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vwtaylorii
Guest
We know there are a lot of KJV only people and some think it is the only Word of God. Are there any Douay Rheims only people, and do you believe it is the only correct English translation today?
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DavidFilmer
Guest
I’ve never heard of any, but I suspect some ultra-traditionalists might favor it. But, FWIW, the Douay has been revised several times. My Douay is by Tan Publishers and is a version from 1752, and it’s the only version of the Douay that is in print, to my knowledge (that’s what Tan said at the time I bought it, anyway).
So I doubt if the original 1582 edition is even in print. Using a 1752 Douay would be like using an RSV instead of a KJV. I imagine that a real “purist” would shun the “modern” version.
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callmeChris
Guest
****The King James version is more familiar with protestants. The Douray Thelms version is 100% CAtholic and traditional, with NO changes added.
From the DR version:
“I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.”- Gen 3:15
Other Versions:
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”- Gen 3:15
From the DR version:
“And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Luke 1:28
Other Versions:
"The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”- Luke 1:28
But as much as I love the Douay Rheims bible, there are times where the New Translation is needed. the KJV I would try to avoid at all costs
From the DR version:
“I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.”- Gen 3:15
Other Versions:
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”- Gen 3:15
From the DR version:
“And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Luke 1:28
Other Versions:
"The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”- Luke 1:28
But as much as I love the Douay Rheims bible, there are times where the New Translation is needed. the KJV I would try to avoid at all costs
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patrick457
Guest
Speaking of the devil, both the 1582 Rheims NT and the 1609-10 Douai OT is indeed in print, and can even be found online!
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DavidFilmer
Guest
The Douay is a translation of the Latin Vulgate. There are no pronouns in Latin, so when translating to English, the translator makes up whatever he thinks fits the context. However, while it works either way, I think “he” is more theologically accurate.
The Vulgate is a translation of Hebrew. FWIW, no pronouns in Hebrew either.
“full of grace” is a faithful translation of the Latin gratia plena, but I believe it oversteps the Greek charitoō. And Jerome agreed with me when he translated Eph 1:6, which uses the same word, but Jerome translated this instance of charitoō as “gloriae gratiae” (not “gratia plena”), which the Douay translates “glory of his grace.” In the NAB, the verse reads “that all might praise the glorious favor he has bestowed on us in his beloved.”
I agree that “grace” is a better translation of *charitoō *than “favor,” but I feel “full of grace” goes too far. “Having grace” is better, IMHO.
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patrick457
Guest
Why stop there?
I wil put enmyties betwen thee & the woman, & thy ſeed and the ſeed of her: ſhe ſhal bruise thy head in peeces, & thou ſhalt lye in waite of her heele.
http://books.google.com/books?id=WI...g1RDGmNTC8_7UGcYB4lg&ci=31,346,905,692&edge=0
and:
† And in the ſixt moneth, the Angel Gabriel vvas ſent of God into a citie of Galilee, called Nazareth, † to a virgin deſpouſed to a man vvhose name vvas Ioſeph, of the houſe of Dauid: and the virgins name vvas MARIE. † And the Angel being entred in, ſaid vnto her, “HAILE” ful of grace, our Lord is vvith thee: bleſſed art thou among vvomen. † Vvho hauing heard, vvas troubled at his ſaying, and thought vvhat maner of ſalutation this ſhould be. † And the Angel ſaid to her, Feare not MARIE, for thou haſt found grace vvith God. † Behold thou ſhalt conceiue in thy vvombe, and ſhalt beare a sonne: and thou ſhalt call his name IESVS. † he ſhal be great, and ſhal be called the ſonne of the moſt High, and our Lord God ſhal giue him the ſeate of Dauid his father: † and he ſhal reigne in the houſe of Iacob for euer, and of his kingdom there ſhal be no end.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ko...zrJv3zThnZlfUNL6bSIg&ci=48,940,923,330&edge=0
The interesting thing is, the 1582 Rheims NT was one of the versions consulted by the translators of the King James Version. The KJV is distinguished from previous English Protestant versions by a greater tendency to employ Latinate vocabulary, and the translators were able to find many such terms (for example: emulation in Romans 11:14) in the Rheims NT.
Bishop Richard Challoner’s revisions, meanwhile, borrowed heavily from the King James Version (himself being a convert from Protestantism, and thus familiar with its style) whose translators had themselves borrowed from the original Rheims NT of 1582. Challoner not only addressed the odd prose and much of the Latinisms, but produced a version which, while still called the Douay-Rheims, was little like it. At the same time he aimed for improved readability and comprehensibility, rephrasing obscure and obsolete terms and construction; and in the process, consistently removing ambiguities of meaning that the original version had striven to retain.
The original translators were of the position that if the passage in question is difficult in the original then the translation should follow the text as it is and make no attempt to smoothen it out: “we presume not in hard places to modifie the speaches or phrases, but religiously keepe them word for word, and point for point, for feare of missing or restraining the sense of the holy Ghost to our phantasie.” They in fact criticized the Geneva Bible (the primary Bible of the 16th century English Protestant movement before the KJV came out) for their policy of striving always for a rendering of the text in clear and understandable English!
According to this argument, previous versions in standard English had improperly imputed clear meanings for obscure passages in the Greek source text; where the Latin Vulgate had often tended to rather render the Greek literally, even to the extent of generating improper Latin constructions. In effect the Rheims translators argue, that where the source text is ambiguous or obscure, then a faithful English translation should also be ambiguous or obscure lest “the sense of the holy Ghost” be missed, with the various options for understanding the text discussed in a marginal note.
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DavidFilmer
Guest
Well, whaddaya know. And, as a special bonus, if you order one, you will receive the 1649 Douay Catechism absolutely free! And you can even get the 1582 Douay in a pocket-sized NT version - take that, you Gideons! (I’m not making this up).Speaking of the devil, both the 1582 Rheims NT and the 1609-10 Douai OT is indeed in print, and can even be found online!
