Originally posted by orfeo:
And of course, I always feel comforted in my position on the weakness of tradition by the knowledge that Cyprian took exactly the same view in the 3rd Century.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
(RCs could argue that since the Vulgate has been authoritatively declared to contain no error concerning Christian faith and morals, "maxime" must be considered as not standing against correct scripture interpretation.
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
Oh wow. I didn’t know that there was a RC equivalent to King-James-Onlyism. Is this a common belief in the RCC?
quote:Now I find all this pretty interesting and would love some input from the other RC's on the ship. Is it the case that the RCC considers the Vulgate to be in a sense a divinely trustworthy translation? Is it the only divinely trustworthy translation? How does this interrelate with modern scholarship on ancient Hebrew, Koine, and textual criticism?
Originally posted by IngoB:
It isn't an "Onlyism". It is a guarantee that one particular text can be assumed as unfailingly reliable in what it says. Note: not unfailingly reliable as a translation, rather considered by and in itself. And no, it is not a common belief in the RCC. Most Catholics today wouldn't know that. Most Catholics today probably wouldn't know what a "Vulgate" is... But it is clearly doctrine, and arguably conciliar dogma, of the RCC.
quote:Behind this is then a fundamentally different attitude to what Protestants have: it is the Church that makes the bible, not the bible that makes the Church. Thus a translation can be elevated by the Church to be authoritative scripture. In this case that has happened organically, i.e., council and pope here merely affirm what has happened to the Vulgate. If you read the encyclical, you will also see that this does not deny the authority of the original texts, or the value of translating these into modern languages. It does not even mean that you cannot criticise the Vulgate considered as translation of the original texts. But it means - as the pope says - that the Vulgate has the fullness of juridical power, and is free of error when used to judge faith and morals. I hence can judge faith and morals in the light of the Vulgate, as much as I can do so in terms of the original texts. (And consequently they cannot ultimately contradict each other.) The Vulgate is authoritative scripture in that specific sense.
Council of Trent, 4th session
Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod - considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic - ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.
Divino Afflante Spiritu
And if the Tridentine Synod wished "that all should use as authentic" the Vulgate Latin version, this, as all know, applies only to the Latin Church and to the public use of the same Scriptures; nor does it, doubtless, in any way diminish the authority and value of the original texts. For there was no question then of these texts, but of the Latin versions, which were in circulation at that time, and of these the same Council rightly declared to be preferable that which "had been approved by its long-continued use for so many centuries in the Church." Hence this special authority or as they say, authenticity of the Vulgate was not affirmed by the Council particularly for critical reasons, but rather because of its legitimate use in the Churches throughout so many centuries; by which use indeed the same is shown, in the sense in which the Church has understood and understands it, to be free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals; so that, as the Church herself testifies and affirms, it may be quoted safely and without fear of error in disputations, in lectures and in preaching; and so its authenticity is not specified primarily as critical, but rather as juridical.
quote:The Nova Vulgata is just horrible. In the Psalms especially it breaks from nearly two thousand years of tradition by using mainly the Hebrew instead of the Greek and also the Hebrew numbering.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The official version now is something called the "Nova Vulgata", which according to Wikipedia has, among other things, been revised in some places in light of modern studies on the Hebrew and Greek texts.
quote:The Psalms in Hebrew are even more antique than the Psalms in Greek. You're basically objecting to breaking with a couple of thousand years of tradition in order to return to an even older tradition. One could just as easily argue that the break from tradition was the period during which Greek was favoured over Hebrew, and this break from tradition has finally been rectified.
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:The Nova Vulgata is just horrible. In the Psalms especially it breaks from nearly two thousand years of tradition by using mainly the Hebrew instead of the Greek and also the Hebrew numbering.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The official version now is something called the "Nova Vulgata", which according to Wikipedia has, among other things, been revised in some places in light of modern studies on the Hebrew and Greek texts.
Blessed Jerome's version is venerable due to its antiquity.
In the old Roman liturgy many of the parts directly quoted from scripture actually predate Blessed Jerome's version.
quote:Bollocks! From the very beginning the Church favoured the Greek, even in Jerusalem. There's a reason the Church favoured the Greek and not only because Greek was spoken throughout the empire, but because it was considered to be a new step in revelation compared to the Hebrew.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:The Psalms in Hebrew are even more antique than the Psalms in Greek. You're basically objecting to breaking with a couple of thousand years of tradition in order to return to an even older tradition. One could just as easily argue that the break from tradition was the period during which Greek was favoured over Hebrew, and this break from tradition has finally been rectified.
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:The Nova Vulgata is just horrible. In the Psalms especially it breaks from nearly two thousand years of tradition by using mainly the Hebrew instead of the Greek and also the Hebrew numbering.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The official version now is something called the "Nova Vulgata", which according to Wikipedia has, among other things, been revised in some places in light of modern studies on the Hebrew and Greek texts.
Blessed Jerome's version is venerable due to its antiquity.
In the old Roman liturgy many of the parts directly quoted from scripture actually predate Blessed Jerome's version.
This is frequently the problem with arguments based on tradition, they usually don't involve recognising that the 'tradition' one is talking about is just the latest in a series of traditions.
quote:My guess is that a statement like that would have made Jerome cringe. The whole reason he translated the Greek version of the scriptures into Latin was because he knew that the Septuagint had its faults, and that he wanted to give people a contemporary translation in a language that they understood, with up-to-date scholarship and using the original Hebrew scriptures, rather than the later Greek ones. And he met resistance (see his correspondance with Augustine).
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Blessed Jerome's version is venerable due to its antiquity.
quote:How can it be an "onlyism" if I did not insist on an "only"? I never said that we should trust the Latin translation over the Hebrew and for that matter Greek NT originals. I said that if I want to judge matters of faith and morals, then I can look to the Vulgate as much as I can look to the original sources. It's a "bothism", perhaps. It just so happens that in the particular case of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Vulgate works better for my purposes.
Originally posted by Demas:
So you would agree that the Vulgate isn't an 'accurate' translation of either the LXX or the Hebrew Bible but nevertheless is a trustworthy expression of the Bible - to the extent that where it disagrees with the Masoretic text we should trust the Latin translation over the Hebrew original? Still sounds like KJV-onlyism to me, I'm afraid.
quote:The only thing I can really say to this is: eh?
