Inerrancy of Scriptures vs Translation Errors

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Mathew_George

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The issue of inerrancy of scriptures is vexing me, and I do not have a rational answer to offer the critics. I will appreciate an answer that will stand the scrutiny of reason.

If the charism of inerrancy protects only the original autographs of the scriptures, what is the status of the several copies and versions through most part of these 2000 years? The original autographs had disappeared long ago, and St. Jerome’s version itself was based on several copied manuscripts and not the originals. When Council of Trent declared the Latin Vulgate as the authentic Bible, it did not specify which version it was certifying. There were several versions of Latin Vulgate circulating at that time, and it was almost impossible to p(name removed by moderator)oint the one autographed by St. Jerome.

Knowing that the original autographs of scriptures were inerrant, is only of limited comfort. If the versions of the Bible that the Church has relied on for most part of the 2000 years didn’t really carry the charism of inerrancy, how do we know that our faith is 100% true. Whenever the Church refers to the Revealed Truth to substantiate its infallible teachings and dogmas, how do we really know that the revealed truth itself is a true reproduction of the original autographs?
 
Mathew George:
The issue of inerrancy of scriptures is vexing me, and I do not have a rational answer to offer the critics. I will appreciate an answer that will stand the scrutiny of reason.

If the charism of inerrancy protects only the original autographs of the scriptures, what is the status of the several copies and versions through most part of these 2000 years? The original autographs had disappeared long ago, and St. Jerome’s version itself was based on several copied manuscripts and not the originals. When Council of Trent declared the Latin Vulgate as the authentic Bible, it did not specify which version it was certifying. There were several versions of Latin Vulgate circulating at that time, and it was almost impossible to p(name removed by moderator)oint the one autographed by St. Jerome.

Knowing that the original autographs of scriptures were inerrant, is only of limited comfort. If the versions of the Bible that the Church has relied on for most part of the 2000 years didn’t really carry the charism of inerrancy, how do we know that our faith is 100% true. Whenever the Church refers to the Revealed Truth to substantiate its infallible teachings and dogmas, how do we really know that the revealed truth itself is a true reproduction of the original autographs?
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If you’re asking how well do we know the original copies have been handed down to us-great. We have the most manuscripts and thus highest accuracy of any ancient work. I’ve read in multiple sources that we can have no doubt it has been handed down effectively.
 
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FuzzyBunny116:
If you’re asking how well do we know the original copies have been handed down to us-great. We have the most manuscripts and thus highest accuracy of any ancient work. I’ve read in multiple sources that we can have no doubt it has been handed down effectively.
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Unfortunately, those sources were oversimplifying. With any issue from history, there is always some doubt; you just do not tell the public about it. Read any school’s history textbook, and you will find hundreds of assertions about what happened when. Study the topic yourself, and you will find thousands of scholars more honestly saying, “We think that this probably happened, and our best guess is that it happened at, or around, this time”.

The Holocaust of the Jews was one of the most significant and famous events of the C20th, yet historian David Irving has managed to make a career out of asserting that it never even happened. How? Because any serious student of history knows that everything is debatable, and, even though most of us will say that Irving is merely a crank who is making a living out of sensationalism, providing absolute proof for our claim is next to impossible.

Go back two thousand years, and we are left with the catchphrase of history: “We think that this probably happened, and our best guess is that it happened at this time”.
 
Mathew George:
If the versions of the Bible that the Church has relied on for most part of the 2000 years didn’t really carry the charism of inerrancy, how do we know that our faith is 100% true. Whenever the Church refers to the Revealed Truth to substantiate its infallible teachings and dogmas, how do we really know that the revealed truth itself is a true reproduction of the original autographs?
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I am not a Catholic, so I am not going to discuss this from the point of view of the charism of inerrancy. From a historical viewpoint, however, one of the things which we seek in an old text is consistency. We need this because it is the most reliable guide as to whether a given page belongs to the book in which we find it. Doctrinal consistency was part of the basis for the canon-formation councils in the C4th: they considered whether or not a given text taught in accordance with the others, and the traditions which they had about what should be taught.

