Best English Catholic bible?

[Jack Meredith]

So I have two Catholic bibles, a good-sized NRSV-CE and a pocket RSV-CE. I like the RSV, but it's too small to actually read (guess my eyes are getting old, it didn't used to be a problem). I do not like the NRSV translation.

So I'm pondering getting a new Catholic bible. Which English translation is the best, in your experience? Which one is used at Mass? When it comes to translations in general, my favorite is the ESV. I primarily use an ESV with Apocrypha as my personal reading bible, but it would be nice to have a strictly Catholic bible to compare it to.

W

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

Why do you want a Catholic bible?

Maybe it's because its the full Canon?
Luther made himself out to be God and violated the Holy order for the biblical books by throwing some of them out to reduce the number of books in the bible from 73 to 66.
Luther didn't like the theology based upon those *additional* books hence he removed them so to fit his own theology.

 

[mark46]

Since 2002, there is only one translation approved for masses in the US: The New American Bible, 1970.
See below for the discussion from our Council of Bishops.

Frequently Asked Questions

Many translations are approved for study purposes. See below for discussion for ewtn.

Bible Versions and Commentaries

So I have two Catholic bibles, a good-sized NRSV-CE and a pocket RSV-CE. I like the RSV, but it's too small to actually read (guess my eyes are getting old, it didn't used to be a problem). I do not like the NRSV translation.

So I'm pondering getting a new Catholic bible. Which English translation is the best, in your experience? Which one is used at Mass? When it comes to translations in general, my favorite is the ESV. I primarily use an ESV with Apocrypha as my personal reading bible, but it would be nice to have a strictly Catholic bible to compare it to.

 

[ripple the car]

Vulgate - Douay-Rheims - Knox Bible side by side

 

[ralfyman]

I think Liturgiam authenticam recommends translations based on updated scholarship and preferably may be used for liturgy, etc.

For updated scholarships, editions might include NABRE, NRSV-CE, the CTS Catholic Bible, etc.

For liturgical use, I think the CTS Catholic Bible can be used for some regions. For NABRE, you'll have to wait for revisions in the NT to be completed. For NRSV-CE, I hope they can come up with something like NRSV-2CE.

 

[ripple the car]

EWTN's daily readings translation seems pretty good.

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

CTS bible is very nice too as long as you can stand British that is

 

[chevyontheriver]

So I have two Catholic bibles, a good-sized NRSV-CE and a pocket RSV-CE. I like the RSV, but it's too small to actually read (guess my eyes are getting old, it didn't used to be a problem). I do not like the NRSV translation.

I have heard that there will be a new revision to the NABRE fairly soon. Will it be a better NABRE? Will it be a year or so or is it going to be vaporware and take years to be ready? Will all mass readings come from it? I donno. I was pretty down on the NABRE. Just to throw that variable out. I would like a new and good NAB successor if it was better than the NABRE as I cut my teeth on the original NAB.

 

[chevyontheriver]

CTS bible is very nice too as long as you can stand British that is

I think it is an approved Bible for Mass in English if you are outside of the USA.

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

I think it is an approved Bible for Mass in English if you are outside of the USA.

I believe its used alongside the RSV edition, at least in the UK.

 

[ralfyman]

I think there are several editions of Catholic Bibles available, and for those who want to save money, I suppose it will help if one can find editions that can also be used for liturgy in one's region.

According to this source, NAB is not recommended because it has several problems with the OT translation. The one from 2011 is revised, though, and revisions on the NT should be completed around 2025. If there are no problems, then that will be the version approved for private study anywhere and for liturgy in the U.S. and the Philippines.

From what I remember, the copyright holders require the literary and historical commentaries to be included with any publication, which means together with commentaries on catechism, a NABRE study bible will be a lot thicker than others.

For NSRV, there's an NSRV-CE available. There should be scholarly editions available, but I'm guessing something like NSRV-2CE should be made for a devotional study bible.

For Australia and probably other places, I think a new edition of the CTS bible should come out based on the NJB.

One more thing: I wonder what would happen if the Church comes up with its own translations based on the Neo-Vulgate, and translations that would fulfill the requirements of the "Liturgiam" and the reading capabilities of the laity. For the English translation, that might mean something on a eighth-grade reading level, and that uses something like the concept of "international English," but at the same time fulfill the "Liturgiam" requirement of retaining English phrases that have been part of the liturgy and prayers for a long time. Examples including "fishers of men" instead of "fish for people," and "full of grace" rather than "favored one." Presumably, those problems should not appear if editions are translated from the Neo-Vulgata.

