Tag: Dei Verbum

Bible Translations

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One of my friends sent me an email asking about Bible translations and requesting an introductory post on the subject. Well Ricardo, here you go…

Before we start talking about different translations, let’s begin by considering the language of the original Biblical manuscripts, which are known as “autographs”. In what language were these originals documents written? Despite what Henry Higgins suggests, the Bible was not originally written in English…

true story

So, if it wasn’t English, in what language was the Bible initially written?  Well, the original Biblical documents were, in fact, written in several languages. Different languages were used for the Old Testament and New Testament, so let’s look at them in turn…

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Thanks for the memories (Part 2 of 2)

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Yesterday I told the story of a friend of mine who asked me about how non-Catholics memorize Scripture.

I began by offering a few techniques that I’ve used in the past for committing Bible passages to memory. I then went on to explain that, memory techniques aside, non-Catholics tend to be more familiar with Scripture simply because they make it more of a priority in their lives.

Today I’d like to take a look at the Catholic response to this…

The Catholic Response

First of all, what does the Church teach on the subject? The Catechism says:

The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful. . . to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures…” – CCC #133 

Well, you can’t really get much more forceful than that! The Church says that “all” Catholics should get to know Jesus better through “frequent” reading of the Bible. The Catechism then goes on to sum up the Church’s position beautifully and succinctly with a quotation from one of the Church’s greatest biblical scholars, Jerome:

“Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” – St. Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah

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