The Vulgate is translated from the Septuagint which is Greek, isn’t it more sure to be valid if it’s from Hebrew texts? So Protestant bibles are more valid? As I read a bit, that they’re from Masoteric texts which are Hebrew?
Here’s what the Catholic Encyclopedia has to say about the Septuagint:
Historical importance of the Septuagint
The importance of the Septuagint Version is shown by the following considerations:
(1) The Septuagint is the most ancient translation of the Old Testament and consequently is invaluable to critics for understanding and correcting the Hebrew text (Massorah), the latter, such as it has come down to us, being the text established by the Massoretes in the sixth century A.D. Many textual corruptions, additions, omissions, or transpositions must have crept into the Hebrew text between the third and second centuries B.C. and the sixth and seventh centuries of our era; the manuscripts therefore which the Seventy had at their disposal, may in places have been better than the Massoretic manuscripts.
(2) The Septuagint Version accepted first by the Alexandrian Jews, and afterwards by all the Greek-speaking countries, helped to spread among the Gentiles the idea and the expectation of the Messias, and to introduce into Greek the theological terminology that made it a most suitable instrument for the propagation of the Gospel of Christ.
(3) The Jews made use of it long before the Christian Era, and in the time of Christ it was recognised as a legitimate text, and was employed in Palestine even by the rabbis. The Apostles and Evangelists utilised it also and borrowed Old Testament citations from it, especially in regard to the prophecies. The Fathers and the other ecclesiastical writers of the early Church drew upon it, either directly, as in the case of the Greek Fathers, or indirectly, like the Latin Fathers and writers and others who employed Latin, Syriac, Ethiopian, Arabic and Gothic versions. It was held in high esteem by all, some even believed it inspired. Consequently, a knowledge of the Septuagint helps to a perfect understanding of these literatures.
(4) At the present time, the Septuagint is the official text in the Greek Church, and the ancient Latin Versions used in the western church were made from it; the earliest translation adopted in the Latin Church, the Vetus Itala, was directly from the Septuagint: the meanings adopted in it, the Greek names and words employed (such as: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers [Arithmoi], Deuteronomy), and finally, the pronunciation given to the Hebrew text, passed very frequently into the Itala, and from it, at times, into the Vulgate, which not rarely gives signs of the influence of the Vetus Itala; this is especially so in the Psalms, the Vulgate translation being merely the Vetus Itala corrected by St. Jerome according to the hexaplar text of the Septuagint. (
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And
Of the approximately 300 Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, approximately 2/3 of them came from the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) which included the deuterocanonical books that the Protestants later removed. This is additional evidence that Jesus and the apostles viewed the deuterocanonical books as part of canon of the Old Testament. (
Source and Scripture verse examples)
Another thing is that
the Protestant bibles are missing 7 books of the Bible one of which contains a very clear prophecy about Jesus as follows:
Wisdom 2:12-24
"Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected."
Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them,
and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
for God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity,
but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it.
