. Greek and Latin contributed to the pure Reformation Bible - TR-AV . ================================== . This was placed on a thread on the King James Bible Debate forum, on two posts, the first one is here, the second one a little way down. https://facebook/groups/21209666692/permalink/10152428724216693/?comment_id=10152429260866693&offset=100&total_comments=193 Minor changes here. It is not formatted particularly well, however I do believe it gets the basic information across. I would like it to have its own thread on PureBible because it involves one of the fundamental errors that arises among AV defenders. . In summary, here are the problems. That everything about the Latin Vulgate should be seen as bad because of the rcc connection. And this also comes against the parts of two-line or two-stream presentations that try to present the Old Latin and the Latin Vulgate as on opposite sides. Nope. There is also reference to a Gail Ripinger emphasis on vernacular versions, implying special usage by the learned men of the AV-1611, that I believe is mistaken. . On the positive side, if a person sees the excellence of the Received Text production (the additional emphasis on the ECW and internal evidences and a faith-consistent analysis is not covered in this post) it can be very helpful in the AV explanation of excellence. . ================================== . The Greek fountainhead mss were the primary source for the Greek New Testament that gave us the Reformation Bible, unto the AV. However, Latin mss were a part of the preservation process as well. As were the early church writers. . The Latin Vulgate was an update of the traditional Old Latin texts. The Old Latin, or Vetus Latina, texts go back to the 2nd century, maybe the 1st. They were an important part of the preservation of the New Testament texts. . Think especially of the heavenly witnesses, or Acts 8:37, very important verses which were preserved well in the Latin tradition, Old Latin and Vulgate, yet were largely missing in the extant Greek manuscript line. And clearly had dropped out of most of the Greek transmission. . The Latin Vulgate was translated by a scholar named Jerome for the Bishop of Rome, Damasus. This was 384 AD for the Gospels, the date of the rest of the NT is unclear, but a bit later. . Interestingly, Jerome had a major positive role in the OT scholarship by rejecting the corrupt Greek Old Testament, and translating from the Hebrew, having moved to Bethlehem, learning Hebrew, using the library at Caesarea and studying with Hebraic scholars. (For this Jerome received a lot of flak, but he stood his ground.) And this pioneering example helped the learned men of the Reformation era to later similarly go to the Hebrew-Aramaic Masoretic Text for the new OT translation work to Latin and English and other languages. . Jerome was a real scholar, and the rcc really still did not yet function as the corrupt paganized, hierarchical, institution that ostracized later. All indications are that Jerome had a scholarly free hand in 384 AD. And his scholarly independence was even clearer when he moved to Israel. . The result of the work of Jerome is a Latin Bible with many strengths and many weaknesses, building on the Old Latin. In the Prologue to the Canonical Epistles, Jerome even notes how unfaithful translators, which in context would mean scribes in general, had omitted the heavenly witnesses. The gentleman was no slouch on a couch. Erasmus had great respect for Jerome, except that Erasmus blundered in mistakenly trying to place Jerome as the actual origin of the heavenly witnesses, a somewhat startling and humorous error by Erasmus. . One barometer of the times was the dispute around 484 AD between orthodox bishops from the Mediterranean contra the Arians under Huneric, a Council at Carthage with hundreds of orthodox who proclaimed that the heavenly witnesses, 1 John 5:7, was an essential part of their faith, quoting and emphasizing from their Old Latin Bibles. At great risk, they were proclaiming and defending the precious Bible verse. . Jerome updated from some Greek manuscripts, they may not have been the best, or he may have missed many possible solid updates. However the Vulgate is a true historical Bible. The Vulgate gradually became the Bible used throughout the European and African Latin church. Thus it was accepted by the rcc. Note, though, that even the rcc respected the Greek text, backing the scholarly efforts of the Complutensian Polyglot and Erasmus ... until the counter-reformation at Trent, when they came against the Erasmus GNT and circled the horses, starting to mistakenly uplift the Vulgate as a singular true text. In what a few decades later became a comedy of errors when they started to put out errant and contradictory editions. The Trent proclamation and errors were around 1546. . Now, I know this may not match up with the Latin Vulgate history as given by some AV defenders. Some like to put the Old Latin on a good line of Bibles and the Latin Vulgate on a bad line. Let me say bluntly that this does not work. buzzz. . The texts were similar, and usually agree, and when they dont the Vulgate is just as likely as the Old Latin to have the pure Bible text. The Old Latin is a bit wild, with some unusual readings and additions in some manuscripts, while the Vulgate as well was part of the preservation of the word of God for a millennium. When Erasmus, Stephanus and Bezae developed the underlying pure Bible text behind the AV, the Latin tradition made a significant contribution. And they put out Greek-improved Latin editions, updating the Vulgate, as well as the better known Greek New Testaments. . ====================== . The Vulgate was part of the historic Bible preservation in two distinct ways. . 1) verses and phrases and words were preserved in the Latin that were corrupted in the Greek. Even from a Gail Riplinger perspective (I dunno if that is yours) the Greek Orthodox had allowed some corruption of their Greek Bibles. From where did the correction come? Correction came primarily from the historic Latin texts, which was principally the Vulgate, and the ECW. (Theordore Beza also had Syriac access, but that would be minor. Old Latin mss would generally agree with Vulgate and would be not easily available.) Thus, the Vulgate contributed to the Greek New Testament used by the learned men of the AV-1611. . Note: Where I believe Gail Riplinger errs on this aspect is somewhat nebulous references to vernacular versions like the Gothic. There is really no indication that these were sources of any import. I do believe that part of this error is related to not wanting to acknowledge the Latin contribution from the Vulgate. On this Edward Freer Hills is the writer who seems to be most spot-on in AV historical writings. Before 1870 there would be little difficulty in understanding all this from TR defenders (e.g. Frederick Nolan.) . 2) the Latin contributed to the AV through the excellence of much Latin words and phrasing, major parts of our English language excellence and precision, in 1611 and today, which passed through to the AV. Often this phrasing would be in the Vulgate through to the Douay-Rheims, sometimes also in the Geneva or other English Bibles, but sometimes not. . The learned men of the AV were very aware of the ups and downs of the Latin Bible editions, and had in their hands the work by William Fulke that had both the Bishops Bible and the Rheims. . There was also one full book on the Rheims contribution to the AV by James George Carleton, The part of Rheims in the making of the English Bible, 1902. (Again, though you have to realize that some or many, but not all, of those contributions were not just Rheims, since the same wording could be in, e.g. the Geneva). This can be augmented by looking at the notes published from John Bois, and by looking at the sermons and writings from men like Lancelot Andrews. . To totally avoid excellent Latin words simply because they were in the Rheims would be the genetic fallacy. The learned men were simply trying to give the most excellent and pure representation of the Bible text, using the pure Received Text editions and all the English tools at their disposal. And in this, they succeeded fully!
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 08:01:12 +0000