In article , ARBermudez3{at}yahoo.com
says...
>

[snip]
>> "Magical foresight" was my choice of expression,
>> but you _did_ claim that they thought the Vulgate was
>> more accurate. And you gave an awful lot of weight to
>> that opinion, even though scholarship upheld it only MUCH later.
>
>Again, the Roman Catholic Church did not doubt the accuracy of the
>Vulgate, so anything that differed from the Vulgate was considered
>inaccurate.

On that much, we are agreed. But you still miss the point. They did NOT have
sufficient grounds for this opinion, but buttressed it largely with their own
chauvinistic disregard for the Greek Church. This was the period when Latin
blowhards could still preach sermons based on the idea that Constantinople was
punished for her sins by the Turkish conquest.

>The fact that scholarship upheld that view "only MUCH
>later" just shows how careful St. Jerome and the Roman Catholic Church
>was with the official text used by the Roman Catholic Church.

No, it shows no such thing. For although, as I said, they upheld the view later,
the even _later_ view of modern scholarship finds the inaccuracies of the
Vulgate and Alexandrian texts also unacceptable. It is now readily admitted, for
example, that the Alexandrian text upon which NA27 and UBS4 are based, is itself
post-recensional. And the principles upon which that recension were carried out
do NOT meet with universal favor today.

>There
>were corruptions introduced into the Vulgate over the years, but
>overall it was the best text available.

But that was not true then, and it is not true now. For one thing, although you
have been writing about the Vulgate as if it were pure Alexandrian text-type, it
is not. It is a _mix_ of the very Byzantine text-type you decry and the
Alexandrian, which is post-recensional. And what is more, _contrary_ to your
careless claim below, Amphoux says this mixure was already present in the
manuscripts Jerome himself used.

As I have said quite often before, modern scholarship upholds a more modest
claim, that the UBS (basically Alexandrian) is a good scholarly reconstruction
of the text IN ONE AREA, Lower Egypt, around Alexandria, AT ONE TIME, the late
2nd century.

>> >I stated that there was no knowledge or understanding of
>> >textforms.
>>
>> Where did you say that?
>
>Let's see, my exact words were:
>"Even if the idea of textforms was not known or understood, The Roman
>Catholic Church saw that the Byzantine manuscripts differed
>significantly from the Vulgate."

And those exact words do NOT state that there was no knowledge or understand of
textforms. Don't you know what "even if" means?

>> >It was simply a matter of Byzantine manuscripts differing
>> >significantly from the Vulgate.
>>
>> No, it was NOT "simply a matter" of this. For they believed that
>where they
>> differed, it was the Vulgate that was right. And you _agreed_ with
>them when you
>> claimed that since the Vulgate followed the Alexandrian, it was
>closer to the
>> originals than the TR.
>
>It was a simple matter, the Vulgate was right, and it was closer to the
>originals than the TR.  Your words: "scholarship upheld it only MUCH
>later."

Ah, but what I omitted to say was that although "scholarship upheld it only MUCH
later", it does NOT uphold it as unconditionally superior _today_, if indeed it
ever put _that_ much stock in it.

There is a world of a difference between "more accurate" and 'right'.

You seem to have missed this and assumed I meant much higher praise of the
Vulgate than I really did.

>The Roman Catholic Church was right to begin with and that has been
>borne out by scholarship.  Why do you have a problem with this?

Because that is NOT true. What scholarship _really_ upheld was only that it was
more accurate than the texts the _Protestants_ were basing their translations
on. But this is not the same at all. More importantly, "more
accurate" does NOT
mean "right".

But what I _really_ have a 'problem' with is the lengths you have shown you are
willing to go to in order to cover up the chauvinism of the Roman Church at that
time. They guessed that the Vulgate was better than the TR more out of sheer
luck than out of insight. And there really _was_ chauvinism in their breezy
dismissal of the Greek original of the NT.

[snip]

>>It was the
>> _canonization_ of the Vulgate, to the _exclusion_ of all the Greek
>manuscripts,
>> that smacks of bigotry.
>
>Why?  Because Most Roman Catholics at this time spoke Latin?  Because
>the Roman Catholic Church needed ONE official text and the best
>available happened to be in Latin?

Because that was NOT the "best available". They may have thought it was the
"best available", but that was only because they were paying too little
attention to the Greek East to know the alternatives.

Because no, the RCC did _not_ "need ONE official text". That was
a fiction of
the over-legalistic Latin mind.

Because it is absurd on the very face of it to canonize a _translation_ to the
neglect of the original, especially when the very reason for _translating_ the
Vulgate in the first place was to _avoid_ this error!

>> Think about it: how likely IS it that a _translation_ is going to be
>more
>> accurate than the original, especially when the translation was based
>on such a
>> narrow choice of manuscripts,
>
>It's extremely likely if the translation is based upon the most
>accurate examplars available and the Greek "original" you mention is
>faulty.  Being written in Greek counts for nothing if the text itself
>is corrupt.

This is where you show your _real_ ignorance of textual criticism. For you have
compounded many errors all together in one short utterance!

They are:

1 - that is a VERY big 'if'. You certainly don't know the tranlsation was based
on the most accurate exemplars

2 - even if they wer ethe most accurate then available, the scinece of textual
criticism was still in its infancy. IN fact, St. Jerome _was_ one of the
founders of the art. It is only later that we learned how to apply the art well
to Scripture.

