What Is Catholic Bible
The Catholic Bible stands out in the crowd of the Holy Scriptures variations because it is the only bible that has added books from the Old Testament. These books are not found in other translations of the Bible.
In the Catholic Bible, one can find the books called Apocrypha, also referred to as the Deutercanonicals, which include Tobit, Maccabees I and II, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and Baruch. Although the Jews did not preserve these books, the Christians did as they recognize the books spiritual value. While the Jews and the Protestants do not consider the books as a part of the Holy Scripture, the Catholics value them as such and, in the 16th century, have made the books an official part of the Scripture at the Council of Trent.
Even Jerome and Augustine, two of the most popular Catholic writers before the fall of the Roman Empire, debated over the value of the Apocrypha. Augustine believed in the spiritual value of the books while Jerome did not. Jerome did much of the translation of the Old and New Testaments from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. His side was favored at that time.
Church Discovers A First Edition King James Bible
A first edition King James Bible has been discovered hidden away and forgotten in a church in Cambridge.
This year marks the 400th anniversary of its publication.
Staff at Great St Mary’s University church had forgotten about the book, which was donated in 1925.
“It’s not quite perfect, but it does have the New Testament title page which has the date 1611,” said Peter Meadows, from Cambridge University Library.
He is the library’s Bible Society librarian and part of the congregation at Great St Mary’s.
Phil Gorman, the pastoral assistant for Great St Mary’s, rediscovered the ancient book.
To celebrate the King James Bible’s original publication in 1611, church staff decided to organise a public reading of the whole book.
Readers will include people from Great St Mary’s and many other churches from the Cambridge area. It will be launched by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, on 27 April, who will read Genesis I.
As a result Mr Gorman needed to find a King James edition, and rummaged through an old chest towards the back of the church.
“I came across a very large package covered in acid-proof paper,” Mr Gorman explained. “As I lifted it out and opened the wrappers the first thing that caught my eye was Barker 1611 on the spine.
“I opened it and it was a first edition King James.”
The Cultural Legacy Of The King James Bible
From Handels Messiah to Coolios Gangstas Paradise, the King James Bible has inspired a wide swath of cultural expression across the English-speaking world over generations. Writers from Herman Melville to Ernest Hemingway to Alice Walker have drawn on its cadences and imagery for their work, while quoted the King James Version of Isaiah in his famous I Have a Dream speech.
Beyond the countless artists and leaders inspired by the King James Bible, its influence can be seen in many of the expressions English speakers use every day. Phrases like my brothers keeper,the kiss of death,the blind leading the blind,fall from grace,eye for an eye and a drop in the bucketto name only a fewall owe their existence, or at least their popularization in English, to the KJV.
From the early 20th century onward, mainstream Protestant denominations increasingly turned toward more modern Bible translations, which have been able to provide more accurate readings of the source texts, thanks to the use of more recently discovered ancient Semitic texts unavailable in 1611. Still, the King James Version remains extremely popular. As late as 2014, a major study on The Bible in American Life found that 55 percent of Bible readers said they reached most often for the King James Version, compared with only 19 percent who chose the New International Version, first published in 1978 and updated most recently in 2011.
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Hebrew Bible Vs Holy Bible
The main difference between the Holy Bible and the Hebrew Bible is that the Holy Bible contains both Old and New testaments, whereas the Hebrew bible only contains Old Testaments. The holy bible contains religious texts and scriptures as the Hebrew bible too. Hebrew bible books are based on the Hebrew language, including Torah.
Hebrew Bible is also known as Tanakh. It is a set of 24 books which makes it a whole library of the bible. It only consists of the Old Testaments of the bible. It is also known as the original language of the Bible in Christian culture.
The Holy Bible is the Bible followed mostly. It contains both Testaments, which are New Testaments and Old Testaments. It contains 66 books of Protestants, 73 books of Catholics, and 81 books of orthodox. It contains the whole life cycle of Jesus Christ in it.
Why Did King James Want A Newly Translated Bible
Before James commissioned the KJV in 1604, most people in England were learning from two different Bibles the Church of England’s translation, commonly read during worship services , and the more popular version most Brits read at home, known as the Geneva Bible, first published in 1560. The Geneva Bible was the Bible of choice among Protestants and Protestant sects, and as a Presbyterian, James also read that version. However, he disliked the lengthy and distracting annotations in the margins, some of which even questioned the power of a king, according to Gordon.
What’s more, when James assumed the English throne in March 1603, following the death of Queen Elizabeth I, he inherited a complicated political situation, as the Puritans and the Calvinists religious followers of reformer John Calvin were openly questioning the absolute power of the Church of England’s bishops. James’ own mother Mary, Queen of Scots had been executed 16 years earlier in part because she was perceived to be a Catholic threat to Queen Elizabeth’s Protestant reign. “Mary’s death made James keenly aware of how easily he could be removed if he upset the wrong people,” Gordon said.
