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Augustine3
Guest
Why do most Catholic bibles not have the translation “full of grace” especially since we derive the Hail Mary prayer from this verse?
- Status
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Nate13
Guest
Ignatius Catholic Bible does. How Catholic is your bible? The other translations are not exactly wrong, however they do work to distort the complete meaning of what is being said. I don’t think any English translation is capable of providing the full meaning though.
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Lancer
Guest
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JM3
Guest
Douay-Rheims
Luke 1:28 - ‘And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.’
The Douay-Rheims is the standard by which I read other bibles.
Luke 1:28 - ‘And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.’
The Douay-Rheims is the standard by which I read other bibles.
J
jamesrussell49
Guest
Good question. I have a protestant (NASB) that says “greetings, favored one!”. Looking at the underlying greek from the “Zondervan NASB
Exhaustive Concordance”, the entry used for “favored one” (5487) says “from 5485; to make graceful, endow with grace”… yea, how catholic is your catholic bible? my Douay-Rheims and RSV both say “Hail, full of Grace” Don’t know what the new american says. I was given one in RCIA class, but I asked if I could exchange it for the RSV.
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Khalid
Guest
Because most Catholic Bibles are less Catholic than the King James Version (that may be a bad example: the Geneva Bible is more Catholic than most, the King James is a perfectly fine version). The NAB and NJB are prime examples of this and should be avoided at all costs. For Catholics, the best translation is the DRC, followed by the Confraternity, (then the Knox, which is a dynamic translation, but still faithful, so I’ve put it in parentheses if you’re looking for literal translations), then the RSV-2CE and the NT of the RSV-CE, especially as present in the twelve-volume Navarre Bible. I would put the Orthodox Study Bible above the RSV-2CE but below the Confraternity, if you can stand a note in Matthew that speaks against the Papacy (but is self-refuting when compared to the very next note). It’s much more faithful, and five orders of magnitude more faith-affirming, than something like the NAB.
Luke 1:28 is the entire Scriptural basis for the immaculate conception, and is very important, but one shouldn’t be fooled in to thinking a Bible is faithful because it has “virgin” at Is 7:14 and “full of grace” at Lk 1:28, although they are important (every faithful Bible has “virgin” in Isaiah, but a few good Bibles - the KJV, NKJV, and Orthodox Bible - don’t have “full of grace”, although it’s footnoted in the Orthodox Bible): the publishers caught on and have started making those two verses faithful, like the RSV-2CE, while leaving other erring translations in (cf Gen 22:18, Psalm 2:7, Psalm 16:10).
The NAB, NABRE, NJB, etc. should be stayed far away from, the NAB more than anything else. There is no Bible more dangerous and poisonous to the faith available than the various NABs: it is truly sad it can be called a “Catholic Bible” and receive the imprimatur (although the imprimatur is granted to anything today that the scholars want to print): only the “Skeptic’s Bible”, which annotates every book of the Bible attempting to point out errors, absurdities, and contradictions, blaspheming and profaning every page along the way, is any more skeptical towards the Bible (the NAB does the same thing in many books, especially the Pentateuch and the Gospels). One only has to read the horrid rendering of the first two verses of Genesis, which blow centuries of tradition out of the water, along with a very important intertextualism/typology, along with a Scriptural parallel to the Kalam cosmological argument, one of the best arguments for God’s existence, along with a foreshadowing of the Trinity, along with the annotation (which calls it a myth, says the author believed the world to be like a snowglobe, calls Genesis a plagiarism from the Enuma Elish, and introduces the “documentary hypothesis” to demonstrate that Genesis 1 and 2 are in direct contradiction [which they are not]) to realize you’re dealing with a bad translation - all of that is on THE FIRST PAGE ALONE.
The “NAB” that’s read at Mass (the “Second New Revised Amended New American Bible” or something similar, name of my own making) is much more faithful - it was forced to be brought in to compliance with Christianity and tradition by the Vatican before approval was granted to use it liturgically - but can not be purchased in Bible form, only as a lectionary, which includes less than 1/3 of the entire Bible.
The original Jerusalem Bible is alright, and can be used in a pinch, although I still wouldn’t recommend it, and the new Orthodox Bible with the Brenton’s LXX-based OT and the NKJV NT is excellent (“full of grace” is footnoted, but wasn’t allowed in the text for licensing reasons).
Many Protestant translations, amongst them, the KJV, NKJV, NASB, and ESV are more Catholic and faithful than the NAB, which is marred and corrupted beyond all repair by an overweening modernism, skepticism, anti-supernaturalism (i.e. prophecy and miracles are held to be a priori impossible), liberalism, and the taking as Gospel truth and foregone conclusions the documentary hypothesis and the much-debated two-source Q hypothesis. Due to these considerations (the documentary hypothesis), the order of verses are actually rearranged (“conjecturally emended”) in the OT in order to introduce contradictions where no contradiction exists (this is very noticeable in the story of Joseph in Genesis).
