Stop 7. Four Bibles on one shelf

Put four Bibles side by side: a Catholic Bible, the KJV, the NIV and the NET. For the Catholic Bible we used the NABRE, the Bible published by the U.S. Catholic bishops. Where the old Catholic English Bible, the Douay-Rheims, says something different, we say so.

Why would they differ at all? There are three reasons, and each one belongs to a part of the tree. Sometimes the copies themselves differ. Sometimes the translators chose different English words for the same Greek or Hebrew. And sometimes an old Latin Bible stood in the middle. The Douay-Rheims was made from the Latin Bible, not straight from Hebrew and Greek.

One warning about the Douay-Rheims: it is a translation of a translation. Jerome turned the Hebrew and Greek into Latin around the year 400. Then the English scholars at Rheims and Douay turned that Latin into English. Their title page says the work was checked against the Hebrew and the Greek, but their stated aim was to translate from the Latin. Every step loses some fidelity. So when the Douay-Rheims differs from the others, it tells you what the Latin said. It does not always tell you what the Hebrew or Greek said. The NABRE is not made this way. Look for the label “(from Latin)” in the tables below.

Figure 3. The Catholic branch. The Douay-Rheims reaches the English by way of Jerome’s Latin Bible; the NABRE and Catholic American go straight to the roots (†).

Who crushes the serpent’s head? (Genesis 3:15)

Bible	What it says
KJV	“it shall bruise thy head”
NIV	“he will crush your head”
NET	“her offspring will attack your head”
NABRE	“they will strike at your head”
Douay-Rheims (from Latin)	“she shall crush thy head”

The Hebrew word here is “he.” The old Latin Bible had “she,” and the Douay-Rheims followed the Latin. Many Catholics link the “woman” to Mary. The Latin Bible the Vatican approved in modern times uses the masculine form, and the NABRE uses “they.”

Virgin or young woman? (Isaiah 7:14)

Bible	What it says
KJV	“a virgin shall conceive”
NIV	“The virgin will conceive” (footnote: “Or young woman”)
NET	“this young woman is about to conceive”
NABRE	“the young woman, pregnant and about to bear a son”

The Hebrew word means a young woman. The Greek Old Testament translated it “virgin,” and Matthew quotes it that way in his first chapter. So this difference is a choice between two roots. The NET adds a note saying the woman was probably someone near Isaiah and King Ahaz at that moment.

Repent or do penance? (Matthew 3:2)

Bible	What it says
KJV	“Repent ye”
NIV	“Repent”
NET	“Repent”
NABRE	“Repent”
Douay-Rheims (from Latin)	“Do penance”

Here the Catholic and the Protestant Bibles do not split. The old Douay-Rheims stands alone, because the Latin Bible said “do penance.” The Greek word means a change of mind. The modern Catholic Bible says “Repent,” like the rest.

The gates of hell? (Matthew 16:18)

Bible	What it says
KJV	“the gates of hell”
NIV	“the gates of Hades”
NET	“the gates of Hades”
NABRE	“the gates of the netherworld”
Douay-Rheims (from Latin)	“the gates of hell”

The Greek word is Hades, the place of the dead. The KJV and the Douay-Rheims both said “hell.” The newer Bibles keep “Hades” or say “netherworld.” Notice what does not change. All four Bibles read “on this rock I will build my church.” The fight over who the rock is comes from how people read the verse, not from how the Bibles translate it.

Prayer and fasting? (Mark 9:29)

A father brings his son to Jesus. The disciples could not cast out the demon. Jesus tells them how it is done.

Bible	What it says
KJV	“by nothing, but by prayer and fasting”
NIV	“only by prayer”
NET	“only by prayer”
NABRE	“only come out through prayer”
Douay-Rheims (from Latin)	“by nothing, but by prayer and fasting”

Here the KJV and the old Catholic Bible agree, and the modern Catholic Bible sides with the NIV and the NET. The reason is the copies. Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, two of the oldest big Greek Bibles, do not have “and fasting.” Later Greek copies have it, and so does the Latin Bible. The KJV follows the later Greek. The Douay-Rheims follows the Latin. The NIV, the NET and the NABRE follow the older Greek. The Latin is still useful as a witness, because it shows what kind of copies Jerome had. But it cannot show us the Greek word for word.

The same saying shows up in Matthew 17:21. The KJV has it. The NIV leaves out the whole verse, and many scholars think a copyist added it to Matthew from Mark. None of this takes fasting out of the Bible. Jesus talks about fasting in Matthew 6:16 to 18, in every one of these Bibles. What changes is whether Jesus said it here, at this healing.

Where the copies differ, not just the words. These are the verses from Stop 6 and the tracer. At 1 John 5:7 and 8 and at Acts 8:37, the KJV has words that the NIV and the NET leave out. At Deuteronomy 32:8, the KJV and the NIV follow the standard Hebrew, and the NET follows the older reading, “heavenly assembly.” At Isaiah 53:11, the NIV follows the Scrolls and the Greek, and the KJV and the NET follow the standard Hebrew. We have not yet checked the NABRE at all of these verses.

One difference is not about words. The Catholic Bible has 73 books, and the KJV, the NIV and the NET have 66. The extra books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, plus additions to Esther and Daniel.

So what does the shelf show? Most of the differences people argue about are not Catholic against Protestant. Many come from old Latin against modern translation. Others come from a choice between two roots. A few come from the copies themselves. Knowing which kind of difference you are looking at is half the answer.