NAB no longer allowed?

[mmortal03]

The RSV-CE has problems. First, it was mostly translated by Protestants, so that it lacks the Catholic point of view in translating the NT. And its approach to the OT is not Christological. Also, it is a revision of a revision, which was then amended to be more Catholic. And it is showing its age. This is not the idea translation for the lectionary.

Are you familiar with the 1971 RSV NT’s revisions that are amazingly “Catholic”? The new Oxford Press RSV-CE Reader’s Edition is based on the 1971 instead of the 1959, so maybe it will make it 11 more years?

Let’s see what happens with the new Catholic revision of the NRSV that is to remvove inclusive language. It might turn out to be good as well.

As far as the RSV-CE being a revision of a revision, that is a baseless argument. The changes were all for the better, and they have been clearly documented.

And about the OT translation not being Christological, to what extent of the verses is this argument based? I am definitely not one to support the translation of the OT based on what is contained in the NT, but many people have been convinced that it is the way to go. Is Isaiah 7.14 your only problem verse? I have yet to have seen a thorough listing of verses in the RSV OT that Protestants have found to be removing revelations related to Christ. All I ever hear about is Isaiah 7.14, which I have argued FOR in the past, as I understand their motives.

 

[Manfred]

Or a revised Challoner, right? Or maybe an English translation of the Neo Vulgata that refers to the Challoner, that would work, too.

Ron Conte is certainly correct that the RSV-CE is far from ideal to be truly considered as THE version for the Lectionary. (And it’s not Isaiah 7:14 that concerns me - “virgin” as an alternative rendering is, after all, in the footnotes; it’s Luke 1:34 that for the life of me I can’t get over.) Actually, mmortal, I like your second idea - an English translation of the Nova Vulgata with comparison to the Challoner - for a Lectionary. Why should we throw out all the plusses of “modern” biblical scholarship just because of poor products like the NAB or NIV?

 

[Ron_Conte]

The Neo-Vulgate has been widely criticized by conservative Biblical scholars. It is not a continuation of the Latin Scriptural tradition. It is more like a paraphrase translation into Latin, which favors the Hebrew/Greek manuscripts.

The Neo-Vulgate is an update of the Clementine Latin Vulgate, nor is it an attempt to recapture the Jerome Vulgate or the Vetus Latina. It is a sharp break away from the Latin Scriptural tradition, even though it is in Latin.

My preference is for the 1598 Clemetine Vulgate as a translation source text.

Ron

 

[mmortal03]

The Neo-Vulgate has been widely criticized by conservative Biblical scholars. It is not a continuation of the Latin Scriptural tradition. It is more like a paraphrase translation into Latin, which favors the Hebrew/Greek manuscripts.

I had not read much on this. Do you have any links to negative reviews of the Nova Vulgata?

The Neo-Vulgate is an update of the Clementine Latin Vulgate, nor is it an attempt to recapture the Jerome Vulgate or the Vetus Latina. It is a sharp break away from the Latin Scriptural tradition, even though it is in Latin.

Didn’t you mean that “The Neo-Vulgate is NOT an update of the Clementine Latin Vulgate”?

Also, I thought that the Nova Vulgata’s base text WAS Jerome’s Vulgate?

 

[pnewton]

I believe this thought (and in my judgment - prejudice) is the foundation of the rejection of many of the NAB and especially its footnotes. When the original translation came out in 1970’s it was acknowledge by most scholars that there were at least 2000 errors.

FYI - My opinion in this area is not a prejudice, but was developed through my experience in seminary. It has been my observation that many of the more extreme claims made by modern scholars only become more reasonable if one downplays the probability of the miraculous or divine.

I must admit that the whole idea of voting on the parts of the gospels that Jesus really spoke or the miracles he *really *did put me off (Jesus Seminar). I will give this legitimate consideration as a Catholic postition when the priest starts to incant, “The gospel of the Lord… maybe.”

 

[Ron_Conte]

Didn’t you mean that “The Neo-Vulgate is NOT an update of the Clementine Latin Vulgate”?

Also, I thought that the Nova Vulgata’s base text WAS Jerome’s Vulgate?

Yes, I meant NOT an update of the Clementine!

The neo-Vulgate is not an update of any past Latin version, in my opinion it is more accurately described as a new paraphrase translation, into Latin.

Jerome’s Vulgate is not extant. Certainly, many ancient Latin manuscripts are based on his work, but we don’t have an actual copy of his work.

Ron

 

[TOME]

Ron Conte,
While I respect your opinion on the Nova Vulgata, I must disagree with your belief that the Nova Vulgata is new paraphrase translation. I disagree with you on several points.

