What Bibles are considered Catholic translations

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I own:
The Revised Standard Version Bible
The New American Bible
The Douay-Rheims Bible

The Douay-Rheims is a direct english translation of the Latin Vulgate bible.
I believe that both the RSV and NAB are modern trans-literations of the Douay-Rheims (someone, please correct me here if I am wrong - I am not near my bibles at this moment)
 
I just went through this this past Nov. I settled on the RSV CE, revised Standard Edition Catholic Edition. I had moved away from New American Bible due to the political correctness of the verse, I would much rather read as close to the actual translation as possible. As for the Douy Rheims, I have a copy of that as well and only refer to it if I am stuck on a passage meaning. For me it is not an easy read.
 
SeanF1989 said:
And which Bible do you own?
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those authorized and given an imprimatur by Rome or by local bishops’ conferences and then approved by Rome

if you are in doubt call the chancery of your diocese and ask which translations are approved for liturgy, group bible study and catechesis, and personal devotion in your country.

the most common English translations that have been approved for liturgy in various countries, or which are the basis for approved translations into other languages, are the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition; Jerusalem Bible: New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition; and New American Bible. There may be others in other English speaking countries that I don’t know of.\

You will find a much fuller discussion, including dozens of past reference threads on every translation their is, and a sticky on bible translations, back on the Scripture Forum.
 
Also, the RSV-2CE Ignatius Bible
(revised standard version - 2nd catholic edition)
 
From EWTN:
**
Bible Versions and Commentaries

Liturgical Use in United States**
There is only one English text currently approved by the Church for use in the United States. This text is the one contained in the Lectionaries approved for Sundays & Feasts and for Weekdays by the USCCB and recognized by the Holy See. These Lectionaries have their American and Roman approval documents in the front. The text is that of the New American Bible with revised Psalms and New Testament (1988, 1991), with some changes mandated by the Holy See where the NAB text used so-called vertical inclusive language (e.g. avoiding male pronouns for God). Since these Lectionaries have been fully promulgated, the permission to use the Jerusalem Bible and the RSV-Catholic at Mass has been withdrawn. [See note on inclusive language]
Devotional Reading

A bewildering array of Catholic Bibles are available for personal use. They all have imprimaturs, but not all avoid the use of inclusive language. That use is indicated in the summary. The order is generally chronological.
**
  1. Douai-Rheims.** The original Catholic Bible in English, pre-dating the King James Version (1611). It was translated from the Latin Vulgate, the Church’s official Scripture text, by English Catholics in exile on the continent. The NT was completed and published in 1582 when the English College (the seminary for English Catholics) was located at Rheims. The Old Testament was published in 1610 when the College was located at Douai. Bishop Challoner’s 1750 edition, and subsequent revisions by others up to the 20th century, is the most common edition. Retains some archaic English. The 1899 edition is available from TAN Books. The text is widely available on line, including EWTN’s library.
2. Confraternity Edition. Begun in 1936 by the American bishops’ Confraternity for Christian Doctrine as a translation from the Clementine Vulgate. The publication of Pius XII’s encyclical Divino afflante spiritu (1943) caused the translation committee to switch to the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. Not all books were completed by the time of Vatican II (1962-1965). Those that were finished were used in the liturgy in the 1950s and 60s. Published in a dignified American idiom. Though hard to find, this edition of the Scriptures is worth possessing.

3. Revised Standard Version (RSV) - Catholic Edition. Translated for an American audience from the original languages in the 1940s and 1950s by the National Council of the Churches of Christ, and adapted for Catholic use by the Catholic Biblical Association (1966). Considered the best combination of literal (formal equivalence translation) and literary by many orthodox Catholic scholars. Published today by Ignatius Press (Ignatius Bible) and Scepter Press, and available through EWTN’s Religious Catalogue.

(There is also now the aforementioned RSV-CE 2nd Ed., which primarily removes the “thees and thous” in favor of modern language.)

continued…
 
**4.1 New American Bible or NAB (1970). **Translated from the original languages by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine according to the principles of Vatican II for use in the liturgy. It was the basis of the American Lectionary from the 1970s until 2002. A good translation, but it was criticized for its changing of some traditional and familiar expressions, such as “full of grace”.

4.2 NAB with Revised New Testament (1986). A restoration of some traditional familiar phraseology. Unfortunately, it also included some mild inclusive language. No longer widely available, owing to the publication of the revised Psalms (see next entry).

