NAB: To be trusted?

[Epistemes]

Should Catholics trust the New American Bible?

Some of the commentaries are especially non-Catholic, and it does make you wonder how such a document ever received the Imprimatur!

 

[itsjustdave1988]

I believe the commentary within the NAB to be less trustworthy than my Protestant New Oxford Annotated Bible.

I recommend *The New Biblical Theorists - Raymond E. Brown and Beyond *by Msgr. George A. Kelly.

See also…

*A Wayward Turn in Biblical Theory *by Msgr. George A. Kelly

 

[puzzleannie]

Should Catholics trust the New American Bible?

Some of the commentaries are especially non-Catholic, and it does make you wonder how such a document ever received the Imprimatur!

please do not make such assertions without evidence to back them up, authoritative sources, not just what you read in some article or some website from self-proclaimed scripture experts.
Like it or not, this is the translation the US Bishops have given us. Unless you somehow have authority that trumpts theirs, you really have no basis for this accusation.

 

[Epistemes]

please do not make such assertions without evidence to back them up, authoritative sources, not just what you read in some article or some website from self-proclaimed scripture experts.
Like it or not, this is the translation the US Bishops have given us. Unless you somehow have authority that trumpts theirs, you really have no basis for this accusation.

You’re right, I should offer evidence:

catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles/bible/nab1.htm

I had some questions about this article earlier, but after having them cleared up in other threads, and by the Catechism, I now definitely agree with the majority of the article.

For instance, as the author of the article does, I would like to point out the footnote to Matthew 5:3-12, which says,

3 [3-12] The form Blessed are (is) occurs frequently in the Old Testament in the Wisdom literature and in the psalms. Although modified by Matthew, the first, second, fourth, and ninth beatitudes have Lucan parallels (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20; Matthew 5:4; Luke 6:21, 22; Matthew 5:6; Luke 6:21a; Matthew 5:11-12; Luke 5:22-23). The others were added by the evangelist and are probably his own composition. A few manuscripts, Western and Alexandrian, and many versions and patristic quotations give the second and third beatitudes in inverted order.

So according to the commentary of the NAB, we are to believe that Jesus did not speak all of the beattitudes listed, that Matthew inserted some at his own disposal, etc. which completely flies in the face any pope or any Church document that has ever stated anything about the divine inspiration of Scripture.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Here’s another example of where the footnotes of the NAB departs from the teachings of the Church…

1 Samuel 15:3 (NAB): “Go, now, attack Amalek, and deal with him and all that he has under the ban [herem]. Do not spare him, but kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and asses.’”

The NAB has the following commentary on verse 3:[3] Under the ban: in such wars of extermination, all things (men, cities, beasts, etc.) were to be blotted out; nothing could be reserved for private use. The interpretation of God’s will here attributed to Samuel is in keeping with the abhorrent practices of blood revenge prevalent among pastoral, seminomadic peoples such as the Hebrews had recently been. The slaughter of the innocent has never been in conformity with the will of God. If I understand this commentary correctly, they just implied that the passage in question “attributed to Samuel” is not “in conformity with the will of God.” If this is the commentator’s implication, it is not in keeping with Catholic doctrine and tradition.

The authorial intent seems clear based upon the entire context of Scripture, which makes the point that Saul failed to do as God willed in 1 Sam 15:3.

In contrast, the Douay-Rheims Catholic translation has:

1 Kings [aka 1 Samuel] 15:3 “***Now therefore go, and smite Amalec, and utterly destroy all that he hath: spare him not, nor covet any thing that is his: but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ***. ***”

The Douay-Rheims has the following commentary for verse 3:3 “Child”… The great Master of life and death (who cuts off one half of all mankind whilst they are children) has been pleased sometimes to ordain that children should be put to the sword, in detestation of the crimes of their parents, and that they might not live to follow the same wicked ways. But without such ordinance of God it is not allowable, in any wars, how just soever, to kill children.

So which Catholic commentary is more trustworthy? More in line with the common teaching and tradition of the Catholic Church?

Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman commented upon Saul’s sin, in which Ven. Newman clearly implied that Saul contradicted Divine judgment when he failed to destroy the Amalikites precisely as God directed through his prophet, Samuel.

Wilfulness, the sin of Saul
by John Henry Newman
newmanreader.org/works/oxford/sermon9.html

   		 			 				 When sent to inflict **a Divine judgment** upon the Amalekites, [Saul] spared those whom he was bid slay; their king Agag, the best of the sheep and cattle, and all that was good. ...

A perverse will easily collects together a system of notions to justify itself in its obliquity. The real state of the case was this, that **he preferred his own way to that which God had determined. **When directed by the Divine Hand towards the mark for which he was chosen, he started aside like a broken bow. He obeyed, but with a reserve, yet distinctly professing to Samuel that he had performed the commandment of the Lord, because the sheep and cattle were reserved for a pious purpose, a sacrifice to the Lord. …

By wilful resistance to God’s will, he opened the door to those evil passions which till then, at the utmost, only served to make his character unamiable, without stamping it with guilt. …

Derangement was the consequence of disobedience. …

**The trial of Abraham, when called on to kill his son, as of Saul when bid slay the Amalekites, was the duty of quitting the ordinary rules which He prescribes to our obedience, upon a positive commandment distinctly conveyed to them by revelation.
**

The whole account of Samuel and Saul and Saul’s fall from grace makes no sense whatsoever unless one accepts that God did indeed direct the utter destruction of the Amalekites.

 

[Epistemes]

What is the official Church statement concerning Q, the document which historical-critical analysts to be the central document from which the Synoptic Gospel authors gathered their prime sources for the sayings of Jesus? To my understanding, such a document as Q would also undermine the divine inspiration of the Gospels, and yet there are notes in the NAB which reference Q. [This is why I highly recommend reading the article which I’ve linked above.]

 

[TOME]

Often, when I see criticism of the NAB’s footnotes and statements that they are contrary to offical Church Teachings, I have to wonder if this is the case, how could the Church grant a Nihil Obstat and Impirmator to the NAB? Do not many of the footnotes in question, such as 1 Sam 15:3, actually reflect the continous theological development of understanding of Divine Revelation? All too often, I find those who contribute to these threads do not explore, in full, what, if any, is the actual teachings of the Church on a particular passage or a theological contribution.

I point to the questions on “Q”. There is no “Offical” Church teaching on this, yet, people still talk as if there is.

I think part of the problem is too often we just donot do enough reading on Church teachings on any particular topic. Rather, we tend to limit our understanding to readings that we are already predisposed to and stop there and declare what was read must be offical Church teachings, based on the authority of the author. A more indepth study of the subjects presented in these threads is really necessary if we are to do justice to what actual Church teachings are.

 

[Prayer_Warrior]

This will require some research that I have not yet done, however, I am certain that a claim was made that the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur only apply to the text of scripture and not the commentary. That may not be the case… I will dig into it and see if I can find more info. If that is true, it would explain a lot.

Jimmy Akin has a little blurb about some of the problems with the NAB at his blog. Some of this is just his opinion of course, but he does make some interesting points. I find it especially disturbing that some NAB footnotes supposedly say that Jesus couldn’t predict the future. I don’t have an NAB in front of me and I’m not sure if that is in all the footnotes of every version, but…duh…that was a pretty big mistake.

 

[Epistemes]

Often, when I see criticism of the NAB’s footnotes and statements that they are contrary to offical Church Teachings, I have to wonder if this is the case, how could the Church grant a Nihil Obstat and Impirmator to the NAB? Do not many of the footnotes in question, such as 1 Sam 15:3, actually reflect the continous theological development of understanding of Divine Revelation? All too often, I find those who contribute to these threads do not explore, in full, what, if any, is the actual teachings of the Church on a particular passage or a theological contribution.

I point to the questions on “Q”. There is no “Offical” Church teaching on this, yet, people still talk as if there is.

I think part of the problem is too often we just donot do enough reading on Church teachings on any particular topic. Rather, we tend to limit our understanding to readings that we are already predisposed to and stop there and declare what was read must be offical Church teachings, based on the authority of the author. A more indepth study of the subjects presented in these threads is really necessary if we are to do justice to what actual Church teachings are.

Again, I quote from the article which I’ve listed above, in post #4,

It’s really hard to understand how the NAB received the Imprimatur when the section of some NABs suggest that

*God Himself guided (inspired) the Hebrew genius in its searching out of the mysteries of the human condition… When this restless searching for truth and meaning culminates in unfolding one of God’s mysteries, we speak of divine revelation… Sometimes inspired searching for meaning leads to conclusions which cannot be qualified as revelation from God. Think of the “holy wars” of total destruction, fought by the Hebrews when they invaded Palestine. The search for meaning in those wars centuries later was inspired, but the conclusions which attributed all those atrocities to the command of God were imperfect and provisional. See Judges 1:1-8. [3] *

So, the commentators definitely seem to suggesting that the wars which the Bible says were commanded by God were not, in fact, commanded by God, but were the results of bloodthirsty rebels who later felt the need to justify their actions through “inspiration.”

This is clearly inconsistent with Christian faith, and it is questionable how such statements as these passed Imprimatur.

 

[Epistemes]

Jimmy Akin has a little blurb about some of the problems with the NAB at his blog. Some of this is just his opinion of course, but he does make some interesting points. I find it especially disturbing that some NAB footnotes supposedly say that Jesus couldn’t predict the future. I don’t have an NAB in front of me and I’m not sure if that is in all the footnotes of every version, but…duh…that was a pretty big mistake.

The NAB version which Jimmy links to on his site is, of course, the same text which one can access from the Vatican website, Catholic Online, and a number of other Catholic websites - and the footnote for Matthew 16:21-23 is right there in digital black and white.

 

[TOME]

Epistemes,

Perhaps, instead of looking at a particular passage and commentaries your starting point is to study the nature of divine revelation itself and how our the Church’s understanding of God’s revealed truth continues to grow and deepen. Studies of “Divino Afflante Spiritu” and “Dei Verbum” would be good a good place to begin. I would suggest, from the study of “Dei Verbum” alone would show that the footnotes in the NAB are not inconsistant with the teachings of our Church, but may be operating from different theological levels not fully understood because they just have not been studied (and perhaps with further studies many people will also come to understand what is meant by Nihil Obstat and Impirmator).

Also, I see in a post where someone seemed surprized that there would be a comment on Jesus’ inability to predict the future. The passage refered to was the wrong passage to be used. Mt 24: 36 says, “But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone”. (NAB) It would seem that Jesus is admitting a certain ignorance of the exact time of the parousia.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Again, I quote from the article which I’ve listed above, in post #4,

It’s really hard to understand how the NAB received the Imprimatur when the section of some NABs suggest that

*God Himself guided (inspired) the Hebrew genius in its searching out of the mysteries of the human condition… When this restless searching for truth and meaning culminates in unfolding one of God’s mysteries, we speak of divine revelation… Sometimes inspired searching for meaning leads to conclusions which cannot be qualified as revelation from God. Think of the “holy wars” of total destruction, fought by the Hebrews when they invaded Palestine. The search for meaning in those wars centuries later was inspired, but the conclusions which attributed all those atrocities to the command of God were imperfect and provisional. See Judges 1:1-8. [3] *

So, the commentators definitely seem to suggesting that the wars which the Bible says were commanded by God were not, in fact, commanded by God, but were the results of bloodthirsty rebels who later felt the need to justify their actions through “inspiration.”

This is clearly inconsistent with Christian faith, and it is questionable how such statements as these passed Imprimatur.

Which is preferable: to believe that God differs from the devil only in being an infinite rather than a finite murderer - or to believe that sinful men thought that God was as vindictive as they were ? Why should they not be as morally limited as any of their non-Israelite contemporaries ? Why should they be Christians in their ethics, when Christ was not to come for a thousand years ?​

I can see an inconsistency with the Christian faith - & it’s not in that note. That men should ascribe their own attitudes to God, is the most natural thing in the world. Any theology or interpretation which treats the OT as being as fully adequate as a disclosure of the character of God as the NT, has to reckon with the testimony of the NT writings & the character of Christ Who, far from encouraging His disciples when they offered to call fire down from heaven upon an inhospitable village, told them: “You do not know what spirit you are of”. Some of the morality is in the OT is anti-Christian - as one would expect: it would be bizarre to expect Samuel to have the outlook of a St.Paul.

 

[puzzleannie]

quite frankly I find it very hard to believe that a handfull of armchair scripture students such as we have gathered here has more collective, cumulative knowledge, experience and learning to correctly translate from the original languages and annotate that translation than the scholars the Church assembled to give us the NAB. There is no one participating in this discussion, and no way for us to judge the reliability and authenticity of the sites you offer, who has that competency and authority. Is this translation perfect? No, no human work is perfect, but unless and until you are given authority by the Church to question its operations and works it would be best to desist. As the intro to NAB points out, there are relatively few passages of scripture that have definitive Church interpretation tied to doctrine. Most of what the bible contains, especially OT is still open to interpretation, as are the historical sources that tell us what we know of the people through whom scripture has been handed down to us.

“I disagree” is not the same thing as “I am right, the blog I cite is right and the NAB scholars are wrong”. For me to quote a scripture scholar and critic neither gives authority to the critic nor to myself.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

What is the official Church statement concerning Q, the document which historical-critical analysts to be the central document from which the Synoptic Gospel authors gathered their prime sources for the sayings of Jesus? To my understanding, such a document as Q would also undermine the divine inspiration of the Gospels, and yet there are notes in the NAB which reference Q. [This is why I highly recommend reading the article which I’ve linked above.]

I don’t have much confidence in the Q hypothesis. However, when I took a Scripture course in college, they didn’t speak of Q as though it necessitated rejection of divine inspiration of the Gospels. Much of the Sacred Scripture may have been derived from other oral and/or written works, but that does not discount the teaching that the final author/redactor of Scritpure was indeed inspired by God to write only that which the Holy Spirit intended to be written.

 

[johnbres2]

I think the NAB footnotes about the meaning of slaughtering entire populations are a wonderful and necessary addition to a Christian understanding of the texts. How can you say that it is the Christian view that God would want one army to slaughter all the people of another culture? God will not cause our children to die because of our sins; otherwise He would approve of abortion in many instances.

 

[Manfred]

please do not make such assertions without evidence to back them up, authoritative sources, not just what you read in some article or some website from self-proclaimed scripture experts.
Like it or not, this is the translation the US Bishops have given us. Unless you somehow have authority that trumpts theirs, you really have no basis for this accusation.

You’re kidding me, right?

You actually believe our bishops sat down and pored over the text and footnotes of the NAB before approving them? No, they relied on “experts” whom they appointed and whom they trusted. Of course, these “experts” are of the same ilk as those who translated the Latin texts of the Mass into English. Many of the bishops themselves admitted thay had no idea what the final version of that translation effort was going to be until it came out - and then it was too late.

Sorry if you think I sound “heretical”, “schismatic” or “unsubmissive”, but the bishops are NOT as skilled in Scriptural or Liturgical matters as they should be; they’re more concerned with “social” issues.

 

[johnbres2]

For instance, as the author of the article does, I would like to point out the footnote to Matthew 5:3-12, which says,

*3 [3-12] The form Blessed are (is) occurs frequently in the Old Testament in the Wisdom literature and in the psalms. Although modified by Matthew, the first, second, fourth, and ninth beatitudes have Lucan parallels (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20; Matthew 5:4; Luke 6:21, 22; Matthew 5:6; Luke 6:21a; Matthew 5:11-12; Luke 5:22-23). The others were added by the evangelist and are probably his own composition. *A few manuscripts, Western and Alexandrian, and many versions and patristic quotations give the second and third beatitudes in inverted order.