Luke 1:28 is the entire Scriptural basis for the immaculate conception, and is very important, but one shouldn’t be fooled in to thinking a Bible is faithful because it has “virgin” at Is 7:14 and “full of grace” at Lk 1:28, although they are important (every faithful Bible has “virgin” in Isaiah, but a few good Bibles - the KJV, NKJV, and Orthodox Bible - don’t have “full of grace”, although it’s footnoted in the Orthodox Bible): the publishers caught on and have started making those two verses faithful, like the RSV-2CE, while leaving other erring translations in (cf Gen 22:18, Psalm 2:7, Psalm 16:10).
The NAB, NABRE, NJB, etc. should be stayed far away from, the NAB more than anything else. There is no Bible more dangerous and poisonous to the faith available than the various NABs: it is truly sad it can be called a “Catholic Bible” and receive the imprimatur (although the imprimatur is granted to anything today that the scholars want to print): only the “Skeptic’s Bible”, which annotates every book of the Bible attempting to point out errors, absurdities, and contradictions, blaspheming and profaning every page along the way, is any more skeptical towards the Bible (the NAB does the same thing in many books, especially the Pentateuch and the Gospels). One only has to read the horrid rendering of the first two verses of Genesis, which blow centuries of tradition out of the water, along with a very important intertextualism/typology, along with a Scriptural parallel to the Kalam cosmological argument, one of the best arguments for God’s existence, along with a foreshadowing of the Trinity, along with the annotation (which calls it a myth, says the author believed the world to be like a snowglobe, calls Genesis a plagiarism from the Enuma Elish, and introduces the “documentary hypothesis” to demonstrate that Genesis 1 and 2 are in direct contradiction [which they are not]) to realize you’re dealing with a bad translation - all of that is on THE FIRST PAGE ALONE.
The “NAB” that’s read at Mass (the “Second New Revised Amended New American Bible” or something similar, name of my own making) is much more faithful - it was forced to be brought in to compliance with Christianity and tradition by the Vatican before approval was granted to use it liturgically - but can not be purchased in Bible form, only as a lectionary, which includes less than 1/3 of the entire Bible.
The original Jerusalem Bible is alright, and can be used in a pinch, although I still wouldn’t recommend it, and the new Orthodox Bible with the Brenton’s LXX-based OT and the NKJV NT is excellent (“full of grace” is footnoted, but wasn’t allowed in the text for licensing reasons).
Many Protestant translations, amongst them, the KJV, NKJV, NASB, and ESV are more Catholic and faithful than the NAB, which is marred and corrupted beyond all repair by an overweening modernism, skepticism, anti-supernaturalism (i.e. prophecy and miracles are held to be a priori impossible), liberalism, and the taking as Gospel truth and foregone conclusions the documentary hypothesis and the much-debated two-source Q hypothesis. Due to these considerations (the documentary hypothesis), the order of verses are actually rearranged (“conjecturally emended”) in the OT in order to introduce contradictions where no contradiction exists (this is very noticeable in the story of Joseph in Genesis).
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Khalid
Guest
I read Bibles in comparison to the Greek (for both Old and New Testaments, not the Hebrew), and often check to see how it was interpreted by St Jerome as represented by the Clemintina, and by the modern Church as represented by the Nova, Vulgatae.
However, on this account, the Douay-Rheims is still one of the best and most accurate, if not the best, Bible translation in English. The only other English Bibles that can compare for accuracy are the Confraternity NT and the King James Version (which errs in only one place, Lk 1:28).
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jamesrussell49
Guest
My NASB was the best I ever had. Missing somes books now that I’m Catholic, but certainly pretty reliable. I now have a RSV-2CE which I have hoped is an equivalent work. I found the DR, while faithful, to be just too KJVish to be a good read for me… Never heard of the Confraternity… :newidea:
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Khalid
Guest
The Confraternity is based on the DRC, and has “thees and thous”, but the grammar and syntax is updated to make it much more readable in modern English. The Confraternity NT is excellent. The NT-only version is available only in a small pocket edition from Scepter Publishers, which is single-column. It’s not too small to read, but I still prefer a larger Bible.
It’s kind of like the RSV or old NASB in that sense, that when it retains “thees and thous” (in reference to the Trinity) it doesn’t make it any harder to understand. The Jacobean pronouns aren’t what make the DRC and KJV challenging: it’s the archaic grammar and syntax, and to a lesser degree the vocabulary.
The Knox Bible is a dynamic equivalent Bible that is faithful, and sort of rare, but it’s by far the best “easy to read” Catholic Bible, and gets all of it right - it’s just a loose rendering, and I prefer literal versions on principle, as dynamic versions usually don’t get it right - Knox is the odd man out.
There is a partial Confraternity OT which was never finished which is pretty good, but it was a forerunner to the NAB, so the diction and English style is lousy, like the NAB, but it still is faithful (although the Confraternity Psalms suck). The CCD OT has a good amount of annotation, and in it, you can see what the NAB may have looked like if it had remained faithful and Christian instead of hyper-modernist and skeptical - and what you see doesn’t look bad at all, even if the prosody leaves much to be desired.
