Which Text of the Bible Is Inerrant?

[ChrisB103]

It is my understanding that only the original manuscript of each book of the Bible is guaranteed as being inerrant. In the case of Matthew, for instance, it is likely that the original was written in Aramaic and then later translated to Greek. In this case, it would be the Aramaic original that is guaranteed to be inerrant, correct?

 

[ChrisB103]

bump

 

[Contarini]

It is my understanding that only the original manuscript of each book of the Bible is guaranteed as being inerrant. In the case of Matthew, for instance, it is likely that the original was written in Aramaic and then later translated to Greek. In this case, it would be the Aramaic original that is guaranteed to be inerrant, correct?

This is the Protestant “Old Princeton” view of inerrancy. I question its usefulness in a Catholic context, though I know that many conservative Catholics (often from a Reformed background, which makes sense) champion it.

My intuition that this view of Scripture was rather pointless was one of the things that pushed me toward a more Catholic view. Well, that and interaction with KJV-only folks, who also insist that a meaningful doctrine of inspiration must affect the text that we actually hold in our hands.

Inspired Scripture, for Catholics, is surely Scripture as handed down through the centuries, preserved and interpreted by the Church. Why not leave the whole “inerrant autographs” business to the people who believe in Sola Scriptura?

Edwin

 

[patg]

It is my understanding that only the original manuscript of each book of the Bible is guaranteed as being inerrant.

Where did you get that understanding? It would be pointless to guarantee the quality of a text which we have no copies of. What the church does say is:*

Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures (Dei Verbum §1l).

Note the general nature of the statement - it does not mention any particular source text or any specific translation. It mentions teaching “the truth” without error and it limits that truth to things related to our salvation. You will also notice that Catholicism tends to shun the word “inerrancy” probably because of the strong connotation of fundamentalist/literalistic interpretation that it embodies.

 

[ChrisB103]

I haven’t noticed that Catholics shun the term “inerrant”. However, you seem much more experienced in these topics than me so I don’t doubt that what you say is true. Basically I deduced this stance from the knowledge that translations are not necessarily free from error, but I agree that the distinction I made here is probably insignificant in a good translation. It was mainly just for the sake of curiosity.

God bless,
Chris

 

[yablabo]

It is my understanding that only the original manuscript of each book of the Bible is guaranteed as being inerrant. In the case of Matthew, for instance, it is likely that the original was written in Aramaic and then later translated to Greek. In this case, it would be the Aramaic original that is guaranteed to be inerrant, correct?

To my knowledge, the Old and Vulgate edition of the Sacred Scriptures is the one which is considered inerrant.

Pope Pius XII (in Humani Generis) speaks of the immunity from error in Holy Scripture pointing back to what the First Vatican Council laid down:

To return, however, to the new opinions mentioned above, a number of things are proposed or suggested by some even against the divine authorship of Sacred Scripture. For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council’s definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.

The First Vatican Council speaks of “revelation without error” and points back to the Council of Trent:

Now this supernatural revelation, according to the belief of the Universal Church, as declared by the Sacred Council of Trent, is contained in written books and unwritten traditions, which were received by the Apostles from the lips of Christ himself, or came to the Apostles by the dictation of the Holy Spirit, and were passed on as it were from hand to hand until they reached us. The complete books of the Old and the New Testament with all their parts, as they are listed in the decree of the said Council and as they are found in the old Latin Vulgate edition, are to be received as sacred and canonical. These books the Church holds to be sacred and canonical not because she subsequently approved them by her authority after they had been composed by unaided human skill, nor simply because they contain revelation without error, but because, being written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their Author, and were as such committed to the Church.

And the Council of Trent:

…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.
…
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.

– Nicole

 

[CEM5]

It is my understanding that only the original manuscript of each book of the Bible is guaranteed as being inerrant. In the case of Matthew, for instance, it is likely that the original was written in Aramaic and then later translated to Greek. In this case, it would be the Aramaic original that is guaranteed to be inerrant, correct?

