Does ANYONE like the NABRE?

[po18guy]

I do. In fact, my grandmother (very anti-Catholic in many respects, but quirky and capable of recognizing genuine piety even in religious traditions she disliked) loved it and introduced me to it quite early.

Bishop Sheen quite liked it. Difficult to find a better recommendation. I believe that he was acquainted with Msgr. Knox.

We don’t disagree on the translation, I think. You call it “squishy” and I would agree. Where we differ is on the notes, and thus on the relative value of the notes and the translation. I think the notes are good as study helps but ought not to be taken uncritically.

I cribbed that comment from Jimmy Akin, the chief apologist at Catholic Answers. I believe that the same squishiness accommodates the modernists to their liking.

What I’m having a problem with is the idea that the Vatican tolerates blatantly heretical notes in the primary American Catholic translation because the Church “plays the long game.” That argument works if we’re talking about “squishiness,” but not if we’re talking about outright heresy.

I read that comment and I cannot imagine that this is the case. The Church operates on the principle of subsidiarity and any fault is usually that of the local Ordinary. It is no secret that the American Bishops need prayer. The NAB translation is but one example of that need.

I may be too hard on the translation. I haven’t actually used it much. I think the comparison with the NIV is good. I know the NIV better and dislike it thoroughly.

I suspect that both are agenda-driven, and neither agenda is purely Catholic, strictly speaking.

But in the end the more Bibles, and the more different exegetical helps, people have access to, the better.

With the caveat that authoritative teaching helps clear confusion up, and that the helps are within the bounds of orthodoxy.

Perhaps. I brought up the USCCB not to argue that people should be '“faithful” to the NAB but to suggest that the Vatican was unlikely to allow the USCCB to recommend a set of notes that had outright heresies, as opposed to having lesser problems.

Here, we are back to subsidiarity. The bottom line, as I see it, is that American Catholics have had better translations and notes, and should have them now. All modern opinions must be viewed within the context of traditional teaching on a given subject. The NAB notes seem desirous of breaking new ground, in my opinion.

There is quite a contrast between the NAB and it’s immediate predecessor, the Confraternity Bible. This is only magnified as regards the notes. As a purely practical matter, the more a translation departs from the Vulgate, the more opportunity for error there seems to be. Although this may have been anticipated to a degree, it could not have been expected upon the issuance of Divino Afflante Spiritu.

 

[Dodge_pursuit]

Great link, (adw.org) about the devil’s favorite tactics. Thank you po18guy.

Do not be surprised that some are alarmed or, on the contrary, laugh when we talk of the devil and his attacks. Despite the clear and constant evidence of active evil in this world, in scripture and the tradition of the church, there are many today who simply do not believe it. And as was quoted previously, one of the devil’s best tactics is to convince people he doesn’t exist.

I was at a conference once where the speaker (supposedly a catholic brainiac) kept making little “finger quotation marks” in the air whenever she mentioned evil or Satan. The same person later referred to “feminine divinity” and suggested people meditate on their own lives during the rosary instead of the lives of Jesus and Mary! Do you get it? She was into New Age and didn’t even believe in the devil, evil or the teaching of the Catholic Church. Now what’s more damaging, someone like this among the sheep, or a guy who just walks in and yells that there’s no God?

At another church meeting, I noticed someone smirking whenever demons or possession was mentioned. I finally had to stop and point out that Our Lord not only talked about Satan and demons during his earthly ministry but expelled demons on more than one occasion! I suggested, therefore, that to not believe in the devil and evil is to not believe in Jesus. If he thought the devil was real and went around casting out demons, and there are no such things, then Jesus was clearly a lunatic or a liar and could not possibly be the savior, the son of God, or the promised messiah. No?

Perhaps folks who deny the existence of both God and the devil have never experienced the presence of either, I don’t know.

We see in scripture that when ancient Israel turned from God and went into sin, the various gods they worshiped somehow convinced them that sacrificing their babies and sexual perversions were a good idea. Have you seen our culture lately? Are we not in the same boat? Coincidence?

