03-23-2021, 02:29 PM
2. Incorrect Choice of Words
Second, regarding the meanings of the words used by the original biblical writers, who is going to be a better judge of the exact meanings of the various Hebrew and Greek words employed in Scripture: St. Jerome, who was Greek speaking from birth, who knew Latin as well as most of us know English, and who knew Hebrew almost as well, who was also a towering linguistic genius, a great Saint, a holy Doctor of the Church, and one of the four Great Western Fathers of the Church; or, is it going to be the modern scholars, who have to learn their ancient Latin, Greek and Hebrew from grammars and lexicons, from dictionaries and from professors who (presumably) do not speak the language natively either and who themselves have thus had to learn it—and so forth, Incorrect Choice of Words 17 back through time, during the course of some 1600 years? The far safer bet is St. Jerome!
On this second point, concerning which meaning of the original words of Scripture to use in making translations, one should consider momentarily the English word “grace” and its various meanings. It can mean “supernatural life,” “unmerited divine assistance,” “a prayer said before meals,” “an instance of human kindness,” “pardon,” “a reprieve,” “to be in one’s favor,” “ease and suppleness of movement,” “a charming trait,” “a title of address” (e.g., “Your Grace”), etc. The same problem exists in the ancient languages, Greek and Hebrew, in which the Bible was originally written.
The translators of the modern Catholic bibles in question would seem to be choosing the wrong meaning to words in many, many instances. Granted, they generally do have one of the correct meanings of a given word in question, but have they chosen the correct meaning of the word in every instance? From the results of their translations, it would seem not—and this can be seen merely by the crazy way the passages often read when they get done.
Again, consider the word “grace”—in Greek, charis. As one conservative Catholic professor of Hebrew, Greek and Latin told this author, by the time St. Paul wrote, the Greek word charis already had its specifically Christian theological meaning of “grace.” And St. Jerome corresponded to St. Paul’s meaning by translating charis into Latin as gratia, which in English becomes “grace.”
(Let us remember that the Septuagint— the Old Testament Bible in Greek, dating from circa 284 B.C.—had been rendered into that language some 300 years before St. Paul wrote, and therefore the meanings of the words St. Paul and the other New Testament writers used in the original Greek of the New Testament were already well established in most cases.)
But the translators of the New American Bible, for example, render Luke 1:28— which traditionally reads, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women” (DRB)—as, “Rejoice, O highly favored daughter! . . .” (NAB, ’70. The NAB, ’86 has “Hail, favored one!”).
It does not take any particular mental acumen to distinguish the difference between being “full of grace” and “highly Incorrect Choice of Words 19 favored.” “Favor” or “favored” is one of the meanings for charis, but not the one intended by St. Luke in Scripture. A person may be highly favored with any number of talents and abilities, or with good looks or plenty of money, and so forth. But does that mean he or she is therefore “full of grace”? We understand Our Lady to be “full of grace” in the sense of being absolutely full of God’s divine life (Sanctifying Grace), so that there is no sin in her soul whatsoever. What a difference in meanings!
3. Interpreting Rather than Translating
And thirdly, concerning the method of translating employed by the translators of the modern Catholic Bibles, this writer believes it can be demonstrated clearly where they are mistaken; and this point alone brings into question the value of their entire work.
The ancient translators of the Sacred Scripture, by and large, did literal, word-for-word translations of the Bible. It was their policy to be faithful to every word— and to every shade of meaning of every word—used in the Bible. This included the 72 Hebrew scholars who translated the Old Testament into Greek at Alexandria, Egypt, about 284 B.C.; the translator(s) of the Old Itala (Vetus Itala) Latin Bible of about 150 A.D.; and of course, St. Jerome, who did the Latin Vulgate Bible and who finished his work about 405 A.D. The same is true of the original Douay-Rheims commission (1582-1610), of Bishop Richard Challoner (1748-1751), and of Mgr. Kenrick (1859).
However, the translators of the modern Catholic bibles—in the judgment of this writer, after reading their translations and comparing them to the Douay-Rheims, the Vulgate and the Greek of the New Testament— are proceeding according to the following method:
They read a text in the current transcriptions of the original languages, decide what THEY THINK it means, and then translate THEIR interpretation into English! The result is that the English is sometimes (not always!) easier to understand, but it is not necessarily what the Bible says; rather, it is THEIR INTERPRETATION AND THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS! And often the difference from the Vulgate and DRB, the traditional Catholic versions, is glaring.