There are many Bibles that have part of the Confraternity OT, the entire Confraternity NT, and the balance of books in the Douay version, with many different combinations of books, but all have the full CCD NT and are of larger size. Any that are published no later than 1963 are good: the most commonly available are the various “St Joseph New Catholic Bible” editions, which can be found by searching Amazon for “confraternity-douay”.
These three - the DRC, CCD, and Knox - are the Trifecta, the Triumvirate, of good and faithful Catholic Bibles, listed in order of literalness. As I’ve mentioned, many others are still usable (the OSB especially comes to mind, as does NETS, the KJV, the NKJV NT, the RSV-2CE, the NT of the RSV-CE, the OT of the ESV with Apocrypha).
The RSV-2CE is above average when it comes to Catholic Bibles, but still not excellent, as you can see in Psalm 16:10 (“your faithful to see the pit” - it’s supposed to be “your holy one to see corruption”, and is a linchpin of OT exegesis in Hebrews), in several places in Genesis (as I said, the “seed promises” to Abraham), in 2 Corinthians 2:10 (“in the presence of Christ” instead of “in the person”), so on: overall, it’s a good Bible for reading, and is not objectionable, off the top of the head, outside of those passages that I’ve mentioned, like the NAB is.
And, properly, it does have “only-begotten” for “monogenes” is Jn 3:16, which is of great importance. “Only Son” is not only a poor translation, it’s incorrect, and introduces contradiction (because there are many sons of God, including Israel, but only one begotten Son of God). This is, more than any other verse, a deal-breaker for me if it is wrong: I absolutely will not read a version that does not have the word “begotten” in John 3:16. Great battles were fought for this point, as evidenced by the First Council of Nicaea. It can not be abandoned, while we claim to retain the Nicene Faith that the Fathers fought so hard for.
In case anyone didn’t get that link, a short exposition of the matter is present at bible-researcher.com/only-begotten.html
It’s kind of like the RSV or old NASB in that sense, that when it retains “thees and thous” (in reference to the Trinity) it doesn’t make it any harder to understand. The Jacobean pronouns aren’t what make the DRC and KJV challenging: it’s the archaic grammar and syntax, and to a lesser degree the vocabulary.
The Knox Bible is a dynamic equivalent Bible that is faithful, and sort of rare, but it’s by far the best “easy to read” Catholic Bible, and gets all of it right - it’s just a loose rendering, and I prefer literal versions on principle, as dynamic versions usually don’t get it right - Knox is the odd man out.
There is a partial Confraternity OT which was never finished which is pretty good, but it was a forerunner to the NAB, so the diction and English style is lousy, like the NAB, but it still is faithful (although the Confraternity Psalms suck). The CCD OT has a good amount of annotation, and in it, you can see what the NAB may have looked like if it had remained faithful and Christian instead of hyper-modernist and skeptical - and what you see doesn’t look bad at all, even if the prosody leaves much to be desired.
There are many Bibles that have part of the Confraternity OT, the entire Confraternity NT, and the balance of books in the Douay version, with many different combinations of books, but all have the full CCD NT and are of larger size. Any that are published no later than 1963 are good: the most commonly available are the various “St Joseph New Catholic Bible” editions, which can be found by searching Amazon for “confraternity-douay”.
These three - the DRC, CCD, and Knox - are the Trifecta, the Triumvirate, of good and faithful Catholic Bibles, listed in order of literalness. As I’ve mentioned, many others are still usable (the OSB especially comes to mind, as does NETS, the KJV, the NKJV NT, the RSV-2CE, the NT of the RSV-CE, the OT of the ESV with Apocrypha).
The RSV-2CE is above average when it comes to Catholic Bibles, but still not excellent, as you can see in Psalm 16:10 (“your faithful to see the pit” - it’s supposed to be “your holy one to see corruption”, and is a linchpin of OT exegesis in Hebrews), in several places in Genesis (as I said, the “seed promises” to Abraham), in 2 Corinthians 2:10 (“in the presence of Christ” instead of “in the person”), so on: overall, it’s a good Bible for reading, and is not objectionable, off the top of the head, outside of those passages that I’ve mentioned, like the NAB is.
And, properly, it does have “only-begotten” for “monogenes” is Jn 3:16, which is of great importance. “Only Son” is not only a poor translation, it’s incorrect, and introduces contradiction (because there are many sons of God, including Israel, but only one begotten Son of God). This is, more than any other verse, a deal-breaker for me if it is wrong: I absolutely will not read a version that does not have the word “begotten” in John 3:16. Great battles were fought for this point, as evidenced by the First Council of Nicaea. It can not be abandoned, while we claim to retain the Nicene Faith that the Fathers fought so hard for.
In case anyone didn’t get that link, a short exposition of the matter is present at bible-researcher.com/only-begotten.html
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Khalid
Guest
Only the RSV-CE has “full of grace” - the regular one doesn’t. And the original RSV-CE doesn’t have “virgin” in Isaiah, or “begotten” in John 3:16.
