Another Catholic question (sorry guys!)

[DHK]

I would not throw any of my bibles out .. but I do understand how we come to have the translations and 'copies' we have today ...

For the Syriac this would be a good reference book “The bible in the Syriac Tradition” by Sebastian Brock Georgias Press 2006


http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/syriacbib.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript

http://www.theopedia.com/Septuagint

http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/

By the way, it was you asserting that the Vetus Itala [with its OT based upon the Septuagint] did not contain the apocrypha that needed sunstantiation ..... and then when I provided the manuscripts [oldest extant]in the Sinaiticu and Vaticanus that did include them ... it was you who brought up the Peshitta .. which of course also incudes the apocrypha ..

Then your discussion devolved to weel the New Testament was all that mattered and that is the same ......

I guess I am done - you have no real scholarship to offer just your POV and a revisionist's mentality .. you study history in an attempt to impose your understanding ]ie your view] upon it. Rather you should listen to what history is telling you and then incorporate that information into your Christian life ..

We have too many discussions going on at the same time. That is one of the problems.
Concerning the Peshitta, I state that the date of it is ca. 150. Here is my source:

Eusebius says, that they ‘Vied with each other in the preaching of Christ, and in the distribution of the Scriptures.’ The Epistle to the Thessalonians was written about twenty years after the crucifixion, and the last of the New Covenant books within fifty years thereafter. Probably Paul’s Epistles were first collected into one volume; but within half a century after the death of John, the four Gospels were publicly read in the Churches of Syria, Asia Minor, Italy and Gaul, and all the New Testament books were collected about A.D. 150. The first translation appears to have been the Syriac, called Peshito (literal), for its fidelity, rendered most faithfully into the common language of the Holy Land. Some think that our Lord’s exact language is better preserved in this version than in the Greek manuscripts themselves. J. Winchelaus, who devoted much research to its history, says that it preserves the letter of sacred Scripture truly, and Michaelis pronounces it ‘The very best translation of the New Testament that I have ever read.’

It is from Armitage's book, "A History of the Baptists." However, in reference to the Peshitta, notice that much of his information comes from Eusebius.



Another problem is your insistence on extant source material. Of course the quote above is historical. But it is a source. Let's use another example. The Book of Jude was authored by Jude ca. 70 A.D. James was much earlier ca. 50 A.D., one of the earliest books of the NT. Now, we don't have any of the originals. In fact the closest copy to books like these is no doubt written more than a century later than these books. So do you accept these dates? Why or why not, and if not, what dates would you accept, and why? If you only accept that which is extant it poses many problems to our NT, especially in the area of prophecy.

Thus one must find a way to date books of the NT without simply having extant copies.


The same is true with the Peshitta, the Syriac, the Septuagint.

One of your sources readily admits that the oldest MS extant Hebrew text from which the Septuagint would be translated is 1000 A.D., but we know it was translated far earlier than that.

the oldest extant complete Hebrew texts date from around 1000 AD.[2]
The sources of the many differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text have long been debated by scholars. One extreme view was that the Septuagint provides a reasonably accurate record of an early Hebrew textual variant, now lost, that differed from the Masoretic text. The other extreme, favored by Jewish religious scholars, was that the differences were primarily due to intentional or accidental corruption of the Septuagint since its original translation from the Masoretic text. Modern scholars follow a path between these two views. Origen, a Christian theologian in Alexandria, completed a comprehensive synopsis of each ancient version side-by-side, but his work is now almost completely lost.

http://www.theopedia.com/Septuagint

 

[Matt Black]

It is all moot. It is a meaningless argument.
The Holy Spirit inspired the Greek. God's words are written in Greek no matter what language was previously written (if it was). It doesn't matter. The inspired Word of God is written in Greek and that is what matters. We can throw that Aramaic in the garbage when compared to the Greek for the Greek was inspired and the Aramaic was not.

Oh, dear, so now the HS is limited as to which language He's allowed to speak?! This is a weird kind of KJVO-variant I haven't encountered before. I guess the HS didn't get your memo at Pentecost....

 

[BobRyan]

I would not throw any of my bibles out .. but I do understand how we come to have the translations and 'copies' we have today ...


...
http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/

By the way, it was you asserting that the Vetus Itala [with its OT based .

Well lets not leave out a critical review of it -

Codex Vaticanus is considered to be the most authoritative of the Minority Texts, although it is responsible for over 36,000 changes that appear today in the new versions.