4.3 NAB with Revised Psalms and Revised New Testament (1991). It was due to the use of vertical inclusive language (re: God and Christ) and some uses of horizontal inclusive language (re: human beings), that the Holy See rejected this text as the basis of a revised Lectionary for the United States. This is the version of the NAB currently on sale in the United States.

4.4 Modified NAB with Revised Psalms and Revised New Testament (2000-2002). This title is of my own invention. It does not refer to any currently available Bible, but to the NAB with Revised Psalms and Revised NT, as modified by a committee of the Holy See and the Bishops for use in the liturgy. It is the text found in all current Lectionaries in the U.S… The Holy See accepted some use of inclusive language, where the speaker/author intended a mixed audience (e.g. “brothers and sisters”, instead of the older “brethren”), but rejected it in references to God or Christ, and man, where the word has anthropological and theological significance (e.g. Psalm 1:1, with reference to Adam and Christ). Whether a Bible will be made available having these modified NAB texts is not known at this time. Since they do not extend to the entire Bible, it is possible that none will be, as that would require further editing of the underlying NAB text.

5. Jerusalem Bible (1966). A translation based on the French edition of the Dominicans of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, who translated it from the original languages. This Bible is the one used by Mother Angelica on the air. The full version has copious footnotes but is hard to find, as it has not been recently republished. A Reader’s Edition, without the full footnoting, is available through EWTN’s Religious Catalogue.

6. New Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition (1989). An adaptation for Catholic use of the NRSV of the National Council of the Churches of Christ. Although used in the American edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it was rejected for liturgical use by the Holy See owing to inclusive language in some unacceptable places. With this exception, like the predecessor RSV, it is a good formal equivalent translation (i.e. literal, but literary).

7. New Jerusalem Bible (1990). A revision of the Jerusalem Bible directly from the original languages. It contains inclusive language, similar to that rejected in the revised NAB by the Holy See for use in the liturgy, but is considered a very literary text, and comparable in quality to the NRSV in scholarship.

8. Today’s’ English Version - Catholic (1992). This is the Catholic edition of the popular Good News Bible by the American Bible Society. Translated according to the principle of dynamic equivalence for readability. The same principle was used by ICEL to translate the Mass texts. Would be better to call a paraphrase than a translation.
 
The above list also leaves off a version known as the Knox Bible, which was out of print for many years, but I believe is being published again somewhere.
 
Lots of bad ones and a few good ones. I’ve collected a copy of just about every translation used in English, along with several other languages. I go over my English collection only here. I’ll only present a ranking without talking about the textual basis, and which I believe to be superior (Byzantine and TR for the OT, LXX and Vulgate with Hebrew influence for the Old). I won’t take my own text critical idiosyncrasies in to account, but only alignment with the deposit of faith, tradition, and mind of the Church, and an edifying and strengthening nature for faith and morals.

**
I think are good:**
  • Douay-Rheims Challoner
  • Confraternity
  • Orthodox Study Bible
  • Revised Standard Version - 2nd Catholic Edition
  • Knox
  • King James Version
  • American Standard Version of 1901
  • New King James Version
  • English Standard Version
  • New American Standard Bible
Of those, the NKJV and NASB don’t come in a edition with the full canon. Only the DRC, the CCD, and the Knox can be considered “properly Catholic”, although the OSB and KJV are far more faithful and Catholic than any other “Catholic” Bibles out there, and the ESV is more small-o Orthodox.

The RSV-2CE seems to be the choice amongst many as it’s a good balance of relatively accurate rendering in modern English, and has the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible in it.

The DRC is my personal favorite, in the Haydock version, but the English is archaic like the KJV.

The Orthodox Study Bible is more small-o orthodox and Catholic than the below Bibles, but there is some blatant anti-Catholicism in it: however, it’s not in the text, but concentrated in the introduction and on half-page inserts on such false doctrines as “ancestral sin”, and the note on Petrine supremacy. Its errors are obvious: its text is pure, and its notes are nearly so. It doesn’t have the insidious, skeptical, faith-destroying properties of the NAB, which is as subtile as the serpent if you think that the imprimatur means that it’s faithful and thinks with the mind of the Church, and that you can believe everything (for that matter, anything) you read in its introductions or notes, nor most of the text in the OT.

The CCD is the precursor to the New American Bible, and it’s pretty good. You can see what the NAB might have looked like if forces of hyper-modernistic, hyper-skeptical Biblical minimalism and secularism hadn’t taken control of the translation process.

Knox is easy to read and faithful, but is a dynamic translation, so it’s not word-for-word accurate. It’s also rare.

**The KJV **is the KJV. You can get versions with the Apocrypha, and it’s pretty much as faithful as the Douay-Rheims.

The NKJV isn’t as good as the KJV or any of the above, but it’s in modern English. It’s short 7 books, as it only comes with the 66-book Protestant canon (the Jewish OT), and also engages in some more obvious Protestant alteration of the NT (“episkopos” as elder instead of bishop, etc.)
**
The ASV is right below the NKJV, comes with the short Jewish canon, and uses archaic English. It’s still better than anything on the other lists.
**
The ESV is an excellent conservative revision of the RSV with minor use of gender-inclusive language and a properly rendered OT. Some NT passages are rendered oddly (1 Tim 3:15), and there’s a tendency to use the word “man” instead of “husband” or “male” or “human” to emphasize Calvinistic interpretations of the text. It comes in an edition with the full canon.

The NASB is an excellent conservative revision of the ASV, and is excellent in all ways except that it doesn’t come with the full canon. For the books it does have, it’s excellent, and it’s in modern English.

**
Bibles that can be used in a pinch, but I wouldn’t recommend:**
  • Jerusalem Bible
  • New International Version (1984 only, 2011 translation is terrible)
  • Amplified Bible
  • The Berkeley (Modern English) Bible
  • Holman Christian Standard Bible
  • New American Bible (New Testament ONLY, completely disregarding notes and introductions: if you read the notes, intro, or OT, avoid at all costs)
Bibles that should be avoided like the plague:
  • New American Bible (OT)
  • New American Bible Revised Edition (OT)
  • New Jerusalem Bible
  • New English Bible
  • Revised English Bible
  • NIV 2011
  • Today’s New International Version
  • New Living Translation
  • The Chicago (Goodspeed) Translation
  • The Message
  • New World Translation
  • God’s Word Translation
  • New International Reader’s Version
  • The Jesus Seminar/Five Gospels/“Scholar’s” Version
(Continued Below)
 
(Continued from above)

Bibles that have limited use, but shouldn’t be used for a main Bible, but only for a specific use or for comparison:
  • RSV-Catholic Edition (bad Old Testament, not as bad as the NAB/RE)
  • RSV 1977 Expanded Edition (has everything the RSV-CE does except “full of grace”)
  • New Revised Standard Version (for scholarly purposes because it’s what others use, not for actual reading, for which it warps the message and intent of the writing through the use of neutered language)
All three of the above mangle the Old Testament beyond repair, but the NRSV is the scholarly standard, so if you need to take a class, or you need to engage skeptics and critics on their own ground as an apologist, it’s what you have to use. The NTs in the RSVs are okay, but not desirable, as they cut far too many verses now deemed legitimate in the vain of Westcott and Hort, while retaining verses that are known to be false, such as the Pericope Adulterae, falling in to the category of “stuff Jesus didn’t say but we wish he did”.

With extreme caution, if you’re bad at English, as they’re easy to read but also horribly inaccurate and interpretative:
  • Contemporary English Version
  • Good News Translation
  • The Message
**
With extreme caution if you want to study the late, corrupt Masoretic text of the OT in its full glory as misinterpreted by the Jews in the only reasonably literal English translation available (all others are filled with Midrashic eisegesis and glosses, a tradition dating back to the targumim, to cover up or gloss over anything that seems contradictory or is not in accord with the Jewish Rabbinic understanding, like the “ArtScroll Tanach” :**
  • New Jewish Publication Society Version
 
Khalid said:
LotsBibles that should be avoided like the plague:
  • New American Bible (OT)
  • New American Bible Revised Edition (OT)
  • New Jerusalem Bible
  • )
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the Church disagrees with you, as you lump non-Catholic translations into some approved by the Church.

OP asked specifically about Catholic translations, so it is not helpful to provide a long list of non-Catholic bibles
 
The list is shorter, then. Many of those are more Catholic than the Catholics. The imprimatur doesn’t mean the text is congruent with tradition, as the granting of it to something like the New Jerome Commentary amply demonstrates.

For Bibles with an imprimatur:

Douay-Rheims Challoner
Confraternity Version
RSV-2CE
Knox Bible
Old/Original Jerusalem Bible
 
I like the introductions to the NAB for the sole fact that they give the approximate dates that most books were written (gospels, etc).
 
