I am Catholic, I like the KJV and I don't care who knows it!

[graceandglory]

The Revised Standard Version of the Bible is an authorized revision of the American Standard Version, published in 1901, which was a revision of the King James Version, published in 1611.]

SO, here’s my new question…
**
The RSV is a revised American Standard Version**

Is the New American Standard (NAS) also a revision of the American Standard Version?

(Because that was my favored version as a prot.) I studied “versions” and wanted the one that had the most scholarly and closest to original text translations.

So, then, it would makes sense that I would prefer the RSV-CE, since it sounds like the have the same origin.

Which begs the question…
Why do I want something that finds its origin in the KJV, when I could have something that originates from the D-R?



NAB was okay when I was in elementary and middle school. I do prefer a more grown up sounding text.

What else originates from D-R?

 

[Cranch]

SO, here’s my new question…
**
The RSV is a revised American Standard Version**

Is the New American Standard (NAS) also a revision of the American Standard Version?

FWIW, this bible is commonly abbreviated as NASB , but anyway, the answer is yes. From Michael Marlowe’s excellent bible-researcher.com:

As its name implies, the New American Standard Bible is a revision of the American Standard Version (1901). It was produced by a company of conservative scholars who wished to provide a literal and conservative revision of the ASV, as an alternative to the Revised Standard Version (1952), which had proven to be unacceptable to conservative churches. Although the NASB revisers were influenced by the RSV’s interpretation in many places, overall the NASB is a good deal more literal than the RSV…

Which begs the question…
Why do I want something that finds its origin in the KJV, when I could have something that originates from the D-R?

I couldn’t say. Familiarity, perhaps? If you can get past the Latinized names, you might find the D-R very similar in “tone” to the KJV. As has been pointed out in the thread, Bishop Challoner was influenced in part by the KJV in his revisions to the D-R and it is his revised text that we use to this day.

What else originates from D-R?

Only the 1941 Confraternity New Testament (hardbound edition here). It is a revision of the Challoner D-R New Testament (with the revisers also referencing the Latin Vulgate).
Please note: the Confraternity Old Testament is NOT derived from the D-R, but was a project of translation from the original Hebrew.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Patrick 457,

Yup! You summed up the matters of the original state vs. Challoner revisions of the Douay-Rheims/Douay-Rheims-Challoner Bible very well.

Even if the literary beauty of the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version (D.R.-C.) is so largely a reflected one from the Authorised “King James” Version (A.V.), it nonethess is considerable, as skillfully carried out by Challoner, lovely, faithful, and cherishable.

I have a number of American editions of the D.R.-C., which are vary only in quite miniscule ways from each other, as well as one D.R.-C. printed in the U.K. by the Catholic Truth Society, which differs much more from any of the U.S. editions, due to what you note as textual British preferences among the Challoner’s variorum, and also to some revision that was done for the C.T.S. edition. However, all of these Challoner Bibles are compatible one with another and thus functionally interchangeable.

Long may Christ’s Holy Church cherish both the A.V. and D.-R.C. Versions!

Jerry Parker

 

[adriancombe]

Every translation has errors and issues. Even a supposedly perfect translation would never be able to capture the double entendres and nuances which jump off the page as it were in the source language. For devotional reading, it is really a matter of preference, as long as you don’t go freelance interpreting things so that they contradict the faith. When in doubt, compare different translations, or use the concordance tools at www.blueletterbible.org , or ask someone who knows the source languages.

If you google KJV translation errors, you will get a lot of hits, and if you dig, you will find many of the nitpicks make sense, but I don’t know how many of those lead to doctrinal issues. And again, you will find goofs in any translation.

Finally, the KJV error patterns are part of the key to determining the fraudulent nature of the Book of Mormon, see here: freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2033271/posts

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Jerry Parker: in your opinion are some of the textual choices of the CTS bibles good ones?

I haven’t read any CTS DRCs but have always wondered if maybe they polished the Douay Rheims Challoner bibles better than anyone else.

What do you think? I know the differences are quite small.

 

[Devare]

Such as?

such as this:


(notice the masonic handshake), there are many other instances, but, I don’t exactly feel like paying $1000 for a fascimilie of an 11 inch KJV bible to find more.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to agree with this one.

