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Author Topic: Preferred way of rendering Old Testament names (Douay vs post-V2 usage)?  (Read 849 times)

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As anyone knows who has more than a passing acquaintance with the Douay Old Testament, and vernacular readings in the Traditional Latin Mass, many of the Hebrew names in the Old Testament, and even the names of books of the Bible, appear differently than people outside of traditional Catholicism are used to seeing them.  Examples (modern usage - traditional Catholic usage):

Noah - Noe
Joshua - Josue
Haggai - Aggeus

Chronicles - Paralipomenon
Revelation - Apocalypse

Which is preferred in TradCath circles, and which one do you use?  I do not come from a lifelong TradCath background, and I do have to confess that the Douay-derived names sound kind of "weird".  Are they used very much anymore?

Chronicles - Paralipomenon
Revelation - Apocalypse
The latter two come from the Greek names for these books. They are the norm in my experience with Western trads as well as Eastern Catholics.

I think non-trad Westerns would still use or at least recognize "Apocalypse".

The Greek names were used in the Confraternity version, which was used in most US Catholic schools as late as the 1960s.


I think the preferred rendering in Traditional circles would be the traditional rendering.

I do not remember ever hearing a traditional priest pronounce the terms using the modern rendering.  The new spellings/pronunciations were adopted in the English speaking, post Vatican 2 world for ecuмenical reasons as they are how the the Protestants use them in the King James Bible.  

While both renderings are valid, I think that using the traditional rendering can be considered to be "political" usage--it identifies the speaker or writer as a traditional Catholic while use of the new spellings and pronunciations identify the speaker or writer as a Novus Ordo Catholic or a Protestant.

This is not dissimilar to the reason why traditional Catholics call the Paraclete the Holy Ghost while Novus Ordo Catholics and Protestants refer to Him as the Holy Spirit.

In any event, the reason people are considered traditional Catholics is because they have not changed their practices and beliefs from what was the practice and belief before Vatican 2.  So why should they adopt new practices in regards to how they spell and pronounce these terms?

Here on CI most people use Revelation  instead of  Apocalypse.  In this week's SSPX bulletin the last book was referred to as Revelation.
Sad to see how much the young people have absorbed.  :'(

Here on CI most people use Revelation  instead of  Apocalypse.  In this week's SSPX bulletin the last book was referred to as Revelation.
Sad to see how much the young people have absorbed.  :'(
There is nothing intrinsically evil about the Protestant/post-V2 Catholic rendering of these names.  If you say "Aggeus" or "Paralipomenon", nobody outside of TradCath circles is going to understand what in the world you are talking about.  (However, the name "Josue" is a fairly common Hispanic given name.)
The old Latinate names have a venerable history of usage, but I think this is one time, that it wouldn't hurt us to adopt the usages that most people are familiar with.
As a side note, many Protestants and evangelicals say "Holy Ghost".  I say HG in prayer, but in theological discussion, I will use either one, HG or HS, interchangeably.  HG is consistently Germanic, whereas HS is a mash-up of Germanic and Latinate.