To those who have difficulty believing in what is unseen, I have two suggestions, because right belief is so important in living this life and reaching heaven:

1. Read the bible!

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
(2 Cor 4:18)

1. Ask God!
   Pray and ask God to show you, that he exists and help you understand that evil exists as well.

May God richly bless all the folks who have contributed to this lengthy, lively discussion about his eternal Word! Amen.

 

[pnewton]

No! They are activists. That is their nature. They get involved. They drive change. Hope and change. That sort of stuff. I do not say that they “plot” (to use your term). Rather, they are influenced by a power greater than themselves. And it may not be the power that you think it is.

“The devil’s greatest trick was to convince us that he does not exist”

• Charles Baudelaire

Two things to note: “The devil” is not a synonym for “modernists”. The NAB is a Catholic translation, not a modernist translation.

Of course the NAB has weaknesses, if we define that as some way it is not as good as it could be, but then so does the Douary-Rheims, namely, the language is not as smooth and readable for many. This is the advantage to multiple translations. Reading Bible = Good. This is not modernism.

I do not know if I should admit it, but my two favorite or the NASB and the NKJV. Obviously I need more for the Old Testament.

 

[CalCatholic]

Take a deep breath everyone, here is a Bible that at least a few of you will like:
www.ignatius.com/IProducts/278384/the-didache-bible-with-commentaries–based-upon-the-catechism-of-the-catholic-church.aspx

 

[Dodge_pursuit]

Take a deep breath everyone, here is a Bible that at least a few of you will like:
www.ignatius.com/IProducts/278384/the-didache-bible-with-commentaries–based-upon-the-catechism-of-the-catholic-church.aspx

Cool.

 

[po18guy]

Two things to note: “The devil” is not a synonym for “modernists”. The NAB is a Catholic translation, not a modernist translation.

I did not say that it was. Who did?

Will anyone argue that it is not influenced to some degree by modernism?

Of course the NAB has weaknesses, if we define that as some way it is not as good as it could be, but then so does the Douary-Rheims, namely, the language is not as smooth and readable for many. This is the advantage to multiple translations. Reading Bible = Good. This is not modernism.

Again, I did not say that it was. Who did?

Name one other bible which contains notes that suggest - even assume - that Mary never spoke the Magnificat and that Luke fabricated it. Just one.

That is all I’m saying. There are better bibles. There have been, are now, and will be in the future.

A general note for this thread: Why is asking questions and pointing out questionable innovations in a particular bible so danged controversial? Would we not all be better served by a clearer translation with more orthodox notes?

 

[pnewton]

I did not say that it was. Who did?

Will anyone argue that it is not influenced to some degree by modernism?
Again, I did not say that it was. Who did?

You did not, but then again, I never said you did. However, your quote about the devil had zero relevance and that is my point. I do not see sufficient evidence that the NAB was influenced by modernism, which is a heresy, or that any approved Bible, that the Catholic Church supports and promulgates, is influenced by heresy. I do not think the Douary-Rheims is influenced by any heresy either.

The thing is, this thread is not about the devil and his existence. No one here is doubting the devil and his existence. Therefore, that quote was both off topic on the first point and a straw man on the second.

Why is asking questions and pointing out questionable innovations in a particular bible so danged controversial? Would we not all be better served by a clearer translation with more orthodox notes?

Just to be clear, I refer only to the translation itself. I do not read the notes. I would say rather we are served very well by both the most literal and direct translation, as well as the most readable and accessible translation, with these two being in conflict. Both have their place.

 

[po18guy]

You did not, but then again, I never said you did. However, your quote about the devil had zero relevance and that is my point. I do not see sufficient evidence that the NAB was influenced by modernism, which is a heresy, or that any approved Bible, that the Catholic Church supports and promulgates, is influenced by heresy. I do not think the Douary-Rheims is influenced by any heresy either.

You have made your point well.

The thing is, this thread is not about the devil and his existence.

How so? We know that he does not like to be mentioned at all.

