ESV again: moving beyond generalities

[SimonDodd]

I would like a good, solid “reading Bible.” I’m leaning toward the ESV; it’s fairly elegant, it’s fairly literal without being unreadable, and it doesn’t play the presumptuous and frequently misleading “inclusive language” game. By comparison, the imprimatur-bearing RSVCE and NAB are frequently ugly and vapid, and are not without warts and critics of their own (e.g. 1; 2; 3). NJB is attractive, but I’ve yet to find it in a good binding. (It should be big enough to lie open, but not so big as to be cumbersome; it shouldn’t be bound such that it constantly wants to snap shut.)

Nevertheless, it’s ineluctably a protestant translation, at least in the sense of a translation done by protestants, and, it’s frequently alleged, perhaps also in the sense of a translation that is, let’s say informed by protestant norms and sensibilities. Precisely because I want a reading Bible rather than a study Bible (when tackling a specific passage in depth, one obviously reads all common translations and goes back to the vulgate and greek text), I’m concerned about being tripped up by slanted translations.

The ESV has been discussed in these forums many times, but the debates have often been sidetracked without reaching solid conclusions, so I don’t feel too bad in raising it again. The threads I’ve reviewed tend are long on generalized criticisms of ESV (e.g. “The translation is clearly slanted in the Protestant direction”; it is “an extremely Protestant translation”; it has “a very strong Protestant slant”; “it translates in favor of Protestant doctrines and against Catholic doctrines”), but short on specifics. Indeed, the sole example of defective translation that I’ve seen adduced is 1 Tim 3:15 (e.g. 1; 2; 3). Well, fair enough; the reader is warned and the passage highlighted. But that is one word out of the entire Bible. A handful of other problems have been suggested, but, with all due respect, they are off-point where the discussion is focused on ESV vs. Catholic translations. For instance, forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=1873297&postcount=23 faults ESV’s use of “presence” in 2 Cor 2:10, but NAB, NJB, and RSVce translate it the same way. Whether Jerry is right or wrong, he’s making an argument for DR über alles, not for a Catholic translation over ESV, which is the point I’m interested in. And the objection that earlier editions did not include the deuterocanonical books has been answered.

I wonder if we could take another run at evaluating ESV as a translation for Catholics, brushing aside generalities, detours (translation issues whose faultline does not divide Catholic from non-Catholic translations, such as the example noted above), and the downright obvious (no, it doesn’t have an imprimatur). My question is: 1 Tim 3:15 aside, are there other specific problems (i.e. problematic from a Catholic perspective) with ESV’s translation? Or, as several comments implicitly suggest, do the problems lie in the footnotes?

 

[Epistemes]

NJB is attractive, but I’ve yet to find it in a good binding. (It should be big enough to lie open, but not so big as to be cumbersome; it shouldn’t be bound such that it constantly wants to snap shut.)

You make a fine argument for the ESV, my friend, though I have little ground on which to actually agree or disagree since it’s one of those translations I’ve yet to invest in. I will, though, eventually, given its increasing prominence in terms of biblical reference and discussion. I know I’ve spoken with some Masters of Divinity students who consider it to be their primary go-to for most things. I, personally, reject the notion that Catholics should read only translations/editions with an imprimatur since it’s that same rhetoric which, even today, fosters *extreme *biblical illiteracy in the Church.

However, that isn’t why I am replying to your post. No, I merely wanted to comment on the quote above: The NJB, to me, is one of the finest translations out there. I, for one, appreciate its scholarship, and after reading more on how the earliest scribes and sages translated the Tanakh into the Targum (that is, dynamically, not literally), I felt assured that the NJB follows a long line of biblical translation and interpretation. However, like you, I found my NJB unattractive, clunky, and altogether cumbersome to use. That’s why I had my Bible rebound in a nice, supple goat leather, complete with three ribbon markers. Was it costly? Yes, but very, very worth it. I can’t take it with me everywhere (like the office), but it’s perfect for devotion, study, whatever.