However, just like every other verse in the NAB, it’s the worst and least Catholic rendering imaginable - “hail, favored one”. No one actually needs a copy of the NAB, because if you have to ask how a verse would be rendered like in the NAB and what the note would say, just ask yourself how the Jesus Seminar would render it and what it would say about it, and there you have it. There is not a single place where the NAB or NABRE has a superior rendering, and there are hundreds of places where it has inferior or objectively incorrect renderings. It combines at-best mediocre renderings with astoundingly bad ones (i.e. it’s useless).
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Khalid
Guest
Here’s the Pocket Confraternity NT:
amazon.com/Testament-Challoner-Rheims-Confraternity-Christian-Doctrine/dp/0933932774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837262&sr=8-1
And various Confraternity-Douay Bibles with the full Confraternity NT:
amazon.com/HOLY-BIBLE-Confraternity-Version/dp/B001BJOY7O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837249&sr=8-2
amazon.com/Saint-Joseph-Holy-Bible-Confraternity/dp/B000AV47ZS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837249&sr=8-1
amazon.com/Saint-Joseph-Catholic-Bible-Testament/dp/B000UIOHO2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837294&sr=8-2
amazon.com/SAINT-JOSEPH-CATHOLIC-BIBLE-Confraternity-Douay/dp/B000PHVJMQ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837294&sr=8-7
I only listed the cheaper ones, below $20. I got mine for $7.32 and it was in very good physical condition for a 50-year-old book, leather over hardcover. You can find older ones with less Confraternity OT or in more rare editions or ones that are still brand-new even 50 years old for $100, but the ones listed are just as good in the text, just editions that were more popular, so there are still more of them around.
There’s a new full Confraternity Bible in hardcover published by Sinag-Tala in the Philippines, but their site is so insecure I would never order from it (it’s not even encrypted at all), or would I recommend you order through the site if you value having your credit card and identity, and the Bible itself is very short, squat and thick with pretty large print that makes the formatting look weird. It’s only $24 + $7 for shipping to America, I think.
amazon.com/Testament-Challoner-Rheims-Confraternity-Christian-Doctrine/dp/0933932774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837262&sr=8-1
And various Confraternity-Douay Bibles with the full Confraternity NT:
amazon.com/HOLY-BIBLE-Confraternity-Version/dp/B001BJOY7O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837249&sr=8-2
amazon.com/Saint-Joseph-Holy-Bible-Confraternity/dp/B000AV47ZS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837249&sr=8-1
amazon.com/Saint-Joseph-Catholic-Bible-Testament/dp/B000UIOHO2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837294&sr=8-2
amazon.com/SAINT-JOSEPH-CATHOLIC-BIBLE-Confraternity-Douay/dp/B000PHVJMQ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1321837294&sr=8-7
I only listed the cheaper ones, below $20. I got mine for $7.32 and it was in very good physical condition for a 50-year-old book, leather over hardcover. You can find older ones with less Confraternity OT or in more rare editions or ones that are still brand-new even 50 years old for $100, but the ones listed are just as good in the text, just editions that were more popular, so there are still more of them around.
There’s a new full Confraternity Bible in hardcover published by Sinag-Tala in the Philippines, but their site is so insecure I would never order from it (it’s not even encrypted at all), or would I recommend you order through the site if you value having your credit card and identity, and the Bible itself is very short, squat and thick with pretty large print that makes the formatting look weird. It’s only $24 + $7 for shipping to America, I think.
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Huiou_Theou
Guest
In those quotes, you have emphasized well the parts to meditate on.
Often in scripture, one can find (even in the OT) the phrase “If I have found grace/favor in your sight, …”; So I don’t think Scott Hahn really goes far enough in his analysis. The meaning of grace even in the OT is more than an “I like ya” – and isn’t just a NT development.
Looking at the translation “full of Grace” and the other side of it – “blessed art thou among women.” touched on by the derived “Hail Mary” –
Looking at that translation, again, I am struck also by one of the OT readings recently read from at mass (Leading up to today’s readings about Christ the King, and implicitly his mother the queen…). And I think it good to point out that even though the immaculate conception is tied “only” (in many people’s minds) to Luke 1:28 – that Luke himself is drawing on a traditions from the OT when describing Mary, Elizabeth, and the intertwining of their pregnancies in the visitation from the 7th month to the 9th month (3 months period, which is a time of judgment and alibi for the purposes of Law and also there is Christ in their midst.)
This wisdom chapter is so peculiar to the “woman” of Hebrew prophecy and scripture:
Prove 31:1 The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy/vision that his mother taught him.
…
Proverbs is a wisdom literature and something special to look at when considering the meaning of Luke 1:28.
In the Ronald Knox version, proverbs 31: is shown clearly to be the introduction to an alphabet poem; with each verse starting with one of the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet (which is shorter than the English one) and is a memorization aid for a child about the lesson. This is the character of a Royal woman to be married to a prince/king not that of a “poor” woman – yet the revelation is the same for both:
In Israel’s history, there are some very special women who taught lessons to Israel’s children; The Judge Jael – who governed Israel as a prophet and who (as opposed to man) was not allowed to bloody her hands in battle but was held to a higher standard with divine intervention so that a defiled woman carried out the bloodshed; but Jael carried out only God’s word.
