Confraternity Bible

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Jerry_Parker said:
Hi, Manfred,

Thanks for your reply, but I did not mean what you state to have been my supposed intention. No, I do not like the New American Bible (N.A.B.), any of it, much at all. It is highly inferior to the Confraternity Version both for the N.T. and for the O.T. (For that matter, the N.A.B. is inferior, as well, even to the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible, and the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version.)

What I had been trying to point out is that the original Confraternity of Christian Doctrine version, termed the “Confraternity Version”, did comprise a full O.T. as well as the 1941 Confraternity Version N.T. The problem is that the Confraternity O.T. never was included, so far as I have been able to verify, in a complete one-volume Bible of both Testaments. What was marketed with the Confraternity N.T. in a single volume was an O.T. partly in the Confraternity Version O.T. and, for the balance, in the Douay-Challoner Version. (There also had been editions from the beginning of the 1950s that had the Confraternity Version N.T. with the O.T. entirely in the Douay-Challoner Version.)

The Confraternity O.T. per se only was published (distinctly before the year 1970) in the late 1960s as a separately available volume (without the N.T. included), in at least two single -volume editions, which, alas, got little distribution. There also was a multi-volume Bible in the Confraternity Version that finally had the last volume of its O.T. released for inclusion at the end of the 1960s, thus completing the set of tomes comprising the multi-volume Confraternity O.T. (under the imprint of the St. Anthony Guild Press).

Few people are aware of the completion of the Confraternity O.T. due to the scarcity of it only in these various published forms, which were withdrawn from the market in 1970 when the New American Bible version appeared.

So far as I know, the N.A.B. Bible always included its own version, one (confusingly!) that also was under the the auspices of the Confraternity for Christian Doctrine, for the N.T. and the O.T. alike; I am not aware of any mixed Confraternity (1941 version) N.T. published with the N.A.B.'s O.T.

I hope that these comments clarify what is, admittedly, a confusing matter!

Jerry Parker
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Jerry,

On another thread many of us argued over which version of the Psalms was Pius XII’s “New Latin Version”, and where we could get at it in English. There was confusion everywhere.

I have NEVER seen what you describe as a “Confraternity OT”, i.e., one made from the Latin Vulgate, in the same vein as the confraternity NT of 1941. While work on a Confraternity OT translated from the Vg had begun before 1943, it was scuttled when Pius XII issued Divino Afflante Spiritu. Many of us are under the impression this halted effort never got published.
 
The Old Testament for the Confraternity bible and the Old testament for the NAB are identical except for Genesis.

It is true that a Confraternity New Testament was never published with a completed Confraternity Old Testament.

The Confraternity Old Testament wasn’t completed until 1969 and the next year the NAB was published.

Mixed Confraternity Douay bibles with Confraternity New Testaments and partial Confraternity Old Testaments were published prior to 1969.

It is possible to purchase a COMPLETE Confraternity Old Testament from 1969.

In 1970 the NAB Old Testament identically corresponded to the complete 1969 Confraternity Old Testament except it had a new and what I think bad retranslation of Genesis which is different from the Confraternity translation of Genesis.

I think that the Confraternity New Testament is a great translation–though as Manfred has pointed out on other occasions it is not perfect.

Though the original Confraternity translation of Genesis is better than the NAB version of Genesis I still believe that the Douay Rheims Challoner or Douay Rheims Haydock which are almost exactly alike are better.

I also believe that various English New Translations of Pope Pius XII’s psalms–aka the Bea Psalter–are superior to Olinger’s translation of the psalms–aka the Confraternity Psalms or original NAB psalms.

For these reasons I like Confraternity Douay Bibles with the New Translation of Pope Pius XII’s psalms–you see such bibles from the late 40s up until 1952–though a “Light of the World” edition of this bible from 1954 also had this arrangement.

With such a bible you get the Confraternity New Testament which is based on the Vulgate but easier to read than the Douay Rheims Challoner or Douay Rheims Haydock.

You get the Old Testament in the Douay Rheims Challoner which is easier to read than the KJV and is at least Catholic.

And with the Bea Psalter you get the psalms in a dignified and poetic style which is superior to the Vulgate in some of its translation choices.

And some may say–why superior than the Vulgate?

Well St. Jerome translated the Psalms for a third time from the Hebrew and corrected some errors.

The Psalms in Douay Rheims Challoner bibles reflect St. Jerome’s second attempt at the Psalms.

Some of the translation choices of the Bea Psalter are in the direction of the Masoretic text but not as far in that direction as later Catholic translations or the Olinger–AKA Confraternity or NAB Psalms.

They’re closer to what St. Jerome’s third attempt at translating the Psalms were.

Course some Vulgate purists complain that they can’t be chanted as well and that the Latin that they come from is later more polished Latin that the early church and St. Jerome did not speak.

For those reasons the Bea Psalter was not popular–but I think it is closer to accurate than anything else out there.

If you took the bible I’m describing and changed the verse numbering system and used anglicanized names and then made a couple of corrections where Manfred has shown that the Confraternity bible is wanting–now that would be a great bible!

Without those corrections you still get a Catholic bible–based on the Vulgate–yet readable–and without all the inclusive language nonsense–or liberal biased later translation nonsense–and with a pretty good translation of the Psalms.

