Catholic Translations
Back to The Bible's Difficult Scriptures Explained!
In the first three centuries, the Catholic Church used the oldest available fragments of the New Testament. These are called the “Western Text.” They are full of notable corruptions, contradictions, deletions and counterfeit additions. They vary so much that there is no way of accurately knowing what constitutes the New Testament. Scholars admit that they originated in Rome.
Catholics and Protestants agree that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but disagree on which books belong in the Bible. The Catholic Old Testament canon includes books such as Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and I and II Maccabees, with added sections in Esther and Daniel that are missing in the KJV. These added books are referred to as the “Apocrypha” and are not accepted as scripture by Protestants and others. Among scholars, it is common knowledge that there are obvious historical inaccuracies in the books of Tobias and Judith.
The Codex Vaticanus just happened to be found in the Vatican Library in 1481. The quality of the text is amazingly intact. But it leaves out a substantial amount of text. For instance, Genesis 1:1 through Gen 46:28 is missing, as well as Psalms 106 through 138, Paul’s Pastoral Epistles, Hebrews 9:14 through Heb 13:25, and the entire book of Revelation. In the gospels alone there are 748 whole sentences, 452 clauses and 237 words missing. Codex Vaticanus has all the books of the Catholic Old Testament except for I and II Maccabees.
The Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in A.D. 1844 by Prof. Tishendorf on a trash pile outside the walls of St. Catherine’s Monastery, at the base of what some believe is the mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments. It had been thrown out as garbage by monks. On nearly every page there are corrections and revisions by as many as ten different people. It contains most of the New Testament plus the “Epistle of Barnabas” and “Shepherd of Hermes.” Codex Sinaiticus lacks II Maccabees, but includes IV Maccabees.
The Greek Septuagint was translated during the Hellenistic era (331 B.C. to A.D. 100), to benefit Jews of Alexandria, Egypt, who spoke Greek. About 250 B.C., the first five books of the Bible were translated by 72 Hellenist Jews. The name Septuagint comes from the Greek phrase “of the seventy.” A few decades later, the books of the Prophets were translated as well. This is where the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus originated.
Codex Alexandrinus has all of the books of the Catholic Old Testament, plus III and IV Maccabees.
The Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament has many corruptions and should not be used.
The text of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) has been the work of so-called higher critics over the past 150 years. They base their work on both the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. But they originated in Egypt in the fourth century A.D., through the work of schools and critics in the early centuries after Christ. Together, these texts are also known as the “Alexandrian Text.” Some think they should rely on the oldest text available. This text has about 5% of the known Greek manuscripts and has been altered over the years. The fact that it is the oldest manuscript does not make it accurate. As a copy of the text wore out, a new copy was made—written by hand. This explains why there are few old copies. Each was disposed of and destroyed as a newer one replaced it. Critics seem to forget that accurate copies of the original are far superior to corrupt copies, no matter how old they are.