So which Bible is the most accurate . . . if such a thing exists?

[germangreek]

Salvatore,

But how do we know that the texts Jerome relied upon were representative of the texts that were written by the original authors of the books of the NT (or even the OT, for that matter)?
.
.
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Will we Catholics EVER have a bible produced that we can be assured of as being accurate in every sense, and if not, what percentage (and I realize it would be a guess) do you think we could come close to representing the books of the bible as originally written?

From what I’ve read so far, you have done much more research than I have into the history of our Scriptural texts. So I will answer you out of my happy, comparative ignorance.

Short answer: we don’t and no.

Fortunately, our faith rests on receiving “the faith once delivered” and handed on through the Church. It is in Jesus Christ, not in the Bible, per se. The Bible is a huge chunk of that faith, of course, and is a necessary light on that faith, but the Church is the custodian of that word and its interpreter. So it seems to me that as we receive the message, supported or illuminated as may be in the Church’s teaching by the relevant passages in Scripture, we may be confident that we are indeed receiving authentically the revelation of God intended for us.

In other words, actual differences between what was originally put to papyrus and what we have today don’t matter.

That sounded callous. Actually, when the comparisons are made among the various most ancient versions available of a certain text, the differences are small and doctrinally irrelevant.

Big differences, like the shorter and longer endings of Mark, are usually both provided in the Bibles we typically get, or variant readings acknowledged in footnotes. The RSV CE that I use is very good in that regard. And we know that the Church has made some decisions in that regard, that seem to me to affect popular piety more than doctrine. Protestants invariably finish the Lord’s Prayer with the doxology “For the kingdom, etc…” and Catholics don’t because the most ancient texts of Matthew and Luke don’t have the doxology. Since it’s unsupported by the most ancient Scriptures, we don’t use it, although it’s a fine prayer on its own. Having been included in the Novus Ordo as a congregational response, probably as a concession to our separated brethren, I hope the Church hasn’t conceded away some measure of her authority to fix the canon in doing so. But anyway, have any of your doctrinal disputes with Protestants ever hinged on whether the doxology is Scriptural? Me neither.

The Church is justly concerned to produce the most accurate original texts possible. I view that effort as analogous to building cars. Granted that automobiles are to be built, it is only reasonable that someone would attempt to build a Rolls-Royce (or whatever your image of the perfect car is). For daily life though, the Fords and Chevys and Dodges are close enough.

Of course, it’s possible that we already have the perfect text. We just don’t know it.

Peace in Christ,

 

[grndslm]

Word.

I’d like “the most accurate” Bible, myself.

 

[ProVobis]

For translational accuracy that has doctrinal implications, why does every rendering into English of the Lord’s prayer ask for “daily” bread, when the Greek word is “epiousion” in both Matthew and Luke, and which does not mean “daily”? The word would seem to render into English as “above being”; the Vulgate has “supersubstantialem” and the Douay has “supersubstantial” in Matthew and “daily” in Luke. What if we and all our separated brethren were to pray that our Father give us today our supersubstantial bread?

It requires a little thinking and imagination, but it might be helpful if we break it down as such:

super (over, above, excessively, beyond)

• sub (under, inferior, secondary, less than, in place of, secretly)
• stantis (past particliple of stare, to stand (or to be))

This sounds like a contradiction but really isn’t if we allow for the other meanings.

I don’t know how* cotidie * (“daily”) was arrived but it’s not necessarily wrong. It just doesn’t seem true to the source, although a Greek scholar perhaps will correct me.

 

[Salvatore123]

Thinking alot about this subject and reading and re-reading the various Holy Fathers pronouncements on biblical research, it all came down - for me - to the following (which I, personally, consider the overriding factor in striving to produce an accurate bible for us Catholics):

“the original text … having been written by the inspired author himself, has more authority and greater weight than any even the very best translation, whether ancient or modern” (Divino Afflante Spiritu, 16).

This seems (again, at least to me) to direct biblical scholars today to look NOT to Jerome’s Vulgate, but to those texts that he SHOULD have looked at when producing the Vulgate as per Damasus’s commission.

So far, we know the following regarding the books of the bible:

New Testament

Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. In the Codex, the text of both the Septuagint and the New Testament has been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors.

The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible’s original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.