However, there are still some areas of doubt. Verses 9-20 of the sixteenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel do not occur in any of the oldest documents which we have, nor are there references to them in external sources (“witnesses”). John 7:53-8:11 is in a similar situation. If you have a look at a good study Bible, it will include numerous references to individual words which differ from one source document to another.

The texts that we have are the most likely renditions, based upon the oldest source documents and the oldest witness documents which we possess.

However, regarding faith, consider this: would a loving God demand that we adhere to a doctrine which we cannot learn because it is in a book which we do not have?
 
This was one of the main issues that eventually brought me into the Catholic Church. It became obvious to me from studying the Scriptures that even if God provided for their inerrant composition (which I believe), He did not provide an inerrant means for their transmission (document-copying) and translation. Therefore, there must be an authoritative interpreter of the Scriptures, if they are to mean anything at all. At the time I realized this, my first response was that either Christianity is meaningless or the Catholic Church is the True Church. I chose the latter.

DaveBj
 
Often, when I see questions similar to this one, and opinions and beliefs posted in response, there seems to be a common thread of what I believe is a misunderstanding of the term Revealed Truth, Inerrancy etc… Many times the post seem to infer that every word of Scripture, being Inspired, must be true and without error. And if there are errors, these come from not the original text but crept in over the centuries through various translations i.e. through human error. However, what I think is being implyed in many of these post is the understanding that is we had in our possession the original copy of all the books of perhaps individual text, then these manuscripts would have to be taken literally.

It is my firm belief that if this is the case, then it is a mistaken approach or understanding of Revelation and Inspirition. I am sure that my position is in accord with Dei Verbum and even though I donot have that document what I say about it is accurate; if not I’m opened to correction.

When we spaek about Revelation we are talking about God revealing Himself to us and His Will for us. Thus being creatures of God when He reveals to us His Will for us He is also revealing to us the fundamental aspects of our human nature.

But God used the written word to convey these truthes. And in doing this he inspired the writers of the Scriptures to reveal first and foremost the truth of God’s active power amoung us especially in the Person of Jesus. But He revealed these truths using the means of Human authorship, meaning the style, language, the literery genre, averything that that could be used
to express this though.

This is why the use of Literary Tools (Allogories, poetry, history, wisdom literature and finaly Apocolyptic) have to be understood, through the bible. But in using these different devices to reveal Himself to us, God allowed even human errors human fraility to manifest it self in the written text while thr truth of God’s Nature and Wil remains operative.
 
Peace be with you

There have been errors in some translations over the centuries.
One was in what we refer to as The Our Father prayer.
The lines “For thine is the kingdom…” were mistaken as part of the original and found outlater to have been written in between the line as a thought by the monk who makeing another copy in preserving the bible.
The Church was given much moreresponsibility than to preserve just the written word.It is given ALL ATHORITY(the Keys to bind and loosen) in all matters of the faith. This why we the Traditions to follow. Which are not recorded in the Bible,but mentioned so we will follow them after they are explained to us by the Church.
Jesus will never leave or let His Bride do amything that may seperate us from the truth and therefore is guided by the Holy Spirit.
The Church has split because those who could not accept this authority and is why they are called protestant for they in are in protest. Even if the Church was to make a mistake don’t you believe He would correct it within the Church rather than devorce His Bride and start all over with another Bride. He taught it Himself, that we are not to abandandon our wife, but to love Her as you love yourself.
This my point to all those who dismiss the true authority of the Church and feel as though they are the true church and to use the Bible they feel is the true Bible. A Bible must Have the aproval of the true Church in order for it to accepted as good for the faithful. If you decide to use an unaproved version then you can and must only do so with the Churches teachings and understandings of the scriptures and accept them as truth.
Ron
 
I do not question the authority of the Catholic Church to authoritatively interpret the Scriptures.

Pope Benedict XV and Pope Leo XIII have authoritatively taught that each word of the Bible is inerrant. How can this rigid stand be reconciled with the possibility of errors in translations? Though opinion from non-catholic members are also welcome, I am indeed looking for a Catholic answer that will also stand up to human reason.

My other question is, when the teaching authority of Catholic Church itself is pitched on Bible verses that we have known through the translations, how are we really certian that these verses are inerrant? In other words, how do we know that these crucial verses themselves are true copies of the original autographs?
 
