What is wrong with a Catholic Bible?

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Malachi4U

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Gods peace be with you Theophilus,

I asked a question to a Protestant who ‘Boasted’ and ‘claimed’ he could show any Biblical error incorrect? More clearly put he ‘claimed’ there are ‘NO’ errors in the Bible. Well, at least the KJV. He appeared to be very knowledgeable and a very good man and Christian but when I asked him about Bibles themselves being in error rather then just verses he refused to talk to me. He claimed this was a Catholic-Protestant question and thus undeserving of an answer. He also runs his own web site dedicated to the inerrancy of the King James Version (KJV) ‘alone’ and has NO Catholic Bibles listed or mentioned I saw. He also claims on his web site as I recall to have over 60,000 pages listed! Non I found with Catholic Bible information and I found no search feature either. This would mean either all Catholic Bibles inerrant or it is in fact a Catholic-Protestant issue as proved by his own web site and thus a valid question.

I asked questions like why is the King James Version perfect and not the AKJV, JST, NIV, DR, NAB, LV, etc… I am still awaiting answers to these insightful questions.

So what I would like to know from all of you is this, why is the KJV the only inerrant Bible or does it have errors?

Why do many Protestant refuse to acknowledge the Catholic Bibles like the Vulgate, NAB, St. Jerome, DR, etc. as not even worthy of mention? Why are Catholic Bibles so evil and despicable that they don’t even rate reviews if any and if they do they are often only negative? Who made unknown Protestant translators/publishers perfect and Catholic Scholars error prone?

What about the first 400 years of Christian history when we had NO Bible? Who wrote the first Bible? King James? A Catholic? Who canonized it and declared it inspired? Can a Bible have errors and still be ‘inspired?’

I started another link for actual errors in the KJV so post those there.

[forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=2772](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=2772)

I am really concerned with the philosophy of the “KJV onlyism” movement here and the actual problems with Catholic Bibles and why many Protestants refuse to accept a Catholic Bible.

Thank you for your help and Gods peace be with you,

The truth is out there!

Eph 2:8-9 “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so no one may boast.”

(Don’t forget verse 10 for context!)

Malachi4U
 
Its the same mentality that says Catholic Bibles have “extra books”. I had a conversation with a Protestant on this. I asked her which came first, protestant or catholic? Who had the first Bible, P or C? So wouldn’t it be more fair to say the Protestants REMOVED books from God’s Inspired and Holy word. OH no. Catholics added them.:confused:

These are ususally, the same ones that insist on KJV being the only correct translation. I think part of the answer is it is a pattern of thought used to deny the truth of the teachings of the Catholic Church. For instance, the Real Presence. It’s right there in the Bible, but if you can deny the validity of a translation that is commonly used by that Church then it helps you to deny the teachings also. Don’t like prayer to the saints? Get rid of Maccabees.

Find fault in the translation=Find fault in teachings. Conversely, No fault in the translation= No fault in the teachings.

God Bless
 
First off, I’ll say that I consider the main Catholic translations definitely worthy of use. I like the Old and New Jerusalem Bibles and the NAB is alright. I even like reading the Douay-Rheims from time to time. (I’ve had lots of exposure to the KJV in my youth, so if I want a Shakespearean language translation I’ll usually look at the DRV.) However, I have been unimpressed and often downright offended at notes in some modern Catholic Bibles - not the pro-Catholicism notes, but the notes where the integrity and authority of the Bible are called into question by Raymond Brown types, despite the statements of Pius XII and Leo XIII to the contrary.

I have a question on the canon, but I’ve already posted it in the Apologetics section here: Books in the Septuagint
 
Obviously, there is nothing wrong with a Catholic Bible. If you want to be serious about it, the Bible is a 100% Catholic book! Protestants obviously removed 7 books from scripture. But even the rest they have in there are taken from the canon that the Catholic Church instated. The canon of scripture was decided at the council of Rome in 382 under Pope Damasus I, and then ratified at the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397 + 419). These were Catholic councils. This was the canon of scripture way before the 1500’s and the protestant reformation. This is the only way we could be sure that scripture is inspired, by the infallible Church telling us what books should be in there. Without the Church, who is to say.? Why not add a few books? Or take away like they did? Are you telling me that the Holy Spirit was wrong for 1500 years and all those people who lived in that time were not saved?

Another note, the Douay Reihms Bible was put out in English before (1609) the King James Version (1611). I do agree that some modern Catholic bibles do not have good commentary in them, but the translations are good. I think the RSV-CE is probably the best, I do like the NAB as well. For commentaries, you can’t beat the Navarre Bible and the new Ignatius Study Bible that Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch are working on.
 
