The Linus Van Pelt Lesson on Translation Accuracy

By Ann Barnhardt at Barnhardt.biz

That really is a sweet little clip. The child who voiced Linus had such a quintessentially warm American accent, even down to the little lisp. Magic in a bottle - from the voices to the soundtrack. It was made in 1965 and stands as a marker of the end of the Christian American culture, only recognized now in retrospect.

But, a nit to pick, and a great lesson for all in how important an accurate translation of the Bible is. Most Bibles today read Luke 2:14 as:

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men."

The last clause is totally wrong, and was mangled intentionally and with malice.

The Vulgate Latin, which is St. Jerome's inspired synthesis of the original source texts triple cross-referenced against each other in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew in preparation for the eventual setting of the canon of scripture at the Council of Carthage in 397 AD, reads thusly:

"...gloria in altissimis Deo et in terra pax in hominibus bonae voluntatis"

In English, in the Douay-Rheims translation this reads:

Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.

These are two completely different ideas. Radically different. The bad, modern translation has peace and goodwill together as co-subjects, as unqualified universals: "peace, goodwill TOWARD men". The accurate translation clearly has goodwill not as the COMPOUND SUBJECT along with peace, but as the QUALIFIER. To men OF GOOD WILL. Good will isn't the subject, it is the OBJECT OF THE PREPOSITION.

The Peace of Our Lord is a massively qualified, and extremely rare and precious thing. When the priest says at Mass, "Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum" (The peace of the Lord be always with you), he isn't just saying "nice things" as filler. This is a profound and precious prayer.

Why would God, in His Perfect Justice, wish good will towards those men who are at war with Him, and thus His Church? Is not the Second Person, God Incarnate in the Manger in Bethlehem, the Judge of mankind? Is not the Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes He who will sort the sheep from the goats? Is He not the One who is come to sift the wheat from the chaff? Did He not say:

"Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword."

Oh, but if we are under attack by Communist-homosexualist infiltrators, and we want God reduced to an abstract philosophical construct, an "I'm okay, you're okay" joke of a deity, an effete, toothless "idea" that is merely an excuse for neo-pagan self-worship and narcissistic performance opportunities, then, by all means, mangle and rearrange the Word of God. As the infiltrators tell their victims, "It doesn't really matter what the original texts said - all that matters is what today's translation says to you . . . "

Luke 2:14 is a quick, easy way to check the veracity of any translation of the Bible. Break yours out and check right now. And then, when you find it incorrectly translated, as you almost certainly will, ask yourself what other verses have been mangled. And then ask yourself what you're missing in the seven books that Luther removed. Uh-oh.

Then, just GET A DOUAY-RHEIMS and use the Church's authoritative English translation without fear or worry that you are reading Communist-homosexualist agitprop.

Link:

• The Linus Van Pelt Lesson on Translation Accuracy

Cardinal Burke on the Liturgy - Traditional Latin Mass and Ordinary Form, New English Translation

Cardinal Raymond L. Burke with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN:


h/t New Liturgical Movement

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Bishop Trautman Criticizes New Mass Translation

(NPR) ...Bishop Donald Trautman, former chairman of the bishops' committee for the liturgy, says the priests now have to recite some sentences that are 90 words long. He also dislikes the formal tone. For example, in one funeral Mass, the priest implores God to give the departed "kind admittance to Your kingdom."

"If your mother or father or brother or sister died," Trautman says, "would we want one of us to say, 'Welcome into Your kingdom?' Or do we want to say, 'Give kind admittance into Your kingdom?' I have [an image] of someone being a ticket-taker at the door giving out tickets to enter, giving kind admittance."

A Power Play?

Trautman says sometimes the new translation is not faithful to the Bible. For example, it has Jesus, a poor carpenter, sipping from a precious chalice during the Last Supper.

"Any Greek dictionary will tell you, it's a drinking cup," Trautman says, "It's a vessel. It's not a chalice."

Trautman says even Indiana Jones got that one right; the rugged historian selected a rough cup as the Holy Grail.

But Trautman's concerns also go beyond vocabulary to theology. He cites where the new translation says Jesus died "for you and for many."

"In preaching, we will hear that Jesus died for all people, but at the altar we will hear it Jesus died for many," he notes. "For whom did he not die?"

The Rev. Michael Ryan, the pastor of St. James Cathedral in Seattle, has similar reservations. "It seems that the Latin is more important than the theology; that's a pity," Ryan says.

"The Second Vatican Council talked about language that would exhibit 'noble simplicity,' " Ryan says. "This is anything but that. No, it's a total move away from the teaching of the Second Vatican Council."

"We're dealing with a power play on the part of certain people in Rome who wanted to make changes in order, I think, to bring under greater control people in the English-speaking world."

Jeffrey Tucker, a musical director in Auburn, Ala., and managing editor of the magazine Sacred Music, thinks the changes are for the better.

"There's a kind of paranoia about all of this," Tucker says. " 'Oh, look! We don't want to go back to pre-Vatican II days with nuns that hit us with rulers and priests [who] are fussing at us for our sins all the time or whatever.' All we're really saying here is that we want church to feel and sound like church."

Tucker says the new words and music are an overdue adjustment from a liturgy that is too "chatty."

Monsignor Rick Hilgartner, who is overseeing the change in liturgy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, agrees. And he asks: Just how accessible does the liturgy have to be? "People might say, 'Well, what about children?' So do we then say that the whole liturgy has to be at a third-grade reading level? How long would that sustain adults in the faith?..."

Read More

h/t to Fr. R.

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