Why did the RCC change the Bible?

[vladimir998]

Jerome may have has some personal reservations about the Deuterocanonicals, but he accepted them. He put them into his translation, within the actual canon.

Also, Jerome once wrote:

"Does not the scripture say: 'Burden not thyself above thy power[SIRACH 13:2] " [Jerome, *To Eustochium, Epistle 108 (A.D. 404), in NPNF2, VI:207]

I know I have read other quotes from Jerome in his later life where he said similar things about other Deuterocanonical books, but I don’t have access to that info now.

I am almost positive it’s in the following book, however: Carolinne White, The correspondence (394-419), between Jerome and Augustine of Hippo, Lewiston : E. Mellen Press, c1990.

Anyone have a copy?

 

[vladimir998]

Steadfast,

You wrote:

“Would you care to offer the testimony of a scholar with at least similar credentials to the one I cite in the original post of this thread?”

You mean that truth is now dependent upon credentials of a person rather than the actual veracity of facts?

“You’re simply mistaken, the NT Canon of his Deutsche Bibel is exactly the sams as the one you find in your trusty Douai-Rheims.”

Now? Yes. In 1545? Yes. In 1522? I am not so sure. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, who was easily one of the greatest Lutheran scholars of the 20th century (before becoming Eastern Orthodox):
“In terms of order, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation come last in Luther’s New Testament because of his negative estimate of their apostolicity. In a catalogue of “The Books of the New Testament” which followed immediately upon his Preface to the New Testament… Luther regularly listed these four—without numbers—at the bottom of a list in which he named the other twenty-three books, in the order in which they still appear in English Bibles, and numbered them consecutively from 1–23 . . . a procedure identical to that with which he also listed the books of the Apocrypha.”

(Luther’s Works, 35, 393, footnote 43)
So, are you really so sure about what you claimed now? Do you have any evidence against what I just cited?
“As for him wanting to “burn” the Epistle of James. That’s a new one. I know that early in his career he called it “an epistle of straw” but I also know that as he matured his opinion of it improved rather dramatically until he came to describe it as containing many excellent passages.”

It’s not a new one. It’s an old one. You really have no idea of what you’re talking about do you?

Well, since I actually went through all 50 odd volumes of Luther’s madness, and still have a few notes even though I’ve moved twice, let me teach you what you don’t know.

Luther’s Works, volume 34, Career of the Reformer IV, edited by Lewis W. Spitz, (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1955), page 317:

“XIX. Against Thesis 21

“James [2:22] says that Abraham was justified by works. Therefore, justification is not by faith”

“Master Heinrich responds: James is speaking of works as the effect of justification, not as the cause.”

“Dr. Martin Luther: That epistle of James gives us much trouble, for the papists embrace it alone and leave out all the rest. Up to this point I have been accustomed just to deal with and interpret it according to the sense of the rest of the scriptures. For you will judge that none of it must be set forth contrary to manifest Holy Scripture. Accordingly, if they will not admit my interpretations, then I shall make rubble also of it. I almost feel like throwing Jimmy into the stove, as the priest in Kalenberg did.”
[the footnotes relates that a priest in Kalenberg burnt a statue of James to heat his room when visited by a duchess]

 

[vladimir998]

“If you’d be so kind, could you show me where Luther said he wanted to burn it?”

I have been so kind.

“And yet, even so, it wouldn’t bother me too terribly if he did say that, or something like it. Luther said a lot of strange things, many of which were copied from verbal discourses and garbled by scribes.”

And were apparently true too.

