Why Bible versions?

[Verita]

So, does that mean that all Bibles can defend the Catholic faith? except New World Translation? (looks up NWT)

I would stay away from such protestant versions as the Message Bible too. That is an abomination of translations.

 

[Axion]

I think translation does matter, but not THAT much. Frankly speaking I don’t see the difference between “highly favored” and “full of grace”. In the old testament, “favor” means grace. In my mother tounge, there is no word “grace”, thus grace is translated to “granted love” or something like that.

It wouldn’t be a problem if some people didn’t make a big thing out of it, denying that the angel said “Full of Grace”. The word used in the Greek original is a form of Charis, which is virtually always translated as Grace. However, for reasons of their own, from the KJV Bible on, protestants have consistently refused to use the word Grace where it applies to Mary. This is because they want to lower Mary’s status, and to argue against Catholic (and Orthodox) teaching with regard to her. Grace does have a particular meaning in the New Testament which goes above and beyond mere “favour”. It implies a specific salvific gift of God.

Unfortunately some modern Liberal Catholic translations NAB and NJB, have adopted the protestant practice of using “favour” instead.

The message the Lord want us to learn from the bible cannot be changed by mere translations differences.

It can be warped though, as above. Also some bibles, such as the Good News and the New International Version, do twist translations so that they reflect the theology of the translators. The NIV for example translates the same word as either tradition or teachings dependant on the setting. When it is condemned it is translated Tradition, when it is praised it is translated Teaching. This gives the false impression that the scriptures always condemn tradition.

 

[mercygate]

Conclusion:
Bible versions have been editted by those based on their teaching. Catholics use NAB because it has all the Books. KJV doesn’t have all the Books, thus Catholics don’t use it because it’s not complete, and it doesn’t cooperate with Catholic doctrine. We can say that Fundamentals like to use KJV because it stumps the Catholic teaching, knowing that KJV isn’t complete, they still use it hoping that the Catholic they are talking to doesn’t know what the difference in bibles are.

That’s just a quick and rough conclusion, since I’m sleepy and just wanted to get it out and hope for an answer when I wake up tomarrow. I’ll read it before I go to school!

Thanks!

Catholics who talk “Bible” fully understand what the differences are, and we often revert to the original Greek or Hebrew – just as knowledgeable Protestants do.

As a Convert to the Catholic Church, I frequently use the KJV because so much of it is embedded in my brain. It was a very good translation in its day. The RSV, based upon more manuscripts and older manuscripts relies on more scholarship than was available in the 17th Century.

One of the reasons I use the KJV is that my Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance is keyed to it. When I am reading the NAB or RSV and come across a question relating to a word, I go to the same verse in the KJV, and if the word is translated differently, I go to my *Strong’s *and look up the “Strong’s number” to see what the word was in Hebrew or Greek.

For example, I was interested in Jesus’ rebuke of the devil when he quotes Deuteronomy: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” I looked up “word” in Strong’s and found that in Mt 4:4 the Greek word is “rhemata” In Deuteronomy, the Hebrew word is “dabar” – which is usually translated to English as “commandment.”

When I looked up Deuteronomy 8:3 in my Septuagint (Greek Old Testament), I found that the Hebrew word “dabar” had been translated by the same Greek word as used by Jesus: rhemata. So what Jesus is saying is, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every commandment that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Anyway, that is one reason I hang onto my KJV. What would we do without Strong’s.

---

By the way, I looked up the word “faith” the other day and discovered that according to *Strong’s *the freestanding word “faith” (not derivations of the word) appears only twice in the Old Testament. And when the OT refers to “faith” it does not mean a personal belief in divine truth in a psychological way, as we Christians understand it, it means something more like “standing firm” or being trustworthy. The idea of faith is most frequently used in the sense of “faithfulness” – as an attribute of God rather than as a human affirmation of his Person. Human faithfulness is an active response to the faithfulness of God.

Since the word “faith” appears around 270 times in the New Testament, and only about 20 times in the RSV OT, including the Deuterocanonicals (which are not in the KJV), that was a pretty big eye-opener, particularly in light of the importance of faith-as-assent-to-belief in the New Testament.

 

[Rolltide]

Mercygate,
Did you know that there IS a KJV of the Deuterocanonicals? It was originally published with them included, but later reforms removed them completely. If you look on Amazon.com, you should be able to find them in a supplemental volume.

 

[mercygate]

Mercygate,
Did you know that there IS a KJV of the Deuterocanonicals? It was originally published with them included, but later reforms removed them completely. If you look on Amazon.com, you should be able to find them in a supplemental volume.

