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In Search of the Holy Grail of Catholic Bible Translations

July 15, 2019 No Comments

In February, I wrote a lengthy post about Bible translations. Herewith a recapitulation and follow-up, because (a) I have more, different Bible translations than the six I referenced a few months ago, (b) I’m procrastinating about a different writing project and (c) a bunny-hole search about one of them that started with that aforementioned different writing project revealed that there’s really not a good general-purpose guide for Catholics about the mighty — and mighty contentious — question of which Bible a person ought to use.

First, I’m in agreement with the wag who said that the best Bible is the one you’ll actually open. That said, for Catholics, the “where we rate” question for U.S. sales totals proves illuminating in a depressing way. The top seller of 2017 was the King James Version at 31 percent of the market, followed by the New International Version at 13 percent and the English Standard Version at 9 percent. The first specifically Catholic version to hit the list was the New American Bible, at an anemic 2 percent market share.

Catholics do enjoy many “authorized” choices, although the KJV and the NIV aren’t among them. Before the 1983 revision to the Code of Canon Law, translations just had to be approved by either the Holy See or by any local bishop. After 1983, either the Holy See or an episcopal conference (in the U.S., it’s the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) can approve a new translation. Thus, anything receiving at least one bishop’s approval before ’83, or anything receiving USCCB or Vatican approval after ’83, is permitted for personal, private prayer and study. There are, quite literally, dozens of translations that therefore make the cut, ranging from the USCCB’s own “official” Bible to the beloved Jerusalem Bible that Mother Angelica favored. Just check the copyright page. If it’s got an imprimatur from a local ordinary from before 1983 or by a bishop under color of the USCCB after 1983, then it’s valid.

The major Bibles explicitly approved by the USCCB since 1983 include the Contemporary English Version, the New American Bible (Revised Edition) and the Good News Translation (Today’s English Version, second Catholic edition). Older versions, like Knox and the Revised Standard Version and the Douay-Rheims and the Confraternity Bible, were grandfathered under Canon 825. Interestingly, the USCCB endorses a handful of partial translations, as well, such as the inclusive-language Grail Psalter from G.I.A.

In the United States, a hodge-podge of translations percolate into the current Lectionary used at Mass. There’s technically no Bible on the market that perfectly matches the current FrankenLectionary. So don’t bother looking. If alignment with Mass readings matters to you, your closest option is the New American Bible; the Lectionary is based on the NAB subject to one-off revisions prompted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and subsequently adopted by the USCCB. (Adding to the fun: Much of the Scriptural quoting in the English-language version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church sources from the Revised Standard Version, not the NAB. But not all the CCC quotes originate from the RSV. Isn’t that special?)

Finding a “good” Catholic Bible, therefore, is a matter of considerable consternation, and websites ranging from general-interest Catholic Lite forums to the fevered underbelly of the Catholic Traditionalist movement all offer opinions with varying degrees of coherence. In general, three attributes seem to matter to people:

Upon what was the translation based — the Vulgate or ancient source material?
How literally does the translation hew to the idioms of the source material?
How does the translation deal with horizontal and vertical inclusive language?

Spend a few minutes in that Catholic Bible Bunny Hole and you’ll find much wailing and gnashing of teeth among people looking for the “best” translation, and they usually identify “best” as being the most word-for-word faithful to ancient sources. Yet it matters whether “ancient sources” do or don’t begin with Jerome’s Vulgate. Plus, (ahem!) literalness is not a synonym for Godliness. An idiom in Latin or Hebrew or Aramaic may or may not pass into comprehensible contemporary English; whether you want to needle over idioms that make no sense or just let the translators craft them to make sense for you is therefore a matter of preference — one that, in theory, should be theologically moot. The only reason it’s not moot is because the First Aggiornamento Armored Assault Brigade bulldozing through the 1970s deliberately mistranslated parts of the Bible and the Roman Missal to satisfy particular Wonder-Bread-and-granola ecclesiological and Christological biases, in a manner not dissimilar to the way the Protestants chucked the parts of the Bible that proved inconvenient to their, um, particular set of protestations. Had the translators been more faithful and less partisan stewards of their task, today no one would really give a whit about the difference between formal and dynamic equivalence. Vigilance is high because the shenanigans were shameless.