God’s Holy Spirit has preserved the Catholic Bible from error in matters on Faith and Morals. The Bible is not intended as a history book or a science book (although there is of course some of both to be found in the bible). The translations into vernacular language did not lose the integrity of the words of Scripture. The Bible’s purpose is to relay the Good News of salvation, and

2 Timothy 3:16

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

God promised to be with the (Catholic) Church always and it is the Catholic Church from whence we received the Holy Bible, and of which the Holy Spirit safeguards.

 

[ColG]

To my knowledge, the Old and Vulgate edition of the Sacred Scriptures is the one which is considered inerrant.

Pope Pius XII (in Humani Generis) speaks of the immunity from error in Holy Scripture pointing back to what the First Vatican Council laid down:

The First Vatican Council speaks of “revelation without error” and points back to the Council of Trent:

And the Council of Trent:

– Nicole

Any thoughts on where the Nova Vulgata sits in this discussion?

Is it as quoted in EWTN’s library, just “an auxiliary tool to maintain the tradition of translation proper to the Latin Liturgy”.

I read elsewhere the statement “The Nova Vulgata is the official Latin text of the Bible. It was published in the 1970s after decades of work intended to make the Latin text correspond more closely to the current state of textual criticism than the original Vulgate of St. Jerome. It is used in the translation of the Liturgy.”

Do you think the Older Vulgate (referred to in the quotes above) still holds precedence over the Nova Vulgata in matters of doctrine?

Col

 

[yablabo]

Any thoughts on where the Nova Vulgata sits in this discussion?

Do you think the Older Vulgate (referred to in the quotes above) still holds precedence over the Nova Vulgata in matters of doctrine?

ColG,

I think the Nova Vulgata doesn’t compare to the Old edition. If you’ve actually lined things up to try to compare the New and the Old editions, you’ll see that the New edition omits and changes many passages based upon presently (as of 1970’s) available greek (etc.) texts, instead of original copies available at the time of St. Jerome.

The Old is the one that the Church has bound upon us as sacred and canonical, authentic and containing revelation without error…and then bolstered by an anathema: “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.”

– Nicole

 

[jmj1984]

I haven’t noticed that Catholics shun the term “inerrant”. However, you seem much more experienced in these topics than me so I don’t doubt that what you say is true

The teaching of the Catholic Church is that the Holy Bible is inerrant this can be seen in Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus which states

'**Inspiration Incompatible with Error

It is a lamentable fact that there are many who with great labour carry out and publish investigations on the monuments of antiquity, the manners and institutions of nations and other illustrative subjects, and whose chief purpose in all this is too often to find mistakes in the sacred writings and so to shake and weaken their authority. Some of these writers display not only extreme hostility, but the greatest unfairness; in their eyes a profane book or ancient document is accepted without hesitation, whilst the Scripture, if they only find in it a suspicion of error, is set down with the slightest possible discussion as quite untrustworthy. It is true, no doubt, that copyists have made mistakes in the text of the Bible; this question, when it arises, should be carefully considered on its merits, and the fact not too easily admitted, but only in those passages where the proof is clear. It may also happen that the sense of a passage remains ambiguous, and in this case good hermeneutical methods will greatly assist in clearing up the obscurity. But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. For the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, because (as they wrongly think) in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, we should consider not so much what God has said as the reason and purpose which He had in mind in saying it-this system cannot be tolerated. For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican.**’
and in the same encyclical he expresses this view even more explicitly when he says