It is accursed, don’t ya know?

Rev 22:18-19 18 I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

http://forums.catholic-convert.com/images/smiles/barf.gif

Justin
 
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Malachi4U:
Gods peace be with you Theophilus,

I asked a question to a Protestant who ‘Boasted’ and ‘claimed’ he could show any Biblical error incorrect? More clearly put he ‘claimed’ there are ‘NO’ errors in the Bible. Well, at least the KJV. He appeared to be very knowledgeable and a very good man and Christian but when I asked him about Bibles themselves being in error rather then just verses he refused to talk to me. He claimed this was a Catholic-Protestant question and thus undeserving of an answer. He also runs his own web site dedicated to the inerrancy of the King James Version (KJV) ‘alone’ and has NO Catholic Bibles listed or mentioned I saw. He also claims on his web site as I recall to have over 60,000 pages listed! Non I found with Catholic Bible information and I found no search feature either. This would mean either all Catholic Bibles inerrant or it is in fact a Catholic-Protestant issue as proved by his own web site and thus a valid question.

I asked questions like why is the King James Version perfect and not the AKJV, JST, NIV, DR, NAB, LV, etc… I am still awaiting answers to these insightful questions.

So what I would like to know from all of you is this, why is the KJV the only inerrant Bible or does it have errors?

Why do many Protestant refuse to acknowledge the Catholic Bibles like the Vulgate, NAB, St. Jerome, DR, etc. as not even worthy of mention? Why are Catholic Bibles so evil and despicable that they don’t even rate reviews if any and if they do they are often only negative? Who made unknown Protestant translators/publishers perfect and Catholic Scholars error prone?

What about the first 400 years of Christian history when we had NO Bible? Who wrote the first Bible? King James? A Catholic? Who canonized it and declared it inspired? Can a Bible have errors and still be ‘inspired?’

I started another link for actual errors in the KJV so post those there.

[forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=2772](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=2772)

I am really concerned with the philosophy of the “KJV onlyism” movement here and the actual problems with Catholic Bibles and why many Protestants refuse to accept a Catholic Bible.

Thank you for your help and Gods peace be with you,

The truth is out there!

Eph 2:8-9 “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so no one may boast.”

(Don’t forget verse 10 for context!)

Malachi4U
Malachi…let me post…what I said in a similar thread…
  1. Luther had a trouble with verses such as “See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:24)” This really infuriated him. He wanted to remove James along with the other seven books…but was talked out of it. In Romans 3:28 it read, “For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.”, etc. etc. Luther decided that “works of law” was in reference to the laws of the Old Testament, including the Ten Commandments. The interesting thing is that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered…they supported the Catholic belief that “works of law” …or in Greek “ergon nomou” refers to ceremonial law handed out in the Old Testament…not to the Ten Commandments ala Moral Law. Luther also inserted “alone” in Romans 3:28…to read, “man is justified by faith alone.” This is why there isn’t an absolute assurance of salvation – “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matt 7:21). Scripture shows that one’s final salvation depends on the state of the soul at death. As Jesus says, “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13; cf. 25:31–46). So basically, one who dies in the state of friendship with God (the state of grace)."
 
  1. I have several problems with the errors and the purity of the KJV. For instance…the interpretation of “xeraino” in Mark 9:18…“suntereo” in Mark 6:20…the use of “ereb” and “boqer” in Daniel 8:14…the alteration of “pascha” in Acts 12:4…“Aeropagus” and “deisidaimonestero” in Acts 17:2…the suppression of “hierourgeo” in Romans 15:16…“hayah” in Genesis 1:2…etc.
  2. The translators of the 1611 King James Version called St. Jerome, “a most learned father, and the best linguist without controversy, of his age, or of any that went before him.”
  3. The Roman Catholic Church is the mother of the Bible…not the daughter…the Gospels weren’t gathered into one book…until the Roman Catholic Church did it at The Council of Hippo – 393 AD…and confirmed at The Council of Carthage – 397 AD.
 
You may find that this person isn’t interested in honest debate. If that is the case, you can agree to disagree and invite him to discuss it over coffee one day in the future.

I find it curious that Catholics are often branded with the “Don’t confuse me with the facts, I’ve already made up my mind” attitude, yet we accept Thomists, Molinists, etc.

Be at peace with yourself and be a good example for him. It confuses many of those who dislike Catholics to see all the good the church has done.

