"Haydock Bible" in the "Internet Archive"

  • Thread starter Thread starter MPat
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

MPat

Guest
I was not sure if this question would fit this subforum or “Sacred Scripture”, but I guess it fits here somewhat better (the topic seems to be closer to “classical Catholic writings” than to “translational issues and exegisis”)…

It looks like the “Internet Archive” has some scans (in portions of 100 pages each - like archive.org/details/1883HaydockIlluminatiDouayRheims00000100 or archive.org/details/1883HaydockIlluminatiDouayRheims10011100) of what seems to be a 1883 publication of Douay-Rheims Bible with Haydock’s Bible Commentary.

At the first sight, the book looks well, but the description given with the scans seems strange (mentioning some conspiracy theories), and it appears to be taken from the source of the files - “Fatima Movement” -, that, as is noted in thread forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=587656, is, um, unorthodox, to say the least…

So, are those scans reliable and “safe to use”? Or is it likely that the scans themselves have been somehow modified (to fit their theories or something)…?
 
Ha! You weren’t kidding about the weirdness! The “Illuminati symbols” on the front cover are standard Catholic iconography, like the triangle with the eye representing the Holy Trinity’s divine omniscience.

The endpapers and the colored frontispieces (one of the Seven Sacraments, the other a picture of Pope Leo XIII) are really nice.

It looks like the person just scanned in a Douay-Rheims Bible with the Haydock short annotations, exactly the same as one finds in digital form elsewhere on the Internet, but with all the additional materials from a very high quality and expensive Victorian edition. (Man, some people have all the luck, finding this sort of cool thing!) The book file itself doesn’t seem to have any alterations or inauthenticity.

So yes, you can download and use it with a clear conscience. And actually, the Internet Archive likes you to download a PDF for yourself, for ease of use. That way, you don’t have to see the weirdness in the description.

It would also be kind of you to pray for the uploader’s soul, and for him/her to have good health in mind and body.
 
PS - The endorsements by various bishops are interesting, but you may be wondering about the one by “Father Mathew.” Fr. Theobald Matthew was a famous Irish temperance reformer who was responsible for asking many people to “take the pledge” to abstain from drinking. I think there was an attempt to organize a cause for him, but it didn’t ever get to the “Servant of God” point. Father Mathew’s endorsement would have been for a much earlier edition, as he died in 1856.

The maps and portraits are really nice.

The essay on the history of the Bible has some really striking illustrations, although the moire effect of the etchings has baffled the scanner and created the typical rainbow scatter
pattern in some! Pretty, but not meant to be there. 🙂
 
I’ve looked at the whole thing, and** it doesn’t actually include the whole Bible edition** or even all the extras, or indeed the end of the Bible essay. The scan actually ends on page 54! The uploader actually divided his scanned Bible copy into 19 separate PDFs. This is less than convenient, to say the least.

There is actually one alteration - every page is digitally watermarked as by the so-called “Fatima Foundation,” with several webpages listed… including one called ourladyisgod.com. Said page does actually claim that Our Lord is Satan. Yeah. So that’s weirder and much more blasphemous than I could have imagined.

If you have a PDF editing program, you may be able to remove this annoying and blasphemous digital watermark on your downloaded copy (or 19 downloaded copies). If not, I would say it’s probably better to leave the whole thing be. I pity the poor book.

The same uploader has also come up with some other scans of rare-ish editions of good books, but I think they are all available on Google Books in a much more pleasing format (and without all the anti-Catholicism and conspiracy theories).

But we should pray for the uploader’s soul and health, because that is bad stuff he/she is promoting. It would certainly not please Our Lady of Fatima or God.
 
I don’t see any problem using the 1883 Bible. However, I did notice that the Haydock Commentary in the 1883 Bible seems to be slightly abridged when compared to that in a 1859 Bible. For instance, the commentary in the 1883 Bible on Genesis 1:1 ends with:

The first cause of all things must be God, who in a moment, spoke, and heaven and earth were made, heaven with all the angels’; and the whole mass of the elements, in a state of confusion, and blended together, out of which the beautiful order, which was afterwards so admirable, arose in the space of six days.

Whereas, the 1859 commentary ends with:

The word bara, created, is here determined by tradition and by reason to mean a production out of nothing, though it be used also to signify the forming of a thing out of pre-existing matter. 21. 27. C. — The first cause of all things must be God, who, in a moment, spoke, and heaven and earth were made, heaven with all the Angels; and the whole mass of the elements, in a state of confusion, and blended together, out of which the beautiful order, which was afterwards so admirable, arose in the space of six days: thus God was pleased to manifest his free choice in opposition to those Pagans who attributed all to blind chance or fate. *Heaven *is here placed first, and is not declared *empty *and dark like the earth; that we may learn to raise our minds and hearts above this land of trial, to that our true country, where we may enjoy God for ever. H. (source)
 
MPat said:
I was not sure if this question would fit this subforum or “Sacred Scripture”, but I guess it fits here somewhat better (the topic seems to be closer to “classical Catholic writings” than to “translational issues and exegisis”)…

It looks like the “Internet Archive” has some scans (in portions of 100 pages each - like archive.org/details/1883HaydockIlluminatiDouayRheims00000100 or archive.org/details/1883HaydockIlluminatiDouayRheims10011100) of what seems to be a 1883 publication of Douay-Rheims Bible with Haydock’s Bible Commentary.

At the first sight, the book looks well, but the description given with the scans seems strange (mentioning some conspiracy theories), and it appears to be taken from the source of the files - “Fatima Movement” -, that, as is noted in thread forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=587656, is, um, unorthodox, to say the least…

So, are those scans reliable and “safe to use”? Or is it likely that the scans themselves have been somehow modified (to fit their theories or something)…?
Click to expand...
Here’s a site for a free download of the Douay Bible

drbo.org/
 
MPat said:
I was not sure if this question would fit this subforum or “Sacred Scripture”, but I guess it fits here somewhat better (the topic seems to be closer to “classical Catholic writings” than to “translational issues and exegisis”)…

It looks like the “Internet Archive” has some scans (in portions of 100 pages each - like archive.org/details/1883HaydockIlluminatiDouayRheims00000100 or archive.org/details/1883HaydockIlluminatiDouayRheims10011100) of what seems to be a 1883 publication of Douay-Rheims Bible with Haydock’s Bible Commentary.

At the first sight, the book looks well, but the description given with the scans seems strange (mentioning some conspiracy theories), and it appears to be taken from the source of the files - “Fatima Movement” -, that, as is noted in thread forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=587656, is, um, unorthodox, to say the least…

So, are those scans reliable and “safe to use”? Or is it likely that the scans themselves have been somehow modified (to fit their theories or something)…?
Click to expand...
The Internet Archive is one of the most reliable websites you’ll ever find. It’s a website that’s goal is for the “universal access to all knowledge”, with more than 15 petabytes of data. For example, it is used to snapshot websites at the current time it was snapshot at, and can be used as an Internet “time machine”. People can create accounts and store useful data on it, too. This was uploaded by someone who created an account, so I don’t exactly know the credibility of it. It seems legit to me, though.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top