Ecumenical bibles?

[silverwings_88]

Are there any ecumenical bibles, or a good accurate bible in which i can share with my Protestant friends? In French, it’s so easy because the unofficial bible is the Traduction Oecuménique de la Bible (TOB) that is quite popular, and other modern bibles in French have a Catholic and Protestant edition of them.

In English, however, it is quite harder. I have been thinking the NLT, but that is a paraphrase… then the RSV and the RSV-CE, but there are tiny differences in both of the bibles together. The KJV with apocrypha sounded nice, but I find it slightly biased…

I want to share the apocryphal books with a bible that both can use and is accurate and also beautiful (or just not choppy).

Anything like that existing? :S

 

[puzzleannie]

RSV-CE since it was produced to be an ecumenical bible for English speakers is probably your best bet, and much more comfortable to use if your group includes people who grew up with the KJV (or authorized version). NLT is untenable for any purpose.

 

[TOME]

As Puzzleanne most likely the RSV-CE (Revised Standard Version - Catholic Version) might be your best bet, and there it the N(ew)RSV - CE that has more inclusive language in its translation. The NIV is also a good translation, however, the translators were a bit, shall we say non-Catholic in their work. If they came upon a word or phrase that could be translated several different ways without using the meaning of the passage they chochose the less Catholic way - a small example is there use Good Deeds rather than works.

But to be honest, the New American Bible, although with it own faults which are in the process of being corrected, is a very good literal translation from the original Hebrew and Greek and does stand on its own. I have had no trouble using it when I have been sharing scripture with
our Protestant brothers and sisters.

Outside of the preference for the English of the King James Version, I found the biggest problem lies with the Catholic Bible’s inclusion of the Apocrypha or Duetro -Canonical books of the OT but the NT is the same and the NEB is very good translation of the literal translations.

 

[Zooey]

The New Revised Standard Version is widely available with the deuterocanonical books…It’s one drawback is too much inclusive language, but for the purpose you describe, I think it could be a very acceptable choice.

 

[Maccabees]

Their is also the RSV Oxford Edition - it differs from the catholic edition in a few instances in the New testament whee the Catholic editors changed things to encourage a traditional catholic interpretaion example “Hail full of grace” Instead of Hail most favored one" but its pretty much the same and it doesn’t have the word catholic in it so no bias there. It does include the duteros or apocrapha in a different section as is the anglican tradition and not in catholic order.

NLT is evangelical junk it has several instances with protestant bias and is watered down to begin with the same goes with the NIV’s rendereing of the new testament. Funny enough the NIV does a pretty good job with the OT but I think their obvious bias in the NT makes it favorable to protestants way to many times.

The NRSV isn’t bad but it does overdo the inclusive language thing. But it does do a good job of balancing the literal with modern language.

 

[silverwings_88]

I guess it’s in unison that the RSV-CE is probably the good translation for it… Now I just need to buy it along with the other bibles that I will have to get…

Thanks everyone