Eastern Catholic Bible

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Which Bible is read inside and outside of Divine Liturgies? I’ve heard many Eastern Catholics call themselves “Orthodox in communion with Rome” so I am wondering if you use the Orthodox version (with 76 [or 77 or 80 or 81] books) or the 73 book version Romans use?
 
Even Orthodox don’t use a full length Orthodox edition, since none of the additional books are read in liturgical services as far as I know. 😉
 
Nine_Two,

Thanks for the reply. What version do you read/have at home? Has the Orthodox ever “defined” a set of scriptures? And is there a general consensus among Eastern Catholics?
 
ECs, at least in North America, will use the Bible version whatever is agreed upon by the Episcopal Conference of that territory.

You can use the Orthodox Study Bible if you want. Its good as it contains Scripture itself and a good exegesis of it.
 
I used the standard Catholic Bible as a Melkite. As an Orthodox, the King James was the one most recommended, with the New King James/Orthodox Study Bible and the RSV 3d Edtion w/ Expanded Apocrypha sold by the parish as well (although the priest pointed out the problems with the RSV, and there were pamphlets on its errors that you got if you bought one). As a Melkite, the RSV w/ Expanded Apocrypha and the RSV-CE were the most prevalent.

None of the extra books are read in liturgy, but, I believe that 3 Maccabees and 1/3 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh are canonical (as they are to Eastern Orthodox), and 4 Maccabees is in an appendix but non-canonical (like the Laodiceans or the other “Vulgate apocrypha” is to Latin rite Catholics). The Book of Baruch is divided in to two books by the Orthodox (Baruch and Ep. Jeremiah), but is the same as the Catholic book. So, that’s the 77/8-book Orthodox Bible (73 plus Ep. Jeremiah/Baruch 6 as a separate book plus 3 Macc plus 1/3 Esdras plus Prayer of Manasseh plus the Psalm of Goliath/Ps 151for 77 books [sometimes Manasseh is its own book, many times it’s included at various places elsewhere, like after the Psalms, or, in the OSB, at the end of 2 Paralipomenon], plus 4 Macc in an appendix [78 books]).

No Orthodox I have ever seen use an 81-book Bible; I believe the Ethiopian Tewahedo (=Monophysite) Church does, but they include many weird books, and don’t include many of the Catholic and Orthodox deuterocanon and anagignoskomena. (I think, there are no Ethiopian Orthodox Broad Canon or Narrow Canon Bibles in English, so I’m going off of Wikipedia).

Syriacs include an extra 5 Psalms.
 
ConstantineTG said:
ECs, at least in North America, will use the Bible version whatever is agreed upon by the Episcopal Conference of that territory.
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Would that conference be the Roman one or is there an Eastern one? (Sorry if that’s a dumb question. I am dreadfully ignorant :confused:.)
 
friendster324 said:
Would that conference be the Roman one or is there an Eastern one? (Sorry if that’s a dumb question. I am dreadfully ignorant :confused:.)
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There is only one Episcipal Conference in every region. The EC bishops are part of the roster. I think they subdivide the Conference into provinces and ECs get lumped into their own province. Of they can be excluded if there are matters exclusive to the Roman Church (like implementing the 3rd version of the Pauline Missal).
 
ConstantineTG said:
There is only one Episcipal Conference in every region. The EC bishops are part of the roster. I think they subdivide the Conference into provinces and ECs get lumped into their own province. Of they can be excluded if there are matters exclusive to the Roman Church (like implementing the 3rd version of the Pauline Missal).
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Ah. Didn’t know that. So the Eastern Catholics of various Churches use the NAB for Divine Liturgies?
 
friendster324 said:
Ah. Didn’t know that. So the Eastern Catholics of various Churches use the NAB for Divine Liturgies?
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In Canada the CCCB has appointed the NRSV as the edition of choice. The UGCC in Canada uses the NRSV, at least on paper. I wouldn’t be surprised if a particular parish would have a different version of the Bible and use that. We’re not that sticklers for details like this. We don’t fuss about it. But on paper we conform to the CCCB. At least the last time I checked.

Can’t speak for other Eastern Churches, I don’t go to their parishes (and there’s none in my area anyway, would love it if there were).
 
friendster324 said:
In Divine Liturgies, does the Melkite Church in the US use the NAB or NKJV w/ the extended apoc?
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My Melkite parish read out of Ye Grande Olde KJV (with “Apocrypha”) or DRC (I think, because the “hieratic thees” were heavily used; it may have been the RSV, which has the “hieratic thee” as well) for English readings. The readings sounded good and like “the word of the Lord”, were dignified and pleasant to the ear, so I’m certain it wasn’t the NAB. (Edit: e.g. “it had ceased to be with Sara[h] after the manner of women”, not “Sarah no longer had menstrual periods” - groan - or the like as the NAB has it.)

(Note that no version of the NKJV comes with the Apocrypha, except for the NKJV-based [but not NKJV] Orthodox Study Bible.)

I’m honestly not entirely not sure what it was, I never saw and never asked, as I was satisfied with the renderings, as un-Catholic as that sounds), but I don’t think that was in the rubrics… I believe it was supposed to use (Eparchy of Newton) the RSV or NAB or Jerusalem Bible, like the Latin rite. Maybe it was even supposed to use the NRSV, but there was not a hint of that - the priest even touched upon regendered language (what’s wrong with it) in a homily or two. (Although he mainly spoke of the atrocious practice of regendering God, or “She who is” [forgive the blasphemy], not translational philosophy.)