First all translations are in effect paraphrases. A classic example (an please realize I am writing this from memory - I am away from my books) is from the book of Sirach. Through the latin of the vulgate there is a phrase that is basically translated as “men” but the literal translation from the hebrew is “Those who urinate on the wall”. It seems the Jerome and those who translated Jerome’s translation saw fit to paraphrase the term. But again I return to the original point all translations, when they cannot be literal translations are paraphrases.

Second, as to the Nova Vulgata, it is not a new addition of the latin text that was already in use. The Nova Vulgata used the oldest and most reliable text in the original Hebrew and Greek and Latin text as well. Since the last last translation into latin that was used by the Church much older text of both the NT and OT (the Dead Seas Scrolls in particular) have provided enough data to create a new translation - not just a paraphrasing of older translations.

But with any translation of this nature there will come many criticism, some justified on actual scholarship (i.e. from those who are knowkedgable of the acient languages of Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin as well as those who are scholars of the other sciences that help provide for more accurate translations) to those who just do not like the idea of something new and perhaps different from what they were brought up with. But I think it is only just that all criticism be based on an academic understanding of the translation itself.

 

[Ron_Conte]

1. Translations vary in how literal or loose the translation is. Some translations are very literal, like the original Douai Rhemes translation. Extremely literal translations are called interlinear. Some translations take a middle of the road approach, not too literal and not too loose, like the NAB (though it has its faults). Other translations take many liberties with the text, such as the NJB or some of the newer Protestant translations. The Neo-Vulgate is on the looser end of that spectrum, in my opinion.
2. But that is exactly my complaint about the Neo-Vulgate: it is based on the Hebrew and Greek texts. In my view, the different scriptural traditions should remain somewhat separate. Translators should not try to merge all manuscripts in every language into one definitive edition. The Council of Trent gave the Latin scriptural tradition preeminence in the scriptural life of the Church. But the Neo-Vulgate is a continuation of the Hebrew and Greek scriptural traditions, but translated loosely into Latin.

Ron

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Ron Conte: How much different is the Neo Vulgate from the Clementine Vulgate?

Do you know of any cases where you think that the Hebrew or Greek translation of the Bible is superior to the Latin tradition of the Vulgate–I guess what I’m really asking is can the Latin tradition of translating the Bible be improved in any way by consulting Greek or Hebrew?

P.S. I like the Challoner Douay Rheims the best of any translation–I think it can be improved–but I wouldn’t say that Greek or Hebrew should NEVER be used to improve it. I think they can be consulted and used in a small number of cases. Do you believe that?

 

[Manfred]

1. Translations vary in how literal or loose the translation is. Some translations are very literal, like the original Douai Rhemes translation. Extremely literal translations are called interlinear. Some translations take a middle of the road approach, not too literal and not too loose, like the NAB (though it has its faults). Other translations take many liberties with the text, such as the NJB or some of the newer Protestant translations. The Neo-Vulgate is on the looser end of that spectrum, in my opinion.
2. But that is exactly my complaint about the Neo-Vulgate: it is based on the Hebrew and Greek texts. In my view, the different scriptural traditions should remain somewhat separate. Translators should not try to merge all manuscripts in every language into one definitive edition. The Council of Trent gave the Latin scriptural tradition preeminence in the scriptural life of the Church. But the Neo-Vulgate is a continuation of the Hebrew and Greek scriptural traditions, but translated loosely into Latin.

Ron

Ron,

I think that what some of the posters here, myself included, are trying to say is that one shouldn’t dismiss the Nova Vulgata too quickly. Pius XII’s Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) certainly encouraged not only biblical exegesis but also vernacular translations to be made from the original language sources. Though not explicit about this, an “eclectic” method of translation - using critically-accepted source or adjunct material - does not appear to contradict the papal directive.

I’m certainly no expert on the Vulgate, whether Clementine or Neo, but I’d wager Jerome translated from whatever reliable sources to which he could gain access. For the OT, if a Greek rendering was either clearer or more Christological than that of the Hebrew, then the former was chosen.

Of course, there’s that other matter of John Paul II promulgating the Nova Vulgata in 1979.

Question for you: how do you rate that Vulgate text translated by the Benedictines from 1917 onward, the version available either in print or online and known as “Biblia Sacra Vulgata”? It purported to restore the Vulgate to what is believed to be Jerome’s non-extant edition; do you think it met its objective? No, it never got liturgical “air play”, since it came on the scene after the vernacular liturgy was foisted on us. But do you think it is superior to the Nova Vulgata, inasmuch as it IS quite close to the Clementine?

 

[mmortal03]

Manfred, this thread has become such an off-topic mixture of other threads, it really needs to be sorted out! It started out dealing with the NAB, Then I took it on a brief RSV-CE tangent, and now we are discussing the Vulgate. I guess this is evidence that our topic is slowly progressing towards the best translation.