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Bollocks! From the very beginning the Church favoured the Greek, even in Jerusalem. There's a reason the Church favoured the Greek and not only because Greek was spoken throughout the empire, but because it was considered to be a new step in revelation compared to the Hebrew.
quote:I'm not arguing that Greek, or any language for that matter, is superior or "divine" than any other. My argument was that from the beginning the Church considered the Greek version of the Old Testament to be superior to the Hebrew. If that distinction is too subtle for you, take time to work it out. And as if to show the importance of the Greek version as the basis of any translation, Jerome's version still had the Pslams from the Greek.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:The only thing I can really say to this is: eh?
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Bollocks! From the very beginning the Church favoured the Greek, even in Jerusalem. There's a reason the Church favoured the Greek and not only because Greek was spoken throughout the empire, but because it was considered to be a new step in revelation compared to the Hebrew.
Greek is not a more divine language than Hebrew. Such a proposition gets you into all sorts of horrible knots, such as why Our Lord and Saviour failed to speak the more divine language available to him.
I also think that Jesus would find your belief that the history of the Psalms started with the church spectacularly odd.
quote:Of course it will. The very reason that the "Old Vulgate" enjoyed the status that you describe is because it was regarded as the standard of the church. The church has now declared a new standard. Later generations will be familiar with the new standard, as the only standard they've lived under, and be fine with it and use it.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I would like to add that the "New Vulgate" may now be the official Latin text of the RCC. But it does not enjoy the status of the "Old Vulgate". There are no guarantees about the "New Vulgate", it merely is an officially endorsed translation into Latin. And given that basically nobody is using this "New Vulgate" for serious scripture work, we can be sure that it will never acquire such guarantees organically over time, as the "Old Vulgate" did.
quote:The problem is that you think it was superior for any reason besides the fact that Greek was more widely understood. You explicitly insist that that was NOT the reason, that they thought the Greek version was INHERENTLY better.
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:I'm not arguing that Greek, or any language for that matter, is superior or "divine" than any other. My argument was that from the beginning the Church considered the Greek version of the Old Testament to be superior to the Hebrew. If that distinction is too subtle for you, take time to work it out. And as if to show the importance of the Greek version as the basis of any translation, Jerome's version still had the Pslams from the Greek.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:The only thing I can really say to this is: eh?
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Bollocks! From the very beginning the Church favoured the Greek, even in Jerusalem. There's a reason the Church favoured the Greek and not only because Greek was spoken throughout the empire, but because it was considered to be a new step in revelation compared to the Hebrew.
Greek is not a more divine language than Hebrew. Such a proposition gets you into all sorts of horrible knots, such as why Our Lord and Saviour failed to speak the more divine language available to him.
I also think that Jesus would find your belief that the history of the Psalms started with the church spectacularly odd.
quote:That's simply counterfactual. The "Old Vulgate" was declared to be above board concerning faith and morals because so many generations of lay people, priests, bishops, popes, saints, theologians, doctors of the church, ... made constant use of it in every way for such a long time. And, of course, the council of Trent was motivated to declare this because it wanted to combat Protestant claims to have a better translation. It was not declared to be free of error simply because the Vatican had made it official. Basically, nobody is using the "New Vulgate" for anything now, and there is no reason to believe that anybody ever will. It occasionally gets dragged out for a consistency check for a liturgical translation into another language. And maybe someone somewhere occasionally celebrates a Novus Ordo mass all in Latin, where its text would be heard. But that's it. The confirmation process is hence not going to happen. Furthermore, there is no New Reformation now, and even if there were, a fight about sources of scripture is highly unlikely to play a big part of it. So there is neither any motivation, not would the same reasoning be available. The "New Vulgate" is never going to achieve the same status. That's a very, very good bet indeed.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Of course it will. The very reason that the "Old Vulgate" enjoyed the status that you describe is because it was regarded as the standard of the church. The church has now declared a new standard. Later generations will be familiar with the new standard, as the only standard they've lived under, and be fine with it and use it.
quote:If there are no other factors to be taken into consideration, people will always prefer a book that's written in their own first language. Greek was the language of the Eastern Empire, Latin of the Western. What more natural than that the Greek and Latin Bibles would achieve dominance in the East and the West respectively? And, as the King-James-Onlyists show, it's a small step from dominance to imputed inerrancy.
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I'm not arguing that Greek, or any language for that matter, is superior or "divine" than any other. My argument was that from the beginning the Church considered the Greek version of the Old Testament to be superior to the Hebrew. If that distinction is too subtle for you, take time to work it out. And as if to show the importance of the Greek version as the basis of any translation, Jerome's version still had the Pslams from the Greek.
quote:Then how is this different to the New Vulgate? Why, if the church had the power to create a normative edition, is it a power that could only be exercised once for all time?
Originally posted by IngoB:
And yes, we are for all intents and purposes talking about the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, because that editions was made precisely in response to the fact that Council of Trent made a normative declaration without pointing to a normative edition of the Vulgate. The Sixto-Clementine Vulgate is this normative edition produced after the fact. As a process, that's really putting the cart before the horse, but in the end the Church got there. Formally, it is the authority of the popes involved which guarantees that this is the proper realisation of the authority of the council.
quote:Two things flow from this, and I'm actually going to put what was my second thought first.
Originally posted by IngoB:
That's why Trent goes on about the millennium of usage by the Church and her saints. There argument there is that if this had been against God's will, then surely he would have put some kind of stop to generation upon generation of his finest being misled by a bad translation. Because God has done nothing of the sort, but rather allowed this usage to grow and grow, we can be confident that there's nothing wrong with this translation at least as far as faith and morals are concerned.
quote:I'm not arguing against translations not in Greek. I'm arguing that the Septuagint was for the early Church the authoritative version of the Old Testament, considered inspired by most (that is if you believe in the tradition of the seventy scribes and that is represents in part a kind of preparation for the coming of the Gospel in the Greek world), and that use of the Hebrew as the text from which all other translations came, especially of the Psalms, was a break from tradition.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:If there are no other factors to be taken into consideration, people will always prefer a book that's written in their own first language. Greek was the language of the Eastern Empire, Latin of the Western. What more natural than that the Greek and Latin Bibles would achieve dominance in the East and the West respectively? And, as the King-James-Onlyists show, it's a small step from dominance to imputed inerrancy.
