Bible Translations

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Good Morning All,

I was going through my mini library at home and i started wondering about my Catholic Bibles. Currently i have the NAB and RSV (i want to get the RSV-CE but i havent yet) as well as a few prodestent bibles for referencing. I did some research and i found there are only a handful of Catholic Bibles out there… These are the ones i found:

New American Bible (NAB)
New Jerusalem Bible (NJB)
Revised Standard Version (RSV-CE)
Douay Rhiems (D-R)

are there any i’m missing??
 
Ronald Knox’s translation of the Vulgate was widely used in some Commonwealth countries.

There’s a handful of Catholic translations of the New Testament from the Greek that predate the RSV. My dad has one of those giant picture bibles with the Westminister New Testament of 1931. Of a more limited use is the Kleist-Lilly translation.

It was a long road in between the Douay-Rheims to the NAB. What most of us call the DR is actually the extensive revisions of Dr. Challoner (reputedly largely in the direction of the KJV). The version put out by TAN Books is the Challoner-Rheims. You will find some Catholic “fundamentalists” who reject the Challoner version in favour of the early Douay text. There was a revision of the Challoner-Rheims New Testament called the Confraternity in 1941. Its Vulgate text in some places uses a better Vulgate text than the Clementine. The Confraternity evolved into the New American bible, which was a fresh translation from Greek and Hebrew.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the ones available.
bible-researcher.com/romcath.html

There are current printings of the Confraternity, and a revision of the original Jerusalem bible from the Catholic Truth society in Europe (it replaces “Jehovah” with “The Lord”). Wikipedia also has a link to a web page listing differences between the RSV and the RSV-CE 1st and 2nd editions. IMHO the best of the bunch is the RSV family, but it’s worth chasing the notes from the Jerusalem Bible.
 
There’s also a Catholic version of the New Living Translation. But it doesn’t have the imprimatur or nihil obstat (at least, my copy doesn’t).
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Ronald Knox’s translation of the Vulgate was widely used in some Commonwealth countries.

There’s a handful of Catholic translations of the New Testament from the Greek that predate the RSV. My dad has one of those giant picture bibles with the Westminister New Testament of 1931. Of a more limited use is the Kleist-Lilly translation.

It was a long road in between the Douay-Rheims to the NAB. What most of us call the DR is actually the extensive revisions of Dr. Challoner (reputedly largely in the direction of the KJV). The version put out by TAN Books is the Challoner-Rheims. You will find some Catholic “fundamentalists” who reject the Challoner version in favour of the early Douay text. There was a revision of the Challoner-Rheims New Testament called the Confraternity in 1941. Its Vulgate text in some places uses a better Vulgate text than the Clementine. The Confraternity evolved into the New American bible, which was a fresh translation from Greek and Hebrew.
I’ve seen the Knox NT but not the whole Bible.There was supposed to be a reprint of the entire Knox bible coming out.Is it available yet?

Here’s a breakdown of some of the ones available.
bible-researcher.com/romcath.html

There are current printings of the Confraternity, and a revision of the original Jerusalem bible from the Catholic Truth society in Europe (it replaces “Jehovah” with “The Lord”). Wikipedia also has a link to a web page listing differences between the RSV and the RSV-CE 1st and 2nd editions. IMHO the best of the bunch is the RSV family, but it’s worth chasing the notes from the Jerusalem Bible.
 
In the UK (from what I have found on the official UK Catholic Church website), the one sanctioned for use in liturgy in the UK is The Jerusalem Bible (not to be confused with the New Jerusalem Bible).
 
Good Morning All,

I was going through my mini library at home and i started wondering about my Catholic Bibles. Currently i have the NAB and RSV (i want to get the RSV-CE but i havent yet) as well as a few prodestent bibles for referencing. I did some research and i found there are only a handful of Catholic Bibles out there… These are the ones i found:

New American Bible (NAB)
New Jerusalem Bible (NJB)
Revised Standard Version (RSV-CE)
Douay Rhiems (D-R)

are there any i’m missing??
The Jerusalem Bible, the Confraternity Bible.

The latter is only available AFAIK in two parts, Old Testament, New Testament, I believe.

I’d only recommend the Douay truly, because it won’t have bad commentary. Perhaps the older Confraternity doesn’t have it either, it’s been in several editions.

For Catholicic language alone, I’d say Douay first of all of course then perhaps the Confraternity and Jerusalem (old).

The other versions will be more homogenized and lack a particularly Catholic focused translation despite being ‘Catholic’ Bibles, and have some misleading at best historical-critical commentary rather than spiritually helpful commentary. I am not saying you can’t get anything out of them, far from it, but the will not be as reliable or helpful.
 
