Best Version?

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Neofight said:
I feel your frustration.

This question is covered in several threads, and the outcome is always the same…nobody sticking to the premise of the question, which do you LIKE the best.

The typical CAF member (myself included) is not a bible or linguistic scholar, so any claim made about the accuracy in comparison to original texts is purely based on what they’ve heard from someone else, or seen on the internet (which we all know, MUST be true!).
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And some of us actually invested money in grammars and lexicons and the time to study them.
 
dallasb said:
Thanks for the replies. Is the Douay-Rheims version easy to read?
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My opinion is no. Others will disagree.

The language is too archaic for me. I spend more time trying to figure out words like propitiation and difficult sentence structure than I do absorbing the word of God.

My preference is the RSV-CE for readablity. There is no such thing as an “accurate” Bible. All translations are a compromise. .

Again, others will have a different opinion.

-Tim-
 
Just out of curiosity, anyone know what is used in the U.K. at Mass for the readings?

Obviously not the N.A.B.
 
pianistclare said:
Honestly, the footnotes n the NAB are awful, but text is the one used at Mass, so I like it for reading.
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Why do you think so?
They are very different from the footnotes of the NIV. However, I’ve always preferred a “study bible” and very often check to see if my own thoughts are very different from the footnotes.
 
I like the RSV-CEII for the majority of my Bible reading. It’s readable and accurate.

I have become very fond of the confraternity Bible and was fortunate to find both an Old Testament and New Testament in two volumes. Highly accurate translation, but hard to find for both OT and NT. I have heard the Douay Rheims is the most accurate English translation and while that may be true, I just have a difficult time with the language. The Confraternity Bible keeps the accuracy, for the most part, and updates the language to make it more readable. However, I was dismayed at the rendering of the word “happy” for “blessed” in the Psalms. But curiously, it uses the word blessed in the Beatitudes. At least that’s how it is in my two part edition (also, so there’s no confusion, some of the books in the OT Confraternity are straight from the DRV-- I think that only OT editions published in 1969 have all books translated by the Confraternity.)

I like the 1966 Jerusalem Bible in some ways- it’s poetic and beautiful. But because it is poetic and beautiful, it seems to me that some of the passages have the meaning changed. For example:

Eph 2:10 in the RSV-CE

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Eph 2:10 in the Jerusalem Bible

10 We are God’s work of art,* created in Christ Jesus to live the good life* as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.

I just think that the passage takes on a different meaning when it is rendered as the JB has done. But maybe that’s just me. Also,(and these are personal preferences) I like the Lord’s prayer rendered as we say it in Church, JB renders it differently. I also cannot stand ''Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you." (JB) versus “Hail, full of grace”(RSVCE) in Lk 1:28 Also, the JB uses the word “happy” for “blessed”. UGH. There are other passages that I take issue with on the JB but it has to be said that it is very readable. And, for the most part, I like the notes for the 1966 JB.
 
I avoid the footnotes problem altogether by reading a Bible without footnotes. I find they just get in the way.

Monks read the scriptures for an hour or two every day and they don’t have footnotes. The early desert fathers didn’t have footnotes. They sat with the text, perhaps a chapter or a book, for weeks or months until it became interiorized, part of who they were.

A good cross reference is much more valuable to me than footnotes. The NAB at the USCCB website has an excellent cross reference.

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
I avoid the footnotes problem altogether by reading a Bible without footnotes. I find they just get in the way.

Monks read the scriptures for an hour or two every day and they don’t have footnotes. The early desert fathers didn’t have footnotes. They sat with the text, perhaps a chapter or a book, for weeks or months until it became interiorized, part of who they were.

A good cross reference is much more valuable to me than footnotes. The NAB at the USCCB website has an excellent cross reference.