 

[waxwing]

From everything I have heard the ESV is the Bible to read if you like the literal translation versus the dynamic translation, ie NIV. I have looked over the ESV at the store and I found the font size/type and paper type quite hard to read so instead I have a NASB translation which is also a good literal translation. As to the reading of a Protestant Bible - I don’t see the problem in having both Catholic and Protestant translations

 

[JM3]

“Nevertheless, it’s ineluctably a protestant translation”

It’s worse than that. This is quoted from your ‘fairly literal’ link. ‘This is an evangelical revision of the Revised Standard Version that corrects the non-Christian interpretations of the RSV in the Old Testament and improves the accuracy throughout with more literal renderings’.
&
‘Trinity Evangelical Divinity School professor Wayne Grudem and Crossway President Lane Dennis entered into negotiations with the National Council of Churches to use the 1971 revision of the Revised Standard Version as the basis for a new translation. An agreement was reached in September 1998 allowing translators freedom to modify the original text of the RSV as necessary to rid it of de-Christianing translation choices.’

‘the ESV revision represents a return to the Masoretic text.’

‘The passages of the RSV given below are examples of the many which were found to be highly objectionable by evangelicals’. ‘Genesis 22:15-18’. ‘The ESV restores this interpretation, on the authority of the Apostle Paul.’

That’s as far as I could go.

 

[SimonDodd]

Epistemes, I’ve used both NJB and ESV online, and both are very attractive—at face value, at least.

JM3, yes, as we all know, the septuagint is a more reliable source than the masoretic text. But that is a generalized objection to the process rather than a specific fault with the product. It only matters that ESV uses the MT rather than the LXX to the extent that doing so yields specific errors. Errors, that is, as compared to Catholic translations.

And not only as compared to a Catholic translation. For our purposes here, the criteria are even more restrictive: if the ESV makes what you or I might think is an error in translation, yet that error is also found in DR, etc., the point is irrelevant to the question of ESV vs. any catholic translation. To illustrate, suppose that you believe strongly that ESV errs by translating Isaiah 7:14 as referring to a “virgin” rather than a “young woman.” That is not a valid objection for our purposes. The interpretative faultline must divide Catholic translations from protestant translations, and for that example, it doesn’t: while NJB and RSVCE agree with you, NAB and DR agree with ESV. Since you could make exactly the same objection to NAB, the objection fails to impeach ESV.

The issue here isn’t whether the ESV is a perfect translation; there’s no such thing. The issue is whether there are specific faults that make it unsuitable for discerning Catholic readers.

 

[JM3]

“The issue is whether there are specific faults that make it unsuitable for discerning Catholic readers.”

Thus I added the last part ‘on the authority of the Apostle Paul’. It is clearly slanted toward evangelical doctrines and not Catholic.

As for being suitable or ‘unsiutable for discerning Catholic readers’, it would depend on your definition of ‘discerning’.

For me, I have no use for protestant translations that change, delete or add things, so they can feel good about themselves and can sleep at night ( I refer to the adding of ‘For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory for ever.* Amen.’ to Matthew 9:13 as in the Third Millennium Bible, just so they can say ‘it’s in the Bible’.)

If you feel that this ESV is a good enough translation for you, that is all well and good. But to come here and endorse it for other Catholics could be considered sin.

 

[Epistemes]

If you feel that this ESV is a good enough translation for you, that is all well and good. But to come here and endorse it for other Catholics could be considered sin.

Cut the melodrama. You’ve spoken your mind about your desire to read only translations which contain an imprimatur, but this doesn’t make it scandalous for Catholics (even those in formation) to praise the merits of other translations without such marks of censorship. I think the last thing Our Lord is to consider when Simon Dodd reaches the Pearly Gates is, “So, remember back in July 2010 when you were endorsing the ESV? Well, you forgot to ask for forgiveness for that sin.”

 

[SimonDodd]

JM3, your reply is really quite shocking. Let’s start with the obvious: I didn’t endorse the ESV. While I mentioned the reasons for my interest in it, by way of introducing the point, my actual point was that it would be helpful for us to discuss whether it is faulty. You seem to have pulled my post inside out, and for what? Even if I had endorsed it, it would be more than a little rude to suggest—on, frankly, I don’t know what basis—that doing so was sinful.

