NAB commentaries, why no outrage?

[Gottle_of_Geer]

SFH:

The NAB is actually an off-shoot of the Confraternity Edition published in the 1950s and 1960s. Psalms was done first based on Pius XII’s new Latin translation of the Hebrew text (the Vulgate Psalms is based on the Septuagint); then, Genesis through Ruth; next, Job through Sirach; next, Isaiah through Malachi; and finally, 1 Samuel through 2 Machabees. The entire Confraternity Old Testament (with some very minor changes to the text and a new translation of Genesis) was issued in 1970 along with a new translation of the New Testament under the title New American Bible. A revision of the New Testament came out in the 1980s and a revision of Psalms came out in the 1990s.

The NAB as such, yes ​

If one wants to go back before that, it comes from the intended revision of the Challoner Bible, which got as far as the NT (based on the Vulgate), then was “de-railed” in 1943 by Divino Afflante

I have a copy of the Gospels in harmony which was printed around then by the Confraternity of the Precious Blood. They also published an editions of the 1945 Psalter in English.

Where things get complicated in in the names: first these were based on the Septuagint-Vulgate names, such as Elias, Isaias; then by 1967 there were intermediate forms such as Elia, Isaiah; then after 1970, when the work you’ve described was finished and published as one volume, the forms were Elijah, Isaiah. I never can get used to Latinate names for OT characters - Ooliba for Aholibah, for example; but then I wasn’t brought upon a Bible which was based on a Greek or Latin version

TY v. much for the extra detail ##

Both translations of the NAB New Testament have an unfortunate tendancy to capitulate to protestant theologians in certain areas (e.g., the Angelic Salutation). The word “grace” that the NAB translates as “favor” in the Angelic Salutation can be translated as either grace or favor, and the NAB translates the Greek word as “grace” on several occasions in the New Testament. The word is conjugated in the superlative in the Angelic Salutation, so a literal rendering would be: “Rejoice, thou that wast and remainest most favored/graced.” Naturally, the most graced one can be is full of grace so the traditional Catholic translation is perfectly logical and acceptable.

On a side note, the reluctance to translate the Angelic Salutation as “full of grace” appears to be largely isolated to English bibles or Protestant bibles in other languages. For example, the French Jerusalem Bible (2001 ed.) translates the passage: “comblee de grace,” which roughly translates as “filled with grace.” Interestingly, neither the Jerusalem Bible or the New Jerusalem Bible retained this traditional language.

 

[TOME]

About the NAB commentaries, to be honest I haven’t read them however I have my own reason to prefer "Hail Favored One…"This is based on my own understanding of the greek term/phrased used, which is based on the word “Charis” which at times given the context of the particular passage would better translated as “Grace”. However, in Luke I think “Favor” is the better translation because it denotes more clearly the activity of God the Father. I wish to further explain, however, nature in the form of my dog is calling and I have to answer.(while I may not be following a moral imperative I and certainly responding to a practical imperitive!)

 

[lightoftheworld]

There is a simple reality with English Biblical translation and commentaries: the debate is one that goes into a larger one over the nature of Biblical interpretation in the Church.

As somebody who has respectful disagreements with what the majority of Biblical commentators will say or not say, I do give a lot of people credit where it is due: the NAB and the NJB do not reject Purgatory, however, they do not view it as directly taught by this verse in question (1 Corinth. 3, 10-15). This is an overly simplistic view and I do not think that this one verse in of itself doctrinally ties Catholic’s to believing it is the literal sense of the passage.

Purgatory, however, is consistent with the literal sense of the passage.

St. Paul cannot have believed explicitly in Purgatory with the same knowledge as we did as the Dogma had not been formulated it. Is purgatory consistent with the picture of Scripture? Yes. Is it explicitly in Scripture? No. And neither is the Trinity.

The issue, here, is greater: it has to do with the misunderstanding of the nature of Biblical scholarship using the historical-critical method. The historical critical method is one method (as much as the victim of character assassination Raymond Brown said it) and cannot supply the meaning of the Bible. Biblical scholarship is not an attack on Church teaching, it in reality is the salvation of theology from heterodox outgrowth’s. If you understand Biblical scholarship well, you definitely gain a deeper respect for the historical nature of Christian orthodoxy (and by extension, Catholic orthodoxy).

