The version I like best is probably the least scholarly. It is written in what I think is called “Scots Braids.” I’ve seen only one copy of the entire Bible but I do have a copy of the New Testament in the old Scotish dialect. Example:
“Noo thair war, in the same launs, shepherds bidin in the fields an keepin gaird ower thair flock by nicht. An see! an Angel o the Lord cam til them, an the glorie o the Lord glintit roon about them. They war sair feart…”
For some reason, it is very soothing to me when I read it.
John Zahn, Rogers’ contributions, or lack of such, to the Great Bible are a matter of some debate. (I should have said as much before, sorry.) Mozley in Coverdale and His Bibles described Rogers as a “competitor” to Coverdale, and in any event “wherever possible he made his New Testament follow Tyndale’s.” (Dickens) Perhaps it’s best to cut out the middle three Bibles, and just say that the Great Bible was a revision of Tyndale’s, which, to a very large extent, it was.
tomndebb, the seventh constitution of Oxford is titled “Ne quis texta S. scripturae transferat in linguam Anglicanum”, and reads, in part, periculosa quoque res est…textum sacrae scripturae de uno in aliud idioma transferre…. It’s pretty clear that the constitutions did, indeed, consider the translation of the Bible into English “dangerous.” I should add, also, that periculosa could in some contexts be also translated as “heretical.” I can’t see any question on whether the Constitutions of Oxford banned the reading of the Bible in English, at least by the laity.
Yes, for some edicts you could say that only existing translations were banned. During the first Marian Convocation, for example, only “certain heretical authors”’ works were banned. However, since these authors included every published translator of the Bible, and further edicts banned any further unauthorized translations of the Bible. It goes without saying that the Marian Church didn’t authorize any.
It’s clear from Marian propaganda that many Catholics supported the Bible in English in theory but not in practice. John Standish, 1555, A Discourse wherin…
But I think it’s a stretch to say that if a “Catholic translation” of the Bible existed, comparable to the Douai-Rheims translation of the late 16th-century, that it would have been accepted by the Roman church. Bishop Christopherson, 1554, An Exhortation to all menne to take hede:
It’s hard to imagine that the Marian church would have accepted even a “correct” English translation.
Even the English Protestants of the 16th century weren’t wholly convinced about the necessity of unchecked Bible reading. The Paraphrases of Erasmus were installed in the parish churches by the Edwardian regime in an attempt to shape public opinion on the Bible, and to prevent “misunderstandinges” (Latimer). The Catholic church should bear no blame for their past restrictions on the Bible, I believe, because many Protestants, at least in England, might have done the same if public opinion had turned against the vernacular text.
Only the U.S. uses that particular translation. (I’m pretty sure that Canada does not and I know that it is not much used outside North America.) It is a readable translation. It is not “bad,” but it is not particularly scholarly. It was chosen because it is (usually) easily read aloud. The OT is based on the older Confraternity Edition, the NT got its own translation.
So then, what is the best English language Catholic Bible?
(We have two Bibles-my great-grandmother’s memorial Bible that’s sitting on my desk and the big family Bible with the Encyclopedia in the back and the family history and all that. Both NAB).
Depends what you are looking for and how you define “best.”
For one thing, you are not limited to “Catholic” bibles for personal study (Trent’s orders notwithstanding).
My preferences are the Jerusalem Bible and the RSV with the Apocrypha. I like the literal nature of the RSV and the “spirit” of th JB. Others, as noted above, will make other choices.
As it happens, “the Bible in English” at this point was the Wyclif translation into late Middle English, which was from the RCC point of view rife with heresies – and an objective reader would have to admit that Wyclif definitely let his personal biases show in some of his choices for Englishing the text. (Besides which, he didn’t even work with the TR.)
As for whether even well-educated laymen can read the Bible with clear comprehension of the truths it points out, I’d have to point to the monolithic bloc, well-known to habitues of Great Debates, where Joe Cool, Jersey Diamond, cjhoworth, His4Ever, Guinastasia, Libertarian, tomndebb, myself, and several other active Christian posters never disagree on how a given passage of the Bible is supposed to be understood! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
As an atheist just using one for reference (always helpful around here), I use the NRSV with the “apocryphal” books as well. Best way to get the whole story. After all, they’re only “apocryphal” to Protestants, and that just because of Martin Luther’s hissy fit about the Alexandrian vs. Palestinian manuscripts issue. Since the Catholics don’t believe necessarily in the stories’ literal truth, it doesn’t really matter that the book of Judith is demonstrably historically inaccurate, that’s not the point of it. (As explained somewhere on catholicoutlook.com, I can’t remember the precise topic.) So perhaps different translations and versions might be “better” or “worse” depending on what you were expecting out of it.
Anyways, as you can tell I looked around a bit before actually spending money on one (I’m not a Christian after all, some of whom I know own at least a dozen bibles.) And it doesn’t make sense to buy a bible that doesn’t have all the books in it. So, I’m pretty satisfied with the New Revised Standard Version, which is one of the best that does translate the “apocrypha.” Frankly, it was also one of the only translations available, since Christian bookstores don’t seem to stock many bibles with the “apocrypha” in them around here. The salesclerk in the store was bordering upon being smug about it, in fact :rolleyes:
Polycarp, not to belabor the point, but as I’ve posted above, the seventh Constitution of Oxford bans the reading of all English translations of the Bible, present and potential future, by the “unlicenced”. The Wyclif Bible was not, contrary to popular belief, the only Middle English translation of the Bible, though it was the only “complete” one. A translation of the Epistles in Midland/Kentish dialect existed from the 14th century, for example (cite: D. C. Fowler, The Bible in Early English Literature).
