The Douay-Rheims Bible

The Douay-Rheims Bible:

I am doing some readings in the DR and the KJV and using the NIV and NASB to show where the differences in the TR and the NU Critical texts are (as they show in translation) Am using both the DR in Logos and a transliteration of the original.

Three Questions: A) how faithful to the Vulgate is it and did the translators of the KJV have access to the Rheims NT and or the Vulgate? [The Douay OT was not released until 1610 and probably not available] C) who has published comparisons between the three? (so I can just sit back and read instead of doing all the work myself) [three - the two versions of the DR and the KJV]

[Where do I go next? - Thanks]

For those that have no clue as to what I am talking about This is a summary of what I have found so far:

The early Douay-Rheims Bible achieved little recognition among English-speaking Catholics until it was substantially revised by Challoner. His revisions borrowed heavily from the King James Version (himself being a convert from Protestantism, and thus familiar with its style) whose translators had borrowed a few terms from the original Rheims NT of 1582. Challoner not only addressed the odd prose and the Latinisms, but produced a version which, while still called the Douay-Rheims, was little like it

Logos is pleased to offer the version of the Douay-Rheims Bible revised by Richard Challoner, which eliminated archaic words and English Latinisms, and made the Bible more accessible to English-speaking Catholics. This revision, first published in America in 1790, has undergone numerous reprintings throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, making it the most widely-used and bestselling English translation of the Vulgate.

The Douay-Rheims Translation was revised and diligently compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner (A.D. 1749-1752). The Old Testament was first published by the English College at Douay (A.D. 1609-1610). The New Testament was first published by the English College at Rheims (A.D. 1582).

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary states:

The Rheims New Testament, translated from the Vulgate by Gregory Martin (…) [Martin] is described by biographers as an excellent linguist. ……

The translation (Herbert 1968: No. 177), made from Latin, shows a dependence on existing English translations, particularly Coverdale’s. There are correspondences with Taverner which passed on into the KJV. The Rheims translation also shows a careful comparison with the Greek. ……

Some of the Latinisms of the Rheims (acquisition, advent, caluminate, character, evangelize, resuscitate, victims, and neophyte) later became accepted English words, but “Pasche” and “azymes” remain strange. Carleton in 1902 showed the indebtedness of the KJV to the Rheims, a debt which Butterworth (1941:231) estimated to be five percent of the language of the King James.

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David Ames

It has been awhile since many of my hard copy Bibles have seen the light of day [figuratively, it is 9 PM] but as I was reviewing Matthew 24:27 in the Douay Version in Logos 4 I got stuck on a word'

Matthew 24:27

27 For as lightning cometh out of the east and appeareth even into the west: so shall also the cowling of the Son of man be.

The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate, Mt 24:27 (Bellingham WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009).

Is “cowling” a wrong word?? It is! Should be “coming” [at least in my Hard Copy].

Also [now that I have my hard copy in hand] where are all of the cross references and foot notes and chapter summaries? There are also titles like “Signs before the end of the world” on every page.

It does have the book of “Wisdom” [etc]

[Did a forum search on ‘Douay’ and it seems that only MJ. Smith and I are interested in this version]

[Oh by the way “3 Maccabees” is not in my hard copy nor is 4 but they do not appear to be in “Vulgatam Clementinam” Are they supposed to be?]

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/223690#Comment_223690

from Wikipedia:

The Douay–Rheims’ Version’s influence on the King James Bible

The Old Testament “Douay” translation of the Latin Vulgate arrived
too late on the scene to have played any part in influencing the King
James Bible.
The Rheims New Testament had, however, been available for twenty years;
and in the form of William Fulke's parallel version, was readily
accessible. Nevertheless, the official instructions to the King James
Bible translators excluded the Rheims version from the list of previous
English translations that should be consulted, probably deliberately.

The degree to which the King James Bible drew on the Rheims v
arguing for a very extensive influence, while Charles C Butterworth
proposed that the actual influence was small, relative to those of the
Bishops Bible and the Geneva Bible.

Fortunately, much of this debate was resolved in 1969, when Ward Allen published a partial transcript of the minutes made by John Bois
of the proceedings of the General Committee of Review for the King
James Bible (i.e. the supervisory committee which met in 1610 to review
the work of each of the separate translation 'companies'). Bois records
the policy of the review committee in relation to a discussion of 1
Peter 1:7 "we have not thought the indefinite sense ought to be
defined"; which reflects the strictures expressed by the Rheims
translators against concealing ambiguities in the original text. Allen
shows that in several places, notably in the reading "manner of time" at
Revelation 13:8, the reviewers incorporated a reading from the Rheims
text specifically in accordance with this principle. More usually,
however, the King James Version handles obscurity in the source text by
supplementing their preferred clear English formulation with a literal
translation as a marginal note. Bois shows that many of these marginal
translations are derived, more or less modified, from the text or notes
of the Rheims New Testament; indeed Rheims is explicitly stated as the
source for the marginal reading at Colossians 2:18.

Otherwise the English text of the King James New Testament can often
be demonstrated as adopting latinate terminology also found in the
Rheims version of the same text. In the majority of cases, these
latinisms could also have been derived directly from the versions of Miles Coverdale or the Wyclif Bible
(i.e. the source texts for the Rheims translators), but they would have
been most readily accessible to the King James translators in Fulke's
parallel editions. This also explains the incorporation into the King
James Bible from the Rheims New Testament of a number of striking
English phrases, such as "publish and blaze abroad" at Mark 1:45.