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I'm not arguing that Greek, or any language for that matter, is superior or "divine" than any other. My argument was that from the beginning the Church considered the Greek version of the Old Testament to be superior to the Hebrew. If that distinction is too subtle for you, take time to work it out. And as if to show the importance of the Greek version as the basis of any translation, Jerome's version still had the Pslams from the Greek.
quote:And all I'm saying is, I wouldn't have expected otherwise - but for cultural reasons, not because that authority or inspiration can be found in, or argued from, the text itself.
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I'm not arguing against translations not in Greek. I'm arguing that the Septuagint was for the early Church the authoritative version of the Old Testament, considered inspired by most ...
quote:Hebrew IS the text from which all other translations came. Starting with a translation into Greek!
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
use of the Hebrew as the text from which all other translations came, especially of the Psalms, was a break from tradition.
quote:Not in the Christian context, no.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Hebrew IS the text from which all other translations came. Starting with a translation into Greek!
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
use of the Hebrew as the text from which all other translations came, especially of the Psalms, was a break from tradition.
quote:Sorry Ad Orientem, I agree with the Orthodox on many things but that is nonsense. One respects the Septuagint. One sometimes needs to evaluate whether it or the Masoretic is more likely to represent the original text, or even how it was originally understood. But the Septuagint is a Greek translation of a Hebrew original and there's no way of getting round that.
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:Not in the Christian context, no.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Hebrew IS the text from which all other translations came. Starting with a translation into Greek!
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
use of the Hebrew as the text from which all other translations came, especially of the Psalms, was a break from tradition.
quote:Exactly. The writers of the New Testament were perfectly aware they were using a Greek version of a Hebrew original. They used it because they were writing in Greek.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:Sorry Ad Orientem, I agree with the Orthodox on many things but that is nonsense. One respects the Septuagint. One sometimes needs to evaluate whether it or the Masoretic is more likely to represent the original text, or even how it was originally understood. But the Septuagint is a Greek translation of a Hebrew original and there's no way of getting round that.
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:Not in the Christian context, no.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Hebrew IS the text from which all other translations came. Starting with a translation into Greek!
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
use of the Hebrew as the text from which all other translations came, especially of the Psalms, was a break from tradition.
Otherwise, one really might as well say that the CofE should be a KJV Only church, and people should not go behind it to look at the Greek New Testament.
quote:No. Since the New Vulgate is a translation of those source texts which are in the first place considered to be free of error concerning faith and morals, then as long as it is a half-decent translation it is unlikely to teach any error. I have never heard anybody claim that the New Vulgate is so corrupt a translation as to be erroneous in faith and morals. If you wish, you can hence certainly use the New Vulgate, just as you would use for example the NRSV translation. But as far as teaching faith and morals is concerned, the New Vulgate is not somehow "better" than for example the NRSV. The New Vulgate has a special, official role merely for the Latin liturgy.
Originally posted by orfeo:
My second thought is: has anyone actually suggested that the New Vulgate teaches different things, as far as faith and morals are concerned, from the Old Vulgate? I would be quite surprised if it did.
quote:(For translation of the Latin, please see the translation of your choice for Isaiah 11:1-3, plus my commentary above concerning the different number of gifts. It is this difference which is highlighted by italics.)
New Vulgate
Et egredietur virga de stirpe Iesse,
et flos de radice eius ascendet;
et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini:
spiritus sapientiae et intellectus,
spiritus consilii et fortitudinis,
spiritus scientiae et timoris Domini;
et deliciae eius in timore Domini.
Sixto-Clementine Vulgate
Et egredietur virga de radice Iesse,
et flos de radice ejus ascendet;
et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini:
spiritus sapientiae et intellectus,
spiritus consilii et fortitudinis,
spiritus scientiae et pietatis;
et replebit eum spiritus timoris Domini.
quote:Your argument is faulty because history after Christ is not comparable to history before Christ. We do have the fullness of revelation, we do have the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and finally we do have the Church. Now, it is indeed a most obvious answer to Trent for Protestants to say "but God is correcting this faulty Jerome translation, namely right now, through us." But Trent is not addressing the conceit of heretics as an apologist. It is actually addressing its own faithful and hence appeals to a Catholic understanding. The Church, in her collective operation through the ages, in possession of the deposit of faith, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in living apostolic tradition, cannot err. It would mean nothing less than to conceded to the Protestants that the true Church had somehow "submerged" for over a thousand years, and only now was being awoken again, if one were to allow that scripture got corrupted within the universal life of the Church for this period.
Originally posted by orfeo:
My first thought is: you appear to be arguing that God can only correct errors if he does so quickly. I find this highly problematic, firstly because it seems to assume that human beings being uncooperative don't come into the equation, and secondly because it seems to fly in the face of Biblical history which, on any measure, involves very long timespans between the Fall, the Old Testament covenants and the life of Jesus. The argument that it wouldn't take God a thousand years or more to put us on the right path is in direct contradiction to the lengthy process involved in moving from Fall to a Saviour.
quote:And, once the Church spread beyond Jews to Gentiles who'd had no significant contact with Judaism then they would use the Septuagint because members of the Church would not have been able to understand Hebrew.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Exactly. The writers of the New Testament were perfectly aware they were using a Greek version of a Hebrew original. They used it because they were writing in Greek.
quote:Which might make sense as a response if Christ, Jerome and the Clementine Vulgate all coincided in time. They don't. The gap between Christ and the Clementine Vulgate is larger than the gap between Christ and King David.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Your argument is faulty because history after Christ is not comparable to history before Christ.
quote:Ad Orientem can speak for himself, but this falls short of the reality even from a Protestant point of view. It is true that the Septuagint is a Greek translation of a Hebrew original. However, we do not have access to that Hebrew original. And there is no a priori reason why one would assign higher Divine authority to the Masoretic textual tradition than to the one represented by the Septuagint. In fact, there is at least one good reason to assign higher authority to the Septuagint tradition, since the Masoretic text did coalesce into its final form only after Christ, and not among Christians. One can indeed worry that the Masoretic text is biased by the ensuing conflict between Jews and Christians, if not in a direct manipulation of the text then possibly in the selection among available variants.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Sorry Ad Orientem, I agree with the Orthodox on many things but that is nonsense. One respects the Septuagint. One sometimes needs to evaluate whether it or the Masoretic is more likely to represent the original text, or even how it was originally understood. But the Septuagint is a Greek translation of a Hebrew original and there's no way of getting round that.
quote:Can I just go back to this and say that I dislike your tendency to say that my views are because I'm Protestant. I realise this is not something you do to me personally, but you do tend to label people in a way that says "well, you would say that because you're Protestant".
