Why do People Dislike the New American Bible (NAB)?

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catholic03

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Hello!

I have a few copies of the Bible in a few different translations. Although I got my hands on the New Living Translation Catholic Edition which I would recommend (the Protestant edition is the most popular Bible in the last 20 years) because of its accurate rendering in the modern language, I still like the NAB. I am not American, but it is so easy to understand the text and it also seems literal. Although the NLT is somewhat literal the NAB seems to preserve the literal language in an way that is as easy to understand as the NLT.

I have other translations including the RSVCE and the Douay Rheims, but I do like the NAB.

I do not understand why there seems to be so much dislike towards this edition which I like a lot.

In Christ.
 
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It’s not a very good translation. It’s not very accurate to the Hebrew and Greek at times. This is all well and good sometimes, given that the more literal a translation is, the harder it’s going to be to read. Sometimes smoothing out has to be done to make a text readable in translation. The NAB suffers from a lot of smoothing out done in the name not of readability, but of inclusive language. There are occasionally some theologically questionable renderings in it as well. It’s not the worst translation out there, but it’s not the best either.

Bottom line, it’s alright for personal reading, but if your want to study scripture more in depth, you’re better off with the RSV. It’s what I go to when I want to know what the Hebrew or Greek say, but don’t have such in front of me.

-Fr ACEGC
 
I’m not sure they don’t like the translation as much as the footnotes. They are not as in line with Catholic theology and teaching as are other scripture notes such as the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. I don’t mind the translation but I prefer the RSV. And regardless of the footnote issues I still learned a lot from them. To use the old idiom I didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
 
It openly questions the authenticity of books in the introductions. I have no idea how it made it to authorization for use.
I understand this in academia, but the casual Catholic opening up to 2 Peter and reading how it isn’t even by Peter could cause some faith issues.
 
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God Bless you, Father. I have an edition of the original RSV CE, but I found it quite hard to read. I hope to do a read through of the scriptures using the NAB or NLT to better understand it when I read my RSV.

I have found the NAB’s notes are questionable. The Holy Gospels have very worrying footnotes.

But, for some reason I still like it.
 
I like the NRSV. I don’t have the CE one though, I got the one with the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical Books, as I realized it has even more books that Orthodox accept for the same amount of money.
Win win.
 
I and others have posts on several other threads about the NAB. The footnotes are awful. They are very skeptical, based on a 1970s idea of “historical-critical” scholarship which viewed the Bible as just a man-made historical document. Miracles are doubted, the supernatural is doubted, all in a passive-aggressive, roundabout way that tries to sound intellectual but is just bland, outdated, and uninspiring. The book introductions are awful and smugly provide outdated scholarship questioning the authorship of almost every book of Scripture. Just terrible.
 
Something I will add to my post. When I started reading the Bible it was the NAB. It was my introduction and am grateful that a family member gave it to me as gift one Christmas. It’s what initially got me hooked to Bible reading and studying, so I’ll always have a soft spot for it. At the time I didn’t realize the problems with the translation and notes. However since then I feel like I “graduated” to the RSV and footnotes more in line with Catholicism and never looked back.
 
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Just so’s we’re clear here, are we talking about the original NAB, or the NABRE that was introduced about 10 years ago?

I enjoyed the NAB because of its readability and because of the materials like the maps that were included. I’ve also found it to be less expensive than the other (better) translations. If I were gifting bibles to the Catholics of the local high school graduating class, that’s the one I’d pick.
 
  1. It is a “squshy” translation. Could be Protestant.
  2. The book introductions have a lot of modernism in them - in that they downplay or dismiss the supernatural elements of the faith.
  3. Some of the foot notes are just plain toxic.
  4. “New” generally indicates that the text has been politically corrected.
Want a good daily reading bible? Yes, the Knox and Douay-Rheims are both excellent. Any of the 1941-1969 Confraternity bibles are excellent - especially the New Testament. A sleeper is the Oxford-Cambridge Revised English Bible w/Apocrypha (Deuterocanon). It is just stately enough to remind you that it is a bible and not a conversation with your neighbor over the back fence. It is from the UK and was done with (name removed by moderator)ut from the Catholic Churches in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Best of all, it is dirt cheap in excellent/like new condition on eBay, Amazon or Thriftbooks. The same with the Catholic Confraternity Bibles.
 
The NAB and the NABRE are not that different from each other, except for maybe the Psalms.