From EWTN:

ewtn.com/expert/expertfaqframe.asp?source=/vexperts/conference.htm

CATHOLIC BIBLE VERSIONS

Liturgical Use in United States


There is only one English text currently approved by the Church for use in the United States. This text is the one contained in the Lectionaries approved for Sundays & Feasts and for Weekdays by the USCCB and recognized by the Holy See. These Lectionaries have their American and Roman approval documents in the front. The text is that of the New American Bible with revised Psalms and New Testament (1988, 1991), with some changes mandated by the Holy See where the NAB text used so-called vertical inclusive language (e.g. avoiding male pronouns for God). Since these Lectionaries have been fully promulgated, the permission to use the Jerusalem Bible and the RSV-Catholic at Mass has been withdrawn. [See note on inclusive language]

Devotional Reading

A bewildering array of Catholic Bibles are available for personal use. They all have imprimaturs, but not all avoid the use of inclusive language. That use is indicated in the summary. The order is generally chronological.

1. Douai-Rheims. The original Catholic Bible in English, pre-dating the King James Version (1611). It was translated from the Latin Vulgate, the Church’s official Scripture text, by English Catholics in exile on the continent. The NT was completed and published in 1582 when the English College (the seminary for English Catholics) was located at Rheims. The Old Testament was published in 1610 when the College was located at Douai. Bishop Challoner’s 1750 edition, and subsequent revisions by others up to the 20th century, is the most common edition. Retains some archaic English. The 1899 edition is available from TAN Books. The text is widely available on line, including EWTN’s library.

2. Confraternity Edition. Begun in 1936 by the American bishops’ Confraternity for Christian Doctrine as a translation from the Clementine Vulgate. The publication of Pius XII’s encyclical Divino afflante spiritu (1943) caused the translation committee to switch to the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. Not all books were completed by the time of Vatican II (1962-1965). Those that were finished were used in the liturgy in the 1950s and 60s. Published in a dignified American idiom. Though hard to find, this edition of the Scriptures is worth possessing.

3. Revised Standard Version (RSV) - Catholic Edition. Translated for an American audience from the original languages in the 1940s and 1950s by the National Council of the Churches of Christ, and adapted for Catholic use by the Catholic Biblical Association (1966). Considered the best combination of literal (formal equivalence translation) and literary by many orthodox Catholic scholars. Published today by Ignatius Press (Ignatius Bible) and Scepter Press, and available through EWTN’s Religious Catalogue.

4.1 New American Bible or NAB (1970). Translated from the original languages by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine according to the principles of Vatican II for use in the liturgy. It was the basis of the American Lectionary from the 1970s until 2002. A good translation, but it was criticized for its changing of some traditional and familiar expressions, such as “full of grace”.

4.2 NAB with Revised New Testament (1986). A restoration of some traditional familiar phraseology. Unfortunately, it also included some mild inclusive language. No longer widely available, owing to the publication of the revised Psalms (see next entry).

4.3 NAB with Revised Psalms and Revised New Testament (1991). It was due to the use of vertical inclusive language (re: God and Christ) and some uses of horizontal inclusive language (re: human beings), that the Holy See rejected this text as the basis of a revised Lectionary for the United States. This is the version of the NAB currently on sale in the United States.

**4.4 Modified NAB with Revised Psalms and Revised New Testament (2000-2002). **This title is of my own invention. It does not refer to any currently available Bible, but to the NAB with Revised Psalms and Revised NT, as modified by a committee of the Holy See and the Bishops for use in the liturgy. It is the text found in all current Lectionaries in the U.S… The Holy See accepted some use of inclusive language, where the speaker/author intended a mixed audience (e.g. “brothers and sisters”, instead of the older “brethren”), but rejected it in references to God or Christ, and man, where the word has anthropological and theological significance (e.g. Psalm 1:1, with reference to Adam and Christ). Whether a Bible will be made available having these modified NAB texts is not known at this time. Since they do not extend to the entire Bible, it is possible that none will be, as that would require further editing of the underlying NAB text.
 
5. Jerusalem Bible (1966). A translation based on the French edition of the Dominicans of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, who translated it from the original languages. This Bible is the one used by Mother Angelica on the air. The full version has copious footnotes but is hard to find, as it has not been recently republished. A Reader’s Edition, without the full footnoting, is available through EWTN’s Religious Catalogue.