-Tim-
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Good point. I really have enjoyed the Ignatius study booklets.
 
pianistclare said:
Read this link. By CAF apologist Jimmy Akin. He does a good job of answering the question.
jimmyakin.com/2005/01/the_new_america.html
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Appreciate the link, he makes a good point.
However, I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to throw the whole thing out based on one particular footnote. Are there other examples so egregiously bad?

I’ve found so many historical curiosities that I would simply never learn without the footnotes. That isn’t to say I couldn’t learn them, but that I wouldn’t. I find I miss many subtle details when reading the RSV-2CE, simply because there is absolutely no reason to slow down. (My RSV-2CE does have footnotes, and endnotes - to his point - but they are much fewer and farther between, comparatively speaking).

In fact, on this very page alone of my version (Matthew 16:21-23, but a different verse) I know I’ve compared the footnotes between this and the NIV and found them to be very different, but both interesting points of view. Of course I get that neither are inspired or canonical, but often interesting, thought provoking, or historically enlightening. 🙂
 
Prayer_Warrior said:
Eph 2:10 in the RSV-CE

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Eph 2:10 in the Jerusalem Bible

10 We are God’s work of art,* created in Christ Jesus to live the good life* as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.
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I’m really only adding this to help prevent confusion between the Jerusalem Bible and the New Jerusalem Bible [because I recommended the NJB] but I figured we might as well take a look at what’s in the NRSV-CE also.

Eph 2:10 in The New Jerusalem Bible

10 We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life.

Eph 2:10 in the NRSV-CE

10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Edit: whichever version you decide on, I’d recommend getting one with the Nihil Obstat that assures you that it is free from doctrinal or moral error
 
TimothyH said:
I avoid the footnotes problem altogether by reading a Bible without footnotes. I find they just get in the way.

Monks read the scriptures for an hour or two every day and they don’t have footnotes. The early desert fathers didn’t have footnotes. They sat with the text, perhaps a chapter or a book, for weeks or months until it became interiorized, part of who they were.

A good cross reference is much more valuable to me than footnotes. The NAB at the USCCB website has an excellent cross reference.

-Tim-
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And, my grand parents watch NETFLIX by candlelight!😃

Seriously, though, “interiorizing” scripture is not always a good thing to do in a vacuum…we need church documents and teaching of the Fathers, which is the only thing that separates us from Protestantism!
 
The Navarre Bible and Ignatius CSB are great commentaries, by the way. Sometimes, I like to read just scripture alone, however. It varies. I think there is a place for both modes. We should always pray first, correct? 🙂 Also, I’ve heard the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture is good. One of the authors, Mary Healy, was on Catholic Radio a while back, and I was impressed.
 
JamalChristophr said:
Good to know, thanks!

(I knew Mother Angelica must have liked it for good reason.)
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If you wanted a Bible that matches the UK lectionary during Mass, the CTS New Catholic Bible was created specifically to do this. It uses the Jerusalem Bible, altered as the lectionary texts are altered (so, ‘Lord’ in place of Yahweh, for example), except for the Psalms which are the Grail Psalms.

Personally, I like the Jerusalem Bible and the New Jerusalem Bible. I find all the Bibles in the RSV family hard to read because of what seems like fake archaicism to me, but I suspect that if I had grown up on the KJV, I would feel differently. If you want the most readable Bible, the Good News Bible is the easiest there is, and unlike the NIV it is available in Catholic editions with Nihil Obstat. It wouldn’t be your most scholarly choice, though.

The RSV and NRSV are supposed to be the most scholarly choices, if that’s what you mean by ‘accurate’, but I have misgivings given the (imo, deceptive) use of 'thee’s and 'thou’s in the RSV only to refer to God, rather than to indicate second person singular or familiar, and the choice to include the standard English version of the Our Father in the Gospels where Jesus teaches the disciples the prayer (obscuring the different versions, and the way that the standard version was not delivered to us from Jesus in English), and the use of gender inclusive language in the NRSV in places where the translated text includes a clearly gendered term.

It really does depend on your background and what you’re looking for.
 
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