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

One quick question, why does it have to be approved for use in the mass? I know it's a validation of the translation by the church to permit it used in the mass, but except from that I find it easier to just bring my missal with me whenever there are special masses (like Holy Tridum or Christmas vigil etc).

I dont normally take my bible with me for mass and few people do. Again, I understand the desire to have a translation approved and validated by the church, but I dont think we should be to hung up in this. There are plenty good translations on the market that aren't approved for mass, but they're of high quality regardless.

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

Lest not forget how some of the approved ones are quite horrible aswell. In Norway we have the biggest Norwegian bible (publisher: Norwegian Lutheran bible society) approved for vernacular mass and it's full of ambiguous choices in the translation.
It's not a big problem, but there are no Catholic bibles in Norwegian which makes the choice either to go with a Lutheran translations or a English one.
The church chose to go with the Lutheran one for obvious reasons.

Does this mean it's a great bible to use for scripture study or private prayer? The question remain open. Most of the time I use it as it's a tad more convenient than bringing my CTS bible etc, but the fact the Norwegian bible is used in mass is no guarantee for a solid bible at all.

In the UK and elsewhere you have a far greater selection of publishers so I guess it's more of a quality stamp to have your translation approved there than it's in Scandinavia.

 

[Mark_Sam]

I know that the Catholic Church in Sweden wanted to use the translation from the Swedish Bible Society (affiliated with the Lutheran State Church) as their official Swedish translation. However, they couldn't come to an agreement: the Catholic Church wanted to impose a few thousand changes to the translation in order to adopt it (which is completely understandable), but the Bible Society said that all these changes would violate their copyright or whatever.

As Catholics we are blessed in one way. As we have Holy Tradition, a faulty Bible translation won't break our theology. As a former Protestant I've been conditioned to read the Bible a certain way, so if I read a Bible passage and think: "Hm, this sound too Protestant, I cannot be understanding this correctly ..." I can consult hundreds of years of scholarship, commentaries, expositions, sermons, Church documents and other authentic expressions of Holy Tradition. Unfortunately, most people don't have the time or will to go to such lengths to understand Holy Writ.

I also use the 2011 Norwegian Bible Society translation (which is a Lutheran body, but more ecumenical these days). I also use the 1988 Norwegian Bible translation (translated by Dr. Wisløff, nicknamed "the chief of the Lutheran Low Church Movement"), as it is without the feminist and liberal bias that *most* translations have today, regardless of theological affiliation. That translation is also very literal, sometimes to its own detriment.

 

[chevyontheriver]

One quick question, why does it have to be approved for use in the mass? I know it's a validation of the translation by the church to permit it used in the mass, but except from that I find it easier to just bring my missal with me whenever there are special masses (like Holy Tridum or Christmas vigil etc).

I dont normally take my bible with me for mass and few people do. Again, I understand the desire to have a translation approved and validated by the church, but I dont think we should be to hung up in this. There are plenty good translations on the market that aren't approved for mass, but they're of high quality regardless.

The advantage of using a translation that is also used at mass is for reinforcement, memorization, prayer. So naturally having the same text in a personal Bible as you hear at mass has some advantage. Not at all required though, but people like me see it as an advantage.

On the other hand, a different translation can help with providing a different insight into what the text is saying. So for study purposes it is often good to have multiple translations and even to try to tangle with Greek or Hebrew texts if you are able. I would advise, even while I prefer the RSVCE, to have another translation as well.

The canon of Scripture was very much about what would be allowable to be read at mass. We think of it as what books are included in the Bible, but the other aspect is what translations are to be used. Which was why Jerome was commissioned by the pope to translate a replacement for the Vetus Latina (Old Latin) text that really had it's limits. And in the 1980's the old NAB was used at mass, considered to be hot stuff at the time, but is not used now, and nobody with a brain would go back to using the old original NAB for mass. It is rightly judged as not suitable, which is a sort of application of canonicity. Still acceptable for reading, but not for the higher standard of use at mass.

 

[ralfyman]

This does not refer to liturgy but to prayers. For example, NABRE translates Luke 1:28 as "Hail, favored one." Similar took place for RSV and NRSV, which is why they had to come up with a second version of the Catholic edition of RSV, which uses "full of grace," the phrase that Catholics recognize for the Hail Mary prayer.