This manuscript was "found" in 1481 in the Vatican library in Rome, where it is currently held, and from whence it received its name. It is written on expensive vellum, a fine parchment originally from the skin of calf or antelope. Some authorities claim that it was one of a batch of 50 Bibles ordered from Egypt by the Roman Emperor Constantine; hence its beautiful appearance and the expensive skins which were used for its pages. But alas! this manuscript, like its corrupt Egyptian partnerCodex Sinaiticus (Aleph) is also riddled with omissions, insertions and amendments.

The corrupt and unreliable nature of Codex B is best summed up by one who has thoroughly examined them, John W Burgon: "The impurity of the text exhibited by these codices is not a question of opinion but fact...In the Gospels alone, Codex B(Vatican) leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 1,491 times. It bears traces of careless transcriptions on every page…"

According to The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, "It should be noted . . . that there is no prominent Biblical (manuscripts) in which there occur such gross cases of misspelling, faulty grammar, and omission, as in (Codex) B."

Consider these facts and oddities relating to the Codex Vaticanus:
It was corrected by revisers in the 8th, 10th, and 15th centuries (W. Eugene Scott, Codex Vaticanus, 1996).
The entire manuscript has been mutilated...every letter has been run over with a pen, making exact identification of many of the characters impossible. Dr. David Brown observes: "I question the 'great witness' value of any manuscript that has been overwritten, doctored, changed and added to for more than 10 centuries." (The Great Unicals).

In the Gospels it leaves out 749 entire sentences and 452 clauses, plus 237 other words, all of which are found in hundreds of other Greek manuscripts. The total number of words omitted in Codex B in the Gospels alone is 2,877 as compared with the majority of manuscripts (Burgon, The Revision Revised, p. 75).

Vaticanus omits Mark 16:9-20, but a blank space is left for that section of Scripture. The following testimony is by John Burgon, who examined Vaticanus personally: “To say that in the Vatican Codex (B), which is unquestionably the oldest we possess, St. Mark’s Gospel ends abruptly at the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter, and that the customary subscription (Kata Mapkon) follows, is true; but it is far from being the whole truth. It requires to be stated in addition that the scribe, whose plan is found to have been to begin every fresh book of the Bible at the top of the next ensuing column to that which contained the concluding words of the preceding book, has at the close of St. Mark’s Gospel deviated from his else invariable practice. HE HAS LEFT IN THIS PLACE ONE COLUMN ENTIRELY VACANT. IT IS THE ONLY VACANT COLUMN IN THE WHOLE MANUSCRIPT -- A BLANK SPACE ABUNDANTLY SUFFICIENT TO CONTAIN THE TWELVE VERSES WHICH HE NEVERTHELESS WITHHELD. WHY DID HE LEAVE THAT COLUMN VACANT? What can have induced the scribe on this solitary occasion to depart from his established rule? The phenomenon (I believe I was the first to call distinct attention to it) is in the highest degree significant, and admits only one interpretation. The older manuscript from which Codex B was copied must have infallibly contained the twelve verses in dispute. The copyist was instructed to leave them out -- and he obeyed; but he prudently left a blank space in memoriam rei. Never was a blank more intelligible! Never was silence more eloquent! By this simple expedient, strange to relate, the Vatican Codex is made to refute itself even while it seems to be bearing testimony against the concluding verses of St. Mark’s Gospel, by withholding them; for it forbids the inference which, under ordinary circumstances, must have been drawn from that omission. It does more. By leaving room for the verses it omits, it brings into prominent notice at the end of fifteen centuries and a half, a more ancient witness than itself.” (Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel of St. Mark Vindicated, 1871, pp. 86-87)

Similar to Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus identifies itself as a product of gnostic corruption in John 1:18, where “the only begotten Son” is changed to “the only begotten God,” thus perpetuating the ancient Arian heresy that disassociates the Son of God Jesus Christ from God Himself by claiming that the Word was not the same as the Son. John’s Gospel identifies the Son directly with the Word (John 1:1, 18), but by changing "Son" to "God" in verse 18, this direct association is broken.

Linguistic scholars have observed that Codex Vaticanus is reminiscent of classical and Platonic Greek, not Koine Greek of the New Testament (see Adolf Deissman's Light of the Ancient East). Nestle admitted that he had to change his Greek text (when using Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) to make it "appear" like Koine Greek.

Codex Vaticanus contains the false Roman Catholic apocryphal books such as Judith, Tobias, and Baruch, while it omits the pastoral epistles (I Timothy through Titus), the Book of Revelation, and it cuts off the Book of Hebrews at Hebrews 9:14 (a very convenient stopping point for the Catholic Church, since God forbids their priesthood in Hebrews 10 and exposes the mass as totally useless as well!).

 

[DHK]

Oh, dear, so now the HS is limited as to which language He's allowed to speak?! This is a weird kind of KJVO-variant I haven't encountered before. I guess the HS didn't get your memo at Pentecost....