That may not be a perfect bible–but in my opinion it will have less errors than any other bible out there.
 
Thanks, Manfred and “Jerry Jet” for your replies. The whole matter of the Confraternity (pre-1970) O.T., the more so for the Psalms, vs. the N.A.B. is even more complex than I had realised. However, I think that you need to keep in mind, Manfred, that the Confraternity Version per se, O.T. and N.T., was translated much as Mgr. Ronald Knox translated the Bible, i.e. from Latin and from the original languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek), with the predominance of Latin in Knox lessened from a bolder resort to the original languages in the case of the Confraternity Version. So, it is a bit simplistic to say that the pre-1970 Bible that the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine authorised and sponsored was from Latin alone, which simply is not the case.

There are, indeed, pre-1970 editions of the full O.T. in the Confraternity Version; you can find them on Amazon.com, if you have the patience to wade through several hundreds of entries for the keywords Bible (or Old Testament) and Confraternity. I have ordered them (used, of course, since they are out-of-print). It is was a terrible disservice to the Christian public for the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine not to have published the 1941 N.T. with the Confraternity O.T. in its pre-1970 form.

I agree that the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version has not lost its pre-eminence among Roman Catholic Bible Versions. For one thing, it is good to have a faithful translation of the Vulgate Bible that does not muddle things by resorting both to the Vulgate and to the original languages. The Vulgate bears a clear witness to a stream of Bible manuscript transmission that has much value, and which is not compromised by Rabinical adjustments of the Hebrew O.T. and to the inevitable incursion of errors of transmission of the Hebrew that compromise the reliability of the Massoretic Hebrew Text of the O.T. St. Jerome worked with much older MSS. than those which incorporate the Masorectic Text. This is even truer of the Septuagint Version of the O.T., which predates the the Christian era by centuries. The manuscript discoveries among the Dead Sea scrolls, for example, are showing how in the case of so many O.T. passages the Septuagint represents a much older Hebrew text than the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint (like the Vulgate) closer to a sense that accords with N.T. quotations of the O.T.

I do find, as “Jerry Jet” does, that the English of the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version is less archaic than that of the Authorised “King James” Version. Bp. Richard Challoner’s elegant revision of the Douay-Rheims Bible uses the grammar of Tudor-Stuart English but with a vocabulary of 18th century rather than of early 16th and 17th century times. It is simply a canard, in any case, to moan and groan about the difficulty of reading either the Douay-Rheims-Challoner or the Authorised (King James) versions because of differences of verb conjugation and of pronouns, to which any modern reader adjusts quickly. What raises these two versions above the array of later Bibles is their sublimity of expression and of literary style, their grammatical clarity, and their faithfulness to the originals (Latin, Hebrew, Greek) from which they were translated.

Jerry Parker
 
Hi, Manfred, Jerry-Jet, et alia,

I received today the edition of the Confraternity Version’s full Old Testament as Guild Press published it separately in 1965. I should have waited to receive this item, since having it clears up part of the mystery of how and if the full text of the Confraternity Version’s O.T. was published. Amazon.com, the supplier, confused matters by having 3 different entries, some with incomplete data, most confusingly in some cases the lack of mention of the editor, J.A. Grispino, for what turns out to be the identical edition of the Old Testament. I informed Amazon.com of the discrepancies, so, hopefully, those who read this forum and want Grispino’s N.T. and O.T. study editions will be able to find them by searching under “Grispino”.

The Confraternity Version Bibles which comprised both the New Testament (1941 N.T.) and the O.T. in a single volume as published all included some portion of the Douay-Challoner O.T. to fill out those varying portions across the years and editions which included parts of the then on-going Confraternity Version O.T., and the same is true of Grispino’s two volume Confraternity Version Bible even though I had thought initially that the full Confraternity rendering of the O.T. in the pre-1970 original Confraternity Version was published in a single volume by Guild Press, which, alas, is not so.

Guild Press published this Guild Press separate full Confraternity Version O.T. (without the N.T. in the same volume) in 1965 as an annotated study edition with Joseph A. Grispino’s excellent and ample notes. However, it does include portions in the Douay-Challoner translation, to quote the title page, “the Books of Kings to Esther and 1, 2 Maccabees are from the Douay Version” (i.e. from Douay-Challoner).

I still strongly suspect that the other multi-volume edition of the Confraternity Version which appeared one volume at a time, as the books of the Bible were completed in the Confraternity Version, did come to include the full canon of the O.T. (unless, perhaps, the publisher of this multi-volume edition, St. Anthony Guild Press, wrapped up the edition with final portions as they appeared in the New American Bible). This is difficult for me to verify, since Amazon.com’s suppliers (those who can supply these volumes at present, i.e. late 2008) refuse to mail those volumes of this set which I still lack to anyone (such as myself) who lives in the Dominion of Canada.

Joseph A. Grispino’s study version of both the O.T. and the N.T. (and I do have both now of these 1965 mass paperback Guild Press volumes) truly are excellent, probably the best and most comprehensive ever for an English-language study Bible in paperback format and, unlike R.C. annotated and study editions, more lavishly hardbound or leather-bound, of the N.A.B., Jerusalem Bible, and New Jerusalem Bible, Grispino’s commentary does not stray beyond what is within the bounds of orthodox doctrine and exegesis. Amazon.com has other copies of both volumes of Grispino’s edition of the Confraternity Bible for sale through its affiliated second-hand dealers. Grispino’s volumes are highly worth obtaining.