'It follows that those who maintain that an error is possible in any genuine passage of the sacred writings, either pervert the Catholic notion of inspiration, or make God the author of such error. And so emphatically were all the Fathers and Doctors agreed that the divine writings, as left by the hagiographers, are free from all error, that they laboured earnestly, with no less skill than reverence, to reconcile with each other those numerous passages which seem at variance - the very passages which in great measure have been taken up by the “higher criticism;” for they were unanimous in laying it down, that those writings, in their entirety and in all their parts were equally from the afflatus of Almighty God, and that God, speaking by the sacred writers, could not set down anything but what was true. The words of St. Augustine to St. Jerome may sum up what they taught: “On my part I confess to your charity that it is only to those Books of Scripture which are now called canonical that I have learned to pay such honour and reverence as to believe most firmly that none of their writers has fallen into any error. And if in these Books I meet anything which seems contrary to truth, I shall not hesitate to conclude either that the text is faulty, or that the translator has not expressed the meaning of the passage, or that I myself do not understand.” '

You are therefore right in saying that Catholics do not avoid using the term inerrant, because the belief that the Holy Bible is inerrant IS The Catholic Belief.

 

[patrick457]

ColG,

I think the Nova Vulgata doesn’t compare to the Old edition. If you’ve actually lined things up to try to compare the New and the Old editions, you’ll see that the New edition omits and changes many passages based upon presently (as of 1970’s) available greek (etc.) texts, instead of original copies available at the time of St. Jerome.

The Old is the one that the Church has bound upon us as sacred and canonical, authentic and containing revelation without error…and then bolstered by an anathema: “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.”

– Nicole

You do have to remember though that the original set of translations that St. Jerome executed were themselves lost after centuries of circulation. I’m not just referring to the autographs but to the actual translation itself. As early as the Carolingian period - around the 8th-9th centuries - there were already scholarly attempts to reconstruct a ‘pure’ text of the Hieronymian Latin Bible (it was not called the ‘Vulgate’ until about the late Middle Ages), because there were admittedly a lot of textual variants floating around different locales. The Clementine Vulgate promulgated at the Council of Trent is also one such attempt.

 

[Verbum]

Hi Nicole,

I think the Nova Vulgata doesn’t compare to the Old edition. If you’ve actually lined things up to try to compare the New and the Old editions, you’ll see that the New edition omits and changes many passages based upon presently (as of 1970’s) available greek (etc.) texts, instead of original copies available at the time of St. Jerome.

St. Jerome did not have original copies anymore than we do. He gatherered what he considered the “best” manuscripts, based on the criteria available in those days. But he did not have the thousands of manuscripts available today, in the orlginal languages as well as translations. A scientific method has been developped over more than a century that classfies these manuscripts and establishes their “genealogy” (which came from which). This is not done in a vacuum. The scholars take into accounts such monumental works as the Vulgate and the Septuagint, as highly credible “witnesses” to the original text. The result is a “critical text”, which incorporates the most probable variant, while listling the other variants in the critical appparatus, at the bottom of the page.

It was Pius XII, in Divino Afflante Spiritu (see : newadvent.org/library/docs_pi12da.htm )

who encouraged scholars to translate from the original texts and to correct existing translations accordilng to the latest findings.Specifically, he said this, about the Vulgate :

1. Wherefore this authority of the Vulgate in matters of doctrine by no means prevents–nay rather today it almost demands–either the corroboration and confirmation of this same doctrine by the original texts or the having recourse on any and every occasion to the aid of these same texts, by which the correct meaning of the Sacred Letters is everywhere daily made more clear and evident. Nor is it forbidden by the decree of the Council of Trent to make translations into the vulgar tongue, even directly from the original texts themselves, for the use and benefit of the faithful and for the better understanding of the divine word, as We know to have been already done in a laudable manner in many countries with the approval of the Ecclesiastical authority.

