That is your prorogative but that does not make what I said wrong. The Latin version of the Bible has been under the microscope as it were since even Jerome came on the scene. Jerome’s work was masterful, but it was not immune to attack. It fact it was attacked in his lifetime and after and is still attacked.
The Latin Vulgate was used in the Catholic Church, but it was not checked for accuracy over 1500 years.
Oh, contrare, it was checked for accuracy over and over and over again with verious suggestions for improvements and modifications. Only a very small handful of these were accepted and made their way into the Vulgate but that is not to say that Bishops and Monks from all over the Latin Church were not looking this Vulgate over and over again. The track record on this is really just amazing. We do in fact have a 1500 year paper trail of the Vulgate Bible.
We also need to remember that the Vulgate was the “official” Latin version but it was not the only Latin Bible in town. There are several other Latin Bibles that were used in various parts for various reasons. One of the funniest that I have ever come across was the Eum Bible (my name for it.) The translators of this Bible choose to write in very classical Latin and tried to match word for word to the Greek of the New Testament. In doing so they were using the Latin Is, Ea, Id to translate the definate Greek article Ho, He, To. The results are so funny that I laugh even just thinking about some passages.
Catholics did not know Greek or Hebrew, in general. Neither Augustine or Thomas Aquinas knew much Greek or Hebrew.
Lots of Catholics knew Greek and Hebrew and Syriac and Slavonic and Coptic. We have Greek, Syriac, Slavonic, and Coptic rites in the Catholic Church and again the Paper trail on this is just too impressive. One of the issues that Photius brought up against the Latins was our use of the Vulgate and he went through a long diatride on how bad he thought the translation was and how he thought that translating from the Hebrew instead of the Greek was being a Judiazer. The Greek Bishops had charge after charge against the Vulgate that had to be cleared up. Just about every place where the Latin of the Vulgate did not match 100% to the Septuagint or the Greek New Testament, it had to be looked at and argued over. And this happened again, and again, and again. These are Catholics arguing with Catholics mind you.
The Vulgate that we have had several different editions as it were. These came about as the Pope accepted various changes to the Vulgate for good and serious reasons. There were four such editions before Clement. The Clementine Vulgate is the best know and probably the most accurate Vulgate that is curently out there on the market. It was this vulgate that the Council of Trent promulgated as THE correct Latin translation. Yet, even after the council of Trent people still began to look it over and try to get rid of any errors should there be any. One of these attempts lead to the Stuart Vulgate, which has never been used by the Catholic Church officially but many claim is a more accurate rendition. Reconciling the Clementine Vulgate to the Stuart (which was much more of a linguist inspired vulgate) eventually lead to the Nova Vulgata that is promulgated today.
All in all, we also need to remember that while in English every one and anyone just puts out whatever they want, for 1500 years, most of the litteraty work on the Bible was focused on ONE version of the Bible in Latin. 99% of Bible scholars in the Latin Church were concerned with this one version and making sure that it was accurate. It was compared and recompared to the Greek, Hebrew and Syriac over and over again. There was even comparison to the Coptic but granted this was going in the other direction, making sure the Coptic was accurate. (I know, now you are going to jump on me that I am not respecting the Egyptians, but I can read Coptic and I certainly have great respect for them.) Comparisons to the Slavonic usually ended in far more arguement then anything else so let us not think on those time. In recent years there has been an effort to compare it to the Ethiopian, which has yet to ever really be done as far as I am aware, but I can not yet read Ethiopian so I am a bit out of the loop on this one.
I really do not see the point of reading the Bible in Latin.
If you dislike Latin so much then learn Spanish and read the Bible in Spanish. Either way, many of the same benifits come to you. You are forced to think about what a sentence means and why. You are not allowed to be lazy. You have to stay on your toes. I personally think that Latin has more benifits then any other Language, including Greek, but I will not force Latin on anyone and I can see that you just don’t like Latin so don’t learn it. I would also tell you though that you are being very uncharitable in discouraging Latin in others. I could just as easily discourage the reading of the Bible in English and we can argue about it over and over again. I have ample amunition against the English Langauge and I collect more and more each day. I do not tell others that they shouldn’t read the Bible in English and it is very hostile of you to tell people to not read it in Latin. If there is ever really a fight within the Church between English and Latin with one having to get out, Latin will win, I guarentee it.
It is only a translation, althought a good one, as Jerome was a reputable scholar.
Yet it is also more then just that, It is the Official version of the Latin Rite. It is the version that the Liturgy is translated from. They do not translate for the Liturgy from the Greek or Hebrew, they are only allowed to translate from the Latin. If they want to sing a psalm at Mass, they are not allowed to use just whatever they want. Because it will be sung, it must be taken from the Latin. This, if nothing else makes the Latin version far more then just a good translation. We must remember that the Liturgy, Holy Mass, is far, far more important than the Bible will ever be.
The Jerusalem Bibles are only traslations of translations (from French), as is the Douay-Rheims from Latin.
I already see where someone else corrected the statement about the Jerusalem Bible, which I happen to like a lot in some places. I must say that I do not usually like the Douay-Rheims Bible. This may sound odd coming from me but I just don’t like it much. The English used it weird and complex and the Latin is so much simpler and clearer to me. I read the Douay-Rheims and I never understand what is being talked about. I read the Latin and I get it, so sweat. Latin is a simple, easy langauge, perhaps the easiest in the world and English is overwhelmingly difficult in comparison. English is my second langauge and it took me quite a long, long time to really get it down and I still have English speakers going “huh?” with blank faces whenever I say something. The problem is that where there are only two kinds of Latin, Catholic and non Catholic, there are houndreds of kinds of English and a well traveled person (like me) will constantly have to change accent, idiom, grammar and vocabulary to be understood from country to country and even just from city to city. To top all that off, the English versions of the Bible all use this crazy, archaic, trying to impress language that just is not on the page in the originals. The Greek, Hebrew and Syriac of the Bible (yes some of it was written and is only able to be translated from Syriac) is very simple. It is not very high brow language. It is direct, to the point, and not nearly so wordy asEnglish is. This is part of the appeal of the Jerusalem Bible for me but I must admit that I don’t read that one much, I usually read the Latin.
I will make one huge suggestion to all of you who do insist on reading in English and not in Latin or another language, avoid KJV at all cost. I have never seen sust an afront to the scriptures in all my life. God almighty, Father of our Lord Jesus, Himself must chringe everytime someone reads from it. I jest not. Even if it had been produced by Catholics I would say stay as far away from this bible as you can. It is not even worth being called a Bible.
Count your books. 66 is bad. 73 is good. If you know Hebrew or Syriac then you will know that 6 means bad and 66 means worse. You will know that 3 means Holy and 7 means perfect. So 73 book bibles are prefectly holy. 66 book bibles are much worse and are to be avoided since they had to remove 7 books (taking out the perfect holiness) in order to achieve their much worse status. I would even go so far as to say never read one of these 66 book bibles, nor touch one or have one in your house. Don’t even be in the same room as one. If you do touch one, WASH YOUR HANDS RIGHT AWAY.
Let us all thank God that there are no 66 book versions of the Bible in Latin. I like to faint even just at the thought.
Thanks I’ll check it out:thumbsup:
Pax 
Thanks
NOO way you can read Lain too COOL