Where those shenanigans clamored most intensely — the subject of vertical inclusive language — the Catholic Bible-buying population remains most hyper-vigilant. Vertical inclusive language was the practice of translating terms about the Supernatural Supreme Being in deliberately gender-neutral ways, including belaboring the term God so as to avoid pronouns. (You see this phenomenon at work in the ethos of some Red Habit nunneries where bretheren become comrades and “the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” transmogrifies into “the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier.”) This practice sowed confusion about well-established Catholic doctrines to the point that the Vatican policed English translations of the Lectionary and the Missal, wrestling a degree of control away from the USCCB and the largely autonomous boards of experts that shaped the translation process. The base of the Lectionary is the New American Bible, but Rome found some NAB passages so theologically deficient that several rounds of additional revision and even explicit approval by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith proved necessary. Thus, some very new Catholic Bibles proclaim fidelity to Liturgiam Authenticam, the Vatican’s 2001 instruction about how to translate stuff. That the CDF found it necessary to release this document is a sign of just how far politicized the liturgical-translation process had become; that in 2017 Pope Francis unwound bits of Liturgiam Authenticam with his Magnum Principium reveals that the fight isn’t over.

The Vatican also took issue with horizontal inclusive language, or the practice of rendering in gender-neutral terms a text’s references to humans. For example, the ancient brethren might be translated as brothers and sisters. In many cases: So what? What’s wrong with recognizing that them there womenfolk are people too? For the most part horizontal inclusive language provoked merely literary disagreement, given that in some cases, the translated text effected all the sublime grace of a memorandum composed by the Diversity & Inclusion committee at UC-Berkeley. Yet some theological problems arise here, too. For example, consider the opening verse of Psalm 1, where the traditional phrase Happy the man is rendered in the RNAB as Happy those — although NABRE under the Vatican’s prodding revised it to Blessed is the man. This kind of language that pervaded the RNAB (the two transitional versions between the original NAB and the current NABRE) is considered problematic by some insofar as rendering man as person or those affirmatively precludes the possibility of interpreting the psalm in overtly Christological terms. In other words, even horizontal inclusive language sparked occasional theological disagreement.

So, yeah. On one hand, it’s a silly thing to get worked up over, except that the guardians of scriptural scholarship gave people something legitimate and substantive to get worked up over.

Thus the situation complexifies, alas.

A Tale of Nine Texts

Let’s compare the language of these nine translations of mine against a verse — Hebrews 12:1-2. We’ll start with me listing specifically which versions I possess, along with my subjective assessment of where they fall on a grid comparing both the nature of the translation as well as the inclusion of additional supplemental material (concordances, maps, extensive footnoting, etc.) within that specific version on my shelf.

Vsc — The Sixto-Clementine Vulgate (1592, Latin). Minimal footnoting.
DRC — Challoner Douay-Rheims (1752, English). Minimal footnoting.
KJV — King James Version (1769 revision); not approved for Catholic use. Minimal footnoting.
Knox — Msgr. Ronald Knox’s one-man translation (1949). Minimal footnoting.
RSV-2CE — “The Didache Bible,” Ignatius Press (2015), the Revised Standard Version (Second Catholic Edition) revised in light of Liturgiam Authenticam but governed under the RSV’s original 1960s-era imprimatur. Extensive supplementary material including doctrinal lessons and exhaustive footnotes.
NASB — New American Standard Bible (1971); not approved for Catholic use. Minimal footnoting, but with a concordance at the back.
NIV — New International Version (1984); not approved for Catholic use, despite that it was provided to me by the diocesan prison ministry for use when I made prison visits as a lay chaplain. Minimal footnoting.
GNT/TEV — Good News Translation, Today’s English Version, Second Catholic edition (1992). Some glossary and reading-table info at the back. Many line-art drawings within the text.
NABRE — the closest thing to an official Bible in the U.S., given that copyright to “The New American Bible, Revised Edition” is owned by USCCB (2011). Heavy footnotes, chapter intros and maps. NABRE is an update to the 1970 NAB, although two intermediary versions — both titled Revised NAB — appeared in 1996 and 2001.

