Which translation do you prefer?

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AndreiCordovan

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I am not yet a Catholic, but I am looking forward to joining the Church. I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian.
I have been trying to find a Catholic translation of the Bible. Unlike the Orthodox Church where there is only one English translation of the Bible so far, there are many translations of the Catholic Bible.
Which one do you prefer and why? (RSV-CE, NAB, Douay-Rheims, New Jerusalem Bible).

And another question: why does the Douay-Rheims translation use the Greek numbering for the Psalms and for other books of the Old Testament, like Isaiah for example (I mean that it uses the same numbering as the Orthodox Bible, which is different from the Protestant Bibles)?
 
The Douay-Rheims (especially the Haydock), the Confraternity, the KJV, and the Orthodox Study Bible. The Knox Bible is good for a fresh, easy to read dynamic translation, but it’s very rare. The RSV-2CE is alright (not the RSV-CE, which is not). The ESV with “Apocrypha” is good too. The NASB is very good but it doesn’t include the full Canon of Scripture, only the 66 books of the Protestants.

However, for someone new in the faith, I’m not sure I could recommend the ESV (some Calvinist interpretation in the NT), nor the Orthodox Study Bible unless you’re solid in your Catholic faith, as there’s an introduction that’s a polemic against the Church, and half a dozen notes are slanted towards Orthodoxy. On the whole, it’s more orthodox with a small o than most Catholic Bibles, and highly recommended if you need a translation in modern English, if you can’t understand the “thees” and “thous” and archaic grammar of the DRC, KJV, and CCD. I could recommend the NASB to anyone if it had the full canon of Scripture.

Stay away from the NAB/RE at all costs. Avoid the NJB just slightly less. The original Jerusalem Bible isn’t good, but it’s not so terrible that it shouldn’t be used even if you have no alternatives, like the NAB/RE and the NJB.

If you’re in to Biblical scholarship and criticism the NRSV is a good choice, but for reading as a Christian, and not as a secular scholar, it’s no good.
 
What is wrong with the NAB and the RSV-CE?
The translation used at Mass in the US is the NAB, and I heard that the Pope uses the RSV-CE when quoting verses in English.
 
The NAB used in the Mass is not the NAB you can buy in book form. I call it the “Second New Amended New American Bible”. It’s been revised by the Vatican to bring it in to compliance with the faith. You can get the “Mass NAB”, which is no more an NAB than an ESV is, in lectionary form, but a lectionary doesn’t contain full books arranged as books, and only contains about 1/3 of the Bible (3/4 of the NT, 1/10 of the OT), arranged as readings - one can’t read it like a Bible.

The book form (the NAB and NABRE) is so soaked with hyper-skepticism and modernism that it’s a travesty. The notes endorse blatant heresy, especially in the book introductions and annotation of the Pentateuch and Gospels. The translation is below mediocre at best. It’s of low literary character, poorly translated on a purely philological and linguistic level (sometimes wrong on every level, such as its rendition of Gen 1:1-2), horribly translated when it comes to tradition and prophecy, and gender-neutered, although there are no notes to tell you where words have been changed, like the NRSV has. The notes themselves range from bad to worse, and in the NT, endorse radical, “Jesus Seminar”-like reductionist minimalist scholarship that has been discredited or challenged for the past 20 years, and presents it as Gospel truth, absolute fact, because the notes haven’t been revised since the mid-80s (although, based on the OT revision, if they were revised today, they’d be just as radical, but just with the new flavors of the day of early-2010s skeptical secular scholarship).

The RSV-CE, like the RSV, has a good New Testament, but renders passages in the Old Testament so as to deliberately obscure prophetic, Messianic, or Christological references. The RSV-2CE has restored several of these prophecies. The DRC, KJV, CCD, OSB, ESV, and NASB do not render the text with an ulterior materialist/naturalist presupposition and motive in mind: if the text is prophetic, it remains prophetic. They are honest translations. The NIV has an honest Old Testament, but the New Testament is translated to skew it against Catholic interpretation, by translating the words meaning “works”, “faith”, “flesh”, “tradition”, “priest” and “bishop” inconsistently, to bias it towards an evangelical reading.

There is an extended discussion of some particular issues at this thread with several very long posts and expositions in it.

I’ve been typing an hour straight now - read that thread, especially the posts of me, Huioi Theos, and mccorm45. I’ll come back and quote myself or rehash all of the same objections in this thread if it’s still desired.

Signed,

A sinner who is zealous for the faithful transmission of the printed Word of God.
 