Indeed I know you’ll have to agree on that one, I have a keen observation of many individuals’ nature in the 1500/1600 period; the Anglican Church is very close to the Catholic Church today - especially with Rowan Williams filling the bridge. One particular fellow who I despise is Francis Bacon - apparently so did others when they realized his evil intentions and ugly nature. He was a freemason (probable homosexual), spat in God’s face, and wrote the damnable “New Atlantis;” which in a nutshell portrays society in a world without God and having freemasonry practiced openly.

 

[patrick457]

(notice the masonic handshake), there are many other instances, but, I don’t exactly feel like paying $1000 for a fascimilie of an 11 inch KJV bible to find more/

Forgive me for once again playing the Devil’s Advocate, but how do we exactly know that that is a Freemasonic handshake? Is that handshake not supposed to be secret or something? I do know that they do have grips, tokens, and such at their meetings but since I’m not a Freemason I exactly can’t verify what form do those rituals take, especially since there is no ‘set’ form of one as each Jurisdiction is free to set - or no - its own ritual.

Indeed I know you’ll have to agree on that one, I have a keen observation of many individuals’ nature in the 1500/1600 period; the Anglican Church is very close to the Catholic Church today - especially with Rowan Williams filling the bridge. One particular fellow who I despise is Francis Bacon - apparently so did others when they realized his evil intentions and ugly nature. He was a freemason (probable homosexual), spat in God’s face, and wrote the damnable “New Atlantis;” which in a nutshell portrays society in a world without God and having freemasonry practiced openly.

I’ve read a bit of it, and thought it a bit too longwinded and too “utopian” for my liking, in a sense (the latter half actually mostly consists of one of Bensalem’s wise men doing a dialogue about the praises and the customs of Bensalem). The work is just Bacon’s dream world put into print.

Bacon apparently also inserted a bit of a personal reference, as the scientific experiments in Solomon’s House (Bensalem’s state-sponsored scientific institution) are conducted in the Baconian method.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

The question was posed as to whether the variants in the Catholic Truth Society (C.T.S.) chunky-yet-compact edition of the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version makes it superior to the American editions, e.g. the reprints that TAN Books has published.

I made some comparisons of the C.T.S. and American D.R.-C. editions in a few “customer reviews” for Amazon’s WWW sites (.com, .ca, and .co.uk). Here is how I briefly mentioned these differences for Amazon: *There are minor divergences between the American and British Douay-Rheims-Challoner texts, which have varied somewhat in editions over the years published in both countries. Good editions of British texts of the Douay-Rheims-Challoner translation long were available, including in inexpensive editions, from the Catholic Truth Society (C.T.S.). This reader’s collection includes the C.T.S. edition in relatively small (but stoutly thick) format published in 1956 (with imprimatur and preface dated 1955), which states on the verso of the title page and in the preface, that modifications to the British Challoner text of 1955 are due to “certain emendations, mainly of a grammatical nature, to the [then] current Douay texts … [and also] to provide for easier reading.” Most traditionalist Roman Catholic and other readers probably will prefer the older 1899 American text, for which TAN Books and Baronius Press alike have opted to print or to reprint, to the slightly different 1955 or other British text. *

I really am not the best person to declare an absolute preference, based on superiority, of either the usual American D.R.-C. class of text or that of the C.T.S. However, I do tend to regard latter-day revisers (even such stoutly Roman Catholic ones as those of the C.T.S.) with suspicion; they so tend to adopt the latest fashionable text-critical theories too unquestioningly, hence emendations to older versions of the Bible, especially of the New Testament, tend, at the hands of so many revisers, to incorporate what is fashionable rather than what is best. However, I have not made a detailed analysis of the differences between these British and American texts of the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version; I just have noticed them in passing when using my copies of several editions of the D.-R.-C. Bible. Perhaps another reader who follows C.A. fora on Bible issues, one who is of tastes similarly conservative to my own, could comment on this matter more thoroughly than I can do so at present.

There are plenty of used copies of the various printings of the C.T.S. Bible in the D.R.-C. Version that one can order from Amazon, particularly on its WWW site for the United Kingdom (Amazon.co.uk). The format of the C.T.S. edition is an handy one that may appeal to many other users besides myself.