Peace be with you

To be totaly honest , we all are placing our trust in someone else that they are telling us the truth including those who claim otherwise about the Bible. The bible was written by men and pasted on to us through men, it all depends on who you trust is telling you the truth.
Those that seperate themselves from the Catholic Church can only take their translations back as far as the split because they do not reconize any other translation after that point as truth. So who’s word are they taking that the bible they use is true if not the Catholic Church’s?
The printers or editers of their versions? Who gives the approval of their versions or translations? Who is their authority? Why do their versions not contain errors?
Ron
 
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sirknightron:
Those that separate themselves from the Catholic Church can only take their translations back as far as the split because they do not reconize any other translation after that point as truth.
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I have no idea who told you this, but they should not have, because it is fundamentally untrue, not least because it represents a historical-archaeological issue as an ideological one. The validity of a version of a historical text is not in any way influenced by what any living person says about it, but is, instead, wholly determined by the historical support for that particular version.
So whose word are they taking that the bible they use is true if not the Catholic Church’s? The printers or editors of their versions? Who gives the approval of their versions or translations? Who is their authority? Why do their versions not contain errors?
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The process of determining which text to use for the Bible is no different from the process of determining which text to use for the Iliad: you use the text which has the greatest diachronic consistency and the widest external support. (In other words, you look at the different versions, and you choose the one which changes the least over time and has the most quotations from it appearing in other writings).

I am always rather perplexed by the widespread Catholic presumption that a church needs to be involved in the production of a Bible. It is a book, and it is published as such. sola scriptura, remember? You start with the text, and then you take the reading from it; you do not start with the reading and then produce a text to match.

Who is the arbiter of versions? History.
 
Peace be with you.

First who is to determine what is true throughout history when we even in our time we have persons who wish to rewrite history to fit their agendas?
Second in order for anyone to research the earlier texts they have no choice but to at some point end up looking at the records that the Catholic Church has preserved. Who has the best kept records if not the Catholic Church? If a person says that the Church is in error or has no true authority over them, then why should they look into Her records at all? (which they must or else they could not say they are in error) If they do not concede the fact that they themselves do not have all the records then how do they have the authority to say what is correct? Do they make edjucated guesses? If so that is all they are(guesses).

Then they are faced with the traditions that are mentioned in scripture. What they are and how often they are to be observed.
For example: Communion is one that most do not agree on. Is it or is it not His true body and blood and how often do we celibrate it? Who is correct? Who has the authority to say what is correct?
The questioning of Authority and who is correct is why the Church is split. I do not intend to say they are not Christians. They just do not have the fullness of the truth outside of the Authority given by Jesus. I have been a christian my entire life , but I am a more fulfilled christain as Catholic because of fullness of meanings that go whith the scriptures. I onced believed in sola-scriptura and found that there are many gray areas in other churches that they can not explain.
Anyway God will judged us each according to the knowledge that we each recieved in life and how we lived accordingly. This is why our teachers have more to be accountable for in what they teach truthfully or faulsely. Just as I am accountable for passing the truth on to my children.

Ron
 
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sirknightron:
First who is to determine what is true throughout history when we even in our time we have persons who wish to rewrite history to fit their agendas?
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The study of history is not the study of truth, but the study of probability and of representation. What you say is true: there are people who wish to rewrite history to fit their own agenda. However, this condition has always obtained, and part of the historian’s job is to take that into account.
Second in order for anyone to research the earlier texts they have no choice but to at some point end up looking at the records that the Catholic Church has preserved. Who has the best kept records if not the Catholic Church? If a person says that the Church is in error or has no true authority over them, then why should they look into Her records at all?
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You have leapt from an issue of historical methodology to an issue of theology, and they do not belong together. A historian does not care what the Catholic Church says about the text; s/he only cares what the text itself says, and what other texts say about it. Whether or not the Church’s opinion of the text is “right” or “wrong” is a consideration which never even enters into the study of the text.

