Wise words from a Cistercian Monk.
http://subtuum.blogspot.com/2010/08/isnt-it-time-to-retire-new-american.html

I concur completely. The language in the NAB is pedestrian and gives evidence of an anti-supernatural bias that is typical of the "higher criticism" crowd.

Dn. Robert

Even pedestrians can walk, and the prose of the NAB barely manages to stumble and crawl. I think, though, that the bias of the NAB is not so much towards the de-mystification of the "higher criticism crowd" but of the false belief that Scripture must be written in a vocabulary accessible to someone with a 7th grade reading level. This is a widely held view in pedagogical circles (with which I bumped heads while writing Army training manuals) and is almost impossible to avoid. I suspect it derives from the low literacy levels of many Ed majors.

Mother Angelica of EWTN did not list or sell it at their gift shop, I believe it's still that way today...

Yes, Mother preferred the Jerusalem Bible.

Excellent! Well said!

A factual error: The original Douay-Rheims was published in complete form in 1610 - 400 years ago, not 200. The Challoner revision commonly available today is from 1750, 260 years ago.

I use the KJV, complete with the deuterocanonical books; the Douay-Rheims; and the Confraternity NT of 1941 as my primary English texts.

Mother Angelica can keep the JB. It's just too loose and narrowly interpretive.

For liturgical use, Archbishop Joseph Raya's Gospel Book is well done. He based it on the 1941 Confraternity Version, adjusting it to the Greek where the Greek differed from the Latin.

From a cultural perspective, it is impossible to understate the importance of the King James Bible as a unifying element in American society through the early 20th century. Everybody knew it, recognized passages from it, could cite it, and allowed it to influence their writing and rhetoric. Even Catholics recognized it, since both the KJV and the Douay-Rheims looked back to (and borrowed extensively from) Tyndale.

The proliferation of Bibles has shattered that cultural consensus and left us without a central unifying text. The NAB is a particularly egregious example of change for the sake of change. We would be well to have done with it.

Stuart,

I made the comment about "anti-supernatural bias" because of things like "Hail Highly Favored Daughter" instead of "Hail Full of Grace" (the former can be found in older Protestant Bibles which reflected their adversity to seeing the Theotokos as "full of grace", however, in the context of the NAB, I can see the rationalist influence of Raymond Brown and his ilk creeping in. If I'm not mistaken, Brown was involved in the NAB project). There is also the substitution of the word "life" for "soul" in the following Gospel verse:
"What Shall It Profit A Man To Gain The Whole World And Lose His Soul?" The NAB translation on this is horrible, and can lead to a confused understanding on the part of the reader. The translators appear to be embarassed by any indication of the supernatural. At any rate, the NAB needs to be consigned to the dustbins of history.

Dn. RJB

Stuart my dear daughter-in-law looked at me so funny the other day. She said Marley was learning his Bible verses for school and gave me one, and I replied 'suffer not the little children to come unto me'. She just looked at me. Then I realized when she gave me the verse, I gave it back to her in older KJV, before all this new stuff. Once it is ingrained in your head as a kid, it never leaves, I love the old English and it's poetic nature. I think that is why I like the Jerusalem Bible.

They definately need to do away with all of these para-phrased versions!

One correction: Here is the NAB version of Luke 9:25:

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?

I tried to work from memory, and then decided to check the NAB on-line. The same principal holds. The translator seems to have a distaste for using the term "soul".

Dn Robert

The criticism is valid in translating Mt 16:26 and Mk 8:36, where one finds in the standard Greek text the word psu(/y)chēn, typically rendered soul. Lk 9:25 does not have that word but instead heauton, properly rendered himself. The Vulgate has animae, soul, in Mt and Mk but ipsum, himself, in Lk. DR also has for Lk 9:25 "and lose himself." The NAB has "life" and not "soul" in the translation of the Mt and Mk verses.

And yet the Douai translation (Challoner, 1750 or so) of this verse is:

For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, and cast away himself?

Are we so sure that the translators removed the word "soul"?

Jeff Mierzejewski

Read AJK's comments above re: Matthew and Mark, and the mistranslation using "life" instead of "soul".

Dn RJB

I must apoligize for stumbling around in the above posts. I was trying to go from memory. I did not realize, or have not picked up on the fact that, the Luke version was different than that of Mark and Matthew. What I take exception to is the use of the word "life" in the place of "soul". In the future, I will take the time to double-check my sources, rather than try to "shoot from the hip".

Dn. RJB

About a year ago I was speaking with Fr. George Rutler, pastor of the Church of Our Savior in New York City, and frequent host on EWTN, about Bible translations. Fr. Rutler is a man of not only singular intellect but also of wry wit. When the New American Bible translation was brought up, Father simply dismissed it by referring to it as "that monstrosity." I loved it and couldn't add anything more to that description! Its the best review of the NAB I have ever heard.

After hearing the word "opprobrium" mutilated once again at this evening's Vespers for Dormition, I am inclined to agree to the NAB's retirement.

Dn. David

What is the connection between the 'word "opprobrium" mutilated' and the NAB?

I'll clarify. As I'm sure you know, the third reading for feasts of the Mother of God--Proverbs 9:1-10--according to the NAB includes the word "opprobrium". I have never heard a reader pronounce it correctly. Granted, all Biblical translations include words unfamiliar to most English-speakers, and such issues could be avoided by readers reviewing their reading ahead of time. In any case, the colloquial quality of most of the NAB, but the inclusion of complex words like "opprobrium", strikes me as odd.

Here is the verse from the NAB:

"He who corrects an arrogant man earns insult;
and he who reproves a wicked man occurs opprobrium."

For the sake of comparison, here is the RSV:

"He who corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse,
and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury."

