Is ESV appropriate for Catholic study?

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opdsgt said:
Man, did I throw a hand grenade in here or what?! šŸ˜ƒ

All kidding aside, I certainly appreciate the passion individual forumites have for their respective positions.

I have a few more thoughts after my RCIA class last night. Before and after class as well as during the break, I had discussions with the head pastor and two deacons on the subject of this thread.

The consensus seemed to be this: while they acknowledged the ESV isnā€™t a C-E bible and it omits the Second Canon, they all thought the translation flowed and read well. After searching through some salient scripture passages, the group felt like the ESV read something like an ā€œRSV Lite.ā€

Father said it best last night when he told me, so long as I believe in the profession of the Catholic Faith (the creed) and so long as I engage in the sacraments, continue to strengthen my prayer life, worship on Sundays and HDofO, then it hardly matters what translation I use for day-in, day-out reading because (a) I have three C-E bibles at home for reference and (b) we have the magisterial teaching authority of the Church to help us clarify and understand the intent of the scriptures.

(I think thatā€™s a fair paraphrase of what Fr. told me last night.)
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Short of not having what you guys call the deuteroā€™s, I think you will enjoy the ESV.

If you look over at Sungenisā€™ website, you can search out a few questions where he admits the ESV or the NASB translates the various manuscripts more accurately than does the DR and Sungenis certainly isnā€™t a protestant.
 
Please stick to the topic raised by the OP. If other discussion is desired, please start a new thread.

Mane Nobiscum Domine,
Ferdinand Mary
 
opdsgt: One other option would be to get a Confraternity Bible form the 1960s.

The New Testament would be easier to read than the Douay Rheims and most of the Old Testament would be like the NAB except that Genesis would be a much better translation.

Not to mention that you wouldnā€™t be burdened by the objectionable footnotes of the NAB and it would be a Catholic bible to boot with NO inclusive language.
 
Jerry-Jet said:
opdsgt: One other option would be to get a Confraternity Bible form the 1960s.

The New Testament would be easier to read than the Douay Rheims and most of the Old Testament would be like the NAB except that Genesis would be a much better translation.

Not to mention that you wouldnā€™t be burdened by the objectionable footnotes of the NAB and it would be a Catholic bible to boot with NO inclusive language.
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I do not have a Confraternity Bible, but some of my family members do. In terms of how easy it is to read, I would say it is more difficult to read than the RSV-CE.
 
porthos11 said:
Argumentum ad antiquitatem.

Very well then. I therefore reject the Vulgate and Douay-Rheims as unfaithful to the inspired originals for claiming that the woman will crush the serpentā€™s head. It is very clear that it is the Messiah who crushes the serpentā€™s head.
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I guess no one called this bluff.
 
That can only be proved if you can with 100% certainty authenticate the exact words that were first written by those who were divinely inspired.

The exact manuscript that they wrote on would be proof.

What amazes me is the notion by some that copyist errors can only occurr according to some people by non Hebrew copyists.

Why is that?

Regardless even IF it is true that the Messiah crushes the serpentā€™s head the woman indirectly crushes the serpenrtā€™s head and Eveā€™s offsringā€“which include the Messiah do crush the womanā€™s head.

Both statements can be true.

Which only goes to show that a bible can have errors in it without having errors in regards to faith and morals and other bibles can have errors which do have to do with faith and morals.

Such errors would certainly involve sacraments such as confession and absolution which is a part of it.

In other words there are errors and then there are errors.

The least amount of errors and the least eggregious of errors would make for a comparatively better bible translation.

So Iā€™ll call the bluff with thisā€“the alleged he/she error in Genesis is less eggregious than the alleged ā€œIn the presenceā€ versus ā€œin the personā€ error in 2 Corinthians 2:10.

That is just my opinion. I repsect other peopleā€™s opinion.

To be sureā€“no bible is perfectā€“different ones can fill different peopleā€™s needs.

It is much better for a person to read the ESV than no bible at all.

Really you have to read alot of different bibles. If anyone does that and listens to the magisterium of the Catholic Churchā€“they will find the truth!
 
My ESV has arrived. I started reading it, and I like it a lot! It does flow very well. I know that I will enjoy it. The one I bought is the Classic Reference Edition by Crossway, ISBN 1-58134-317-5. I also ordered the free CD-ROM that anybody can get after purchasing the Bible. I should have the CD-ROM in about 6 weeks.
 
Good to hear, Lak.

Since Iā€™ve had mine a few weeks, Iā€™ve double checked it against some of the Catholic apologist teachings of John Martignoni and Father Larry Richards as Iā€™ve listened to their audio downloads and CDs. So far, Iā€™ve not found any passage in the NT that is what Iā€™d call unfaithful to the Catholic position or teaching. Of course, the ESV lacks the Deuterocanon, but weā€™ve already flogged that horse.

šŸ‘
 
opdsgt said:
Man,
Father said it best last night when he told me, so long as I believe in the profession of the Catholic Faith (the creed) and so long as I engage in the sacraments, continue to strengthen my prayer life, worship on Sundays and HDofO, then it hardly matters what translation I use for day-in, day-out reading because (a) I have three C-E bibles at home for reference and (b) we have the magisterial teaching authority of the Church to help us clarify and understand the intent of the scriptures.

(I think thatā€™s a fair paraphrase of what Fr. told me last night.)
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Amen I agree 100% with the priest:thumbsup:
I also use Catholic & Protestant translations.
 
opdsgt said:
This is something of a more in-depth question than the subject line would indicate, so please bear with meā€¦

Okay, I understand the main difference between a Catholic Edition bible and an everyday Protestant translation is the inclusion of the Deuterocanonical books of the OT in the later.

