I'm about 5 minutes in. Seems pretty reasonable so far, but his definition of translations seems a bit slanted towards dynamic translations. He says the goal of translation is to translate the meaning of a text in one language to another. He has "meaning" underlined in his slide.
That's certainly one goal, maybe even the primary goal of translation. However other goals can and perhaps should include capturing some of the style and beauty of the original.
Another goal is to translate in such a way that references from one text to another are clear. For example, "son of man" may mean mortal, but translating it that way can obscure the references Jesus is making when he calls himself the "son of man". It's desirable to make the meaning of the tradition as a whole clear.
He may get into this later though - will see!
I liked it when he said you should read multiple translations.
While I have lurked on this blog for years, and benefited from email exchanges with Timothy, this is my first post.
Mark Strauss presents an interesting and reasonable approach to Bible translations that just about anyone can understand. I think it should be required viewing for those who rigidly and dogmatically defend one type of translation over the other, and especially for those entrenched in any of the ______ - only camps.
I appreciate that Dr. Strauss emphasizes that no translation can capture all the meaning and all translations capture important aspects of meaning. Thus, all translations are valuable.
We all have our proclivities and that's fine. While I appreciate the scholarship of more literal translations like the NRSV and NABRE, I've always preferred more functional equivalent translations like the GNB/TEV and CEV. As one who has earned advanced degrees and works in education, I bristle a bit when those translations are described as only for those with limited English skills or for young children. I am no Biblical scholar; I teach English, and love reading Shakespeare and Melville, but I benefit greatly from those "simplified" translations. To me, they are like a breath of fresh air, and they certainly assist in my walk as a Christian. And, really, isn't that the whole idea behind Bible translations?
I liked the video a lot. It is correct concerning all aspects of the translator's business. Except for one. He largely ignores the importance of the audience.
Simply put, what sort of effect a specific form of translation will have does not just depend on some abstract "English usage". It depends on the kind of English-speaking people that happen to be listening (or reading).
And as it happens, most people that will listen to or read a bible translation are not average English-speaking people. It's just not true, though it is a common conceit. They are rather a particular group, which one might label "practising Christians", much like say a bunch of medical doctors are a particular group.
For example, the meaning of the word "flesh" will be different for practising Christians because the specific semantic range of that word will have already been extended for them, due to encounters with other translations, preaching, spiritual texts etc. Basically, they will stand in a language tradition that already has used "flesh" to mean things that word normally does not imply in English, like "worldly" or "merely human, not Divine" or even "prone to sin". And a new Christian will rapidly learn this modified range of meaning, just as we always quickly adapt to the lingo used in our peer groups.
And that's exactly why more formal translations like the NASB work much better than he pretends that they do. Because they are actually a lot more functional when considered in the light of the actual target audience, rather than in the light of some purported "average speaker of English".
For most practising Christians what he groups as "functional equivalent" are more like paraphrases, and paraphrases have a tendency to strongly vary between good, bad and ugly. Whereas what he calls "mediating" is more like a "functional equivalent" translation. And his "formal equivalent" is more a "mediating" style. What then is the "formal" translation for practising Christians? But of course, it is the interlinear type of translation, which truly matches word to word with little regard to English structure.
So I think for all the many good points he makes, he is simply mistaken in trying to place his translation into the "middle ground". That is only true if we are talking about someone who is not a practising Christian, a secular reader. The more people have lived their faith and have learned the traditions and manners of speaking of their Christian communities, the more a translation like the NIV becomes "functional equivalent" to them and the less "formal equivalent" is a translation like the NASB.
A very good video, at least for someone at my level of understanding of the Bible. His example of 'wise' is excellent, especially since wisdom in that era often meant specific knowledge rather than how we would use wisdom today. I prefer a translation leaves traces of the original wording if possible. His suggestion is to use multiple Bibles and I think that is probably the best.
All right I finished it, and he does bring up the advantages of formal equivalence translations towards the end.
He used a different example, but I looked it up and the NIV does translate Daniel 7:13 as "son of man", with a note that says:
"The Aramaic phrase bar enash means human being. The phrase son of man is retained here because of its use in the New Testament as a title of Jesus, probably based largely on this verse."
Seems pretty reasonable to me.