From my experience, I would heartily recommend the Douay-Rheims with either the Haydock commentary or the Challoner revision. However I’d also like to warn against the dangers of taking the stance of assuming heretical translations of Scripture (which in effect means they aren’t really Sacred Scripture in the first place) are either fine, or superior to Catholic translations. I’ll use the KJV as my main example, seeing as it’s one of the ‘better’ (for lack of a better term) Protestant translations. Frankly the KJV is a wonderful work of literature, heck it’s even downright poetical in many cases; however that alone doesn’t make up for the 30, 000+ errors it contains… a fact conceded to by even most Protestant theologians. For examples of these, see the following apologetic; catholicapologetics.info/scripture/translations/kjversion.htm

Now compare this to the DR for instance, which is a literal translation of the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome; which the Holy See declared to be free from error. In fact as interesting note, the only really accurate parts of the KJV are those passages taken from the DR! My point being that the “most Catholic” Bibles are those found within the Catholic Church.
 
Douay-Rheims, as it is the only translation which the Holy See has declared to be free from doctrinal error.

🙂
 
The New American Bible is the bible used in the U.S. during Mass.

The Douay-Rheims Bible is also approved by the Holy See and is a direct translation of the Latin Vulgate.
 
Crusading_Canuk said:
Now compare this to the DR for instance, which is a literal translation of the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome; which the Holy See declared to be free from error. In fact as interesting note, the only really accurate parts of the KJV are those passages taken from the DR! My point being that the “most Catholic” Bibles are those found within the Catholic Church.
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I agree completely - for older editions, like DRC, CCD and Knox - and use the Haydock myself. Not so for newer, post-NAB versions. Most of those “30,000 errors” are based on a comparison to the Alexandrian text or the critical text of the UBS, and most are minor spelling or punctuation differences, disregarding the fact that both the DRC and KJV come from different traditions (Vulgate and Textus Receptus), which, when compared to the critical text as a golden standard, both contain thousands of “errors”. The same could be said of the critical text if one took the traditional Vulgate and very similar Byzantine text as the starting point.

It has to do with the judgment that skeptical scholars have made that the Alexandrian text, used with “reasoned eclecticism” and “conjectural emendations”, the jumping-off point.

Compare any dozen verses in the KJV, NAB, NJB, and RSV-2CE, and you’ll find the KJV to be more accurate than the “modern” bunch except for Lk 1:28. It seems most new Bible translations today are fighting damage control against the legacy of W&H’s “Western non-interpolations” and poor exegesis that dominated from the release of the RSV until the present day in most editions, and in all Catholic editions released in that time except for the CCD. The trend is starting to be reversed by the like of the ESV and RSV-2CE to a point. It seems also that many of those new translations were made just to be made: the RSV had no improvement in textual scholarship over the ASV, and is demonstrably poorer in one place (John 7:53-8:11), but came from the new, modernist skeptical tradition, as contrasted with the ASV, translated when the translators still viewed the book as Holy Scripture: many of the dozens of new versions released now seem only to change a few word-orders to escape copyright.

It’s heartening to see the realization of this and the widespread use of the Douay-Rheims, but it’s sad we’ve not been able to produce a good Bible in modern English (the CCD uses archaic English as well) with modern paragraph formatting, so people who have trouble with the Jacobean English have to use the RSV-2CE, which, while mostly good, has some glaring errors in the Psalms, and isn’t DRC standard.

If one puts in the effort to read the archaic English, it’s worth it, as has been said, it’s been declared free from all theological error for use in all disputations - something that can never be said about the current crop of Catholic Bibles in their current form, and even less so to the current crop of “mainline” liberal Protestant Bibles (the NRSV): the same trend seems to be making its way into evangelicalism with the release of the rebranded “TNIV”, the “NIV 2011”.

PS: one thing about the KJV - it nailed the Psalms and is still the best Psalter in English. The Douay-Rheims didn’t. Compare Ps 2, 16, 17, 21, 22, and 119 (by Vulgate numbering) in the two translations.
 
A_G said:
The New American Bible is the bible used in the U.S. during Mass…
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No, it’s not. It might be called the New American Bible, but it’s been so heavily revised by the Vatican in order to bring it in to compliance with the faith that it’s no more of an NAB than an RSV is. The NAB you can buy in book form has been rejected by the Vatican for liturgical use (although for some reason they still use it on their website, but not in their publications, for which they use the Catholic RSV, a much better and more widely-respected translation): why should we be stuck with a Bible that is unacceptable for liturgical use in our private devotions?

The SNRNAB can not be purchased in Bible form, but only as a lectionary. The “NAB” (I call it the “Second New Revised New American Bible”) used in Mass readings corrects nearly all of the problems, except for bad English, present in the NAB translation itself.
 
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