Originally posted by IngoB:
It's not an argument designed to impress Protestants though
quote:Eh?
Originally posted by orfeo:
And of course, I always feel comforted in my position on the weakness of tradition by the knowledge that Cyprian took exactly the same view in the 3rd Century.
quote:No. My argument, or rather Trent's argument, precisely relies on the length of time in which Jerome's translation was in use. That the Clementine Vulgate as authorised edition of Jerome's translation appeared so much later does not speak against it, but for it. You can of course worry about the length of time between Christ and Jerome's Vulgate. But then neither were there no translations before Jerome (the so-called Vetus Vulgate) nor is the argument for Jerome's translation that it was done close to Christ in time, or somehow itself represented centuries old translation tradition when it was done, or whatever. There is just one argument here. Jerome's translation was in universal usage by the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church for a millennium. It is authorised as free of error by the very life of the Church, which depended on it for so long, and which cannot err on such scales. It was then compiled into a definitive edition, and served for another few hundred years on an even more global scale. That's all.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Which might make sense as a response if Christ, Jerome and the Clementine Vulgate all coincided in time. They don't. The gap between Christ and the Clementine Vulgate is larger than the gap between Christ and King David.
quote:Seriously, I don't know where you are getting all this nonsense from. The Church has been what she is since Pentecost. She didn't need to reach some state of perfection to produce the Vulgate, or whatever. One can say that the Church had to grow to a certain size - both temporally and spatially - before an argument like that of Trent could be made. On the next day after Jerome had finished his translation, we could not have known that it is free of error, because it had not yet been field-tested by the global Church for a millennium. But that's not some failure of the Church, or Jerome, or the translation - that's just how history works. And if the New Vulgate suddenly becomes the go to translation for all and sundry in the RCC, because the Matrix has decided to infuse Latin in every Catholic's brain, and if this keeps on going for a thousand years or so, then it is of course entirely possible that in 3100 AD the Council of New Sirius declares that the New Vulgate is free of error, as testified by the life of the Church since the Matrix reestablished Latin. There's nothing that speaks against that other than astronomical odds.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The fundamental flaw in your logic is this: you are not merely asserting the perfection of the Church across all space and time, you are asserting that you can TIME when the Church reached perfection, and in the case of the Vulgate you manage to assert that it reached it with the Clementine Vulgate but before the Nova Vulgata. You cannot say that it reached perfection with Christ because the very idea of the Vulgate did not occur until several hundred years after Christ.
quote:What are you going on about? Seriously. None of this has anything to do with what I have said, or for that matter with what bible translations I first learned about or now use. Barring an apocalyptic destruction of all Masoretic original sources, or the complete disappearance of all knowledge of ancient Hebrew, the New Vulgate will never be anything else than a translation of these sources. It might be reckoned the best Latin translation of these ever possible. Fine. But it will never replace the sources. Because source is better than translation. The New Vulgate may over a thousand years become reckoned as free of error. As mentioned above, that's highly unlikely, but possible. That wouldn't change its derived status though. And the New Vulgate can never ever replace the Clementine Vulgate. For two simple reason. First, they are not translating the same sources. I cannot replace a translation with a translation of something else. Second, the Clementine Vulgate is declared to be free of error in its own right. So in 5100 AD, in the glorious second millennium of the reign of Latin Matrix and New Vulgate, a Catholic can still pull out the Clementine Vulgate and judge faith and morals from it. Nobody and nothing can stop him. No pope and no council. The magisterium cannot revise its definitions, ever, and the Clementine Vulgate has been defined as free of error. Oh, and if you actually care, I mostly us NRSV and RSV-CE, with some Knox and NJB, on the English side of things. If I use the Clementine Vulgate, then by using the parallel Augustin Arndt German bible that I have (I also have a parallel Douay-Rheims, but the German translation is by far superior). And I must have been one of the few people in this world who tried hard to get a New Vulgate. I partially succeeded via the Navarre bible. And the first bible I ever read probably was the NJB, though I don't really remember.
Originally posted by orfeo:
There is absolutely no basis in your theological argument for saying that one historical development after Christ enabled an ideal Latin text and another historical development after Christ didn't. Especially not when, as you acknowledge, the 2 Latin texts in question don't differ in their crucial theological principles. You have no grounds for dismissing the possibility that the Nova Vulgata is in fact another step in the Church's work towards an ideal Latin text, other than your own personal preference for a text that was set at the time that you started learning about the Bible as a Latin text.
quote:Once more, complete nonsense. Now we are apparently talking about tradition. Well my view of tradition is the Catholic one, which considers the Church now as compared to the Church Christ founded as a young oak tree compared to an acorn. It's the same thing, developing along the same internal principles (DNA you might say) - but grown. And in another two millennia, if the world has not ended, then there will be a church that relates like a massive and mature oak tree to the young oak tree that we are now. Still the same thing, still developing along the same internal principles, but even more grown. And so on. In this picture then, the perfection the Church enjoys across space and time basically means that her DNA will remain untouched, non-mutated, and also that even if she loses a branch or two, she will keep on growing. And even if the storms rip that tree right out of the earth and smashes it into a million pieces, still, somewhere one of the scattered branches will still be sprouting - and it will still be the same living plant that has ever grown by the same DNA when the One returns who planted the acorn. That's Catholic tradition. It is both conservative and dynamic, it is alive, it grows, against all odds or with them, till the end of time.