His example from Amos 4:6 is interesting. The literal translation of "I gave you cleanness of teeth" would be totally unintelligible, until you read the next bit which says "and lack of bread" - at which point it's kind of funny! Oh boy, my teeth are clean ... because I have nothing to eat!
Overall an excellent presentation. I learned some things and really enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing Tim.
"I'm about 5 minutes in. Seems pretty reasonable so far, but his definition of translations seems a bit slanted towards dynamic translations. He says the goal of translation is to translate the meaning of a text in one language to another. He has "meaning" underlined in his slide."
This is very perceptive, and that is a common problem with Mark Strauss. He is the author of a paper attacking the English Standard Version called 'Why the English Standard Version should not become the standard English version', the paper presents a series of supposedly 'bad' translations in the ESV, and in each case he essentially argues that the translation is 'bad' because it is literal, and that the 'right' translation would be a dynamic one. And he makes this argument repeatedly, not even taking into account the fact that in most of the cases he cites, the translation given by the ESV is the only possible translation given the ESV translation philosophy. So, ultimately, he argue that the ESV is 'bad' it has the 'wrong' translation philosophy, which is frankly ridiculous.
Thanks, I had read that article by Mark Strauss a while back. I didn't realize it was the same guy. Paradoxically, that article motivated me to check out the ESV and friends (RSV, RSV-CE2)!
I use the RSV as my primary bible, so no I don't agree with him. But I don't think his point is ridiculous. He states clearly that his problem with the ESV is its translation philosophy, and gives a zillion examples of why he thinks it's a problem.
Some of the examples make sense to me. "Ahead of you" does seem clearer than "before your face."
In other cases I actually prefer the ESV (and RSV). "The ants are a people..." seems clear to me. We commonly anthropomorphise in English too. I like it!
The example from Amos, "clean of teeth", is unclear taken out of context, but the next part of the verse, "I gave you empty stomachs", makes it clear enough, and funny. The NABRE strikes a decent compromise here: "I made your teeth clean of food."
Like I said, I use the RSV, but I don't necessarily recommend it to new bible readers, precisely because the meaning may not be clear, and may discourage the reader from continuing to read the bible. I think Mark Strauss's paper leans to far the other way, but he does make some good points.
The New Community Bible though being on the dynamic scale still keeps the main part of the more formal translations: "Though I have made your teeth clean of food in every city, though I have made your bread in all your dwellings scarce, yet you did not return to me," says the LORD.
His problem is that he either doesn't recognize or refuses to admit that the chief problem with his translation philosophy is that it makes it very easy to create a translation that is extremely biased in favor of one particular theology, and that, when taken too far, the dynamic translation philosophy ultimately leads to the 'translator' completely removing any trace of the original and replacing it with his own thought. And frankly, this happens a lot more frequently with dynamic translations that he wants to admit.
In this instance, it is very important to recall that he is on the NIV committee, and the NIV is easily one of the most biased Bible translations on the market today. There are literally dozens of places in NIV text where the translators display a bias in favor of their particular brand of evangelical theology, and trying to make it impossible to adopt any interpretation of the text other than the one favored by the translation committee. There is a deliberate attempt within the NIV to de-Catholicize the New Testament, but not remove any hint of Catholicism, but any hint of sacramentalism or the notion of a church hierarchy. Thus, the NIV tries to impose a low church, Congregationalist, anti-sacramentalist, basically Baptist theology on the New Testament. Not only do they try to make a Catholic interpretation impossible, but they also try to make a Protestant interpretation other than their own low church, Congregationalist views, impossible.
There are entire websites devoted to pointing out places where the NIV displays an evangelical bias. They try to get around this accusation by saying that their translation committee represents 'many denominations', but all the denominations are evangelical, there are no Catholics, Orthodox, or even mainline Protestants on that committee, and in fact, the very rules put in place by the ISB make anyone who ISN'T an evangelical automatically ineligible for membership on the committee. So the NIV is not just biased, it is biased by design.
Now, the main benefit of a formal equivalent translation like the ESV or NASB is that the translation philosophy, by itself, makes it very difficult, if not close to impossible, for a translation to be biased in the way that the NIV is. The NIV is biased in favor of evangelical theology, the ESV is not. To me, that's a huge point in favor of the ESV.