Here in Proverbs 31, the ideal characteristics of such woman are spoken of – not as a man’s over-lording – but from the mouth of a true feminist, pleasing in God’s sight. Women owned property (Proverbs 31:16) in the promised land and their marriages, then, also steered the inheritance of the promised land (The Vineyard, Israel), into the hands of their husband’s children.
It is her justice that completes her husband’s reputation: (Proverbs 31:23)
and she speaks with the feminine wisdom and temperance; (Proverbs 31:26)
This woman, however, is the one specially called blessed among women (Proverbs 31:28) by her children.
Curiously enough, both the KJV and the Douay Rheems translate Prove 31:30 “Favor is decietful”, and the Vulgate says: “Fallax gratia” – but the Greek LXX says:
Prove 31:30 ψευδεις αρεσκειαι και ματαιον καλλος γυναικος γυνη γαρ συνετη ευλογειται φοβον δε κυριου αυτη αινειτω
and nowhere does the root of the word(s) “grace/joy” ( χαρ… or χαιρ-…) even appear like they do twice in Luke 1:28.
Grace is a relationship. It is “please” and “thank you” both.
So … when Scott Hahn speaks of it being a “substance”; I think he is sort of letting one idea bleed into or represent another; and is focusing on a metaphorical or synecdic interpretation of the word.
The word shows up in eucharist; and we (Catholics) talk about that as substance.
The eu-charis-t eu–t (to-well-thank or the-good-gift) is understood to trans-substantiate (change/cross- under-standing) when it is consecrated and confected;
Eg: when the “Holy Spirit” comes upon the substance of bread and the “word” (logos/logic) spoken in command by the Christ; (Both are required) and then the bread is trans-substantiated into the flesh and blood of the covenant.
But it isn’t “atoms” or “substance” in the modern chemical connotation that is meant; rather it is the “understanding” itself in the sense of a relationship (eg: we have an “understanding” in American parlance) which IS meant.
In the Latin mass, (tridentine), the priest makes the gesture of the cross over the bread three times (the third indicative of an epiclesis) blessing the bread; and then at the words of institution (logos/logic) the trans-substantiation occurs. In the Eastern rites, the word is spoken first – and then at the epiclesis, the trans-substantiation is said to occur. Both parts are necessary for the eu-charis-t to come into being (this perfect grace):
I don’t know how to express my idea very well, but only to say that Hahn’s usage of “substance” sort of falls short of making the scriptural connection clear; eg: the truth of the eucharist is summed up in the pithy saying:
Man does not live on bread alone but on every word (logos) that falls from the mouth of God.
To explain/understand this saying, all I can point to is that:
Matter/chaos/things must be formed LOGICALLY to become rational and/or relational. Substance must meet hypostasis in order to BE “grace”. However, that necessarily means that grace is more than just “substance”
The deep philosophical ideas inherent in Luke 1:28 are simply difficult to translate without studying their relationship to the whole of the OT prophetic tradition which is fulfilled in the new testament eucharistic covenant. Shallow scholarship, and even good scholarship, are at a disadvantage when confronted with translating such a totality of meaning in one sentence. How does one, in English, really nail the point home that Grace is a two way “relationship” and not just a “thing” ?
J
johnbres2
Guest
I am not sure anyone here has answered the original posted question, as to why most Catholic Bible do not say Hail, full of grace" in Luke 1:28. The answer is that it has nothing to do whether it is a “Catholic Bible” or not; it has to do with what Bible and Greek/Hebrew scholars think is the most accurate translation. As far as I know, none of the posters in this thread were on the NAB translation committee. Yet, several people here throw out the implication that the NAB translators real intention was to throw you off the trail of truth, and to confuse you. This is really a silly accusation. Having read a great many critiques of the NAB, it seems the general concensus among Bible scolars is that it is a very good translation. I think the NABRE is a great Bible. Let’s not forget that the NAB exists because the Vatican wanted there to be Bibles that were capable of being used by all Christians. This meant that the translations should not be made with a pro-Catholic bias. Now, whatever you want to say about “full of grace” versus “favored one,” it is clear that reasonable scholars have come down on both sides of this issue. I have always thought that the best argument in favor of “favored one” is based on the grammatical context of the paragraph itself. It does not make sense that an angel would address someone by one of their attributes (“full of grace”) as opposed to their name. And the “grace” rendering has the awkward follow up of Mary having “found grace” with God. Clearly, someone finds favor with someone, not grace. That is, it makes more sense to say “Hail, favored person” than to say, “hail, graced person.” I have spent a lot of time hung up on this, rejecting bibles that did not say “full of grace,” etc. I have found getting all bent out of shape on this issue non-productive. I do not believe that one needs to think the angel said “full of grace” in order to have a fully developed Marian devotion. The fact is, that ALL modern translations say “favored one” or some variant on that. The RSV-CE is simply the RSV with some Catholicisms pasted onto them. In a sense, one cannot really buy the “full of grace” in the RSV-SE because it wasn’t actually in the RSV translation. Clearly, the Latin term was translated into “full of grace” but the vast majority of scholars do not think that the Greek translated into “full of grace.”