Originally posted by orfeo:
And the same is true of many of your other positions. You are not timing the attainment of perfection by reference to Christ at all, but by a particular version of the Church which, by a miraculous coincidence, was in place at a point somewhere around your own birth or introduction to these matters.
quote:There is no "older" Christianity than the one I belong to. It simply doesn't exist. We have an unbroken tradition from Christ to today, and every step along the way the tradition has crystallised out further. But none of what has gone before is lost. It's all right there. What the pope says today must be compatible with scripture, with the Church Fathers, with the medieval councils, with what the pope said in the Victorian age. Or he is a heretic, and not my pope. But it must only be compatible, not identical. It is an unbroken tradition, not a dead one.
Originally posted by orfeo:
It is very rare indeed to find someone who says that no, what they first learnt was wrong and they must go back to something older.
quote:It's also an observation that is completely irrelevant to my faith. I have no doubts that this Church now is transient, and also - so God willing - that the future Church will be better than the one I encounter now. But not without organic growth, not simply by "being something else". Whatever was, whatever is, whatever shall be - it must be in harmony and not contradict each other. The DNA stays untouched. It is Divine.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Of course, the line of people who have basically claimed that they were born into the perfect thing that was then ruined at some time after their birth stretches back centuries, even millennia. An observation which is deeply ironic.
quote:I actually didn't say that there. Nor is Bulverism my usual go to strategy.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Can I just go back to this and say that I dislike your tendency to say that my views are because I'm Protestant. I realise this is not something you do to me personally, but you do tend to label people in a way that says "well, you would say that because you're Protestant".
quote:There is also something fundamentally problematic with putting words into other people's mouths and asserting that they spout them just to satisfy their psychological needs.
Originally posted by orfeo:
There is something fundamentally problematic about assuming that the current state of affairs must be the best possible state of affairs, and that's that it usually involves being blessed with remarkably lucky timing - to have arrived/been born at exactly the right moment to enjoy something that neither your predecessors nor your followers will be able to enjoy.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
and ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
... But the strangest kind are those who mutter to themselves about motes and planks and eyes. That's probably some seriously weird BDSM play, I would stay well clear of those if I were you.
quote:What you are actually misunderstanding is quite simply the significance of the New Vulgate, and its relationship to the Clementine Vulgate. You seem to think that there is this one slot for a Latin translation, and that the Clementine Vulgate was lifted into this privileged spot by the Church. But then the Church decided to dethrone the Clementine Vulgate and lift the New Vulgate into its place. And now I have the problem to explain how the infallible Church could do such a horrible thing, since I think that the Clementine Vulgate belongs into that spot.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I am more than happy for you to tell me which half of your position I am misunderstanding.
quote:This is really the bit that seems to be at the heart of these logical knots, because you are essentially stating that the power to define is a power that can only ever be exercised once.
Originally posted by IngoB:
The magisterium cannot revise its definitions, ever, and the Clementine Vulgate has been defined as free of error.
quote:Seriously dude, some awareness of the implications of what you are saying wouldn't go astray. The allegation that the Jews manipulated/selected what went into their holiest writings to remove Christological references is seriously offensive rubbish.
Originally posted by IngoB:
there is no a priori reason why one would assign higher Divine authority to the Masoretic textual tradition than to the one represented by the Septuagint. In fact, there is at least one good reason to assign higher authority to the Septuagint tradition, since the Masoretic text did coalesce into its final form only after Christ, and not among Christians. One can indeed worry that the Masoretic text is biased by the ensuing conflict between Jews and Christians, if not in a direct manipulation of the text then possibly in the selection among available variants.
quote:As the official translation of what and for what? This is the text of its promulgation:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But it HAS replaced it as the official translation.
quote:So, it is to be used for the sacred liturgy. And if you want, you can refer vernacular translations to it. You don't have to though. And if you are sitting somewhere without any access to scholarly material, you can perhaps use it as a proxy.
Scripturarum Thesaurus
This New Vulgate edition will also be of such a nature that vernacular translations, which are destined for liturgical and pastoral use, may be referred to it; and, to use the words of our predecessor Paul VI, "it is permissible to think that it is a certain sort of foundation on which biblical studies... may rest, especially where libraries open to special studies can be consulted only with greater difficulty, and where the diffusion of suitable research materials is more hindered" ... These things being so, by virtue of this Letter we declare the New Vulgate edition of the Holy Bible as "typical" and we promulgate it to be used especially in the sacred Liturgy but also as suitable for other things, as we have said.
quote:It's used as an auxiliary tool in the translation of liturgical texts from the original sources to the modern vernacular.
Liturgiam Authenticam
Furthermore, it is not permissible that the translations be produced from other translations already made into other languages; rather, the new translations must be made directly from the original texts, namely the Latin, as regards the texts of ecclesiastical composition, or the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, as the case may be, as regards the texts of Sacred Scripture. Furthermore, in the preparation of these translations for liturgical use, the Nova Vulgata Editio, promulgated by the Apostolic See, is normally to be consulted as an auxiliary tool, in a manner described elsewhere in this Instruction, in order to maintain the tradition of interpretation that is proper to the Latin Liturgy.
quote:Of the Holy Bible.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:As the official translation of what and for what? This is the text of its promulgation:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But it HAS replaced it as the official translation.
quote:
Scripturarum Thesaurus
This New Vulgate edition will also be of such a nature that vernacular translations, which are destined for liturgical and pastoral use, may be referred to it; and, to use the words of our predecessor Paul VI, "it is permissible to think that it is a certain sort of foundation on which biblical studies... may rest, especially where libraries open to special studies can be consulted only with greater difficulty, and where the diffusion of suitable research materials is more hindered" ... These things being so, by virtue of this Letter we declare the New Vulgate edition of the Holy Bible as "typical" and we promulgate it to be used especially in the sacred Liturgy but also as suitable for other things, as we have said.
quote:I indeed exactly say that this is a possibility, though I didn't specify "Christological references", and I didn't say that I have any particular proof for this. Making painstakingly exact copies is actually a late development, AFAIK starting more a couple to a few centuries after Christ. There was a lot more variance and fluidity in Hebrew scriptural text before then. I see no particular reason why selection and copying processes could not possibly have been biased by strong and heated religious convictions. Obviously that would not typically take the form of "I will now falsify my own holy text just to diss the Christians." But it might well take the form of "If one clarifies this obscure writing here as it should be done, it shows that these Christians are wrong." Or it could take the form of "This variant of our holy text is clearly superior, look, it shows here that the Christians are wrong. Let's use that one henceforth." And so on. I'm not saying that it did happen, but I'm saying that it could have happened. And to be honest, I find it a bit naive to think this to be impossible...