Anyway, I use the D.R.-C. Bible with considerable confidence, whether in any particular British, Canadian, or American variant, as I do the Authorised “King James” Version and the old Confraternity Version or mixed Confraternity-Douay Version. So long as the 1941 N.T. is included with the O.T. in its C.C.D. state of no later than 1969, of which many copies in various publisher’s editions and printings can be found on Amazon.com I feel confidence using such an edition of the Confraternity Version of the Holy Scriptures (although I loathe the later N.A.B., with its vastly inferior 1970 N.T., and subsequent further revision thereof, which the C.C.D. foolishly published to supplant the very excellent Confraternity Version). I do check them against one another and compare passages in still other good versions, when I feel that the need arises to do so, but such a need arises less often with these three versions than when reading most other translations of the Bible.

I hope that this helps, at least a little bit!

Jerry Parker

 

[daytons]

thats spitting on all our catholic brothers and sisters that died in the hands of the protestants in England. have u forgotten why king James wrote that version? do u know who father Garnet is? do u know that king james out lawed Catholicism and kicked all the priest out from England? learn some catholic history before you read that book.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Dayton,

You wrote: [T]hat"s spitting on all our Catholic brothers and sisters that died in * the hands of the Protestants in England. Have [yo]u forgotten why King James wrote that version? Do [yo]u know who Father Garnet is? Do [yo]u know that King James outlawed Catholicism and kicked all the priest out from England? Learn some Catholic history before you read that book.

Dayton, I understand the intensity of your feeling, which, in itself, is a worthy thing. However, you are making an argumentum ad hominem, concerning this English Bible’s worth, personally against King James himself and collectively against the Anglican Protestants who produced the Authorised “King James” Version (A.V.). Doing this generates more heat than it sheds light. How much more graceful it would be if both Roman Catholics and Protestants would show shame for the bigoted injustices and atrocities that each side encouraged and committed one against the other! This game of slinging insults at Queen Mary Tudor on the one hand (by Protestants) and at Queen Elizabeth I and Kings Henry VIII and James I, on the other (by Roman Catholics) get nowhere in illuminating the truth.

Anyway, it was not King James I himself who personally was accountable for the A.V. Bible; it was the committees of translators that he appointed. As for his reason(s) for launching the project that resulted in the A.V., he quite rightly wished to purge most of the English versions preceding the A.V. and of which it was a revision, of their excessive sectarianism and ultra-Protestant (Puritan) bias, a good aim in itself and one in which A.V. very largely succeeded! Most of the A.V.'s translators (whom James appointed from various factions of Anglican churchmanship, to assure balance) were, in fact, fairly moderate men, considering their times at any rate, and they were profoundly well informed scholars of astonishing learning.

You know, Dayton, God is able to use men who may be unworthy in some way or another to accomplish great things! And God did accomplish a marvellous and surpassingly beautiful thing in bringing the A.V. Bible into existence. He also did extraordinary things through Bp. Richard Challoner, who single-handedly, by his work of revision, made of the English Roman Catholic Bible, the Douay-Rheims Version, a literary-religious work of far greater beauty and enduring worth than what the initial translators at Douay and Rheims had produced. Be glad that God worked through all of these men, Anglicans and Roman Catholics alike, to produce the great works of translation and of literary worth which both Anglicans and Roman Catholics produced (the A.V. and the D.R.-C. Version), not just for their own co-religionists, but for all believers!

Jerry Parker*

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Esquire 0130,

*You, very interestingly, wrote: ** * [O]f course, 7 books and parts of two others have been removed from the KJV. Protestant commentators say that the Reformers did it because there is little evidence that Jesus made use of the texts. This is wrong. Jesus made massive use of Wisdom and Sirach.

What you say about Jesus’ use of the deutero-canonical texts, specifically of Wisdom and of Sirach, really intrigues me! This is not because I contest what you say, but because this makes me highly curious to know more about this! I read years ago a book that included a long argument for Saint Paul’s reliance on one of these two named deutero-canonical books of the O.T., in the very structure of thought and expression in the Epistle to the Romans. The book was not even one devoted to about higher or lower New Testament criticism, except perhaps peripherally in dealing with his main topic; in fact, this was Robin Scroggs’ controversial book, New Testament and Homosexuality. When I re-read the O.T. Wisdom books and then Romans in the N.T. I was, indeed, struck by how much validity there was in Scroggs’ argument on this matter of inter-testimental influence of deutero-canonical O.T. upon N.T.