I want to use the popcorn smiley to say “I’m waiting for it…someone to call me a heretic/schismatic/SSPX for recognizing the (major) problems with the NAB”

What is it? 🍿 ?

By the way, that’s a very short and summarized reply for me. I’m proud of having been able to get to my point and shut up that quickly.

I’m the Pontiff of Prolix, the Veteran of Verbose, the Superior of Serpentine, the Warden of Wordiness, the Lictor of Long-Windedness…
 
Khalid said:
The Douay-Rheims (especially the Haydock), the Confraternity, the KJV, and the Orthodox Study Bible. The Knox Bible is good for a fresh, easy to read dynamic translation, but it’s very rare. The RSV-2CE is alright (not the RSV-CE, which is not). The ESV with “Apocrypha” is good too. The NASB is very good but it doesn’t include the full Canon of Scripture, only the 66 books of the Protestants.

However, for someone new in the faith, I’m not sure I could recommend the ESV (some Calvinist interpretation in the NT), nor the Orthodox Study Bible unless you’re solid in your Catholic faith, as there’s an introduction that’s a polemic against the Church, and half a dozen notes are slanted towards Orthodoxy. On the whole, it’s more orthodox with a small o than most Catholic Bibles, and highly recommended if you need a translation in modern English, if you can’t understand the “thees” and “thous” and archaic grammar of the DRC, KJV, and CCD. I could recommend the NASB to anyone if it had the full canon of Scripture.

Stay away from the NAB/RE at all costs. Avoid the NJB just slightly less. The original Jerusalem Bible isn’t good, but it’s not so terrible that it shouldn’t be used even if you have no alternatives, like the NAB/RE and the NJB.

If you’re in to Biblical scholarship and criticism the NRSV is a good choice, but for reading as a Christian, and not as a secular scholar, it’s no good.
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I have a Douay Rheims and a lg print GNT bearing the Imprimatur of the National Council of Catholic Bishops. I always say though the best translation is the one you are going to pick up and read. I also have a NKJV a Protestant friend gave me once as a gift but I rarely read it because of the print. I actually like the flow of the NIV when I’ve looked at it, easier to just sit and read than the old style English but not quite as modern as some others. But I know it nor the previously mentioned NKJV is a “Catholic Bible”.

But what’s wrong with the NRSV for a Christian? I thought there was even a Catholic version.
 
For reading aloud (I read a chapter to my kids every evening) I like the Jerusalem Bible.👍
For reading myself I like the Catholic Revised Standard Version, and sometimes the KJV and the Douay-Rheims.
 
It’s a good scholarly version. However, the OT is translated according to skeptical/secular/Jewish principles, probably for ecumenical reasons, to erase any Messianic prophecy (even when the Hebrew has to be violated to do this, in the form of a “conjectural emendation”, just as the NAB introduces contradictions that don’t exist in the same manner), and is gender-neutered. It is fully a Liberal Protestant Bible, from beginning to end. The “Catholic Version” is just the same NRSV with the deuterocanon dispersed throughout the OT according to Catholic tradition, instead of in the middle of the Bible. The text itself is not changed at all. It’s good for scholarly use because it incorporates the Dead Sea Scrolls more than any other translation, but, most of all, because of the academic bandwagon effect - it’s what other scholars use, because Biblical criticism is dominated by very liberal Protestants.

I can arrange a comprehensive list of verses these translations have problems with sometime, but it would be a large and long undertaking. That’s why I’m making my own translation from the original Greek with a heavy Latin influence - so one doesn’t have to settle for second-best, but one in which every verse is correct.

The NIV is good in the OT, of middling English, but has the problems in the NT I described.

The GNT is useless as a main Bible or for doctrinal or theological research or systematic theology or Bible study, as it’s almost a paraphrase (but not quite as much as “the Message”), but, to get “the storyline” or “the general message” in a fresh way, it’s good.

The NKJV is all-around excellent, but, like the NASB, doesn’t have the full canon. The NKJV and NASB each are better than the other in some ways; the NKJV has the best set of textual notes there is. They fit the same market for “very literal Christian translations in modern English”, instead of “kind of literal secular/skeptical/humanist translations (NAB, NRSV, to a lesser degree the original RSV)” or “midrashic Jewish translations (AST, JPS, NJPS, to a point the NRSV)”, or “dynamic translations” (NIV, NLT, GNT,CEV, TEV, MSG, NEB) or “traditional literal translations” (KJV, DRC, ASV, CCD) or “moderately literal translations” (ESV, RSV), or “moderately dynamic translations” (NIV, JB, NJB, REB, Knox) so on and so forth.
 
