That’s not necessarily true; the more time goes by, the farther we are from the dead languages in which the Bible was written, and earlier translators may have had greater access to what were then much newer manuscripts than we possess today.
I think I understand your point, but I don’t think it’s accurate. We know more about the Bible in the last 50 years than we’ve known in the last 1500 years. Why? Due to better scholarship, research (languages, archaeology, etc.), Dead Sea Scrolls, and so on. We have access to sources that those living before the 20th century did not.
Since the NAB is an American translation, it is possible that they didn’t wish to imply that the Hebrew word that is there is exactly limited to murder, as in the American legal definition of first or second degree murder. I can’t speak for the various translation committees, clearly. Maybe they merely wished to follow an earlier translation. English translation committees seem to live in their own universe.
What a silly claim. Next you will say that people are smarter now than they were 1,000 years ago.
Agreed, Pug, but the choice of “kill” is so vague compared to far more correct “murder”, and is becoming so isolated in the world community that it invites wonder at our poor exegeses. You certainly will agree that God did not create such unnecessary confusion and uncertainty; that’s the doing of the leaders of the English-speaking clergy. Why?
Thank you for your charitable response.
I have wondered at times about the potential for a top notch English translation under Catholic auspices. Perhaps right now we do not have the scholars to do it. I don’t mean that there are no Catholics who know the languages, study scripture, are well educated, etc. But perhaps there are *comparatively *few who were taught by sound/orthodox teachers in sound universities. When I think of what books have been available to me to read about the bible, in say a library in 1990, that were written by sound authors, then maybe I must concede there is some lack there. The bishops would gain nothing if they commissioned a bible and got a string of stuff about J, P and E (that is a type of source criticism). Perhaps the bishops would be wise to wait at this time. Surely the tide is changing? It seems there is a change in the seminaries compared to twenty years ago.
. But this is an interesting excerpt from USA University College Directory - U.S. University Directory - State Universities and College RankingsThe New Vulgate reads in both Exodus and Deuteronomy for the fifth commandment exactly: Non occides.
My question is, what does occides mean? Based upon its usage in other places in the Vulgate, it seems to not mean murder as equivalent to English, since occides appears to be something you can do to an animal, cf Dt 12:21. * If *this is so, then the issue may well stem from the Vulgate and occides not meaning murder, not precisely. I am unable to trust Fisheaters for this info, not in the face of the possible usage I can search up in the Vulgate itself from what I suspect are just the various forms of the same verb. (I only sing Latin. I don’t speak it.)
Sorry, but it doesn’t seem to me that you understood it at all.
That’s certainly your original claim, but I don’t see any real reason why it’s true.
Better scholarship? Native speakers of ancient Hebrew and Greek still existed two millennia ago. They don’t today: today our “better scholarship” is still struggling to piece together what the language meant from a frequently broken and incomplete corpus of material.
What’s “archaeology” to us may have been “the academy down the street” to the ancients. We may know only a small portion of what we could learn if only we were walking the streets those hundreds of years ago.
Far more substantial corpora may have existed and been destroyed long before we ever had a chance to look at them. The Dead Sea Scrolls are certainly better than what we had before they were discovered, but we don’t have any clue if they’re actually better than what the ancients had, because we don’t know what the ancients had.
And those living before the twentieth century had access to sources we do not. I tend to believe that their access is superior to our access simply because they were closer to the time period documented.
Sure. In some cases. Examples that we know better that have come to light in the last century or so: Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi documents, (so-called) Gospel of Judas.
KSU,
I suppose we have been watching faster responses with the recent Jewish/SSPX/talkative bishop thing. Also, it is interesting that there is now a youtube Vatican channel.
We may be farther away, but we’ve held onto and preserved what those earlier translators were using before. We’ve also added to the manuscripts, information, and general knowledge that’s available, and while this never will result in obtaining the autographs of Scripture, we now have access to older manuscripts than the oldest ones available 1500 years ago. The Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden in the second century and not found until the 20th, and their value can’t be underestimated. It’s also important to remember how St. Jerome was all on his own in creating the Vulgate. There wasn’t really anyone else available to take on the job. While we always acknowledge his studliness and the value of his work, we always seek to build on it and use the expertise of the thousands of scholars available to us who are all individually very capable and comparable to Jerome, and collectively- especially over the course of several generations- they are certainly up to the task of preserving the oldest copies, perfecting the current translations, and transmitting the whole shebang to later generations who will continue doing about the same thing. The general point here is that Jerome’s work was not the end of the process- it was the beginning, and the work is not done.