Also, translators will tend to use gender neutrality, to the point that phrases like "fishers of men" in Matt 4:19 become "fish for people," which sounds very strange.

The implication, then, is that translators will come up with more accurate versions of the Bible given contemporary scholarship but also tweak them so that they will become gender inclusive or will be understood for populations with lower reading levels. In response to that, the Church will have to tweak the translations to make them recognizable by Catholics and can be used for liturgy. Hence, revisions of NABRE until they are approved for liturgical use, and versions of NRSV and NJB for similar purposes.

I re-read the "Liturgiam," and it says that if possible, the Nova Vulgata should be consulted as as an auxiliary tool. If that's the case, then I wonder if it's possible that the Church can use that as the main source. That is,

The Nova Vulgata becomes the updated Latin translation of the original sources for the Bible. From there, Catholic clergy working closely with Vatican can come up with a English translation of that which balances the simplicity of NABRE and the elegance of NSRV, and that becomes the Bible used for private study and liturgy in all English-speaking countries as well as version to be used for the Catechism. Catholic Bibles in other vernacular languages will also be based on the Neo-Vulgate. The latter, of course, will become the source for scriptural text for Latin Mass.

From there, publishers can come up with three editions of the Bible: one with critical notes for scholars, one with commentaries from the Catechism for the laity, and a thick version that contains both sets of notes for those who want that.

And if the use of English still varies across various countries, then I suppose the Church will have no choice but to come up with different English versions, i.e., using particular phrases or idioms peculiar to each region or country.

This might solve the problem of translations that tend to move away from what is recognized in liturgy and Catholic prayer, as both in English were based on the Latin translation of the Bible. Also, there should be little problem getting permission from Vatican as the latter will be in charge of the project in the first place.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I re-read the "Liturgiam," and it says that if possible, the Nova Vulgata should be consulted as as an auxiliary tool. If that's the case, then I wonder if it's possible that the Church can use that as the main source.

I think it would look like a step backwards to use the 'Nova Vulgata' as the main source. Protestants would really latch on to that. AND there would be the criticism that what would be produced would be at best the translation of a translation. I don't think there is any going back. At best the Nova Vulgata will be an auxiliary too.

Back in the days of the Greek 'Textus Receptus' everyone was hot on translating from the 'original Greek', but the TR was defective enough that translating from the Latin Vulgate was actually more accurate in the end. Then, when the Sixto-Clementine edition of the Vulgate came out it was an even better base for translations. This is why the DR i
has a leg up on the KJV for accuracy. Up until the late 19th or early 20th century the Vulgate was the better text to translate from. But then the critical Greek texts of the NT came along and the Church adapted. First by allowing those critical texts to be used as auxiliary tools, then as the main source with the Vulgate as an auxiliary tool.

Bible translation isn't easy. You have to have a text that is not so erudite that only William F. Buckley could understand it, but not so dumbed down that it is insulting. It needs to be highly accurate. It needs to preserve memorable phrases. And it needs to be different enough that it isn't plagiarism and is capable of getting a copyright by itself.

I hope Liturgiam Authenticam has a long life. It would be a great loss to have it set aside.

 

[ralfyman]

The problem is that the Church has to revise editions made by translators to suit liturgical needs. Hence, they have to wait for NABRE translators to revise the NT, and then go over the edition to see if it can be used for Mass. For NRSV, they have to make NRSV-CE for scholarly use, and then re-revise that to make something like NRSV-2CE for liturgical use. For NJB, they have to wait for a new CTS edition for the same reason.

I'm not sure about other languages, but it's likely that they will have to make them from scratch or translate from one of the Catholic editions.

As for difficulties, there are already several translations of the Bible in English, and some of them involved resources far less than what the Church can easily afford in terms of manpower and facilities. At the same time, for them to be Catholic Bibles, they have to be approved by Church officials for study and by Vatican for liturgy. In which case, just cut to the chase and let the translation come from the Vatican.

My guess is that politicking has taken over, causing various groups within the Church to choose one or another translation made by other groups, from which Catholic editions (one or more) have to made, i.e., to add books that non-Catholics don't use and to make various phrases recognizable for Catholics. This probably doesn't involve dealing with the predilection for gender inclusiveness leading to phrases like "fish for people."

That's why in my case, I will have to wait (until 2025?) for the revised NABRE to come out, and then wait some more to see if the Church will require a revised edition of that for liturgical use. For others, it will have to be something like NRSV-2CE or a new CTS edition.