Why did the RCC change the Bible?

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…Continued from previous post

E. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

The Greek Church

The result of this tendency among the Greeks was that about the beginning of the twelfth century they possessed a canon identical with that of the Latins, except that it took in the apocryphal III Machabees. That all the deuteros were liturgically recognized in the Greek Church at the era of the schism in the ninth century, is indicated by the “Syntagma Canonum” of Photius.

The Latin Church

In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome’s depreciating Prologus. The compilatory “Glossa Ordinaria” was widely read and highly esteemed as a treasury of sacred learning during the Middle Ages; it embodied the prefaces in which the Doctor of Bethlehem had written in terms derogatory to the deuteros, and thus perpetuated and diffused his unfriendly opinion. And yet these doubts must be regarded as more or less academic. The countless manuscript copies of the Vulgate produced by these ages, with a slight, probably accidental, exception, uniformly embrace the complete Old Testament Ecclesiastical usage and Roman tradition held firmly to the canonical equality of all parts of the Old Testament There is no lack of evidence that during this long period the deuteros were read in the churches of Western Christendom. As to Roman authority, the catalogue of Innocent I appears in the collection of ecclesiastical canons sent by Pope Adrian I to Charlemagne, and adopted in 802 as the law of the Church in the Frankish Empire; Nicholas I, writing in 865 to the bishops of France, appeals to the same decree of Innocent as the ground on which all the sacred books are to be received.

Source
 
So I repeat my request: show us an authoritative canon of scripture that does not include the deuterocanonicals. Because, like it or not, that is all we Catholics will recognize.
Then you don’t recognize the canon Jerome actually translated?
 
Then you don’t recognize the canon Jerome actually translated?
I don’t recognize it (whatever it may have been – you have not proven that it did not contain the deuterocanonicals) as being an act of the Magisterium, no. And no Catholic would.
 
The canon of scripture was decided in Church councils guided by the Holy Spirit, not by the opinions of one man.
And Saint Jerome would have not dissented from the Church, but rather would have done what he did: Submit to the Church’s authority.

👍

– Mark L. Chance.
 
Then you don’t recognize the canon Jerome actually translated?
The only Canon I recognize is that given at Carthage and Hippo and then verified by the Council of Trent. From all evidence that I’ve seen, Jerome used this same canon, despite his personal opinions ot the contrary (and nobody is contesting what Jerome’s opinion was).
 
The only Canon I recognize is that given at Carthage and Hippo and then verified by the Council of Trent. From all evidence that I’ve seen, Jerome used this same canon, despite his personal opinions ot the contrary (and nobody is contesting what Jerome’s opinion was).
Exactly. Further (and the OP may have already addressed this question, I don’t know), if Jerome didn’t include the deuterocanonicals, when did they get added to the Vulgate? That would be a key point in the OP proving his contention.

But not, to emphasize again, his contention that the Church changed “the Bible”, but only that it may have brought Jerome’s version “up to code” later on. That’s the most that the OP could demonstrate.
 
And Saint Jerome would have not dissented from the Church, but rather would have done what he did: Submit to the Church’s authority.

👍

– Mark L. Chance.
I’ll refer you to the opening post of this thread.
 
Exactly. Further (and the OP may have already addressed this question, I don’t know), if Jerome didn’t include the deuterocanonicals, when did they get added to the Vulgate? That would be a key point in the OP proving his contention.

But not, to emphasize again, his contention that the Church changed “the Bible”, but only that it may have brought Jerome’s version “up to code” later on. That’s the most that the OP could demonstrate.
Why do we need to know when it happened? No one disputes that it did but whether it happened by decree, instantaneously or gradually is irrelevant to the point.
 
The only Canon I recognize is that given at Carthage and Hippo and then verified by the Council of Trent. From all evidence that I’ve seen, Jerome used this same canon, despite his personal opinions ot the contrary (and nobody is contesting what Jerome’s opinion was).
That’s fine. So you dispute the opinion of Dr. de Hamel.

Why?
 
That’s fine. So you dispute the opinion of Dr. de Hamel.

Why?
Steadfast, I don’t believe you understand. Dr. de Hamel said that the Vulgate started without the Deuterocanons and (I believe) you stated that the Catholic Church approved this Canon. Then Dr. de Hamel says that after Jerome died, the Deuterocanons made there way gradually into the Canon. If the Church approved of Jerome’s Canon, then it would be nothing more than heresy to allow the Deutero’s to creep back in. Since the Dr. claims that this happened over time, it’s safe to assume that several Popes allowed this. This would be heresy by numerous Church leaders.

If you think that people can just pull the wool over everyone’s eyes without no one raising a peep, then you don’t understand the Catholic Church, my friend.

It took over 300 years to decide upon a Canon. 300 years after the last book was written. Was this because they are all procrastinators?!? No!!! It’s because they wanted to make sure it was right.

It took almost 400 years to fully come to agreement over whether Jesus is True God AND True Man. And when any Church leader or leaders tried to change this (even one iota!!!) it raised a stink.

