Catholic Public Domain Version

[AmbroseSJ]

Colliric:

and yes there is an approved English translation of the Vulgate, it’s the Douay Rheims. I’m not sure there is a Modern english one though.

Indeed there is! Ronald Knox’s translation was done at the request of, and under the approval of the U.K Hierarchy in 1939. It is translated from the Vulgate, and comes with many illuminating notes. He also published a 3 volume commentary on the New Testament, which are all of the notes he would have included in the Bible itself, but it would have increased the size too much at the time.

This is a marvelous translation, which is very strong in translating the Pauline letters with clarity and accurateness. Although he retained wording such as “thou” and “thee”, it is otherwise very modern understandable English.

His translations can therefore be described as dynamic, and not literal. But as Ron Conte says, there is always some sort of trade off. Ronald Knox is a self-described traditionalist, and always tries to translate in light of Church tradition, when he must make a choice.

 

[Ron_Conte]

I think Knox’s translation deserves more attention that it has received. I wish that it were available online. The commentary would be particularly interesting.

I hope that other Catholics will follow my example and translate the Bible, literally from the Latin, into many other languages. It is my understanding that there are few Catholic Bible translations in asian languages, such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean. Yet these languages are spoken by very many persons. There is certainly a need for many more Bible translations.

 

[Deum_quaerens]

Congratulations on your work! May I ask what impelled you to translate the Bible from the Vulgate at all?

Those who are concerned by the lack of an Imprimatur ought to bear in mind that these days, the value of ecclesiastical approval is only as great as the orthodoxy of the bishop granting it, and given the widespread heterodoxy in the modern episcopate (the USCCB is notorious in this regard), such approval is often no guarantee of freedom from error in faith and morals. I would not be surprised if certain bishops refused to approve “reactionary” works.

Indeed there is! Ronald Knox’s translation was done at the request of, and under the approval of the U.K Hierarchy in 1939. It is translated from the Vulgate, and comes with many illuminating notes. He also published a 3 volume commentary on the New Testament, which are all of the notes he would have included in the Bible itself, but it would have increased the size too much at the time.

This is a marvelous translation, which is very strong in translating the Pauline letters with clarity and accurateness. Although he retained wording such as “thou” and “thee”, it is otherwise very modern understandable English.

His translations can therefore be described as dynamic, and not literal. But as Ron Conte says, there is always some sort of trade off. Ronald Knox is a self-described traditionalist, and always tries to translate in light of Church tradition, when he must make a choice.

Beware of Knox’s apparent heterodoxy:

And just in case you miss the spirit of the work (if Job still seems to you more patient than bored, Saint Peter more loveable than laughable), Monsignor Knox has provided ample notes in the margins of the text and three additional volumes of depreciatory comment.

In a previous issue, The Point has decried Monsignor Knox’s malicious and willful attack on the Blessed Virgin Mary, in his translation of the sacred text from Isaias, Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium: which can only mean, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son.” In complete sell-out to a centuries-old Talmudic tradition, Monsignor Knox refused to use Saint Jerome’s Latin or even the Greek texts for this verse. He went to the post-Crucifixion Babylonian rabbis for their version, and came up with, “Maid shall be brought to bed of a son.” This rendering, which takes all portent out of the prophesied event — meant to be a wondrous sign from God — completely discredits the inviolate virginity of Our Lord’s Mother and the virginal manner of His birth.

There is further abuse waiting for Our Blessed Lady in Monsignor Knox’s marginal note on chapter two, verse four of Saint John’s Gospel. In that place, where the marriage feast at Cana is told, the Monsignor has Our Lord rebuke His Mother (after she informs Him that their host has run out of wine) with the haughty rejoinder, “Woman, leave me alone, do not interfere with me.” There is no grammatical justification for this. But there is a well-known heretical precendent. Tyndale did it in his Reformation Bible, and Cranmer copied it in his. They thus established the pattern which all Protestant England, and Monsignor Knox it appears, afterwards followed.