What’s more, your reply is as unreasoned as it is uncharitable. Neither of the criticisms advanced by your last comment is a criticism of ESV. You fault a completely different translation for an interpolation that ESV makes in neither Mt 9:13 nor, as I fancy you meant to say, Mt 6:13; I am left to wonder “so what?” And you fault ESV for a comment made by a website reviewing it ("[t]hus I added the last part ‘on the authority of the Apostle Paul’"). If ESV has faults—so much so, according to you, that it would be sin to endorse it!—one might think that you would be able to cite them, rather than faulting other things and hoping that no one notices the substitution. That’s a straw man argument, and we noticed.

If you were actually targeting the translation of Genesis described by the website as being “on the authority of St. Paul,” or the reliance on St. Paul as an interpretative method, rather than faulting that particular quote from the website, you couldn’t have picked a worse example to make your point. Let’s examine that passage.

You are certainly correct that the ESV divides itself from Catholic translations (viz., DR, NAB, and NJB) when it renders Gen 22:17-18 as “I will surely multiply your offspring … [a]nd your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Cf., e.g., DR (“I will multiply your seed …; your seed shall possess the gates of their enemies. And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice”). And let’s assume for a moment that the ESV’s editors deliberately chose to translate this passage in a way that makes it point to Christ. On that stipulation, can you explain your charges that making Christ the focus of Gen 22:17-18 is not only “clearly slanted toward evangelical doctrines,” but also, in some way, “not Catholic”?

Nor does resting the translation choice on St. Paul’s authority seem like a stretch. Here is what Paul wrote: “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his descendant. It does not say, ‘And to descendants,’ as referring to many, but as referring to one, ‘And to your descendant,’ who is Christ.” Gal 3:16 (NAB). How could ESV’s editors have read the idea that Paul understood Gen 22:17-18 in Christocentric terms into that? Those kooks! It strikes me as plainly correct that even NAB’s NT translators confess Paul’s specific rejection of the pluralized translation adopted by NAB’s OT translators. I don’t know whether, as a matter of formal Greek grammar, the ESV has the better of this argument, but in light of St. Paul’s comments, it would be very difficult to argue that the translators pulled this out of thin air.

 

[JM3]

" I didn’t endorse the ESV"

Epistemes wrote in post 2 - “You make a fine argument for the ESV”. It may not have been your intention, but the impression is that you are.

“Even if I had endorsed it, it would be more than a little rude to suggest—on, frankly, I don’t know what basis—that doing so was sinful.”

‘Could be considered’ and ‘is’ do not have the same meaning. ‘Could be considered’ means there is a possibility, not that you have already committed one. How (your basis)? You will be held accountable for your words and actions. You will, also, be held accountable for the words and actions of others that were influenced by your words and actions. To put it simply, your ARE your brother’s keeper.

“Nor does resting the translation choice on St. Paul’s authority seem like a stretch”

I accept the authority of the Catholic Church. I do not accept the authority of St. Paul over the authority of the Catholic Church. Also, I do not accept the Bible as a higher authority over the Magisterium and Sacred Tradition.

Where your priorities are does matter.

 

[crazzeto]

The ESV is based upon the RSV, why not get your self a good copy of the RSV-CE? You’ll get a very good, pleasent translation with out the denominational leanings of the ESV.

 

[Epistemes]

‘Could be considered’ and ‘is’ do not have the same meaning. ‘Could be considered’ means there is a possibility, not that you have already committed one. How (your basis)? You will be held accountable for your words and actions. You will, also, be held accountable for the words and actions of others that were influenced by your words and actions. To put it simply, your ARE your brother’s keeper.

I accept the authority of the Catholic Church. I do not accept the authority of St. Paul over the authority of the Catholic Church. Also, I do not accept the Bible as a higher authority over the Magisterium and Sacred Tradition.

Since you claim to be Solum Magisterium (which, I’m quite sure, is heretical given the defitions of Vatican II, specifically regarding the relationship between Scripture and Tradition), please cite in its full form *any * dogmatic declaration by the Magisterium that states that any person whosoever shall read, endorse, acclaim, or laud any particular translation of the Holy Scriptures other than those translations approved by the aforementioned Magisterium with the seal of imprimatur should be cast into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth; otherwise, your claims and accusations are extremist, malinformed, and should be the views (as espoused in this thread) which should be considered sinful.

