Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe,
Arizona, and I'm just going to do a quick walkthrough of the Book of Philemon in the
Latin Vulgate. Now the Latin Vulgate is a translation of the New Testament from around
the end of the 4th century AD, and it is the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.
So their final authority is not the original Greek New Testament or the original Hebrew
of the Old Testament, but rather the Latin Vulgate is their final authority. Now, what
kind of a translation is the Latin Vulgate? Well, in many places it's actually very good,
but then in other places it is not accurate to the original Greek and says something different.
So I'm going to walk through the Book of Philemon here with you, and I'm going to show you a
few places where it deviates from the original Greek and just kind of, you know, take a look
at it and see it as a sample of what the Latin Vulgate is like. So here we start out,
Paulus, Winctus, Iesu Christi et Timoteus, Frater, Pilemoni, Gilecto et Adiatori Nostro.
So we have, first of all, Paulus, Winctus. Now these are in the nominative because these are
the ones that are writing the letter, and Timoteus. So Winctus means like bound, so this could be
Paul, prisoner of Jesus Christ, because this is genitive, et Timoteus, and Timothy, Frater,
a brother or our brother, unto Philemon, because now we're in the dative case,
unto the beloved Philemon, and our helper, right? And then verse 2, et Apia, and to Apia,
this is a feminine name, so presumably Philemon's wife, et Apia, sorori, et archippo,
comilitoni, nostro, et ecclesiae, qua in domo tua est. So and unto, because we're dative here,
unto Apia, our sister, and archippus, our fellow soldier, so these are all datives,
et ecclesiae, and to the church, quae, which, in domo tua est, which is in your house. Okay,
this part is pretty basic because it's just sort of the, you know, opening to the letter,
the salutations. Gratia, woebeest et pax, grace unto you and peace, adeo, patre, nostro,
et domino e su Christo, from God the Father, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 4,
gratias ago deo meo, so I give thanks, I give gracias, for those of you who know Spanish,
to my God, semper, always, memoriam tui faciens, making remembrance of you, so faciens is that
present participle, making remembrance of you in orationibus meis, in my prayers,
ablative case, within, audience, hearing, caritatum tuam, hearing your love, et fidem,
and faith, quam habes in domino e su, which you have in the Lord Jesus, et in omnes sanctos,
and toward all saints, because here we have in with the ablative case, so you translate that in
English like you have this love and faith in the Lord Jesus, but the second part after the in
is the accusative case, so this would be like toward all the saints, because it's a different
use of the word in than here with the ablative, when you use the accusative it'd be like more
like toward or to all the saints. Verse number six, ut communicatio fide tuai evidence fiat
in agnizione omnis boni in nobis in Christo Iesu, so ut here this is a purpose clause like so that
the communication or the imparting fide tuai of your faith
evidence fiat may be evident apparent manifest in agnizione so in or by the acknowledgement or
knowledge of every good thing so this is genitive in nobis in us in Christo Iesu. So here's the
thing about this verse okay in the original Greek this word evidence is actually
I'll just write it right here
it's this word right here energis which energis is you know cognate with like the English word
energy or energetic but it comes from the root here in the middle of this erg which is from the
Greek word ergon which means work so basically what this says in the original Greek is that the
fellowship or communication or imparting of your faith may become evidence doesn't say evidence in
the original Greek says energis which is like that it may be effective that it may be something that
works it's effectual it's effective right whereas evidence is not really the same thing because
evidence you can see it comes from this root not of working but but a root of like seeing right
so evidence means like it's apparent it's seen it's manifest whereas this is saying that it's
actually like effective like getting something done so that's not really the same thing the
king james version correctly translates this as that the communication of thy faith may become
effectual so this word fiat of course very famous word because it's in genesis 1 1 fiat luke's let
there be light so you know that it may be come effectual okay so that's one place where the latin
is not quite accurately translating the original all right so verse seven gaudium anima magnum
habui so for i had i have had uh great joy at consolation in caritat etua and consolation in
your charity or in your love kuya because this is a causal use of kuya whisker a sanctorum
they quieren't perte frater so the the bowels or the intestines or the guts
sanctorum of the saints have been refreshed by you brother so when it says that the bowels of
the saints had been refreshed by you brother what this would mean in our monobenacular is like the
heart right they're using the intestines to mean like the heart okay propter quote on account of
which multum fidukeum habitus on account of which having much boldness or having much confidence
in christ jesus and this part's a little tricky imperandi so the easiest way to understand this
is that the imperandi is connected to the fidukeum okay so imperandus is like that which
is to be commanded or something that is going to be commanded and so if you put these two together
fidukeum imperandi it's basically like confidence to command or boldness to command so on account
