Thanks to Theophrastus for providing the link and information:
Father Somerville-Knapman reprints an e-mail from Archbishop Coleridge:
In answer to your questions, the facts are these. The ESV was chosen over the RSV because the ESV, in its 7% modification of the RSV, seeks to incorporate the fruit of more recent biblical scholarship, i.e. since the publication of the RSV. In other words, the RSV is out-of-date. We were looking for a more up-to-date version of the RSV; and when the NRSV proved impossible, we chose the ESV. Unlike the copyright holders of the NRSV, the copyright holders of the ESV have shown themselves quite open to the kind of changes we would need or want to make for Catholic lectionary purposes; and the copyright arrangements for the project are now in place. What will appear in the lectionary will be a modified form of the ESV. This may in time look to the production of a Catholic edition of the ESV, though that is not decided. I know too little of the permission given to the English ordinariate, but I doubt that it will have an effect on the lectionary we are producing. That would depend on the Holy See. It is very hard to say when the ESV lectionary will be ready for publication. We have all but finished work on the first volume (Sundays and Solemnities), and it may be that the first volume will appear before the others. But it depends on how quickly the bishops of the five Conferences get back to us within the process of consultation. Many of them are keen to have a new lectionary as soon as possible, so it may be that we will have the entire new lectionary by 2014
29 comments:
So there might be an ESV-CE sometime in the future after all. In the meantime, perhaps Oxford's ESV w/Apocrypha will do.
Notice that he suggests the NRSV would have been preferable to the ESV, and further that the RSV-2CE (which he does not mention by name) is "out-of-date":
The ESV ... seeks to incorporate the fruit of more recent biblical scholarship, i.e. since the publication of the RSV. In other words, the RSV is out-of-date. We were looking for a more up-to-date version of the RSV; and when the NRSV proved impossible, we chose the ESV.
It will be interesting to see how this project evolves.
Do you think it is premature to say the RSV translation is a 'dead man walking' so to speak?
Perhaps most English-speaking scholars above the age of 45 or so grew up using the RSV (particularly the New Oxford Annotated Bible) in college. As they start to retire (and the NOAB-RSV goes out of print), then I think the RSV will become more of a collector's Bible. So -- maybe another 15 years?
I think the RSV-2CE has more legs on it than the RSV. I disagree that the RSV-2CE is necessarily what was meant by the RSV being "out of date." What scholarship is there that would suggest the RSV-2CE is out of date as compared to the ESV?
It appears the NRSV copyright holders blew it big time on this one.
How can the RSV be out-of-date when the ESV, its update, is only different in 7% of the cases?
Francesco,
I also wonder what the percentage of change there is between the RSV and RSV-2CE? Will probably never know.
Outside of the ICSB, one wonders what will be the market for the RSV-2CE, with the rise of a possible ESV, not to mention a much improved NABRE.
I'm not sure the answer would be comparable to 7%. The RSV-CE to RSV-2CE was done to bring the text in conformity with LA, which required a lot of "non-updates" like Is 7:14, "chalice", or the readings in Sirach.
One thing I didn't think about until just a moment ago is the comparison you did between the ESV and the NRSV for select verses. You mention how the word choices in the verses you pulled were closer to the Douay-Rheims for the ESV than the NRSV. Could it be that LA'ing the ESV would involve fewer changes than an LA'ing the NRSV?
Francesco,
And I wonder how much of that 7% relates to elimination of archaic language and other, non-biblical scholarship, changes.
What's nice about the ICSB, is that the commentary is, above all else, Catholic, and it provides for updates in scholarship even if the translation itself does not.
First, I want to say that I am certain that the ICPEL was aware of the RSV-2CE and they passed it over for some reason.
Francesco asked How can the RSV be out-of-date when the ESV, its update, is only different in 7% of the cases?
I would not say that the ESV is the RSV's replacement. I think that place of honor is held by the NRSV. And yes, the RSV is in places dated: the changes made to the NRSV went far, far beyond stylistic and gender-inclusive language. (Especially in the Old Testament which saw heavy revision.) Ignatius claims that the RSV-2CE has only stylistic changes, and that is the basis of their claim that the RSV-2CE is covered by the RSV-CE's imprimatur. Since the RSV is substantively dated in places, it is fair to say that the RSV-2CE would also be dated.
But I think the ESV is a poor choice: First the ESV has retained many of the RSV's mistranslations. Worse, the ESV has preserved quite a few archaic and awkward phrases from the RSV, which I think makes it less desirable for use in (spoken) liturgy. Mark Strauss has written an extended essay analyzing the ESV's awkward phrasings and some of its mistranslations, and I have to say, some of his examples are real howlers.