I like the RSV-CE the best but also like NAB.

I find Douay Rheims. unreadable and painful, but to each their own.
 
For modern English editions, the RSV-2CE and OSB are where it’s at, the RSV-2CE for text-only and the ICSBNT, the OSB for an LXX and Textus Receptus study Bible. Neither is as good as the DRC or Confraternity, but they’re still good enough to not be dangerous, like the NAB and notes in the NJB are. Knox is good for an easy-to-read rendering, as I’ve said.

Most people eventually settle on an RSV-2CE with an Ignatius Study Bible New Testament, that I’ve seen. It’s a good mediating position between extremely literal and accurate with tons of notes (DRC Haydock) and complete trash (NAB), leaning much more towards the “accurate” side than the “NAB” side.

One should always have multiple translations. I would recommend the DRC/Haydock, the RSV-2CE/ICSBNT, the OSB, the ESV, the NETS, the NASB and the CCD, and then a Jerusalem Bible, NIV (1984 version, the 2011 version is useless), NJB, NJPS and NRSV if one goes beyond the CCD.

If one is really in to Biblical criticism and historical criticism and redaction criticism, etc. the New Oxford Annotated Bible is the best.
 
If you are wanting to read a good bible, buy an NRSV. I personally like it. The Jerusalem Bible is ok, but I find it difficult to read. The NRSV is great because it is readable and good for someone who is wanting to learn more about the bible. It is also read by many protestants as well therefore it comes in different formats such as a compact version if you are wanting something very portable, or as a study bible. The Harper Collins study bible is amazing. It has all sorts of footnotes, explanations of the passages at the bottom of the page which helps one to understand it. This bible is used for the theological courses at my university. I love it.
 
SecretGarden said:
If you are wanting to read a good bible, buy an NRSV. I personally like it. The Jerusalem Bible is ok, but I find it difficult to read. The NRSV is great because it is readable and good for someone who is wanting to learn more about the bible. It is also read by many protestants as well therefore it comes in different formats such as a compact version if you are wanting something very portable, or as a study bible. The Harper Collins study bible is amazing. It has all sorts of footnotes, explanations of the passages at the bottom of the page which helps one to understand it. This bible is used for the theological courses at my university. I love it.
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I agree with this, for someone coming from a Protestant background the NRSV will be easier to read than some of the other Catholic translations.
 
By the way, he’s not coming from a Protestant background, but an Orthodox background, and their stuff is even more Byzantine than ours - pun intended.

The footnotes have nothing to do with what the Bible actually says, but are theorizing about who wrote it. The Harper Collins Bible is a competitor to the New Oxford Annotated: not fit for the simple lay faithful. The NRSV itself isn’t a bad translation if you read the footnotes to undo the gender-neutering and already know what the Bible is supposed to say, so when you read, “the human being coming on the clouds of heaven” in Dan 7:13, you know that ben Adam means “Son of Man”, and that’s how the passage is supposed to read.

So, if you already know what the Bible is supposed to say and you need a mere reminder to jog your memory, the NRSV is fine. For first-time reading, it’s not: the neutering distorts the meaning of the NT, and the skeptical/secular exegesis distorts the OT, so in the end, it seems like two books bound together, instead of an NT that fulfills an OT and an OT that foreshadows the NT, as, like the NAB (although not quite as badly) it does its best to sever all connection between the two testaments, and to return the OT to a “Tanakh in its rightful Jewish milieu, uncorrupted by bad Christian exegesis” (even if that exegesis was inspired by the Holy Spirit himself in the NT authors), and to return 1st century Roman Judaea to a modern liberal paradise of feminism, with St Paul himself its staunchest champion.

The RSV-2CE is just as easy to read as the NRSV (sometimes more so), is a little more literal, and far more accurate, unbiased, and faithful.

Someone reading the Bible for edification in the faith doesn’t need 200 pages of essays on why the Bible isn’t inspired and why all of the authors are plagiarists, why Mark didn’t write Mark, the hypothetical Q document, etc. Two people need the NOAB/HCSB/NRSV: apologists, so that they may engage critics on their own ground, and researchers, to propose alternative theories and rebut those currently popular. The NOAB and HCSB read like a “Jesus Seminar in a Book” (the NAB is little better), and aren’t for those who don’t have a strong faith, already know what the Bible should say, and an even stronger ability of discernment. That is, the commentary isn’t about what the Bible says or what it means, but about why it says it, why tradition is wrong, why Mark didn’t write Mark, the cultural influences that caused it to be written in such a way, the different documents and pagan myths that were supposedly plagiarized or cobbled together to form the current text (because the authors don’t believe in any form of inspiration, being secularists and humanists), etc.
 