of this having much boldness to command you to command tibi in Christo Jesu quote ad raim
petinet that which pertains to the matter protocaritatum so you know on account of this up
here he's saying you know i have boldness to command or confidence to command you in christ
jesus however he says on account of love or because of love rather i beseech or rather i
entreat so i could just tell you what to do but you know i'd rather ask you to do this basically
so
and this is probably the most glaring mistake in the latin translation of the volgate this word
right here is clearly not translated correctly so if you look this up in the original greek
it is crystal clear that the person who is like paulus senex is paul himself so
basically he says you know on account of love i rather entreat you
it really should be
so it should say i entreat you being such a one talis such a one as the oud here means as being
such a one as paul the aged and now also a prisoner winktus of jesus christ now i'm also
remember he called himself this in verse one paul is the winktus here okay paul is the old man
who's in jail asking a favor okay this makes absolutely no sense because the way this is
translated here would be like you know um well in fact let's just let's just look at it
in an english translation of the volgate because english catholic bibles don't translate from the
original greek and hebrew they just translate directly from the volgate so even when the
volgate makes a glaring error such as this when there's there's clearly a mistake okay because
it doesn't match the original greek and it doesn't even make sense because why would he be saying you
know well well i'll show you what it says let me just read it for you but even when there's a
glaring error the catholic bibles always just translate from the volgate they do not translate
from the original greek and hebrew they just translate whatever the volgate says whether it
makes any sense or not so here is the duet reams because this is this is basically the volgate on
one side and the duet reams on the other side so it says here in verse nine for charity's sake i
rather beseech whereas thou art such a wine as paul an old man and now also a prisoner of jesus
christ now why would why would philemon be such a one as paul the agent and why would philemon
be a prisoner of jesus christ philemon is not the one in jail so this makes absolutely no sense and
in the original greek this is impossible okay you know i don't have the original greek written up
here but if you look this up in the original greek it is crystal clear the equivalent of
this word right here in the nominative case the way the word order is like it has to be about
paul first of all common sense would tell you that paul is the old man who is a prisoner
but secondly the grammar in greek is unequivocal that it's paul not philemon but by using this
second person simsis sit second person subjunctive uh present verb here this second person makes it
seem like philemon is the one and so this is this is just flat out wrong period and it's bizarre how
the english translation just carries over the error instead of actually looking at the original
greek and translating that so anyway let's move on so this is probably the biggest mistake in
the whole chapter okay in the latin translation so obsek wrote de meo filio so i entreat you
about my son quaime genuis whom i begat or have begotten in winkles in bonds
and what's his name onesimo right so that matches the case with meo filio
which to you at some time was in utilis not useful
or um you know unprofitable nunc altem however now at tb at me both to me and to you useful or
what would be another word for utilis like profitable useful quaime remissi whom i sent
to autem you uh therefore receive him to autem ilum it is mea whisker and suskepe so receive
you receive ilum him you receive him it est mea whisker and this is by the way this is where we
get that that little uh abbreviation that we see all the time um in english where we'll say i e
right so so basically receive him i e my bowels my heart you know receive him receive onesimus
because he's dear unto me is what all of those would be saying okay verse 13 quaime ego will
make whom detenerate so whom i had wanted to retain with me
so that instead of you that he would minister to me in winkles in the bonds of the gospel
sine consiglio autem tuo nihil woluifakare without uh you but without your counsel or your advice
nihil woluifakare i wanted to do nothing i didn't want to do anything without talking to you first
so that uti is a purpose clause nei welut ex nekessitate bonum tuum
as it said so he says you know so that bonum to him your benefaction or your goodness
would not be out of necessity because you have to but said but that it would be voluntary
so he said you know perhaps for perhaps for this reason this kessit he departed ad horam for a time
or for a season from you so that uh you would receive him to receive him eternally
known now not as a servant really the idea here with this word right here is more like
not he's not a servant anymore which by the way is the evidence of the fact that he was a servant
or a slave if you will in the past but he's not anymore okay so not now as a servant
said plus several but above a servant a most dear brother maxime mihi especially to me
but how much quanto just like spanish quanto more magis tibi how much more to you at incarnate at
domino both in the flesh and in the lord if therefore you have me
is like associate or partner so like if you have me as a partner or if you consider me
a partner or an associate so take him up or receive him as me as you would me
tb uh moreover if aliquid like something like like if he harmed you in some in something
where we get our word noxious in english if he harmed you in some way or owes you in some way