A
Augustine3
Guest
Thank you for answering my question.
I heard on one of Dr Scott Hahn’s CD’s the reason why the angel addressed Mary as full of grace is to demonstrate she is the only woman in the bible to be greeted with a title thus showing her greatness (of course given by God).
Brother in Christ,
T
thistle
Guest
I mostly use the D-R Bible but among the others I have is The NAB Catholic Study Bible including the revised Psalms and the revised New Testament.
Is that the good or the bad one?
K
Khalid
Guest
The “favored one” translation is poor and is motivated by doctrinal/ecumenical concerns and likely modernism/rejection of tradition as well. It is a valid rendering of the Greek, but it is not the best rendering: it would be a “B” level choice in BDAG. From someone who knows Attic and Koine Greek and has studied the Biblical languages extensively.
It’s obviously not motivated by good scholarship when it retains the Pericope Adulterae, unanimously considered for 150 years to be a late addition to the Bible, and not an original Jesus tradition, while translating other words in direct contravention of tradition, and in some cases, linguistics (“almah” doesn’t have to mean “young woman”, and “bethulah” doesn’t have to mean “virgin”: I think the JB’s handling of this, reading “maiden”, is a good compromise, but our Scriptural patrimony is the Greek OT as used by the Apostles, and the Hebrew Scriptures as interpreted by the Holy Spirit through the NT authors). The rendering of Gen 1:1-2 is just wrong on all accounts, and I can see no reason why it was translated that way, except, in a sense, to follow the “academic bandwagon” started by the NJPS Jewish translation and picked up by the NRSV, rendering “pneuma ho theos”/“ruach elohim” as “divine wind”, but “mighty wind”? No way! The words mean “wind, breath, spirit” and “God”. There is absolutely no precedent in any literature for using “elohim” or “theos” to mean “mighty”.
However, the problems with the NAB extends far, far beyond that one verse - a Bible can still be good and have “favored one” at Lk 1:28. Gen 1:1-2 reading, “In the beginning when God created heaven and earth…a mighty wind was blowing over the face of the water” is just plain wrong on all grounds. Emendation after emendation, new rendering after new rendering, cacophony after deafness to good prose, the NAB gets it wrong.
The NAB is full of bad renderings, theological error (I don’t know how this got past the censor), questionable authorship theories, anti-supernaturalist skepticism, modernism, annotation that clearly contradicts doctrinal teachings and the inspiration, authority, veracity, and historicity of Scripture, and “emendations” that introduce errors and contradictions when none exist in the original, nor in the versification followed in every other English Bible.
Given, the annotation is the lion’s share of what’s wrong with the NAB, but when the share is so large, the lion can eat it’s fill and still have a feast left over - the text still ranks in the lowest quartile of those available in English. Whether it was designed to throw one off the trail of truth or not, reading the annotation will shake or destroy the faith of anyone who’s not a Biblical scholar, and then, as I said, it’s shocking and scandalous to find such remarks in the pages of a Bible supposedly made for the rank-and-file simple faithful.
The much-maligned NRSV is honestly a much, much better translation (it’s really not that bad except for the gender-neutering). I can’t name three translations that are worse: the NWT is definitely one of them, and I think the MSG and Goodspeed are pretty bad too, and the NIV is bad in its own way - but none except for the NWT, that I have seen, are consistently as lowest-common-denominator as the NAB: all have some high point, or some redeeming quality. Either faithfulness, or accuracy, or beauty, or readability, or a few pithy turns of phrase (such as the excellent rendering of John 1:1 in the otherwise lousy NEB). The NAB has none.
Actually, one does find grace with God. And the language is, “hail, gracedly endued” or something similar for a hyper-literal translation. The context of Is 7:14 equally demands the sign from the Lord be a virgin, not an undifferentiated “young woman”, implicitly (in contrast with “virgin”) a slut, giving birth: one can’t rely on context in one passage and throw it out the window in another to suit one’s own preconceived notions of what the text should say, which is all the rage in modern Bibles: knowing what we want the Bible to say, and translating it to make sure it says it (which is why John 7:53-8:11 stays in and “virgin”, “full of grace”, “spirit of God”, “in the beginning”, “kiss the Son”, and “holy one see corruption” go out).
I don’t have to be on the translation committee, because I’ve read what they produced, and what they produced it from.
P.S. The Revised 1991 Psalms (in all NABs published between 1991 and May 2011) have been completely rejected by the Vatican for extreme use of horizontal and vertical inclusive language that falls just short of referring to “God Godself” instead of “God Himself”.
