Posted on 01/25/2007 10:49:26 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
Amen!
There has been no variation that I can find in the translation of Deuteronomy 32:4 from the Hebrew. The Dead Sea Scroll pre-Masoretic Hebrew version of Deuteronomy 32 from cave 4 is a fragment and does not have that particular line.
Nevertheless, all of the translations over the millennia from the Hebrew are consistent (AFAIK) in interpreting that as a Name of God, i.e. "the Rock". No variation except for the Septuagint and the Vulgate.
The preceding verses announce it as a name.
The Name of God, the Rock, was apparently first lost in the Septuagint Translation. It was translated to "As for God, ".
The Latin Vulgate dropped it altogether.
All of the research so far is captured in the article.
Me too; but I think Campion is right: We'll have to get to heaven and ask St. Jerome himself.
Pope Benedict XVI speaks of "God is the Rock" as follows:
The faith should keep us in a constant attitude of humility before God, indeed of adoration and praise. In fact what we are because we are Chistians, we owe solely to Him and to his grace. Our radical belonging to Christ and the fact that "we exist in Him" should give us an attitude of total confidence and immense joy. Our Christian life therefore stands on the most stable and safe rock imaginable. And from this rock we draw all our strength.
It does indeed declare the Deu 32:4 Name for God, God is the Rock! So where the translation evidently failed, the truth of the matter did not.
Praise God!!!
And truly if this investigation cannot tell us what happened in the translation, then I will indeed ask St Jerome when I get there.
I wonder about something, dear Alamo-Girl.... As you may know, the last major redaction of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) was carried out under the auspices and authority of one Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who now goes by the name of Pope Benedict XVI. Maybe he might want likewise to revisit the Vulgate take on Deuteronomy 32:4? Especially as it seems clear how profoundly he understands that "God is the Rock." When we send him our book, maybe I should add a petition to this effect?
(Funny thing is, though Catholic by theology, my preferred biblical text is King James. The Vulgate just never "rang" or "sang to me" like the King James version.... Go figure!)
It was obvious from his first encyclical that Pope Benedict has a heart for Christ, thus I truly believe he would want to clear up something like this.
Oh, and the King James Version is my favorite too - though I have many. The words are melodic to me.
Numbers 20:7 And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying: 9 And Moses took the rod from before HaShem, as He commanded him.
10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said unto them: 'Hear now, ye rebels; are we to bring you forth water out of this rock?'
11 And Moses lifted up his hand, and smote the rock with his rod twice; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle.
12 And HaShem said unto Moses and Aaron: 'Because ye believed not in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.'
Jesus is the Rock, from which living waters flow
Jon 4:13
Jesus answered and said unto her, "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
The rock that Moses struck was flinta rock of water and a rock of fire. Co-incidence?/ I think not. (LOL)
De 8:15
Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;
Ps 114:8
Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters
Indeed.
Thanks.
"When I call out the Name of HaShem, ascribe greatness to our God
The Rock!"
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
From a strictly scriptural point of view, the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18 is divorced from its proper biblical context. The Roman Church states that Matthew 16 teaches that the Church is built upon Peter and therefore upon the bishops of Rome in an exclusive sense. What is seldom ever mentioned is the fact that Ephesians 2:20 uses precisely the same language as that found in Matthew 16 when it says the Church is built upon the apostles and prophets with Christ as the cornerstone. The same greek word for build upon in Matthew 16 is employed in Ephesians 2:20. This demonstrates that from a biblical perspective, even if we were to interpret the rock of Matthew 16 to be the person of Peter, the New Testament does not view the apostle Peter to be unique in this role. Christ is the foundation and the Church is built upon all the apostles and prophets in the sense of being built upon their teaching. And in addition, the Roman Catholic interpretation imports a meaning into the Matthew 16 text that is completely absent. This text says absolutely nothing about infallibility or about successors..."...An examination of the writings of the fathers does reveal the expression of a consistent viewpoint, but it is not that of the Roman Catholic Church, as the documentation of the major fathers of the East and West in this article will demonstrate. This particular article is strictly historical in nature. Its purpose is to document the patristic interpretation of the rock of Matthew 16:18. And the evidence will demonstrate that the Protestant and Orthodox understanding of the text is rooted in this patristic consensus.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you oh so very much for both of those contributions to this project! Outstanding!
What suggestions do the defenders of the Septuagint and the Vulgate have for the alleged insertion of "rock" into the text? I can not see why the compilers of the Masoretic text would have done so. Also, knowing the extreme care that they used when handling the Word of God, to add a word that wasn't there at least in some text that they considered reliable would seem unthinkable.
That was a fascinating article! Thank you so much for contributing it to the research!
At the end of the article are all the ancient Hebrew text sources I could find. There is a copy of Deu 32 from cave 4 at Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls) but it does not have the verses we need.
Nevertheless, as you say, copying the Holy Scriptures was a very solemn thing to the Jews over millenia. And especially so when one was copying a Name of God
Instead of "God is the Rock" the Septuagint says "As for God, " No defense has been offered for the Vulgate which omits it altogether.
This is very important to me because the name "God is the Rock" is being specially announced in Deu 32:1-3. Moreover, as 1000 Silverlings notes - it is in the Song of Moses (which will be sung in heaven - Rev 15:2-4.)
Good work!
Thank you so much for your encouragement!
su ei Petros, kai epi tauth th petra oikodomesw mou thn ekklhsian
The Greek has "epi taute te petra", and taute typically means "the same". So a literal translation could well be: "You are Petros, and upon this same Petra I will build my Church." The gender of the noun here doesn't matter one fig, because we are *explicitly* told in John 1:42 that Peter is a Greek translation from the Aramaic Cephas.
You're right..God of course is the Rock elsewhere in Scripture. But you can't take one metaphor from a completely different place in the Bible and read it overtop of a second metaphor so as to distort all meaning of the latter.
So yes, God is a Rock. And Peter is a Rock, as this passage plainly states. Our challenge is not to mix the metaphors but to understand how the one relates to the other.
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