What Dr. de Hamel is trying to claim goes against:
A) Official Church History, and
B) The way the Catholic Church has functioned for over 1900 years.

It just doesn’t compute! That’s why we’d like a little proof other than the good Dr. fancy credentials. Like I said, even Galileo had to prove himself before any of his theories were accepted.
 
I’m not too sure about if the RCC changed the bible or not, but I noticed that ‘penance’ is talked about in Catholic bibles in places where Non-Catholic bibles say ‘repentance’ or ‘repent’. I have a few Greek Interlinear books with the original Greek form of the New Testament, and the use of the word ‘penance’ is inconsitant with the original Greek word used.

Strongs # 3340 metanoeo - repent
Strongs # 3341 metanoia - repentance

Mat 3:2 And saying: Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (DRB)

Mat 3:2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (KJV)

Mat 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say: Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (DRB)

Mat 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (KJV)

Luk 3:3 And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins. (DRB)

Luk 3:3 And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; (KJV)

(these examples were only deleted for space reasons and not with any editorial intent)

Rev 3:19 Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore and do penance. (DRB)

Rev 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. (KJV)
Very good work Chris although I’ve not confirmed that these are all correct quotes but I assume they are.

While Websters has these as definitions:

Repent: 1) To feel sorry for sin 2) To feel such regret over an action or intention as to change one’s mind.

Penance: Voluntary self-punishment to show repentance for wrongdoing.

The Church has a different definition of these words:

Repent: To have sorrow and hatred for the sin committed, together with a resolution not to sin again.

Penance: An interior conversion of heart toward God and away from sin with the intent to change one’s life in hope of divine mercy and an external act to conform the physical with the spiritual. This definition and application of the word “penance” differs greatly from the common Protestant application/definition that uses penance in the context of punishment.

Thus, the Catholic use of the word penance is to clarify that the change must be total (body, mind, will, and spirit). The use of a slightly different word are matters for scholars trying to get the best translation most consistent w/ the intent of the Author. And because of a difference of understanding/application of the word penance in different circles, those who translate may have to choose to use different words to insure that there is not a misunderstanding.

In the example you cite (penance vs. repent), the use of penance might make a non-Catholic believe the text means to self-punish yourself while a Catholic will understand that the word means make a total conversion. This is quite similar to how a Protestant would read the word repent.
 
Dr. Christopher de Hamel is being intellectually dishonest in his thesis.
That accusation is genuinely libellous, my friend: it is defamatory and unproven. Now, while I doubt very much that the good professor is going to want to track you down and sue you for defamation, it might be best to remember that we cannot actually know another person’s motivations.

I, too, think that De Hamel’s representation of events is inaccurate, but I would much rather ascribe that to the statistical necessity of the occasional mistake creeping into the volume of work which such a scholar produces, than to a deliberate attempt to alter the facts.

We are all just human, and making mistakes is what we do.
  1. Yes, Jerome questioned the Apochryphal / Deuterocanonical books because they weren’t written in Hebrew. But Jerome has been proven wrong. The Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed Hebrew texts on 6 of the 7 Deuterocanonical books. It would seem Mr. de Hamel would know this since this information is widely known. It’s interesting that he failed to mention that tidbit.
I have been looking for corroboration for this, and have failed to find it. Thus far, all I have found of the Vulgate deuterotexts in the inventory of the scrolls are a fragment of Tobit in Aramaic (4Q1962) and most of chapter 6 of Ecclesiasticus, in Hebrew (2Q18). Considering that the Essenes also had both Hebrew and LXX versions of texts, e.g., Exodus, we can safely say that they were not prejudiced against translations, which makes it all the more difficult to assert that the Hebrew version of Ecclesiasticus must be an original.

Do you have some other source for this?
 
E-Sword is a computer program that has mulitiple bible translations on it. You can look things up in any bible translation you want to, and compare how that same thing is rendered in another translation. I copied and pasted that Wisdom portion from it.
It is good, indeed. The one frustration which I have with it is that when I am doing a search for a Greek term in the GNT-V (Greek New Testament with variants for the different manuscripts), I have to order a search on the root form, and then sift through a lot of entries which are related words from the same root, or are different parts of speech from the same root, or are even completely different words which happen to have some morphological similarity.

Apart from that, it is great, not least because it is free! 😃
(Spot the impoverished student.)
 