After all, about James, Luther said in a 1542 remark, recorded in one of the versions of Table-Talk:

“We should throw the Epistle of James out of this school [Wittenberg], for it doesn’t amount to much. It contains not a syllable about Christ. Not once does it mention Christ, except at the beginning [Jas. 1:1; 2:1]. I maintain that some Jew wrote it who probably heard about Christian people but never encountered any. Since he heard that Christians place great weight on faith in Christ, he thought, ‘Wait a moment! I’ll oppose them and urge works alone.’ This he did. He wrote not a word about the suffering and resurrection of Christ, although this is what all the apostles preached about. Besides, there’s no order or method in the epistle. Now he discusses clothing and then he writes about wrath and is constantly shifting from one to the other. He presents a comparison: ‘As the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead’ [Jas. 2:26]. O Mary, mother of God! What a terrible comparison that is! James compares faith with the body when he should rather have compared faith with the soul! The ancients recognized this, too, and therefore they didn’t acknowledge this letter as one of the catholic epistles.”

Luther’s Works, vol. 54, page 424.

Now, is there any appreciable difference between what he said in a licentiate examination and what he said in the Table Talk? Nope.

But you say: “This is why scholars generally reject the Tischereden, or “TableTalk” as evidential of his thought or opinion.”

Maybe some do, but there certainly seems to be a good deal of evidence here about what Luther thought about James doesn’t there?

As Dave Armstrong notes, “Paul Althaus writes:

“In the Preface to James in 1522 and still in 1543 Luther speaks of the “really main books.” He cannot include the Letter of James among them because James preaches the law instead of the gospel . . .

“After 1530, he even omitted the sharpest phrases in the Preface to James (for example, “Therefore I do not want to have him in my Bible”). Luther therefore did not intend that the congregations should continue to read these judgments. For himself and in speaking before his theological students he maintained his judgment of James even later. In this, however, he was for the most part concerned with preventing his Roman opponents from continually using James as an argument against the Reformation gospel than he was about the letter as such. (Althaus, 84-85)”

And Dave Armstrong notes, Preserved Smith noted that this appears in Luther’s own personal Bible in his own handwriting:

“To James i, 6 (But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering), he remarks, “That is the only good place in the whole epistle”; to i, 21 (Receive with meekness the engrafted word), “Others engrafted it, not this James”; to ii, 12 ff., “What a chaos!” and to ii, 24 (Ye see then that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only), “That is false.” (Smith, 269-270)

“It doesn;t stop Catholics, I know. Believe me, I know.”

I have no reason to believe what you think you know.

For OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE see:

http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_socrates58_archive.html#109615259350783122

 

[Steadfast]

Jerome may have has some personal reservations about the Deuterocanonicals, but he accepted them. He put them into his translation, within the actual canon.

Also, Jerome once wrote:

"Does not the scripture say: 'Burden not thyself above thy power[SIRACH 13:2] " [Jerome, *To Eustochium, Epistle 108 (A.D. 404), in NPNF2, VI:207]

I know I have read other quotes from Jerome in his later life where he said similar things about other Deuterocanonical books, but I don’t have access to that info now.

I am almost positive it’s in the following book, however: Carolinne White, The correspondence (394-419), between Jerome and Augustine of Hippo, Lewiston : E. Mellen Press, c1990.

Anyone have a copy?

This thread isn’t about Luther. It’s about Jerome, though I appreciate your attempt to shift the focus.

According to the scholar I quoted in the OP, Jereome didn’t translate them or include them, contrary to what we hear so constantly from some Catholics.

DO you have any testimony that says otherwise?

 

[RedDeathsMask]

This thread isn’t about Luther. It’s about Jerome, though I appreciate your attempt to shift the focus.

According to the scholar I quoted in the OP, Jereome didn’t translate them or include them, contrary to what we hear so constantly from some Catholics.

DO you have any testimony that says otherwise?

St. Jerome translated the books of Tobit and Judith at the request of the Bishops. He translated them from Aramaic texts, via an intepreter. The interpreter translated them into Hebrew and St. Jerome translated the Hebrew into Latin, because of this; the vulgate translation of these two books are considered sloppy. He also translated the additonal parts of Esther and Daniel. The rest of the deuterocanonicals were translated by his contemporaries.