Jerry Parker
 
The last books of the Confraternity Old Testament were not completed until 1969.

Search for a Confraternity Old Testament that was published in 1969–it will be complete.

I don’t think that many complete Confraternity Old Testaments were published in 1969 but I think a few were.

There won’t be many complete Confraternity Old Testaments published because the NAB came out in 1970 with its retranslation of Genesis and I suppose since all the other Confraternity Old Testament books were included in the NAB that there wasn’t alot of interest in a complete Confraternity Old Testament.

Not to mention the fact that if a complete Confraternity Old Testament were published in 1970 the retranslation changes in Genesis would be readily apparent–I’m sure the USCCB didn’t want attention drawn to those differences–they wanted to sell a new bible.

In 1970 I don’t know who held the copyright to the Confraternity Old Testament but I’m sure that they probably wouldn’t want to ruffle the feathers of the USCCB.

As far as I know the copyright to the Confraternity Version today is in the public domain but that wasn’t the case in 1970.

That is why there will be so few in number complete Confraternity Old Testaments.

The only ones published as far as I know are the very few that were published in the year 1969 only because that was the year that the translation work was completed and the very next year–1970–the NAB was published and if anyone want to squash the differences between the Confraternity version of Genesis and the NAB translation of Genesis–I’m sure they exercised whatever influence they had to make that happen.

For that matter it is very difficult to even find mixed Confraternity Douay bibles published past 1966.

Once online I believe I saw one published in 1967.

I don’t believe that it is coincidence that you don’t see Confraternity Douay bibles in the late 1960s.

I believe that there was a concerted effort made to diminish the Confraternity Bible and make room for the NAB.

Not only that but the Jerusalem Bible came out in 1966–and the RSV-CE had made an apperance.

Only many years later did you see anymore Confraternity bibles published such as the oddly shaped Singtala Confraternity Bible and that was published in the Phillipines.

I think that there are many NAB supporters and RSV-CE supporters who don’t want Catholics to know about the Confraternity New Testament or the Confraternity Version of Genesis and how it differs from the NAB translation of Genesis.

As long as the Confraternity bible is relegated to used book stores or to the newly published odd sized Singtala edition then few people will be able to see its superiority over the RSV-CE in the New Testament or its superiority over the NAB translation of Genesis.

It can just be swept away as a failed attempt at polishing the Douay Rheims.

I am convinced that there are many people who don’t want Catholics to have an accurate modern readable English translation of the Vulgate scriptural tradition–as long as they can deride the Douay Rheims as being archaic they can advance their translation agendas.

The RSV-CE is Catholic polished Protestantism.

The Jerusalem Bible is Catholic polished liberalism.

The NAB is Catholic polished banality.

But they’re not the only ones.

The Douay Rheims onlyists and the Clementine Vulgate purists quake with fear that English speaking people would ever read the Nova Vulgata in their native tongue.

Add all of those people together and that’s why you don’t see the Nova Vulgata in English.

Am I the only one are does it seem odd that the juridicial text of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church–the Bible itself is the one document issued by the Vatican that isn’t translated into English?
 
Jerry-Jet,

Thanks a million for your comments! Wow! Also, I am totally in agreement with you about the excellence of the Confraternity Version (C.V.), the motives to hush up and to stifle its distribution as it truly was completed, and the need for it to appear republished in an edition that represents the complete original Confraternity Version (no “adjustments”, please – we have seen how they only degrade what was better before). Since the Confraternity Version is in the public domain, there is no good reason for a conservative Roman Catholic (or other) publisher not to publish a new edition of it absolutely complete and unaltered. TAN Books has done good work in making the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version available again (reprinted from a fine earlier edition) in a variety of bindings; it would be a work of great value for TAN Books to publish an easily available Confraternity Version Bible as well.

I came across an edition of the “Confraternity-Douay” Bible dating from 1988, well after the completion of the full O.T. of the C.V. The price for this edition is utterly exorbitant, too. Alas, the various Amazon WWW sites did not describe it in sufficient detail to clarify to what extent it was Confraternity and to what degree it was Douay-Challoner. However, clearly it was a missed opportunity on the part of the publisher to provide a truly complete Confraternity Version Bible.

I made some “goofs” along the way in my submissions to this Forum, but you, Jerry Jet, have been motivated to clear matters up, so all has worked for good.

Jerry Parker
 
Jerry_Parker said:
Jerry-Jet,

Thanks a million for your comments! Wow! Also, I am totally in agreement with you about the excellence of the Confraternity Version (C.V.), the motives to hush up and to stifle its distribution as it truly was completed, and the need for it to appear republished in an edition that represents the complete original Confraternity Version (no “adjustments”, please – we have seen how they only degrade what was better before). Since the Confraternity Version is in the public domain, there is no good reason for a conservative Roman Catholic (or other) publisher not to publish a new edition of it absolutely complete and unaltered. TAN Books has done good work in making the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version available again (reprinted from a fine earlier edition) in a variety of bindings; it would be a work of great value for TAN Books to publish an easily available Confraternity Version Bible as well.