I think the above Ukrainian Greek Catholic’s comments apply to the Melkites as well: “not sticklers for things like that”, at least not nearly to the level of the Latin rite. The Eastern Churches, like the Orthodox, are considerably less “legalistic” (I can’t think of another term, but I do not use it in a pejorative sense) than the Western Churches. For the Orthodox not in communion with Rome, this extends to refusing to define or elaborate on many dogmata in a sense that the Western mind can understand or comprehend (such as the “it’s just really Jesus” view of the Real Presence as opposed to transsubstantiation, consubstantiation, impanation, pneumatic presence, etc.).
 
friendster324 said:
Nine_Two,

Thanks for the reply. What version do you read/have at home? Has the Orthodox ever “defined” a set of scriptures? And is there a general consensus among Eastern Catholics?
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I personally use the Orthodox Study Bible. I’ve come to like the NKJV translation and I like the weight it gives to the LXX.

The individual Churches usually define scriptures. They tend to be mostly the same with the odd book here and there different, however the Liturgicon is the same in all the Byzantine churches, so what actually gets read in church is the same no matter where you go.
 
ConstantineTG said:
In Canada the CCCB has appointed the NRSV as the edition of choice. The UGCC in Canada uses the NRSV, at least on paper. I wouldn’t be surprised if a particular parish would have a different version of the Bible and use that. We’re not that sticklers for details like this. We don’t fuss about it. But on paper we conform to the CCCB. At least the last time I checked.

Can’t speak for other Eastern Churches, I don’t go to their parishes (and there’s none in my area anyway, would love it if there were).
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NRSV is the only translation outright banned from use in the OCA. 😃

Of course you’re probably talking about the Catholic Edition, which doesn’t have the issues which led to the banning of the text.
 
Nine_Two said:
NRSV is the only translation outright banned from use in the OCA. 😃

Of course you’re probably talking about the Catholic Edition, which doesn’t have the issues which led to the banning of the text.
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Honestly in our parish I think we have several different Bibles lying around and when we do other servies like Vespers, and in our books we just have which verses we need to read, we pick up one of the bibles and read from there. Like I said, there is something “official” on paper but on the parish level its not something strictly enforced. And we never make a fuss about it 😉

Come to think of it, I was thinking about Sunday readings and we usually have the Epistle on our Sunday Bulletin. I think that is NRSV. But the priest/bishop would read from the Book of Gospels which I doubt is NRSV.
 
IIRC, The epistle book we have is taken from the NAB, 1971 edition…
 
Nine_Two said:
NRSV is the only translation outright banned from use in the OCA. 😃

Of course you’re probably talking about the Catholic Edition, which doesn’t have the issues which led to the banning of the text.
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Actually, it does… the NRSV-CE is the NRSV w/ Apocrypha, but with the apocrypha interspersed with the rest of the Old Testament instead of segregated between Testaments. The actual NRSV text is unchanged, still it’s same bannable self.
 
Khalid said:
Actually, it does… the NRSV-CE is the NRSV w/ Apocrypha, but with the apocrypha interspersed with the rest of the Old Testament instead of segregated between Testaments. The actual NRSV text is unchanged, still it’s same bannable self.
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Hmm, I was under the impression that they changed the offending verses in the Catholic Edition (such as the verse in Isiah prophesying that the messiah would be born of a “young woman/virgin”)

Edit: Looked it up. The translation changes were made in the Second Catholic Edition. The First Catholic Edition was, as you said, just the Catholic order of books.
 
friendster324 said:
Which Bible is read inside and outside of Divine Liturgies? I’ve heard many Eastern Catholics call themselves “Orthodox in communion with Rome” so I am wondering if you use the Orthodox version (with 76 [or 77 or 80 or 81] books) or the 73 book version Romans use?
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The Byzantine Catholic Church (USA) uses the New American Bible (NAB) 1970 for the Gospel Book (the priest uses it) and for the Apostol (the reader uses it). For the Divine Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, the NAB 1970 and the Grail Psalms 1963 and the Septuagint (Greek) Old Testament are guides for new translations. The other Psalms used, such as for the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, Matins, Vespers, were compiled by Monsignor William Levkulic (2002+). The Psalms vary based upon which version of the Matins, Vespers or other liturgy, since one standard was not promulgated
 
Vico said:
The Byzantine Catholic Church (USA) uses the New American Bible (NAB) 1970 for the Gospel Book (the priest uses it) and for the Apostol (the reader uses it). For the Divine Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, the NAB 1970 and the Grail Psalms 1963 and the Septuagint (Greek) Old Testament are guides for new translations. The other Psalms used, such as for the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, Matins, Vespers, were compiled by Monsignor William Levkulic (2002+). The Psalms vary based upon which version of the Matins, Vespers or other liturgy, since one standard was not promulgated
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They’re all NAB or the Grail Psalter if MCI or Msgr. Levkulic… which edition of the NAB, however…

And there’s one line that’s missing a verb in both 3rd Hour and in another promulgated hour… in multiple editions!
 
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