No edition of the NAB is worthwhile (outside of the NAB lectionary, which is far short of a Bible), but the best available is the 2010 OT and 2010 Psalms with the 1986 NT. The NAB Psalms are terrible, but so were the Confraternity Psalms before them.
If you want the “proto-NAB”, get a Bible with the Confraternity Old Testament from 1963 or later, which is more accurate to the original languages, a little more literal, much more faithful, with much less scandalous and speculative commentary that uncritically accepts the flavor of the day in higher criticism, but still retains the “NAB-like” sound (i.e. lack of good English) in such memorable turns of phrase as “God-Hero, Wonder-Counselor, Father-Forever” (that’s actually an extremely literal translation, on the level of an interlinear, in an overall dynamic translation).
It’s obviously not motivated by good scholarship when it retains the Pericope Adulterae, unanimously considered for 150 years to be a late addition to the Bible, and not an original Jesus tradition, while translating other words in direct contravention of tradition, and in some cases, linguistics (“almah” doesn’t have to mean “young woman”, and “bethulah” doesn’t have to mean “virgin”: I think the JB’s handling of this, reading “maiden”, is a good compromise, but our Scriptural patrimony is the Greek OT as used by the Apostles, and the Hebrew Scriptures as interpreted by the Holy Spirit through the NT authors). The rendering of Gen 1:1-2 is just wrong on all accounts, and I can see no reason why it was translated that way, except, in a sense, to follow the “academic bandwagon” started by the NJPS Jewish translation and picked up by the NRSV, rendering “pneuma ho theos”/“ruach elohim” as “divine wind”, but “mighty wind”? No way! The words mean “wind, breath, spirit” and “God”. There is absolutely no precedent in any literature for using “elohim” or “theos” to mean “mighty”.
However, the problems with the NAB extends far, far beyond that one verse - a Bible can still be good and have “favored one” at Lk 1:28. Gen 1:1-2 reading, “In the beginning when God created heaven and earth…a mighty wind was blowing over the face of the water” is just plain wrong on all grounds. Emendation after emendation, new rendering after new rendering, cacophony after deafness to good prose, the NAB gets it wrong.
The NAB is full of bad renderings, theological error (I don’t know how this got past the censor), questionable authorship theories, anti-supernaturalist skepticism, modernism, annotation that clearly contradicts doctrinal teachings and the inspiration, authority, veracity, and historicity of Scripture, and “emendations” that introduce errors and contradictions when none exist in the original, nor in the versification followed in every other English Bible.
Given, the annotation is the lion’s share of what’s wrong with the NAB, but when the share is so large, the lion can eat it’s fill and still have a feast left over - the text still ranks in the lowest quartile of those available in English. Whether it was designed to throw one off the trail of truth or not, reading the annotation will shake or destroy the faith of anyone who’s not a Biblical scholar, and then, as I said, it’s shocking and scandalous to find such remarks in the pages of a Bible supposedly made for the rank-and-file simple faithful.
The much-maligned NRSV is honestly a much, much better translation (it’s really not that bad except for the gender-neutering). I can’t name three translations that are worse: the NWT is definitely one of them, and I think the MSG and Goodspeed are pretty bad too, and the NIV is bad in its own way - but none except for the NWT, that I have seen, are consistently as lowest-common-denominator as the NAB: all have some high point, or some redeeming quality. Either faithfulness, or accuracy, or beauty, or readability, or a few pithy turns of phrase (such as the excellent rendering of John 1:1 in the otherwise lousy NEB). The NAB has none.
I probably am reading too much in to this, but if you look at that sentence, I think there’s some evidence of who’s writing it (ironically enough, here neutering the most exalted feminine language in the entire Bible!).
Actually, one does find grace with God. And the language is, “hail, gracedly endued” or something similar for a hyper-literal translation. The context of Is 7:14 equally demands the sign from the Lord be a virgin, not an undifferentiated “young woman”, implicitly (in contrast with “virgin”) a slut, giving birth: one can’t rely on context in one passage and throw it out the window in another to suit one’s own preconceived notions of what the text should say, which is all the rage in modern Bibles: knowing what we want the Bible to say, and translating it to make sure it says it (which is why John 7:53-8:11 stays in and “virgin”, “full of grace”, “spirit of God”, “in the beginning”, “kiss the Son”, and “holy one see corruption” go out).
I don’t have to be on the translation committee, because I’ve read what they produced, and what they produced it from.
P.S. The Revised 1991 Psalms (in all NABs published between 1991 and May 2011) have been completely rejected by the Vatican for extreme use of horizontal and vertical inclusive language that falls just short of referring to “God Godself” instead of “God Himself”.
No edition of the NAB is worthwhile (outside of the NAB lectionary, which is far short of a Bible), but the best available is the 2010 OT and 2010 Psalms with the 1986 NT. The NAB Psalms are terrible, but so were the Confraternity Psalms before them.