And you can even get a dual-translation of the Gospels with the KJV on one side and the Douay on the other (let’s see how those Johnny-come-lately Anglicans stack up, with their modern 17th Century translation).
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EricFilmer
Guest
Just to add to the ongoing dialog over translations, the versions of the RSV which are specifically designated as Catholic editions use “full of grace”. For example, this is what is found in Ignatius Press’ RSV. But RVS that are not designated as Catholic versions will use the “highly favored” phrase (or some variation of it). I chalk this up as being “marketing strategy.”
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m134e5
Guest
I think it’s translated more accurately than many (most?) contemporary translations. It’s a literal translation from the Latin, which makes it a good study bible. I prefer the RSV-CE for devotion- the DR has some *really *archaic words at times (even the books’ names- Abdias, Osee, and Paralipomenon). We can, at times, be tempted to think something is holier or better just because it’s old.
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StrawberryJam
Guest
Why would you care? Why not ask what you need to know as a catholic instead. Hint.
It is more than what is in between the covers of any book.
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DavidFilmer
Guest
Well, I would really, really question this. Some of the translations may be more favorable to Catholic positions, but that’s not the same thing as accuracy, from a translation point of view.
And this is, first and foremost, *why *I would question this. A translation of a translation is rarely as accurate as a translation of the original source.
But, more significantly, the Vulgate is mostly the work of one priest (St. Jerome), who was not a language scholar, and who had access to a limited number of manuscripts. The science of textual criticism had not yet been discovered, so Jerome had no knowledge of how Biblical manuscripts could be cross-referenced with contemporary non-Biblical works to discover linguistic nuances in word usage and sentence construction (and, really, this field of study was not practical until the invention of the computer).
Modern scholars have access not only to all Biblical manuscripts, but to a vast library of contemporary non-Biblical material, which can be added to huge databases to be analyzed by sophisticated data-mining programs.
It might seem logical that ancient translations are more accurate, but in truth modern translators have many advantages that ancient translators could not even imagine. And, as the relatively new science of textual criticism becomes more refined, our translations will get even more accurate.
Just as the validity of our Apostolic Orders becomes even better over time, so does our understanding of these ancient manuscripts.
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StrawberryJam
Guest
Science of textural criticism?
Can’t believers understand how they are abusing the word Science?
Can’t believers understand how they are abusing the word Science?
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DavidFilmer
Guest
And where is this abuse?
Dictionary.com tells us that the word “science” is derived via Middle English, from Middle French, from the Latin “scientia,” which simply means “knowledge.” One of the several English definitions of the word “science” is *"knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic * study," which surely applies here. Linguistic scholars (dare I say, “linguistic scientists”) have amassed a vast body of knowledge of human language (which is unprecedented in the history of the human race), and regularly apply scientific methods to their studies.
Textual criticism is not a physical science, but a social science (as are economics, archaeology, and psychology). But, of all the social sciences, I would contend that textual criticism is more like the physical sciences than all other social sciences.
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StrawberryJam
Guest
I will use the dictionary whenever I encounter words believers use…
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StrawberryJam
Guest
Far be it for me to trouble you over such details that are not relevant in a supernatural worldview.
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Adeodatus
Guest
Catholics tend to use the word “science” the way it has been used for thousands of years, not the political revision of its usage in Modernist newspeak.
For example, the “queen of the sciences” is the science of theology.
Don’t blame us. We’re just using the word “science” according to its actual meaning, not the technocratic revision.
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AcolyteLector
Guest
Less-than-witty jibes aside, his usage of science is etymologically correct.
Perhaps a little imprudent, but absolutely valid and etymologically correct.
The way that the term ‘science’ is used today is actually a more heinous abuse of its potential, and a politically-motivated appropriation of a word, than any Southern Baptist Creationist saying that “theology is a science …”.
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DavidFilmer
Guest
Textual sciences are not used only for religious purposes - they are used on any type of historic document (even some only a century old). The meaning of words and language changes over time, so by comparing different documents we can discover the nuances of language that would have been obvious at the time but are not known to us now.
Consider the word “decimate.” Today, it means to kill or destroy a large portion. But it was originally applied to a defeated and captured army, where 1 out of every ten soldiers was randomly selected and killed (that’s why it begins with “dec” - 1/10). If you found an old manuscript that said an army was “decimated” you would maybe think it was largely wiped out unless you had studied other contemporary sources that explained the meaning of the word at the time it was written, when you would realize that 10% of the army was killed.
Textual sciences such as entomology are not just for religious manuscripts. Without textual sciences our understanding of history would be severely limited.
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AcolyteLector
Guest
Going back to this original statement, I don’t think you quite appreciate the absurdity of what you’re saying here.
Just because the totality of Catholic faith and practice is not limited to something, does not mean that the serious Catholic should dispense with it as something trivial OR deal with it lightly.
Moreover, speaking only in terms of the structure of belief, while the Bible is not ‘mutually inclusive’ with the Catholic faith, the Bible in its capacity as the revealed Word of God is necessary for everything else in the Catholic faith that lies beyond its two covers.
There are no ‘spark notes’ to the Bible that contains what ‘a Catholic needs to know’–which might not even be OP’s primary concern, despite your rude assumption–, and the closest thing to this, the CCC, makes explicit reference to biblical sources.
So, it follows that it should concern the serious Catholic that he/she is reading a translation that (1) has the proper ecclesiastical endorsements and oversight, and (2) is clear, accessible, and verbally potent.
That–in a word–is why OP ‘might’ care, among other reasons.
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Dave_Noonan
Guest
Hebrew does have pronouns.
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