A Good Bible, The Only Version I'll Ever Use

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I think the D.R. is great, - but why is it so expensive! 😦 I currently use the RSV-CE.
 
BertBlyleven said:
Yes and no. St. Jerome translated the Vulgate from Greek and Hebrew, much like modern Bibles today. However, St. Jerome was a speaker of all three languages and likely knew each better than modern scholars, especially in cultural context. He translates certain phrases in a very specific way in Latin because the literal phrase (from the Greek/Hebrew) may not do justice in Latin (e.g. gratia plena, or full of grace, which is literally/roughly “highly favored” in Greek). So in short, we should always compare Englsih translations of Greek/Hebrew texts to what Jerome wrote in the Vulgate.
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I know St. Jerome translated from Greek and Hebrew, unlike the OP I know the originals weren’t in Latin. What I mean is, if you translate directly from the Latin you’re level of indirection increases which doesn’t sound like a good idea to translate something if that’s your only or main source.

It’s like writing a book in Chinese, translating it to English and then translating the book to Spanish from the English version. You’re better off starting from the original language.
 
ProVobis said:
I don’t know how to tell you this, but St. Paul didn’t speak or write English. Actually the Bible wasn’t finished/compiled (or at least the version from which the KJV was translated) until well after he died.
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You get -10 points for failure to detect sarcasm. Next! ;);)😉
 
i had never heard of the Duoay-Rheims until i joined CAF. i have several Bible translations and just ordered my first D-R from EWTN last month. it will take some getting used to, but i am glad that i finally purchased one for myself. 🙂
 
I’m saving up to buy a Haydock D-R. They sell for over $100. I really am longing for the commentary.
 
SanAgustin said:
I know St. Jerome translated from Greek and Hebrew, unlike the OP I know the originals weren’t in Latin. What I mean is, if you translate directly from the Latin you’re level of indirection increases which doesn’t sound like a good idea to translate something if that’s your only or main source.

It’s like writing a book in Chinese, translating it to English and then translating the book to Spanish from the English version. You’re better off starting from the original language.
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If they had the originals in the 3rd century, I’m sure we would have gone with them. But even the Greek was translated and there had been an older Latin version, the Vetus Latina, which apparently St. Jerome used as a base. See samples in the references in post #9.
 
The DR is too expensive to buy, and sometimes the wording is so archaic it distracts me. I haven’t found any problems with the RSV-CE. Ignatius Press publishes one, so I think I can count on it being reliable enough.
 
michaelmas said:
Yes, but I only use it to clarify the New American, NIV, or St. Joseph’s Bibles. I don’t possess the patience to read that sort of English.
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Agreed if it’s that much work, may as just read the Vulgate in Latin 😃

I do most of my Bible reading from the two-year LOTH lectionary… in my mother tongue, French.

ISTM if one is so picky as to select one approved version over a other it may just to be to win arguments? Because ISTM that a modern English version like the RSV-CE is good enough to understand the Word of God in any practical application. Although I’ll grant that archaic versions can have a poetic quality, after all I do chant the Hours in Latin 🙂
 
And if I might add:

We often imagine St. Jerome translating the whole Bible, but in reality, what we only know for sure was that he revised the Gospels (whether he actually completed the NT is still a point of contention) and translated/revised most books of the OT. Other books, namely, Baruch, Wisdom, 1-2 Maccabees, 3-4 Esdras, Epistle to the Laodiceans, Prayer of Manasses, Ecclesiasticus, and perhaps the rest of the NT, are thought to be most likely Vetus Latina translations that were either revised much later by other people other than St. Jerome or kept wholly unrevised. In which case, these were apparently included to complete the set.

And oh, simple questions: what does the Latin phrase versio vulgata mean, when was it applied to St. Jerome’s translations, and why was it applied?
 
patrick457 said:
And oh, simple questions: what does the Latin phrase versio vulgata mean, when was it applied to St. Jerome’s translations, and why was it applied?
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I know, I know! The Vulgar Verses! No… that’s not right… oh, duh! The common language version.
 