6. New Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition (1989). An adaptation for Catholic use of the NRSV of the National Council of the Churches of Christ. Although used in the American edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it was rejected for liturgical use by the Holy See owing to inclusive language in some unacceptable places. With this exception, like the predecessor RSV, it is a good formal equivalent translation (i.e. literal, but literary).

7. New Jerusalem Bible (1990). A revision of the Jerusalem Bible directly from the original languages. It contains inclusive language, similar to that rejected in the revised NAB by the Holy See for use in the liturgy, but is considered a very literary text, and comparable in quality to the NRSV in scholarship.

**8. Today’s’ English Version - Catholic (1992). **This is the Catholic edition of the popular Good News Bible by the American Bible Society. Translated according to the principle of dynamic equivalence for readability. The same principle was used by ICEL to translate the Mass texts. Would be better to call a paraphrase than a translation.

Catholic versus Protestant Bibles

Bible translations developed for Catholic use are complete Bibles. This means that they contain the entire canonical text identified by Pope Damasus and the Synod of Rome (382) and the local Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), contained in St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation (420), and decreed infallibly by the Ecumenical Council of Trent (1570). This canonical text contains the same 27 NT Testament books which Protestant versions contain, but 46 Old Testament books, instead of 39. These 7 books, and parts of 2 others, are called Deuterocanonical by Catholics (2nd canon) and Apocrypha (false writings) by Protestants, who dropped them at the time of the Reformation. The Deuterocanonical texts are Tobias (Tobit), Judith, Baruch, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Wisdom, First and Second Maccabees and parts of Esther and Daniel. Some Protestant Bibles include the “Apocrypha” as pious reading.
 
The Jerusalem Bible, the Confraternity Bible.

The latter is only available AFAIK in two parts, Old Testament, New Testament, I believe.

I’d only recommend the Douay truly, because it won’t have bad commentary. Perhaps the older Confraternity doesn’t have it either, it’s been in several editions.

For Catholicic language alone, I’d say Douay first of all of course then perhaps the Confraternity and Jerusalem (old).

The other versions will be more homogenized and lack a particularly Catholic focused translation despite being ‘Catholic’ Bibles, and have some misleading at best historical-critical commentary rather than spiritually helpful commentary. I am not saying you can’t get anything out of them, far from it, but the will not be as reliable or helpful.
If you’re looking for a good study Bible with commentary, there are three that I would recommend: The Ignatius Study Bible, the Navarre Bible, and the Douay-Rheims with Haydock Commentary.

So, which study Bible to get? Well, it depends on what you want. Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch are working on the Ignatius Study Bible. I have several volumes, and I think they’re great. The notes are very clear, there are ample maps, and there are occasional mini-essays dedicated to important passages for Catholics, or particularly important Greek words that are difficult to translate. The introductory essays are also very good. The main problem with this version is that it is a work-in-progress. It is being released book-by-book; the New Testament has JUST been completed, and the Old Testament is now well underway, although no books have actually been released yet. A single version of the complete New Testament is going to be released around November, so you might want to wait for that. Once totally complete, many people think that this will become the new standard in Catholic study Bibles. This is the version to get if you’re looking for a good, orthodox, in-depth study of the background and interpretation of the Bible.

Here’s a link to the 13-volume paperback New Testament set:
catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1001916/Ignatius-Catholic-Study-Bible-Complete-Set/
(and one Amazon.com link to the volume on the Gospel of Luke so you can see inside: )
amazon.com/Gospel-Luke-Ignatius-Study-Catholic/dp/0898708192/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246342183&sr=8-3
**
And here is a link where you can pre-order the brand-new single volume New Testament on Amazon.com. It’s going to be right around $20:

amazon.com/Ignatius-Catholic-Study-Bible-Testament/dp/1586172506/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249897269&sr=1-10**

continued…
 
As far as the Navarre Bible, it is also outstanding. It has several distinctive features. First, it’s complete. Second, it’s available in four versions: a 10-volume hardbound set, a 12-volume paperback New Testament, an abridged single-volume New Testament, and a brand new expanded single-volume hardcover New Testament. The longer versions contain the text of the Bible, the commentary, and the entire Nova Vulgata, along with long introductory essays. The abridged volume drops the Nova Vulgata and shortens the introductory essays. The hardbound version is almost of heirloom quality; it is very well made. The Navarre is printed by Scepter Press, the publishing arm of Opus Dei, so you KNOW it’s going to be orthodox. The Navarre tends to be more of a devotional Bible than a rigorous scholarly study Bible. The great thing is that both Bibles present something completely different. You could read both and learn totally different things. I included links to where you can order them direct from Scepter Publishers, and also Amazon.com. I included Amazon.com links when the page included the option to search inside the book so you can get an idea of the layout.