No one here is doubting the devil and his existence. Therefore, that quote was both off topic on the first point and a straw man on the second.

Youi say so. Please explain how we can divorce the devil and his influence from any task the Church engages in?

Some perspective regarding my position. I am placing all of this into the context of a chronological big picture. I hope that we can agree that there is a spirit which has tried with all its power to lead the Church astray and cause division - since the moment it was founded on Peter. Can we likewise agree that, since Vatican II, all sorts of problems have occurred in the Church? And, it is not Vatican II that caused this, but spiritual influence which has lead portions of the Church astray.The NAB is a Vatican II bible, and this fact is crucial, when taken in context. The compilers, editors and revisers of the NAB were not immune to spiritual influece - otherwise they could not serve God in the first palce. Yet, there is another influence that exerts itself.

At the time of the reformation, the devil and evil and hell were highly stressed in Church teaching. Some say overly stressed. In the last 50 or so years, hardly a mention. Has the devil disappeared? His influence gone? He knows that he has been cast out and his clock is running. He has only increased his attacks.

The Holy Spirit unites, always and everywhere. Who divides, always and everywhere?

Why is the NAB controversial, if there are no concerns with it? You like it? Great! But, it is not a one size fits all publication. Not all see it like you do.

As to the NAB, on only a single point the question is begged: Saint Jerome, in the late 300s (as did the Church since its inception) rightly considered Mary “full of grace” and so wrote it in the Vulgate - which the Church has defined as true and reliable. Each and every Church bible since then has likewise proclaimed Mary as full of grace. Suddenly, in 1970, the NAB lists her only as a “favored one.” In fact, it praises her less than some protestant bibles. If this sudden and precipitous change was not caused by influence from the spiritual realm, what did cause it?

Many of the NAB notes call the identity of the Gospel authors and many other points into question. This directly opposes Church tradition. Why? Consider: modern scholarship seems to assume that the further away from an event we are, the more we know about it. Do you know more about your first year in grade school now than you did then? The concept of entropy applies to history as well as the physical realm.

I know that the spiritual realm is not a very popular item these days. But, spirits drive everything that occurs, good or evil.

Just to be clear, I refer only to the translation itself. I do not read the notes. I would say rather we are served very well by both the most literal and direct translation, as well as the most readable and accessible translation, with these two being in conflict. Both have their place.

Oh yes, the translation itself. Jimmy Akin knows more about the NAB asleep than you and I do awake. He calls it “squishy.” In other words, it is not solid.

And, to be likewise clear, this thread is not solely about the text, is it?

Don’t read the notes, you say? Why is that? You have just identified a major cause of the controversy. I guess we could limit conversation to the lovely cover, the nice Imprimatur and how hefty it feels in the hand. But, that would be silly.

 

[pnewton]

As to the NAB, on only a single point the question is begged: Saint Jerome, in the late 300s (as did the Church since its inception) rightly considered Mary “full of grace” and so wrote it in the Vulgate - which the Church has defined as true and reliable. Each and every Church bible since then has likewise proclaimed Mary as full of grace. Suddenly, in 1970, the NAB lists her only as a “favored one.” In fact, it praises her less than some protestant bibles. If this sudden and precipitous change was not caused by influence from the spiritual realm, what did cause it?

No, St. Jerome did not translate anything into English. I have no problem with equally true translations on a word that appears once in the Bible (and I do not think in any secular documents) and speaking of Jimmy Akin, he does not conisider “full of grace” the most literal translation, which it is not. He said:
jimmyakin.com/2005/10/kecharitomene_q.html

uses kecharitomene, which literally means “one who has been graced” or “woman who has been graced” (since the gender is female). It doesn’t literally mean “full of grace,” though that is defensible as a free translation.

So what we have are actually two dynamic translations. I do not know Latin and am unable to comment on St. Jerome’s use.

Oh yes, the translation itself. Jimmy Akin knows more about the NAB asleep than you and I do awake. He calls it “squishy.” In other words, it is not solid.