The Story of Hebrews 12:1-2

So how do each of the nine translations — six of which are approved for U.S. Catholics — stack up, comparatively?

Sixto-Clementine Vulgate

Ideoque et nos tantam habentes impositam nubem testium, deponentes omne pondus, et circumstans nos peccatum, per patientiam curramus ad propositum nobis certamen: Aspicientes in auctorem fidei, et consummatorem Jesum, qui proposito sibi gaudio sustinuit crucem, confusione contempta, atque in dextera sedis Dei sedet.

Challoner Douay-Rheims

And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us: Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who, having joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God.

King James Version (1769)

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking onto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Knox Version

Why then, since we are watched from above by such a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of all that weighs us down, of the sinful habit that clings so closely, and run, with all endurance, the race for which we are entered. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the origin and crown of all faith, who, to win his prize of blessedness, endured the cross and made light of its shame, Jesus, who now sits on the right of God’s throne.

Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

New American Standard Bible

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

New International Version

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Good News Translation, Today’s English Version, Second Edition

As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us. Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God’s throne.

New American Bible, Revised Edition

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.

… all of which to say is that any authorized Catholic Bible should suffice. Nevertheless, the NABRE is closest to Mass readings and is a well-balanced edition that, in full-sized versions, offers plenty of useful study materials. More conservative Catholics favor the RSV-2CE for its comparative lack of pronoun confusion. The Douay-Rheims was the “ancestral Bible” for Catholics for centuries, plus it’s beautiful and a close translation of the Vulgate.

Just pick the one you’ll actually open. You’ll be fine. Lectio divina and all that.

Religion

Translation Standards and the Quest for Biblical Meaning

February 12, 2019 1 Comment

Having been tempted by my friend Patrick, I purchased — it arrived today! — a side-by-side copy of Challoner’s revision of the Douay-Rheims Bible opposite the Clementine Vulgate. It’s a beautiful, hefty volume prepared with obvious care by Baronius Press. I flipped through it and immediately got sidetracked by textual comparisons.

Myriad copies of the Bible, in English, grace the market. There’s a smaller, but no less robust, market for Catholic versions. The major difference between Catholic and Protestant Bibles is that ~~the Protestants removed the good parts that prove their heresy~~ Protestant versions decline to include some “deuterocanonical” books accepted by Catholic and Orthodox authorities. So Catholic versions tend to include a bit more in the Old Testament.

Even in the Catholic-specific Bible market, you can choose from several dozen different editions, each offering slightly different translation standards and supplemental materials. Technically, the Catholic version is the Vulgate, originally prepared by St. Jerome in the fourth century A.D. The Vulgata Sixto-Clementina — the Clementine Vulgate revised, most recently, in 1598 under the leadership of Rev. Franciscus Toletus SJ during the pontificate of Clement VIII — governed until 1979, when the Nova Vulgata promulgated by Pope St. John Paul the Great became the textual basis for the Missal, the Lectionary and related liturgical texts issued in Latin after 1979. No English-language version is mandated by Roman ecclesiastical authorities as being authoritative, however.

That said, although ~~Calvinist~~ some people look to the King James Version as being the authoritative English-language Bible, for Catholics the pride-of-place probably goes to the Douay-Rheims version, published in phases between 1582 and 1610 by the English College at Rheims and Douay. This version translated the Vulgate, not the underlying source texts. The most recent revision to the Douay-Rheims, accomplished in the middle of the eighteenth century by bishop Richard Challoner, was approved for use in English-speaking countries and remained the dominant version until well into the twentieth century.
I presently own six different Bible versions across five physical volumes:

The St. Joseph Edition of the New American Bible (1970) [NAB] — this volume was given to me in elementary school as part of a multi-year preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation. I’ve treasured it for nearly 30 years. It was explicitly approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for use in the United States and contains extensive footnotes, cross-references and brief introductory essays for each book. The NAB is still the version used in the English-language Lectionary in the United States. To the extent that there’s an “official” Catholic Bible in the U.S., it’s the NAB.
The New American Bible, Revised Edition (2010) [NABRE] — the USCCB’s second-edition official version, approved by Francis Cardinal George. It retains much of the extra contextual material of the NAB, like the maps and extensive footnotes, but updates the language based on new scholarship including access to the Dead Sea Scrolls. It’s a bit more literal than the NAB but hasn’t yet made its way into the Lectionary. If you’ve never owned a Bible before and want one that’s easy to access with rich additional supplementary material, this one’s your best bet.
The side-by-side Sixto-Clementina Vulgata [Vsc] and Challoner’s Douay-Rheims [DRC], acquired this week. The Vsc is still an authoritative text of the Latin Church despite the recent release of the Nova Vulgata. DRC, beyond its historical value in the English-speaking world, is given pride-of-place by traditionalist Catholics. This one-volume compilation is probably a must-have resource for theologically aware Catholics with a rich sense of history and, ideally, some background in Latin.
Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (2006) [RSV-2CE] — a revision undertaken in light of 2001’s Liturgicam Authenticam, this lovely volume by Ignatius Press doesn’t include much contextual material. It’s considered a solid, mainstream Catholic edition (it’s personally recommended by folks like Scott Hahn and Jimmy Akin). The RSV bridges the Douay-Rheims and the Authorized (King James) versions; it’s considered the first ecumenical English Bible, plus the original RSV is the source of the scriptural quotations in the English-language version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Edition of the RSV includes the deuterocanonical books and the “second edition” references the adjustments after LA.
New International Version (1984) [NIV] — I received a cheap NIV many years ago when I began prison ministry. This volume, published by the International Bible Society, was approved by the Michigan Department of Corrections and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department. Not theologically, of course, but because the volume is made of newsprint with a glued spine and a soft cover, it can’t readily conceal contraband into a secured facility or be used as a weapon if seized by an inmate. The NIV is a mainstream Protestant version, issued by academics rather than clerics and governed by a dynamic equivalence of the language. It’s meant to be accessible to the widest possible reading audience.

So funny thing. There’s been a long-running war in the Catholic Church — which might be close to sputtering out, Deo volente — regarding the logic of liturgical translations. One school of thought, formal equivalence, suggests that the most literal translation of the original source is the best. The other perspective, dynamic equivalence, suggests that ancient formations should be rendered in ways intelligible to modern readers. Many Bible translations fall somewhere in the middle. On top of that, you’ve got the question of what’s being translated. Original source material? The Greek Septuagint? The Vulgate? The KJV?

So in the spirit of “well, that’s interesting,” I present a table of two different verses with the resulting translation by version:

Scriptural Translations

Version	Genesis 1:1-2	John 1:1-5	Matthew 16:18
Vsc	In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram. Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebrae errant super faciem abyssi: et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas.	In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt: et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est. In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominium: et lux in tenebris lucet, et Tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt.	Et ego dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam.
DRC	In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the spirit of God moved over the waters.	In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.	And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
NAB	In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters.	In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.	And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
NABRE	In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth — and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters —	In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.	And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
RSV-2CE	In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.	In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.	And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
NIV	In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.	In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood.	And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Two passages, six translations, one Bible.

To a casual reader, these differences might seem minor. Mere wording. But much mischief flows from creative translation, particularly when the translator’s politics aren’t irrelevant. Consider, most notoriously, the translation of Credo in unum Deum — the first line of the Creed — in the English version of the 1970 Missal. Credo was translated as “we believe,” despite that the only logical translation is “I believe.” (For the folks at home: “We believe,” in Latin, is credimus; this error is so basic that, quite literally, a Latin 101 student should catch it.) It took a stern rebuke by Rome to prompt the U.S. bishops to tighten the translation standards.

Of course, if a blog post about Biblical translations seems obscure, think of it this way: History has a way of leaving the interpretation of events to the chroniclers of the day. In this age of “fake news” and gross political hypocrisy and what-about-ism, whose translation of History do you trust, and why?