Originally posted by Demas:
Seriously dude, some awareness of the implications of what you are saying wouldn't go astray. The allegation that the Jews manipulated/selected what went into their holiest writings to remove Christological references is seriously offensive rubbish.
quote:This is sort of the point. It is not the sort of accusation which should be bandied about without being backed by serious heavy-duty scholarship - even surrounded by 'maybe's and 'possible's. "I'm not saying that it did happen, but I'm saying that it could have happened." is manifestly inadequate.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I didn't say that I have any particular proof for this.
quote:Yes, it is the "typical" Latin translation of the Holy Bible of the RCC today. But so primarily for the liturgy: if you instruct your priests to read from this verse to this verse, then what words they will be reading must have a definitive answer. It is not official in the sense of just outright establishing the definitive text of the Holy Bible, albeit in Latin. That's why you can, but do not have to, compare your vernacular bible translation to this text. If it was "the" text, simply, then obviously everything would have to be checked against it always. And it was not advertised as a proper foundation of biblical studies. It was advertised as being available as stop-gap measure just in case you have no access to proper materials for biblical studies.
Originally posted by orfeo:
They didn't pronounce it as "typical" of the Masoretic Text. They pronounced it as "typical" of the Holy Bible. The same Holy Bible that is translated in the Clementine Vulgate. The observation is that it's a foundation for biblical studies, not a foundation for Masoretic Text studies.
quote:Why on earth can't it?
Originally posted by IngoB:
The New Vulgate has no guarantees to be free of error, only its sources do. The Clementine Vulgate has a guarantee itself. This is unlikely to change in the next thousand years or so, and the Church cannot simply go ahead and declare the New Vulgate error free.
quote:Why? If I remember correctly Ss. Irenaeus and Augustine tell us that that is indeed the case.
Originally posted by Demas:
quote:Seriously dude, some awareness of the implications of what you are saying wouldn't go astray. The allegation that the Jews manipulated/selected what went into their holiest writings to remove Christological references is seriously offensive rubbish.
Originally posted by IngoB:
there is no a priori reason why one would assign higher Divine authority to the Masoretic textual tradition than to the one represented by the Septuagint. In fact, there is at least one good reason to assign higher authority to the Septuagint tradition, since the Masoretic text did coalesce into its final form only after Christ, and not among Christians. One can indeed worry that the Masoretic text is biased by the ensuing conflict between Jews and Christians, if not in a direct manipulation of the text then possibly in the selection among available variants.
quote:I'm not sure that "heavy-duty scholarship" will make the slightest difference. What one needs there is first a sufficient variety and a good trail of original manuscripts. And I doubt that that exists. Nevertheless, it is important to raise this possibility, which I apparently consider as a lot more probable than you do. And yes, I consider it possible that Jews did something that we might consider "bad", though they would probably not have seen it this way even if it was conscious: namely biasing their scripture building process against their new Christian rivals. So what? Finally, yes, I think the Protestant love affair with the Masoretic text may be on shakier ground than they thought. But then the Catholics have pretty much followed the Protestant lead without further ado. The only one's that would be in the clear here are the Orthodox.
Originally posted by Demas:
This is sort of the point. It is not the sort of accusation which should be bandied about without being backed by serious heavy-duty scholarship - even surrounded by 'maybe's and 'possible's. "I'm not saying that it did happen, but I'm saying that it could have happened." is manifestly inadequate. The suggestion is a clear smear on Judaism (and a backhanded one on Protestantism).
quote:The Clementine Vulgate is a part of living history, a kind of snapshot of the glorious past which furthermore is even guaranteed to not be wrong. The Nova Vulgate isn't and won't be, because de facto it's just another translation. It's like another NRSV or NAB, just in Latin. Who needs that? I have a dozen of those already, in languages I can use fluently. Well, the Church needs that, but really only as a kind of bureaucratic instrument. It would have been more honest if the Church had ditched the need to have an official version of the new mass in Latin, and used French or Italian as "typical". The New Vulgate enables a pretence, as if we were all still reading a Latin bible (we are not) and all still listening to a Latin mass (we are not). It's a token upholding of Latin against the obvious vernacularisation of everything. I find it vaguely annoying. (I really don't think about it much though, unless forced to by crazed Australian lawyers...
Originally posted by orfeo:
Even now, you say that you don't "have to care" about the New Vulgate while simultaneously showing that you do care about it by seeming to criticise it and/or its use in preference to the Clementine. This is what I'm struggling with: what was the purpose of downplaying the New Vulgate's 'status', unless 'status' is somehow important?
)quote:We have been over that. Because the Church needs to be able to somehow argue that God is guaranteeing such freedom of error. And the argument that Trent was using for the Jerome translation won't be available for the New Vulgate for the next thousand years or so.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Why on earth can't it?
quote:I asked exactly this earlier, and Ingo confirmed that there is no difference between the 2 versions in this respect.
Originally posted by mousethief:
And does the New Vulgate teach anything about faith and morals that contradicts the Clementine? It would seem to me the RCC wouldn't approve it if it did.
quote:Makes sense to me.
So really it's the faith and morals that are infallible, and the translation -- Clementine or Novo -- that faithfully upholds THEM. And if the church says "This translation upholds Catholic faith and morals" there is no reason they can't say "and so does this one."
quote:The Nova Vulgata says:
Et egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet. Et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini: spiritus sapientiae et intellectus, spiritus consilii et fortitudinis, spiritus scientiae et pietatis; et replebit eum spiritus timoris Domini.
quote:So in fact on the very thing that Ingo presented to us as an example of the infallibility of the Vulgate on faith and morals, the new officially approved version differs from the old and follows the reading of other Masoretic-influenced (English) versions.