 

[JM3]

Since you claim to be Solum Magisterium (which, I’m quite sure, is heretical given the defitions of Vatican II, specifically regarding the relationship between Scripture and Tradition), please cite in its full form *any * dogmatic declaration by the Magisterium that states that any person whosoever shall read, endorse, acclaim, or laud any particular translation of the Holy Scriptures other than those translations approved by the aforementioned Magisterium with the seal of imprimatur should be cast into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth; otherwise, your claims and accusations are extremist, malinformed, and should be the views (as espoused in this thread) which should be considered sinful.

// any person whosoever shall read, endorse, acclaim, or laud any particular translation of the Holy Scriptures other than those translations approved by the aforementioned Magisterium with the seal of imprimatur should be cast into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth//

Who is being the ‘extremist’? I did not say this, nor did I say that I was ‘Solum Magisterium’. Perhaps you should read your Catechism. CCC119 quotes from Dei Verbum “For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God.”

 

[Epistemes]

Perhaps you should read your Catechism. CCC119 quotes from Dei Verbum “For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God.”

Interpretation is exegesis, not translation. CCC 119 infers nothing about translation.

 

[JM3]

If I read a translation that makes me question a doctrine of the Church, how does that help my salvation?

 

[JM3]

Interpretation is exegesis, not translation. CCC 119 infers nothing about translation.

Translation is interpretation. You translate a text to what you believe (interpret) it says. They are interconnected.

 

[JM3]

your claims and accusations are extremist, malinformed, and should be the views (as espoused in this thread) which should be considered sinful.

Quite possibly. or, perhaps, the truth is hard to hear.

I will consider it.

 

[SimonDodd]

crazzeto, I already answered that in the original post: stylistically, RSVCE is unattractive, in my own opinion, and substantively, it has several Catholic critics, imprimatur or not. (Its most prominent and pervasive fault as a reading bible is its attempted use of “inclusive language,” an enterprise that would be merely presumptuous if English had an appropriate neuter pronoun, and is positively detrimental without it, introducing number ambiguity.)

JM3, where to begin with you. With all due respect to Epistemes, my original post can’t be read as endorsing ESV, I haven’t endorsed it since, and I’m not endorsing it now. A few words about your accusation of sin are now in order, too. The original draft of my previous reply noted that your “could be considered” phrasing is a well-known weasel-word construction that everyone understands perfectly well is a hedged euphemism for “I think,” designed to preserve enough wiggle room to walk back if called on it. I deleted the passage because it seemed uncharitable. As your subsequent attempt to walk back from your point demonstrates, however, that was error; I should have called you on it right out of the gate. I also suggest that your unwillingness to straightforwardly say what you mean may explain why you misread my post as endorsing ESV. Someone who is accustomed to hiding his meaning behind his phrasing is apt to assume that everyone else’s writing is a potempkin village, too, and to accordingly peer around it in search of its hidden meaning rather than taking it for what it says. Or as U2 put it, more bluntly, “it’s no secret that a liar won’t believe anyone else.”

Your statement that you “accept the authority of the Catholic Church” states an obvious and uncontroverted position that can only be taken as an unsubtle (but, again, hedged) accusation that those who dispute your point do not. And the point in nominal service of which you state it is obscure: you say that you don’t accept the authority of St. Paul over the authority of the Catholic Church. This, too, is a straw man—something you seem to me making a habit of in this thread. For the point to have any bite, there would have to be conflict between St. Paul and the magisterium. You have not shown one.

Nor (more generally) have you cited any errors in translation which conflict with the teaching of the church. Genesis 22 doesn’t do the trick, because St. Paul himself, speaking through a passage endorsed by the Church in NABNT, endorses that reading.

Your position would be stronger had ESV been denied an imprimatur. To my knowledge, it has never been evaluated. You also misread the office of an imprimatur; it is a statement that a translation is not erroneous, containing “nothing contrary to faith or morals,” not that it is perfect (e.g. this (it “signif[ies] that, in the judgment of the bishop who grants the imprimatur, the work contains nothing contrary to faith and morals. However, the nihil obstat and imprimatur are not an endorsement and do not guarantee that the entire contents of a work are true”)). The only translation whose correctness can be argued to have been explicitly endorsed by the magisterium is the vulgate (see Council of Trent, 4th session), and the word it uses in the passage at issue is “semen”; that translates as “seed,” but the more important point for our purposes is that the vulgate uses the noun in its singular (semen), not plural (semina) form.

