Tonyagrace:
Okay this is not a personal attack, it is not that I think Protestant Bibles are so bad. I just feel they are overly Protestant. For example Martin Luther in his translation added to the famous verse in Romans the word “alone.” SO Luther’s translation reads; “we are justified by faith alone.” The Catholic Bible reads; “we are justified by faith.”
Apparently Luther missed the letter to James; “Faith with out works is dead.”
ANYWAY, I would never bench mark anything France does or did with thier Bibles. One can check Focus on the Family to find out about the decline in morality and Church attendance in France to find out more.
In an attempt to make the Bible more readable perhaps the Good News translation is not a word for word translation but a paraphrase. Don’t tell me my kids are not smart enough to handle the word “justified,” and instead need to read; “put right with God.” With the Good News Bible you loose the taste and the deeper meaning.
I would bench mark the Vatican, the Vatican has the authoriy and has been around for a very long time. That is why Catholics look for the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat!
Like I said before this is a Catholic School! I am sending my kids there to learn Catholicism, not protestantism.
Thank you to everyone who has replied thus far…on Friday morning, I am going to speak with the Principal. If you do agree that having a Protestant Bible in a Catholic school is wrong please keep me in your prayers for the meeting on 2/10/06 at 915 AM EST. Thank you and Blessings!
But since we don’t use Luther’s translation , what you say is OK for Germany but not for my country.
Maybe it’s true that you lose the taste of things with the Good News Bible, I don’t know since I’ve never read it ; I agree with you that “justified” is as easy to understand as “put right with God”, but I don’t think this has to do with being Catholic or Protestant ; maybe the translators are trying to use a more “modern” language, but then the message is “diluted”, I mean blurred ; we also have that type of “easier” translations in French and I don’t like them either …;
So I understand your point of view.
As far as “faith” and “works” is concerned, I’m not a Lutheran but I believe that we are justified by faith, but a real faith will manifest itself in works : I mean that the works will prove that I have a real faith, they will not save me, but if I say I have faith and there is no practical manifestation of it, then in fact I haven’t got the faith the Bible speaks about, it’s just a vague belief , and I don’t remember where, but somewhere in the New Testament it’s written that even devils believe in God and they shake with fear …
Real faith will lead the believer to obey God.
As for the decline of church attendance in my country unfortunately you are right, but I don’t see the connection between this and the use of Protestant Bibles : over 80% of my compatriots are Roman Catholics, about 10% Moslems and … 2% …Protestant ; even if we all stopped ( the Protestants ) going to church, nobody would even notice, ha ha ha !!!
In France there are more agnotics and atheists than in your country according to what I’ve heard ; all the other members of my family belong to this category and I was an atheist too when I was younger …
I also wanted to joke with you a little bit, but it’s true that since there are good Catholic translations of the Bible, the fact that a Catholic school uses a Protestant one is a bit strange … :bible1:
