I’m sure others will give you their recommendations but I wanted to respond to part of your request - the original copies of all the written sources have completely disappeared. The oldest fragment of any portion of the New Testament dates from the 2nd century, 100 years after Jesus’ death. The next oldest fragments (of Matthew, Luke, John, and Thomas) date to about 200. The first complete copy of the Greek New Testament (Codex Sinaiticus) is from the 4th century. Thus, three centuries separate Jesus from the earliest complete surviving copies of the gospels.
Very good and informative post. I wanted to comment on this Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. They are putting this out as they complete it. I have bought the 10 volumes that they’ve put out so far, and intend to re-buy the single volume when it eventually comes out. Best notes I’ve ever seen. Incredible depth and and connectivity. It has special charts and graphs, as well as essays on particular ideas. Right now, as I use these, I need another bible to look up the cross references to books which aren’t done yet, and for that I use the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, mainly because that is what was used as the basis for the study bible. I just want to stay consistent. Plus, I’ve really grown to enjoy the language in the RSV-CE.
Actually, Ignatius has a new edition (came out last year IIRC) called the RSV 2nd Catholic Edition. They have cleaned up some language specifically reccomended by Catholics. I would vote for the DR as the most accurate. Yes it is a “translation of a translation” but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. St. Jerome translated the Greek and Hebrew scriptures into Latin. At that time Jerome was acknowledged as one of the foremost authorities on the ancient Greek and Hebrew languages. Jerome was apparently so familiar with both languages that he could speak them. Jerome was also intimately familiar with Latin. So Jerome took Scriptures written in archaic languages and translated them into a “modern” tongue. Scholars today cannot hope to be as close to the true understanding of ancient Greek and Hebrew as Jerome but they can certainly understand and translate the Latin of Jerome. Bottom line, almost everyone has a preference and I would recommend having more than one Bible if you are seriously studying…I have both the RSV 2CE and a DR.
For my pennyworth, the best translation is the Stuttgart Latin Vulgate, which seems not only to be the closest to the pen of St Jerome, but also witnesses that St Jerome took the Best African Vetus Latina Gospels, and only very lightly re-edited them. These VL Gospels seem to have dated back to about AD 200, for they were clearly used by Tatian in his composition of the Latin Diatessaron.
The New International Version. It has translations from manuscripts dated from the first century (c 100 AD).
The Latin Vulgate… but since I assume that you are looking for an English translation, I would say Douay-Rhiems.
Not true! Read the intro to the NIV; no mention of Catholics on the Committee on Bible Translation". Evangelical Protestants predominate.
Yup and the Haydock Douay Rheims would have a huge amount of Commentary.
Ah but when St Jerome was translating the Latin Vulgate he had access to manuscripts of the OT that in his time was already considered ancient. These were since lost. Hence the NIV translators do not have access to them. Further St Jerome was fluent in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, in terms of both speaking and writing. Latin and Greek was what he spoke daily. None of the NIV translators can even come close. Further, when it the original meaning differs from Protestant beliefs, you get deliberate mistranslations.
But you would still need to translate accurately. If a translation is faulty, the accuracy of the original document does not help it.
Based on whose understand of scripture? The NIV is a Protestant so it is only natural that when not translating accurately, Protestant heresies get inserted.
Oh so there are 7 missing books from this translation
There are 73 books in the Bible, no less. Why waste money on a translation that has missing stuff?