 

[milimac]

***The Church Councils at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397, 419), influenced heavily by St. Augustine, listed the deuterocanonical books as Scripture, which was simply an endorsement of what had become the general consensus of the Church in the west and most of the east. ***

Pope Innocent I concurred with and sanctioned the canonical ruling of the above Councils (Letter to Exsuperius, Bishop of Toulouse) in 405. - this from Catholic Apologetics Network.

Ironic that the Protestant reformers refer to the councils at Hippo and Carthage to justify the New Testament canon, but reject these councils’ decisions on the Old Testament canon.

 

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“This thread isn’t about Luther. It’s about Jerome, though I appreciate your attempt to shift the focus.”

I didn’t try to shift the focus. I made a legitimate point. If someone says that the Church changed the Bible because Jerome believed in a shorter canon and the Catholic Church later defined a larger canon, then I don’t understand why someone else can’t make a similar (and in fact much more appropriate) point about the father of Protestantism.

“According to the scholar I quoted in the OP, Jereome didn’t translate them or include them, contrary to what we hear so constantly from some Catholics.”

And just because he said it that doesn’t necessarily make it so. Catholics have long recognized that Jerome did not necessarily translate all of the OT by himself, but may have used older texts. St. Jerome may have simply used extent versions of those books edited to his satisfaction. So what?

“DO you have any testimony that says otherwise?”

What you posted is not testimony. It is merely opinion, even if learned opinion, it is still opinion. I think the best testimony about the Deutercanonicals in relation to St. Jerome is that the books were kept no matter what Jerome believed. The Church believed in them even if Jerome may not have. That’s testimony.

 

[Steadfast]

Vlad, a scholar’s opinion can be described as a testimony.

I am going to go ahead and take your response as yet another “no” to my request.

Thanks for playing along.

 

[milimac]

My further contention is that there is no record whatsoever of Jerome encountering any censure for this but that his bible was accepted from his hand with gratitude by the Church as the authoritative Latin version.

Then those old texts started creeping back in. No Papal fiat brought about their immediate inclusion, they just gradually were readmitted. Human nature being what it is, people were loathe to let go of what they were used to.

Again, this all assumes that Jerome did NOT bow to Papal pressure and include them, which I don’t think you’ve established.

The final point is that the Bible as Jerome gave it to the church omitted these books, so, therefore the Church changed the Bible.

Again, I don’t think this has been established, but even if it could be, so what? It’s the Church’s perogative to determine the canon, not Jerome’s.

Now, you can argue that Jerome isn’t authoritative, and that his opinion is, ultimately irrelevant, but, in the absence of an official Church pronouncement denying Jerome’s opinion and the corresponding directive requiring the correction of his work, this becomes meaningless since it implies necessarily that the church effects dogmatic proclamation via a kind of laissez-faire vox populi alone, without Papal confirmation.

If your premises are true, I can see how you could look at it that way. I think what it really shows though is that the Church is at the service of the truth. Rather than establishing a teaching “out of thin air” because it suits the purposes of those in the hierarchy for some reason, and then having the faithful adhere to it, it seems that in a certain sense the Church does indeed effect dogmatic proclamation by a sort of vox populi of the faithful – but I wouldn’t make that Protestant tendency of tacking on the word “alone”.

Rather, as with many issues, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit the Church carefully considers the various points of view, and with her power to bind and loose defines doctrines if she is able to do so (as an example consider the question regarding the fate of unbaptized infants which has only been loosely defined). Also consider the issue of contraception. Supposedly the majority of cardinals and theologians were in support of it, not to mention the laity, but look what happened. Doctrine by laissez-faire vox populi? Hardly.

The question is whether the Catholic Church has all the inspired books and only the inspired books. The Church believes she has been given authority to make that determination after much discernment. If that’s not correct, then, as with many other issues, isn’t the best you can do an educated guess? It’s nice as a Catholic to know that I can put more faith in Christ and His Church than in myself at least for some things.

p.s. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you chose the provocative title for this post to get more people to respond. I would’ve chosen “Did the RCC change the Bible?” myself. It shows more of an intention to have an honest discussion than a bickering contest.

