What's wrong with the NAB and NABRE?

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stuartbrianhenlis

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Hi all!

I frequently read negative comments about the NAB. Some people say it’s liberal, others just plain don’t like it, period. So, would someone explain to me exactly wrong with it?

Thanks,
Stuart
 
The Old Testament is fine. It is basically the work of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine that was intended to be used in the never completed 1941-1969 Confraternity bible. However, the winds of change swept it out of the way and the NAB New Testament was adopted with a slightly modified Confraternity Old Testament.

The problem with the NAB, aside from the middle school reading level, is the horrendous nature of some of the foot notes and book introductions that one finds inside. Some of them are fine, but activists crept in and inserted notes that can be corrosive to the faith.

Examples? Suggesting strongly that Luke made up Mary’s “Magnificat” and claiming that the original writer of Matthew is completely unknown, and is called Matthew for the sake of convenience.

There are excellent alternatives, rendered in more modern English. Try the Revised English Bible w/Apocrypha (Deuterocanon) or even the hot-off-the-press Tyndale Catholic New Living Translation. Both are arguably easier to defend Catholicism from than the NAB or NAB/RE.

Just my opinion, but it strikes me as arrogant that modernists would assume to know more about occurrences 2,000 years ago than those who were there. To know more about what happened than the tradition handed on to us.
 
That pretty much sums up my problems with the NAB as well. I just don’t like the reading level, and those notes… meh.

I like the NLT as a comparison. Looking forward to stopping at Pauline Bookstore and picking up the Catholic version.
 
stuartbrianhenlis said:
Hi all!

I frequently read negative comments about the NAB. Some people say it’s liberal, others just plain don’t like it, period. So, would someone explain to me exactly wrong with it?

Thanks,
Stuart
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Do you mean the 1970 NAB, the 1986 RNAB, 1991 RNAB Psalms, or the 2011 NABRE?

I have read of two issues in RNAB and NABRE: dynamic equivalence and gender neutral phrases. About 1970 NAB: dynamic equivalence vs Douay-Rheims-Challoner literalness. In general the more modern translations are with a simpler vocabulary (e.g., sixth grade vs twelfth).
 
The general issue is that the notes are heavily influenced by modernism.
po18guy said:
it strikes me as arrogant that modernists would assume to know more about occurrences 2,000 years ago than those who were there
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If they weren’t arrogant, they wouldn’t be modernists, now would they?
 
I don’t think that they’re perfect by any means, but I’ve seen worse. Honestly, for my personal Bible, I use the Revised Standard Version Catholic edition.
 
The notes are really, really bad.

I find the language to be less beautiful but that’s just me (and a lot of others)
 
Many of the notes are corrosive to the Faith, while many others are actually good (as far as historical/critical concerns.) But what really boils me is the HEAVY HANDED way they say things that are entirely conjectural as if NO ONE disagrees.

The other thing I hate is the pedestrian way things are phrased in beloved places of Scripture. This relates to the 12 year old reading level they have adopted that po18guy mentioned.

So you have notes geared more toward post-graduate scientific historical/critical readers, than your average Catholic layman, but the text is designed for a 12 year old! IOW, the worst of both worlds! :roll_eyes:
 
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Nothing.

The “footnotes” of this bible are no more, or no less, inspired than the footnotes of other bibles.

No Catholic bibles, IMHO, should have footnotes.

Scripture should be read and the meaning pondered in the heart, not in the footnotes.

Relying on footnotes instead of the writings of the Church Fathers, Church Documents, and what is taught by the Magisterium does little to make a person well catechized.
 
I don’t mind the NAB, mostly because I grew up with it being read at Mass every Sunday and studying it in Bible study class at school. I do agree that the language in places varies a lot from the Douay (the one my mother had in the house before I was issued a NAB as a textbook) and that can be annoying when it’s some verse or parable that we were all used to hearing in the traditional old-fashioned way. I can understand others having a problem with the notes and frankly I would just as soon go to some older edition like Haydock for the notes as I think some of the NAB notes are suspect myself.

The NABRE, on the other hand, strikes me as an unnecessary update to an update. Once again the wording of familiar readings, such as some of the Passion readings used during Easter, changed. There was no real need to do this. It would be nice if a Bible reading could sound more or less the same during my lifetime when I hear it in church, but I guess that’s too much to ask. I also think there is an unhealthy concern in both the Church and in society generally about “gender neutral language” and some of that seems to have crept in - again I find it completely unnecessary.

I avoid reading the NABRE except when I am specifically looking to review the readings for a current Mass, and will pull up the older NAB instead.
 
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My concern lies with those returning to the faith and perusing the footnotes as a form of informal catechesis. We war against the spiritual realm, and it was/is int her spiritual realm that those footnotes and intros were placed.

Oh! The NAB deleted the “Prayer to the Holy Spirit before reading the Scriptures”, which was found io the inside cover or first few pages of D-R and Confraternity bibles.

Why would anyone do that?