"And that's exactly why more formal translations like the NASB work much better than he pretends that they do. Because they are actually a lot more functional when considered in the light of the actual target audience, rather than in the light of some purported "average speaker of English"."
Yes, precisely, and dynamic equivalent translations like the GNT, NLT and others which seem to go out of their way to avoid using technical theological terms like 'justification', 'sanctification' etc. are really doing their readers a disservice, and not only that, but they display a bias.
Let me give you an example of a failure to use a technical term and how it can represent bias. The GNT tends to avoid the word 'justification' in favor of circumlocutions like 'made righteous.' They would no doubt justify (no pun intended) this decision by arguing that:
a. most people don't know what 'justification' means and b. 'being made righteous' is a good substitute because, well 'that's simply what the text means by justification'
Note that by doing this what the translators of the GNT are is trying to not merely translate, but interpret the text. The question 'what does justification mean?' is a very difficult theological question, and many different Christians give many different answers to that question. 'Being made righteous' seems to represent a bias, not every Christian agrees that that is what justification means. The only way to avoid that kind of bias is to just use the technical term 'justification' and don't try to 'explain the meaning' by substituting some other phrase.
The problem I have with Mark Strauss' presentation is that he seems to be intentionally loading the dice, so to speak, so that, to him, the only legitimate translation philosophy is his own, everyone who disagrees with him is just 'wrong' and isn't really translating at all.
I find that many people who argue for dynamic translations tend to overstate their case in the same way that Strauss does here, by making generic statements like 'literal translations are not accurate' without really justifying the claim. There is a whole lot of assertion in this video, and very little real argument.
I don't think there is any one "right" translation -- the best approach, IMHO, is to use a responsible literal translation and a more dynamic translation. I know for myself, I read the Bible more when I am using a dynamic translation -- like the NEB -- than if I am using a translation like the RSV. I haven't read so much scripture as I have since I started using The Message Catholic Edition as my primary reading Bible since Advent. The problem, though, is that for serious study, those kind of dynamic/paraphrased translations don't work very well on their own. So, that's when I reach for my NABRE.
I would also say that the often repeated claim (also in this video) that one can fix things by reading multiple bible translations is questionable.
If translations are in fact overlapping in meaning, then all I get from multiple bibles is a range of literary quality and beauty (which to a large extent will be in the eye of the beholder). Reading the same thing multiple times in different words does not provide much extra "semantic range". At best I might be able to pick up different nuances in different translations. Is that worth the time and effort? For more academic study, perhaps, but I would argue generally not for spiritual reading. It is usually better to just read one translation in large chunks for flow and context.
If however different translations are actually significantly different in the meaning that they propose, then what exactly do I learn from experiencing this "semantic range"? Assuming that I read this spiritually (rather than out of an interest in say translating as such), not a whole lot! Obviously, I will have to side in my understanding with one the proposed meanings against the others, if they are incompatible. How do I do that? Well, by making use of what I already know and believe to judge. But this means the text has largely stopped teaching me. Rather I am now imposing my preconceptions on the text. In the extreme case, I might be hopping between multiple translations verse by verse, thus accurately tracing my own biases but not much else.
I do think there is a place for "checking against other translations", but it is actually quite limited. Basically, if one is sure of some aspect of the faith (say a dogma), and is reading a translation where this seems to be put in question, one can consult other translations to see if the translators just failed in their job (other translations show no conflict) or if one has failed oneself (by not understanding either dogma or scripture rightly, if all translations agree). That's about it...
What I consider most intriguing about all these "translation wars" is that they are a de facto refutation of Protestantism. It is in fact strictly impossible to derive true doctrine unequivocally from "just reading scripture", as Protestantism requires. If significant variations in meaning can be introduced by translators, without being "obviously wrong", then that simply means that the text does not have an unequivocal meaning in and by itself. This is practically demonstrated by diverging translations that all can be defended. What is the alternative? Well, quite obviously one needs some trustworthy authority which decides - bindingly - which one of the possible meanings is the true one. And that's nothing but what we call the "magisterium" among Catholics (in the wide sense, including the Church Fathers etc.).
