The Douay -
Rheims Bible: Enter the Counter Reformation
Chapter
10
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In 1582 the Catholic Church approved the
translation of the Latin Vulgate into English. Perhaps this event, more
than any other, evidenced the complete vindication of Tyndale's labor and
life. Forty-six years after his execution, the Church published in English
the very Book for which it had murdered William Tyndale and thousands of men and
women for demanding the right to possess.
The Rheims New Testament was published with the
approval of the Roman Catholic Church at Rheims, France, in 1582. The
Church's intentions, however, were less than honorable. The Catholic Bible
in English was not produced to help Catholic people, but rather to hurt the
Protestant cause. The sole purpose of the publication of the Rheims New
Testament was to supercede the work of William Tyndale and undermine Protestant
Reformation doctrine. The sole intention of the Catholic Church was to
bring England back to Romanism. If Tyndale's beloved Bible could be
replaced in the hearts and homes of England with a book that promoted
Catholic doctrine, wherever the influence of the English-speaking race extended,
Catholicism would reign.
Notice how Roman Catholic doctrine infiltrated the
pages of their bible, even with no original language
manuscript aurthority to do so. In Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman, the virgin born Son of God, is replaced
by the woman. In Cahtholicism Mary has pre-eminence over Jesus
Christ. When Catholic people pray their rosaries, several "Hail Mary's"
are offered for every one "Our Father" (the so-called "Lord's Prayer" of Matthew
chapter six). The Douay rendering of Genesis 3:15, rather than saying, "it
(the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ) shall bruise thy head, and
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thou shalt bruise his heel," says, "she shall
crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her
heel." Jesus crushed the head of Satan as His heel was bruised on
Calvary. The victory belonged to the seed of the woman, not the
woman.
Another example of this tinkering and tampering
with the text is found in Hebrews 11:21, where the Douay-Rheims translation
teaches image worship. The true Bible text says, "By faith Jacob, when he
was a dying....worshipped (God), leaning upon the top of his staff." The
Catholic bible says, "Jacob adored the top of his rod."
In the earlier printings of the Rheims New
Testament Jesus was quoted in the model prayer in Matthew chapter six as saying,
"Give us this day our supersubstantial bread," teaching the doctrine of
transubstantiation, which heresy we discussed in a previous chapter. The
outcry against this obvious mutilation of the text was so great that it was soon
corrected.
You might be thinking, "To say that the Catholic
Church intended to harm Christians and the cause of Christ with their bible is a
rather harsh accusation." Just look at the facts of history and you will
see that my premise is true. The Roman Catholic Church historically and
persistently, and vehemently, opposed and tried to prevent an English Bible from
ever coming into being. When Tyndale, Coverdale, Rogers and others eluded
the ecclesiastical authorities long enough to publish a Bible in the mother
tongue, full-scale warfare was declared, and vengeance violently executed on
those who published, purchased and possessed the dreaded
Bibles.
When outright elimination of English Bibles and
extermination of English Protestants proved impossible, a Roman Catholic version
of the Bible in English was reluctantly produced. I reiterate: the
Rheims New Testament was not meant to help Catholics. Catholic people were
(and are) still dissuaded and discouraged from reading the Bible on their
own. All theology, all doctrine, all matters spiritual were left
completely in the hands of the priests, to be meted out to the people as they
saw fit.
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Roman Catholic people at this time were still
adherents to the Tridentine Professions of Faith of 1564. Among other
tenets of the "faith" it also stated,
"...nor will I ever receive and interpret the
Scripture except according to the unanimous consent of the fathers. I
acknowledge the holy mother Church to whom it belongs to decide upon the true
sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures."
The Rheims New Testament was produced to harm the
cause of Christ and confuse the Christians. The following statement is a
direct quotation from the Preface of the Rheims New Testament of 1582: "The (New
Testament) was not translated into English because it was necessary that
the Bible be in the mother tongue, or that God had appointed the Scriptures to
be read by all." The translators especially urged that those portions of
Scriptures be committed to memory which made most against heretics (born again
believers)."
I have often said in my preaching that Satan is a
being of limited ingenuity. Although he is limited, as is the rest of
creation, by the providential and sovereign hand of Almighty God, he is
nevertheless ingenious. He knows what works. He has been at his game
of confusion and deception for thousands of years. His motivation for
having a Roman Catholic translation of the Bible to supplant the true Word of
God and replace it with an inferior product, full of false doctrine and thinly
veiled heresy, is also his motivation for the modern language bible movement of
today.
The producers of the modern bibles, like the
Catholic hierarchy of the Reformation era, are not interested in helping people
understand the Word of God. Their only interest is in helping
themselves to their fill of "filthy lucre." The devil's interest in the
success of the modern bibles is, once again, to supplant the true Word of God
with an inferior product, a counterfeit, not to help anyone but himself by
hurting the cause of Christ.
People who comprise modern Christendom stand
aghast at the...
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plethora of bible translations available today,
shake their heads, shrug their shoulders and say, "Which Bible is the Word of
God?" Or, even more sadly, 'Is any Bible the Word of
God?"
The Old Testament translated from Jerome's Latin
Vulgate into English by the Roman Catholic scholars was completed and published
in 1609 and 1610. This became the first complete Douay-Rheims bible,
containing both Old and New Testaments.
Catholic bibles have undergone countless changes
to the text through the years. One modern Roman Catholic authority said,
"The version now in use has been so seriously altered that it can be scarcely
considered identical with that which first went by the name of Douay
Bible."
Cardinal Newman stated, "Bishop Challoner's
revision (1749-52) almost amounted to a new translation."
Cardinal Wiseman had this to say: "It (the
Douay-Rheims translation) has been altered and modified until scarcely any verse
remains as it was originally published."