Khalid said:
The footnotes have nothing to do with what the Bible actually says, but are theorizing about who wrote it. The Harper Collins Bible is a competitor to the New Oxford Annotated: not fit for the simple lay faithful. The NRSV itself isn’t a bad translation if you read the footnotes to undo the gender-neutering and already know what the Bible is supposed to say, so when you read, “the human being coming on the clouds of heaven” in Dan 7:13, you know that ben Adam means “Son of Man”, and that’s how the passage is supposed to read.

So, if you already know what the Bible is supposed to say and you need a mere reminder to jog your memory, the NRSV is fine. For first-time reading, it’s not: the neutering distorts the meaning of the NT, and the skeptical/secular exegesis distorts the OT, so in the end, it seems like two books bound together, instead of an NT that fulfills an OT and an OT that foreshadows the NT, as, like the NAB (although not quite as badly) it does its best to sever all connection between the two testaments, and to return the OT to a “Tanakh in its rightful Jewish milieu, uncorrupted by bad Christian exegesis” (even if that exegesis was inspired by the Holy Spirit himself in the NT authors), and to return 1st century Roman Judaea to a modern liberal paradise of feminism, with St Paul himself its staunchest champion.
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I agree with you but I think the level of detail and analysis that most people read and use the bible for it makes little difference which translation they choose. As long as it’s CE and is suitable to their reading tastes it should work.

The only time to nitpick is if you are doing some serious bible study.
 
Being a serious Bible student, that’s why I went from preferring the NRSV, REB, NIV and NJB to the DRC, KJV, ASV, OSB, CCD, NASB, and RSV-2CE, and realized the importance of utter faithfulness in the transmission of God’s written Word, just as his unwritten Word is transmitted through the Pope and his ex cathedra statements (and other bishops and councils, to a point), and his living Word through the Eucharist. (I never did much care for the NAB, even before, as the English prose is lousy.)

It’s important for all readers, in all details. Especially for first-time readers, so, on reading the Old Testament, they will intuitively see how it connects to and prophesies the New, and have “aha!” moments where they just realized someone was talking about Christ as if he could see him hanging on the Cross or judging the world 700 years before he was born.

Only then does it become one Bible with one God and one Message and one Church, instead of a bunch of quaint religious books, written by men and divided arbitrarily in to 3 sections based on the level of development of primitive thought, that have no living meaning, are mythological, and are cobbled together because they influenced the formation of our culture because those ancients were soo stupid and credulous and superstitious, ya know? that they thought one actually had something to do with the other, and they believed in prophecy and miracle! OMG! Except for the smart ones like Plato, who were almost as smart as we are!

Would you take God’s living Word from a priest who denied the Real Presence and decided to change a few of the words of consecration to suit his bias against the possibility of transubstantiation and the supernatural and to make it conform to modern, consumerist culture’s expectations? No? Then why would you take God’s written Word that has likewise been adulterated?
 
For true biblical scholarship you need to read scripture in the original Greek or Hebrew.

When reading to my kids I wanted a bible that read “nicely” and that was aurally understandable. I found the NAB and the RSV (2CE) required mouth gymnastics at times to read aloud.
 
I say go for the Douay Rheims Challoner Old Testament–the Confraternity New Testament–and an English translation of the new Latin Psalms authorized by Pope Pius XII and published by the Pontifical Bilblical Commssion in 1945.

Most of these combination bibles were published between 1948 and 1952.

No bible is perfect but these bibles are at least Catholic and have conservative notes.
 
At the moment my regular bible is the RSV-CE (& some ICSBs), but I’m considering the ‘ESV with Apocrapha’ because I dislike the some of the ‘wording’ choices that I’ve encountered especially the toning down of the Christological elements of the OT and the fact that the OT quotes in the NT don’t match (where they could from the NT greek; I’m aware that at times the quote doesn’t match) eg. when Jesus quotes Deuteronomy in The Temptation.

My biggest dislike of the NRSV is that it renders ‘he’ as ‘they’ (singular is not plural in any sane world) and doesn’t always indicate the change in the footnotes. This happens almost every other line in the Psalms, which also eliminates the reading of the psalm as speaking of, or by, Christ.

At the moment I consider the RSV-2CE the best Catholic option. The JB is good (very readable) but not very literal; the NJB is literal but has similar problems to the NRSV (not to such an extent, but doesn’t indicate gender-neutral changes to the text at all); and before anyone suggests the NAB most ‘British-English speakers’ intensely dislike the language used;).
 
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