GIA Music, which produces hymnals used by many Catholic parishes has provided some additional information about the upcoming Revised Grail Psalter that was recently approved for Mass in the US. You can read all about it here. Earlier in November, during the USCCB meeting, I posted about the USCCB's decision to adopted the new Revised Grail Psalms. It appears like it will be a completely new translation, under the guidelines of Liturgiam Authenticam. Liturgiam Authenticam is an important Vatican document that was released in 2001 to deal with future liturgical translations, in light of the commission of the Second Vatican Council. If you are not up to reading the whole document, the Vatican published a short press release that gives a good overview of the document.
Whenever the new Revised Grail Psalms are released, it will be interesting to see how they conform to Litugiam Authenticam, along with comparing them to the original Grail Psalms and the NAB '91 Psalms, which was rejected.
There are a lot of changes coming our way in the Liturgy. Beside the revised Grail Psalms, there will be the revision of the Roman Missal and the revision of the NAB Old Testament. I am assuming that the New Roman Missal won't be released until all those pieces are in place. Then every one will have to get new Lectionary books, new missals, possibly new Bibles for Bible Study. I just wonder if we are ever going to get a Bible that is a reflection of our new lectionary, I'm not holding my breath.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why the Bibles used at Mass don't line up exactly with any written Bible is because the two texts are put together according to different set of criteria.....
ReplyDeleteThe text used in the liturgy is not based on the results of modern textual criticism using an eclectic text of the NT, but is based rather on centuries of Church tradition and custom.
In short, there are really only two things we can do to make the two texts match up exactly:
Throw all of modern textual and criticism and Biblical scholarship out the window and base all translations on the Textus Receptus (becoming, in essence, KJV Onlyists)
Throw out centuries of Catholic custom and tradition about what texts are read at Mass.
Since neither option is acceptable, there will always be two texts, with minor differences between them.
Yeah, I think we are likely to see all of this come together sometime around Advent 2011 or 2012. I have wondered why the NAB OT has taken so long to complete, but perhaps the changes in the liturgical language, along with the rules of Liturgiam Authenticam has forced the USCCB/CBA to take their time on the NAB OT with a target date of 2011 or 2012. It will be interesting to see what they do with the 91 NAB Psalms, since they were rejected by the Vatican in the 90's as well as the USCCB at the recent November meetings.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind the NAB OT took 27 years the first time around, and that was before the various revolutions in Biblical scholarship, such as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that made constructing an OT text much more difficult.
ReplyDeleteThe OT is notoriously difficult to translate and tends to take a long time.
But I think that the main delay is trying to make it comply with the new liturgical mandates.