Just curious about why it would not be a favorite here?
Many people have their own reasons. Personally, I just don’t like the rather one-sided prefaces and footnotes. By “one-sided”, I mean the fact that the NAB presents the
Documentary Hypothesis (i.e. the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors), aka JEPD or the
Two-Source Hypothesis (Q and all that) or Markan priority (that Mark was written first) as if they’re the only legitimate ‘scholarly’ opinions out there with no other competitors.
Admittedly, these opinions are now the majority among researchers, but to present them as if they’re established fact is a pit that some do fall into. Personally, I wish they’d at least devote more space for the other solutions to the so-called Synoptic Problem, such as the
Augustinian (the traditional view) or the
Griesbach or the
Farrer and present a more balanced view (you know, let the reader decide which hypothesis is more probable), or (preferably) just not delve into them at all.
That ‘Mark was written first’ and that ‘Matthew and Luke borrowed from Q and Mark’ is taken to the point that in some places, they just say ‘Matthew/Luke did so-and-so to Mark’s text’ without further elaboration as if they’re gospel truth (pun intended)! Here, for example, are the footnotes for Matthew 27:11 and 22:
King of the Jews: this title is used of Jesus only by pagans. The Matthean instances are, besides this verse, Matthew 2:2; 27:29, 37.
Matthew equates it with “Messiah”; cf Matthew 2:2, 4 and Matthew 27:17, 22 where he has changed “the king of the Jews” of his Marcan source (Mark 15:9, 12) to “(Jesus) called Messiah.” The normal political connotation of both titles would be of concern to the Roman governor. You say so: see the note on Matthew 26:25. An unqualified affirmative response is not made because Jesus’ kingship is not what Pilate would understand it to be.
Let him be crucified: incited by the chief priests and elders (Matthew 27:20), the crowds demand that Jesus be executed by crucifixion, a peculiarly horrible form of Roman capital punishment. The
Marcan parallel, “Crucify him” (Mark 15:3), addressed to Pilate, is changed by Matthew to the passive, probably to emphasize the responsibility of the crowds.
As for the translation, I feel that the present edition is at least better than the original 1970 version (I have a rather worn-out copy of that) in that compared to the 1970 edition, it is not that “thought-for-thought” (aka ‘
dynamic equivalence’, where instead of literally translating the source text word-for-word, you just attempt to convey the thought expressed therein - or at least your interpretation of that thought).
Meanwhile, the 1970 edition’s weakness lies on its often-dynamic translation and some ‘unconventional’ renderings (good in a few places, but bad in others), IMHO. Even so, the prefaces and the footnotes - while already showing some of the problems the present edition does - is in a less controversial and questionable form than they are today.