Codex Vaticanus

Codex Vaticanus is consider to be by most scholars one of the best Greek texts of the New Testament, second (if not on par with) to that of the Codex Sinaiticus. The most widely sold editions of the Greek New Testament are largely based on the text of the Codex Vaticanus.

Using these two codexes - which would be following Divido Allfante Spiritu - would produce probably the most accurate (and also ancient) rendering of the New Testament. As no known copy of the Vulgate exists, I dare say that such a rendering would “trump” the Duoay Rheims in terms of accuracy, considering the DR is entirely english and we have no idea of what Father Martin et al., were viewing when they produced the DR.

Old Testament

Compiling an accurate rendering of the OT presents a far greater problem, as one will see in reading the following.

Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 documents, including texts from the 1. Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1946 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the ruins of the ancient settlement of Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea.
The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include the oldest known surviving copies of Biblical and extra-biblical documents and preserve evidence of great diversity in late Second Temple Judaism. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus. These manuscripts generally date between 150 BCE and 70 CE.

The significance of the scrolls relates in a large part to the field of textual criticism and how accurately the Bible has been transcribed over time. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible were Masoretic texts dating to 10th century CE such as the Aleppo Codex. The biblical manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls push that date back a millennium to the 2nd century BCE. Before this discovery, the earliest extant manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Greek in manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 and Codex Sinaiticus.

According to The Oxford Companion to Archaeology:

The biblical manuscripts from Qumran, which include at least fragments from every book of the Old Testament, except perhaps for the Book of Esther, provide a far older cross section of scriptural tradition than that available to scholars before. While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.

Leningrad Codex

The Leningrad Codex (or Codex Leningradensis) is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the masoretic text and Tiberian vocalization. It is dated 1008 CE (or possibly 1009 CE) according to its colophon. The Aleppo Codex, against which the Leningrad Codex was corrected, is several decades older, but parts of it have been missing since 1947, making the Leningrad Codex the oldest complete codex of the Tiberian mesorah that has survived intact to this day. In modern times, the Leningrad Codex is most important as the Hebrew text reproduced in Biblia Hebraica (1937) and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977). It also serves scholars as a primary source for the recovery of details in the missing parts of the Aleppo Codex.

cont’d

 

[Salvatore123]

continuation of previous post

Septuagint

The Septuagint, the Greek Bible, represents the first known attempt to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into an Indo-European language. Its name is derived from the Latin septuāgintā meaning “The Seventy,” hence the abbreviation LXX. “The Seventy” originates from a legendary account in the Letter of Aristeas of how seventy-two Jewish scholars (six scribes from each of the twelve tribes) were asked by the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the 3rd century BC to translate the Torah for inclusion in the Library of Alexandria. The names “Septuagint” and “LXX” are of later Latin origin and are not used in Greek. The usual Greek name for the translation is kata tous ebdomekonta meaning “according to the seventy.”

Modern scholarship holds that the LXX was translated and composed over the course of the 3rd through 1st centuries BC, beginning with the Torah. The oldest manuscripts of the LXX include 2nd century BC fragments of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and first century BC fragments of 1. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets. Relatively complete manuscripts of the LXX include the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus of the 4th century AD and the Codex Alexandrinus of the 5th century. These are the oldest surviving nearly-complete manuscripts of the Old Testament in any language; the oldest extant complete Hebrew texts date from around 1000 AD.

Now, one might wonder why worry about anything other than the oldest Septuagint manuscript?

I think the reasons are two-fold: (1) the Septuagint, by definition, was written by Hebrews who spoke fluent Greek and were “commanded” to produce a Greek version of the Hebrew OT; (2) bible scholars almost uniformly agree that Jesus and his Apostles quoted from the Septuagint OT rather than the Hebrew OT, during their time on Earth.

Thus, we have the command of Divine Afflante Spiritu telling us to consult the original languages of the books of the bible, but we have an OT set of biblical books (Septuagint) that was used by Christ and his Apostles which was itself a translation of original languages.

Considering the manner in which the OT was originally handed down amongst the Hebrews (through oral tradition), which itself will inevitably lead to errors in memory as well as dictation, I think that an OT COULD be produced today, but would necessitate the inclusion of many, many marginalia and footnotes.

 

[grndslm]

Word.

I’d like “the most accurate” Bible, myself.

I just posted in this thread earlier to subscribe in hopes for an answer.

But I actually already knew the answer to this question.