So according to the commentary of the NAB, we are to believe that Jesus did not speak all of the beattitudes listed, that Matthew inserted some at his own disposal, etc. which completely flies in the face any pope or any Church document that has ever stated anything about the divine inspiration of Scripture.

I agree this is pretty nuts in a Catholic Bible. I note that the earlier NAB NT (1970) did not have this footnote.

 

[Melchior]

quite frankly I find it very hard to believe that a handfull of armchair scripture students such as we have gathered here has more collective, cumulative knowledge, experience and learning to correctly translate from the original languages and annotate that translation than the scholars the Church assembled to give us the NAB. There is no one participating in this discussion, and no way for us to judge the reliability and authenticity of the sites you offer, who has that competency and authority. Is this translation perfect? No, no human work is perfect, but unless and until you are given authority by the Church to question its operations and works it would be best to desist. As the intro to NAB points out, there are relatively few passages of scripture that have definitive Church interpretation tied to doctrine. Most of what the bible contains, especially OT is still open to interpretation, as are the historical sources that tell us what we know of the people through whom scripture has been handed down to us.

“I disagree” is not the same thing as “I am right, the blog I cite is right and the NAB scholars are wrong”. For me to quote a scripture scholar and critic neither gives authority to the critic nor to myself.

Do you really believe scholarship is neutral? There are liberal with an agenda and traditionalist with an agenda. Those who wrote the notes for the NAB we of the very liberal type with a liberal protestant/sceptical understanding of scripture that was and is clearly at odds with traditional scholarship for the last 2,000 years. To say that none of us are scholars does not mean we cannot discern between johnny-come-lately liberals scholars and conservative ones. It is not really that hard or even intellectually challenging.

 

[puzzleannie]

Do you really believe scholarship is neutral? There are liberal with an agenda and traditionalist with an agenda. Those who wrote the notes for the NAB we of the very liberal type with a liberal protestant/sceptical understanding of scripture that was and is clearly at odds with traditional scholarship for the last 2,000 years. To say that none of us are scholars does not mean we cannot discern between johnny-come-lately liberals scholars and conservative ones. It is not really that hard or even intellectually challenging.

perhaps, but you have not provided any evidence that you, or the sources upon which you rely for your opinion, are any more qualified than the scholars you criticize.

 

[TOME]

As I continue to read the post of this thread (and other threads that are similar in nature) one thing that continues to bother me is not that people express their opinions, rather, it is the seeming lack of critical analysis of the topic discussed . I find this especially when reading criticism of the NAB and its footnotes.

Let me give an example. In a few post of this thread, there has been criticism of the footnotes on Matthew 5: 3-12. Some seem to say that the footnotes are implying that the Gospel of Matthew was just a man-made piece of literature, where the author created quotes or incidents of Christ’s life from his own imagination. If I am correctly understanding there comments, then my point is on the mark.

If one would do a little more reading of the works of the authors of the NAB’s footnotes, it would be clear that what they write has a starting point concerning the nature of the gospels being “Faith Documents” and how as being “Faith Documents” effected how they were composed in light of the faith response and needs of the faith community from which and for whom the original gospel(s) were written. Also, with some extra reading one would also discover that the Catholic biblical scholars who wrote these footnotes are working under the guidlines of the Church as expressed in “Divino Afflante Spiritu”, “Dei Verbum”, Paul VI’s address to the specifical Pontifical Commission (23 December 1966), John Paul II’s address to the members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (1979 & 1991) as well as the “Apostolic Constitution: Scripturarum Thesaurus” plus other documents not mentioned.

But my main point is I think more of us should really do a lot more studying on modern biblical scholarship inorder to discover what is really being said by them. In my own opinion, I think a good place for many to start is to study Raymond E. Brown’s work, “An Introduction to the New Testament”. It is a useful “Introduction” into modern scholarship.