Et egredietur virga de stirpe Iesse, et flos de radice eius ascendet; et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini: spiritus sapientiae et intellectus, spiritus consilii et fortitudinis, spiritus scientiae et timoris Domini; et deliciae eius in timore Domini.
quote:Exactly. It can't be, or they wouldn't have officialized a bible that got it wrong. Good call.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I suspect the better view is simply that this wasn't seen by the church as a question of faith and morals in the first place.
quote:We are? News to me...
Originally posted by IngoB:
It's not an argument designed to impress Protestants though, who after all are asserting precisely that they are facing the rotting, stinking carcass of a Church that died internally long ago.
quote:As I understand what IngoB is saying, he claims exactly that it hasn't.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm having a hard time thinking of any variations between currently-available manuscripts that change any articles of faith or morals. Has the Vatican dogmatized the number of gifts of the Spirit? If you don't believe in the right number of gifts of the Spirit you will burn in Hell or at least do some serious time in Purgatory? I find it very hard to believe.
quote:Most variants of the Vulgate were not due to anything like a new translation effort. For the most part, these were simply errors in the copying process. And then people did things like overwriting some parts of the Jerome translation with verses from an even older translation into Latin that they liked better. Cleaning that sort of things up is not the same as going back to the sources and making a translation from scratch. And that in fact could not be done then, and cannot be done now, because we have lost (some) of the sources Jerome used. And yes, there were also attempts to improve the Vulgate from original sources (different ones) prior to Trent.
Originally posted by orfeo:
In other words the Clementine Vulgate was a continuation of Jerome's work. I don't see why the New Vulgate isn't just as much a continuation of Jerome's work, just because that work includes the conclusion that in some cases a different textual tradition is actually the better option. The Clementine had to choose between textual traditions as well - that was indeed the entire point.
quote:I actually provided this example of a difference precisely to launch a discussion of what "free of error" may mean here. It's strange to get this now thrown back at me as somehow showing that I did not think this through. Yes, I did. That's exactly why I knew of this difference, why I brought it to your attention and why I discussed it first with regards to what it could tell us about the possible meaning of "free of error".
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Exactly. It can't be, or they wouldn't have officialized a bible that got it wrong. Good call.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I suspect the better view is simply that this wasn't seen by the church as a question of faith and morals in the first place.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
But why even mention the fact that the (Clementine) Vulgate lists 7 gifts and that this can be confidently stated because the Vulgate is infallible on faith and morals, if in fact it is perfectly acceptable to list 6 gifts instead?quote:And this just comes back to what I said to you some time ago about tradition. You seemed to think I had plucked my notions out of thin air and not based them on what you'd said in your posts, but I am going to have another try.
Originally posted by IngoB:
The New Vulgate is indeed in some sense a continuation of the early modern / modern attempts to improve on Jerome's translation. But in some sense it isn't! And I have already given an example above, namely what the translation does to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is a clear departure from Jerome, and as it happens, from the Septuagint. I think it is the wrong thing to do. It betrays that while the New Vulgate in a practical sense is to a large part a straight copy of the Clementine Vulgate, it actually has no respect for that manuscript tradition at all. The New Vulgate says "Well, I don't see that in my (Masoretic) original sources, so it must be corrected." But Jerome did not work from that source, the Clementine has cemented this as the consensus usage, and in fact this is something to which some significant Catholic theology attaches. I don't think it is a "deadly" error, it is not something over which I think one or the other manuscript has to be thrown into the garbage can. But it shows that the New Vulgate is a typical modern translation styling itself in the Vulgate tradition, not really an attempt to continue that tradition.
quote:It is you who has been trying to make a big issue out of the New Vulgate. For ... reasons. I was trying to discuss the textual traditions, Jerome Vulgate, Septuagint, Masoretic. I picked my example to contrast the first two against the last one. But I was very much aware already that the New Vulgate is basically a Masoretic translation, something like the NRSV, just in Latin. So when you insisted on discussing the New Vulgate, for ... reasons, my thoughts were roughly this "let's see, it should have six as well... *click* *click* ... yep, sure does." And so I - not you, not anybody else - pointed that out here.
Originally posted by orfeo:
And frankly, Ingo, I think that when you picked your example you had no idea at all that the Nova Vulgata was not on the same side of the choice as the Clementine Vulgate.
quote:I was conceding a point to you, and improving my position. But here's the deal. You do not get to rip sentences out of a paragraph long context and pretend that you are making a meaningful contribution. No, infallible is indeed not 99.5% correct. Go and read what I actually wrote. Thanks.
Originally posted by orfeo:
And now infallible has become "99.5% correct"?
quote:The problem is that you see a one-way street here. Scripture confirms tradition. But I see a two-way street. Tradition can also confirm scripture. And the Trent declaration basically relies on that. Now, I've picked a particular example and discussed that. How you can go from this to saying that I would deny absolutely all change I have no idea. In fact, if you had read carefully, you would have noticed that I did not flag all the changes introduced by the New Vulgate as compared to the Clementine one even in my example. Do an actual word by word comparison. What I did flag was precisely where the changes introduced jar with over a millennium of significant Catholic tradition. And that's coherent with the argument of Trent. What exactly is the reasoning behind orphaning all that has been written about the seven gifts in Catholic tradition? Well, it's just that it's not in the Masoretic. Can't we insist on leaving it though, given that after all the Clementine Vulgate is free of error (and as it happens the Septuagint agrees)? Apparently not. I consider that as not respecting the Vulgate tradition, and de facto as undermining what Trent declared. Because if we keep the Vulgate as it is if, and only if, it agrees with the Masoretic, then I don't think this does justice to what Trent declared against Protestants who were using that Masoretic.
Originally posted by orfeo:
When you say that the New Vulgate has no "respect" for the Clementine tradition... it feels like you're claiming that the only way to "respect" a tradition is to follow it unthinkingly and not depart from it in any way. That's basically what you've said - that while the New Vulgate in fact often is a straight copy of the Clementine, this isn't respect because it hasn't copied it always.
Which again, is a position I find unfathomable. Why isn't it respecting a tradition to take it as your starting point, and to only depart from it when you think you have good reason?
quote:Who's planning on this?