Does he? I do not know his credentials on the matter, or what it meant by squishy, or you mean by not solid. I am not Greek scholar, but I did take three years of NT Greek. Like “full of grace” it is not always literal and with rare exceptions (like Gehenna) is less literal than most translations.

 

[Contarini]

I read that comment and I cannot imagine that this is the case. The Church operates on the principle of subsidiarity and any fault is usually that of the local Ordinary.

All I’m saying is that if the notes were really heretical, as you said, the Vatican would take notice. The “squishy” translation is another matter. . . . Your picture of the Church just sitting back and letting heresy play itself out doesn’t fit the record. That’s not what they did with regard to Fr. Curran, for instance, or with regard to the LCWR. Yes, they intervene relatively rarely, but the strong language you used about the notes would surely warrant intervention. The evidence isn’t conclusive, but it’s highly probable that the Magisterium does not share your opinion of these notes.

Again, this isn’t about whether the scholarship is good or bad, but about where the line between orthodoxy and heresy falls.

Sure it could. That’s why Trent took the position you wish the Church still took. The choice to throw the doors open wider was a deliberate one, and I believe it was the right one.

Edwin

 

[po18guy]

No, St. Jerome did not translate anything into English.

Yet again, I did not say this. He translated the available manuscripts into Latin - even he was not the first, but produced the approved and enduring version.

I have no problem with equally true translations on a word that appears once in the Bible (and I do not think in any secular documents) and speaking of Jimmy Akin, he does not conisider “full of grace” the most literal translation, which it is not. He said:
jimmyakin.com/2005/10/kecharitomene_q.html
So what we have are actually two dynamic translations. I do not know Latin and am unable to comment on St. Jerome’s use.

The Catholic Church does not interpret strictly via the written word. This leads to error, if it is done apart from the Apostolic Tradition and the Magisterium. Yes or no?

Does he? I do not know his credentials on the matter, or what it meant by squishy, or you mean by not solid. I am not Greek scholar, but I did take three years of NT Greek. Like “full of grace” it is not always literal and with rare exceptions (like Gehenna) is less literal than most translations.

Neither of us is chief of apologetics anywhere are we? Maybe you are more learned and insightful than Jimmy. I dunno. I most certainly am not. I know also that he harbors some reservations about Jerome.

Why so vociferous in your argumentation? I am simply pointing out commonly cited reasons for the continuing controversy regarding the NAB. Is the NAB the best bible ever? Perfect and incapable of error? A veritable NAB9000? (Apologies to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke)

I simply compare it with prior and contemporary translations and find it wanting. The notes are odious in places. We can argue all we want, but that does not get the majority of American Catholics a better bible.

My strong opinions and comments tend toward the hyperbolic - but are intended to stimulate thought. Well, mission accomplished, I guess.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

I agree with comments here and elsewhere that the American Catholic public deserves a better Bible than what we have now in the NABRE.

Do I personally love or hate it? Neither. I actually find myself wanting to do both at times.

But leaving the scope of my personal opinions and feelings, it appears that the situation American Catholics have been placed in with the various Bible versions of the NAB, that there is not a printed Bible that matches the Liturgy readings, and that a large gap between our scholars and we, the lay persons, exists sort of forces the NAB(RE) into playing the part of an enigma.

For all its problems, the actual text (especially the recent update to the Hebrew Old Testament) is quite scholarly and very accurate. The Christian texts of the New Testament do a quite a good job in preserving the nature of the original koine Greek writings, accurate to the point of even capturing the places where ambiguity and clumsiness reign in the original language manuscripts.

But accuracy does not always mean being “correct.” As can easily be seen by many comments, accuracy of transmission is not a synonym for transmitting the text correctly in cases such as Isaiah 7:14 and Luke 1:28. Even if the accuracy of the current renditions is not in doubt, the confusion they cause with the average reader should not be happening. It is odd to pray one way, read the text during Mass the same way, but be left with an official Bible that reflects none of this. This should not happen.