I came across an edition of the “Confraternity-Douay” Bible dating from 1988, well after the completion of the full O.T. of the C.V. The price for this edition is utterly exorbitant, too. Alas, the various Amazon WWW sites did not describe it in sufficient detail to clarify to what extent it was Confraternity and to what degree it was Douay-Challoner. However, clearly it was a missed opportunity on the part of the publisher to provide a truly complete Confraternity Version Bible.

I made some “goofs” along the way in my submissions to this Forum, but you, Jerry Jet, have been motivated to clear matters up, so all has worked for good.

Jerry Parker
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Jerry P,

I’m not at all clear on what you now perceive to be the “Confraternity OT”; would you clarify a bit, please?
 
Manfred,

What I mean by the Confraternity Version (C.V.) is the translation that the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (C.C.F.) sponsored, done from the Latin in light of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic originals, which was published before the C.C.F.'s New American Version (N.A.B.) appeared. One should bear in mind that there are two N.A.B. versions, since what the C.C.F. promotes now is a revision of what came out earlier in 1970. Any leftovers of the excellent C.V. in the N.A.B. have been diluted further with the revision, although the N.A.B. revision was not particularly drastic compared to its own N.A.B. original.

I regard the N.A.B. as being to an unacceptable degree a paraphrase, and an ugly one at that, in substandard English. The C.V. was a faithful translation and had a fine English style, and that is true apart from any lingering “archaisms”. The retention of Tudor-Stuart verb and pronoun forms, since they clarify second person singular and plural referents, help in precision.

Anyway, the C.C.F.'s Bible as of 1969 deserves to be regarded as a separate version from what followed in 1970. For those who actually like paraphrase and low style in their Bible, they can have the N.A.B., the “Good News Bible”. and other suchlike. Bringing back the C.V. does not require purging the N.A.B.

The Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version may be called a “Vulgate stand-in” or similar term, though I think that this lovely version deserves a less demeaning monicker than that, but the C.C.F.'s original Bible Version, the C.V., is no such thing. The C.V. translates from the fulness of the textual record, Latin and Greek-Hebrew alike. I have an high regard for the Vulgate, so I have no problem whatsoever with the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version. However, I do believe that a Bible with the C.V.'s approach has inestimable value, so I would aver that the C.V. and Douay-Rheims-Challoner should exist side-by-side in use and in ccurrent availability. Let the individual Catholic or other Christian choose between them. Grant him that choice.

Given how the forces of infidelity use “revision” as a pretext for downgrading Bible Versions and their underlying original language texts, I would oppose any tampering with the 1969 C.V., not because that would be wrong in principle, but because in these times the tampering almost inevitably would affect the C.V.'s integrity.

Jerry Parker
 
Manfred and others,

I made a couple of inadvertent and small errors or oversights in my last posting to this Forum. I abbreviated the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine as “C.C.F.” instead of “C.C.D.”. Because of the recent celebrations in our Province of Saskatchewan, I had the abbreviation “C.C.F.”, which stands for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, too much on my mind! The C.C.F. was a Canadian political party which morphed later into the New Democratic Party (N.P.D.); the C.C.F. played such an important role in the early politics of Canada’s Western provinces, including Saskatchewan, which recently (2005) celebrated its 100th Anniversary of becoming a province of the Dominion of Canada (which occurred in 1905), that I simply had heard the abbreviation “C.C.F.” so frequently in media coverage of Saskatchewan’s Centennary, that I blundered and put that down for the C.C.D.! A real dummy’s error, eh? Right! Sorry!

I also should make it clear that when I referred to the Latin Vulgate Bible in that same last message, I meant the Clementine Vulgate, which was the Latin text on which the Douay-Rheims-Challoner, Knox, and (to the extent that it, too, partly derives from the Vulgate) the Confraternity Version all were based. The recent upstart Latin pseudo-Vulgate revision that the United Bible Societies (U.B.S.) are trying to fob off on Catholics and other Christians is a terrible, corrupted version that tries to allign the texts of the Bible (especially of the New Testament) with the “Critical Texts” (e.g., the Nestle-Aland and U.B.S. Greek texts of the N.T.) that are the root of so much decline in modern Bible versions in many languages.

The Clementine Vulgate is becoming hard to find. The U.B.S. Latin “revision” is displacing the Clementine Vulgate on the market. Ah, there is another object for Traditionalist protests and another project for TAN Books’ reprints!

Jerry Parker
 
Jerry_Parker said:
Manfred,

What I mean by the Confraternity Version (C.V.) is the translation that the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (C.C.F.) sponsored, done from the Latin in light of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic originals, which was published before the C.C.F.'s New American Version (N.A.B.) appeared. One should bear in mind that there are two N.A.B. versions, since what the C.C.F. promotes now is a revision of what came out earlier in 1970. Any leftovers of the excellent C.V. in the N.A.B. have been diluted further with the revision, although the N.A.B. revision was not particularly drastic compared to its own N.A.B. original.

