Who determines the Canon of Scripture?

[Ron_Conte]

In my view, only the Magisterium can determine the Canon of Sacred Scripture. And this determination includes the books, and the parts of each book, that are inspired. But the Council of Trent has already decided this question infallibly. The Council not only taught which books are inspired, the same list taught by the Council of Florence, but they also defined which parts of the books are inspired:

“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 attached anathema is one indication that this teaching is infallible. Now this does not imply that scholars can only rely on the old Latin Vulgate for their work with Scripture. However, Trent’s definition of the canon is, in my understanding, an infallible dogma. Even the Church cannot change such a dogma; it is irreformable.

What are we to make, then, of those translations of the Bible that drop words, phrases and whole verses from the text, in contradiction to this dogma? The approval of a Bible translation is of the temporal authority of the Church, not the teaching authority. Therefore, the dogma of the Council of Trent on the canonicity of all the parts of the Bible found in the Latin Scriptural tradition remains irreformable. It is an error for any Bible translator or editor to omit parts of the books of the Bible that are found in the Latin Scriptural tradition, regardless of his scholarly judgment.

Only the Magisterium can decide questions of canonicity, Neither the temporal authority of the Church, not the majority (or in some cases minority) opinion of scholars can overrule the teaching of Trent.

 

[agnes_therese]

Are you really saying that translations cannot be improved when new knowledge becomes available?

 

[constantconvert]

The attached anathema is one indication that this teaching is infallible. Now this does not imply that scholars can only rely on the old Latin Vulgate for their work with Scripture. However, Trent’s definition of the canon is, in my understanding, an infallible dogma. Even the Church cannot change such a dogma; it is irreformable.

What are we to make, then, of those translations of the Bible that drop words, phrases and whole verses from the text, in contradiction to this dogma? The approval of a Bible translation is of the temporal authority of the Church, not the teaching authority. Therefore, the dogma of the Council of Trent on the canonicity of all the parts of the Bible found in the Latin Scriptural tradition remains irreformable. It is an error for any Bible translator or editor to omit parts of the books of the Bible that are found in the Latin Scriptural tradition, regardless of his scholarly judgment.

Only the Magisterium can decide questions of canonicity, Neither the temporal authority of the Church, not the majority (or in some cases minority) opinion of scholars can overrule the teaching of Trent.

I’m not sure which translations you’re talking about. If you’re talking about translations that use gender-inclusive language, or the poorly translated version the JWs use, or those Bozos in the Jesus Seminar, then yes, anything that changes the essential meaning of the text would be in error. You would probably want to stay away from paraphrased versions too, as there is a price to pay for readability.

However, translations which keep the original meaning of the text can change a word here or there, or render a phrase a bit differently. All “literal” translations do this to some extent. The definition of inspired does not mean that every preposition, conjunction and article of every sentence cannot be changed. Rather, it means, according to the CCC

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."71

Today there are very few copies of the literal translation of the Latin Vulgate anyway. Even the Douay-Rheims isn’t the original 1609 version, as it was revised in the 1800s.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Are you really saying that translations cannot be improved when new knowledge becomes available?

No, but I am saying that translations cannot omit any substantive word or phrase, nor any whole verse, if that part of the book is found in the Latin Scriptural tradition. The current trend in Biblical scholarship is to look with suspicion on numerous parts of each book, and to claim that some of those parts are not inspired, and should be omitted. But scholars lack the authority to drop anything from Scripture.

A translator can choose a different wording, and thereby improve a translation. But he may not omit any part of any book, even if the scholarly grounds for doing so seem firm to him.

 

[thistle]

No, but I am saying that translations cannot omit any substantive word or phrase, nor any whole verse, if that part of the book is found in the Latin Scriptural tradition. The current trend in Biblical scholarship is to look with suspicion on numerous parts of each book, and to claim that some of those parts are not inspired, and should be omitted. But scholars lack the authority to drop anything from Scripture.

A translator can choose a different wording, and thereby improve a translation. But he may not omit any part of any book, even if the scholarly grounds for doing so seem firm to him.

So you are implying that your translation is the only correct one??

