Verbal/Plenary inspiration in the original texts

[SerbCath]

Hello-

I am relatively new here. I am in the process of converting (to the Byzantine Church).

In order to avoid duplication, here was my first post telling my “story”

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=868073

I have question related to scripture. Some years ago, I completed a Masters Degree from a protestant seminary, as I was planning to be clergy. During my time in that training, (and to be honest the 28 years leading up to it) I was exposed to what is pretty standard Reform hermeneutics and the epistemological constructs of infallable, verbal, plenary inspiration in the original texts. The best way to explain how that works is something like this:

The original texts (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) are perfect. There is nothing that God left out or put in them that does not belong. This is true in the verbal sense–meaning every single word and piece of punctuation. It is true in the plenary sense–meaning that no scripture ever contradicts itself.

The implications of this are particularly important when approaching the text in a translated language. In general, if you find an apparent contradiction, the most likely culprits are 1. you or 2. the translation.

So–I am wondering a few things. It seems that the official Catholic translations are derived from the septuigint and the vulgate. Based on my understanding of translation rules, this is violation primary importance. To translate from one language and then to another and then to English causes a great deal of the original intent to be lost.

Am I misreading this? Are there Catholic translations that go directly from Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek—>English? What is the Catholic approach to the original texts?

Thanks.

 

[SerbCath]

Duplicate

 

[dmar198]

Hello-

I am relatively new here. I am in the process of converting (to the Byzantine Church).

In order to avoid duplication, here was my first post telling my “story”

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=868073

I have question related to scripture. Some years ago, I completed a Masters Degree from a protestant seminary, as I was planning to be clergy. During my time in that training, (and to be honest the 28 years leading up to it) I was exposed to what is pretty standard Reform hermeneutics and the epistemological constructs of infallable, verbal, plenary inspiration in the original texts. The best way to explain how that works is something like this:

The original texts (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) are perfect. There is nothing that God left out or put in them that does not belong. This is true in the verbal sense–meaning every single word and piece of punctuation. It is true in the plenary sense–meaning that no scripture ever contradicts itself.

The implications of this are particularly important when approaching the text in a translated language. In general, if you find an apparent contradiction, the most likely culprits are 1. you or 2. the translation.

So–I am wondering a few things. It seems that the official Catholic translations are derived from the septuigint and the vulgate. Based on my understanding of translation rules, this is violation primary importance. To translate from one language and then to another and then to English causes a great deal of the original intent to be lost.

Am I misreading this? Are there Catholic translations that go directly from Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek—>English? What is the Catholic approach to the original texts?

Thanks.

Yes, almost all Catholic translations since the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu have been translated from the Old Testament Hebrew and the New Testament Greek. The New American Bible, the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible, and the Christian Community Bible are all examples of Catholic translations out of the original Hebrew and Greek.

 

[SerbCath]

dmar-

Thank you for the response.

Kind of a follow up comment-- After posting this I did a search and I found a great deal of misunderstanding on this site of what verbal/plenary actually means.

Quite a few people seem to think it means that God was in essence dictating each word to the writer.

In seminary, this is considered a dangerously simplistic way of understanding it.

We were taught that it probably worked more like this: Each author was brought up with a personality, culture and life experiences that would result in exactly what was written. It is a mystery how this actually worked, but essentially two things are simultaneously true–

Namely, 1. the writers style, intention and culture comes through, AND 2. it came out exactly the way God wanted it to.

In this way, the words verbal and plenary are descriptors of how the final product works not the process. The process has to with theories of inspiration.

Just wanted to be clear about that. I don’t believe God spoke into the ear of the Bible authors and they just transcribed it word for word.

 

[dmar198]

dmar-

Thank you for the response.

Kind of a follow up comment-- After posting this I did a search and I found a great deal of misunderstanding on this site of what verbal/plenary actually means.

Quite a few people seem to think it means that God was in essence dictating each word to the writer.

In seminary, this is considered a dangerously simplistic way of understanding it.

We were taught that it probably more like this: Each author was brought up with a personality, culture and life experiences that would result in exactly what was written. It is a mystery how this actually worked, but essentially two things are simultaneously true–

Namely, 1. the writers style, intention and culture comes through, AND 2. it came exactly the way God wanted it to.

In this way, the words verbal and plenary are descriptors of how the final product works not the process. The process has to with theories of inspiration.

Just wanted to be clear about that. I don’t believe God spoke into the ear of the Bible authors and they just transcribed it word for word.

Cool. I was wondering what your interpretation of plenary inspiration was, so thanks for clarifying. And in case you haven’t looked it up already, I recommend you take a look at Divino Afflante Spiritu. It contains what you asked about earlier – the Catholic view on how to approach Scripture, the original texts, their authority, and how they should be translated.