So, I would like to know more about how Jesus used Sirach and Wisdom. Can you, or another C.A. user, cite some of the passages that point to this, and/or, can you refer me to books that deal with these influences on Jesus and on what he said?

Thanking y’all in advance,

Jerry Parker

 

[Devare]

Forgive me for once again playing the Devil’s Advocate, but how do we exactly know that that is a Freemasonic handshake? Is that handshake not supposed to be secret or something? I do know that they do have grips, tokens, and such at their meetings but since I’m not a Freemason I exactly can’t verify what form do those rituals take, especially since there is no ‘set’ form of one as each Jurisdiction is free to set - or no - its own ritual.

I’ve read a bit of it, and thought it a bit too longwinded and too “utopian” for my liking, in a sense (the latter half actually mostly consists of one of Bensalem’s wise men doing a dialogue about the praises and the customs of Bensalem). The work is just Bacon’s dream world put into print.

.

That should be a masonic handshake - why would you have a weird handshake thing like that in a bible to begin with… Other than that, I can’t really confirm it much as I have stated it.
Just try to find a “masonic handshake” that matches at google or something (or ask a conspiracy nut):
images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=masonic%20handshake&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

I would ask a freemason - but for some reason, they don’t like to talk to me

Bacon’s dreams were in vain, only Christ is the truth.

 

[daytons]

Dayton,

Dayton, I understand the intensity of your feeling, which, in itself, is a worthy thing. However, you are making an argumentum ad hominem, concerning this English Bible’s worth, personally against King James himself and collectively against the Anglican Protestants who produced the Authorised “King James” Version (A.V.). Doing this generates more heat than it sheds light. How much more graceful it would be if both Roman Catholics and Protestants would show shame for the bigoted injustices and atrocities that each side encouraged and committed one against the other! This game of slinging insults at Queen Mary Tudor on the one hand (by Protestants) and at Queen Elizabeth I and Kings Henry VIII and James I, on the other (by Roman Catholics) get nowhere in illuminating the truth.

Jerry Parker

all due respect, but it says ur lutheran. thus u have no idea what it is to be catholic. you know what happened on bloody sunday? 27 people were shot and killed for the sole crime of walking down the street being catholic. the KJV might be a book, but its also a symbol. to alot of people, its a symbol of all our brothers that died in the troubles. i will never, and every other catholic that has respect for our fallen brothers should never, read that book.

 

[patrick457]

That should be a masonic handshake - why would you have a weird handshake thing like that in a bible to begin with… Other than that, I can’t really confirm it much as I have stated it.
Just try to find a “masonic handshake” that matches at google or something (or ask a conspiracy nut):
images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=masonic%20handshake&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

I would ask a freemason - but for some reason, they don’t like to talk to me

It’s going to be a long search. Unless we can install some sort of secret camera into all the known Masonic lodges so we can spy on their little meetings, that is.
Oddly though, many of the results show a Pope and someone else doing a handshake, and most of these link to anti-Catholic or ultra-Traditionalist sites who like to say that the Catholic Church runs Freemasonry or that Freemasonry has taken over the Church.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong in depicting ‘a handshake’ (more properly a hand-in-hand gesture) - especially if you’ll see that the “handshake” is shown in cases where the Bible shows such-and-such as being husband and wife/concubine (for example, even Joseph and Mary), just as the genealogy shows a crown on someone who is a king or depicts the line of Seth with more decoration (by virtue of Seth being a distant ancestor of Jesus, or so says Luke). It’s a mere symbol that someone had just linked with “purported” Freemasonic grips (after all, the “handshakes” mostly appear to be similar, whereas there are supposedly a number of Masonic grips). Some actually say that this thinking that the book depicts a Masonic grip are actually denigrating holy matrimony (!!!)

Bacon’s dreams were in vain, only Christ is the truth.

