Complete List of Catholic Translations of the Bible

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  1. Douay Rheims-Challoner (very literal)
  2. Haydock Douay Rheims (Troy-Challoner) (very literal)
  3. Original Douay Rheims (ridiculously literal)
  4. Confraternity Bible (NT only) (literal)
  5. Mgr Knox Bible (literal)
  6. Ignatius Study Bibles (by book) (1966 RSVCE) (literal)
  7. Navarre Bible (1966 RSVCE) (literal)
  8. Ignatius 2nd Catholic Ed RSVCE (Rev of the 1966) (literal)
  9. Oxford RSVCE Readers Ed ('71 RSV + the '66 CE verses) (literal)
  10. 1966 Jerusalem Bible (dynamic equivalence)
  11. Christian Community Bible (1st-3rd Edtns) (dynamic eq)
  12. New American Bible 1970 (dynamic equivalence)
  13. New American Bible 1986 (in-between formal and dynamic eq)
  14. New Revised Standard Version (“literal” w/ inclusive lang)
  15. Christian Community Bible (Later Edts) (dynamic eq)
  16. 1985 New Jerusalem Bible (dynamic equivalence)
  17. Catholic Living Bible (dynamic equivalence)
  18. Good New Bible (dynamic equivalence)
1-12 are free from inclusive language
13-18 contain varying amounts of inclusive language
 
Jerry-Jet said:
Does the USCCB conrol the Confraternity Version of the Bible?

If someone wanted to revise it in anyway or print it today in its entirety would they be opposed to it?

Why?
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The USCCB does its best to suppress any bible other than the NAB with the revised NT and Psalms.

I once wrote to them and requested thay make available on their web page the original NAB, particularly for the Psalms, since, for the most part, these are the ones STILL used (Deo gratias!) in the liturgy in the US. Their spokeswoman gave me a resounding, flat-out “NO!” because the NAB with revised NT and Psalms was the best, in their opinion, and they didn’t want to “confuse” people with less desirable translations.

And re the Confraternity NT? Fuhgeddaboudit, since it’s not even translated from the “original languages”, but from the Latin Vulgate, and thus harks back to pre-Vatican II days.
 
Do you think anyone on EWTN would ever ask an American bishop why they suppress the Confraternity Version from print?

Do you think any American bishop would answer why suppression of an English Catholic Version of the Bible is an enlightened good thing for the Catholic Church?

If they could also suppress the RSV-CE would they?

Pope Benedict XVI is a fair man and as a theologian is against censorship of Orthodox conservative Catholic Bible translations.

He isn’t in favor of suppressing the Douay Rheims English version of the Bible as far as I know. If it were up to him would he be in favor of allowing the Confraternity Version of the Bible to be printed or revised?
 
Jerry-Jet said:
Do you think anyone on EWTN would ever ask an American bishop why they suppress the Confraternity Version from print?

Do you think any American bishop would answer why suppression of an English Catholic Version of the Bible is an enlightened good thing for the Catholic Church?

If they could also suppress the RSV-CE would they?

Pope Benedict XVI is a fair man and as a theologian is against censorship of Orthodox conservative Catholic Bible translations.

He isn’t in favor of suppressing the Douay Rheims English version of the Bible as far as I know. If it were up to him would he be in favor of allowing the Confraternity Version of the Bible to be printed or revised?
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Jerry-Jet,

In a book entitled “Catholic Biblical Scholarship in the United States”, it was recorded that when the editors of the RSV-CE asked their American counterparts working on the NAB for some help, they were refused, as it (RSV-CE) would “stultify the (NAB) project”.

And I don’t think Pope Benedict XVI can rightfully concern himself with the myriads of vernacular biblical translations.
 
Seems to me there is a lot of heat on what translation is to be used. For pete sake. Just get people to read the Bible. As long as the translation is Catholic, get it out there.

Agree? Disagree?
 
I’ve always wondered what it must be like to be as smart as the Pope and others who know many languages and to be able to read the Bible in different languages.

Do the Germans have many different translations or the French or the Spanish or the Italians?

In all of those countries do they base their translations mostly on the Vulgate or do they have all the modern translation problems that we have over here?

I wonder if Pope Benedict ever had to be involved in Bible translation issues when he was a bishop in Germany?
 
Guardian said:
Seems to me there is a lot of heat on what translation is to be used. For pete sake. Just get people to read the Bible. As long as the translation is Catholic, get it out there.

