www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Scripture and Patristic Writings Retire the New American Bible. Says Cistercian Monk.

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.