Douay–Rheims vs. RSV-CE

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In my opinion, and I am no expert however I love the Bible and have read it most of my life.
As a Catholic I have a DR and if you like it is the foundation Bible I use in all my Bible study, if there is any ambiguity the DR has the last word.
I have the original RSV it has the Nihil Obstat from the Catholic Church meaning it is free from doctrinal error was endorsed by the Orthodox Church and is highly esteemed by secular scholars as a non biased translation of scripture. I use this Bible when dialoguing with any non-Catholic, it is the most widely accepted Bible in the world, I have the Oxford annotated version with the expanded Apocrypha, also it is a great standard resource when looking at different renderings. As a side note when dealing with fringe sect’s such as the Jehovah Witnesses or over the top evangelical’s this is a great Bible to have on hand because its legitimacy can hardly be disputed.
I have the original 1966 Jerusalem Bible which is a wonderful translation and the first Catholic translation from the original languages, it is beautiful to read and represents the best of Catholic liberal biblical scholarship of the time. In my opinion this work will go down as a very important mile stone in the history of catholic biblical studies. There are some renderings of important passages where the Jerusalem bible just seems to tower above all others.
I also use the RSV-2CE this is a great work and I use it as my working study Bible in other words it is the only one that I will underline etc.
The Bible I use for everyday reading is the DR why? Because the Vatican still recommends this Bible as the most reliable version of the Bible available in the English language today, so when I am reading it I can relax and enjoy it in the full knowledge that what I am reading is Gods word as he intended the faithful to receive it.
 
So, since the thees and thous don’t bother me, I should get the DRV? I ask this because I can only afford one, and I’m sure that my local church can provide me with a free copy of the RSV-CE if I decide to study both.

Also, should I be sure that I’m getting the 1582/1610 DRV instead of the 1899 version?
 
I’d break it down this way for you…

If you like a lot of classical-sounding biblical english (lots of thees,thys, thous, speakeths, and what not), get a Douay-Rheims.

If you like a little bit of classical-sounding biblical english, get the RSV-CE.

If you can’t stand classical-sounding biblical english, get the RSV-2CE.

If you want to read the closest translation to what is read from the pulpit in the US or phillipines, get the NAB/NAB-RE.

If you want to read the closest translation to what is read from the pulpit in Canada, get the NRSV-CE.

If you want to read the closest translation to what is read from the pulpit in the rest of the english-speaking world, get the Jerusalem Bible.

But, ultimately, get the translation you will read.
 
edward_george said:
Just a clarification, Clement VIII placed 3 and 4 Esdras in an appendix “lest they perish entirely,” but did not teach that they were canonical. The Latin Church has never taught definitively that they are canonical, although they appear in the canon for some Orthodox Churches.

-ACEGC
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They are not canonical, but they are a good read. 😉
 
FreakyLocz14 said:
So, since the thees and thous don’t bother me, I should get the DRV? I ask this because I can only afford one, and I’m sure that my local church can provide me with a free copy of the RSV-CE if I decide to study both.

Also, should I be sure that I’m getting the 1582/1610 DRV instead of the 1899 version?
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Well, here is the online D-R Version LINK (good footnotes!)

So if you have the money to buy one only, you can buy the RSV-CE and use the online D-R.

Or you can save your money and go to Bible Gateway dot com and have almost all of the available versions (except they only have the 1899 D-RV and not the earlier one)

👍
 
I made a mistake in my previous post the RSV received
The imprimatur not the Nihil obstat.
Sorry about that.
 
I made a mistake in my previous post the RSV received
The imprimatur not the Nihil obstat.
Sorry about that.
 
FreakyLocz14 said:
So, I found a DRV online for sale for a decent price. It is the 1899 version, has 3 and 4 Esdras between the OT and NT, and has Bishop Richard Challoner’s notes.

Would you guys recommend it?
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Who is the publisher?
 
I would offer a few points here.