The greatest repository of faith on earth can do better. The faithful deserve better. Saint Jerome is not spinning in his grave only because he is in heaven.
 
po18guy said:
Saint Jerome is not spinning in his grave only because he is in heaven.
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He might not be…Jerome was known for being cantankerous…if he were spinning it might not be because of the non-scriptural content of any given bible, but the unwillingness or inability of those reading scripture to take the next step…he was not a fan of the Millennial need for instant gratification.

When Christ said to pick up our cross and follow him, I don’t think the effort in compiling the things needed to study the Word is asking so much that a “one stop shop” is necessary or should be expected.

Again, another reason there should be no footnotes in any bible.
 
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Hereiam said:
Again, another reason there should be no footnotes in any bible.
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That is actually a Protestant concept. In fact Protestant Bibles (at least in the past) were ostentatiously advertised as devoid of notes (excepting only marginal references of course.) This was to bolster the idea of private judgement being the guiding light of reading Scripture.

Catholic English translations of the Bible from day one (meaning the D/R bibles of 1582 to 1609) have been annotated. This is because Catholics are reading their Bibles in a Protestant world. This is not only still true, but what is worse, a secular world. Add to this how poorly Catholics are catechized, the need for notes is more real and necessary than ever!

What is specious about the NAB and NABRE notes, is that they are not concerned with Catholic Truths as much as Historical/Critical concerns, much of which is conjectural and unproven, yet is treated as virtually scientific truth!

That is why the Ignatius Bible is so extremely popular. It combines a good text: the RSV-CE, with notes that treat of Catholic Truths while putting current historical/critical theories in their true light, or at least balanced with opposing and equally compelling theories. The Navarre Bible is another extremely popular Bible because of its orthodox Catholic notes. The Haydock Bible is another heavily annotated Bible that refuses to go away, although over 200 years old now, because its notes quote from the Fathers of the Church and other equally orthodox authors on Scripture.
 
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I’m a big fan of the Navarre Bible. I use it in conjunction with my RSV-2CE Bible, and find the notes in Navarre quite illuminating.

I think the NABRE, in many ways, reads more naturally. Perhaps, that is why it is the basis of the American lectionary. I read the NABRE when I prepare for mass, but for my personal study, I use the RSV, as I understand it to be closer to a literal translation than the NABRE.
 
For a solid Catholic Bible, I cannot recommend the Didache Bible highly enough. It is available in RSV or NABRE translation, but the notes are culled from the Catechism, the Fathers, and various Papal documents and Councils. It’s a bit pricey, but worth every penny.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
avoid reading the NABRE except when I am specifically looking to review the readings for a current Mass, and will pull up the older NAB instead.
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If you wanted to have a Bible that matches the Mass readings best you would need to find a 2nd edition NAB.

The Lectionary uses a modified 1970 NAB OT and 1986 RNAB NT.

Find a NAB printed between 1986-1991 and it will match the Mass readings almost perfectly.

Or get a third edition printed between 1991-2010 and just rip out the entire horrid book of Psalms - it was a totally botched translation that went way over board with gender neutral language - it was rejected by Rome even after being modified.
 
AmbroseSJ said:
The other thing I hate is the pedestrian way things are phrased in beloved places of Scripture.
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That’s my problem with it – it clanks. You can ignore the footnotes, but there’s obviously no way to read it and avoid the text.
 
I thought that rejected Psalms version was not published, or no longer published? Did copies of it even get out?

For the Mass readings, I just go to the USCCB website and read what the bishops have posted. They claim to be using the 2011 NABRE. I take their word for it, I have not gone out to read or buy a hard copy.

For my personal Bible reading plan (I’m working my way through the Great Adventure free timeline at this point in order to read the Bible all the way through again), I use the online NAB dated 2002 that the Vatican website has up. I picked that one to get as close as I could to the version I used in high school, the first time I read the Bible all the way through.

There’s an online Douay somewhere too if I want to read thees and thous.
 
Lots of good comments on this thread. G. K. Chesterton compared the newer translations of his era with the KJV. He said the modern translators likely had a better knowledge of Greek and Hebrew languages, but the KJV translators had a better knowledge of the English language.

In addition to the problems of political correctness, the NAB and NABRE look like they were translated automatically by a word processing machine. If there is any possible choice in phrasing, they invariably choose the most banal. You would think that, just by accident, they might happen to hit on a majestic, memorable way of expression once in awhile…but not if they can help it.

One reason people tended to memorize parts of the KJV, and D-R, is that so much of the wording is memorable, and memory is a God given faculty we have neglected in recent decades. In actual living out of the bible in daily life, it helps when specific phrases stick in your mind.

The KJV and D-R convey a certain sense of awe, or majesty, in communications with or about God. That tends to stick with the reader. The NAB conveys a sense of God as committee chairperson, a facilitator, somewhat more important than we are.
 
I have a Latin Vulgate / English (Olde English) D-R parallel on this Tablet. Free download for Android.
 
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