I grew up with the NAB. I mostly like it because I’m used to it, not because it’s so great. The footnotes often seem to contain bias towards some 1970s views. I don’t need to have an anti-violence morality point made in the footnotes every time an Israelite brutally kills an enemy. I don’t need to be lectured in the footnotes about not taking parts of the OT literally.

I’ve been re-reading the Bible straight through for the last 2 years using the Vatican website NABRE. Seems essentially same as NAB, which I read straight through many decades ago.

Language-wise I prefer KJV, however it is not an approved translation so I can’t get an Indulgence reading it. Douay is approved and similar to KJV, but some parts are annoyingly different.
 
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I like the New Jerusalem Bible by Henry Wansbrough. He may very well be unique among translators of the Bible in that he is both a Catholic and ethnically Jewish. Originally trained as a classical scholar at Oxford, he went on to study theology at Fribourg before undertaking postgraduate studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and the École Biblique in Jerusalem. Most of the work on the NJB was undertaken while he was working as a schoolmaster at Ampleforth (he later returned to Oxford as master of St Benet’s Hall and chairman of the theology faculty and afterwards took up a chair in biblical studies in Liverpool). He was also a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. The translation is exceptionally clear but also very faithful to the original texts. One also gets glimpses of Wansbrough’s distinctive theological and linguistic interpretations.

Also, how many Bible translators are this cool?

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
I have the Catholic Truth Society’s New Catholic Bible with the Jerusalem Translation except with the 1963 Grail Psalms.
 
My NABRE has a message from Pope Paul VI with the papal seal.

How was a book held in such high esteem and the brainchild of the USCCB able to get an imprimatur with those awful notes?
 
catholic03 said:
How was a book held in such high esteem and the brainchild of the USCCB able to get an imprimatur with those awful notes?
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I believe in the fervor following Vatican II (the misguided “spirit” of Vatican II, i.e. the misapplication of its purpose), many clergy were caught up with “liberating” approaches to Tradition and Scripture. The NAB notes represent this “spirit” taken to its extreme. And unfortunately, for a great deal of time, seminaries taught Scripture solely from the angle of 1970s historical-critical studies. So many priests and bishops (many of which are still around today) learned Scripture in this context, and honestly probably didn’t realize how divorced from previous interpretation and tradition the NAB introductions and footnotes were. Fortunately, today, we are blessed with a new crop of orthodox Catholic Biblical scholars who are reinvigorating Scripture studies with an approach more in line with teachings prior to Vatican II, yet utilizing more modern methods not to degrade, but to illuminate the books of the Bible in a spiritually uplifting manner.
 
Scholars interviewed for this article recommend NABRE, together with the NRSV, because of newly discovered manuscripts and updated scholarship.

However, for the same reasons, and given the desire to have translations that can also be used for liturgy, then one should consider waiting for the updated NABRE, which will come out in a few years, and the NRSV Updated Edition.

For now, what I did was get a cheap, hardcover edition of NABRE, which already comes with scholarly notes, for study, and a cheap, hardcover Catholic Prayer Bible (Lectio Divina Edition, and which uses NRSV-CE) for prayer and reflection.
 
Funnily enough, all of my Bible editions are of a high quality (some sort of imitation or leather/cloth bound) except for my paperback NAB that I use the most!
 
Londoner said:
I like the New Jerusalem Bible by Henry Wansbrough. He may very well be unique among translators of the Bible in that he is both a Catholic and ethnically Jewish. Originally trained as a classical scholar at Oxford, he went on to study theology at Fribourg before undertaking postgraduate studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and the École Biblique in Jerusalem. Most of the work on the NJB was undertaken while he was working as a schoolmaster at Ampleforth (he later returned to Oxford as master of St Benet’s Hall and chairman of the theology faculty and afterwards took up a chair in biblical studies in Liverpool). He was also a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. The translation is exceptionally clear but also very faithful to the original texts. One also gets glimpses of Wansbrough’s distinctive theological and linguistic interpretations.
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I’m looking forward to purchase his newest translation: The Revised New Jerusalem Bible (RNJB) which is scheduled to be released in December of this year. I already bought a copy the Revised New Jerusalem Bible New Testament and Psalms which was released in 2018.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/023253361X/

https://www.amazon.com/Revised-New-Jerusalem-Bible/dp/0525573194/
 
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Here is a review of my exact copy:


Please note I just found this on the internet, it is not my channel or me doing the review!
 
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