M
Mike_Boyce
Guest
OK…I undersatnd why Martin Luther took aut the seven books of the OT: for doctrinal reasons. But why the change to Daniel, Esther and why does my Malachi have 3 chapters while non-Catholics have 4?
- Status
S
Spencerian
Guest
Hi.
While not imprimitur, I believe this magazine*This Rock * answers quite a bit of what Luther’s motivations (and prejudices) were involving his (mis) translations and demotion of various books of Scripture to suit his philosophies. You should be able to use this site to find other sites that support this summary.
S
Scoobyshme
Guest
Here’s the scoop. Before Jesus was born, there was a very large Jewish contingent in Alexandria, Egypt (very big center for commerce, and the “bread basket” of the Mediterranean). The common language of the Mediterranean at that time was Greek. Many of the Jews didn’t speak Hebrew, so they commissioned some folks who knew Hebrew and Greek to translate the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) into Greek. Keep in mind that the Jews had not established a canon of their Scriptures yet. The Greek translation was called the Septuagent, based on the tradition that 70 scholars translated the books in 70 days (not sure if that part is true, but that’s the tradition).
Fast forward to the birth of Jesus and Him establishing His Church. The Apostles and early Christians were converting Jews based on the Old Testament Scriptures of the time, so about the late first, early second century, the Jews decided to establish a canon for their Scriptures. Guess what? They weren’t very happy about the Christians converting Jews, so, they adopted the Hebrew-only version, rejecting any books that were not written in Hebrew or on Hebrew soil.
About 80% of the references in the New Testament to the Old Testament, however, come from the Septuagent version of the Old Testament. Evidently, this is what Jesus and the Apostles used most. So, that’s what we kept.
Fast forward to the early 1500’s and Martin Luther. He didn’t like certain doctrines of the Church (actually, most of them), especially things like Purgatory, which is supported in 2 Maccabees, etc. So, he decided to side with the second century Jews (who had rejected Jesus and Christianity), and used their version. However, he went further and tried to throw out the epistle of James, parts of Hebrew, et al. His friends eventually persuaded him to put them back in. But, the bottom line is that he assumed authority to change the Scriptures which he didn’t have (nor does anyone here on earth).
You might enjoy a short video series on “Origin of the Bible” here:
AlabamaCatholicResources.com/Bible.html
Also, Fr. John Corapi has a great audio series on how to read the Bible, from a Catholic perspective, which you can download here (first six .mp3’s):
alabamacatholicresources.com/Fr_John_Corapi.html
God bless!
J
JM3
Guest
Ain’t the NAB wonderful.
The Douay-Rheims and the Revised Standard Version - Second Catholic Edition both have 4 chapters for Malachi. Perhaps a different translation would help.
S
SonCatcher
Guest
Reading Malachi in both versions, you would find that the verses for chapter 4 are appended to chapter 3. Thus, Malachi isn’t “missing” anything in the NAB. Indeed, the next-to-last verse is copied to the end so you actually get a little extra.
First, wlesome to CAF.
Just a point: If you check Luther’s translation, he did not take out any books. He translated all 73 books of the typical western Bible, and in fact included one extra - Prayer of Manasses.
The disputes about the D-C’s go back centuries before Luther - all the way to St. Jerome.
It is also worth noting that, contrary to the arguments made in more modern times, Luther’s motivations were not dissimilar to those of contemporaries of his, such as Cardinal Cajetan.
Jon
P
Poco
Guest
Hello, Mike!
From what I can tell after a brief internet search is, parts of Daniel and Esther were thought to have been originally written in Greek. This is because the were only found in the Septuagint. Because of this, these parts are thought to have been added to the original Daniel and Esther written in Hebrew and Aramaic. So, these parts were considered to be “deuterocanonical”. I can only guess that that is why they were removed when the 7 deuterocanonical books were removed. I didn’t come across any theological reasons for their removal. I’m not sure, but I think “parts of these parts” may have been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls written in Hebrew and/or Aramaic. If so, then it is possible Greek was not the original language of the text.
Also, both my Douay-Rheims and RSV-CE have 4 chapters in Malachi.
- Status