At least they are being honest. If the
modern translators excerised the same level of integrity as the printers of the
Catholic bibles they would have to confess: "The versions we now offer have been
so seriously altered from the traditional, faithful text that they can be
scarcely considered identical with that which first went by the name of
Bible."
Thank God, the King James Bible you have today is
the same as the King James Bible printed in 1611, which is nine-tenths the same
as the first printed English Bible produced by William Tyndale in
1526.
The canonization of the Apocryphal books at the
Council of Trent in 1546 was another Roman Catholic attempt to counter the
Protestant Reformation movement, hence the name "Counter Reformation." The
Apocryphal writings, which came into being between 300 B.C. and A.D. 100, have
been rejected as inspired Scripture throughout the history of the church.
None of these books are included in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Old
Testament, which is the underlying text of the Old Testament
in...
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the King James Bible, nor were any of these books
ever accepted by the Jews as a part of the canon of inspired
Scripture.
The Apocryphal books first appeared in the
Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. There is no
evidence, however, that the Alexandrian Jews, who produced the Septuagint,
regarded any of the books of the Apocrypha as inspired Scripture. They
were translated into Latin in the second century AD, and remained in the Latin
text as it was transmitted and translated through the
centuries.
The reformers, including Wycliffe, Luther,
Tyndale, and Coverdale, categorically rejected these writings as unworthy to
include in the canon of Scripture. No English-speaking Christians have
ever accepted the Apocrypha as part of the canon of
Scripture.
The apocryphal writings were included in the
Bibles of the reformers--Wycliffe, Luther, Tyndale, the Geneva Bible and the
King James Bible--solely for their historical merit. These writings fill
the gap between the Old and New Testaments, when the voice of prophecy and
revelation had ceased. The writer of the Apocryphal book I Maccabees
attests to this fact: "So was there a great affliction in Israel, the like
whereof was not since the time that a prophet was not seen amongst
them."
The Westminster Confession of Faith
stated:
"The books commonly called Apocrypha, not
being of divine inspiriation, are not part of the canon of Scripture; and
therefore are of no authority in the church of God, nor to be any
otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human
writings."
After listing the thiry-nine Books of the Old
testament, the Sixth Anglican article of Religion reads, "And the other books
the church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners: but yet
doth it not apply to them to establish any doctrine." Surely, these
members of the clergy were familiar with Second Timothy 3:16, "All
scripture...is profitable for doctrine."
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The Geneva Bible translators wrote, as a preface
to the Apocryphal books,
"The books that follow in order after the
prophets unto the New Testament are called Apocrypha, that is, books which were
not received by a common consent to be read and expounded publicly in the
church, neither yet served to prove any point of Christian
religion."
The translators of the Geneva Bible and the
translators of the King James Bible were careful to separate the Apocryphal
books from the canon of Scripture and isolate them between the Old and New
Testaments, preservingthem only for their historical and literary value as rare
writings from the intertestamental period. The Catholic bible interspersed
the books of the Apocrypha throughout the Old Testament Books, ascribing them
equal value with the canonical Books. This practice is continued to this
day.
The Roman Catholic Church canonized eleven of the
Apocryphal books in 1546 at the Council of Trent in response to the reformers'
rejection of these books as inspired Scripture as an attempt to undermine the
Protestant Reformation and cause confusion in the churches. Interestingly,
an early Roman Catholic, Jerome, rejected the Apocryphal writings as
non-conaonical in the fourth century AD.
The removal of the Apocrypha from the Bible is
ascribed to Puritan influence, which caused the books to be omitted in some
editions of the Geneva Bible.
As early as 1612 there were editions of the King
James Bible printed without the Apocrypha. After 1827 the British and
Foreign Bible Societies decided that no further funds would be expended in
publishing the non-canonical books.
Editions of the King James Bible as late as 1890
are known to have contained the Apocrypha, but for the most part they had been
removed much earlier.
A recent occurence which I find highly interesting
is the re-...
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introduction of the Apocryphal books into some of
the modern English bible translations such as the New American Standard
Version. The purveyors of these bibles, produced from inferior, corrupted
manuscripts, are now joining the Inquisitors of old in their attempt to
reinstate these non-canonical books to an undeserved, elevated status. The
devil, with his limited ingenuity, is once again up to his old tricks. He
knows what worked in causing confusion in the churches during the Protestant
Reformation era; he knows what works today.
Note: A
mathematical formula involving God's number of completion and perfection, the
number seven, shows exactly which Books and how many
Books God placed and preserved in the canon of Scripture. The Greek New
Testament originally contained 27 Books, as does the
New Testament to this day, which have been received by Christians since the
early 2nd Century when they were first compiled into one volume (Peshitta
Version, AD 145). The Hebrew Old Testament contains the same Books as the
Old Testament of the King James Bible and other translations. However,
only 22 Books are found in the Hebrew, not the 39
found in the English Bible today. The Books of I and II Kings and I and II
Samuel were combined into one Book, called the Book of Kings. I and II
Chronicles were called the Book of Chronicles. Most of the Books of the
Minor Prophets were compiled into one, and some of the Books of Poetry were
considered to be one Book, hence 22 Books instead of 39. The total number
of Books in the Bible in its original form, 22 Old
Testament Books and 27 New Testament Books, is 49, God's number of completion and perfection (seven) times itself (seven). The canon of Scripture in God's perfect Book
is sealed by God's number of completion and perfection squared. We
therefore can authoritatively conclude that no extra books belong in the canon
of Scripture (i.e., the Apocryphal books or the "Lost Books of the Bible"), and
no Books contained in the Old or New Testaments can credibly be called into
question as to their authority or canonicity (i.e., the liberals' and moderists'
rejection of Daniel, Jonah, etc.)