Agree? Disagree?
Click to expand...
I disagree. There are some legitimate Biblical scholarship issues that affect even the ordinary lay Catholic today:
  1. tendency for recent translations to be ever more loosely translated
  2. increasing use of inclusive language contrary to Vatican Bible translation norms
  3. the almost complete abandonment of the Latin scriptural tradition, even though the Council of Trent gave the Latin a special place in the scriptural life of the Church
  4. the rephrasing of verses in accord with modern sensibilities (more common in some of the looser Protestant translations, but of issue to Catholic translations also)
  5. the excision of certain verses from the Bible
  6. the excision of certain ideas/verses from the Biblical selections in the liturgical texts
perhaps there are other issues
 
Ron_Conte said:
I disagree. There are some legitimate Biblical scholarship issues that affect even the ordinary lay Catholic today:
  1. tendency for recent translations to be ever more loosely translated
  2. increasing use of inclusive language contrary to Vatican Bible translation norms
  3. the almost complete abandonment of the Latin scriptural tradition, even though the Council of Trent gave the Latin a special place in the scriptural life of the Church
  4. the rephrasing of verses in accord with modern sensibilities (more common in some of the looser Protestant translations, but of issue to Catholic translations also)
  5. the excision of certain verses from the Bible
  6. the excision of certain ideas/verses from the Biblical selections in the liturgical texts
perhaps there are other issues
Click to expand...
Will you please expand on 3.
 
This may have already been addressed but I didn’t see it anywhere. OK, so if the USCCB recommends the NAB, but alot of people say it isn’t the best translation, does The Vatican happen to recommend a particular English translation, or do they stay out of it? :confused:

Chris
 
credno said:
This may have already been addressed but I didn’t see it anywhere. OK, so if the USCCB recommends the NAB, but alot of people say it isn’t the best translation, does The Vatican happen to recommend a particular English translation, or do they stay out of it? :confused:

Chris
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The translation that has been given many approbations by many different Bishops is the Haydock Douay Rheims.
 
Will you please expand on 3.

The Council of Trent:
“But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.”

“Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod,–considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,–ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.”

Therefore, Catholic translations were typically from the Latin, for many generations, until 1943, when the Pope issued an encyclical letter, Divino Afflante Spiritu, which recommended that Catholic translators begin to use the Greek and Hebrew texts also. But then translators went to the opposite extreme and almost completely ignored the Latin (partly influenced by the modern Protestant tendency to exalt the Hebew and Greek).

*does The Vatican happen to recommend a particular English translation??

*The Holy See has approved of various English translations for use in the Mass in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. The Holy See has not raised up any one English translation as preeminent.

Current Canon Law does not permit individual Bishops to give approval of Bible translations; it is reserved to the local Conference or to the Holy See.

Ron
 
Ron_Conte said:
I disagree. There are some legitimate Biblical scholarship issues that affect even the ordinary lay Catholic today:
  1. tendency for recent translations to be ever more loosely translated
  2. increasing use of inclusive language contrary to Vatican Bible translation norms
  3. the almost complete abandonment of the Latin scriptural tradition, even though the Council of Trent gave the Latin a special place in the scriptural life of the Church
  4. the rephrasing of verses in accord with modern sensibilities (more common in some of the looser Protestant translations, but of issue to Catholic translations also)
  5. the excision of certain verses from the Bible
  6. the excision of certain ideas/verses from the Biblical selections in the liturgical texts
perhaps there are other issues
Click to expand...
Ron,

Excellent points and well articulated!

All Scriptural translations are NOT created equal.
 
credno said:
This may have already been addressed but I didn’t see it anywhere. OK, so if the USCCB recommends the NAB, but alot of people say it isn’t the best translation, does The Vatican happen to recommend a particular English translation, or do they stay out of it? :confused:

Chris
Click to expand...
You have to remember that the USCCB sponsored the translation of the NAB. While they did mandate its use (with necessary Vatican corrections!) in the liturgy in the US, it is NOT mandated for private reading or even formal study, Deo gratias (though I’ll bet the bishops feel it should be).