Pax Christi
 
Luther included and translated the books of “apocrypha” in his German Bible of 1534. All of these were dogmatically acknowledged as Scripture at the Council of Trent in 1548 by the RCC. As the RC catechism puts it, “Deuterocanonical does not mean ‘Apocryphal,’ but simply ‘later added to the canon.’” That same council rejected 1st and 2nd Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh as part of Sacred Scripture, so they are often annexed to a seperate section called the “Apocrypha.” I believe the “end note” The additional 6 chapters, 107 verses, in the book of Esther and another 3 in the book of Daniel, 174 verses. These were included officially for the first time by the RCC also in 1548.

Roman Catholics often accuse the Lutheran view of these scriptures to be a way to reject some of what they support (prayers for the dead, petitions to the Saints, etc.) The Lutheran view is that these tenents of the Apocrypha further evidence their inconsistency with the rest of authorative Scripture. The RC claim is that these books were accepted by the Jews as “canonical” all along. There is a major problem with that. We still have Jews in the world. They do not accept the apocrypha and have no history of doing so, though a couple of geographical sects may have- after the time of Jesus. The church fathers were all over the board on these books. Augustine and Jerome held completely opposing views. The Orthodox Bibles contain up to 9 more books and verses than even the post-Trent RC Bible. Really the issue is what authority the Church has over what it considers inspired.

The main argument on the Lutheran side is that since Jesus did speak of the Old Testament (and called it “the Word of God”), we should focus on the OT of which He spoke, which would have been the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Regarding the NT: The NT text was established by the apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as told by 2nd Peter 3:2, including the rejection of books that did not have apostolic approval, see 2nd Thessalonians 1:2 and Revelation 2:2.

Regarding the intertestamental literature (the Macabees, et cetera), there is an evidence problem.

When the Jews were driven out of Rome, these books were found on scrolls in the abandoned synagogues. Many of them were adopted by the church at that time, on the assumption that the Jews regarded these canonical. However, there are flaws in that assumption.
These books are scattered; no single source has all of them, and in the main they appear to be filling up the ends of scrolls on which there was blank space after the completion of a copy of a canonical book.
There are books so included on canonical scrolls which have never been accepted as canonical by any group, demonstrating the practice of including non-canonical but worthwhile books on scrolls with scripture.
The agreed Hebrew canon by the Jews at Jamnia (circa 90 A.D.?) does not contain these as canon; it matches the Protestant Old Testament canon recognized by Luther and found in so-called “Protestant Bibles”. The books are in a different order, but they are the same books.
 
Gods peace be with you, Theophilus,
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1962Missal:
It is accursed, don’t ya know?
Yes I know, all my wives relatives and my Baptist friends make it a point tell me so all the time!:whacky:
Rev 22:18-19 18 I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
Just a note here. This Book was written between c. 81-96 A.D. If this date is somewhat accurate then the Book of Revelations may have been written before half the Books of the New Testament were written?:ehh:

So 2 points:

1, The Book ov Rev only referrs to itself when changing Scripture and not other Books of Scripture.
2, If this verse can be applied to the entire Bible - which would be out of context? - then most Protestant Bibles are in error for deleting Scripture in the 16th century on? Catholics for adding it in the 4th Century - when no NT canon was existing anyway?:hmmm:

Malachi4U
 
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Shibboleth:
Luther included and translated the books of “apocrypha” in his German Bible of 1534. All of these were dogmatically acknowledged as Scripture at the Council of Trent in 1548 by the RCC. As the RC catechism puts it, “Deuterocanonical does not mean ‘Apocryphal,’ but simply ‘later added to the canon.’” That same council rejected 1st and 2nd Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh as part of Sacred Scripture, so they are often annexed to a seperate section called the “Apocrypha.” I believe the “end note” The additional 6 chapters, 107 verses, in the book of Esther and another 3 in the book of Daniel, 174 verses. These were included officially for the first time by the RCC also in 1548.

Roman Catholics often accuse the Lutheran view of these scriptures to be a way to reject some of what they support (prayers for the dead, petitions to the Saints, etc.) The Lutheran view is that these tenents of the Apocrypha further evidence their inconsistency with the rest of authorative Scripture. The RC claim is that these books were accepted by the Jews as “canonical” all along. There is a major problem with that. We still have Jews in the world. They do not accept the apocrypha and have no history of doing so, though a couple of geographical sects may have- after the time of Jesus. The church fathers were all over the board on these books. Augustine and Jerome held completely opposing views. The Orthodox Bibles contain up to 9 more books and verses than even the post-Trent RC Bible. Really the issue is what authority the Church has over what it considers inspired.

