were not translated properly that later allowed for the introduction of doctrines based on those mistranslations.

Q: Your authority for making this claim? Let’s assume that your very recent and man-made idea is true. The Vulgate teaches faith and morals and does not err in that regard. If you are going to spell-check and critique grammar, the entire bible is a fail. Is that what you want?

The Latin Vulgate is set in stone - cannot change. All other translations can and do change. Once you cut the anchor chain the ship begins to drift. How many denominations again??? Only 224 by PROTESTANT definition. How many did Jesus desire? How many did Saint Paul preach?

Genesis 3 where it speaks of whom would be the one to crush the serpents head is one example. Those who use Vulgate based translations usually attribute this to the woman rather than her seed.

Well, since zero zero zero originals exist, who are you or I to say what is correct and what is not? What are we if we demand others to follow our opinions? What are we if we teach that various truths are all true? Rather, Christ established the Church (unarguably biblical) lead it by the Holy Spirit (unarguably biblical) and gave the twelve all authority (unarguably biblical). You know the verses which prove this.
Q: Do you overlook or disbelieve them?

Apparently, the position you have been taught rejects all of this, takes a Catholic document (only 91% of it at that), and putting men’s unauthorized personal twists on it, deigns to challenge the Church which Christ founded?

To this, I might respond: Beam me up, Mr. Scott!

 

[Hodos]

Well, since zero zero zero originals exist, who are you or I to say what is correct and what is not? What are we if we demand others to follow our opinions? What are we if we teach that various truths are all true? Rather, Christ established the Church (unarguably biblical) lead it by the Holy Spirit (unarguably biblical) and gave the twelve all authority (unarguably biblical). You know the verses which prove this.
Q: Do you overlook or disbelieve them?

Because the issue was never a textual criticism error, it was always a translation error. However, feel free to demonstrate through the manuscripts of the Septuagint and Masoretic texts of Genesis that it is otherwise. Generally positive cases for why there was a change introduced into a single line of translation should be supported by other manuscript lines, preferably in the original language, or at least in the earlier translations.

However, besides the fact that there is no text outside the Latin Vulgate that supports your position, we just need to look at the verbiage of the text where in the offspring (spermatos in Greek-which is in the nominative case), and the Hebrew which similarly refers to her seed, and uses the male pronoun before the verb to bruise. The grammatical and syntactical argument against the Vulgate reading is similarly convincing from both earlier translations.

With regard to your taunt about the Holy Spirit, I don’t need to even respond to it. The textual evidence itself demonstrates otherwise since your position has to insert something that wasn’t there for 1800 years at that point.

 

[po18guy]

1. Dude, did our Lord really intend for it to be this excruciatingly difficult to arrive at the truth?
2. Paul, the bible Christian Pope, states - without error - that the CHURCH is the pillar and foundation of truth.
3. What I see is an exceedingly complicated, nuanced and highly interpreted argument.
4. It is good to ponder #1.

 

[JSRG]

As @DIERM and @Dlee have both pointed out, Protestant Bibles don’t have footnotes, or at least the strictly Protestant ones don’t, on the grounds that it would violate their teaching that it’s wrong to add anything to Sacred Scripture.

This doesn’t seem true at all. The NIV, KJV, NKJV, NASB, NLT, ESV, and NSRV are the most popular English Bible translations (I think the NET might also, but it’s hard to gauge because it’s mostly an online translation), and all of them except the KJV have footnotes–heck, the NET has more text in the footnotes than the actual Bible. And from what I remember, the lack of footnotes for the KJV wasn’t from a violation of teaching, but a desire for it to be simpler to understand (considering the printing press, it was also probably was easier to print without footnotes).

Or is the implication that the KJV is the only “strictly Protestant” bible in English?

 

[Hodos]

Paul, the bible Christian Pope, states - without error - that the CHURCH is the pillar and foundation of truth.

The Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth where it proclaims God’s word, not where it departs from it. Paul frequently also argued with and rebuked people from the Church who distorted the gospel through word and action to include Peter.

That being said, you can dispense with the insults and still make a point. Just thought I would remind you that it is actually possible to do so.

 

[on_the_hill]

Along the lines of doctrinal differences–Catholics tend to pay close attention as to whether the version they’re using is approved.
Do Protestants concern themselves with this?