Perhaps you have forgotten St. Augustine’s maxim: In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. This specific example appears to be in the category of “doubtful” at best.

 

[Bookcat]

The RSV CE is a wonderful text! and actually I use also the RSV…both have basically no inclusive language (which is a turn off for me for sure)…and are closer to the literal…and beautiful! No wonder it is used for the much (if not most) of the English translations of Major Church documents!

As for the ESV… like other translations it can have its positives and negatives…
it is good to actually make use of several translations…especially if one knows what one is doing and has a good background…

I have only experience with the ESV New Testament…which is pretty close to the RSV (very much is the same) and while there is an unhappy translation here and there…there are also things I very much like…such as more use of the term “walk”…which is closer to the Greek etc…(though the RSV does use walk in many places…after all it is where I learned to love the phrase…the ESV has it in a few more)…

Every translation has it positives and negatives… one needs to understand where they are coming from their way of translation etc…and be of course well grounded…so as to read the Scriptures from within the Church.

 

[JM3]

crazzeto, I already answered that in the original post: stylistically, RSVCE is unattractive, in my own opinion, and substantively, it has several Catholic critics, imprimatur or not. (Its most prominent and pervasive fault as a reading bible is its attempted use of “inclusive language,” an enterprise that would be merely presumptuous if English had an appropriate neuter pronoun, and is positively detrimental without it, introducing number ambiguity.)

JM3, where to begin with you. With all due respect to Epistemes, my original post can’t be read as endorsing ESV, I haven’t endorsed it since, and I’m not endorsing it now. A few words about your accusation of sin are now in order, too. The original draft of my previous reply noted that your “could be considered” phrasing is a well-known weasel-word construction that everyone understands perfectly well is a hedged euphemism for “I think,” designed to preserve enough wiggle room to walk back if called on it. I deleted the passage because it seemed uncharitable. As your subsequent attempt to walk back from your point demonstrates, however, that was error; I should have called you on it right out of the gate. I also suggest that your unwillingness to straightforwardly say what you mean may explain why you misread my post as endorsing ESV. Someone who is accustomed to hiding his meaning behind his phrasing is apt to assume that everyone else’s writing is a potempkin village, too, and to accordingly peer around it in search of its hidden meaning rather than taking it for what it says. Or as U2 put it, more bluntly, “it’s no secret that a liar won’t believe anyone else.”

Your statement that you “accept the authority of the Catholic Church” states an obvious and uncontroverted position that can only be taken as an unsubtle (but, again, hedged) accusation that those who dispute your point do not. And the point in nominal service of which you state it is obscure: you say that you don’t accept the authority of St. Paul over the authority of the Catholic Church. This, too, is a straw man—something you seem to me making a habit of in this thread. For the point to have any bite, there would have to be conflict between St. Paul and the magisterium. You have not shown one.

Nor (more generally) have you cited any errors in translation which conflict with the teaching of the church. Genesis 22 doesn’t do the trick, because St. Paul himself, speaking through a passage endorsed by the Church in NABNT, endorses that reading.

Your position would be stronger had ESV been denied an imprimatur. To my knowledge, it has never been evaluated. You also misread the office of an imprimatur; it is a statement that a translation is not erroneous, containing “nothing contrary to faith or morals,” not that it is perfect (e.g. this (it “signif[ies] that, in the judgment of the bishop who grants the imprimatur, the work contains nothing contrary to faith and morals. However, the nihil obstat and imprimatur are not an endorsement and do not guarantee that the entire contents of a work are true”)). The only translation whose correctness can be argued to have been explicitly endorsed by the magisterium is the vulgate (see Council of Trent, 4th session), and the word it uses in the passage at issue is “semen”; that translates as “seed,” but the more important point for our purposes is that the vulgate uses the noun in its singular (semen), not plural (semina) form.

Perhaps you have forgotten St. Augustine’s maxim: In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. This specific example appears to be in the category of “doubtful” at best.

" your “could be considered” phrasing is a well-known weasel-word construction that everyone understands perfectly well is a hedged euphemism for “I think,”

I didn’t know that. I meant it as I said it, a possibility.