The main argument on the Lutheran side is that since Jesus did speak of the Old Testament (and called it “the Word of God”), we should focus on the OT of which He spoke, which would have been the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Regarding the NT: The NT text was established by the apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as told by 2nd Peter 3:2, including the rejection of books that did not have apostolic approval, see 2nd Thessalonians 1:2 and Revelation 2:2.

Regarding the intertestamental literature (the Macabees, et cetera), there is an evidence problem.

When the Jews were driven out of Rome, these books were found on scrolls in the abandoned synagogues. Many of them were adopted by the church at that time, on the assumption that the Jews regarded these canonical. However, there are flaws in that assumption.
These books are scattered; no single source has all of them, and in the main they appear to be filling up the ends of scrolls on which there was blank space after the completion of a copy of a canonical book.
There are books so included on canonical scrolls which have never been accepted as canonical by any group, demonstrating the practice of including non-canonical but worthwhile books on scrolls with scripture.
The agreed Hebrew canon by the Jews at Jamnia (circa 90 A.D.?) does not contain these as canon; it matches the Protestant Old Testament canon recognized by Luther and found in so-called “Protestant Bibles”. The books are in a different order, but they are the same books.
Let’s get our history straight. I’ll start a new thread for that purpose.
 
I have been in the protestant circles for years. And I have even attended a Bible Institute that used the KJV as their standard version for learning the Bible, and they were very dogmatic about it.

I am now really wanting to be a Catholic. And I do very much approve of the NAB. As a student of Greek, I know first hand that the NAB is very very faithful to the Greek, actually the best from my personal observations. I have compared translations with many of the most popular versions and I am won over to the NAB.

But let me recommend you an approach that is cut and dry and usually causes the KJV only folks to have the dear in the head lights look when you bring this up. But let me warn you, to truly understand what you say about this it takes some time to learn about it, but it will not only reassure you on this position but will also allow you to not be bullied by these KJV onlyites.

The first thing you have to realize is that many of these KJV folks think the KJV is closest to the original. Some even are ignorant enough to believe that Jesus spoke in Old English! Or that the KJV was found in a cave in Israel somewhere! But the fact is the original NT was written in Greek, and OT was in Hebrew and Aramaic.

The second thing is what Greek manuscripts were used? The translators of the KJV translated in 1611, and they used manuscripts that dated back to the 12th century, and the oldest was the 10th which they rarely used. So the manuscripts that they used went through 1300 years of scribal hands which means that the manuscirpts have been copied over and over to preserve them and more errors. The older a manuscript is the less times it has been copied and less errors and closer to the original. Read about Erasmus and how his Textus Receptus was a quick job to get the first Greek text out, and full of errors.

The third thing is that modern translations have something that the KJV translators never had, and that is older manuscripts and many more of them. There are even some NT manuscripts that date back the 200 AD, and even one that goes abck to 125AD. The 1800 and 1900’s have been a couple of centuries that have had the greatest discoveries for NT and OT manscripts. The Dead Sea Scrolls gives us manuscirpts that date back to almost 300BC.

So what we have is a difference of 1200 years of older manuscripts, which are much better and more accurate then that of the KJV. But keep in mind, this is deep stuff and usually goes over the head of most church goers who have not studied textual criticism, most people don;t even know what that is.

But let me say this. The only differnce between all 5000 Greek manuscirpts is 2.8%. That is mostly spelling differneces and not even really due to actual diffeences in meaning. And those areas where our Bible may admit a passage that is in the KJV is because the oldest and best manuscripts did not have it in them, which means that it was usually added in by a scribe later on.

The biggest flaw though of the KJV of today is the lack of the deuterocanonicals. So in other words they lack all the Scriptures. Protestants try to say that Catholics added those in but actually the reformers took them out, “by what athority” I don;t know!

Hope this helps!!
 
My boss asked me once, (he is protestant), how do I know that the Catholic Church didn’t add “our” books after the Reformation.
I told him, because of the Councils held in the 300 and 400’s. During the councils, the books that were to be included in the Bible are listed. Compare the list with the Catholic Bible and then with the Protestant Bible. Tell me then which one is more accurate.

He never answered, but a couple of days later, asked me if I had a Catholic Bible handy. I do, I keep one in my desk. He wanted to borrow it for a few days. When he brought it back, he said he was able to answer some questions he had. He didn’t tell me what the questions were. I thought it was an interesting exchange though.
 
The Greek Septuagint(Greek OT) was quoted by the NT authors at least 85% of the time. Much more then from the Hebrew texts or Aramaic Targums. And the Septuagint contains all the deuterocanonicals. This should tell people something!!
 
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