The answer is… ALL OF THEM!!

The Word: The Bible from 26 Translations

My friend actually inherited this Bible, and I’m having her bring it to me for a bit of studying, and to determine which version I think I would like best.

Reading the comments of “The Word”, it appears that it doesn’t have THE absolutely newest version of ALL translations, but I think it does a good enough job to help people find THE SPIRIT OF “THE WORD”.

Here’s a comment to a comment of “The Word” that I enjoyed…

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like cool, new paraphrases too; but I always enjoy the depth of meaning and multiple perspectives shown in this phenomenal work.

While true, it doesn’t have the latest FLAVOR-OF-THE-MONTH paraphrase, THE WORD DOES contain the TRIED AND TRUE, CLASSIC SCHOLARLY WORKS Theologians and scholars have depended upon for the past 100 years for textual accuracy and insight. They’re ALL here in ONE BOOK without the expense of buying the whole library.

Also, I find it odd that The Word is based on the KJV translation. I’ve seen statistics, which claim that the KJV is 98% [or greater] in tune with the other translations. It’s the translation with the greatest common denominator for some reason. Just something to take note of, if you’re trying to come up with the spirit of Christian translations, instead of what The Source said…

 

[grndslm]

I think that link, above, will expire, or might just work only for me, until I log out.

So here’s the link, again…

The Word: The Bible from 26 Translations

Here’s another Bible that I’ll have to look into later…

Holy Bible: From the Ancient Eastern Text: George M. Lamsa’s Translation From the Aramaic of the Peshitta

I will probly have to buy this last book.

 

[germangreek]

It requires a little thinking and imagination, but it might be helpful if we break it down as such:

super (over, above, excessively, beyond)

• sub (under, inferior, secondary, less than, in place of, secretly)
• stantis (past particliple of stare, to stand (or to be))

This sounds like a contradiction but really isn’t if we allow for the other meanings.

I don’t know how* cotidie * (“daily”) was arrived but it’s not necessarily wrong. It just doesn’t seem true to the source, although a Greek scholar perhaps will correct me.

On such a reading, * the petition would acquire an eschatological meaning. Some ancient translations hint in this direction. An example is Saint Jerome’s Vulgate, which translates the mysterious word epiousios* as supersubstantialis (i.e., super-substantial), thereby pointing to the new, higher “substance” that the Lord gives us in the Holy Sacrament as the true bread of our life.

The fact is that the Fathers of the Church were practically unanimous in understanding the fourth petition of the Our Father as a eucharistic petition; in this sense the Our Father figures in the Mass liturgy as a eucharistic table prayer (i.e., “grace”).

from Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI (italics in the original)

I guess he’s something of a Greek scholar.

This is moving a bit off the topic, except as it relates to accurate translations. I 've read that a proper understanding of the Hebrew word sabaoth would require a small book; usually rendered into English as “hosts”, in the Liturgy of the Roman Rite it is simply imported untranslated into the Latin. It highlights the importance of a bit of humility in the act of translating - the scholar should know what he knows and what he doesn’t know. I would love to have a Bible that is close to literal, reads well, and has footnotes that illuminate translational “idiosyncracies”. Like my RSV CE, with even better footnotes.

 

[germangreek]

Word.

I’d like “the most accurate” Bible, myself.

For that, you would have to become fluent yourself in Ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek, and have the “most accurate” Hebrew (and Greek) OT and Greek NT.

Actually, this highlights the deficiency of “sola Scriptura”. The Gospel would have to be coterminous with the Bible, and apart from the fact that the first generation of Christians didn’t have a complete Bible (which we Catholics are only too happy to point out when challenged), even the Bible we have today isn’t known to be 100% “accurate.” Which it would have to be if “sola Scriptura” were a God-revealed doctrine of salvation.

Fortunately, our salvation comes from the Church’s preaching of the gospel, not the Bible per se, as important as that is.

 

[ProVobis]

For that, you would have to become fluent yourself in Ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek, and have the “most accurate” Hebrew (and Greek) OT and Greek NT.

That’s a good way of putting it. The originals (documents, word of mouth, etc.) by different “authors” and writing (or speaking) styles have themselves been translated/consolidated into more current forms (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, etc.). You could say the Latin Vulgate was a consolidation of all these texts while providing easy cross references at the same time. Original authors didn’t know they were writing the Bible and how it would all play out at the end into verse and script, especially several millennia down the road.

