Most accurate english bible

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What is, in your opinion, the most accurate english translation of the vulgate?
 
I was not one to make many demands…however one thing I always said to my students was not to bring to my classroom a translation that was derived from a translation.
 
Confiteor_Deo said:
The Douay-Rheims Bible for sure.
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The D-R is the official English language translation of the Vulgate bible, by definition its the closest to the Vulgate.

Other translations of the Bible rely more heavily on other ancient scriptures in the original languages. The Vulgate is a Latin bible, the bible of course was written in Greek and Hebrew originally. A translation of the Vulgate is a translation of a translation, makes it a little more difficult, although obviously not impossible.
 
Don_Ruggero said:
I was not one to make many demands…however one thing I always said to my students was not to bring to my classroom a translation that was derived from a translation.
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That’s not altogether a bad idea, if as so often seems to happen, like the NAB, that the translation is “compared to the ancient texts.” DRB may be a literal translation of the Vulgate.

The direction of my Bible study has been by means of many Jewish commentaries, where the translation is always from the Hebrew, but with a comparison to other texts. Some of the commentaries’ authors sometimes substitute their own translation on the spot to clarify a point.

As Garry Wills points out in his book on the future of the Church under Pope Francis, he considers the Vulgate to be the worst idea that has ever come up in the Church. In Acts, people from different lands understood the preaching of the gospel in their own tongues. So, the decision to standardize on a single and also somewhat an obscure translation was the reversal of what happened at Pentecost.

It may be useful for historical purposes to study what the Vulgate says, no doubt. For me, lacking knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and koine Greek, I keep the 1985 (latest) English Jewish translation of the Masoretic text alongside my NAB and RSV-2CE. It never hurts to look at all of them.

It’s worth mentioning that Hebrew didn’t have vowels,punctuation, footnotes, both upper and lower case, footnotes, etc. and so any translation of the Catholic Bible rests on layers of tradition, both oral and written, as to what the Hebrew text actually says. In that 1985 JPS translation, there are frequent translator’s notes that the meaning of words or phrases is problematic – which seems to happen much less frequently in any Catholic Bible that I’ve read – thus revealing the Catholic tradition layered over everything else.

Is the D-R edition really worth it? I’m just not that familiar with it and with its commentary, called something like “Challoner” commentary.

I think there’s too little discussion of these things, but it’s probably not the place to start, for beginners.

On these forums, somebody once posted a site where it was available. anybody know?
 
sirach2v4 said:
That’s not altogether a bad idea, if as so often seems to happen, like the NAB, that the translation is “compared to the ancient texts.” DRB may be a literal translation of the Vulgate.

The direction of my Bible study has been by means of many Jewish commentaries, where the translation is always from the Hebrew, but with a comparison to other texts. Some of the commentaries’ authors sometimes substitute their own translation on the spot to clarify a point.

As Garry Wills points out in his book on the future of the Church under Pope Francis, he considers the Vulgate to be the worst idea that has ever come up in the Church. In Acts, people from different lands understood the preaching of the gospel in their own tongues. So, the decision to standardize on a single and also somewhat an obscure translation was the reversal of what happened at Pentecost.

It may be useful for historical purposes to study what the Vulgate says, no doubt. For me, lacking knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and koine Greek, I keep the 1985 (latest) English Jewish translation of the Masoretic text alongside my NAB and RSV-2CE. It never hurts to look at all of them.

It’s worth mentioning that Hebrew didn’t have vowels,punctuation, footnotes, both upper and lower case, footnotes, etc. and so any translation of the Catholic Bible rests on layers of tradition, both oral and written, as to what the Hebrew text actually says. In that 1985 JPS translation, there are frequent translator’s notes that the meaning of words or phrases is problematic – which seems to happen much less frequently in any Catholic Bible that I’ve read – thus revealing the Catholic tradition layered over everything else.
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But that wasn’t the real point of the Vulgate. By definition it was the most COMMON version. There had been an earlier Vetus Latina, whose origins are unknown. (There was a counterpart common Greek version as well.) In any case we don’t have a COMMON translation in English but we have a whole slew of English commentaries, each trying to be the authority on the Bible.

A serious student of the Bible will try to learn some Hebrew and Aramaic as you did so you are to be applauded for that.
 
Vulgate indicates it was translated into the Vulgar (i/e. Common) as opposed to Classical Latin, not that is was the most common version. Any first year Latin student knows that.
 
bhcordova said:
Vulgate indicates it was translated into the Vulgar (i/e. Common) as opposed to Classical Latin, not that is was the most common version. Any first year Latin student knows that.
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This says otherwise. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate

BTW Appendix Probi shows a few differences between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin. Mostly grammatical, but that’s to be expected.
 
The problem with the Vulgate is that your living with St. Jerome choices in terms of which text he uses. It seems that for example the version of Tobit that he used has some unique details that don’t exist in any Greek text that are available.
 
The only real use I can see for the Vulgate at the moment is that the entire corpus of Gregorian chant uses the Vulgate (although nowadays the neo-Vulgate is used for the psalms in the Mass and Divine Office; the antiphons, however, are from the Vulgate except maybe for a few neo-Gregorian pieces).

In chant, therefore, accuracy is sacrificed so the chant can convey a general feeling and mood about the verse being chanted. The patrimony of Chant is something well worth preserving and that means the Vulgate is here to stay.

For reading and study, at the moment I use the “Traduction liturgique de la Bible” in French (the liturgical translation as used for Mass and the Office). It’s in clear language, it’s easy to understand, and it is what is used in the liturgy. Sometimes I use the French Bible de Jérusalem. When I read the Bible in English, I use the RSV Catholic Edition.

One does have to keep in mind the purpose of the Bible for a general layman like myself: to nourish my conversion to Christ. IMHO, readability is more important than crossing every “t” and dotting every “i”, as long as we don’t use translations that introduce doctrinal error.

Obviously for a Bible scholar it’s a different matter and most likely a scholar will use different translations. However I doubt there will ever be a 100% accurate translation of the Bible.

Overall I agree that a translation of a translation is a bad idea, and I don’t particularly care for the D-R (or King James for that matter).
 
AndyP2014 said:
The problem with the Vulgate is that your living with St. Jerome choices in terms of which text he uses. It seems that for example the version of Tobit that he used has some unique details that don’t exist in any Greek text that are available.
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Supposedly the Nova Vulgata fixed all that. And again, Jerome’s Vulgate was built on top of the older Vulgate, the Vetus Latina, origins unknown. For all we know, Greeks may have had a lot to do with that.
 
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