“You also misread the office of an imprimatur”

I said nothing about imprimatur.

It is apparent that our english and Faith are not the same.

I will pray for you and not return to this thread.

 

[KShaft]

crazzeto, I already answered that in the original post: stylistically, RSVCE is unattractive, in my own opinion, and substantively, it has several Catholic critics, imprimatur or not. (Its most prominent and pervasive fault as a reading bible is its attempted use of “inclusive language,” an enterprise that would be merely presumptuous if English had an appropriate neuter pronoun, and is positively detrimental without it, introducing number ambiguity.)

JM3, where to begin with you. With all due respect to Epistemes, my original post can’t be read as endorsing ESV, I haven’t endorsed it since, and I’m not endorsing it now. A few words about your accusation of sin are now in order, too. The original draft of my previous reply noted that your “could be considered” phrasing is a well-known weasel-word construction that everyone understands perfectly well is a hedged euphemism for “I think,” designed to preserve enough wiggle room to walk back if called on it. I deleted the passage because it seemed uncharitable. As your subsequent attempt to walk back from your point demonstrates, however, that was error; I should have called you on it right out of the gate. I also suggest that your unwillingness to straightforwardly say what you mean may explain why you misread my post as endorsing ESV. Someone who is accustomed to hiding his meaning behind his phrasing is apt to assume that everyone else’s writing is a potempkin village, too, and to accordingly peer around it in search of its hidden meaning rather than taking it for what it says. Or as U2 put it, more bluntly, “it’s no secret that a liar won’t believe anyone else.”

Your statement that you “accept the authority of the Catholic Church” states an obvious and uncontroverted position that can only be taken as an unsubtle (but, again, hedged) accusation that those who dispute your point do not. And the point in nominal service of which you state it is obscure: you say that you don’t accept the authority of St. Paul over the authority of the Catholic Church. This, too, is a straw man—something you seem to me making a habit of in this thread. For the point to have any bite, there would have to be conflict between St. Paul and the magisterium. You have not shown one.

Nor (more generally) have you cited any errors in translation which conflict with the teaching of the church. Genesis 22 doesn’t do the trick, because St. Paul himself, speaking through a passage endorsed by the Church in NABNT, endorses that reading.

Your position would be stronger had ESV been denied an imprimatur. To my knowledge, it has never been evaluated. You also misread the office of an imprimatur; it is a statement that a translation is not erroneous, containing “nothing contrary to faith or morals,” not that it is perfect (e.g. this (it “signif[ies] that, in the judgment of the bishop who grants the imprimatur, the work contains nothing contrary to faith and morals. However, the nihil obstat and imprimatur are not an endorsement and do not guarantee that the entire contents of a work are true”)). The only translation whose correctness can be argued to have been explicitly endorsed by the magisterium is the vulgate (see Council of Trent, 4th session), and the word it uses in the passage at issue is “semen”; that translates as “seed,” but the more important point for our purposes is that the vulgate uses the noun in its singular (semen), not plural (semina) form.

Perhaps you have forgotten St. Augustine’s maxim: In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. This specific example appears to be in the category of “doubtful” at best.

Stylistically the you dont like the RSV but like the ESV which is based on the RSV and well over 90% of the text is exactly the same… What…?
I have 3 or 4 copies of the RSV, 3 of em being the CE, one being a 1974 RSV. I also have an Allan ESV. Where the language is different, it is usually dumbed down in comparison to the RSV, taking out ‘Thee’s and Thou’s’ used When the Father or Christ speaks as well as some of it that is changed to a more blunt and in your face language and not a higher literary style. Likely for southern baptists to be able to read more easily and declare “JEZUSS HAS HEEEEELED YOUUUU!”
There is no DC books unless you buy the one Oxford version that are included as Apocrypha.
Dont get me wrong, I like it just fine, but its so much like the RSV for the most part, Id just rather read the one for Catholics.

Pope Benedict said non Catholic translations are fine to read just so long as they are not blatantly anti Catholic, meaning I think like a Mormon bible or 7 Dayer with notes saying “Catholics are the Devil!” Translations that don’t quite fall in line with ‘Catholic Dogma’ aren’t necessarily anti-Catholic.

It looks like you have already made up your mind, so why even ask?