Yep. At the end of the day, all the deeds and fame of the men of the world are nothing compared to our Lord.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Dayton,

We wrote:

DAYTON just wrote: *[With] all due respect, but it says [that yo]u [a]r[e] Lutheran. Thus [yo]u have no idea what it is to be Catholic. [Do] you know what happened on Bloody Sunday? 27 people were shot and killed for the sole crime of walking down the street being Catholic. The K.J.V. might be a book it it’s also a symbol. To a lot of people it’s a symbol of all [of] our brothers that died in the troubles. I will never, and [neither will] every other Catholic that has respect for our brothers that died in the troubles should never read that book

JERRY had written: *Dayton, I understand the intensity of your feeling, which, in itself, is a worthy thing. However, you are making an “argumentum ad hominem”, concerning this English Bible’s worth, personally against King James himself and collectively against the Anglican Protestants who produced the Authorised “King James” Version (A.V.). Doing this generates more heat than it sheds light. How much more graceful it would be if both Roman Catholics and Protestants would show shame for the bigoted injustices and atrocities that each side encouraged and committed one against the other! This game of slinging insults at Queen Mary Tudor on the one hand (by Protestants) and at Queen Elizabeth I and Kings Henry VIII and James I, on the other (by Roman Catholics) get nowhere in illuminating the truth. **

You attitude, Dayton, is pitbull confrontational! You also presume quite a lot without having the grounds for doing so. So, some comments about your latest sortie (which is above, corrected for grammar, other orthography, etc.) Your comments continue to be of the ad hominem sort, not only against those who produced the Authorised “King James” Version of the Bible, but even against myself, the kind of faulty thinking which Roman Catholic philosophers, who do tend to be the best ones, easily would have pointed out to you, if you had taken the kind of courses in logic and rhetoric that used to be typical in R.C. education, even at the high school level, and certainly in the college or university curricula. Well, I really did take such courses, plus Latin, and as often as not with Roman Catholic professors, even old-time Jesuits. I am, I can say without boasting, a quite well educated person and a retired librarian, which should give some indication that I just may happen to be better read and informed than you think that I may be, or than your kind of ranting seems to indicate that you, for your part, clearly would seem to be! You know, Dayton, your pugnaciousness is no aid in helping others to come to the Holy Catholic Faith! Anyway, I’ll just assume that you are a redneck Catholic who gets riled much too easily. These kind of “slanging matches” should be saved for the wee, beery-eyed hours at the local tavern, not for a C.A. forum!

I certainly do know what happened on Bloody Sunday. I know of a lot of atrocities that Protestants perpetrated on Roman Catholics, and I am aware of many others that Roman Catholics carried out on Protestants. It is a shame to exalt some such blots on human history and to forget or to belittle others. Get over it, Dayton, while remembering the martyred dead with due veneration, and set yourself to doing your own part of productive evangelism of a more positive and irenic kind. Save that dynamite for some assinine Baptist zealot who similarly brings up such subjects from the opposite standpoint, not for me.

It is rather odd, is it not, to insist that I supposedly have no idea of what it is to be Catholic? If that were so, why would I even be in the process of conversion? It is knowing what Catholicism is that is leading me to the Church, not the kind of utter ignorance of which you accuse me. Do you hate converts, Dayton? I certainly hope not!

That the A.V. Bible is “just” a book is utter nonsense; it is a version, and quite a fine and superlatively beautiful one (even if it does bear some traces of Anglican Protestant bias in some occasional renderings here and there) of THE HOLY BIBLE, for cat’s sake! It is NOT just any book, any more than any good transaltion of the Bible is “just a book”. Save that kind of belittling stuff for the Jehovah’s Witness intentional perversion of the Bible, not for a great and serious translation! There are several books that purport to be Catholic Bibles, but which are full of contentious renderings that undermine the meaning of what God revealed in the translations and/or affix dreadfully heretical, sceptical, and otherwise inappropriate “study” notes; thankfully, many faithful Roman Catholics also abhor such treatment of the sacred text by unbelieving, nominally Roman Catholic scholars adrift in their worthless, liberal speculations. Such treatment of the Bible is wrong whether it comes from Liberal Protestants or rebellious and unbelieving R.C. academics!

Nobody should have come to harm by reading any good version, Protestant or Catholic, of the Holy Scriptures. It is not the Bible that they used, if it was one so excellent as the A.V. happens to be, that turned them to bloody attacks on others. If they were Protestants, it was their wicked hearts and monstrously hateful emotions, aroused by the bigoted and false teachings and urgings of heretical and bloody-minded preachers, that set them lusting for Roman Catholic blood.

Enough said? I hope so! Now, I’ll close this message and pray for you, Dayton, and, rest assured, that I am not dissuaded from carrying out my conversion to the Roman Catholic Church (rather than to Eastern Orthodoxy, as I earlier had thought that I was heading), even if there are the like of you who would be fellow believers. I do not think that exchanges such as these truly do much of anything positive to further the work of C.A.'s excellent apostolate.