Dn. David

Yes, I did know that. The word opprobrium occurs only twice in the NAB: Pro 9:7 as noted and Bar 6:47. My question, however, incorrectly presumed that the actual reading at the Vespers would not have been from the NAB -- didn't expect it to be used in an Orthodox service.

Only the Baruch verse has in the Vulgate the source word, obprobrium; the Proverbs verse has maculam instead.

It turns out that opprobrium is in a sense a good-old Catholic, pre-VCII word. One of the 6 Latin litanies used in public recitation is the Litaniae de Sacratissimo Corde Iesu, Litany of the Most-Sacred Heart of Jesus. One of the petitions, Cor Iesu, saturatum opprobriis, was commonly rendered "Heart of Jesus loaded down with opprobrium." I heard that enough, properly pronounced, while attending Catholic grade-school, that it stayed with me to this day. I don't recall if I checked the meaning in those days, but I surmised from the context that it was bad-stuff.

Dn David:

Christ is in our midst!!

Which is why I have required readers I've trained to review the reading five times--once each day--prior to the Sunday proclamation. And why I've removed readers who regularly stumble and show publicly that they don't prepare or take the office of lector seriously.

Bob

The lectionaries from Byzantine Seminary Press are widely used in ACROD.

Dn. David

:applause:

As to the OP, I've always found the NAB to be a bizzare combination of intentionally pedestrian language and frequent pedantry. And the psalter IMO is unprayable.......

Here's the section from my introductory class:

III. Practice & Preparation

A. First reading: to gain some sense of flow of ideas;
author's attitudes and emotions
B. Second reading: to heighten reader's awareness of
meaning, idea flow, word groups
C. Third reading: determining specifically author's intent
D. Fourth reading: understanding meaning of each
selection as it relates to others (finding common theme)
E. Fifth reading: practice aloud using full range of voice to
communicate meanings discovered by preparation

My practical approach:

1. Read over the passage; make sure you understand it. Ask about words you don't know how to pronounce. Do not rely on the pronunciation guide in the lectionary--often they were written by illiterates (Example: Peter's other name is pronounced Ke-FAS, not SEE-fas, as some would have it).

2. Write it out, longhand, just as you intend to chant it. Put the line breaks where you intend to break the phrases in your chanting. Add markers to tell you if you are going to end on an up note or a down note. Finally, mark where you will begin the terminal phrase of the reading, which is both a cadence and melodic break.

3. Sing it aloud. Make sure it works. If it doesn't, try variations until you find one that does. Go back and change your hand-written text.

4. Sing your revised text aloud, several times, until you are comfortable with it.

5. Type it up, exactly as you wrote it longhand, in a large font, easy to read. Put paragraph breaks between the phrases. Add your tone marks in pencil.

6. Slip this into the requisite page of your Apostol, and read from it, not the text as written in the book.

Side benefit--by the time you get through with this, you will probably know the passage almost by heart. There is a lot less chance of getting lost if you really know the text.

Stuart:

I've been mystified about that. I've heard it, too. From what regional dialect did that come from?

Bob

You mean "SEE-fas" (or SEE-fus, which is how it is usually pronounced by readers)? Dunno. Guys who flunked Latin, Greek and Aramaic, I reckon, since none of those languages has a soft "C". The spelling "Cephas" probably comes from the Vulgate, since in Greek it would be Kephas.

what about converts? I had no idea that's how you say it. I thought it was see-fas as well. No greek or latin yet sorry ;-)

Kyrie eleison,

Manuel

Back to the original topic:

I would not look for this anytime soon. The USCCB owns the copyright on NAB,RNAB, and Confraternity versions. I think the best we can hope for are corrected versions bringing it closer to traditional renderings. That said as a sui iuris Church we don't have to use the NAB. The hierarchs could adopt any approved version the JB, the RSV-CE(my vote), or the Confraternity.

If the mess the bishops made with the Revised Divine Liturgy is any example, it is far more likely they would replace the NAB with the Reader's Digest Bible - Gender Neutral and Politically Correct Edition.

Stuart:

Christ is in our midst!!

As a man who was trained as an English teacher before feminist language and before political correctness became part of the academy, I'd vote for the idea that it comes from people who didn't have exposure to basic English phonics in elementary school--something my wife, who is of the same vintage, teaches to her kindergarten students.

When I hear "SEE-fas," it runs down my spine like "fingernails on the blackboard," though I date myself with this metaphor.

Bob

Bob,

I spent much time as "blackboard monitor" in school, slap them erasers against the outside wall and wipe the board every day with a wet sponge...especially loved cleaning it after someone wrote I will not ______ a hundred times or so.

Bob,

I'm not sure it's a matter of Engish phonics, since I don't know of many English words with an initial C followed by either a long or short E that are pronounced with a hard C.

On the other hand, in standard English we have the Greek loan words Cepheus, cepheid, cephalic, Cerberus, centaur, cerium, which are all usually pronounced with a soft C. (Similarly for C followed by I: e.g. Circe. Pronunciations are from Webster's 9th Collegiate.) When computer programmers adopted Cerberus for a security term, they spelled it Kerberos, and that is pronounced with a hard C.

I admit that I would rather see Greek words with a generally Greek pronunciation, but we certainly don't pronounce initial "Eu" or "Th" in the Greek fashion either. It's a matter of how foreign names are pronounced in an English context.

In Christ,
Jeff

I think it might have something to do with the people who think the Boston basketball team is called the Sell-ticks. That, as far as I can tell, is the only time in English usage the word is pronounced in that manner--which perhaps reflects badly on the literacy of people in Beantown.

Stuart, be kind to those of us from the Bawston area...not all can afford to attend those Ivy league schools