3 - Even when the Greek original is _completely_ lost, it is STILL FALSE that
"the Greek original counts for nothing". And St. Jerome knew this
very well.
That is why the Deuterocanonicals are included in the OT even though their
Aramaic originals were (or still are) completely lost, yet modern editions rely
on scholarly reconstructions of the 'Vorlage'. You should read St. Jeromes'
prefaces to his translations of the OT books.

>then subjected to its own VERY unreliable copying
>> tradition? Are you aware of how Jerome's translation got corrupted by
>the
>> various Old Latin versions floating around?
>
>Sure, some Old Latin was thrown back in, as were Byzantine passages.
>Which was why the Roman Catholic Church worked to produce editions that
>were free from these errors.

You miss the point: it was the _Clementine_ edition of the Vulgate that was
proclaimed canonical at Trent. The 'reconstruction' you mention didn't get under
way seriously until the early 20th century.

>This never happened,

You are right about that, but Wordsworth-White gets close.

[snip]

>> The elevation of a translation over the original does NOT sound like
>"practical
>> necessity" to me.
>
>It is "practical necessity" if a translation happens to be the best
>you've got.

Again, that is a _very_ big 'if'. I happen to believe it is false.

>Can you point to Greek alternatives available at the time
>that were more accurate?

Yes. Codex Sinaiticus. But because they had been paying no attention to the
Greek East, they barely even knew of the monasteries existence, much less of the
treasures in its library. And amazingly, it is only in the last few years that
people finally noticed the text-critical notes in the Codex.

>> > It occurred in reaction to the Protestant
>> >Reformation, not anti-Greek bias.  It was the Roman Catholic
>Church's
>> >way of drawing a line in the sand and saying, "These things are
>truly
>> >Roman Catholic.  We will preserve them and fight for them.
>>
>> If they had stopped there, that would not have been bad, but as you
>say, they
>> went on to poison the well by saying:
>>
>> >  Those other
>> >things are not Roman Catholic, and anyone preserving them and
>fighting
>> >for them is wrong."
>>
>> And THAT is where the bigotry is.
>
>Bigotry = saying that it is wrong to deny Christ's divinty?
>Bigotry = saying corrupt manuscripts should not be used?


Do you _always_ twist other people's words and throw the distortions back at
them? Is _that_ your idea of representing the Latin tradition?

I _NEVER_ said these things.

>Bigotry has to do with people and culture.  The Roman Catholic church
>never spoke against Peoples or cultures unless they were violating the
>teachings of Christ. 

Peoples and cultures do not violate the teachings, _individuals_ do. How could
you miss this?

>It has nothing to do with not using certain
>manuscripts because of the language they are written in.  Again, can
>you point to any viable Greek alternatives to the Vulgate?

Yes, I already did. And the reason the Latins did now know about its superiority
was bigotry. Out of bigotry, they pretended they had no obligation to know the
achievements of Greek Christianity.

>> >Some churches who were in league with Rome felt
>> >excluded, and that is unfortunate.
>>
>> Oh, it is worse than that. For they were not just "in league" with
>Rome.
>> According to Rome's own ecclesiology, they were one Church with Rome,
>and Trent
>> forced them to consider the Vulgate more authoritative than their own
>manuscript
>> tradition.
>
>Can you show where that scribal tradition produced manuscripts that
>were more accurate than the Vulgate?  Again the fact that a manuscrpt
>is written in Greek - or any other language for that matter - is
>meaningless if the text is not accurate.

First of all, I have already done this, second, it is NOT true that it is
'meaningless'.

As yet another example of how it is NOT 'meaningless', consider that the modern
edition of "Prometheus Bound" includeds, in its Appendix, translations into
Latin and English of the remaining fragments (and allusions to fragments) of the
presumed sequel, "Prometheus Loosed". If you actually read it,
you will see for
yourself how even such fragments viewed throught the lens of translations and
unreliable manuscript traditions sheds light on the first play of the trilogy,
"Prometheus Bound".

>> >  Faith united us and it is
>> >unfortunate that language should divide.
>>
>> It was and is much more than mere languate that is doing the
>division.
>
>And people with axes to grind for the sake of grinding axes are not
>helping.

That would be a better description of what YOU are doing than of what I am
doing. What other explanation can there be for your irrational insistence on the
superiority of the Vulgate? What other explanation can there be for your
irrational insistence on the purity of the decision of Trent?

>> > Groups not in league with
>> >Rome felt they had been "cursed" or "condemned."
>>
>> And they WERE. Didn't you read the anathemas attached to the
>Council's decrees?
>
>Do you not realize that "anathema" has more than one meaning and that
>it was a form of "legalese"?

Yes, I do realize it, and it has NO bearing on the discussion here. You are
trying to use the multiple sense to cover up the crime of your 'fathers' in the
Latin faith. They had NO RIGHT to anathematize those who used their traditional
texts.


-- 
---------------------------
Subudcat se sibi ut haereat Deo
quidquid boni habet, tribuat illi a quo factus est.
(St. Augustine, Ser. 96)

((( s.r.c.b-s is a moderated group.  All posts are approved by a moderator. )))
(((   Read http://srcbs.org for details about this group BEFORE you post.   )))


--- UseNet To RIME Gateway {at} 2/13/05 10:44:27 PM ---