The saddest part regarding the footnote apparatus is that it is misunderstood to be commentary. The truth of the matter is that it isn’t. There are a few spots where commentary is placed in the footnotes as required by the Church, but these are few and far between. Most of the footnotes are actually technical. Within the technical explanations there is a lot of solid scholarship and an equal amount of transmission theory and hypothesis. The problem is not that any of it really is anti-Catholic. The problem is the footnotes never make it clear when they are presenting official Church commentary and when they are presenting theory. So the theory gets read by the average reader as commentary and the confusion begins. Footnotes are not commentary. Commentaries are not the area or expertise of translators, but there is little clarity about any of this for the average reader.

If the footnotes were clearer about what is what there might be less hatred for the NAB. Of course some have a valid argument when they ask: “What is so much theory doing in the footnotes? Shouldn’t that belong in a more technical guide?”

This is a telling earmark of the great gap that separates the scholarship behind the NAB and the average layperson. This should not exist. It is not the fault of the layperson that there are not up to date with the latest regarding transmission theory or if they can’t tell the difference between a hypothetical transmission model and the little required commentary the NAB offers in its footnote apparatus. We aren’t taught these things in RCIA or in the Catechism. We don’t have DREs who have much of a mastery of these things in the parishes, and when it comes down to it, we don’t have to rely on such things very often when we need to rely on the written word in daily life as Catholics in the everyday world. So either these scholars need to give us the education required to bring us up to their level or they need to be more practical in what they offer. Transmission theory does nothing to help me defend my faith as a Catholic when a Jehovah’s Witness is at my door.

Is this a case of conservatism verses liberalism? For some it is. For me it isn’t. I like studying things like transmission theory and critical analysis—but I’m a geek. I know from experience that most people don’t care about this. They want a Bible that meets their everyday needs, not one that talks over their heads or gives them loads of information they can’t and won’t ever use. And frankly I do too.

Now is it a bad Bible translation? No. It’s a very, very good one. Some of the “accuracy” may be a little too much because it sounds too clumsy to say “oracle of the Lord” instead of “says the Lord” in some places—and it is an offense on the English ear. People won’t quote what they don’t like. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Polish it, if you must, but fixing what isn’t broke and what is still readily understood is not good scholarship.

Also some people keep repeating things about the NAB that is not true. For example, the NAB does NOT ever use the phrase “brothers and sisters” in the place of “brothers” in the epistles. So many comments I’ve read over the years claims it does, but this is not true. The liturgy readings begin this way, but this is not from the NAB.

Also the NAB was most definitely studied by our bishops before it was released. It did not slip through any cracks to get its approval.

One more thing, the whole Bible is being revised again so that it reads as it should in places like Isaiah 7:14 and Luke 1:28. It will take some time before this revision is complete, but the bishops are listening to us and the Vatican is watching out for the common man to ensure that the scholars don’t forget that accurate transmission of the Bible entails transmission of the Bible in her way of speaking.

Back to my feelings and opinions, I want to love the NABRE. And as the official Catholic Bible, I should be able to do so freely. We all should. But right now I can only like it—partly due to the problems it has but most of all for the problems it causes for my fellow Catholic.

 

[Contarini]

Neither of us is chief of apologetics anywhere are we?

That’s a point against him, not in his favor. I like and respect him anyway. But when you are chief apologist of an organization dedicated, essentially, to propaganda (i.e., to pushing a particular point of view instead of seeking the truth with an open mind), everything you say is more suspect than it would be if you weren’t.

Edwin

 

[Isaiah45_9]

The only good thing apparent to me at this point about the NABRE is Psalm 1. Otherwise, it seems to consistently go against traditional Catholic positions. I am a big collector of Bibles, and I don’t see a reason to buy this one.

I have the 2011 St Joseph’s edition of the NABRE (2010), large print, imitation leather with the Great Adventure Bible indexing tabs.

I like it a lot. I have almost all of the other translations but I find myself going to this one for private devotion and reading.