Let’s look again at some of the text quoted in the OP:
Here then, follows the great irony of Jerome’s Latin Bible. The supreme value of Jerome’s scholarship as editor lay in his skill in assessing textual authenticity and in eliminating books and passages which he deemed inauthentic.** Jerome produced a Bible which was a model of scholarly caution and care. His judgments still carry weight.**
Ah, but the discernment of the canon is not, in the end, an act of scholarly caution and care! If it were, then it would not be infallible. And yet the discernment of the canon is indeed infallible, and is thus more than simply a scholarly exercise.
However, throughout all periods, members of the Bible-reading public have always been reluctant to sacrifice any familiar passage of scripture in bouts of textual spring-cleaning, however justified. Any sacred text is more likely to accumulate additions than to lose parts which might be authentic. To incorporate passages of unproven authenticity always seems less fearsome than to risk eliminating what might be divine text.
Jerome’s Bible, pruned against the Hebrew original, proved too purified for public acceptance. At some early stage, as it came to be copied and recopied and as it entered the life of the Latin-speaking Church, all the rejected books and passages found their way back in again.
“At some early stage”. That’s not very convincing. What is even less convincing is that we have at this time multiple Church Councils declaring the deuterocanonicals to be inspired, and yet we apparently (according to Dr. Hamel) have Jerome producing a bible with those books missing, and nobody says a peep about these omissions! Why not? Why the big silence? Why did the Church have to quietly, even secretly, slowly add back books that were judged by all relevant councils as inspired!? Why was the Church speaking out of both sides of its mouth regarding the canon of scripture? What possible reason could she have had?

The story makes no sense.
 
Let’s look again at some of the text quoted in the OP:

Ah, but the discernment of the canon is not, in the end, an act of scholarly caution and care! If it were, then it would not be infallible. And yet the discernment of the canon is indeed infallible, and is thus more than simply a scholarly exercise.

“At some early stage”. That’s not very convincing. What is even less convincing is that we have at this time multiple Church Councils declaring the deuterocanonicals to be inspired, and yet we apparently (according to Dr. Hamel) have Jerome producing a bible with those books missing, and nobody says a peep about these omissions! Why not? Why the big silence? Why did the Church have to quietly, even secretly, slowly add back books that were judged by all relevant councils as inspired!? Why was the Church speaking out of both sides of its mouth regarding the canon of scripture? What possible reason could she have had?

The story makes no sense.
Maybe you should write him a letter and ask him about it.
 
That accusation is genuinely libellous, my friend: it is defamatory and unproven. Now, while I doubt very much that the good professor is going to want to track you down and sue you for defamation, it might be best to remember that we cannot actually know another person’s motivations.

I, too, think that De Hamel’s representation of events is inaccurate, but I would much rather ascribe that to the statistical necessity of the occasional mistake creeping into the volume of work which such a scholar produces, than to a deliberate attempt to alter the facts.

We are all just human, and making mistakes is what we do.

I have been looking for corroboration for this, and have failed to find it. Thus far, all I have found of the Vulgate deuterotexts in the inventory of the scrolls are a fragment of Tobit in Aramaic (4Q1962) and most of chapter 6 of Ecclesiasticus, in Hebrew (2Q18). Considering that the Essenes also had both Hebrew and LXX versions of texts, e.g., Exodus, we can safely say that they were not prejudiced against translations, which makes it all the more difficult to assert that the Hebrew version of Ecclesiasticus must be an original.

Do you have some other source for this?
I’m sorry you feel that way about that libelous comment. I think Dr. de Hamel is purposely showing just one side of the story, and purposely leaving the other out. I know that’s common in Apologetics, but it shouldn’t be in “Science Research”.

As far as a source, only several Apologetics Sites. It seems like every time I read about the Dead Sea Scrolls, I hear that there are at least parts of 6 of the 7 Deutero Books in Hebrew. I’ll see if I can find them for you if it helps.
 
I have been looking for corroboration for this, and have failed to find it. Thus far, all I have found of the Vulgate deuterotexts in the inventory of the scrolls are a fragment of Tobit in Aramaic (4Q1962) and most of chapter 6 of Ecclesiasticus, in Hebrew (2Q18). Considering that the Essenes also had both Hebrew and LXX versions of texts, e.g., Exodus, we can safely say that they were not prejudiced against translations, which makes it all the more difficult to assert that the Hebrew version of Ecclesiasticus must be an original.

Do you have some other source for this?
Catholics United for the Faith
cuf.org
Scholars now know, based on evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, that some of the deuterocanonical books previously existed in Hebrew. The Jews of 100 A.D. did not know this.
Catholics for Truth
catholics-jhb.org
Interestingly, among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered near Qumran in 1947, fragments of the deuterocanonical Old Testament books found in Catholic Bibles, but not in those Protestants use, have been uncovered in Hebrew.
Finally, I’ve found something with a little more teeth from the Catholic-Legate.com
Another Jewish group, the Essenes, left us the dead sea scrolls where fragments or complete manuscript of protocanonical books can be found, except for Esther as well those of deuterocanonical Tobit, Sirach, Letter of Jeremiah and apocryphal Jubilee, 1 Enoch and Psalms 151. Even if the Essenes had a closed canon of their scripture, we may never know its limit with certainty.
I’ll see if I can find some more information. I found numerous accounts of Daniel and Ezra as well in there, but some say it was written in Aramaic. Maybe someone else can site a source?
 
I’m not the expert.
But you don’t have to be “the expert” to comment on the clear inclusion of the deuterocanonicals by three councils in the 4th century (and the lack of their rejection by any councils), and on the obvious contradiction if, at the very same time, the Church was accepting and promoting as an accurate reflection of that canon, a bible translation that excluded these books.
 
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