I regard the N.A.B. as being to an unacceptable degree a paraphrase, and an ugly one at that, in substandard English. The C.V. was a faithful translation and had a fine English style, and that is true apart from any lingering “archaisms”. The retention of Tudor-Stuart verb and pronoun forms, since they clarify second person singular and plural referents, help in precision.

Anyway, the C.C.F.'s Bible as of 1969 deserves to be regarded as a separate version from what followed in 1970. For those who actually like paraphrase and low style in their Bible, they can have the N.A.B., the “Good News Bible”. and other suchlike…
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Welcome to CAF, Jerry! If I correctly understand the meaning of what you have written, I think you are under a misapprehension concerning the Confraternity Old Testament. Manfred and Jerry-Jet have to one degree or another already pointed out most of what follows.

The 1941 Confraternity New Testament is a revision of the Challoner Douay-Rheims and according to its introduction “rests upon the Latin Vulgate.” The early work on the Confraternity Old Testament followed this same model but was halted upon the publication of Pope Pius XII’s 1943 encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu. I’m not sure any of this early OT work ever saw publication. Following Divino Afflante’s encouragement to make wider use of the Scriptures in the original languages, the Confraternity Old Testament project was transformed into a completely original translation to be made from the Hebrew and the translation work was started again from scratch. The Latin of the Vulgate was no longer a factor. These are the translations which appeared at intervals as groups of OT books were completed. These are the translations which were coupled with the Douay-Rheims where necessary to furnish a complete bible. These are also the same translations which to this day make up the Old Testament of the NAB. Compare the NAB OT with your Grispino-edited Confraternity OT. With the exception of Genesis (retranslated for the 1970 NAB debut) and Psalms (revised 1991 in the NAB), you will see only minor revisions or verse rearrangements. For all intents and purposes, the NAB OT is the Confraternity OT. The NAB is simply the evolution of the U.S. bishops’ Confraternity translation project, not a separate parallel work.

I assume your comments about the NAB revision refer primarily to the 1985 Revised New Testament. This is not applicable to the discussion since the NAB New Testament was always distinct from the Confraternity NT and never contained any Confraternity “leftovers.” When the Confraternity translators began again with the Old Testament, they also subsequently began a fresh translation of the New Testament from the original Greek. That appeared in the 1970 NAB. And other than the 1991 Psalms revision, the NAB Old Testament has not been revised. I understand a complete revision of the NAB OT is underway, however.

With this history in mind, it is a little confusing to see the difference in your opinion regarding the quality of the Confraternity versus the NAB. Perhaps you are mostly comparing New Testaments? If you compare the Confraternity New Testament with the Confraternity Old Testament you will see the same disparity of style. For example, the archaic second person pronouns are not retained in the Confraternity Old Testament. They appear there only in those books left in the Douay translation.

The reason the NAB supplanted the Confraternity is that after Divino Afflante Spiritu, Confraternity bibles with their Vulgate-based New Testament were stop-gap, in-progress solutions to the new aim of the U.S. bishops: a complete bible (OT & NT) translated from the original languages. This aim was achieved after nearly thirty years of work and the 1970 NAB was the result. Unfortunately, the result is less than ideal.

At any rate, this is how I understand the topic. 🙂
 
Hi, Cranch,

Thanks for the comments. I realised some of this, but what I intended above all is that the O.T. never be anything further revised than what appeared in the Confraternity and original N.A.B. Bibles, and that the Confraternity N.T., from the Vulgate or otherwise, never be sacrificed, either. Whatever its source, or mixed sources, acknowledged or not, the Confraternity N.T. is a marvellously good translation, one to which every Roman Catholic tradition has a right to find and to have and to study, and to do so published with the O.T. that it was meant to accompany in any single volume.

An intesting parallel from much earlier times is the magesterial French translation (a Roman Catholic one) of the Bible from the Vulgate by Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy. This translation did make resort to a limited degree to the texts in the original Biblical languages, but did so discretly, not acknowledged as doing so at the time, since using anything other than the Tridentine-sanctioned Clementine Latin Vulgate from which to translate was forbidden. Lemaistre’s translation remains the most beautiful one ever done into French, and the only French Bible translation to acquire the status of literary masterpiece.

Jerry Parker
 
Cranch said:
Welcome to CAF, Jerry! If I correctly understand the meaning of what you have written, I think you are under a misapprehension concerning the Confraternity Old Testament. Manfred and Jerry-Jet have to one degree or another already pointed out most of what follows.

The 1941 Confraternity New Testament is a revision of the Challoner Douay-Rheims and according to its introduction “rests upon the Latin Vulgate.” The early work on the Confraternity Old Testament followed this same model but was halted upon the publication of Pope Pius XII’s 1943 encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu. I’m not sure any of this early OT work ever saw publication. Following Divino Afflante’s encouragement to make wider use of the Scriptures in the original languages, the Confraternity Old Testament project was transformed into a completely original translation to be made from the Hebrew and the translation work was started again from scratch. The Latin of the Vulgate was no longer a factor. These are the translations which appeared at intervals as groups of OT books were completed. These are the translations which were coupled with the Douay-Rheims where necessary to furnish a complete bible. These are also the same translations which to this day make up the Old Testament of the NAB. Compare the NAB OT with your Grispino-edited Confraternity OT. With the exception of Genesis (retranslated for the 1970 NAB debut) and Psalms (revised 1991 in the NAB), you will see only minor revisions or verse rearrangements. For all intents and purposes, the NAB OT is the Confraternity OT. The NAB is simply the evolution of the U.S. bishops’ Confraternity translation project, not a separate parallel work.