Writing on chapter twenty-two of Saint Luke’s Gospel, Monsignor Knox says, “Luke omits the story of Mary anointing our Lord’s feet, presumably because he was not certain that he had not already told it.” An indefinite number of such quotes, from Monsignor Knox’s Bible commentaries might be strung out to display every shade of Knoxian cynicism, smartness, snobbery, derision and doubt. But that would leave no room to introduce the Monsignor’s particularly burning malice toward the Gospel of Saint John.

It is the Church’s clear teaching, codified in the Councils of Florence, Trent, and Vatican, that God is the true author of all that Saint John, or any of the Bible’s human writers, has recorded. Pope Leo XIII summarizes this teaching by saying that the books of the Bible, “with all their parts, have been written under the dictation of the Holy Ghost.” This in no way deters Monsignor Knox from the following description of Saint John at work on his inspired Gospel: “He will recall, as if conjuring them up with difficulty, details about names and places and relationships which have nothing much to do with the story. He will give us little footnotes, as if to make sure we are following; often unnecessary, often delayed instead of being put in their proper place. He will remember fragments of a conversation, passing on from this utterance to that by mere association of memory, instead of giving us a reasoned precis of the whole. He will alternately assume that we know the story already, and narrate it in meticulous detail . . . Probably no author but John could have begun his story in this topsy-turvy fashion . . . But, as we have seen, this is the way in which John’s memory works.”

As the above comments are phrased, one might get the impression that Monsignor Knox thinks that Saint John (despite all the doting senility he ascribed to the Saint) actually wrote the Holy Gospel according to Saint John. Not so. “Saint John,” writes Knox, “never really sat down and wrote a Gospel; what we’ve got is the result of a series of Press Conferences, at which his disciples were plying him with questions all the time.” The series of reminiscences that were thus “elicited from him piecemeal” were later shuffled together, the Monsignor says, and made into the Fourth Gospel. And so it happens that Monsignor Knox in the Gospel of Saint John, readily and without scruple blames those unknown disciples: “It looks as if their notes got muddled.”

 

[Awake]

Wow, how long did that take you?

 

[Ron_Conte]

It took me just over 5 years to translate the entire Bible from Latin into English.

I decided to translate the Bible because there was no literal Catholic translation, in modern English, from the Latin, other than Challoner’s edition (which suffers from archaic language),

and also because I wanted a Catholic edition of the Bible which would be public domain, freely available in electronic form, able to be updated by anyone at any time, able to be improved as time passes, able to be updated as language changes,

and also because I knew that the first part of the tribulation is imminent, and so such a translation would be very useful to the faithful at this time.

Knox’s translation does have some significant problems. I would argue that all loose translations are subject to this danger of taking excessive liberties in rephrasing the text, or of incorporating one’s own views into the loose translation. But I think that even Wycliff’s translation is useful for study (even though he was a heretic).

 

[patrick457]

It is my understanding that there are few Catholic Bible translations in asian languages, such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean. Yet these languages are spoken by very many persons. There is certainly a need for many more Bible translations.

Actually there are two Japanese translations of the New Testament from the Latin Vulgate, one made by the French missionary Fr. Emile Raguet MEP in 1910, and the other by Fr. Michael Steichen MEP and Takahashi Goro (who had himself co-translated the Bible with the well-known Presbyterian minister James Curtis Hepburn) in 1895 and 1897. Raguet’s New Testament was the standard for a time, before Fr. Federico Barbaro produced his more modern translation of the Vulgate in 1957 (NT) and 1964 (Complete) - he used Raguet’s as his basis for the NT.