Originally posted by IngoB:
Because if we keep the Vulgate as it is if, and only if, it agrees with the Masoretic, then I don't think this does justice to what Trent declared against Protestants who were using that Masoretic.
quote:Well, we have this:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Who's planning on this?
quote:I have not done an in-depth study of the New Vulgate (who has?). But best I can tell this did basically mean "let's edit the Vulgate text to be sufficiently compatible with the Masoretic."
Praenotanda - Nova Vulgata
Tamquam norma sumptus est Textus Masoreticus (= TM), critice editus in Bibliis Hebraicis Stutgardiensibus. Si a textu Masoretico interdum recessimus, in notis criticis rationem emendationis protulimus.
The Masoretic text (=TM) is taken as the norm, in the critical edition of the Stuttgart Hebrew Bible. If the text sometimes deviates from the Masoretic, we will provide the reason for the amendment in the critical notes. (Warning: my own translation, and I haven't studied Latin in 25 years.)
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I bet that was one of the verses Paula translated.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
quote:If you can deal with the Latin, the "Praenotanda" I linked to above is actually a lengthy technical foreword on translation choices made for the New Vulgate. If you want an English example, you can read about the choices made for the NAB-RE here, see in particular the last two paragraphs.
Originally posted by Enoch:
When the RCC arranges for a Bible translation into a modern vernacular language, e.g. the New Jerusalem Bible, which text does it regard as the ur-text from which it translates. For the OT is it the Masoretic text, the LXX, the old Vulgate or new Vulgate? For the Greek books of the OT, is it the LXX or a Vulgate? Do RC scholars take into account the Hebrew version of Ecclesiasticus which was only discovered in the C20? For the NT is it the C16 Byzantine text, an assessment of modern scholarship Greek texts or a Vulgate?
quote:Thank you. The NAB-RE is not a translation I've ever encountered but that describes a process which is as I would have expected, and is very much the same approach as that taken by all the other respected modern translations.
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you can deal with the Latin, the "Praenotanda" I linked to above is actually a lengthy technical foreword on translation choices made for the New Vulgate. If you want an English example, you can read about the choices made for the NAB-RE here, see in particular the last two paragraphs.
However, I think it is important to note that I'm pretty sure that it is not the "RCC" which makes all these choices, other than indirectly. The Church plays a role insofar as it selects certain people for the work, and insofar as it officially accepts the results in the end (or not, possibly). It may also be that the translators are charged with specific aims or tasks within the translation project by the Church. But its not like the Church micromanages all the academic choices here.
quote:Nobody has really mentioned the Douay(-Rheims) so far, and I for one do not have the slightest attachment to it. As I mentioned above, I think the German Allioli / Arndt translation of the Vulgate is way superior. And in English I do prefer Knox (unfortunately not available as a parallel edition). Since I have been pretty much the only one defending the Clementine Vulgate here, I don't see how the discussion on this thread can have much to do with the DR. I'm certainly not upholding the Clementine Vulgate to uphold the DR...
Originally posted by Enoch:
It also confirms what I suspected which is that a lot of the discussion on this thread about the status of the Vulgate and the New Vulgate is driven by unacknowledged straw men lurking in the shadows of the Douai version.
quote:I think he's suggesting that there's Douay-Rheims only-ism among Catholics as there is a King-James only-ism among some Protestants but that's not really the case even among English-speaking traditionalists.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Nobody has really mentioned the Douay(-Rheims) so far, and I for one do not have the slightest attachment to it. As I mentioned above, I think the German Allioli / Arndt translation of the Vulgate is way superior. And in English I do prefer Knox (unfortunately not available as a parallel edition). Since I have been pretty much the only one defending the Clementine Vulgate here, I don't see how the discussion on this thread can have much to do with the DR. I'm certainly not upholding the Clementine Vulgate to uphold the DR...
Originally posted by Enoch:
It also confirms what I suspected which is that a lot of the discussion on this thread about the status of the Vulgate and the New Vulgate is driven by unacknowledged straw men lurking in the shadows of the Douai version.
quote:Possibly, but it's more a question of the undertow left by history.
Originally posted by Pancho:
I think he's suggesting that there's Douay-Rheims only-ism among Catholics as there is a King-James only-ism among some Protestants but that's not really the case even among English-speaking traditionalists. ...
quote:The argument I've used is that the Septuagint was never viewed as a mere translation, which is why it was preferred as the basis of all other OT translations and why it should continue to be. In the Christian context the Septuagint was always the authoritative OT version from the very beginning, which is why pre Jerome translations into Latin were from the Septuagint and why the scriptures were always read in the Greek first both in Rome and Jerusalem. If you want to question the inspiration of the Septuagint, that's a different question.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Before Ad Orientem leaps in with one of his other arguments, yes, the LXX is a translation of a Hebrew text that predated the crystallisation of the Masoretic text. There may therefore be some places where it bears witness to a Hebrew original that is more likely to have been correct than the Masoretic text. There are other places where it clearly doesn't. That, though, is a matter of textual criticism. It's not an argument that in principle one should prefer a two step translation over a one step one.
quote:Rather it is a standard assumption, which is also clearly invalid in our case. An original source is not automatically better than a translation. Two things must be true for that to be the case: 1. We must actually understand the language of the source at least as well as the language of the translation. The Russian original of Tolstoy is less useful to me as a German than the English translation, because I speak English but not Russian. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about the languages in our case to say whether our ancient Hebrew is at least as good as our Koine Greek or Latin for everything in the OT. I would bet that this is not true for everything, but I just don't know. 2. The translation must be a translation of the same source. Obviously, the Homer's Odyssey in the original Greek is not "better" than Pascal's Pensees in English translation. They are simply different things. Whereas if we have a first edition of the Pensees in French, but a second edition only in German translation, then we may conclude that in case of doubt we should prefer the former over the latter in a translation to English. We may however still think otherwise (e.g., if we have independent information that Pascal did intend to change something in the second edition). So the basic question is just how similar the Hebrew Masoretic, the Greek translation Septuagint and the Latin translation Vulgate really are. And the answer very clearly is that they are not similar enough to be treated simply as being based on the same source, with negligible variations. It is in fact pretty easy to distinguish these texts, in particular the Masoretic from the Septuagint.
Originally posted by Enoch:
But that doesn't change the standard, obvious, and valid point that one starts with one's working hypothesis that a translation is not as good a basis as the original for a further translation.