James died from a stroke in March 1625, so he never saw his Bible become widely accepted. But even during his lifetime, after James commissioned the translation, he didn’t oversee the process himself. “It’s almost as if he got the ball rolling, then washed his hands of the whole thing,” Gordon said.
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The Textus Receptus Or Received Text Is Basically Erasmus Greek Text
Many KJV advocates claim that the New Testament in the King James Bible was translated from a Greek text known as the Textus Receptus and that the TR is especially accurate and inspired. The term Textus Receptus was first coined in 1633, after the KJV was first published, and it basically refers to Erasmus critical text. The current version of the TR was produced in 1894 by Scrivener who preferred the Byzantine, or Majority, Text.
Most modern translations of the New Testament are based on critical Greek texts that take into account a larger collection of texts than was available to Erasmus when he was creating his critical texts. A few of these previously unavailable manuscripts date from as early as the third century, which makes them much closer to the date that the New Testament books and letters were written by the biblical authors.
Three Myths About The King James Bible
For more on the King James Bible, check out Ryan M. Reeves and Charles Hill, KNOW How We Got Our Bibles .
George Washington and the apple tree. Julius Caesar born from a C-section, or that Columbus discovered the United States. Some historical myths are harmless even if they are remembered by everyone. Some are worse than othersinvented to make something greater than it was or created to make an outright fabrication. But myths are always wrong, no matter how often they are told.
The King James Bible is no exception to this rule. So lets look at three myths found in popular accounts of the KJV. To be clear, these are not the types of myths said by those who defend KJV-Only views, but rather the king of myths told by many popular accounts today.
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The Kjv Was Not The First English Translation Of The Bible
A few King-James-Only Christians believe that the King James Bible was the first English translation of the Scriptures. This belief is incorrect. John Wycliffes Bible was translated from Latin into English and hand-copied in the 1400s. In 1526, almost 100 years before the KJV was first published, William Tyndales English translation of the Greek New Testament was printed. A decade or so later, full English Bibles began to be printed. First came the Coverdale Bible which used Tyndales NT, as did the Matthew Bible . Then came Richard Taverners Bible , closely followed by the Great Bible . The Geneva Bible was published by and for Calvinist Puritans. The Bishops Bible was based on the Great Bible and edited by Church of England bishops, partly, in response to the Geneva Bible. The Douay Rheims Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate, rather than Hebrew and Greek, for the Roman Catholic Church.
Much of the KJV, which was first published in 1611, borrows heavily from earlier English translations, especially Tyndales New Testament and the Bishops Bible.
Main Differences Between King James Bible And New King James Bible
1. The followers who preach the King James Bible would usually reject the New King James Bibles idea and belief as it considers todays thoughts and beliefs. In contrast, the New King James Bible followers would not read the King James Bible because of the language.2. The New King James Bible included Alexandrian texts, whereas the King James Bible totally excludes the Alexandrian texts altogether.3. The King James Bible is hard to read, whereas the New King James Bible is easier to be read by people as compared to the King James Bible.4. The King James Bible is actually quite a prominent Bible among adults and older age groups, whereas the New King James Bible is the most popular Bible among children as they would find it easy to read.5. The New King James is written to reflect better readability and accurately interpret, whereas the King James Bible is literally taken despite the language differences.
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How The Kjv Differs From The Catholic And Other Bibles
The Bible commissioned by King James, like other Protestant Bibles, differs from that used by the Catholic Church. This was the first official church of Christianity, and as such, their version of the Bible tends to be a bit more old-school in ways. To begin with, as Difference Between points out, the Catholic Bible contains parts of the Old Testament that no other Christian Bible uses. Although when the King James Bible was first written, however, it also included these books, but the newer versions do not. Actually, the Jewish religion doesn’t even use these books anymore, but the Catholic Church has decided they still have a necessary spiritual value that should be included in their holiest text. The collection that includes these books are known as the “Apocrypha.” The books you’ll find within are First and Second Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, Wisdom, Baruch, and Ecclesiasticus. Oddly enough, these books weren’t officially part of their text until the 16th century.
When King James laid out rules for the KJV’s translation, he required that all margin notes be removed, unlike the Geneva and other Bibles, as well as that the word “church” would not be converted to “congregation,” as Bible Researcher explains. This was to help preserve the power of the church’s authority his authority.
Myths Debunked: King James And The King James Bible
Trevelyon Miscellany. 1608. Folger.