 

[vladimir998]

Steadfast,

You wrote:

“Vlad, a scholar’s opinion can be described as a testimony.”

Steadfast, it’s his opinion. I posted information which you ignored.

“I am going to go ahead and take your response as yet another “no” to my request.”

Maybe your request is meaningless. I see no proof offered for what your scholar claimed. Why is that?

“Thanks for playing along.”

Thanks for proving you knew nothing about Martin Luther’s Bible. Also, thanks for proving you know so little about Jerome or his vulgate. You proved this by simply refusing to address what I wrote. Thanks.

 

[Country_Wife]

Hi folks! I’ve just joined the forums so that I can discuss this issue with you. You see, I found your discussion when I received my new copy of de Hamel’s The Book in the mail yesterday, and the book just happened to fall open to the passage under discussion. I wasn’t too sure that de Hamel knew what he was talking about, and so I googled it and I’ve been reading your ongoing discussion with keen interest, as I had hoped to be able to add this book to our church library.

It seems to me that part of the question is, when it comes to the deuterocanonical books, does de Hamel actually know what he is talking about? Especially since the main thrust of the book is about the Bible as a physical book, not as a religious text. So I delved into the index, and found the following passages by de Hamel about the “Apocrypha”.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, “There are many books of the Bible, as mentioned. Some correspond to the Hebrew Bible as it has survived into modern times; others are texts now downgraded to the Apocrypha, like the original Hebrew text of the book of Enoch…All these suggest the availability of a body of Jewish biblical and semi-biblical material much more extensive than was ever imagined, all mixing freely with the regular books of the Old Testament.” (p. 328)

After 1532, “Luther then turned to translating the Apocrypha…The entire Bible in Luther’s translation was finally published as a single consecutive entity in Wittenberg in the autumn of 1534.” (p. 232)

“Luther honored and preserved the entire Bible. His more radical colleagues might not have agreed with him. Since the Gospels were the central text of Christianity, some Reformers argued that no other texts were necessary, or that other parts of the Bible had no logical purpose except in so far as they predicted or proclaimed the Gospels and the life of Christ. This line of reasoning opened the possibility of radical reformation of the Bible too. If the pope and bishops could be pruned away as unnecessary accretions, why not parts of the Bible too? There was a moment in the 1520s then the Reformers were casting off so many of the long-established traditions of the Roman Church that they might easily have been carried away into paring away considerable parts of the Bible and the Aprocrypha as irrelevant. The canon of the Bible was probably ore in danger in the early sixteenth century than at any period since the fourth century. Reformers looked again at the credentials of each biblical text. It is difficult to find explicit allusions to Christ in some books of the Bible, such as the Song of Songs (always a strangely worrying text), or the Book of Esther (which never even mentions God) or the Apocalypse. . . [Luther] simply accepted all books of the Bible as inspired by the Holy Ghost, but not all as being of equal value. He compared the lesser books of the Bible with the straw in the manger in Bethlehem, which was laid there by the Holy Ghost. Elsewhere he compared them to the swaddling bands which wrapped the Child.” (p. 234)

“The Latin Vulgate and all Catholic translations of the Bile defiantly included the Apocrypha. It became one of the distinguishing tenets of Catholicism. . . The doctrinal vlue of the Apocrypha is rejected in the sixth of the Thirty-Nine Articles, the defining document of the Chruch of England, written in 1562 and still technical valid. The Westminster Confession, the constitutional of the Presbyterian Church (1646-8) banished it utterly.” (p. 289)

“The most common Syriac translation of the Bible is called the Peshitta, meaning ‘simple’ (a term first applied to the text in the early tenth century. Its date is still disputed but it was certainly in wide circulation by the mid-fifth century and parts of it might date back to very considerably earlier. The most primitive manuscripts of the Old Testament Peshitta omit the Apocrypha and the books of Chronicles. The New Testament Peshitta omits the book of revelations and the epistles of II Peter, II-III John and Jude. At the moment the Peshitta was being prepared, therefore, these texts were probably unavailable in the translators’ exemplars, a rather negative but interesting glimpse of the evolution of the biblical canon in the Near East.” (p. 307)

Now that we have a broader picture of what de Hamel says about the deuterocanonical books, where does that take us?

