You wrote:
“The Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible was revised in 1750, and the text used by Catholics now - the Challoner revision - was largely taken from the KJV, with Catholic doctrine inserted.”
Not exactly. Much of the KJV was based on the DRV. Later, Challoner revised the DRV to increase the utility of the translation (it was filled with Latinisms that simply didn’t work for 18th century English speakers).
As the old Catholic Encyclopedia notes:
Although the Bibles in use in the twentieth century by the Catholics of England and Ireland are popularly styled the Douay Version, they are most improperly so called; they are founded, with more or less alteration, on a series of revisions undertaken by Bishop Challoner in 1749-52. His object was to meet the practical want felt by the Catholics of his day of a Bible moderate in size and price, in readable English, and with notes more suitable to the time. He brought out three editions of the New Testament, in 1749, 1750, and 1752 respectively, and one of the Old Testament in 1750. The changes introduced by him were so considerable that, according to Cardinal Newman, they “almost amounted to a new translation”. So also, Cardinal Wiseman wrote, “To call it any longer the Douay or Rheimish Version is an abuse of terms. It has been altered and modified until scarcely any sense remains as it was originally published”. In nearly every case Challoner’s changes took the form of approximating to the Authorized Version, though his three editions of the New Testament differ from one another in numerous passages. The best known version published in England in modern times was perhaps Haydock’s, which was first issued at Manchester in fortnightly parts in 1811-12. The Irish editions are mostly known by the names of the bishops who gave the imprimatur: as Dr. Carpenter’s New Testament (1783); Dr. Troy’s Bible (1791); Dr. Murray’s (1825); and Dr. Denvir’s (1836) — the last two of which have often been reprinted, and were circulated largely in England and Ireland. Around the turn of the century, the issue of the sixpenny New Testament by Burns and Oates of London, by its large circulation, made the text adopted therein — Challoner’s of 1749 — the standard one, especially as the same was adopted in Dr. Murray’s and Dr. Denvir’s Bibles. In America an independent revision of the Douay Version by Archbishop Kenrick (1849-59) was much used.
End paste
I’m forunate enough to have facsimile copies of the original DRV, a new typesetting of that Bible, the Haydock edition, a couple of recent reprints of the famed 1899 edition, and the best of all the DRV which was produced by Douay House in the late 1930s. I thoroughly enjoy the DRV. By the way, I highly recommend the editions printed by St. Benedict’s Press (which recently bought TAN press). Their DRV is a terrific, beautiful version of the 1899 edition: http://absnospin.blogspot.com/2009/12/beautiful-large-print-douay-rheims.html I’ll probably be buying one soon.
“Not exactly. Much of the KJV was based on the DRV.”
Not hardly. 90% of the NT came from Tyndale. The versions used by the KJV didn’t include the DRV, although an individual MIGHT have compared it.
“I’m forunate enough to have facsimile copies of the original DRV”
Cool. I find it hard to read English from that era, particularly in facsimile. The f, s, etc drive me nuts! Shoot, I have a facsimile copy of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”, and I can’t read it without stuttering and lisping for an hour!
Still...
“1 Though I spake with the tonges of me and angels and yet had no love I were eve as soundinge brasse: or as a tynklynge Cymball.
2 And though I coulde prophesy and vnderstode all secretes and all knowledge: yee yf I had all fayth so that I coulde move moutayns oute of ther places and yet had no love I were nothynge.
3 And though I bestowed all my gooddes to fede ye poore and though I gave my body even that I burned and yet had no love it profeteth me nothinge.
4 Love suffreth longe and is corteous. Love envieth not. Love doth not frowardly swelleth not dealeth
5 not dishonestly seketh not her awne is not provoked to anger thynketh not evyll
6 reioyseth not in iniquite: but reioyseth in ye trueth
7 suffreth all thynge beleveth all thynges hopeth all thynges endureth in all thynges.”
http://wesley.nnu.edu/biblical_studies/tyndale/1co.txt
Makes my eyes bug out, but beautiful in its own way.