OK, more myths to bust. King James I did not translate the King James Bible, and he was also no saint! Ive seen at least one recent book entitled King Jamess Bible. The implicit claim of this title is true, to the extent that the KJV was commissioned by King James, and it was presumably the Bible he himself used from 1611 until his death in 1625. But, in this last sense, it was pretty much everybody elses Bible, too.
James certainly did not do any of the translating of the KJV. He was a very scholarly king, interested in theology and the Bible. Among other works, he wrote a book on demonology and a learned exposition on several chapters of Revelation. He also translated some of the Psalms into meter, but this practice tended to involve turning English prose versions into verse, rather than rendering the original Hebrew into English. Lots of people wrote metrical Psalms at this period, and most didnt know Hebrew.
James I at the hunt . Gascoigne, The noble art of venerie or hunting. 1611. Folger.
We can keep calling it the King James Bible, but we shouldnt let that nickname mislead us into giving James more credit than hes due.
Hannibal Hamlin, associate professor of English at The Ohio State University, is co-curator of the Manifold Greatness exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library, on view through January 16, 2012.
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The Real Reason It Was Created
As you may have guessed, the King James Version of the Bible was commissioned in 1604 by King James I of England, who Britannica says reigned from 1567 to 1625. The king wasn’t quite so handy as to translate the whole thing itself. To do so would’ve taken a command of not just one language but many, at an expert level that few people possessed. The king needed scholars, wordsmiths, people with the ability to take the ancient languages and make them ring with the people of the era, and they had to get it done quickly.
The Geneva Bible created by the Calvinists had become the most popular version of the Bible among reformers of the time, as TIME explains, and that could’ve been a good thing. History notes that Calvinists and the Church of England alike were reformers contending with the Catholic Church, but the Calvinists had stayed in exile for a reason. Their version of the Bible slapped back at the power of bishops and the hierarchy of Britain’s church, at the head of which was the king himself , and it was causing serious tension between the Protestant factions. King James got the best people he could find to put together a new version of the Bible that he hoped would resolve these tensions. Like a lot of religious history, this was a political move to help keep his subjects from quarreling and protect his own churches.
What Is The Difference Between Catholic Bible And King James Bible
Catholic Bible is the book followed by the Catholics, or accepted as the Holy Scripture by the Catholics. King James Bible is the Protestant bible.
One remarkable difference between Catholic Bible and King James Bible is the content. Originally, the King James Bible as well as Catholic Bible had the books from Old Testaments, which are known as the Apocrypha or the Deutercanonicals. However, later versions of the King James Bible do not have these books as the bible publishers considered them less important. As a result, Catholic Bible has Apocrypha while King James Bible does not.
The biggest difference between Catholic Bible and King James Bible lies largely on the printed words themselves. The King James Version has been known for centuries all throughout the world as the one that makes use of what is considered as the Old English language. On the contrary, the Catholic Bible is written in the modern day English.
Knowing about what the two versions of the Holy Scripture have to offer is a great help in determining which one to get a hold of. It also helps to ask other people who share ones faith and beliefs in choosing the one among the different variations of the Bible.
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A Crisis Of Translation
The 15th century saw quite the rise in Bible translations. A big part of this had to do with two things: The Protestant Reformation, when smaller churches were breaking away from the Catholic Church , and the invention of the printing press in 1450. Before this, Britannica says, there were only slightly more than 30 different translations of the Bible floating around, but thanks to the hope the Protestant Reformation gave those wanting to break free of Catholicism, from the time Martin Luther published his “95 Theses” in 1517 until the end of the Thirty Years War with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia , more translations started sprouting up. Martin Luther, the OG reformer, published his own translation. There was another coming in from the Dutch humanist Erasmus. In England, according to TIME, William Tyndale’s translation became the first of its kind in 1535, and it was followed shortly after by the Calvinists Bible, known as the “Geneva Bible.”
The Calvinists were once present in Scotland, according to BBC, until Queen Mary, King James’ mother, had them expelled. Being Catholic, she wasn’t a huge fan of the Reformation and had some 250 or so Protestants killed during her time. That move didn’t turn out great for her, but at least the Calvinists only got exiled to Switzerland, where they continued to print copies of their beloved book.
The Kjv Was Not The First Authorised English Translation Of The Bible
The KJV was not the first approved or first authorised English translation. The 1537 edition of the Coverdale Bible was officially approved by Henry VIII and it bears the royal license on the title page. Henry VIII then authorised The Great Bible . Thomas Cromwell, who was Vicar General and Henrys secretary, issued an injunction that a copy of the Great Bible be set up in every parish church. It was consequently the first English Bible formally authorized for public use.
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