Hello everyone,

A friend of mine (who is a Catholic) sent me a question in an email the other day:

How would you respond to this statement? "The Catholic church has changed the wording in the Bible many times in the last 2000 years."

Here is the thread:

http://www.examiner.com/article/new-gαy-bible-to-hit-the-streets-soon

Quote from Comments of article:
"Which translation and edition of "The Holy Bible" ? Unless you can read Aramaic they are all derivatives of whatever the Catholic Church didn't filter, cut and paste, or completely rewrite."

(Note: he's not asking about this so-called "gαy Bible" hoax that's being talked about in the article, rather the some claims made in comment section of the article.)

He found that Examiner link somewhere online (as it was a news story apparently) and read the comments in the comment section of the article which a couple of Protestants (or another type of anti-Catholic using Protestant rhetoric) basically claim "why does this matter? you know the Catholic Church changed and rewrote the Bible, too." My friend, who is Catholic, contacted me and asked me for an good apologetics response.

I tried to find some Catholic apologetics articles dealing with this common Protestant claim but, I couldn't seem to find any that addressed this allegation specifically.

Does anyone know of any particular apologetics articles which answer this claim or could suggest a response to that claim that I could send to my friend?

Thanks.

I've heard that Catholic Answers handles this kind of thing.
Here is the address of their forum home page, where you can register
for free and post your question (like you did here) and wait for
someone to answer you with further suggestions:

http://forums.catholic.com/

I haven't used that forum so I don't know what else to say about that,
but there should be someone to talk to that can help you there.

I tried that forum; no one there actually cared to help me address this to help answer my friend's question. I just got a bunch of "why bother responding?" type posts rather than anything of help.

I asked myself, "If CatholicAnswers is an apologetics forum, then why don't the users there posting in the Apologetics section not even attempt to help answer the question or respond in a polite way?"Half of the people there responding didn't care to help answer or didn't even understand what I was asking. Others gave some very seemingly unorthodox answers saying that the Catholic Church did edit or "rewrite" the Bible.

I thought my question was pretty clear and concise but, these are some of the ignorant responses I received:

your link was about pro-ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs producing a new Bible that is pro-ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ. If your protestant friend is using this to prove that the Catholic church has changed the Bible he is really grasping at straws...

I really cant find anything to answer, Your link lead me to a gαy site. And i cant find anything that talks about catholic changing the bible....

First of all Potestants did remove many books from the Bible, BUT you have to realise that this "gαy Bible" IS ACTUALLY A HOAX. NO ONE IS PUBLISHING THIS. (I'm referring to the link in the original post)check out the Snopes page on this: http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/gαybible.asp

This. Plus the story had the classic marks of an internet hoax. Shame on you.

The last fool said "Shame on you" to me! LOL For asking a question which this guy (and half the others) apparently didn't even read?!

They used to be a good apologetics forum, I've asked questions there many times but, for the past couple of years, half the time the responses I get are very apathetic and unhelpful (e.g. "who cares?" or things to that effect) and the other half of the time people completely misunderstand the question. Occasionally, someone will come along with a helpful response but, not often.

Most of the people are there are not traditionalists and seem to very liberal on many theological subjects.

+JMJ+

Response #1: The Bible does not make the Church; the Church makes the Bible. It is HER prerogative to determine what is or isn't in the Canon (although it is almost universally considered permanently closed). It is also the Church's prerogative to translate from the extant manuscripts into acceptable vernacular versions.

Response #2: The Bible was not written in Aramaic. The manuscripts that are extant are written in Hebrew (OT) and koine (common) Greek. There is evidence that there were once copies of St. Matthew's Gospel in Hebrew, but those copies would not have been widely circulated, as Greek was the common language of commerce in those days, much as English is so widely used today.

The fact is that no one can argue against the existence and logical necessity of one visible, authoritative Church in history. There would have been no "reformation" without a target that needed reform. There would be no "Protestants" without someone or something to protest against.

Anyone who wants to level accusations at the Church like "edit[ed] the Bible" or any other seemingly iron-fisted despotism simply needs to admit that if the Church Universal reflected the fractured, acrimonious and selfish nature of their Protestant organizations, there would have been no Bible and no evangelization to begin with.

It's pathetic to listen to people who really think that somehow the Church has gotten bigger and more monolithic (and thus. allegedly, more 'evil'). Rather, Our Mother the Church has had to watch centuries of stubborn, prideful and wicked children playing in their own filth rather than submitting to Her care.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Thanks for the thorough response, Stephen.

Here is an alleged Catholic "edit" or "rewrite" of the Bible I seen someone mention:

Around 325 AD, Jerome changed 1 John 5:7 which in the earliest Greek manuscripts before the Vulgate reads like this:

"For there are three that testify: 8 the[a] Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement."

When Jerome translated this verse he changed it to reflect the Trinity which reads:

"For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness on earth:[a] the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one."

How would you address this example of an alleged "change" or "addition" to the Bible?