I assume your comments about the NAB revision refer primarily to the 1985 Revised New Testament. This is not applicable to the discussion since the NAB New Testament was always distinct from the Confraternity NT and never contained any Confraternity “leftovers.” When the Confraternity translators began again with the Old Testament, they also subsequently began a fresh translation of the New Testament from the original Greek. That appeared in the 1970 NAB. And other than the 1991 Psalms revision, the NAB Old Testament has not been revised. I understand a complete revision of the NAB OT is underway, however.

With this history in mind, it is a little confusing to see the difference in your opinion regarding the quality of the Confraternity versus the NAB. Perhaps you are mostly comparing New Testaments? If you compare the Confraternity New Testament with the Confraternity Old Testament you will see the same disparity of style. For example, the archaic second person pronouns are not retained in the Confraternity Old Testament. They appear there only in those books left in the Douay translation.

The reason the NAB supplanted the Confraternity is that after Divino Afflante Spiritu, Confraternity bibles with their Vulgate-based New Testament were stop-gap, in-progress solutions to the new aim of the U.S. bishops: a complete bible (OT & NT) translated from the original languages. This aim was achieved after nearly thirty years of work and the 1970 NAB was the result. Unfortunately, the result is less than ideal.

At any rate, this is how I understand the topic. 🙂
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Cranch,

Your understanding of the topic is EXACTLY CORRECT! And you stated it all so magnificently! :clapping:

I was beginning to wonder whether Jerry P had something in his possession we didn’t, and couldn’t, have, but I now can have confidence that he doesn’t.

Thanks wholeheartedly. :tiphat:
 
Manfred, Jerry-Jet, Cranch, et alia,

Just another comment, not having to do with another posting specifically, concerning “preference” for Bible versions. Such preference should not be the result of whimsy or of one’s unexamined and subjective proclivities.

I firmly believe that Bible translations which are WORKS OF FAITH, if, of course, they also are expert and learned, have priority over those of mere detached scholarship. Although I can admire and profit from the best that the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible, the Revised Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version, and a few other important modern Roman Catholic and prevailingly Anglican versions have to offer (as is the case also with some from the late 19th and early 20th century versions already showing compromise despite their many excellences, e.g. the Revised Version, the American Standard Version, the Moffet Version, etc.) they tend to be works of scholarship devorced from faith. Thus it is not surprising that they have so many defects, despite many virtues.

Many of the scholars involved in producing versions such as the J.B., the N.J.B., the R.V. & A.S.V., the R.S.V., the N.R.S.V., and all too many others give precedence to eccentric textual sources in what they choose to translate from the textual and paleological underlay that they employ, reflecting rogue, isolated readings, minority ones, which derive, rather largely, from faulty manuscript transmission among ancient heterodox streams of early Christianity, especially in heresy-ridden Egypt. (Of course, the way in which such heterodox trend setters and followers translate any passage, even those without contested readings, can affect the worth of the biassed and noxious results which they so often produce.) Modern “liberal” and unbelieving scholars have a perverse desire to undermine the doctrinal integrity of the Bible by preferring defective minority readings. It is the the Complutensian Polyglott, the Byzantine Greek Text, most of the Latin MSS. (Old Latin and Vulgate types alike), the Septuagint, the Peshitta, and other faithful ancient texts and versions of the Old and/or New Testaments, variously, which are those that reinforce the Majority Texts that ought to prevail, especially of the New Testament, and which have come down to us from ecclesial communities of the past which were orthodox in faith.

Modern sectarian groups (of non-“magesterial” Reformation origin or descent), even more sober genuinely Protestant denominations have a giddy attitude, a love for novelty and trendiness that is an unworthy approach to the Bible. It is not surprising that so many unfaithful and even downright dreadful Bible translations pour out from these sectaries and Protestants! However one assesses its credibility, the Authorised “King James” Version continues to stand in rebuke to the Anglican, Protestand, and sectarian English-language versions that have “come down the pike” since 1611.

The Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version, the Confraternity Version, and Mgr. Ronald Knox’ translation stand out for the orthodoxy and piety of the learned men who produced them. That alone is a good reason to give them the edge in favouring them for use, the more so because they truly are Catholic. Such Bible versions, even Roman Catholic ones, as the substandard New American Bible, as well as the much better Jerusalem Bible and New Jerusalem Bible, and others, have too much mingling of “liberal” and unbelieving translators and advisors among the collaborators who were involved in confecting these versions.

Anyway, those of trendily schoarly orientation will disdain these comments, but faithful laity should recognise the wolves under the fleece among Bible translators, whether they are Catholic or not. So, up with the Confraternity Version and other faithful versions, and down with the other ones, which must take a back seat in the affections and confidence of genuinely orthodox believers. The Confraternity and the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Bibles have proven their worth and effectiveness over the years, and there is as much owing to the faithfulness of the men who produced them as to their great scholarship and linguistic learning that continue to make their translations essential.