 

[Salvatore123]

ProVobis,

You said the following: “Original authors didn’t know they were writing the Bible . . .”

I found that to be a pretty profound statement. And please understand, I am not questioning the accuracy of what you say - I am simply interested in the way you phrased it and would like your take on several questions it raised for me.

1. Do you really believe that none of the authors of the NT (let’s stick with the NT books only, for the purpose of this particular discussion) realized they were writing under the “power” of the Holy Spirit?
2. If the authors did not realize they were writing while divinely inspired, how did ANYONE know which authors wrote while divinely inspired, considering it was not until Trent that a formal infallible decree was made concerning the canon?

Many people point to Damasus, Jerome, and several other councils regarding the canon of the OT and NT, but it was not until Trent that an infallible declaration regarding the canon was issued.

Again - I am not trying to provoke an argument. I am simply interested on your “take” on the matter.

 

[alih]

john gheutenburg (sp?) invented movable type and the first publication attributed to him
was his bible. after that, from what i understand, there appeared no less that 300
different translations.
this was one of the topics the council or trent covered and under the penalty of
anathema, it was decided that the douay-rhems version was the official bible of
the church. in modern times, more and more different translations have been
appearing.
it must be remember, the ones that did the original translations, routinely
communicated in the vernacular in which they were written.
now some-one today is going to tell us what they meant??? sure!!! have a good year.
(alih)

 

[Reuben_J]

1. If the authors did not realize they were writing while divinely inspired, how did ANYONE know which authors wrote while divinely inspired, considering it was not until Trent that a formal infallible decree was made concerning the canon?

We do not know whether we are inspired by the Holy Spirit or not. It has to undergo a process of discernment by a body. That body would consist of people who could be trusted to be formed by the Lord himself. We can have a sense that we have acted extraordinarily that it could be inspired by the Holy Spirit but that action has to be surrendered to a body of people to discern whether our work is inspired or not.

I can speak in a prayer meeting and thought I am inspired because in my preparation I have prayed and I know there is a group of people who also prayed and offered my work to the Lord and asked God to inspire me. When I speak I feel the sense of inspiration which could not just come from me only. However I need to submit my performance for discernment to have any certainty that it is actually inspired.

In the same manner that perhaps what happened to the Biblical writers. Only that their work was discerned by a body perhaps much later prospectively. Nevertheless the element for the correct discernment was there:

The writers were people who were appointed or rather given authority to do the work by the Lord. The discerning body (the Church) was authorized by the Lord and believed to operate under that authority. The Church discerned in lieu of the authority given to them, as the body commissioned by the Lord.

We know today the Bible was inspired because of this element as we believe the body (the Church) is inspired because of the same.

 

[Salvatore123]

alih,

Trent infallibly decreed the following in pertinent parts:

Canon of the Bible - OT and NT

And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one’s mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod. They are as set down here below:

Of the Old Testament: the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first book of Esdras, and the second which is entitled Nehemias; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, to wit, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of the Machabees, the first and the second.

Of the New Testament: the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the apostle, three of John the apostle, one of the apostle James, one of Jude the apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the apostle.

But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.

The “official” bible

Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod,—considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,—ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.

The “problem”, alih, is that by the time of Trent, too many translations of Jerome’s Vulgate itself existed.

In an attempt to “cure” this problem, after the Reformation, when the Catholic Church strove to counter the attacks and refute the doctrines of Protestantism, the Vulgate was reaffirmed in the Council of Trent as the sole, authorized Latin text of the Bible. [see above discussion] To fulfill this declaration, the council commissioned the pope to make a standard text of the Vulgate out of the countless editions produced during the Renaissance and manuscripts produced during the Middle Ages. The first printing, sponsored by Pope Sixtus V in 1590, was known as the Sistine Vulgate. But, it was a hurried translation/printing and had many errors.

The Sixtine edition was soon replaced by Clement VIII (1592–1605) who had ordered Franciscus Toletus, Augustinus Valerius, Fredericus Borromaeus, Robertus Bellarmino, Antonius Agellius, and Petrus Morinus to make corrections and a revision. This new revised version was (and is still called today) the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, or simply the Clementine Vulgate [Baronius Press produces an outstanding leather edition, of which I own a copy]. Clement published three printings of this edition, in 1592, 1593 and 1598.
The Clementine differed from the manuscripts on which it was ultimately based in that it grouped the various prefaces of St. Jerome together at the beginning, and it removed 3 and 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses from the Old Testament and placed them into an appendix. The Psalter of the Clementine Vulgate, like that of almost all earlier editions, is the Gallicanum.