 

[NotWorthy]

Hi folks! I’ve just joined the forums so that I can discuss this issue with you. You see, I found your discussion when I received my new copy of de Hamel’s The Book in the mail yesterday, and the book just happened to fall open to the passage under discussion. I wasn’t too sure that de Hamel knew what he was talking about, and so I googled it and I’ve been reading your ongoing discussion with keen interest, as I had hoped to be able to add this book to our church library.

It seems to me that part of the question is, when it comes to the deuterocanonical books, does de Hamel actually know what he is talking about? Especially since the main thrust of the book is about the Bible as a physical book, not as a religious text. So I delved into the index, and found the following passages by de Hamel about the “Apocrypha”.

Now that we have a broader picture of what de Hamel says about the deuterocanonical books, where does that take us?

I don’t think it takes us anywhere. Steadfast still hasn’t proved that
a) Jerome took the books out, and
b) the books slowly crept back in over time.

Good work, though Country Wife, and welcome to the Forums!!!

 

[misko1099]

Premise: St. Jerome did not include a translation of the Deuterocanonicals in his “Bible.”

This is false. Why? Because St. Jerome did not translate (compile, assemble, etc.) a Bible. According to Leslie J. Hoppe, Ph.D., OFM: "The result of efforts to provide a new Latin translation of the Bible is popularly known as the Vulgate… But Jerome was not responsible for the Vulgate as it has come down to us. The only New Testament books he worked on were the Gospels.

It is natural to assume that, after completing his work on the Gospels, Jerome would have then turned to the rest of the New Testament, but there is little evidence that he did. After he published his revision of the Old Latin Gospels, Jerome turned to the Old Testament. In the course of 15 years of work, Jerome translated all the books of the Hebrew Bible.

It is a mistake to identify his work with the Vulgate as it exists today. In Jerome’s time, most manuscripts of the Bible in Latin contained only a few books—not the entire Bible. Assembling manuscripts to make a complete Bible usually meant bringing together manuscripts from a variety of Latin translations. The Vulgate was created by assembling books from a variety of sources, including Jerome. That is how the rest of the New Testament became connected with his work.

As is the case with any new translation, it took a while for people to become accustomed to the new phraseology. They quickly accepted his revision of the Gospels since it had a certain official status. After all, the pope commissioned it. Also, his work on the Gospels was conservative. He did not offer a fresh translation but simply revised the Old Latin translations that were already familiar to readers.

Translation of the Old Testament was another matter. Jerome undertook translating the Old Testament on his own initiative, so his translation had to achieve acceptance on its own merits (CR Meyer Manpower Planner)."

Here we have a Catholic “expert” sketching out St. Jerome’s translation activities and giving him no credit for translating the entirety of the Vulgate, nor any other approved Bible for that matter. Can we all finally acknowledge then that St. Jerome did not translate (compile, assemble, etc.) a Bible? If so, then this argument has no substance. We cannot make a content comparison between St. Jerome’s Bible translation (which never existed) and Luther’s. As such we cannot discuss the merits of Luther’s inclusion of the Deuterocanonicals against St. Jerome’s exclusion.

Can we acknowledge that Luther has been wrongly accused by some Catholics of disassembling the canon of scripture (eventhough he did relegate some books)? I will leave that to someone else…

 

[sterryfamily]

Can we acknowledge that Luther has been wrongly accused by some Catholics of disassembling the canon of scripture (eventhough he did relegate some books)? I will leave that to someone else…

For my part, it is only the matter of Luther’s demonstrated (and doctrinally selective) disdain for some of the canon. It is not a matter of what he was finally persuaded to include or not include in his various versions.