Yup. I own a KJV with the Deuterocanonicals – they call it the Apocrypha, of course.

 

[Manfred]

… some bibles, such as the Good News and the New International Version, do twist translations so that they reflect the theology of the translators. The NIV for example translates the same word as either tradition or teachings dependant on the setting. When it is condemned it is translated Tradition, when it is praised it is translated Teaching. This gives the false impression that the scriptures always condemn tradition.

It is for reasons such as this that the NIV is sometimes called the “Non-Inspired Version” or the “New International perVersion”.

 

[Zooey]

Although I have a KJV Bible to refer to occasionally, I personally stick with the Bibles that hold all the books of God’s inspired word…

Your Friendly Neighborhood Methodist:yup: does the same.
I recommend the practice highly…(Who knows; if enough of us non-Catholic Christians took this up, Bibles might soon all be complete once again!!)

 

[francisca]

It wouldn’t be a problem if some people didn’t make a big thing out of it, denying that the angel said “Full of Grace”. The word used in the Greek original is a form of Charis, which is virtually always translated as Grace. However, for reasons of their own, from the KJV Bible on, protestants have consistently refused to use the word Grace where it applies to Mary. This is because they want to lower Mary’s status, and to argue against Catholic (and Orthodox) teaching with regard to her. Grace does have a particular meaning in the New Testament which goes above and beyond mere “favour”. It implies a specific salvific gift of God.

Unfortunately some modern Liberal Catholic translations NAB and NJB, have adopted the protestant practice of using “favour” instead.

It can be warped though, as above. Also some bibles, such as the Good News and the New International Version, do twist translations so that they reflect the theology of the translators. The NIV for example translates the same word as either tradition or teachings dependant on the setting. When it is condemned it is translated Tradition, when it is praised it is translated Teaching. This gives the false impression that the scriptures always condemn tradition.

“Translation does matter but not THAT much” was my answer to MarkA’s conclusion that

MarkA:

Conclusion:
Bible versions have been editted by those based on their teaching. Catholics use NAB because it has all the Books. KJV doesn’t have all the Books, thus Catholics don’t use it because it’s not complete, and it doesn’t cooperate with Catholic doctrine. We can say that Fundamentals like to use KJV because it stumps the Catholic teaching, knowing that KJV isn’t complete, they still use it hoping that the Catholic they are talking to doesn’t know what the difference in bibles are.

What I am saying is that God’s word cannot be twisted so easily as to play around with translations.

For example : “full of grace” and “highly favored”. As I read several translations (english bibles), the OT of these english bibles use “grace” in excange with “God’s favor, mercy, love, pleasing to God, and crown/ adornments of wisdom”. For example in Genesis “Noah found favor in God’s eyes” is translated in other bible “Noah was pleasing in God’s eyes” in other bible “Noah is gracious in God’s eyes”. Another example Zechariah 12:10 the word “spirit of grace” is translated “spirit of love” in another english bibles.

I do believe that translators have their reasons and “motives” when they choose words. Yet, I still believe that “grace” as in the greek word does include a lot of aspects of God’s love, God’s favor, holy spirit’s charisms, God’s mercy, God’s wisdom and God’s supplication. Because these are the reason that heroes in the old testaments were victorious (because God is on their side, being “gracious” to them). So then when these words appear in the OT, it was translated to “grace” in english. But the fact is, the word “grace” in greek is not really clearly literally equivalent with hebrew old testaments “grace” (This is what I conclude from reading several bible translations). When I tried to confirm with some people who know hebrew, they usually explain hebrew in relation to what they believe. Thus I think that hebrew is a very teaching-associative language: this is why we don’t have the word “hell” in hebrew, but “underworld” or “pit” instead, for example, so that the meaning of these words come from the teaching surrounding the word (as the teaching grows, the meaning becomes clearer), instead of unchangeable names of meanings. Thus I think the english “full of grace” and “highly favored” are equivalent (none is better translation over another). On the other hand, our own predispositions and prejudices about the text are the ones to make them “better” or “worse”.

Other factors such as denominational motives to use all means to prove their teachings, these are the ones to create error in translations. Ignorance, lack of equipments, obstacles to study the words are also factors of errors (but we have better and better equipments, so I believe, the modern the better !).

Thus denominational motives and our prejudices and our ignorance combined together, give us reasons to have dialogue to discuss and teach each other about what the bible (the scriptures) really wrote. So yeah, translations does matter, but not so much as to twist the word of God totally.