I don’t know about Chinese or Korean, but there are already a number of Japanese Bibles out there. Protestants, Catholics and the Orthodox mostly have their own translations.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Beware of Knox’s apparent heterodoxy

That 1958 Article appears virulently biased and over practically nothing. If one is going to “test” a translation by certain key passages then at least Knox uses “She is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in wait at her heels.” for Gen 3:15. In Luke 1: 28 he translates “Hail, thou who art full of grace; the Lord is with thee; Blessed art thou among women.” Two very troublesome passages for modern Bibles, but as traditional as Challoner in Knox’s version.

The fuss that is made over Isaiah 7:14 being “heterodox” is ludicrous. The Latin will easily admit “maid” or “maiden.” Maybe the real problem today is that equating a young girl, or young maid, with a virgin is unrealistic. However, the idea was very realistic to Isaiah. A maid was a virgin, if she wasn’t a virgin, then she wasn’t a maid. So to say that a maid would be brought to bed of a son, is just as shocking as to say a virgin would be brought to bed of a son. The Latin “virgo” can be translated virgin, maid, or young girl. Nowadays we are very clinical about what constitutes a virgin. We don’t see it as a great “sign” that a maid would conceive a son. But when that sign is given by GOD, and God is using the word maid (which is the context) then you can take it to the bank, that this maid is clinically a virgin. Knox says in his notes that the word is more related to a time of life than a state of life. He eschewed “virgin” only because he felt that was putting too much emphasis on the state, and not enough on the time. In the event we know that the BVM was both very young, and a virgin, so the prophecy is fulfilled more with “maid” than “virgin” by today’s critical standards. Some might cavil that a virgin can also be very old, and so would also miss the mark of the prophecy. Clinically, however, it would impress our age more, and maybe that is why the article took so much umbrage.

Anyone that is familiar with Knox knows that his translation is dynamic, but hardly an egregious paraphrase like the Good News Bible. It is indeed easy reading for someone uncomfortable with older English, or overly literal translations.

Baronius Press is getting ready to reprint the Knox Bible, and they are notoriously conservative and orthodox. In reality the Knox Bible is far more orthodox than our own NAB, both in the notes and in the text.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Knox’s translation of 7:14 is loose, and also appears to rely partly on the Hebrew.
The Latin uses virgo, which naturally translates a virgin, since the English word is derived from the Latin and has the same meaning.

{7:14} Propter hoc dabit Dominus ipse vobis signum. Ecce **virgo **concipiet, et pariet filium, et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel.
{7:14} For this reason, the Lord himself will grant to you a sign. Behold, a virgin will conceive, and she will give birth to a son, and his name will be called Immanuel.

But Knox refers to the Hebrew 'almah when he says that it refers more to a time of life, since that word refers to a young unmarried woman of marrying age. In the Jewish religious and social context of the time, such a woman would be a virgin. In a way, 'almah is more specific than ‘virgin’, since 'almah implies virginity, and age, whereas virgin does not imply age.

I don’t like to see any translation subjected to exaggerated detraction. Knox’s work has its strengths and weaknesses. It is useful for persons studying the Bible and studying Bible translation.

Actually there are two Japanese translations of the New Testament from the Latin Vulgate, one made by the French missionary Fr. Emile Raguet MEP in 1910, and the other by Fr. Michael Steichen MEP and Takahashi Goro (who had himself co-translated the Bible with the well-known Presbyterian minister James Curtis Hepburn) in 1895 and 1897. Raguet’s New Testament was the standard for a time, before Fr. Federico Barbaro produced his more modern translation of the Vulgate in 1957 (NT) and 1964 (Complete) - he used Raguet’s as his basis for the NT.
.

Thanks for the info. Good to know.
Are any of these Japanese Catholic Bibles available online or in print in the U.S.?

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Ron Conte:

I don’t like to see any translation subjected to exaggerated detraction. Knox’s work has its strengths and weaknesses. It is useful for persons studying the Bible and studying Bible translation.

Agreed. I think the article was all out of proportion.

 

[Deum_quaerens]

The notes regarding the authorship and composition of the Gospels are still very troubling, insofar as they seemingly imply that the Evangelists wrote their books without the assistance of the Holy Ghost.