Well, I recently browsed an ESV bible at the local Parable bookstore and found it to be an elegant yet easy to read translation. Still, I didnā€™t purchase it.

Back home, Oxford NAB Study Bible in hand, I read the NT in a month and am now working my way through the OT. My intention is to go back to the NT with a specific emphasis on the Gospels when Iā€™m done with the whole bible.

MY QUESTION FOR THE FORUMITES IS THIS: considering that I will have read the whole bible cover to cover in a Catholic-appropriate translation, is there anything inherently wrong with my using an ESV for my study of the Gospels and other NT letters afterwards?

Thanks so much,

Jeff
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To my knowledge the ESV has no Nihil Obstat or Imprimatur or Bishops Committee approval. Therefore makes it unacceptable to read and study for Catholics. Unless someone does have documentation of Church approval of the ESV
 
opdsgt said:
MY QUESTION FOR THE FORUMITES IS THIS: considering that I will have read the whole bible cover to cover in a Catholic-appropriate translation, is there anything inherently wrong with my using an ESV for my study of the Gospels and other NT letters afterwards?
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I hope not. I do. šŸ™‚

Although they are all gethered up at the end of the Bible, they also publish an edition with the deuterocanonical books, including those used by some Eastern Orthodox byt not by the Roman Catholic Church.

Gary
 
Jerry-Jet said:
The value in studying the ESV would be to see all the places where it gets the scriptures wrong so you can help people who donā€™t know any better change to a Catholic version on the way to the fullness of truth.
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In other discussions of this translation, the only objection I have seen raised to the ESV is that it renders 1 Tim 3:15 ā€œwhich is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truthā€ rather than ā€œthe pillar.ā€ However, this is more accurate since the Greek does not use the definite article. (A while back I started a thread on this issue.)

Gary
 
garysibio said:
In other discussions of this translation, the only objection I have seen raised to the ESV is that it renders 1 Tim 3:15 ā€œwhich is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truthā€ rather than ā€œthe pillar.ā€ However, this is more accurate since the Greek does not use the definite article. (A while back I started a thread on this issue.)

Gary
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How do you figure??? I am sure that the ESV is a wonderful Bible. The fact remains it has no official approval by the Catholic Church means that it isnā€™t sufficient to read and study. You seem like a knowledgeable man. Why does one insist on reading non approved religious material???
 
porthos11 said:
Well, for one it says that the Church is ā€œaā€ pillar and foundation of truth, rather than ā€œtheā€ā€¦

True, the Greek doesnā€™t have the definite article, but inserting ā€œaā€ [there is no indefinite article in Greek] is akin to the JWā€™s inserting ā€œaā€ in John 1:1. If you donā€™t want to include ā€œtheā€, then a suitable translation is ā€œthe Church of the living God, pillar and foundation of the truthā€. So by context, ā€œtheā€ belongs naturally before ā€œpillarā€. One must keep in mind that ā€œtheā€ does not match 1-to-1 with the Greek definite article, and so the English may include ā€œtheā€ when the context says so, as in this case.
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I have to disagree with you here. It is my understanding that, since there is no indefinite article, it gets inserted where needed. The problem with the JW translation of John 1:1 was that the Greek literally reads ā€œGod was the wordā€ (carm.org/religious-movements/jehovahs-witnesses/john-11-word-was-god)

The use of the indefinite article in 1 Tim 3:15 is not a problem for Catholics if you think about it. Itā€™s not like we consider the Church to be over the Bible in the sense that we are free to disregard it.

Gary
 
Reformed1 said:
By the way, the Latin Vulgate could be free from all error and that still would not mean the DR or any other translation based on the LV would ipso facto be free from all error.
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Amen!

Trent decreed that the Vulgate was free from all doctrinal error. It did not say that it was free from translation errors and it certainly doesnā€™t say that translations made from the Vulgate are without error, regardless of their accuracy.

Also, the Vulgate has been changed since Trent so anything they had to say about it could be said to apply only to the version they used at the time.

It just doesnā€™t make any sense to make our translations from a translation. If someone is fluent in Latin, fine, read the Vulgate but Iā€™d rather there be as few steps between the original and what Iā€™m reading as possible.

Gary
 
garysibio said:
Amen!

Trent decreed that the Vulgate was free from all doctrinal error. It did not say that it was free from translation errors and it certainly doesnā€™t say that translations made from the Vulgate are without error, regardless of their accuracy.

Also, the Vulgate has been changed since Trent so anything they had to say about it could be said to apply only to the version they used at the time.

It just doesnā€™t make any sense to make our translations from a translation. If someone is fluent in Latin, fine, read the Vulgate but Iā€™d rather there be as few steps between the original and what Iā€™m reading as possible.

Gary
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I agree the that the Vulgate has changed since the Council of Trent. I feel the Nova Vulgata is a bit on the liberal side. I beg to differ. St. Jerome had the most accurate and oldest manuscripts. We cannot prove that the new ā€œoriginalā€ manuscripts are more accurate or older than those that St. Jerome used. Latin however is more accurate than any English translations. For those who donā€™t think the Vulgate or Douay-Rheims is good enough, I will say I donā€™t think that any translation released after the Ronald Knox Translation is good enough. Many faults I see with it. Matthew 18:11 is one. How many times can you find that verse in the RSV-CE, NAB, JB, NJB, NRSV. The answer is none. It has been relegated to a footnote. Luke 1:28 in most of these translations from above donā€™t translate it right either. The RSV is almost correct, yet it omits blessed art thou among women at the end of Luke 1:28.
 
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