Jerry Parker

 

[swampboy]

Jerry:
You took the words right out of my mouth…although my statement would have been a paraphrase of your dissertation, as you added a whole bunch more words than I would even think of writing!! I agree with what you stated 100%…unfortunately Catholicism is no different than anything else, as it takes all kinds to make up this crazy world we live in. Hopefully you realize that the poster and their associated attitude to which you addressed your comments is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to Catholics as a whole. Although coming from a Protestant background myself, I do have to say that I have noticed there to be just as much prejudice and ignorance in Catholicism as in the Protestant realm, particularly when it comes to bible translations. There are apparently just as many DR-only folks as there are KJV-only folks, but that is okay…everyone is entitled to their own opinion including me. But the way I look at it is that I did not become Catholic for anyone else but me and for no other reason than it is the right place to be to be close to Jesus so I don’t let anyone or anything get in the way of that…and some day those who do wrong will have to answer for their actions before the true judge…who I am not. I know it may be difficult and situations such as this make it more so…I struggle often and think of going back to my old ways…but then I read scripture and am immediately reassured that I am in the right place by the very same Protestant bible that sparks so much controversy here in these forums, despite all of its secret hidden messages and biases. I wish you luck in your conversion to the true Church…you are making the correct choice. Also, rest assured that I will pray for you, as I hope you pray for me.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Swampboy,

**You wrote: ** Jerry, *You took the words right out of my mouth…although my statement would have been a paraphrase of your dissertation, as you added a whole bunch more words than I would even think of writing!! I agree with what you stated 100%. Unfortunately Catholicism is no different than anything else, as it takes all kinds to make up this crazy world we live in. Hopefully you realize that the poster * and his associated attitude to which you addressed your comments is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to Catholics as a whole. Although coming from a Protestant background myself, I do have to say that I have noticed there to be just as much prejudice and ignorance in Catholicism as in the Protestant realm, particularly when it comes to bible translations. There are apparently just as many DR-only folks as there are KJV-only folks, but that is okay; everyone is entitled to his own opinion, including me. But the way I look at it is that I did not become Catholic for anyone else but me and for no other reason than it is the right place to be to be close to Jesus so I don’t let anyone or anything get in the way of that, and some day those who do wrong will have to answer for their actions before the true judge, whom I am not. I know it may be difficult and situations such as this make it more so. I struggle often and think of going back to my old ways, but then I read Scripture and am immediately reassured that I am in the right place by the very same Protestant Bible that sparks so much controversy here in these forums, despite all of its secret hidden messages and biases. I wish you luck in your conversion to the true Church…you are making the correct choice. Also, rest assured that I will pray for you, as I hope you pray for me. *

Such lovely sentiments and so well expressed! Dayton is not the first Roman Catholic whom I have met who confuses ethnic grudges and group identity with being Catholic. That kind of attitude can be abrasive and exclusivist to those who do not thus align in profile. Dayton loves his Roman Catholic heritage and that is what matters! I remember one Irish R.C. guy, when I was in junior college, who felt that anyone of English descent (as I partially am, the rest Swedish and Welsh) never “really” could be a true Roman Catholic, which was the domain of the Irish, Hispanics, Italians, and Polish! Well, that just isn’t so! It’s okay, in a way, to have that loyalty, though we all need to work on this kind of fault. The Catholic faith itself is more catholic and universal than we ever can be individually! There is so much human to transcend than we realise, and what we poor souls do is to try to put up as barriers or barricades. Fortunately, the Holy Ghost is the great gate-crasher of any such would-be obstacles and fenses.

I could not wash the Authorised “King James” Version (A.V.) out of me even if I tried to do so! I have so much of it memorised or very nearly so! When I need to find “that verse that I need”, I look in a concordance to the A.V. and I find it; if I did not have that “hook”, I would be floundering frustratingly in the concordances of other versions or in other kinds of Scripture aids that are less efficient in taking me to what I know! Besides, the chaste beauty of the A.V., and that of the marvellous Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version, are so winsome, their precision at once so crystalline and so astonishing full (to the extent that two translations into English can aspire to being so), that I really think that it would be harmful for me to try to divest my mind of the A.V.'s resonances. Fortunately, the D.-R.-C. and the 1941 Confraternity New Testament part of the pre-1970 Confraternity Version Bible also resound with alike phraseology. Like you, I shall stick with what is good and that also is, all to the better I would vouch, deeply a part of me, as it is of you.