debit like a debit card or owes you know aliquit tb hoke me he imputah impute this to me right
put that on my account reckon that to me a go paulus screeps i maya manu i paul i've written
maya manu with my hand uh ablative of means a go red on like i will return it or i will repay it
this part always makes me laugh because like you know i'm not even going to say to you
how you owe me your own self but it's kind of funny because he did just say that okay
so this is kind of a weird grammatical use of oot it's kind of like a negative purpose clause
but not really it's almost like a negative consecutive because it's basically saying like
you know i'm i've written this with my hand that i will repay you know so that i don't say to you
that you owe your you yourself to me like you know um it's kind of weird grammatically but
that's basically what he's getting at is you know um i'm giving this guarantee and i'm not
going to bring up the fact that you owe me your own self but he actually is bringing it up that's
the irony it's kind of funny which is a rhetorical device to say i'm not even going to bring up x y
even though you kind of just did okay so verse 20 ita frater so it's like so brother yes brother
and this this could actually be
parsed a couple different ways because this could be like future indicative i will have
joy of you in the lord refresh this is imperative refresh my bowels in the lord
but because of this a right here you could also make the case that this is a present
subjunctive which would be more accurate to the original greek because in the original greek it's
an optative of wish like may i have joy of you in the lord or let me have joy of you in the lord
so that would be more accurate of a way to interpret this clearer in greek but you could
still get that from this that so brother um may i have joy from you or may i benefit from you in
the lord refresh whisker me and domino my bowels in the lord my heart in the lord if you will
so i wrote having confidence right trusting
trusting in your obedience i wrote to you having confidence in your obedience
is
so uh since i'm knowing that also above that which i say you will do knowing that you will do
since i know that you will do more more than i say and you know speaking of doing more than i say
me so likewise moreover likewise also
so prepare me hospitality or prepare me a lodging if you will
four i expect or i hope by your prayers
me to be given to you so i i trust or expect to be given to you through your prayers
salutate and then we have this nominative epipras concaptivus meus and cristo jesus
so this means epipras fellow captive my fellow captive in christ jesus salutes you salutate
and then he's going to list some other people who also agreed or salute him marcus aristarchus
damas lucas aditores may so this guy's his concaptivus his fellow captive his fellow
prisoner and then these are his helpers aditores marcus aristarchus damus lucas aditores may my
helpers gratia dominino street the grace of our lord jesus christi jesus christ cum spiritu
with your spirit amen so bottom line is this that you know the vast majority of this is correct the
vast majority of this is accurately translated and that's how it is with the volgate when you're
reading the volgate a lot of it will just be dead on a lot of it will actually be translated very
well but then you'll come to certain things that just really leave you scratching your head
um i mean this is definitely different this evidence and energies it's an interesting you
know choice of words to translate you know but this right here is just dead wrong okay and there
are a bunch of things like that where it just kind of leaves you scratching your head like why
did they get that so wrong and then like i said it carries over into the english translations
because they are translated directly from the volgate and they do not
go to the greek or the hebrew at all just to give you another real quick example of a weird thing
in the volgate like in luke chapter 16 where it says that the rich man also died and was buried
and in hell he lived up his eyes being in torment right the story about the rich man and lazarus
and he's in hell well in the volgate it basically says the rich man also died and was buried in hell
period then it starts a new sentence and he lived up his eyes being in torment whatever
but that's just bizarre like what does that even mean like he was buried in hell period and then
you know you look it up in the english catholic bibles like duet rooms or whatever and they just
they carry that error over into the english and if you read it in a greek new testament
buried in hell is literally impossible with the greek grammar it's a mistake it's wrong that's
why every bible version that's translated from the original greek translates it that you know
the rich man died and was buried and in hell he lived up his eyes as a new thought so anyway that
just gives you a kind of a sample by looking at one book one chapter philemon and you can see that
the vast majority of it is a good translation into latin but there were really two issues and
one of them that's a glaring issue the other one you can kind of see okay like the communication
of your faith becomes effectual becomes manifest you could almost like make an argument that it's
not that big of a deal there but still it's not the best choice of word and then but this is just
this is just dead wrong and in fact this doesn't even make sense this is this it's kind of like
an absurd statement which is why every english bible gets this right when it translates it from
the greek and it's only the catholic bibles because they're translated from the latin
that they have this error that doesn't match the original greek it doesn't make sense
anyway god bless you have a great day