The only alternative is something like "KJV-only-ism" - and an extreme variant of that, which claims that at any history in time there is exactly one version in one language that is authoritative (and in these times then the KJV in English, apparently). Even that doesn't quite work, since of course also an English sentence can be ambiguous to native English speakers. But it is as close as a Protestant can get to resolving textual ambiguity.
One thing I find interesting when visiting Protestant Bible blogs is that many of the commenters are pastors, and they are interested in the issue of translation because they use the Bibles to preach from.
And what interests me is that I read comments like 'Last year, I preached from the ESV, this year, I am using the CSB.'
There seems to be a tendency to 'translation shop', in the same way that people 'church shop'. People will jump from one church to another, every time they encounter something at a particular church that they don't like, they start attending another church. And so you get that old joke about the Baptist who is stranded on a desert isle, and when he is rescued he explains 'that hut is my house, the first hut is the church I used to go, the third hut is the one I go to now.'
In the same way, there seems to be some who engage in 'translation shopping', even among pastors, constantly searching for the one translation that will tell them what they want to hear, often doing it almost on a verse by verse basis, 'well, the best translation for Mark 1:3 is this one, but the verse translation for Mark 1:4 is this other translation.'
And sometimes you have pastors choosing which translation they want to preach from each week based on which one seems to be most amenable to their particular theological needs that week.'
"Obviously, I will have to side in my understanding with one the proposed meanings against the others, if they are incompatible."
But often they are not incompatible, but rather complementary. One translation of a phrase can't always capture the full range of meaning in the original. Sometimes both translations are correct, capturing different aspects of the original.
If one translates Daniel 7:13 as "son of man", one can miss the fact that the author means a mortal human being. If one translates it as "mortal" or similar, one misses the reference Jesus makes when he refers to himself as the "son of man." A note can help, which is the editor doing the work of supplying alternate translations for you.
I discussed two cases. What you are describing is part of my first case (overlapping meaning), not the second one (conflicting meaning). So it is misses the point to comment on the second case in terms of the first...
I agree, and already said so above, that one can get nuances of meaning from reading several translations, if they are indeed compatible. However, again as already pointed out above, I think for most spiritual practices it is then more advantageous to read longer parts in just one translation. That provides needed context and narrative / poetic flow. If you compare verse by verse across multiple translations, then it is easy to get lost in that as a kind of academic / literary puzzle.
By the way, the example you pick is a bad one. "Son of man" might be a bit odd in English, but it can certainly convey the meaning "human being" to us while still retaining the association to the NT's "Son of Man". Additionally, there are Hebrew/Aramaic nuances to be captured here (in particular, that son of So-and-So was a typical family name, like say Gustavson for Scandinavians). Finally, consider the Septuagint version of the OT, i.e., this title may have become a Greek title in the NT only because of a prior literal translation from a Hebrew idiom to the Greek in the OT now (mis?)understood as title. With "son of man" that's all still available for you, with "human being" or "mortal" very much not so... And this is typical. Nine times out of ten the price of some awkwardness of formal equivalence is worth it because the meaning does not get artificially restricted.
"... And this is typical. Nine times out of ten the price of some awkwardness of formal equivalence is worth it because the meaning does not get artificially restricted."
Agreed, and there is also the fact that one should very careful when it comes to translating idioms. This video rather baldly asserts the general notion that no effort at all should be made to attempt to preserve Biblical idioms and that rather the English equivalent, if there is one, should be used.
The problem with this is that the Bible is the Word of God, and if we take the notion of plenary inspiration (that is, the belief that God inspired the human authors even down the choice of each individual word in the text), then we can't be casual about tossing out the precise words used in the original text.
It is possible, perhaps even likely, that the particular idiom chosen by the author was chosen for a reason, and that the idiom, in that particular passage, has a special meaning. In cases like this, simply throwing out the idiom all together and resorting to paraphrase, is likely to completely miss the point of the passage.
An excellent example of this that I always fall back on is the various passages in the books of Kings and Chronicles where a king dies, the text never says 'the king died', it says rather 'he rested with his ancestors'. This is an idiom, but I think it is an important one. There is some meaning to that idiom that I think a translation should attempt to preserve. Those dynamic translations which read simply 'the king died' are really missing the point of the passage. Certainly, even in ancient Israel, if the writer had wanted to say simply 'the king died', he could have said exactly that, therefore, he must have chosen that particular idiom for a reason.