Jerry Parker
 
Well, Cranch and Manfred, I guess that you are right about that. I do not have a “special pipeline” to being enlightened on these matters, however passionately I care about them and I do try to think things out as best as I can (which is not necessarily the best possible!).

Jerry
 
Jerry_Parker said:
I do not have a “special pipeline” to being enlightened on these matters, however passionately I care about them and I do try to think things out as best as I can…
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Same here, Jerry. 🙂 I am no bible scholar, but I agree with some of your criticism pertaining to the liberties taken by modern translators. I believe the popularity among English-speaking Catholics of the various permutations of the RSV is due in large part to the inadequacy of the NAB. Personally, my preferred English translation is the Challoner Douay-Rheims, a revision of a translation of a translation. 😃
 
Hi, Cranch,

Thanks for your friendly and supportive words! I was led astray regarding the Confraternity O.T. by relying too excessively upon bibliographical evidence. I suppose that such an approach is all too typical of my old-time librarianship formation (M.L.S. degree, Kent State University, granted 1972)! At least I did reveal how grievously wanting are full editions of the Confraternity Bible (though there are a few scarce ones, as those which “Jerry-Jet”, especially, revealed) that unite its O.T. text with the 1941 Confraternity N.T.

I think that you probably are right about the reasons for the favour among Roman Catholics towards the R.S.V. and N.R.S.V. translations. For all their faults, especially modernist bias in the New Testament, the R.S.V. and even the N.R.S.V. are superior to the New American Bible. One of the things that I find most helpful about the R.S.V. (a lot more than its later revision, the N.R.S.V.) is the precision with which the R.S.V. captures fine shades of meaning in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. This is even more true of the rmost recent revision, the English Standard Version, though, alas and unlike the R.S.V. and the N.R.S.V., the E.S.V. does not include the deutero-canonical writings of the Old Testament (at least, not yet). When I read the Wisdom books of the O.T. (including those in the so-called “Apocrypha”, too), minutely comparing the finest standard German translation with the Authorised “King James” Version and the R.S.V., I was struck forcefully by just how precisely and delicately the R.S.V. renders so many layers of nuance in these books of the Old Testament, which are quite difficult to translate with full adequacy. However, the modernist bias of the R.S.V. and N.R.S.V. and of later Roman Catholic versions, too, including the N.A.B., negates so much of their value in doctrinally pregnant passages.

Fortunately, the Confraternity Version (the 1941 N.T. and the O.T. in its 1969 state) does a wonderful and sensitive job of translating the Holy Scriptures accurately and with finesse. As for the Douay-Rheims-Challoner, it is a marvel of faithfulness. So many folks exaggerate the supposed insufficiency of the Clementine Vulgate (of which the Douay-Rheims Bible is a translation) to convey the meaning of Scriptures written originally in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, but the Clementine Latin Vulgate, like other ancient translations (e.g., the Septuagint Greek O.T., the Aramaic Peshitta) frequently makes a better point of reference (e.g. in Messianically prophetic passages) than the Rabbinical Masoretic Text, an Hebrew O.T. text of quite late formulation and one that one now knows (e.g. in comparing the Masoretic text with the Dead Sea Scrolls) to have dealt freely and loosely at times with the Hebrew of earlier MSS., the readings of which so often are better reflected in the Septuagint, Old Latin, and Vulgate which, for their part, had been translated from much older manuscripts than those which the Masoretes edited and occasional altered to dilute their meaning.

Concerning that matter (which I brought up in a message yesterday) of translation as a WORK OF FAITH, who could not admire the steadfastness, courage, and fidelity of a brave man such as Bp. Richard Challoner? He allied his personal holiness, valour, and fidelity with great learning in exercising his episcopal ministry and in revising the Douay-Rheims Version. I have the Douay-Rheims N.T. in its original pre-Challoner English rendering, which is quite crude compared to what Challoner made of it. Criticising the Douay-Rheims Bible on those grounds which do not apply to Challoner’s text of it (even if does vary somewhat in minor ways, as published, between divers British and North American editions) is a conjurer’s trick to invalidate what Challoner finalised so consummately well and so triumphantly.

If the Confraternity O.T. in its 1969 fulness can be allied to the 1941 Confraternity N.T., there would be a Bible that would wean Roman Catholics off the R.S.V. and its various permutations. Such a Confraternity text would be superior to the Jerusalem and New Jerusalem Bibles, as well. If only the C.C.D. would further such a publication, rather than to obstruct it and to “monkey around” further with the N.A.B.

Jerry Parker
 
Jerry_Parker said:
If the Confraternity O.T. in its 1969 fullness can be allied to the 1941 Confraternity N.T., there would be a Bible that would wean Roman Catholics off the R.S.V. and its various permutations. Such a Confraternity text would be superior to the Jerusalem and New Jerusalem Bibles, as well. If only the C.C.D. would further such a publication, rather than to obstruct it and to “monkey around” further with the N.A.B.

Jerry Parker
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Jerry,

Though a lot of folks at one time or another had proposed such an edition, and, in fact, my local public library actually had one in print, the CCD is not likely to re-issue it for the following reason: the CCD, or whatever its successor group is now so-named, is an arm of the USCCB. I believe the latter would be bound by Pius XII’s Divino Afflante Spiritu, which almost demands vernacular translations be made from “the original languages”.