And works such as ESV with Apocrypha basically scold those who believe the Deuterocanons are inspired scripture. Tim noted this:
While I am glad that there is an ESV w/ Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals), it does bug me that the main reason it is relegated to the back of the book is to affirm those books "uncanonicity". I appreciate the honesty of Dr. deSilva when he said on this blog: "Perhaps Luther's solution of separating them out and placing them in between the testaments (a location that makes far better sense historically) was not a sufficient statement regarding their (non-) canonicity." So there you have it. I am glad that the folks at Cambridge, who produced my beautiful NRSV w/ Apocrypha, refers to those books as "The Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical Books of the Old Testament".
In any case, the process is still in the midst of happening. We still need to wait for the ICPEL Bishops' Conferences and the Holy See to weigh in. Given all of the twists and turns that this process has had to date, I suspect that the process will have some more surprises as well.
In short, perhaps we should wait before treating our the ESV with Apocrypha as if it had imprimatur.
I'm actually surprised they aren't looking to the NABRE, since, as your Scripture comparision posts show, it is very similar to the RSV family of translations, and in some places has superior phrasing.
Not to mention it has the "amen I say to you" sayings, which LA requires.
Mary Sperry... contact ICPEL asap!
Here is an interesting link to an examination of just the first 3 chapeter of Romans in the ESV, with a list of improvements over the RSV. After the list there is also links to the list of changes made to the ESV in 2007 and 2011. Hope this link works: http://www.bible-researcher.com/esv.html
Jonny,
Thanks for the link. Helpful, but I wouldn't necessarily equate "ESV more literal" as "improvements". More literal is not necessarily better and a quick look at the chart tells me that most, if not all, of the changes are inconsequential.
I read and re-read the entire email, and I don not see where it says or even implies that the NRSV is "preferable to the ESV". It seems like Theophrastus' predjudice in favor of the NRSV is projecting an opinon that is not in the email by Fr Somerville-Knapman. If anything, the email implies the NRSV and ESV are completely equal.
Just saying.
I wonder if this prospective adapting of the ESV comes to pass, if that will signal the NRSV will become a fringe translation in use only by left wing academia. I kind of agree with James F. that the Bishops should consider the NABRE... the LA changes have already been made for the NT, they would just need to do the revised OT, which would also benefit us in the US.
David: I have to take exception with your claim.
You will note that the NRSV was pursued first. Here is what it says:
We were looking for a more up-to-date version of the RSV; and when the NRSV proved impossible, we chose the ESV.
As you will notice, it does not say or "impl[y] the NRSV and ESV are completely equal."
Here's the problem with the ESV -- Catholics (and anyone else who is not a conservative male Protestant) are locked out of the translation committee. Compare with RSV, which had at least Catholic observers. The RSV committee wanted to invite Catholics to join, but at the time the RSV committee was created, Catholics were unable to formally join the committee by pre-Dei Verbum rules. Once Catholic involvement was permitted, the committee did appoint Catholic members for future versions of the translation.
But now we have a situation where a Catholic commission is saying "we won't use a translation where Catholics helped work on it, instead we will use a translation where Catholics were explicitly forbidden from serving on the translation committee. We'll tweak it a little bit and make it Catholic liturgy."
Not only were Catholics excluded from translating the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament, they were even excluded from translating the Deuterocanonicals, which are much more important to Catholics than Protestants!
Dei Verbum took an enormous step in authorizing ecumenical translations. Now it seems ICPEL is taking a bigger step in saying "we are OK with Catholics being totally excluded from translation committees, as long as we can tweak it a little bit afterwards."
It is true, I do have a prejudice. I have a prejudice for organizations which do not actively discriminate against Catholics.
I think the biggest advantage the ESV has over the RSV-CE, RSV-2CE, and the NRSV-CE is the fact that it is available in so many more formats and editions, rather than the translation itself.
I'm just not seeing/understanding why some Catholics seem to be so enamored with the ESV translation.
I wonder if Ignatius Press will simply re-brand their RSV-2CE as "ESV-CE".
I agree with James F. It makes sense to use the NABRE for the lectionary instead of the ESV.
-Mike Demers
I think the NABRE is held back partly by its name: foreigners don't seem to get the warm feelings we do when they hear the word "American". The RSV, NRSV, ESV, etc. are wonderfully non-geographic. Even better -- who doesn't want to use a "Standard" Bible for something as important as the Lectionary?