Matt, it has nothing to do with the KJV. Every reliable translation today (KJV, or any of the modern translations) are translated from the Greek NT and the Hebrew OT. God inspired the apostles: Peter, John, Paul, etc. to pen his words in Greek. God inspired the prophets: Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, etc. to pen his words in Hebrew (with just a very few sections in Aramaic). He did not use other languages. Our NT autographs are written in Greek. The originals (which we don't have today) were written in Greek.

If you want to put it the way you did: YES, the Holy Spirit DID limit himself to one language in the NT and that was Greek. That is the only language in which our NT writers received God's inspiration. Lest I be ambiguous let me emphasize that it is the documents that they wrote, that is the Scriptures that are inspired, not the authors of the Scripture. The apostles were used of God to write the words of God. It is the words of God that are inspired.

 

[Zenas]

Matt, it has nothing to do with the KJV. Every reliable translation today (KJV, or any of the modern translations) are translated from the Greek NT and the Hebrew OT. God inspired the apostles: Peter, John, Paul, etc. to pen his words in Greek. God inspired the prophets: Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, etc. to pen his words in Hebrew (with just a very few sections in Aramaic). He did not use other languages. Our NT autographs are written in Greek. The originals (which we don't have today) were written in Greek.

If you want to put it the way you did: YES, the Holy Spirit DID limit himself to one language in the NT and that was Greek. That is the only language in which our NT writers received God's inspiration. Lest I be ambiguous let me emphasize that it is the documents that they wrote, that is the Scriptures that are inspired, not the authors of the Scripture. The apostles were used of God to write the words of God. It is the words of God that are inspired.

So if Matthew had written his gospel in Hebrew, then you are saying that writing wasn't inspired. However, the Greek translation from the original Hebrew manuscript would have been inspired. I know you won't concede that Matthew was written in Hebrew, and you might be right, but what if it had been? Are you really saying the Hebrew manuscript was not inspired but the Greek copy would have been? That is really fantastic. (fantastic: based on fantasy).

 

[DHK]

So if Matthew had written his gospel in Hebrew, then you are saying that writing wasn't inspired. However, the Greek translation from the original Hebrew manuscript would have been inspired. I know you won't concede that Matthew was written in Hebrew, and you might be right, but what if it had been? Are you really saying the Hebrew manuscript was not inspired but the Greek copy would have been? That is really fantastic. (fantastic: based on fantasy).

Yes, as amazing as that may sound to our human reasoning, that is what would have happened (if hypothetically it did). God inspired these men's writings in the Greek language. So even if they did write in English or Hebrew or whatever the language could have been, God inspired the Greek MSS, and those are ones that are the inspired words of God.

 

[Thinkingstuff]

Yes, as amazing as that may sound to our human reasoning, that is what would have happened (if hypothetically it did). God inspired these men's writings in the Greek language. So even if they did write in English or Hebrew or whatever the language could have been, God inspired the Greek MSS, and those are ones that are the inspired words of God.

I'm sorry DHK this is the same reasoning that the KJO people use. Theoretically then the autographs aren't important nor do they need to be inspired as long as the translators are. That doesn't even sound right.

 

[DHK]

I'm sorry DHK this is the same reasoning that the KJO people use. Theoretically then the autographs aren't important nor do they need to be inspired as long as the translators are. That doesn't even sound right.

No you have it wrong. It is not the translators that are inspired. It is the Scriptures that they wrote. The Scriptures, the original autographs or MSS are inspired. Look at Scripture itself.

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
--It is the Scripture that is inspired, not the author of the Scripture.

2 Peter 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
--However, not just any man could by his own will write Scripture.
Holy men of God (the prophets and the apostles), were chosen by God, and moved by the Holy Spirit to write the words that God wanted them to write. They "were moved by the Holy Spirit." But it was the Scripture itself that was inspired. In the OT many times you read the words: "Thus saith the Lord," the exact words of God being spoken through the prophets. It is God speaking through the prophets, and likewise God speaking through the Apostles.

 

[Thinkingstuff]

No you have it wrong. It is not the translators that are inspired. It is the Scriptures that they wrote. The Scriptures, the original autographs or MSS are inspired. Look at Scripture itself.

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
--It is the Scripture that is inspired, not the author of the Scripture.

2 Peter 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
--However, not just any man could by his own will write Scripture.
Holy men of God (the prophets and the apostles), were chosen by God, and moved by the Holy Spirit to write the words that God wanted them to write. They "were moved by the Holy Spirit." But it was the Scripture itself that was inspired. In the OT many times you read the words: "Thus saith the Lord," the exact words of God being spoken through the prophets. It is God speaking through the prophets, and likewise God speaking through the Apostles.