 

[pnewton]

Neither of us is chief of apologetics anywhere are we? Maybe you are more learned and insightful than Jimmy. I dunno. I most certainly am not. I know also that he harbors some reservations about Jerome

Perhaps Mr. Akin harbors the same short-comings I have as to Latin. I do not know. I know no Latin and little Hebrew myself. He is not here to speak as to his opinion on the NAB. I even kind of like the term “squishy”. It has a more down home feel than dynamic. In this case, even squishy can be okay ins some cases, if it leads one to comfort and familiarity. But then I have read the TEV and the Living Bible in the past. I even owned a partial set of a weird paraphrase called The Cotton Patch Bible. It was fun, squishy to the extreme and like the Living Bible, not a true translation. We Texans are a weird lot, I admit.

Why so vociferous in your argumentation?

I did not think I was over the top in any of my opinions. I thought them rather balanced actually. I do think in any area where there is not clear doctrinal issue, that Church authority should be given the benefit of the doubt, though surely nothing wrong with debate about it, if done with respect. The authority of the Church may not always be best, yet it still remains authoritative.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

A post script to my above comment:

Someone has been asking me to clearly present what I was trying to say in my above post, so I will do so here.

I don’t require a Bible translation as I can read Koine Greek and Hebrew is my mother tongue. So I speak from the position of someone who can easily compare original texts and comes from a culture that readily understands much of the background.

I find the NABRE gets the job done quite well. It’s not perfect, but it is far from a failure. My main complaint is that the average Catholic reader confuses the footnotes for commentary when they are not. And while I would like Isaiah 7:14 and Luke 1:28 to read in a manner that is uniform with the liturgy, I do not believe they are technically incorrect.

For example, St. John Paul II wrote that the Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14 does not in fact immediately read “virgin”:

In the Hebrew text this prophecy does not explicitly foretell the virginal birth of Emmanuel: the word used (almah), in fact, simply means “a young woman”, not necessarily a virgin.–Isaiah’s Prophecy Fulfilled in Incarnation, by Pope John Paul II, section 2.

And the Catechism of the Catholic Church shows it is NOT incorrect to render Luke 1:28 as “highly favored” since the CCC at 1996 teaches:

Grace* is favor*, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life*.–Italics added*.

And of course *Divino Afflante Spiritu *commends the use of higher forms of scholarship and hypothesis as occurs in the NABRE introductions and footnotes, even though some act contrary to what it tell us in paragraph 32:

Quite wrongly therefore do some pretend, not rightly understanding the conditions of biblical study, that nothing remains to be added by the Catholic exegete of our time to what Christian antiquity has produced; since, on the contrary, these our times have brought to light so many things, which call for a fresh investigation, and which stimulate not a little the practical zest of the present-day interpreter.

When I mentioned the gap between scholar and layperson: While I find that there are not sufficient programs to educate Catholics on much of the academic technicalities found in the NABRE’s footnote apparatus, I also feel that laypersons do not always do enough to educate themselves. Too many have learned to operate a technical apparatus like computers, smart phones, and tablets but will not devote as much effort to educate themselves on God’s life saving word.

So I do want to like the NABRE more than I have up till now, and I am sure I will really like it once the upcoming revision of it is made. But I worry that so many are so ready to debate about it instead of live the gospel it works to present that we have lost our way due to the desire to elevate our opinions. We seem to have become slaves to the pride of being right in our arguments and in the positions we take then doing what is right to help bring the Gospel of our Lord to those in the world who most need it.

 

[phinsbama]

I use the RSV-CE during study and my favorite for reading is the Knox Bible. I found online a 3 book copy from 1952 and it is beautiful.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Does anyone know if they are going to revise the notes in the next and maybe final revision of the NABRE?

 

[CalCatholic]

Does anyone know if they are going to revise the notes in the next and maybe final revision of the NABRE?

The Old Testament notes were revised in the last revision. I think this revision will be on the New Testament (and its notes), and also to make the whole Bible conform to the U.S. Lectionary for use in the Mass. This of course will mean other changes. I don’t know if the notes will be changed to reflect a more theological based interpretation of the scriptures or if they will remain more historical-critical based? I think the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible does the best at incorporating both styles together.