More on my choice of the NRSV

Well, with the STB comprehensive exam and my final two graduate classes completed, I now have a lot more time to devote to this blog. Thanks to all of you who have stopped by to check it out from time to time! I always appreciate the feedback. One of my hopes has always been to provide a site where Catholics, and non-Catholics, could talk about the various Bible issues that come up. There doesn't seem to be many Catholic blogs solely devoted to Biblical issues, which I hope will change in the future. So perhaps I can fill in the need until something better comes along.

So, in my last post I explained why I chose the NRSV as my day-to-day Bible. I hope to now provide a few more reasons as to why I made that choice. Before I begin, let me restate that I don't think the NRSV is vastly superior to the other options that I had to choose from, namely the NAB, RSV, NJB, or DR. I tried to follow a basic criteria which was based on my needs for day-to-day use, including ministry work, study, and personal prayer. After evaluating the translation options, it seemed pretty clear that the NRSV was the best choice. Let me explain a few more reasons why:

1) Use in ministry work: I tend to lead on average two young adult/campus Bible studies per week. What this means is that I come into contact with Catholic and Protestant young adults/students who often have different translations. In off-campus Bible studies, which are attended mostly by Catholics, I tend to come into contact with the NAB and RSV-CE. No real surprise there, but it is interesting to note that the two translations are usually evenly represented. When I am doing on-campus Bible study, which is attended by mostly Protestant students although there are always one or two Catholics, the NIV is clearly the translation I come into contact the most. From time to time, however, someone will come to the Bible study with an NASB or ESV. Therefore, I have spent the last few years using different translations at these different Bible studies in order to see which one was the most useful in these settings as a whole. The NRSV was easily the best option. The fact that it is an ecumenical Bible translation, which includes all the Catholic and Orthodox OT, is a major plus. The NRSV is also formal enough to be used to help clarify a particular verse or word during a meeting, if the need arises. The NRSV also contains many textual notes, which is also a major advantage when in a study with different translations being used. I have also found that its translation philosophy is close enough to the RSV and NAB NT, which really helps during the off-campus Bible studies.

2) Future: One of the other things I looked at when deciding which translation to go with was to consider the big picture and see whether or not a particular translation would be around in twenty years. This is, of course, a very difficult task. But with the available options, there again wasn't much of a choice. The NAB would seem to be the best option. In many ways I wanted it to be the NAB, since it is the official translation of the American Church. The fact is, however, that it seems to always be in a state of flux, with new revisions projected to be released, and the uncertainty of Vatican approval always an issue. I think the NAB NT is quite good, but the OT is uneven, soon to be revised, and '91 revised Psalms are not particularly good. I am just unwilling to make a commitment to a translation that seems so uncertain about what it wants to be. The RSV-CE, or really the RSV-2CE, would have been the other choice. However, the RSV-CE, even in its "updating" by Ignatius Press, remains a fifty plus year old translation. Its longevity into the future, in my mind, is uncertain. Plus, there are very few editions or genuine leather covers available. Of course a completed Ignatius Study Bible would help, but its final publication is still unknown. That leaves the NRSV, which has been getting a boost in publishing by HarperCollins, which has even been developing Catholic-specific editions. Also, there are others who publish the NRSV, like Oxford or Cambridge or Hendrikson, who do provide editions of the NRSV with the Deuterocanonical books. Let me also mention that I have noticed more Catholic works, particularly in Bible study, which use the NRSV as the base text. So, at least in my mind, the NRSV has a brighter future.

3) Resources:The NRSV clearly has more resources keyed to it than the NAB or RSV-CE combined. The vast majority of the scholarly books I own, both Catholic and Protestant, refer to the NRSV. (I have even found more spiritual books using the NRSV as well.) I also have a concordance, multiple Bible dictionaries, two interlinears, and other study Bibles that use the NRSV. Even some of the RSV resources can easily be used with the NRSV. So there really is not doubt that the NRSV is superior to the others in this area.

I hope to begin showing some of those resources over the next few weeks.