Translation: Missal vs Bible

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pilots13

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This question came to me at Christmas Mass when the Gospel was read. The passage from Luke read" “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” While the Gloria, in the new translation reads: “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will.”

Further more, the Our Father in Matthew’s Gospel reads:
Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.
While the Our Father we recite at Mass reads:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Why are these different? Is it something lost in translation. Cause the Mass went from Latin to English while the bible went from different languages to English? Like I said, just a question that popped in my head Christmas Eve.
 
I’d think part of the difference is the fact that the New Testament is originally in Greek, while the Mass texts are Latin. There is also the question of tradition–there are several versions of the “Our Father” out there, with slight differences, but the one we use at Mass is a traditional Catholic translation into English.

The differences you cite are not that major; “thy” vs. “you” is the old deferential form vs. the more typical “modern” form, some have argued that we ought to use a more familiar word like “debts” rather than “trespasses”. The changes in the last two lines I suspect come from the difference in the original Latin translation. On the other hand, after some 1500 or so years, it’s probably going to be hard to change. 🙂

The main difference in the “Gloria” on people of “good will” vs. those “on whom [God’s] favor rests” may be from the fact that the “Gloria” is a hymn, alluding to the Bible text rather than a direct quotation from the Gospel.
 
The translations were done by different people from different languages by different methods and for different purposes. :confused:

Okay, that mouthful runs the risk of confusing me, so let’s break it down… 😃

The Bible translation used for lectionaries in the U.S. is the New American Bible (NAB). It is a dynamic equivalence translation from the original languages (Greek for the New Testament) so they didn’t try to match the nearest English word for the Greek word. They took the whole concept the writer was discussing and used English words to convey the same concept. The goal was to make the translation more understandable for the casual reader. The translation method has its issues in that some deeper meaning is lost.

The Missal is translated from the Roman Missal as it is in Latin. The scriptural portions are not re-translated from the Greek so they are not translated from the “original” language in that sense. The new translation of the Missal, however, is formally equivalent. That is, the translators sought to fine the most exact English word for the Latin one used in the original. The goal here is to retain deeper meanings as much as possible. This translation method has issues in that it is no longer as easy to understand in the new language.

HTH
 
bmonk said:
The differences you cite are not that major; “thy” vs. “you” is the old deferential form vs. the more typical “modern” form
Click to expand...
Actually, as has been pointed out several times here, ‘thy’ and the like are the *familiar *forms of address, as opposed to the *formal *forms of address, ‘you’.
 
I think a lot of the various translations of the Bible have cause some confusion.
 
I did read somewhere that the Our Father translation in to english may be looked at closely for exactly the different wordings pointed out by the OP.
Can’t remember where I read it, so no link…sorry.
If I find it I will post it.
 
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