Sample Problem Passages
At this point let us consider some examples of the devastating results to Sacred Scripture from these three—what this writer believes to be—mistakes of the translators of the modern Catholic editions of the Bible. One should remember that these “mistakes,” as maintained here, are 1) the use of transcriptions from ancient texts that are questionable and that disagree with the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome, 2) the wrong choice of meanings of words in certain specific cases (though these poorly chosen meanings would be legitimate meanings when used in other contexts), and 3) translating their INTERPRETATION of what the Bible means, as opposed to translating what the Bible actually says.
“She Shall Crush Thy Head . . .”
In Genesis 3:15 (Douay-Rheims Bible) we read God’s judgment against Lucifer for his part in Original Sin, as well as God’s prophecy concerning him: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” (DRB).
All three modern Catholic translations are fundamentally different from the Douay-Rheims, but all basically agree with each other. First in order is the translation of the New American Bible, the one used in the Catholic liturgy today:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” (NAB, ’70 and ’86). This renders a very different meaning indeed from the Douay-Rheims version. Now read how the other versions render this passage:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (CRSV, ’66).
“I will make you enemies of each other: “She Shall Crush Thy Head . . .” 23 you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.” (JB, ’66).
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your brood and hers. They [note the plural] shall strike at your head, and you shall strike at their heel.” (NEB, ’76).
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (NIV, ’78).
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (NKJV, ’85).
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” (NRSV, ’89).
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” (NASV, ’77).
Note how the Douay-Rheims makes perfect sense, but the others are confusing. (The words literally “swim” on the page.) All of the English versions other than the Douay-Rheims translate this verse in a very similar manner: The JB takes the pronoun to be neuter, “it” (seemingly an indecisive “cop-out”), and the NEB takes it to be plural, referring to the woman’s “brood.” But most take the pronoun to be masculine, referring to Our Lord as the one to “bruise” or “crush” the head of the serpent, rather than “she,” referring to Our Lady. Some may think this a “small” difference, but in fact, it is very great indeed. For, from this prophecy in the Douay-Rheims comes a longstanding Catholic tradition that toward the End of Time the Blessed Virgin Mary will crush the head of Satan, after her devotees have promoted her honor and devotion and directed countless prayers for her intercession during a long period of time. This ancient tradition, which is based on Genesis 3:15, is in danger of being relegated to the scrap-heap if we accept these non-traditional translations.
Consider what Bl. Pius IX (Pope, 1846- 1878) wrote on this score in his bull Ineffabilis Deus, declaring the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (December 8, 1854). After citing the writings of the Fathers of the Church “She Shall Crush Thy Head . . .” 25 and other learned writers, he concludes: “Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with Him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with Him and through Him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.”
The Douay-Rheims, following the Vulgate, is the only English Bible that translates this passage with “she shall crush” and “thou shalt lie in wait for her heel,” the reference being to Blessed Virgin Mary’s ultimately defeating the devil and his minions in a great spiritual battle, with the final victory being attributed to her intercession. Now this is exactly the traditional Catholic translation of this passage. Moreover, translated this way, the text makes perfect sense; translated the new way, it is confusing! One should stop here to read the passage again from the Douay-Rheims on page 23, paragraph 1, and see how nicely the meaning flows when it refers to the woman in both clauses, plus how meaningful the second clause is compared to the second clause in all the other translations.
In light of these new translations of Genesis 3:15, what is to become of this Catholic tradition about the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in defeating the devil?—a tradition reinforced, it might be added, by Our Lady’s apparition to St. Catherine Labouré in 1831, wherein she gave us the Miraculous Medal, whose image presents her standing on the world and crushing the head of a serpent with her foot. The truth of this apparition is reinforced by the presence of St. Catherine’s beautiful, incorrupt body in the Chapel of the Daughters of Charity, at 140 rue de Bac in Paris, of which order she was a member. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit this chapel every year to view her body, which is on open display and which is a phenomenal, on-going testimony to the truth of this apparition—and ultimately to the truth of the Catholic tradition that “she,” the Blessed Mother, shall crush the serpent’s head!
This prophecy of Genesis 3:15 is also depicted by millions of statues and pictures throughout the world which represent this prophesied event. Are we and our (at least) 1600-year-old tradition wrong in this re- “She Shall Crush Thy Head . . .” 27 gard, and are the modern biblical exegetes and translators right? Has the Church been misguided on this important point these many centuries? Was the Holy Ghost “asleep on the job” and let this “little translation error” slip by Him? Or, has Almighty God for His own good reasons allowed the modern translators to be led astray . . . and with them the poor souls who have to sift for Scripture’s meaning through the tailings of their translations?