Anyway, I am going to post my reply here, but we need to do some serious splitting of this thread into its proper categories (I’ll copy over my RSV-CE stuff to the RSV-CE Needs Corrections thread):

I read elsewhere the same thing, this opinion that the Nova Vulgata was based on the Hebrew and Greek more than the Latin, which if true, I had not heard about before and which does seem silly at first glance. I agree with Ron Conte that the different scriptural traditions should remain, to a great extent, separate. That concept backs up my rebuttal of the criticisms of the RSV OT. It was translated from the Hebrew with that in mind, so if you don’t like Isaiah 7.14, get a translation of the Septuagint (when a good one finally arrives).

I think the concept of creating one authoritative text in a particular language, one from all the others, is an idealistic goal, something that is right up the alley of the Catholic Church, however, it might be a goal that is too idealistic. We could say that if anyone could do it, it would be the Catholic Church, but whatever they produce has got to be top notch, and they would STILL need to leave the door open for further revisions.

I think that that is actually what the Church had in mind with the Nova Vulgata and with Liturgiam Authenticam, and I think that, contrary to their critics, they ARE leaving the door open for fresh scholarship and revision, however, they just want to be in control of it, which is nothing new. The next question that arises is, “So is the Nova Vulgata any good?”

This might sound like a contradiction of what I said earlier, but there is a place for translations into a vernacular language that cross scriptural traditions, however, it has to be done properly.

But is there a place for creating new authoritative texts? There is, but they better do a darn good job at it, and leave open the possibility for revision.

I don’t know Latin, so I am not one to be able to say whether or not the committee did a good job or not on the Nova Vulgata.

Getting to the issue that Ron Conte brought up, though, if it is truly paraphrastic, then I would have a big problem regarding it as authoritative.

I know that Wikipedia can be wrong, but just as a point of discussion, this is how it describes the Nova Vulgata:

“The foundational text of most of the Nova Vulgata is the critical edition done by the monks of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Jerome under Pius X. The foundational text of the books of Tobit and Judith are from manuscripts of the Vetus Latina rather than the Vulgate. All of these base texts were revised to accord with the modern critical editions in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. There are also a number of changes where the modern scholars felt that Jerome had failed to grasp the meaning of the original languages.”

 

[TOME]

I have been reading the various posts and like post of most “Threads” topics do vary as we go along. However, I too hope I am writing somewhat in the “spirit” of this thread.

I see several, what I think, are misunderstandings about the Church’s teachings on bible translations and this effects ones outlook on the NAB.

Vatican II’s constitution on Divine Revelation clearly states that the Scriptures must be readily available for all to read. From this Dei Verbum continues to speak of the responsibility of the translators to produce suitable and correct text using the original text of the sacred scriptures. This includes the translation of the Bible from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic into Latin (Nova Vulgata) Because of the tradition of the Church and the liturgical life of the Church the “Vulgate” does remain an important instrument for the proper translation of the Bible into Latin, however, because of discoveries of ancient text in their original languages (Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic) even the “Vulgate” was understood to be in need of corrections.

The use of the original text in Greek, Hebrew is not a blending of traditions that should be separated but comes first from the directive found in Pius XII’s encyclical “Divino Afflante Spiritu” and later from the directive of the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church:
Dei Verbum.

As pointed out the Council of Trent did give preeminence to the “Vulgate” and the Latin Nova Vulgata continues to hold this special place in the life of the Church, however, if you read the Church’s latest directives on the Nova Vulgata and all translations
the Nova Vulgata is not meant to be the single acceptable translation and all other translations are in effect just translations of the Nova Vulgata. The Church’s teachings are very specific on this, the translations of the Bible into a particular language must come first the original source, that is the texts written in Hebrew and Greek using the Vulgate as well. But again I stress the translations, as directed by the Church Magisterium, mandates that the translations’ original source be the original text.

What seems to be the popular translation cited is the Douy-Rheims (Bishop Challoner’s revision). But this fine work is not a translation made from the original text as mandated by the Church.

A point was made about creating one translation from which all other translation come and there was a reference to the Liturgicam Authenticam on this point. This is not the goal of the Liturgicam Authenticam. First, this would go against the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation as stated above and every teaching of the Church since. Second what the Liturgicam Authenticam did direct is that the translations of the scriptures that are to be used in the liturgy must be inconcert with the Nova Vulgata because of its position as the offical latin translation of the Church and its Liturgy (in effect it put real restricions on the use of inclusive language in the translations of the scriptures used in the liturgy of the local Church).

This bring me back to the original thread and that the revisions of the NAB since the 1970’s edition were rejected by Rome for liturgical use. The bottom line being all translations must be approved by the authority of the Church.