I was responding to this: "If translations are in fact overlapping in meaning, then all I get from multiple bibles is a range of literary quality and beauty (which to a large extent will be in the eye of the beholder)". I took that to mean you don't pick up much in meaning by reading multiple bibles. I disagree, although that becomes less so the more bible reading one does.
I prefer semi-formal translations like the RSV. Even so, I didn't understand things like "before your face" in the RSV initially. I had to compare it to the NABRE rendering in many cases to understand the plain meaning. Similarly I didn't pick up what "son of man" meant until I read the note. So I needed a translation of my translation! I need that much less now, but I still pick up things by comparing with other translations.
I do agree that one can do too much of this, and that for spiritual reading it's beneficial to set that aside for a while, and read one translation in long stretches. Probably good to stay off the bible blogs while doing that too!
Fair enough, but you were quoting me across cases before...
I see nothing wrong with alerting the reader to unexpected idiomatic meaning with a footnote. Indeed, with a footnote one learns something, and likely needs not consult the footnote again. For example, now if you read "son of man", your idea of what that means should be "semantically extended".
"Before your face" is a better example, because that might be a bit too gibberish for English ears to keep as is. However, I would worry there about how much distance the English expression "ahead of you" allows. Think of heralds in front of a king, or perhaps bodyguards in front of a VIP. Or maybe scouts and a vanguard securing a path. But in English you could say that you send an associate ahead of you, if that was a year ago and on business overseas... The expression is also referenced to "the prophets" in the text itself, and so one should consider how much the NT Greek owes to the Septuagint rendering of the Hebrew Malachi 3:1. Notably, the Hebrew has "face" in there, and in the typical sense of "presence". Basically, while "before your face" might need a footnote "ahead of you", "ahead of you" in turn might need a footnote "immediately" or "in your sight/presence"...
(As a side note, in German this one is not much a problem... I find being able to read translations into different languages a lot more useful than different translations into the same language.)
"interesting case though: there's an idiom within an idiom here, fathers being an idiom for ancestors. How far do you go?"
The reasons for that specific idiom, however, seem apparent to me.
1. It implies a sense of continuity, from one king to the next 2. It implies hope for the resurrection because the king isn't 'dead', he is merely 'resting', in this case, the idiom is similar to 'fall asleep' as euphemism for death in the New Testament, and in fact, the 'fall asleep' idiom may even be derived from this one 3. It is also hopeful in that it implies that the now dead king has now been reunited with those ancestors. It is reminiscent of king David comforting himself after the death of his son from Bathsheba that 'he will come to me, but I will not return to him.'
Simply saying 'he died' turns that hope for a resurrection into despair.
In addition, I think the idiom is very beautiful and poetic and dignified and I don't think there is any risk in anyone English reader misunderstanding the idiom, the meaning is, I think, clear.
And by the way, there are some excessively dynamic translations that won't even translate 'fall asleep' in the New Testament as 'fall asleep', but insist on being hyperliteral and saying simply 'died'.
This happens, for example, in the discussion of resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, a literal translation is 'and then he appeared to as many as 500 at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep', rendering this as 'died' rather than 'fallen asleep', as some of the more extreme dynamic translations do, ironically undermines the very point that Paul is making about death having been conquered because of the resurrection.
I agree also on the general point about the use of footnotes.
The footnote can be done in one of two ways:
1. the literal translation is in the text, with difficult phrases being explained in a footnote
or
2. the translation in the text is a little looser, but in the footnote is an exact literal translation
So the text could read 'and David rested with his fathers' with a footnote explaining that it is a Hebrew idiom for death, or it could say 'David died' with a footnote saying 'literally 'he rested with his fathers'
Often, it really is possible to have the best of both worlds. These kinds of explanatory notes used to be common in Bibles, but for some reason, they seem to have fallen out favor in recent years.