Second, regarding the meanings of the words used by the original biblical writers, who is going to be a better judge of the exact meanings of the various Hebrew and Greek words employed in Scripture: St. Jerome, who was Greek speaking from birth, who knew Latin as well as most of us know English, and who knew Hebrew almost as well, who was also a towering linguistic genius, a great Saint, a holy Doctor of the Church, and one of the four Great Western Fathers of the Church; or, is it going to be the modern scholars, who have to learn their ancient Latin, Greek and Hebrew from grammars and lexicons, from dictionaries and from professors who (presumably) do not speak the language natively either and who themselves have thus had to learn it—and so forth, Incorrect Choice of Words 17 back through time, during the course of some 1600 years? The far safer bet is St. Jerome!
On this second point, concerning which meaning of the original words of Scripture to use in making translations, one should consider momentarily the English word “grace” and its various meanings. It can mean “supernatural life,” “unmerited divine assistance,” “a prayer said before meals,” “an instance of human kindness,” “pardon,” “a reprieve,” “to be in one’s favor,” “ease and suppleness of movement,” “a charming trait,” “a title of address” (e.g., “Your Grace”), etc. The same problem exists in the ancient languages, Greek and Hebrew, in which the Bible was originally written.
The translators of the modern Catholic bibles in question would seem to be choosing the wrong meaning to words in many, many instances. Granted, they generally do have one of the correct meanings of a given word in question, but have they chosen the correct meaning of the word in every instance? From the results of their translations, it would seem not—and this can be seen merely by the crazy way the passages often read when they get done.
Again, consider the word “grace”—in Greek, charis. As one conservative Catholic professor of Hebrew, Greek and Latin told this author, by the time St. Paul wrote, the Greek word charis already had its specifically Christian theological meaning of “grace.” And St. Jerome corresponded to St. Paul’s meaning by translating charis into Latin as gratia, which in English becomes “grace.”
(Let us remember that the Septuagint— the Old Testament Bible in Greek, dating from circa 284 B.C.—had been rendered into that language some 300 years before St. Paul wrote, and therefore the meanings of the words St. Paul and the other New Testament writers used in the original Greek of the New Testament were already well established in most cases.)
But the translators of the New American Bible, for example, render Luke 1:28— which traditionally reads, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women” (DRB)—as, “Rejoice, O highly favored daughter! . . .” (NAB, ’70. The NAB, ’86 has “Hail, favored one!”).
It does not take any particular mental acumen to distinguish the difference between being “full of grace” and “highly Incorrect Choice of Words 19 favored.” “Favor” or “favored” is one of the meanings for charis, but not the one intended by St. Luke in Scripture. A person may be highly favored with any number of talents and abilities, or with good looks or plenty of money, and so forth. But does that mean he or she is therefore “full of grace”? We understand Our Lady to be “full of grace” in the sense of being absolutely full of God’s divine life (Sanctifying Grace), so that there is no sin in her soul whatsoever. What a difference in meanings!
3. Interpreting Rather than Translating
And thirdly, concerning the method of translating employed by the translators of the modern Catholic Bibles, this writer believes it can be demonstrated clearly where they are mistaken; and this point alone brings into question the value of their entire work.
The ancient translators of the Sacred Scripture, by and large, did literal, word-for-word translations of the Bible. It was their policy to be faithful to every word— and to every shade of meaning of every word—used in the Bible. This included the 72 Hebrew scholars who translated the Old Testament into Greek at Alexandria, Egypt, about 284 B.C.; the translator(s) of the Old Itala (Vetus Itala) Latin Bible of about 150 A.D.; and of course, St. Jerome, who did the Latin Vulgate Bible and who finished his work about 405 A.D. The same is true of the original Douay-Rheims commission (1582-1610), of Bishop Richard Challoner (1748-1751), and of Mgr. Kenrick (1859).
However, the translators of the modern Catholic bibles—in the judgment of this writer, after reading their translations and comparing them to the Douay-Rheims, the Vulgate and the Greek of the New Testament— are proceeding according to the following method:
They read a text in the current transcriptions of the original languages, decide what THEY THINK it means, and then translate THEIR interpretation into English! The result is that the English is sometimes (not always!) easier to understand, but it is not necessarily what the Bible says; rather, it is THEIR INTERPRETATION AND THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS! And often the difference from the Vulgate and DRB, the traditional Catholic versions, is glaring.
