Quote:
Originally Posted by redeemedcynic84
The Latin Vulgate that we currently have was "translated" at the height of the Catholic Churches' (misuse of) power... If there ever were a time that you can't trust a translation of a Bible, its the Latin Vulgate...
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mfblume has given a good accounting of the Latin passage in question. Someone came to me with the challenge of "The word rapture doesn't appear in the Bible..." many years ago and I responded with the passage from the Vulgate that Sam has shared. This of course doesn't tell us what that "rapture" is in the detail that many people require- but the word is there.
I would challenge some points in the post above by my friend.
There are of course different editions of the Vulgate but they all stem from the original prepared by Jerome of Jerusalem in the late 4th through the early 5th centuries AD. Whatever opinions you may have about the "Catholic Churches' (misuse of) power" a couple of points should be considered:
1) The institution known as The Roman Catholic Church didn't even exist at the time the Vulgate was first translated. Most Christians of the day would have told you that the Eastern Bishops (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, etc) had more influence over the church than the bishop of Rome.
2) Jerome himself was perhaps one of the greatest linguists not only of his time, but perhaps among the greats of all time. What the man accomplished with pen and paper in the midst of such upheaval is remarkable. We may rightly quarrel with his theology, antisemitism and other points of his life; but as a master of languages- he was truly a master.
3) The Vulgate was used by the King James translators as a sort of "cross check" to see how their Greek -> English and Hebrew -> English work compared with related languages like Latin. In this they were following Wyclif and the Geneva Bible translators.
The Vulgate is actually a very good translation- if you happen to speak Latin.
The terrible abuses that would occur (some would say still occur) in the RCC really were a product of later years. And to be fair to any RCC lurker, yes the "persecutors" were often later denounced by the RCC and many times it was a secular power that was using the church's offices to accomplish their own ends. Also, like in the modern priest abuse scandal; the victims themselves were often Roman Catholics.
Hybrid Mode