If you want the “proto-NAB”, get a Bible with the Confraternity Old Testament from 1963 or later, which is more accurate to the original languages, a little more literal, much more faithful, with much less scandalous and speculative commentary that uncritically accepts the flavor of the day in higher criticism, but still retains the “NAB-like” sound (i.e. lack of good English) in such memorable turns of phrase as “God-Hero, Wonder-Counselor, Father-Forever” (that’s actually an extremely literal translation, on the level of an interlinear, in an overall dynamic translation).
K
Khalid
Guest
I might be reading too much in to this, but if you look at that sentence, I think there’s some evidence of who’s writing it (ironically enough, here neutering the most exalted feminine language in the entire Bible!).
Actually, one does find grace with God.
N
Nate13
Guest
I have to agree with you here. Just because “Hail, graced one” doesn’t sound all that great in English, doesn’t mean the phrase didn’t make complete sense in the original Greek or Aramaic. I would hope decisions on how to translate things are not made based on what rolls off the tongue the best in English. The new mass translation in English should be a good example of this. Many of the revisions are much more awkward to say than what we had before, but they more closely get across the meaning that was originally intended.
K
Khalid
Guest
It makes no sense in English to “she is having it in abdomen”, either, but that’s clearly what the Greek says when Mary became the Theotokos. It makes more sense to say, “her abdomen [became large] in [pregnancy]”, but that’s not what the Greek says - however, it’s an idiom that must be translated dynamically for it to make sense to the average Bible reader who’s not going to spend the 30 seconds needed to learn the idiom. Also, it sounds silly to us to say, “YHWH possessed nostrils enlarged” or “YHWH possessed nostrils made big” in English, but that’s what underlay, “And the LORD was angry” and “the LORD’s anger was kindled”.
And, “graced one” does make sense in English if the words are turned around, to say, “one endued with grace” - it translates rather well on a literal level, with no need for dynamizing the text.
And, “graced one” does make sense in English if the words are turned around, to say, “one endued with grace” - it translates rather well on a literal level, with no need for dynamizing the text.
H
Huiou_Theou
Guest
I took a whack at it.
Yes…
In the Rosary, the Benedictines later added “Mary” to the prayer. It did NOT originally contain her name.
It’s awkwardness is proof positive of it’s correctness when one studies the history of the words. Consider; if you re-read my post and read Proverbs 31; esp: comparing to Luke 1:28+1:42 “blessed art thou among women” (KJV, DR, NAB) vs. Proverbs 31:28 which is a vision/prophecy that applies most strongly to the Blessed Virgin; the tradition shows that she shall be called by the children of the resurrection “blessed”. What other woman is named this way by the children of the resurrection? (That includes angels, who are “son’s of God”.)
By having the angel call her “graced” (Lk 1:48) – the Angel fulfills the prophecy/vision of the woman in proverbs 31 which is holiness/blessedness NOT just favor.
Yes and no, grace isn’t a “thing” be located by chance.
But someone IS “graceful” which is far more accurate in English than is “favored”.
Hail, graceful! Hail thankful-one! Hail gifted-one!,
Hail pretty woman, (who is a virgin and not a whore!) The LORD is with YOU!
Grace means “thanks” and “gift” both;
I disagree. For Faith is a gift (grace). It is most proper to say of the woman who !!!believed!!!, that she was not just “favored” but responded. It would be more awkward in English, but possibly more correct, to say she “faithed” than to say she was “favored”. The reason, again, is that favor may be for a reason external to the person themselves; whereas a “graceful” and “faithful” woman implies there is something within her which responds to the one(s) observing her.
I can understand there being weaker translations; but I will respectfully disagree with you on this point. One needs to understand what grace means in order to have a fully developed Marian devotion. One may have a zealous devotion without understanding the meaning of Grace – but zeal is showy, external, and potentially shallow.
If one can clearly grasp that “favor” is not a one way gift but a relationship – then “favor” is also acceptable for it means “graceful”; but I don’t think favored necessarily means that in English.
The modern neo-vulgate doesn’t.
If you wish to do things for yourself by vote; that is your right. Believe what tickles your ears; But I have noticed that translating “grace” as “favor” uniformly in the Greek leads to sentences which do not have reasonable meanings in English; For scripture does say that we have received “grace” for “grace”; and if grace=favor that would mean it says we have received “favor” for “favor” !!!
BUT! We have not given something equal to what we have received! rather We have received a “gift” for the reason(or purpose) of “thanks”; Grace is both a gift and thanks and so can take on different aspects in the same sentence in the Original Greek; whereas in English we have no single word which really translates both meanings. I think it better to leave the translation awkward, and to teach the full meaning of the word “grace” than to substitute a word that implies half ignorance of the word’s meaning.
Hail, she who is permanently/perfectly full of thanks!
Hail, she who is permanently/perfectly full of Gift!
Christ said, one does not have life in them without eu-charis-t. Those who eu-charist. (have a good gift / thank God well) and know the meaning of grace.
As Mary says, immediately, when her blessing is recalled again:
Luke 1:45, Luke 1:46 “And Mary said; My soul doth magnify the LORD”.
(Showing thanks.)
Your brother in Christ,
–Andrew.
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