Sample Problem Passages
At this point let us consider some examples of the devastating results to Sacred Scripture from these three—what this writer believes to be—mistakes of the translators of the modern Catholic editions of the Bible. One should remember that these “mistakes,” as maintained here, are 1) the use of transcriptions from ancient texts that are questionable and that disagree with the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome, 2) the wrong choice of meanings of words in certain specific cases (though these poorly chosen meanings would be legitimate meanings when used in other contexts), and 3) translating their INTERPRETATION of what the Bible means, as opposed to translating what the Bible actually says.
“She Shall Crush Thy Head . . .”
In Genesis 3:15 (Douay-Rheims Bible) we read God’s judgment against Lucifer for his part in Original Sin, as well as God’s prophecy concerning him: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” (DRB).
All three modern Catholic translations are fundamentally different from the Douay-Rheims, but all basically agree with each other. First in order is the translation of the New American Bible, the one used in the Catholic liturgy today:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” (NAB, ’70 and ’86). This renders a very different meaning indeed from the Douay-Rheims version. Now read how the other versions render this passage:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (CRSV, ’66).
“I will make you enemies of each other: “She Shall Crush Thy Head . . .” 23 you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.” (JB, ’66).
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your brood and hers. They [note the plural] shall strike at your head, and you shall strike at their heel.” (NEB, ’76).
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (NIV, ’78).
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (NKJV, ’85).
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” (NRSV, ’89).
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” (NASV, ’77).
Note how the Douay-Rheims makes perfect sense, but the others are confusing. (The words literally “swim” on the page.) All of the English versions other than the Douay-Rheims translate this verse in a very similar manner: The JB takes the pronoun to be neuter, “it” (seemingly an indecisive “cop-out”), and the NEB takes it to be plural, referring to the woman’s “brood.” But most take the pronoun to be masculine, referring to Our Lord as the one to “bruise” or “crush” the head of the serpent, rather than “she,” referring to Our Lady. Some may think this a “small” difference, but in fact, it is very great indeed. For, from this prophecy in the Douay-Rheims comes a longstanding Catholic tradition that toward the End of Time the Blessed Virgin Mary will crush the head of Satan, after her devotees have promoted her honor and devotion and directed countless prayers for her intercession during a long period of time. This ancient tradition, which is based on Genesis 3:15, is in danger of being relegated to the scrap-heap if we accept these non-traditional translations.
Consider what Bl. Pius IX (Pope, 1846- 1878) wrote on this score in his bull Ineffabilis Deus, declaring the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (December 8, 1854). After citing the writings of the Fathers of the Church “She Shall Crush Thy Head . . .” 25 and other learned writers, he concludes: “Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with Him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with Him and through Him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.”
The Douay-Rheims, following the Vulgate, is the only English Bible that translates this passage with “she shall crush” and “thou shalt lie in wait for her heel,” the reference being to Blessed Virgin Mary’s ultimately defeating the devil and his minions in a great spiritual battle, with the final victory being attributed to her intercession. Now this is exactly the traditional Catholic translation of this passage. Moreover, translated this way, the text makes perfect sense; translated the new way, it is confusing! One should stop here to read the passage again from the Douay-Rheims on page 23, paragraph 1, and see how nicely the meaning flows when it refers to the woman in both clauses, plus how meaningful the second clause is compared to the second clause in all the other translations.
In light of these new translations of Genesis 3:15, what is to become of this Catholic tradition about the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in defeating the devil?—a tradition reinforced, it might be added, by Our Lady’s apparition to St. Catherine Labouré in 1831, wherein she gave us the Miraculous Medal, whose image presents her standing on the world and crushing the head of a serpent with her foot. The truth of this apparition is reinforced by the presence of St. Catherine’s beautiful, incorrupt body in the Chapel of the Daughters of Charity, at 140 rue de Bac in Paris, of which order she was a member. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit this chapel every year to view her body, which is on open display and which is a phenomenal, on-going testimony to the truth of this apparition—and ultimately to the truth of the Catholic tradition that “she,” the Blessed Mother, shall crush the serpent’s head!
This prophecy of Genesis 3:15 is also depicted by millions of statues and pictures throughout the world which represent this prophesied event. Are we and our (at least) 1600-year-old tradition wrong in this re- “She Shall Crush Thy Head . . .” 27 gard, and are the modern biblical exegetes and translators right? Has the Church been misguided on this important point these many centuries? Was the Holy Ghost “asleep on the job” and let this “little translation error” slip by Him? Or, has Almighty God for His own good reasons allowed the modern translators to be led astray . . . and with them the poor souls who have to sift for Scripture’s meaning through the tailings of their translations?