Facts about the Bible

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 22, 28 May 1903, Page 29

Facts about the Bible

Those who are familiar with the writings ol the Fathers and ol l.unoiis excretes know how hai d it is (sa\s the ' A\e Mai ia ') lot niodein scholars to siv nmthmg new legaidmg Biblical studies . but no\i_H\ 111 the pi esent alion oi old lads is always possible to a man ol powci We }ia\e been great k interested in the sei les of eleinentar\ Scriptural studies which Monsignor John Yaughan has bt.cn contributing to the London

Catholic '1 lines ' lfeic. lor instance, aie some i<l!ietions on the l.v I that now hire in the world is there extant an original manuscript ol the Bible :

' Though the Old 'lestament w tilings weie written tlnot; thousand \ eai s and moie ago, we have no existing manuscript ol the Ilebiew Old 'testament earlier than the ninth or tenth tenturv alter Chi isl " Ovei a thousand \eais separate our eai best Jlebiew manusuipts horn the date at which the latest of the books contained in them was originally written " says F (J Kern on Probably the oldest manuscript no\\ in existence of any pai t ol the Uehiew lnlle is cue that was lecentl.v aequiird by the British Museum, containing the Pentateuch written in book fotni and e\en that is imperfect at the end It is not dated (a tact of itsell mdic.Lti\e ol its antiquity ), but is said bj\ expei ts to lie not later- than the ninth ceiitur\ aftei Christ

' From this it iollows that e\eu thoM- who can read Hebrew fluently cannot tia\el back to the tount am-hcad nor drink at the \erv sonice of msjuration Th.it is to sa\, they cannot consult the 01 igm.il hut inusl n< eds be satisfied to study and examine such copies as ha\e come down to us and are still accessible And oven the eniliest ( Opies that we ha\e aie gi'iieiallv not first-hand ( opies — i c , not copies r'.ule (Inertly fi om the original The\ mi 1 in most cases only copies of other and eaihi'i copies

' Consider, then, to wli.it fi esh difficulties this would expose vs — and not nierelv to difhciilt les, but to spintu.il dangers — had We not the living and infallible \oicc of the Chinch to safeguard us, and to declaie what is and

what is not of faith. With the Church to guide us we may contemplate all these sources of error with the utmost composure. Without her infallible assistance we should be in as bad a plight as the Protestant Churches, lor, observe, though the original writeis were preserved Irom all error by the direct assistance of the Holy (.host, this dnine assistance does not extend to the individual monks or lriais, or other scribes, howex er holy, who sat down, pen in hand, to reproduce the original text There weie thousands and thousands of copyists busily employed in the monasteries and scriploinuub Ihiuughout the world. Through want of observation or through carelessness or weariness, or on account ol difficult or partially effaced writing how easy it was to mistake a letter or to omit a word or a particle ! v c t such an omission is capable of altogether changing the sense of an entire passage ' The contemptuous attitude of the average non-Catho-lic for tradition as compared with the Written Word could hardly get a severer jolt than it does in theso yigoious sentences. 'I he best that can be said for the Bible, on -whose uninterpreted pages the Protestant solely bases his taith, is that it is a translation of a translation of a traditional copy. Small wonder that even doctors— not to mention deacons— disagree about its meaning