1-The Douay-Rheims is a beautiful and majestic translation. However, we must not accord it some sort of special status over and above certain others just because it is much cherished among some. Remember that if you hold in your hands the Douay-Rheims nowadays, and it is in a dialect of English you can mostly comprehend (for it is still dated), it is an update (18th century by Bishop Challoner) of a translation (16th/17th century) of a revision, or series thereof (from various Popes for several centuries) of the Latin translation (from Jerome) of the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts available to Jerome at the time he was writing.

Bear in mind that new manuscripts have been found. Bear in mind that various people over the years have seen fit to edit and revise the texts of the Vulgate (hence if you say you want a translation of the Vulgate, one must ask “which Vulgate?” There was the Clementine, the Sixtine, and several other versions, each making edits based on whatever was available at the time) and the Douay itself. If they made all these edits and revisions, why should we use a version of the Bible which is itself over 250 years old? There has been new scholarship and new manuscripts discovered more recently (remember that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran was only in 1948!). Why should we shun good scholarship because it is done by Protestants? Challoner’s revision of the Douay in 1749 was undertaken to iron out some clunky language that came from the Latin translation into English (since the two languages don’t exactly line up)–and one of the ways he did this was to lift verses straight from the King James version (he was a convert from Protestantism and was thus familiar with it).

2-There are perfectly fine modern translations. The RSV is almost word-for-word a match to the Hebrew and Greek. We mustn’t dismiss it because “it has Protestant roots;” so does the most recent edition of the Douay. Again, good scholarship is good scholarship, whether done by Catholics or Protestants. We mustn’t ascribe some sort of ontological superiority to scholarship done by Catholics; good Catholics can be bad scholars, and even the Protestant furthest from Catholicism can do good scholarship.

3-Translations are not going to be perfect; there is no such thing as a perfect translation. There simply is not any linguistic way for one text to line up 100% with another because of differences in how things are expressed language to language. When people use certain singular verses as a “litmus test” for the validity of a translation, they’re throwing out the baby with the bathwater oftentimes. The Isaiah verse about “the young woman shall be with child” is a prime example; if you read the Hebrew text, it actually uses a word that literally means “maiden” or “young woman;” both are perfectly valid translations of the word. In the ancient world, this of course had the connotation of virginity, but we mustn’t dismiss a translation because the translator has made the decision to use either of those perfectly valid ways of translating it. Nearly every Biblical translation I’ve run across recently has John 1:1 rendered such that the third clause reads “and the Word was God,” even though the Greek text (and the Vulgate for that matter) plainly says “and God was the Word” (kai Theos en ho logos/et Deus erat Verbum). The Douay actually reads “and the Word was God.” This passage is very significant theologically; why don’t we use that as a litmus test of some sort? Probably because both are adequate ways to translate it. And much the same with Isaiah 7, 14.

To conclude, I would say that use whichever translation is going to get you to read the Bible. Sometimes I read the Douay because of the majesty and beauty of it, sometimes I prefer the RSV because I need to know what’s closer to the source without having such at hand, sometimes I prefer the NAB because of the ease of reading. Don’t accord to some translation or another some kind of essential superiority, or say that you’re more likely to get the “true Word of God” from one or another–remember that the translations themselves are not inspired, only the texts which came from the authors themselves, all of which have been lost. Each has its own pros and cons, each has something for which it is better suited. If we start insisting that one translation or another is inherently better or according a certain kind of reverence to a certain translation, we risk lapsing into a sort of Catholic KJV-Onlyism, and we ignore the multitude of resources that are available to us for studying the Bible.

-ACEGC
 
FreakyLocz14 said:
So, I found a DRV online for sale for a decent price. It is the 1899 version, has 3 and 4 Esdras between the OT and NT, and has Bishop Richard Challoner’s notes.

Would you guys recommend it?

Links:
marianland.com/bible20.html
marianland.com/bibledouayrheims/main.htm
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I have that exact Bible in the second link from Baronius Press in the flexible leather edition it is a beautiful Bible. I have had it for about 15 years and it is still going strong. It’s only draw back for some people would be that it is a fairly chunky Bible and not soft and supple like your average KJV from Oxford press for example, if you want a leather bound Douay like that my recommendation would be St Benedict press, I have that one also and it is also a beautiful Bible Flexible and soft and easy to hold in the hand, very supple as you flick through it with your thumb for example.
 
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