 

[Janet_S]

I found evidence that Jerome tranlated at least 4 of the deuterocanonical books between the years 390-405 AD.

Here is a website where you can read English translations of Jerome’s Prologues to books of scriptures while he was translating the Latin Vulgate between the years 390-405 AD:

bombaxo.com/blog/?p=239

Jerome sent these Prologues as “cover letters” (usually addressed to bishops) to accompany his translations of the various books of the OT & NT. At this website you can read the Prologues to Tobit, Judith, and the Books of Solomon (Wisdom & Sirach are included in the Books of Solomon). These are 4 of the 7 deuterocanonical books.

In these prologues, he describes his experiences while translating the particular books. If he wrote a prologue about a particular scriptural book, this can be considered evidence that he actually translated it.

 

[Country_Wife]

I’ve been reading de Hamel’s book, and it’s interesting. Since he’s not a Catholic, nor writing for a Catholic audience, the whole issue of the Deuterocanonical books is not an important one for him. But here is the picture that I have pieced together from de Hamel:

1. He says himself that Jerome did translate Tobit and Judith, but that they were “afterwards rejected by him”. (These books are listed in a larger summary of the origins of the Vulgate books on pp. 22-24.) Jerome wrote prologues for Tobit and Judith; his prologue to Ecclesiastes (beginning “Memini me…”) served for all the Books of Solomon: Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus. As for the Prologues, De Hamel says that “at a very early date --probably not in Jerome’s lifetime–prologues were grafted on to the text…In most Latin Bibles these are explicitly attributed to Jerome by name. This is accurate, but they were mostly excerpted from other books by Jerome rather than designed originally for inclusion with the Bible. Some were extracted form the letters written by Jerome to his disciple Brother Ambrosius (Epistles 52-53 in printed editions). Others came tfrom Jerome’s book on famous weriters, De Viris Illustribus.” (p.20)
2. Jerome was not the first person to translate the books of the Bible into Latin. In fact, his job (first commissioned by the Church for the New Testament, and later done freelance for the Old Testament) was to prepare a new translation which would be an improvement on the existing “Old Latin” translation which was then circulating. Jerome’s translation did not immediately supplant the Old Latin translation; in fact, for almost 400 years, both translations were in use. To this day, many Bibles in Old Latin survive, some made quite sumptuously on purple parchment with gold or silver ink. (de Hamel says that Jerome disapproved of “books . . . laid out on purple skins in gold and silver”. (p. 54; cf p.27, fig. 10)
3. In the days of Jerome, the Bible was not a single book. Instead, it was a set of books all bound separately, often in matching covers (rather like a modern encyclopedia). The oldest surviving Bible which has all the books bound together in one volume is the Codex Amiatinus, which dates to c.716. (p.33) This kind of volume, with all the parts in the Bible in one place, was so unusual that it received a special name; the one-volume Bible was dubbed the pandect (from Gk “pan” (all) + “dekhesthai” (to receive)).

So it seems that the scenario which de Hamel pictures is that Jerome translated a number of books of the Bible (the New Testament officially, and the Old Testament on his own initiative). After much study, he rejected the deuterocanonical books (including two which he had already translated) as being “unbiblical”. Why? Because they weren’t in the Hebrew Bible, just in the Septuagint–the same rationale used at the time of the Reformation. However, Jerome was wrong, and his scholarly opinion was never adopted as the official position of the Church.

The deuterocanonical books in the Vulgate (aside from Judith and Tobit) were not translated by Jerome, but are the Old Latin versions. Since the books were all bound separately, it’s hard to see how de Hamel can produce strong evidence for his contention that they “crept back” into the Bible. It’s equally valid to say that Jerome’s rejection of the deuterocanonical books was never official, so it’s not surprising that Jerome’s translations circulated of the other books of the Bible were complemented by the Old Latin versions of the books which he did not translate because, in Jerome’s (erroneous) opinion, they didn’t belong in the Bible.