Biblical scholars - when writing in a Catholic sense - can help the Church understand what the Biblical authors meant. They cannot tell the Church what the Bible means. And if one is familiar with the way the New Testament re-writes and reads the Old, they will know what I am talking about.

So the million dollar question is: is the New American Bible teaching against Purgatory? I don’t think it is at all.

As for the quotation of Luke 1: 28, I do not believe that it is constructive to collapse translation into interpretation or vice-versa: that is Protestant nonsense.

Luke may have meant Full of Grace, he may not have. For example, the same author uses a different term in Acts 6, 8. The Catholic Dogma of the Immaculate Conception remains untouched. Although oversimplistic believers may be making bad connections.

As far as the “and fasting” - it does not appear in many Biblical manuscripts, although it is a tradition rendering.

In Christ,

Peter Rowe

 

[lightoftheworld]

It seems that the NAB is up for discussion. Years ago I never would have defended the NAB - but then I did some rethinking. Are there problems with the NAB? Yes. However, I do not think that we should blame the NAB commentators for being heretical. I think we should blame them for giving Catholic’s to much credit. In fact, I think that the NAB’s problem is that it is written for a much more intelligent Catholic population than uses it, and as a result the misunderstandings occur.

Do liberal theologians (though I do disagree with much of what they have to say) predominate the understanding of the NAB? Yes. I think the NAB is a mixed bag because it reflects the minds of many liberal scholars in the Church who have gone increasingly off the wall.

I don’t think that it is the NAB’s commentaries that are the issue: its just the nuanced doublespeak that couches them can be uncomfortable.

What is most crucial to me however, is the comment made about the gift of the NAB. I agree - and that is why I give the New Jerusalem Bible (I think I have now bought six) with the commentaries. It contains the same knowledge as the NAB: it also does not give it in the same plain language.

In the Bible study I conduct, I used the RSV-CE.

However, there are some things that I would like to comment on: criticism is commentary, not judgment of error. And it does have a place with the Bible. I think good, solid Biblical criticism can do us a lot of good.

In Christ and Mary,

Peter

 

[TOME]

Eariler, I expressed my preference for the term “Favor” over “Grace” However, after more thought I have changed my mind.Through out the NT we find the term Grace as the translated form of Charis. In Romans 16:20 is is used to express kindness to someone who doesn’t deserve it. In Acts 14:26 again we find “Grace” as being something given freely -God’s redemptive mercy. In Acts 2 and in the endings of several letters of the NT “Charis” is translated as being in favor with someone (God/neighbors) but this favor can be the result of ones good life which has led me to change my original position that Favor was the better translation.This may be a strech but in 1 Cor 1:4, charis is translated as the Grace that has filled one with knowledge… “Knowledge” is a key term here, especially when we realize that in the Aramaic of Mary’s life the word for Knowledge (of some one or something) and sexual intercourse was one and the same - yada. This is refered to when Mary proclaims she does not “know man” something lost in the translation from aramaic to greek but I believe, given the translations found in the above passages (and others) “Full of Grace” is a richer translation.

 

[otm]

Axion:

…continued.

But the church does take a “fundamentalist” attitude to bible content. It is ALL true and inerrant. The church doesn’t say the Bible is the ONLY source of truth, but it IS all true. You yourself say that God **guarantees ** that the Bible represents the truth. So do you not see that chipping away at this by saying “x is a legend”, “Jesus didn’t prophecy y”, “z was added later”, “the writer made-up this canticle for effect and put it in Mary’s mouth” etc. … is in direct opposition to this guarantee of truth?

I also feel we get far more out of the bible when we try to analyze what it teaches, rather than trying to pick holes in it and suggest this sentence came from “source Q”, or source “h”, or was invented or otherwise inserted by someone else.

You need to read what the Church actually says about the Bible, as the Church does not take a literalist approach (which you appear to be coming quite close to) but rather, a contextualist approach.

 

[m134e5]

I don’t see many translation flaws in the NAB, then again I’m not a biblical scholar. I don’t like that it reads like a magazine from a barber shop though. I like proper English- not necessarily the King’s English, but proper. How is the commentary on the Ignatius Bible?