 

[COPLAND_3]

If the Church has approved versions that do omit based upon textual criticism, then my assumption is that the Church’s judgment and understanding of the issue is correct. I will always second guess my understanding before the Catholic Churchs’ understanding.

 

[Ron_Conte]

If the Church has approved versions that do omit based upon textual criticism, then my assumption is that the Church’s judgment and understanding of the issue is correct. I will always second guess my understanding before the Catholic Churchs’ understanding.

We are required by Faith to distinguish between different types of Church authority:

The spiritual (teaching) authority, the Magisterium teaches either infallibly:

1. Papal infallibility
2. Conciliar infallibility
3. ordinary and universal Magisterium

or non-infallibly through the ordinary (but not universal) Magisterium.

Then there is the temporal authority which, apart from dogmatic facts, is not infallible. This authority does not teach, but rather issues rules and rulings, based on judgments of the prudential order.

The spiritual authority and the temporal authority are the two swords of the Church.

An infallible teaching of the Magisterium is a dogma of the Faith, and requires the full assent of faith because no error is possible, whereas a decision of the temporal authority is not a teaching and can err. The faithful may disagree with a judgment of the temporal authority of the Church (as then-Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out in his now famous letter to the Archbishop of Washington D.C.).

So when the Council of Trent defines the Canon as including “the said books entire with all their parts”, we are required to give this infallible teaching our full assent. No decision of the temporal authority of the Church, such as the decision of a Bishop or a Bishops’ Conference in approving of a translation, can nullify or change such a teaching. And if there is a conflict between the two, the infallible teaching must prevail.

Moreover, the approval of a version of the Bible by the temporal authority of the Church does not imply approval for every decision made in preparing that translation. So we should not assume that if a version drops a word, phrase, or verse from the text, that the Church has now decided to change the Canon. One approved version (e.g. RSV2) may keep a particular verse or phrase, and another approved version (e.g. NABRE) may drop that same verse or phrase. The approval of each version does not imply that the verse or phrase is to be dropped or is to be retained.

And the translators, editors, and publishers of various versions of the Bible have no authority to change the Canon, as it was infallibly defined by the Council of Trent.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Ron Conte: Do you believe that the Nova Vulgata omits scripture that shouldn’t be omitted?

I will agree with you that it seems like with every translation of the bible that comes out that more and more of the bible is being omitted.

I think the devil is behind that.

What do you think?

I will say that I stand with the Catholic Church.

Whatever it teaches is the bible I believe!

 

[Ron_Conte]

Ron Conte: Do you believe that the Nova Vulgata omits scripture that shouldn’t be omitted?

I will agree with you that it seems like with every translation of the bible that comes out that more and more of the bible is being omitted.

I think the devil is behind that.

What do you think?

I will say that I stand with the Catholic Church.

Whatever it teaches is the bible I believe!

The NV follows the United Bible Societies’ Greek text for the NT, which drops many words, phrases, and some whole verses that are found in the Vulgate and in the Textus Receptus and the Majority Text. The NV accepts these omissions without question and uses the Stuttgart Latin rather than the Vulgate. (I don’t think the devil is behind this, but merely the arrogance of modern scholars, who stand in judgment over the inspired text.)

The dogma taught by Trent is a required belief: all the books with all their parts, as found in the old Latin Vulgate. Did you mean that you stand with the Church in Her infallible teaching on this point? The approval of a Bible version does not constitute a change in that teaching.

 

[mcrow]

I think there are going to be a few words missing or added here an there no matter the translation. We could not have a literal word for word translation because we would likely not be able to follow it once in english. In order to make it understandable in english some allowance will need to be made, it’s just a matter of the type of allownace and the how far it strays from the literal phrasing.

 

[Ron_Conte]

I think there are going to be a few words missing or added here an there no matter the translation. We could not have a literal word for word translation because we would likely not be able to follow it once in english. In order to make it understandable in english some allowance will need to be made, it’s just a matter of the type of allownace and the how far it strays from the literal phrasing.

We’re not talking about the wording of the translation compared to the source text.

Instead, we are talking about the decision to omit some words, phrases, and verses from the source text. For example:

In Matthew 1:25, the Clementine Vulgate, Stuttgart, Majority Text, and Textus Receptus all have the phrase “her firstborn”, as also found in the Challoner Douay bible:

{1:25} And he knew her not, till she brought forth her first born son: and he called his name Jesus.