 

[Ron_Conte]

No, I don’t agree that “the Church Magisterium, mandates that the translations’ original source be the original text.”

Take for example, the Gospel of Luke, originally written in Greek. Although we have ancient manuscripts in Greek of Luke’s Gospel, this does not mean that those manuscripts give us the original Greek text. Even the most ancient manuscripts are copies of copies of copies, etc, with much editing and many differences in wording. So the original language of Luke (Greek) does not give us the original text. And the Latin was translated from ancient copies of Luke that we no longer have, so the Latin is a witness to more ancient manuscripts.

In my opinion, it is impossible to make a translation that takes into account every ancient manuscript in every language. There are separate Scriptural traditions, and the Church benefits from having different translations, some from the Latin scriptural tradition, and some from the Septuagint, and some from the Hebrew, and some from one set of manuscripts or another. The Latin scriptural tradition should not be abandoned in favor of sole emphasis on the Greek and Hebrew, nor should the Latin scriptural tradition be replaced with a Latin translation of the Greek and Hebrew.

Also, there is some evidence and support for rejecting the claim of some modern Biblical scholars that the NT was written in Greek. Jerome tells us that Matthew was written in Hebrew (not Aramaic as is often claimed). And Baronius and some others say that Mark was written in Latin. There is also some support for the idea that John wrote in Aramaic. So it is not always clear which was the ‘original’ language.

Ron

 

[mmortal03]

What seems to be the popular translation cited is the Douy-Rheims (Bishop Challoner’s revision). But this fine work is not a translation made from the original text as mandated by the Church.

The problem there is that no one has actually successfully made a literal, modern translation into English that actually compares to the Vulgate as accurately as the Douay-Rheims does. It is as if the Douay-Rheims does a better job from the Latin than modern translators do from the original languages!

A point was made about creating one translation from which all other translation come and there was a reference to the Liturgicam Authenticam on this point. This is not the goal of the Liturgicam Authenticam. First, this would go against the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation as stated above and every teaching of the Church since. Second what the Liturgicam Authenticam did direct is that the translations of the scriptures that are to be used in the liturgy must be inconcert with the Nova Vulgata because of its position as the offical latin translation of the Church and its Liturgy (in effect it put real restricions on the use of inclusive language in the translations of the scriptures used in the liturgy of the local Church).

Don’t misunderstand me. I am talking about a translation from which all other translations REFER TO, not a translation from which all other translations COME FROM. An important difference. I think that Liturgiam Authenticam is trying to create the former case, which is perfectly fine.

 

[TOME]

Ron,
Doesn’t Dei Verbum carry any weight for you or any directives of the popes? Also, if you read these documents I mentioned and you study what goes into a modern translation you should realized that the latin is not disregarded, however, as the Church teaches (I think you would agree that an encyclical letter can be considered a teaching of the Church, and if not then a dogmatic constitution of the Church certainly is, unless of coarse I am mistaken) the staring point should be the text in the original language - that is what I meant by original text.

You are correct, if what I understand you right, that just because a text is older makes it automatically the best text or the only text to use, but that isn’t how translations are made.

Still, if all you are going to do is use a latin text, such as the “vulgate” as your source then you are using a flawed text to begin with, we know this because the are enough copies of Luke in Koine Greek, much older than the Vulgate or the text that Jerome had available which points out the flaws in the Vulgate that served as the text used in the english translation such as the the Douay-Rheims. That why, the Church in Her wisdom and through its authority (again Dei Verbum) directed that translations use the older text in the original languages, that is the oldest text
written in koine greek using those works available in Hebrew and Latin as well.

As for the NT being written in languages other than Greek, your statements point out the necessity, also expressed in Dei Verbum, of using the work of scripture scholars using the tools modern sciences has given us. The use of modern scriptural scholarship is not an option but is directed by Dei Verbum in the use of the translations of the Bible into the vernacular so that easy access of th scriptures will be available to all.

Perhaps, I was not clear in my earlier post, or even in this post, and wrote that what I was implying that the latin translation of the scriptures should be totally disregarded. I was not implying that at all, however, what I was saying, and again this comes from the directives of the pope (Pius XII’s Dinino Afflante Spiritu) and from the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: Dei Verbum.

 

[mmortal03]

Just as a disappointing update, the preliminary reports show that we were probably mislead about the contents of the Oxford Press RSV Catholic Bible Reader’s Version, so please ignore my previous comments about the Reader’s version and take them to refer only to the Compact Version.

It looks like the Reader’s Version may turn out to be the Ignatius First Edition with a new binding and some very small number of changes. We haven’t been able to exhaustively verify what its contents are yet (I don’t have a copy yet), but it doesn’t look to be as excellent as its Compact cousin. Please refer to here for the latest: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=1788075 .