 

[patrick457]

Thanks for the info. Good to know.
Are any of these Japanese Catholic Bibles available online or in print in the U.S.?

The 1910 Raguet New Testament is available here (here is one which has them in PDF). The Barbaro Version is not available on the web, I’m afraid, but I’ve seen a copy in Amazon.

If I might add, Fr. Raguet’s version was done in classical literary Japanese - as is common among Bible translations done at the period, such as the well-known Taisho Revised Version (1917), or the Japanese Orthodox Version by Nicholas of Japan (1901). Fr. Barbaro’s (1913, Venice - 1996, Pordenone) version, meanwhile, is more colloquial, ever since the Japanese Bible Society’s Colloquial Version of 1954 set the ground for more modern translations of the Bible.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Is anyone interested in critiquing the CPDV? This need not be an in-depth or lengthy critique. I’d appreciate some balanced prudent comments about the versions strengths and weaknesses.

 

[patrick457]

Is anyone interested in critiquing the CPDV? This need not be an in-depth or lengthy critique. I’d appreciate some balanced prudent comments about the versions strengths and weaknesses.

I’m very sorry that I’m not really good at critiquing (I would just probably dwell on unimportant things like how the Greek anaklino or the Latin discumbere is better translated as “recline” or “lie down” than the more common “sit down” or that the Greek katalyma or the Latin diversorio is more correctly rendered, instead of the traditional English “inn”, as “lodgings” or “guestroom” as per other ancient translations, the nitpicker that I am ), but I’m also expecting to see what the other members of CAF are thinking about this version and hope that they give better criticism.

 

[Innocent]

I think Knox’s translation deserves more attention that it has received. I wish that it were available online.

There is a version of the Knox Translation of the NT online. In this version, the “thee” and “thou” have been replaced by “you.” This work has been done by an Opus Dei priest, Monsignor Cormac Burke.

Here is the link: Knox Bible (“You” Version)

But it has only the scripture text, and the commentary is not included.

 

[Innocent]

And congratulations on the completion of your great effort to translate the Vulgate.

I’ve downloaded your translation and started reading it. I’m starting with your Song of Songs, because my understanding of that book of Scripture is extremely poor and I’m looking for resources to help me understand it better. Thank you also, for your extensive commentary on the Song of Songs!

 

[saieditor]

thanks

The CPDV is available as a downloadable PDF here:
sacredbible.org/files/CPDV-OE-8.5-11.zip

and online here:
sacredbible.org/catholic/index.htm

And there is a latin/english version here:
sacredbible.org/studybible/index.htm

Thanks, Ron,

I have downloaded this. An excellent work. And I like what I have read, dipping hither and thither

 

[una_fides]

Hey Ron,

Great job making your own Bible translation! Have you made an e-sword version of it yet? I’m in the process of trying to figure out how to make a Bible module myself. Here’s a site with links on how to make one: davidcox.com.mx/e-swordmodules/Create_Bibles.html I haven’t quite figured out how to get it all to work just yet… If you figure out how to do it and put your version into a Bible module, I’d be interested in downloading it!

Btw, for anyone who uses e-sword, I just found links to countless Catholic modules that I never knew existed! I’ve been using e-sword for about 7 years and am just now finding these things! esnips.com/web/CatholicApolegetics?docsPage=1#files
Found them from this thread: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=3279898#post3279898

God bless!

 

[Ron_Conte]

my translation is public domain, so you or anyone else may make an esword edition. I don’t have time to work on that right now.

 

[Fidelis]

This is an awesome and laudable acheivement Ron. I’ve got them bookmarked and saved and am looking forward to perusing them in the future!
:clapping:

 

[rciadan]

Is anyone interested in critiquing the CPDV? This need not be an in-depth or lengthy critique. I’d appreciate some balanced prudent comments about the versions strengths and weaknesses.

Is this something you still want done? It has been a good year since you posted this request…