I agree with what you have just writen but that's not what you said when responding to Zenas here

Originally Posted by Zenas
So if Matthew had written his gospel in Hebrew, then you are saying that writing wasn't inspired. However, the Greek translation from the original Hebrew manuscript would have been inspired. I know you won't concede that Matthew was written in Hebrew, and you might be right, but what if it had been? Are you really saying the Hebrew manuscript was not inspired but the Greek copy would have been? That is really fantastic.

Then you said

Yes, as amazing as that may sound to our human reasoning, that is what would have happened (if hypothetically it did). God inspired these men's writings in the Greek language. So even if they did write in English or Hebrew or whatever the language could have been, God inspired the Greek MSS, and those are ones that are the inspired words of God.

 

[Emily25069]

No they don't. You are wrong. This is what I have been telling you. Open your eyes and read the posts.

As a Lutheran who will soon be starting adult cathechism, I affirm that "Real Presence" is what we hear in our Sunday School classes and in our literature.

From what I understand, we dont like to say "spiritual presense"

We prefer the terms "in, with and under"

We say that it is the true body and true blood.

Lori is correct.

 

[Emily25069]

Johndeerefan you don't know much about Lutheranism do you? It is VERY uncommon for a Lutheran to refer to their pastor as a priest.

I do know of ONE exception. There is a Lutheran Benedictine Monastery in Oxford, Michigan. This is the ONLY place I ever ran into Lutherans referring to their ministers as priest and calling them father. It is an interesting monastery and retreat house which is not associated with any of the major synods.

Please feel free to call ANY local Lutheran Church or go to ANY Lutheran board and ask if it is common to call their pastors 'priest'.

Here is the link to the monastery in case your interested.

http://www.staugustineshouse.org/

******

It is very uncommon, mostly because Lutherans these days are afraid of being "too catholic". They are starting to look more and more like baptists everyday actually.

Very traditional Lutheran churches however will sometimes use this term. I have a friend who attends a very conservative, pre-tridentine mass Lutheran church, and she will sometimes refer to her Pastor as "Father". They also use the term "mass" and "eucharist" and other Catholicky terms, but it is very rare.

I attend a very conservative Lutheran church (where I discovered that Lutherans really DO love Jesus!!! They werent all just religious hypocrites!) but we just use the terms Pastor and Holy Communion and liturgy.

 

[Emily25069]

In that link to the Lutheran monastery, look at the photographs provided by the link to the left of the homepage. Under the link for the chapel you will find a lot of pictures. If you scroll down the pictures you will see one with a crucifix, praying bench which is in front of the 'tabernacle' which is where they keep the blessed sacrament. The bread and wine already consecrated as the body and blood of Christ.

If Lutherans don't believe in the Real Presence of Christ, why the tabernacle?

Lutherans do believe in the real prescence!

From what I understand, Catholics believe that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood. Lutherans believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood-but not literally. There's no bleeding eucharists or molecular differences.

I like that Lutherans dont try to explain how.

 

[lori4dogs]

Lutherans do believe in the real prescence!

From what I understand, Catholics believe that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood. Lutherans believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood-but not literally. There's no bleeding eucharists or molecular differences.

I like that Lutherans dont try to explain how.

I agree, Emily, I wish we all could just use the term 'Real Presence' and not get so caught up in trying to explain it.

 

[DHK]

As a Lutheran who will soon be starting adult cathechism, I affirm that "Real Presence" is what we hear in our Sunday School classes and in our literature.

From what I understand, we dont like to say "spiritual presense"

We prefer the terms "in, with and under"

We say that it is the true body and true blood.

Lori is correct.

You said to Lori:
"Lutherans these days are afraid of being "too catholic"."

That is true, and probably the reason why they rejected the term "consubstantiation" some time ago.
Consubstantiation and transubstantiation are very similar. Consubstantiation is "very catholic." At the same time when you avow that within the elements of the Communion Service "is the true body and true blood," (your very words), then how do you differ from a Catholic? That is what transubstantiation is.

 

[lori4dogs]

You said to Lori:
"Lutherans these days are afraid of being "too catholic"."

That is true, and probably the reason why they rejected the term "consubstantiation" some time ago.
Consubstantiation and transubstantiation are very similar. Consubstantiation is "very catholic." At the same time when you avow that within the elements of the Communion Service "is the true body and true blood," (your very words), then how do you differ from a Catholic? That is what transubstantiation is.

They either say this 'is the true body and true blood' or they say this 'is the very body and very blood of our Lord Jesus Christ' (LCMS) which in either case makes it clear that Christ is truly present in the bread and wine. Lutheran belief is not radically different than the Catholic belief IMHO.