Then, again, the discrepancy between the modern-language OT (no thee’s, thou’s, etc.) would contrast too sharply with the traditional Confraternity NT - unless, of course, someone goes in and updates it. I would rather no one does so, since the half-hearted removal of “archaic” pronouns/verbs from the RSV-2CE left the text impoverished in some places.
 
Jerry_Parker said:
Manfred,

What I mean by the Confraternity Version (C.V.) is the translation that the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (C.C.F.) sponsored, done from the Latin in light of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic originals, which was published before the C.C.F.'s New American Version (N.A.B.) appeared. One should bear in mind that there are two N.A.B. versions, since what the C.C.F. promotes now is a revision of what came out earlier in 1970. Any leftovers of the excellent C.V. in the N.A.B. have been diluted further with the revision, although the N.A.B. revision was not particularly drastic compared to its own N.A.B. original.

I regard the N.A.B. as being to an unacceptable degree a paraphrase, and an ugly one at that, in substandard English. The C.V. was a faithful translation and had a fine English style, and that is true apart from any lingering “archaisms”. The retention of Tudor-Stuart verb and pronoun forms, since they clarify second person singular and plural referents, help in precision.

Anyway, the C.C.F.'s Bible as of 1969 deserves to be regarded as a separate version from what followed in 1970. For those who actually like paraphrase and low style in their Bible, they can have the N.A.B., the “Good News Bible”. and other suchlike. Bringing back the C.V. does not require purging the N.A.B.

The Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version may be called a “Vulgate stand-in” or similar term, though I think that this lovely version deserves a less demeaning monicker than that, but the C.C.F.'s original Bible Version, the C.V., is no such thing. The C.V. translates from the fulness of the textual record, Latin and Greek-Hebrew alike. I have an high regard for the Vulgate, so I have no problem whatsoever with the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version. However, I do believe that a Bible with the C.V.'s approach has inestimable value, so I would aver that the C.V. and Douay-Rheims-Challoner should exist side-by-side in use and in ccurrent availability. Let the individual Catholic or other Christian choose between them. Grant him that choice.

Given how the forces of infidelity use “revision” as a pretext for downgrading Bible Versions and their underlying original language texts, I would oppose any tampering with the 1969 C.V., not because that would be wrong in principle, but because in these times the tampering almost inevitably would affect the C.V.'s integrity.

Jerry Parker
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While I certainly agree the NAB is not a perfect translation, it would certainly be wrong to label it as a paraphrase. A paraphrase would consist in translations like “The Message” or “The Good News Bible”. To be honest, one of the problems with the NAB is that it isn’t clearly either formal or functional in translation style. The NAB revised NT is generally a formal/literal translation. It isn’t as literal as the RSV, ESV, NASB, but it actually stacks up pretty well in this regard with the NRSV. As a matter of fact, there are a few parts of the NAB NT which are more literal than the RSV, like the “Amen, Amen” sayings, “I AM” sayings, and the “exodus” renderings in Luke 9. The Old Testament is probably closer to the NIV in leaning towards functional equivalence. To be honest, the biggest problem in the Old Testament, IMHO, are the revised Psalms, sections of Genesis, and the verse numbering in the prophets.

The Jerusalem Bible and New Jerusalem Bible are far less formal/literal than the NAB.
 
McCorm45 and Manfred,

Alas, my computer inadvertently has erased two extended efforts to reply to your messages, so I am tiring of trying to respond so adequately as I had hoped to do so. This time, I shall just outline some points, from fatigue at efforts that have gone for naught this evening.

THE C.C.D. & U.S.C.C.B.

– They are moderate liberals, and this is true of both groups.

– They thus have no desire for accurate and doctrinally sound Bible versions, even oppose suchlike.

PARAPHRASE

– Yes, the N.A.B. is not totally a paraphrase, but it uses the technic of paraphrase too often and too clumsily to convey the Bible precisely in English.

– The N.A.B. is not at all such a dreadful paraphrase as the T.E.V. (Good News Bible) mostly is, and certainly not such a dreadful, total paraphrase (and more!) that Eugene H. Peterson’s “The Message” is.

– The Jerusalem and New Jerusalem Bibles, so much more elegantly rendered into English than is the ugly N.A.B. (especially in the N.A.B.'s N.T.), use paraphrase rather more frequently than needed or judicious, but the J.B. and N.J.B. do tend to employ the technic with more sophistication, skill, relevance, taste, and to beneficial results than the N.A.B. does with its clumsy locutions and crudity.

– The use of paraphrase in the J.B. and in the N.J.B. is so adroit and apposite that often it is difficult to discern either where real translation ends and paraphrase ensues or even which approach is being applied in many instances.

– The R.S.V. uses paraphrase rather infrequently, and succeeds in conveying the Bible’s text into English with considerable precision.

– The R.S.V.'s flaws derive from liberal, anti-Chalcedonian bias in crucial, doctrinally pregnant passages, and, even more, from making resort to minority readings in the MSS. in the original languages that favour false doctrine, at the expense of majority readings that concur with orthodox teaching.

Anyway, before my computer attacks even this skeletal reply before I have a chance to finish it, I shall leave it at this!

Jerry Parker
 
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