Jerry Parker*

 

[swampboy]

Jerry:
Thank you for sharing your kind and insightful words. It is ironic that when I sought out a denomination at the time that I felt the Holy Ghost was telling me to do so, I shied away from the RC Church for reasons unknown to me; although I suspect it was primarily because I did not know the “real” truth and only knew the misconceptions that I had heard from my friends growing up who were mostly Baptist. Because I was strongly fascinated by the bible, one could say supernaturally drawn to it, I decided to check out Baptist and S. Baptist churches. I got real familiar with the KJV bible in a hurry, and got plenty of bible studies under my belt, but was unhappy about how there was no solidarity amongst the different denominations and the judgmental attitudes of the pastors and/or members. Now to put this into perspective and get back to the irony I mentioned, both my family as well as my wife’s family are RC, albeit non-practicing–she is Polish and I am Portuguese, so culturally we belong in the Catholic Church . I found it strange that the first thing the S. Baptist pastor asked me about was my last name and ethnicity. I also found it strange that any church preached prejudice and hatred towards race and religion–now although I was new to religion, I had a basic understanding of “judge not lest thee be judged” and couldn’t figure out what was going on. The final straw was when a woman at a different church told my wife that she would pray for her and her family so that they wouldn’t be condemned to hell when my wife responded to the woman’s question regarding whether or not she “was saved” with a look of confusion and the words “I am Catholic”. Subsequent to that event, I began to look real hard at the message that was being preached and decided to look elsewhere. I watched Fr. Groeschel on EWTN one day for some unknown reason (I suspect the Holy Spirit was up to His old tricks again) and right then and there knew what I had to do. Now I know that all Protestants aren’t like that and do not judge them to be so. The Catholic Church is just as guilty of similar behaviors, as well as of other transgressions. But I only mention this to exemplify the kinds of experiences that I encountered first hand pertaining to ignorance on many levels.

I almost gave up on Christianity altogether as I couldn’t figure out why anyone should even bother if it was just as bad on the “inside” as it was outside. But that wasn’t God’s plan for me so here I am. That’s why it is extremely important for people to check their tongues at the door (cf. James 3) so as to not push anyone away…our task is to build up the Kingdom, not break it down with hatred. In my opinion there are many more crazy people out there than sane ones, and it is terrible that it has to come down to fists flying over something like a bible translation–but that is how it has been and always will be due to the necesary involvement of humans. I just choose to turn the other cheek rwith Christ ather than swing like my broken nature tells me to do.

On a lighter note, I also like the KJV and have no plans to give up reading it. I love my DR Haydock and the RSV, but something about that KJV is alluring! The Haydock commentary is a work of wonder though and if you do not have it you really should get a copy. If you need any assistance on your journey feel free to message me and I will try to help. You are obviously well-read and are likely interested in learning as much as you can (assuming you are like me…I am a research scientist so it is in my DNA to keep studying). I suggest buying the Haydock DR, a catechism, and some writings of the Church Fathers, as well as a decent commentary like the New Jerome Biblical commentary for reference materials, if you haven’t done so already. Visit the EWTN and Vatican webpages and look through the endless study materials they have available, particularly the Papal documents. I spent a bunch of money on every bible known to the Catholic man as well as on other books, but now know that there is so much info on those websites and in the available documents that buying most things is unnecessary. I would also look at the Biblia Clerus site for which the link is provided up towards the top of the Sacred Scripture Forum page. If you have not seen it, that site is incredible. Best of luck to you and please feel free to contact me if you need any help or guidance.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Swampboy,

**You wrote: *** *Jerry, It is ironic that when I sought out a denomination at the time that I felt the Holy Ghost was telling me to do so, I shied away from the RC Church for reasons unknown to me; although I suspect it was primarily because I did not know the “real” truth and only knew the misconceptions that I had heard from my friends growing up who were mostly Baptist. Because I was strongly fascinated by the Bible, one could say supernaturally drawn to it, I decided to check out Baptist and S. Baptist churches. I got real familiar with the KJV Bible in a hurry, and got plenty of bible studies under my belt, but was unhappy about how there was no solidarity amongst the different denominations and the judgmental attitudes of the pastors and/or members.