Here is where you can get the various versions:

The brand-new one-volume expanded New Testament:
scepterpublishers.org/product/index.php?FULL=526

The one-volume abridged New Testament:
amazon.com/Navarre-Bible-New-Testament-Compact/dp/1889334596/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246340393&sr=8-5

The original ten-volume hardcover series:
New Testament:
scepterpublishers.org/product/index.php?FULL=618
Old Testament:
scepterpublishers.org/product/index.php?FULL=514
(and one Amazon.com link of the first volume so you can see inside: )
amazon.com/Navarre-Bible-Pentateuch-Old-Testament/dp/1889334219/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246340393&sr=8-2

The twelve-volume paperback New Testament set:
scepterpublishers.org/product/index.php?FULL=125
(and one Amazon.com link of the first volume so you can see inside: )
amazon.com/Navarre-Bible-Acts-Apostles/dp/1851829040/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246340775&sr=8-23

I might also recommend the Douay-Rheims Bible with Haydock Commentary. This was a Bible commentary written by a Father Haydock in the mid-nineteenth century. It’s very orthodox also, and is known for utilizing a tremendous number of quotes from the Early Church Fathers themselves. If you want to know what the great theologians had to say about various passages, all in one place, than this is also a great resource. Not all Douay-Rheims Bibles have the Haydock Commentary, so search carefully. There is only one readily available version with the commentary, and it runs around $125. I should also point out that it’s available online for free viewing here:

haydock1859.tripod.com/index.html

Here’s a link to the leather-bound hardcover Haydock Douay-Rheims Bible:
loretopubs.org/index.php?target=products&product_id=60

(And here’s a link to a sample interior page: )
catholictreasures.com/pictures/Sample%20Douay.pdf

As an added thought:

From EWTN:
The most widely used Catholic commentary is probably the Jerome Biblical Commentary, now in a 2nd edition. There is also a summary version of it. This commentary is the work of well-known Catholic Biblical scholars and is filled with articles on historical, archaeological, linguistic and other subjects useful for understanding the background of the Scriptures. The JBC is, therefore, a valuable resource for those seeking such information. However, the textual commentaries use primarily the historical-critical method, and thus must be read with discernment. The Church approves of the use of this method for the purpose of understanding the historical and literary foundations of the text (see Vatican II, Dei Verbum 11-13), but finds it an incomplete method apart from the Tradition. Scripture must be interpreted according to the analogy of faith, that is, in accordance with what God has revealed in toto, as taught by the Magisterium.

Here is the New Jerome Biblical Commentary at Amazon.com:
amazon.com/Jerome-Biblical-Commentary-Raymond-Brown/dp/0225668033/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246340021&sr=8-1
 
Also:

The CTS New Catholic Bible. I’m not sure about the quality of the notes, but the text (extremely near to that of the Jerusalem Bible) is identical to that which is used at Mass in the UK and Ireland. It also comes with tables indicating the readings for the liturgical day (not including most feasts).

The Christian Community Bible. Made by priests working in poorer areas of the world (I think). I have heard of one or two heretical comments in the notes, though.
 
An aside for those who have electronic reading devices: the Ignatius Bible is now available in e-reader format. I downloaded it from Amazon last week and am so thankful to have it! (Previously, the only Catholic bible available for the Amazon Kindle was the Douai-Rheims.)
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  1. The Douay Old Testament from 1609 and Rheims New Testament from 1582 was revised later in 1750 by Bishop Richard Challoner and is what we usually call the Douay-Rheims today.
  2. Dr.Troy New Testament of 1794 (Dublin) a revision of the Rheims.
  3. The Haydock Bible was published in Manchester, 1812-14, Dublin, 1812-13, Edinburgh and Dublin, 1845-8, NewYork, 1852-6, and was the Douay-Challoner Old Testament with mostly the Dr.Troy New Testament.
  4. The Confraternity Bible was released in several versions, prior to the 1970 NAB.
Confraternity NT – In 1941, a revision of Bishop Richard Challoner’s Version of the Rheims New Testament, followed by the Old Testament:

Genesis to Ruth were first published in 1952
Wisdom Books, Job to Sirach, in 1955
Prophetic Books, Isaiah to Malachi, in 1961
Historical Books, Samuel to Maccabees, in 1969

But the last published complete Confraternity in 1969, that I could find reference to, did not contain the revised Historical Books. The NAB was published the next year 1970, and contained a revised Genesis.

The next version of the NAB is planned to be published in 2010 with a completed Old Testament.

When I was raised (as a Catholic) we used the Confraternity Bible.
 
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