The Clementine Vulgate of 1592 became the standard Bible text of the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church until 1979, when the Nova Vulgata was promulgated. The Nova Vulgata was revised and reissued as a second edition in 1986. This second edition Nova Vulgata is the official Latin bible of the Catholic Church today.

 

[Salvatore123]

Reuben,

I agree with most of what you said.

I wonder, though, if the original authors of the canonical books of the bible “felt” inspired as they were writing, something along the lines of how the Apostles “felt” when their received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost?

 

[Reuben_J]

Reuben,

I agree with most of what you said.

I wonder, though, if the original authors of the canonical books of the bible “felt” inspired as they were writing, something along the lines of how the Apostles “felt” when their received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost?

As I said they most probably did. It is just that the Church (the body) is needed to discern they were inspired as you cannot proclaim on your own that you are inspired for it to be so. Like scripture says - all work must go through the test of fire or something like that for it to be validated.

 

[ProVobis]

ProVobis,

You said the following: “Original authors didn’t know they were writing the Bible . . .”

I found that to be a pretty profound statement. And please understand, I am not questioning the accuracy of what you say - I am simply interested in the way you phrased it and would like your take on several questions it raised for me.

1. Do you really believe that none of the authors of the NT (let’s stick with the NT books only, for the purpose of this particular discussion) realized they were writing under the “power” of the Holy Spirit?
2. If the authors did not realize they were writing while divinely inspired, how did ANYONE know which authors wrote while divinely inspired, considering it was not until Trent that a formal infallible decree was made concerning the canon?

Many people point to Damasus, Jerome, and several other councils regarding the canon of the OT and NT, but it was not until Trent that an infallible declaration regarding the canon was issued.

Again - I am not trying to provoke an argument. I am simply interested on your “take” on the matter.

I can appreciate your question. Thanks for asking, actually.

Maybe I should have cited this article to explain where I am coming from. Doesn’t say where anything is from, but I do think it is good food for thought.

catholicplanet.com/TSM/NT-introduction.htm

All that said, I’ll accept what the Council of Trent says on the matter.

 

[alih]

if my imperfect memory is some-what accurate, it is believed that one would find, without too
much effort, that the books of the bible were decided by the council of hippo, somewhere in
the 300’s a.d.
the douay-rehms edition revised by, i think, by bishop chollaner, sometime in the 1700’s
became the norm, with the exception of one version attributed to him that contained some
2,000 errors, as it was said.
i still prefer my d.r. version rather than the new revised editions on the basis of confidence.
have a good year. (alih)

 

[Salvatore123]

alih,

Although you are correct that several Councils and various Church Fathers considered the canon of the bible to be “set” early on, it was not until Trent that the Church infallibly ruled on the official canon of the OT and NT. Before then, it was merely a “given”.

And please keep in mind my intent with this thread: I do not question the books that the Church has decreed should be part of the canon of the Bible.

My “quandary” is that we English-speaking Catholics have NO bible to which we can legitimately point and say “THIS is the most accurate representation of what the original authors of the books of the bible wrote”.

And that, to me, given the overwhelming mass production of protestant bibles every single year, is saddening . . .

Despite my “disagreement” with another member of this forum in another thread, I think it ENTIRELY WORTHY for the Catholic Church to embark on a task to produce, based on the latest biblical archaeology, a bible it can legitimately call “the most accurate given the limitations of our knowledge and science”.

If the Holy Fathers such as Damasus, Sixtus, and Clementine could commission such a work, why can’t the present Church do so?

 

[ProVobis]

Despite my “disagreement” with another member of this forum in another thread, I think it ENTIRELY WORTHY for the Catholic Church to embark on a task to produce, based on the latest biblical archaeology, a bible it can legitimately call “the most accurate given the limitations of our knowledge and science”.

If the Holy Fathers such as Damasus, Sixtus, and Clementine could commission such a work, why can’t the present Church do so?

I think this is an excellent idea. Perhaps add a few books from modern science (in a universal language and symbols, of course) to what we used to call the Bible?