Although, in defense of the Douay Rheims-Challoner, it was checked against the then-contemporary editions of the Hebrew and Greek texts. These days we have critical texts, which are closer to the autographs by a bit, but the problem is that the two primary uptodate Bible translations we have, well one is essentially Protestant, and the other makes Baby Jesus cry with all it’s heresy and crappysoundingness.

What bugs me about that is 1) the RSV-CE wasn’t translated by people steeped in the complementary Sacred Tradition (and they didn’t have the gifts of Confirmation either), and 2) the NAB’s translators… with those notes and heretical beliefs, were they even in a state of grace!?
 
WoundedIcon said:
I know, I know! The Vulgar Verses! No… that’s not right… oh, duh! The common language version.
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Hope Pat comes back to verify but I believe it means the most commonly used translation, some of this translation being that from an earlier Latin Vulgate version, the Vetus Latina.

Vulgata is not the vulgar tongue. There was a Vulgar Latin at the time of St. Jerome but he stuck to the Classical Latin (Christianized Latin, actually). There was a document written at the time to show a sample of the differences between the vulgar/vernacular vs the “real McCoy.”

ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/appendix_probi.html

Of course the Vulgar Latin become the mother of the later Romance languages. Fr. Z had a mention on his blog today to show the relationships.

wdtprs.com/blog/2011/09/quaeritur-latin-and-languages-in-seminary
 
Will_S said:
The annotations in some parts of the Old Testament in the original D-R are outrageous. A half a page of annotation for each verse!
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Where 1-1 translations fail, the annotations are most welcome.
 
ProVobis said:
Hope Pat comes back to verify but I believe it means the most commonly used translation, some of this translation being that from an earlier Latin Vulgate version, the Vetus Latina.

Vulgata is not the vulgar tongue. There was a Vulgar Latin at the time of St. Jerome but he stuck to the Classical Latin (Christianized Latin, actually). There was a document written at the time to show a sample of the differences between the vulgar/vernacular vs the “real McCoy.”

ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/appendix_probi.html

Of course the Vulgar Latin become the mother of the later Romance languages. Fr. Z had a mention on his blog today to show the relationships.

wdtprs.com/blog/2011/09/quaeritur-latin-and-languages-in-seminary
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And you’re correct! Contrary to popular idea, as you pointed out, the Vulgate is not written in Vulgar Latin.

The terms versio vulgata or editio vulgata (from the Greek koine ekdosis) originally referred to the version of the Scriptures in common use among Christians: the Greek Septuagint, and by extension its various versions and the translations that were made from it. This is the sense in which St. Augustine and even St. Jerome himself understood the phrase, and the sense the term was used down to the Middle Ages.

Now St. Jerome’s translations originally never had a specific name, so when people had to refer to them they usually used general and vague terms such as ‘our books’ (codices nostri) or ‘our version’ (editio nostra). Friar Roger Bacon in the 13th century is usually credited as the first person to apply the adjective vulgata to Jerome’s translations - which had, after all, become the ‘common version’ among Western Christians at the time even though they were now mostly speaking Vulgar Latin’s offspring - though his personal usage was inconsistent as he also used it in the original sense. Gradually however the name stuck, and Trent’s reference to the vetus et vulgata editio further cemented this usage.
 
I see many people with preferences to some Bibles here and there.

What about the St. Ignatius Bible 2nd ed.? Is that a good Bible?

-MontChevalier
 
MontChevalier said:
I see many people with preferences to some Bibles here and there.

What about the St. Ignatius Bible 2nd ed.? Is that a good Bible?

-MontChevalier
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I have it and like it a great deal. Its fairly readable yet still seems to be a faithful translation.

Its really too bad that the NSRV was not edited to curtail the use of inclusive language in places where it doesn’t make sense. Otherwise, that would be a nice translation for someone looking for a very readable Bible.

catholic.com/tracts/bible-translations-guide
 
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