Question Title | Posted By | Question Date |
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Genesis 3:15 | Charles | Wednesday, December 10, 2014 |
Question: There is some question and Protestants accuse the CC of changing scripture to warrant devotion to Our Blessed Mother. |
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Question Answered by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OMSM(r), LTh, DD
Dear Charles: Sorry for the delay in responding. It is duplicitous for Protestants to make this claim. Martin Luther added words to the text of St. Paul. Luther, in his abject arrogance, added the word "alone" to the passage in Romans 3:28 in his German translation, in addition to ripping our seven books from the Old Testament and wanting to rip out several books from the New Testament. Luther, in fact, was confronted at the time on why he had added the word "alone" to Romans 3:28. His response is very revealing. To the criticism of adding the word "alone" to Romans 3:28 Martin Luther replied:
Thus sayeth the "humble" Martin Luther. The translations of the Bible by Protestants contain many translation decisions that favor their own theologies. This is not unusual.
In addition, many Protestants say the Bible says that the Catholic Church is the "whore of Babylon" even though there is no such reference. Such Protestants like to be scrupulous to the words in the text, yet the text does not have the words "Catholic Church." They are making in inference based upon their biased doctrine, not based upon the text. Now as to your question, quoting from the Navarre Bible Commentary:
Now I suppose Protestants can say that St. Jerome changed "he' to "she" in this passage, but there is a very big difference in this as compared to what Protestants did to John 3:16 in the New International Version and may other of their Bibles. In leaving out the word "may" they change doctrine. The Catholic Church does not that. Here, the Catholic Church affirms that this passage refers to Jesus Christ. In light of fuller understanding of the Holy Spirit, St. Jerome understands that Mary crushes the head of Satan because it is through her that this will happen by her Son, which is her seed. This does not change the meaning of the passage as does the Protestant translations of John 3:16. An imperfect analogy of this is that the accomplishes of the child are credited to the parents. This was certainly true with the Kings of old who were given credit for the accomplishment of their sons. Even today we do this to some extent as it is a credit to the parents for raising a child who made such accomplishments. I hope this helps. God Bless,
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