Where there is a consideration of the Church’s view is in the act of translation, which only occurs after the corpus of source texts has been collected. At that point, the translator will consider as many translations as possible. However, any translator worth his/her wage will consider the accuracy of those translations from a purely linguistic perspective, i.e., ‘Can this text say that?’ Ideological questions, i.e., ‘Should this text say that?’ are not part of a good translator’s work. Thus, when a new translation is produced, it is not because any previous translation was deemed to be theologically incorrect, but rather because it was deemed to be linguistically incorrect in a way which the translator can demonstrate to his/her peers.

When a translator does translate according to ideological preconceptions, you get a bad translation, like the Jehovah’s Witness version, which says in John 1:1 that Jesus was “a god”, rather than “God”. Their translation is technically possible, but there is no liguistic justification for it.
Do they make educated guesses? If so that is all they are(guesses).
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Always.
Then they are faced with the traditions that are mentioned in scripture.
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This is not a translation issue.
 
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Mystophilus:
I am not a Catholic, so I am not going to discuss this from the point of view of the charism of inerrancy. From a historical viewpoint, however, one of the things which we seek in an old text is consistency. We need this because it is the most reliable guide as to whether a given page belongs to the book in which we find it. Doctrinal consistency was part of the basis for the canon-formation councils in the C4th: they considered whether or not a given text taught in accordance with the others, and the traditions which they had about what should be taught.

However, there are still some areas of doubt. Verses 9-20 of the sixteenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel do not occur in any of the oldest documents which we have, nor are there references to them in external sources (“witnesses”). John 7:53-8:11 is in a similar situation. If you have a look at a good study Bible, it will include numerous references to individual words which differ from one source document to another.

The texts that we have are the most likely renditions, based upon the oldest source documents and the oldest witness documents which we possess.

However, regarding faith, consider this: would a loving God demand that we adhere to a doctrine which we cannot learn because it is in a book which we do not have?
Click to expand...

The CC deals with that ending of Mark, by regarding it is canonical.​

Exactly on what basis, I don’t know - a combination of critical arguments, and an argument from custom (it is the ending known to the Latin Church in the use of that gospel), presumably. ##
 
Mathew George:
I do not question the authority of the Catholic Church to authoritatively interpret the Scriptures.

Pope Benedict XV and Pope Leo XIII have authoritatively taught that each word of the Bible is inerrant. How can this rigid stand be reconciled with the possibility of errors in translations? Though opinion from non-catholic members are also welcome, I am indeed looking for a Catholic answer that will also stand up to human reason.

My other question is, when the teaching authority of Catholic Church itself is pitched on Bible verses that we have known through the translations, how are we really certian that these verses are inerrant? In other words, how do we know that these crucial verses themselves are true copies of the original autographs?
Click to expand...

Some decades ago the suggestion was made that some doctrinal formulations were, not wrong, but, meaningless. I think the form of inerrancy taught by Leo XIII in 1893 is an example of this.​

The locating of inerrancy in the originals doesn’t take into account that the vowel-points in the Hebrew OT were added many centuries after the writing of the consonantal text - when was the text of those books “originally given” ?

They were “canonised” long before the vowel-points were added - which means that an important semantic element of the OT was written after its canonisation: not before.

Inerrancy is also tied to interpretation: for example, the meaning of Genesis 4 is one meaning, if Cain & Abel are regarded as individual human beings, both sons of the individuals Adam & Eve, one of them killing the other;

and

as persons in a narrative who personify different ways of life; the narrative in question also being intended to account for the growth of human culture.

The meaning is as different as if the interpretation rested on different texts. The Church has the same texts as before - but not the same interpretation. So here, the appeal to inerrant texts is no help.

Another problem:

emeq means
  1. strength
  2. valley - cf. Jer. 49:4
The words are the same in form - but different in meaning; like “burro” in Italian & Spanish. Many words in the OT are like this - so the writing of the letters does not of itself stabilise the meaning of the word of which the letters are parts, nor put it beyond all doubt.

The Hebrew letters have varied in form, which does not always help - even today, R & D are easy to confuse: which is why some OTs read “Syria”, where others read “Edom” - take away the vowels, read the R for D, or D for R; and aRaM (= Syria) becomes eDoM.

The Pope’s teaching ignores all this 😦 ##
 
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