Its kind of shameful that a protestant bible, be it the RSV, NRSV, or ESV, is being considered for use in the Holy Mass. If some Catholics were involved in the NRSV, they were probably just tokens, and of the Hans Kung-Carol Keehan-Kathleen Sebelius crowd.
ICPEL should be looking at Catholic Bibles for Holy Mass: The NABRE, which also had some protestant input, so it is also ecumenical, but Catholics were in control, or the New Jerusalem Bible. If neither one of those two are acceptable, then do what someone else suggested and commission a new English translation of the Clementine Vulgate.
Its kind of shameful that a protestant bible, be it the RSV, NRSV, or ESV, is being considered for use in the Holy Mass. If some Catholics were involved in the NRSV, they were probably just tokens, and of the Hans Kung-Carol Keehan-Kathleen Sebelius crowd.
ICPEL should be looking at Catholic Bibles for Holy Mass: The NABRE, which also had some protestant input, so it is also ecumenical, but Catholics were in control, or the New Jerusalem Bible. If neither one of those two are acceptable, then do what someone else suggested and commission a new English translation of the Clementine Vulgate.
Can someone please clairify this for me.
Aren't all the "standard" Bibles - RSV, RSV:CE, NRSV, ESV, plus the RV, ASV, NASB, and NKJV - essentially just revisions of the King James Bible?
Gene,
In a broad sense, yes. The only Bible with "standard" in its name that I'm aware of that does not to fit that classification would be the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB).
A wrinkle is that they are all revisions of earlier revisions. So the NRSV is a revision of the RSV, which itself is a revision of the ASV, which is a revision of the RV, which was an update of the KJV. The main difference as time goes on is the source-text. the KJV translators used Erasmus' Greek NT, which was based on relatively late manuscripts. Later versions (except the NKJV on your list) used contemporary archeology and to produce translations of ever-earlier manuscripts.
The best modern Catholic Bible that wasn't a revision of a Protestant edition is the Old Jerusalem, and it's been approved for liturgy in Europe for years - I wonder why they didn't look in that direction, and just "LORD" it over wherever "Yahweh" was in the OT? It's not an excellent translation, but it reads decently aloud, its greatest weakness is the Psalms, easily rectified by the R/GP, and is more than adequate.
I still think the ESV is a good idea, especially because it has, bar none, the best Psalms in modern English (although, sadly, they'll probably still use the RGP instead). Whether or not Catholics were involved, the ESV is more Catholic and more orthodox than the RSV or NRSV, even down to "propitiation" (as per Vulgate); all it needs is the very unpopular renderings of "presbuter" and "episkopos" as "priest" and "bishop"! (The NASB is superior, but has no deuterocanon and sounds very poorly when spoken aloud, and also, unlike the ESV, has no gender-neutral language at all; the ESV has a moderate amount, which is a bit more than I am comfortable with, but is still acceptable.)
Speaking of that, "children of Israel" doesn't sound right. It conjures images of babes in arms, whereas the "sons of Israel" evokes imagery of strength, military, and might. It's noticeable in changing the ambiance even in the story of Babel.
I'd support an NIV lectionary before one from the NJB or NABRE, unless the rewrote them so thoroughly as to make them new Bibles entirely. I would support a translation from the Vulgate as well, because I don't think the Modernists, no matter how hard they try, could mess up Gen 1:1-3, etc. as they have in the NRSV and NABRE.
If the protestants can revise the King James into a critically and scholarly celebrated version like the RSV and/or NRSV, then why the heck can't Catholics do a similar revision of the Douay Rheims Challoner, to give us a "Catholic Standard Version" Bible. Seems to me that would solve all our Lectionary problems in the English speaking world, not to mention finally giving us a superior and thoroughly Catholic Bible.
Easier said than done, eh?
No, Tim, Gene is not me. That's crazy weird how you took words out of my mouth or thoughts out of my head - I'm undertaking such a revision, and it is currently a two-man project (still looking for a reader of Hebrew so the OT can claim Hebrew translation and get imprimatur).
I originally called it the "Corrected Catholic Version", and then settled on "Catholic Standard Version". The Gospel of John, the first nine chapters of Luke, Genesis, and the first three chapters of Exodus are completed. We've been at it about 6 months, I think.
Who was it that coined the term "bible bable?"
Was it the late Fr Richard John Neuhaus?
I think you're right. Sometimes that phrase comes to mind when I see all the different translations that are out there, and all the back and forth about this one or that one. This is a liberal one, that one is a conservative one, etc. I wonder how much actual studying gets done about what the Word of God is trying to communicate to us. I'm guilty of it as well.I can see where it would be nice to have a common bible that we could all settle on and go from there.
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