Tyndale is pleased to announce the NLT Catholic Readers Edition, approved by the Catholic Church for reading and study and including the official Imprimatur. The Bible includes the New Living Translation text with deuterocanonical books. It also features book introductions to aid your personal study. The Holy Bible, New Living Translation communicates God’s Word powerfully to all who read it.
The New Living Translation is an authoritative Bible translation rendered faithfully into today’s English from the ancient texts by 90 leading Bible scholars. The NLT’s scholarship and clarity breathe life into even the most difficult-to-understand Bible passages―but even more powerful are stories of how people’s lives are changing as the words speak directly to their hearts.
This edition is due out in October. The dimensions are 6 X 9 inches. The list price is $24.99. If you love the NLT this will be a no brainer. I think it is also important to support this so that Protestant publishers, who frankly make superior bible editions, will consider publishing more and different Catholic Bible editions.
17 comments:
Still don't like the translation personally but if it floats anyone's boat, then have at it.
I just went on the Tyndale website and inputted my email address in a box they have whereby they will notify you when it's ready for sale.
It's in the upper right of the page Tim links to. You'll see a golden
brown rectangle with white printing saying
"Notify me when it's available"
I use the NLT Life Application Bible (no deuterocanonical books)on a regular basis and quite often find the application notes extremely useful as "homily helpers (as long as reader is solid in his/her Catholic theology for occasional editing purposes). Great bindings available as well. So while I am overjoyed to see a Catholic NLT I don't think it will be replacing my Life Application edition...and especially if its only available in hardbound or paperback.
I'm intrigued by the designation as a "Readers Edition".
It looks like a decent translation, I still wonder why the Indians chose an American rather than a British translation to start with. That being said. I think it make sense for the Indian market. As far as the US market goes I don't know who they are aiming it at. If you live in rural America where Wal-Mart may be your only bookstore, it might work. When I was Bible shopping last year, I didn't see a single Catholic Bible in the local Wal-Mart, so if this gets into the Wal-Mart, it might be a winner.
I wonder how this compares to the Catholic Living Bible and the GNT-CE.
The NLT is a fundamentally different critter than the Catholic Living Bible.
The Living Bible was a paraphrase of the American Standard Version in the early 1970s. The NLT is a new translation directly from the original Biblical languages, stemming from the mid-1990s.
I am actually pretty super excited about this.
I'm ambivalent about this. On the one hand, I want to support a new 'Catholic Edition' in the hopes that if it has good sales, more publishers will be forthcoming with similar fare.
On the other hand, I really, really, dislike the NLT, although I will admit that with each subsequent revision, it gets a little better.
I find it interesting what tends to happen when Bible translations are revised. Formal equivalence translations tend to become a little more dynamic, e.g. the NRSV is a much freer translation than the RSV, the 1995 NASB is a little freer than the 1971 NASB.
On the other hand, dynamic equivalence translations tend to become more literal, the REB is more literal than the NEB, the 2011 NIV is a little more literal than the 1984 NIV, and with each subsequent revision of the NLT, it gets more and more literal, the original 1996 NLT is absurdly free, but the 2004 NLT is much more literal, 2007 is more literal still, and the minor 2013 and 2015 revisions all had the effect of making the translation just a little bit more literal.
It seems every translation is aware of its own limitations, and with each now revision, they try to 'fix' the apparent problems of the previous revision.
Thanks Christopher Buckley. :)
I will buy one when they are published. Tynedale has consistently tried to publish a Catholic Bible since it published the Catholic Living Bible! Not many other non Catholic Bible publishers are fighting for our business!
Tyndale has been a champ among Protestant publishing houses for putting its Bibles out in front of Catholic readers. From the Living Bible to the first "Catholic edition" of the NLT to this authorized Catholic edition of the NLT, Tyndale has worked hard to serve the Catholic market with its products. Other publishers, like Zondervan, have not been so accommodating (what I wouldn't given for either an NIV or NASB with the deuterocanonical books and an imprimatur).
The NIV has some very serious problems with an evangelical bias. it would need to be significantly revised to publish it in a Catholic edition.
The NASB is a far more literal translation, so there is less room for bias, but there are some passages here and there which are a problem (e.g. Matthew 16:19).
But anyway, it isn't up to Zondervan, Zondervan doesn't own the copyright to the NIV. The copyright is owned by the International Bible Society. Zondervan merely has an exclusive publishing right for the NIV in the North America, granted to them by the IBS.
Well, the NIV Psalms got an imprimatur and was published in a Catholic edition (with notes!) quite awhile back, so I don't think that a Catholic NIV would be all that much of a stretch. Some parts of the text might need revision (like what happened with this edition of the NLT) but such a deed can be done, if the owners of the text are willing.
The Psalms aren't the problem with the NIV, the problem is the New Testament, particularly the epistles, where St. Paul has basically been completely re-written so that he says what evangelicals wish he would have said rather than what he actually said.
Somewhere, I have a file listing a lot of problematic passages in the epistles if you'd like to see some examples.
I would!
I also know this page that lists some particularly in the OT:
https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/articles-and-resources/deliberate-mistranslation-in-the-new-international-version-niv/
Okay, well, since this blog does have a character limit, I can't post a complete list so I will limit myself to discussing some of the more egregious examples.
There is an undeniable attempt in the NIV to de-Catholicize the New Testament.
The Greek word ergon (I am posting the English transliteration here because I do not have the ability to type Greek letters) means 'works.' There is a consistent tendency to translate this word as 'works' when the word ergon is being used in a negative sense ('for we are justified by faith apart from any works') but the word 'works' is deliberately avoided whenever the word ergon is used in a positive sense (e.g. 'God will judge everyone according to their works').
The most egregious example of this is in James 2:24 which, in the 2011 NIV reads "You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone."
A literal translation would be the reading of the NRSV: "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone"
The NIV conspicuously avoids both the word 'justified' and the word 'works' in this verse, significantly softening James' words to make them seem compatible with evangelical doctrine on justification by faith alone.
Another of the more extreme examples is in Romans 3:21-22
The NRSV reads:
"21 But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ[a] for all who believe. For there is no distinction"
The 2011 NIV reads:
"21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in[a] Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile"
Notice the difference? It is subtle, the phrase 'of God' has been deleted from verse 22, in order to suggest that the passage applies to believers, when it, in fact, applies to God. The only conceivable reason I can think of that they would do this is so that it fits better with the evangelical doctrine of forensic justification.
The third and final example I will provide is 1 Corinthians 14:12.
In the NRSV, it reads "12 So with yourselves; since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for building up the church."
The 2011 NIV reads: "2 So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church."
Notice the difference? The NIV translates 'gifts of the Spirit', with a capital S to indicate the Holy Spirit. This is not what the passage is saying at all, but this translation does make it easier to reconcile this passage with evangelical theology.
I have made the comparison to the NRSV because the NRSV is a literal translation, and unlike literal translations like the NASB and the ESV, it is an ecumenical translation, which had Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Jewish translators, and is thus, among all translations on the market, is the least likely to be biased in favor or against one church's doctrine. The NASB and the ESV are both fine, literal translations, but all the scholars who worked on both translations were evangelicals.
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