(BTW, I was interested to read de Hamel’s suggestion that Christianity and the Bible may have played an important role in the adoption of the codex (bound book) over the previous technology, the scroll.))

 

[Janet_S]

I

So it seems that the scenario which de Hamel pictures is that Jerome translated a number of books of the Bible (the New Testament officially, and the Old Testament on his own initiative). After much study, he rejected the deuterocanonical books (including two which he had already translated) as being “unbiblical”. Why? Because they weren’t in the Hebrew Bible, just in the Septuagint–the same rationale used at the time of the Reformation. However, Jerome was wrong, and his scholarly opinion was never adopted as the official position of the Church

 

[Janet_S]

QUOTE=Steadfast;1531224]Jerome’s answer to Rufinus was written four years before he completed the translation of the Old Testament. He was answering him with regard to commentaries he began writing back in the later 380’s.

Sorry, I misquoted Steadfast, he did not say “Against Rufinus” was written before Jerome started translating the Vulgate. He said it was written four years before he completed the translation of the OT. Actually “Rufinus” was written in AD 402, twelve years after he started and three years before he completed the translation.

As Dr. de Hamel points out, Jerome’s attitude toward the OT apocrypha underwent a change as he went about his work. This change of opinion altered the outcome of his work such that Latin texts he had prepared for parts of Tobit and Judith from the Greek were now jettisoned in favor of translation directly from the Hebrew manuscripts he had at the time. His growing confidence in the essential canonicity of those texts had led him to the conclusion de Hamel outlines.

We know what he wrote in AD 402, that he accepted the Church’s authority, but where can we find writings of Jerome after AD 402 that show he refused to include these books (Judith, Tobit, I & II Maccabbes, Wisdom, Baruch, Sirach) in his Vulgate translation? If he had a change of opinion after AD 402, what was it and where can we find it? The Prologues to Judith and Tobit don’t seem to indicate this change.

 

[NotWorthy]

We know what he wrote in AD 402, that he accepted the Church’s authority, but where can we find writings of Jerome after AD 402 that show he refused to include these books (Judith, Tobit, I & II Maccabbes, Wisdom, Baruch, Sirach) in his Vulgate translation? If he had a change of opinion after AD 402, what was it and where can we find it? The Prologues to Judith and Tobit don’t seem to indicate this change.

Janet, you don’t understand. de Hamel is an expert and you’re not.

So case closed!

 

[Country_Wife]

This does not make sense to me, that Jerome would translate two books (Tobit and Judith) and then reject them afterwards because they were “unbiblical” since they were not in the Hebrew Bible. He certainly knew beforehand that they were not in the Hebrew canon. Why bother translating them if you had this notion that only those books in the Hebrew canon were “biblical.” This sounds like a re-working of history to bolster support for the Protestant position on the OT canon …

The explanation which de Hamel gives is that Jerome went through two main phases in his translations; first, he translated from Greek (as you know, the NT and Septuagint are in Greek) and then, around 390, he began to learn Hebrew; for the next 15 years or so, he was studying and then translating from Hebrew. It was as he was doing the Hebrew translations that the differences between the Hebrew language books of the Bible and the books in the Septuagint became increasingly evident to him, and he decided to reject anything not found in Hebrew. (pp. 18-20) De Hamel says that Jerome’s statement on rejecting the books of the Bible not found in the Hebrew version is in his prologue to the books of Kings.

It’s interesting to note that apparently neither Steadfast nor any of the other posters waving the banner of “de Hamel, noted Bible authority” seem to have actually read his book or even held it in their hands. If they had, surely we would be getting this information from them. But Jerome’s reasons for rejecting the deuterocanonical books just boil down to the same old argument about the deuterocanonicals which is familiar from the Reformation, and it has been made and rebutted many, many times since then. And these arguments have never been accepted by the church. It is quite interesting, in fact, to note that the Reformers who rejected the deuterocanon had not made a new discovery about these books which suddenly required their rejection; Jerome had known it, and his comments about it apparently had been part of the Vulgate for centuries.