The NV and the NABRE omit ‘her first born’, based on this same omission from the Protestant United Bible Societies text, in contradiction to the Latin Vulgate. So the decisions of a small group of Protestant Biblical scholars is affecting which words, phrases, and verses are omitted in Catholic Bible translations.

 

[COPLAND_3]

We are required by Faith to distinguish between different types of Church authority:

The spiritual (teaching) authority, the Magisterium teaches either infallibly:

1. Papal infallibility
2. Conciliar infallibility
3. ordinary and universal Magisterium

or non-infallibly through the ordinary (but not universal) Magisterium.

Then there is the temporal authority which, apart from dogmatic facts, is not infallible. This authority does not teach, but rather issues rules and rulings, based on judgments of the prudential order.

The spiritual authority and the temporal authority are the two swords of the Church.

An infallible teaching of the Magisterium is a dogma of the Faith, and requires the full assent of faith because no error is possible, whereas a decision of the temporal authority is not a teaching and can err. The faithful may disagree with a judgment of the temporal authority of the Church (as then-Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out in his now famous letter to the Archbishop of Washington D.C.).

So when the Council of Trent defines the Canon as including “the said books entire with all their parts”, we are required to give this infallible teaching our full assent. No decision of the temporal authority of the Church, such as the decision of a Bishop or a Bishops’ Conference in approving of a translation, can nullify or change such a teaching. And if there is a conflict between the two, the infallible teaching must prevail.

Moreover, the approval of a version of the Bible by the temporal authority of the Church does not imply approval for every decision made in preparing that translation. So we should not assume that if a version drops a word, phrase, or verse from the text, that the Church has now decided to change the Canon. One approved version (e.g. RSV2) may keep a particular verse or phrase, and another approved version (e.g. NABRE) may drop that same verse or phrase. The approval of each version does not imply that the verse or phrase is to be dropped or is to be retained.

And the translators, editors, and publishers of various versions of the Bible have no authority to change the Canon, as it was infallibly defined by the Council of Trent.

Thanks Ron! I am surely in need of taking some time to learn this better.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Ron Conte: Exactly what version of the Vulgate that Trent was referring to do you think that we as Catholics should believe?

How much leeway is there in determining that?

 

[edwest2]

In my view, only the Magisterium can determine the Canon of Sacred Scripture. And this determination includes the books, and the parts of each book, that are inspired. But the Council of Trent has already decided this question infallibly. The Council not only taught which books are inspired, the same list taught by the Council of Florence, but they also defined which parts of the books are inspired:

“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 attached anathema is one indication that this teaching is infallible. Now this does not imply that scholars can only rely on the old Latin Vulgate for their work with Scripture. However, Trent’s definition of the canon is, in my understanding, an infallible dogma. Even the Church cannot change such a dogma; it is irreformable.

What are we to make, then, of those translations of the Bible that drop words, phrases and whole verses from the text, in contradiction to this dogma? The approval of a Bible translation is of the temporal authority of the Church, not the teaching authority. Therefore, the dogma of the Council of Trent on the canonicity of all the parts of the Bible found in the Latin Scriptural tradition remains irreformable. It is an error for any Bible translator or editor to omit parts of the books of the Bible that are found in the Latin Scriptural tradition, regardless of his scholarly judgment.

Only the Magisterium can decide questions of canonicity, Neither the temporal authority of the Church, not the majority (or in some cases minority) opinion of scholars can overrule the teaching of Trent.

You’ll have to provide some specific examples or the discussion has no real starting point. Theologians assigned to investigate scripture are allowed to present their findings to the Magisterium. However, without knowing the precise reasons why anything was dropped, again, there can be no further discussion.

Is Summa Theolgica, St. Thomas Aquinas makes an important point about Scriptural interpretation:

“In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to observed, as Augustine teaches (Gen. ad lit. i, 18). The first is, to hold the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation, only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved with certainty to be false; lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing.”

Otherwise, the Church should have told properly educated and properly qualified Theologians to pack their bags and go home long ago.

Peace,
Ed