To add a bit more cynicism: since the USCCB holds the copyright to the NAB, they probably derive revenue from its sales. :rolleyes:
 
Update due to disappointing news about the Oxford Press Reader’s Version:
  1. Douay Rheims-Challoner (very literal)
  2. Haydock Douay Rheims (Troy-Challoner) (very literal)
  3. Original Douay Rheims (ridiculously literal)
  4. Confraternity Bible (NT only) (literal)
  5. Mgr Knox Bible (literal)
  6. Ignatius Study Bibles (by book) (1966 RSVCE) (literal)
  7. Navarre Bible (1966 RSVCE) (literal)
  8. Ignatius 2nd Catholic Ed RSVCE (Rev of the 1966) (literal)
  9. Oxford RSV Catholic Bible Compact Version ('71 RSV + the '66 CE verses, but in the compact only) (literal)
  10. 1966 Jerusalem Bible (dynamic equivalence)
  11. Christian Community Bible (1st-3rd Edtns) (dynamic eq)
  12. New American Bible 1970 (dynamic equivalence)
  13. New American Bible 1986 (in-between formal and dynamic eq)
  14. New Revised Standard Version (“literal” w/ inclusive lang)
  15. Christian Community Bible (Later Edts) (dynamic eq)
  16. 1985 New Jerusalem Bible (dynamic equivalence)
  17. Catholic Living Bible (dynamic equivalence)
  18. Good New Bible (dynamic equivalence)
1-12 are free from inclusive language
13-18 contain varying amounts of inclusive language
 
mmortal03 said:
Update due to disappointing news about the Oxford Press Reader’s Version:
  1. Douay Rheims-Challoner (very literal)
  2. Haydock Douay Rheims (Troy-Challoner) (very literal)
  3. Original Douay Rheims (ridiculously literal)
  4. Confraternity Bible (NT only) (literal)
  5. Mgr Knox Bible (literal)
  6. Ignatius Study Bibles (by book) (1966 RSVCE) (literal)
  7. Navarre Bible (1966 RSVCE) (literal)
  8. Ignatius 2nd Catholic Ed RSVCE (Rev of the 1966) (literal)
  9. Oxford RSV Catholic Bible Compact Version ('71 RSV + the '66 CE verses, but in the compact only) (literal)
  10. 1966 Jerusalem Bible (dynamic equivalence)
  11. Christian Community Bible (1st-3rd Edtns) (dynamic eq)
  12. New American Bible 1970 (dynamic equivalence)
  13. New American Bible 1986 (in-between formal and dynamic eq)
  14. New Revised Standard Version (“literal” w/ inclusive lang)
  15. Christian Community Bible (Later Edts) (dynamic eq)
  16. 1985 New Jerusalem Bible (dynamic equivalence)
  17. Catholic Living Bible (dynamic equivalence)
  18. Good New Bible (dynamic equivalence)
1-12 are free from inclusive language
13-18 contain varying amounts of inclusive language
Click to expand...
mmortal,

Some of the Ignatius Study Series make use of what would become the RSV-2CE.
 
Jerry-Jet said:
Do you think anyone on EWTN would ever ask an American bishop why they suppress the Confraternity Version from print?

Do you think any American bishop would answer why suppression of an English Catholic Version of the Bible is an enlightened good thing for the Catholic Church?

If they could also suppress the RSV-CE would they?

Pope Benedict XVI is a fair man and as a theologian is against censorship of Orthodox conservative Catholic Bible translations.

He isn’t in favor of suppressing the Douay Rheims English version of the Bible as far as I know. If it were up to him would he be in favor of allowing the Confraternity Version of the Bible to be printed or revised?
Click to expand...
What’s the Confraternity Version? I never heard of it.
 
lak611 said:
What’s the Confraternity Version? I never heard of it.
Click to expand...
There is a quick summary here. The 1941 date is for the New Testament. Many books of the Old Testament were translated and released over time under the “Confraternity” name. Unlike the Confraternity NT, they were made from the original languages and, except for Genesis, eventually became part of the NAB. Genesis was retranslated especially for the NAB.
 
The Revised Vulgate is the officical Bible of the Catholic Church, is it not?

I know that it was revised using Hebrew and Greek, but also taking into account the Latin Vulgate.

It is included, along with the RSVCE in the Navarre Bible, which is one of the reasons I like them so much. In addition, the commentary is very orthodox.
 
For whatever my two cents are worth I have had no trouble with reading the Douay Rheims but I do find the NAB to be very confusing at times. I have had to use the Douay Rheims to clarify the NAB. That’s how I got started preferring the Douay Rheims.
And by the way, I’m not part of the SSPX nor do I have any sympathy towards them. I have no sympathy to anyone that is against the Holy Father.
 
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