Earlier, he mentions Jerome in this way :

1. Wherefore let him [the scholar} diligently apply himself so as to acquire daily a greater facility in biblical as well as in other oriental languages and to support his interpretation by the aids which all branches of philology supply. **This indeed St. Jerome strove earnestly to achieve, as far as the science of his time permitted;

to this also aspired with untiring zeal and no small fruit not a few of the great exegetes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although the knowledge of languages then was much less than at the present day. In like manner therefore ought we to explain the original text which, 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; this can be done all the more easily and fruitfully, if to the knowledge of languages be joined a real skill in literary criticism

What he is saying is that St. Jerome achieved a remarkable job, as far as he could in those days. The pope also says that the original text has more authority than ANY translation.

Finally, the Pope specifically says that the Vulgate can be confirmed or improved by the use of the original texts

1. Wherefore this authority of the Vulgate in matters of doctrine by no means prevents–nay rather today it almost demands–either the corroboration and confirmation of this same doctrine by the original texts or the having recourse on any and every occasion to the aid of these same texts, by which the correct meaning of the Sacred Letters is everywhere daily made more clear and evident.

Sorry for being so long, but I thought it necessary to affirm that the decisions of modern popes deserves as much respect as St. Damasus who commissioned the Vulgate.

Verbum

 

[Jerry-Jet]

We don’t have the exact first copies of the books of the bible that were made by the authors themselves. We only have copies made years later.

The fact is that we have many copies around the same age.

Modern translations say they go with the “Original language texts”.

So what! What they’re really saying is that “We picked variants of ancient original language texts”.

One can do that and produce a bible that is NOTHING like what the original writers intended.

The ONLY way to know what the original writers intended is to investigate THROUGH the lenses of Sacred Tradition that the Catholic Church has handed on throughout its existence.

Scholarship that doesn’t do that is NOT scholarship at all!

The Vulgate is without error in doctrinal matters.

The best possible bible would be one that would only differ from the Vulgate on matters that were not doctrinal and where it could be demonstrated that the original language varient text that they based that on was TRUELY superior to the text of the Vulgate.

Do you know of any bible like that?

I don’t.

I go with the Confraternity New Testament–the Douay Rheims Challoner Old Testament–and an English translation of the New Latin Psalms authorized by Pope Pius XII(the Bea Psalter)–not because it is a perfect bible translation–it certainly isn’t–but in my opinion it contains LESS error than any other translation I have ever seen.

Having said that I do believe than in some instances–the RSV second Catholic edition–does have some value.

 

[patg]

I haven’t noticed that Catholics shun the term “inerrant”. However, you seem much more experienced in these topics than me so I don’t doubt that what you say is true. Basically I deduced this stance from the knowledge that translations are not necessarily free from error, but I agree that the distinction I made here is probably insignificant in a good translation. It was mainly just for the sake of curiosity.

God bless,
Chris

An excellent reference on this subject is the inexpensive paperback “Biblical Fundamentalism, What Every Catholic Should Know”, by Ronald Witherup, S.S. (imprimatur and nihil obstat). It thoroughly discusses this subject and includes a historical perspective as to how the church has evolved in scripture studies. For example, how Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus is not the last or definitive word on the subject: Its language is not that different from a typical fundamentalist position. Despite the enlightened nature of this encyclical, some ideas expressed in it were still caught up in a pre-scientific viewpoint. **In **the nineteenth century the Church was not yet making the distinction in Scripture between lack of error in scientific and historical teaching and the lack of error in moral and religious truth.

 

[yablabo]

You do have to remember though that the original set of translations that St. Jerome executed were themselves lost after centuries of circulation. I’m not just referring to the autographs but to the actual translation itself. As early as the Carolingian period - around the 8th-9th centuries - there were already scholarly attempts to reconstruct a ‘pure’ text of the Hieronymian Latin Bible (it was not called the ‘Vulgate’ until about the late Middle Ages), because there were admittedly a lot of textual variants floating around different locales. The Clementine Vulgate promulgated at the Council of Trent is also one such attempt.

Well, I am not unfamiliar with the history. I simply do not agree with you that the sense of the original translations of St. Jerome was lost. Otherwise there’d be no “rule” by which to approve, condemn or correct subsequent Latin copies.