Indeed, I think we need to remain aware of this part of Duke’s earlier post, which I think is of great importance
I have the strong suspicion that it was quite late in the game that the idea became that Joe Layman could proceed to the interpretation of doctrinal points w/o the aid of a learned teacher (probably aided quite a bit by it being dangerous to be known as a “learned teacher” in unauthorized scriptures). Still, a KJV-absolutist literalist would still have to acknowledge that he is relying on *the interpretation of the learned translators * as to what the Hebrew/Greek texts meant. For instance, the KJV says its OT is from the Hebrew text – the Jewish scripture. Yet actual Jewish scholars point that the KJV “loads” the OT to make passages look more referential to the Messiah than they really are (“a virgin shall conceive” vs. “a young girl has conceived”)
That the interpretation of a committee of scholars at the start of the 1600’s is superior to those with the benefit of 3+ centuries of additional study in history, linguistics and archaeology DOES sound hard to sell, doesn’t it? Unless you subscribe to the belief that the KJV committee was specially endowed by the Holy Spirit to get the “right” translation – in which case that’s a matter of faith just as much as, for instance, Papal Infallibility.
Now that I’ve been quoted there…I should have said “Protestant public opinion.” Catholic, or shall we say Roman-Church "public opinion"in 16th-century England was already solidly against the Bible, as Duffy points out in The Stripping of the Altars.
But, yeah, the Protestants were very concerned about “unchecked” Bible reading…even such an evangelical Protestant as Sir John Cheke, in The Hurt of Sedition, blamed Kett’s Rebellion on it.
Are there major differences in meaning between different Bibles?
I prefer the new Revised Standard Version, myself.
But don’t they really all say the same thing?
Vanilla- far as I can tell, the only two Bible translations which seem to have significant differences from the bulk of them are the New World Translation by the Watchtower Society (aka JWs) and the Lamsa Bible, as remarked before translated from the Aramaic Peshitta translation. From what I’ve heard, the translator has some Mind-Science tendencies in his beliefs but I don’t see those influencing his translation- the most controversial departure from traditional translations is his opening of Psalm 22 & Jesus’s cry on the Cross as “My God, my God, for this I was intended!”
The argument is that the Semitic term means “set aside”, in the sense of “destined, intended, appointed” instead of “forsaken”.
I think the “forsaken” aspect adds to the depth & mystery of the passage (especially as used by Jesus) but I won’t create a heresy trial over this.
My favorite translation for daily use- New King James. Also like the Jerusalem Bible (& the updated New J one), the Fr Ronald Knox translation (Catholic 1950s O-O-P), the Jay Green Interlinear Hebrew Masoretic-Greek Textus Receptus linked with
Strong’s numbers, the Harper Collins Study Bible New Revised Standard which has the entire deutero-canon including those accepted by Eastern Orthodoxy by not the RCC. The Everett Fox Torah is a necessity- I’m awaiting his Writings & Prophets.
Dr James Tabor is working on the Transparent English Version which also looks worthwhile (it has a site.)
The whole anti-RCC “Textus Receptus” debate earlier is bogus. The English RCC translations (Douai-Rheims) utilized it & the Vulgate. Only the 20th century RCC translations depart from the TR as do most Protty translations of then. Anyway, the non-TR texts do not do what they are accused of- downplay Jesus’s Deity & the Trinity & promote Arianism.
b]Never** is a strong word. If you didn’t mean that as a joke, does that mean if one was to take various passages, and e-mail everyone on your list without any of you corresponding with the other; then, as the answers were posted on the bulletin board at the same time, you’d find that not a one of you was in disagreement?
One need not look any further than any one particular Bible to realize it has a hard enough time telling the same story twice even within it’s own pages, let alone having to deal with all of the other revisions, variations and translations to deal with. Not the sort of thing that inspires confidence; at least not to me. I don’t expect it to match everything word for word, or to be even close in some aspects, but in other aspects it should have a little more consistency if you value accuracy. And I don’t think anyone would want to argue that none of these manuscripts have ever been altered and tampered with either. Another problem I think, is, since no one can find any supposed original Bible, we don’t know which of the older manuscripts to go with. If you add up all of the handwritten copies of the NT, it comes up at over 25,000 manuscripts, with over 8,000 of these copies being of the Latin Vulgate. There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the NT, with over 200,000 variations, of which many may say are minor, but certainly not all. Let’s suppose one of these actually came from some original. How does one determine which one is correct with all of the variations?
John, it was very heavily loaded with irony – while we love and pray for one another, it seems that never a thread on religious questions goes by that we don’t have some disagreement among us!
(Question: This is the third time in 2003 alone that my use of irony has led to misunderstandings – am I really that opaque to other readers when I try to use sarcasm or irony? I apologize for the hijack, but this is something I really need to know, in order to adjust my posting style if I’m causing a lot of people problems in this regard.)
Maybe others who know you better may recognize it, I wasn’t sure, which is why I asked if you was joking with it. A wink or a big grin wouldn’t have had me asking, but I wasn’t sure with the rolling eyes what parts you were serious with. Anyway, no biggee. And as I’m sure you know, Polycarp, some believers firmly believe the very thing you just wrote, who do mean it. Anyway, thanks for the clarification.
I’m afraid I’m no expert, whatsoever, on the Christian Bible - though I have read the ‘New Testament’.
I do like the modern (1985) JPS translation of the Tanakh; doing away with the Chapter/Verse format seems to make a great difference. The stories do read ‘as stories’, the poetry does read ‘as poetry’.
I have recently exchanged letters with a certain Bible translation publisher, over the matter of whether his translations have utilized the the Revised Standard Edition, (which I understand to be a revision of the KJV). What I am looking for is a list of known idiosyncrasies or inaccuracies of this translation, which could then be compared against the publisher’s translation. If anyone could provide this type of information, or direct me to a source that does, I’d appreciate it. (OT only). Thanks.