Now to put this into perspective and get back to the irony I mentioned, both my family as well as my wife’s family are RC, albeit non-practicing–she is Polish and I am Portuguese, so culturally we belong in the Catholic Church . I found it strange that the first thing the S. Baptist pastor asked me about was my last name and ethnicity. I also found it strange that any church preached prejudice and hatred towards race and religion–now although I was new to religion, I had a basic understanding of “judge not lest thee be judged” and couldn’t figure out what was going on. The final straw was when a woman at a different church told my wife that she would pray for her and her family so that they wouldn’t be condemned to hell when my wife responded to the woman’s question regarding whether or not she “was saved” with a look of confusion and the words “I am Catholic”. Subsequent to that event, I began to look real hard at the message that was being preached and decided to look elsewhere. I watched Fr. Groeschel on EWTN one day for some unknown reason (I suspect the Holy Spirit was up to His old tricks again) and right then and there knew what I had to do. Now I know that all Protestants aren’t like that and do not judge them to be so. The Catholic Church is just as guilty of similar behaviors, as well as of other transgressions. But I only mention this to exemplify the kinds of experiences that I encountered first hand pertaining to ignorance on many levels.

I almost gave up on Christianity altogether as I couldn’t figure out why anyone should even bother if it was just as bad on the “inside” as it was outside. But that wasn’t God’s plan for me so here I am. That’s why it is extremely important for people to check their tongues at the door (cf. James 3) so as to not push anyone away…our task is to build up the Kingdom, not break it down with hatred. In my opinion there are many more crazy people out there than sane ones, and it is terrible that it has to come down to fists flying over something like a bible translation–but that is how it has been and always will be due to the necesary involvement of humans. I just choose to turn the other cheek rwith Christ ather than swing like my broken nature tells me to do.

On a lighter note, I also like the KJV and have no plans to give up reading it. I love my DR Haydock and the RSV, but something about that KJV is alluring! The Haydock commentary is a work of wonder though and if you do not have it you really should get a copy. *

I usually would not quote an earlier message at such length, but all that you said, Swampboy, was so interesting and pertinent. You know, those Baptists and other narrow Fundamentalists all make such a big fuss about being saved by grace through faith alone, and yet they end up being so horridly legalistic! Where is the grace in all of that kind of thing? Also, neither racial nor ethnic bigotry has any place in a real Christian church, Catholic, Baptist or otherwise, “even if” the ethnicity is one that is overridingly Roman Catholic in heritage. The “Fundies” can be so “fundamentally” wrong!

Well, at least they gave you the love for the Authorised “King James” Version, which, as the USCCB recognised when it authorised the A.V.'s use, is just too good to leave to Protestants and sectaries alone! And, yes, making the kind of fuss over Bible translation that is outright divisive, causing sects to go asunder, is absurd, although I do think that the clergy of a local church should use one version consistently, to avoid confusion. And as for the likes of Pensacola’s Dr. Peter S. Ruckman, who in so many ways is rather lovably curmudgeonly, basing his whole justification of his at times oddball Independent Baptist exclusiveness and peculiarities on the basis of the A.V. alone, that is taking things just a bit too far, even if he is right to defend the A.V. on its merits. Ah, those Baptist preacher boys, meaning to do what is right and ending up absolutely beyond the pale of what is central to the Holy Christian Faith (e.g., the Creeds, the sacraments, the full canon of Christian Scripture, Christian mutual love and forbearance, among some other important matters)!

I tried to track down the Haydock Douay-Rheims-Challoner study Bible that you and others so highly commend, but I only find it at prices (e.g. on Amazon’s various WWW sites) that exceed what my retirement revenue permits me to buy. Some sources that I would have expected to offer it do not do so, either. Is there a way to have it at a reasonable price?

Thanks for your kind words, help, and solidarity.

Jerry Parker*

 

[swampboy]

Jerry:
This is where I bought mine from

acbooks.net/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=ACB&Product_Code=AT25x01v&Category_Code=CBIB

I think this is the cheapest you will find for a new one. There may be some on www.ebay.com but they will likely be used. The one sold by All Catholic books is both the new and old testaments in one book. It is of pretty decent quality for a repro, and I think it is one of the best study-type bibles Catholics have at their disposal.