Also, this is not an historical study at this point, anyway. The old and vulgate edition of the Scriptures is what was bound upon us…and I do not believe that the Council of Trent or the First Vatican Council bound a fake upon us as sacred and canonical.

The Council of Trent most explicitly states:

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.

We have to receive, as the canon says, the books entire with all their parts as sacred and canonical as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition or be stricken anathema.

– Nicole

 

[yablabo]

St. Jerome did not have original copies anymore than we do.

To say that St. Jerome did not have the original copies any more than we do makes it quite vain to give an exposition that current biblical scholars are allowed to use the original texts/copies to translate and study the scriptures. That is contradiction to my eyes.

St. Jerome did not have the originals then , you say, we also do not have the originals now. Yet you also expose that we have free reign to consult the originals.

I am not trying to be contentious. I am merely trying to get what you were trying to convey to me…and it’s not working.

– Nicole

 

[Verbum]

Hi, Nicole,

You spoke of “original copies”. To me this said the original manuscripts as they out of the authors’ hands. These disappeared very fast. It seems the Ancients did not have any particular cult for .“originals”. They reproduced them in as many copies as possible, and when they wore out, they were disposed of or used for some other purpose.

Obviously, you meant copies of the original text. I think I have covered that at length in my last post. I admire your interest for the Scriptures. If I can pass on a bit of advice, let’s heed the warning of the man who said, “I fear the man of one book.” We shoud avoid Vulgateonlyism as well as Douayonlyism. An open mind is the best road to knowledge. God bless.

Verbum

 

[patrick457]

Well, I am not unfamiliar with the history. I simply do not agree with you that the sense of the original translations of St. Jerome was lost. Otherwise there’d be no “rule” by which to approve, condemn or correct subsequent Latin copies.

Also, this is not an historical study at this point, anyway. The old and vulgate edition of the Scriptures is what was bound upon us…and I do not believe that the Council of Trent or the First Vatican Council bound a fake upon us as sacred and canonical.

I’m not saying that the SENSE of St. Jerome’s translation was lost. I’m only talking about the fact that as the ‘common version’ (versio vulgata as later ages would dub it) developed local texts after years of circulation, very much like the Greek NT manuscripts, ranging from the Italian (considered the best of these) to the Irish and French (usually dubbed the worst of the text traditions). Speaking from a text-critical POV, the Sixtine and Clementine Vulgates promulgated after Trent were not too good, partly because they were made under haste (after Trent declared an official Vulgate to be an urgent need), partly because despite the fact that the translation was in wide circulation few texts were of any quality, and partly because while the editors did consult some of the best Vulgate manuscripts (the famous Codex Amiatinus being one of these) these apparently had little effect on them. Eventually by 1907 Pope Pius X recognized the need for a revision of the text.

But now that I realize it, perhaps my comment was not so relevant to the main discussion after all, but meh.

 

[Road2Damascus]

It is my understanding that only the original manuscript of each book of the Bible is guaranteed as being inerrant. *In the case of Matthew, for instance, it is likely that the original was written in Aramaic and then later translated to Greek. In this case, it would be the Aramaic original that is guaranteed to be inerrant, *correct?

Going over my notes, I’ve studied this some…

 

[Goldrock]

It mentions teaching “the truth” without error and it limits that truth to things related to our salvation. You will also notice that Catholicism tends to shun the word “inerrancy” probably because of the strong connotation of fundamentalist/literalistic interpretation that it embodies.

You are incorrect. The Bible is inerrant in everything it touches on, whether morals, history, science, or any other field of learning. Dei Verbum teaches that God has made the Bible completely inerrant for the sake of our salvation, for if it contained any mistakes we would doubt it and therefore not follow its precepts. It did not teach that only those parts relating to religion and morals is inerrant. Consider the words of Pope Leo XIII:

“But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred" (Providentissimus Deus 20).