Good Works Archives - To Give a Defense

TO GIVE A DEFENSE

Your Bible probably has a mistranslation in it at James 2:14.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 20, 2016 • Apologetics; Exegesis; Good Works

In James 2:14. (Unless you read the Douay-Rheims, or the King James.) Here is James 2:14 in the NAB translation that is read at Mass: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? I emphasize the word “that” because it is wrong. It should not be there. Here is the same verse in the 1899 Douay-Rheims: “What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works? Shall faith be able to save him? Notice that “that” does not appear here. But most modern Bible translations include it, or some variation.

Calvinist blogger reads James; discovers that we must do good works.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • December 1, 2015 • Apologetics; Good Works

I was making my periodic round of the blogs in order to find out what the anti-Catholics were up to, when I stumbled across this curious post by the dauntless Mr. X. (He calls himself TurretinFan, for weird reasons of his own. I can’t speak for the poor man’s crotchets.) It seems, at first glance, to be a real snoozer of a post, even by Mr. X’s strict standard for somnolence: It is a very cursory summary of the content of James. That’s it. But in the middle of all this, Mr. X trips smack over the fact that James sure talks about works a lot. And still Mr. X thinks that James’s true subject is faith alone.