I have a Darton longman and todd new Jerusalem bible. Is this acceptable here in england? http://dltbooks.com/titles/1820-9780232516753-njb-standard-edition-black-leather
The NJB by DLT is considered an excellent study Bible. It is not approved for liturgical use (I assume mostly because it uses a fair amount of inclusive language). I think it does a nice job, for the most part, in this area. Many scholars speak highly of the translation and especially of the notes and introductions. It is an improvement on the Jerusalem Bible in terms of accuracy, which makes it seem strange that the JB and not the NJB is the translation approved for liturgy in the U.K.). It's an example of a more functional equivalence leaning translation, but nothing near a paraphrase. I believe it's an excellent resource for study and devotion. As with any Bible, it seems to me that the notes should be compared/balanced with other Catholic study Bibles, for instance, the Didache Bible.
The NJB and JB are not used liturgically because of there usage of the Tetragrammaton - the fact that they translate the Tetragrammaton (the four Hebrew Letters making up the ineffable Divine Name - Jod, Heh, Vav, Heh - YHVH or YHWH) commonly as "Yahweh" goes against a Vatican directive which was issued at the behest of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI back in 2008.
The directive states "As regards the sacred name of God himself, translators must use the greatest faithfulness and respect. In particular, as the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam (n. 41) states: In accordance with immemorial tradition, which indeed is already evident in the above- mentioned Septuagint version, the name of almighty God expressed by the Hebrew tetragrammaton and rendered in Latin by the word Dominus, is to be rendered into any given vernacular by a word equivalent in meaning. [Iuxta traditionem ab immemorabili receptam, immo in (...) versione “LXX virorum” iam perspicuam, nomen Dei omnipotentis, sacro tetragrammate hebaraice expressum, latine vocabulo “Dominus” in quavis lingua populari vocabulo quodam eiusdem significationis reddatur.]"
There is one British version of the JB available publicly (I own an edition of it) called the CTS New Catholic Bible - the Catholic Truth Society New Catholic Bible version of the Jerusalem Bible.
It uses a basic Jerusalem Bible text, with commentary newly updated and adapted from the NJB, and the use of the Tetragrammaton in the OT changed to "Lord", and the JB Psalter replaced with the Grail Psalter. Thus, the CTS JB is one of the few English Catholic Bibles available to the public which is exactly the same version that is used in the Lectionary heard in most of the UK.
The NJB may have been rejected for liturgical use because of overuse of gender neutral language as well as the use of the Tetragrammaton however - if an entity ever revised the NJB and toned down the gender neutral language and replaced the Tetragrammaton with "Lord" I'm sure it would then be approved for liturgical use.
The full Vatican Directive "Letter to the Bishops' Conferences on 'The Nameof God'" can be read here: http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/frequently-asked-questions/upload/name-of-god.pdf
Thanks, Jason. I own the CTS Bible as well and wish they had a NJB edition. When I pray the Psalms in the NJB I tend to use "Lord" instead of the divine name, because, frankly, it just seems right. We don't even know conclusively how the divine name was pronounced, apparently.
It would be great if they could adapt the NJB for the CTS Bible. It's a terrific little Bible for carrying around, and it's good because it has the quality of the NJB notes, but not so much so as to make it a huge volume.
Thanks leighton and jason, my priest said its fine to have and to study from but as you stated is not what is used here for liturgical uses. On your opinion I'm going to pick up a copy of the cts catholic bible. http://www.cenacle.co.uk/catalog/product/view/sku/B1317?gclid=Cj0KEQjwuOHHBRDmvsHs8PukyIQBEiQAlEMW0MMm0Q0uiqm68oQrXH5p6HYPcCYFDxrJQWw_rODmywoaArVp8P8HAQ
And I'm also going to get the .http://www.cenacle.co.uk/cts-new-daily-missal-standard-edition.html
Andrew, my pleasure. The Presentation edition that you linked is the one I own, and in my opinion, the best of the editions by the CTS. The biblical text is somewhat easy to read, and even the smaller font notes are readable. I believe I've heard (perhaps here on this blog?) that the U.K. is looking at the RSV Catholic 2nd edition to be used for liturgy in the future. I may be mistaken.
I would recommend the Presentation (PE) or Standard Editions (SE) of the CTS JB - I own a hardcover Standard Edition.
The Compact Edition (CE) would be very difficult to read because the font is TINY (6.75 pt for the text, 5 pt for the notes!) - 5 pt is so small that if you were going to read more than 1 or 2 notes at a time, you'd probably need a magnifying glass to avoid straining your eyes.
The PE and SE both use a 8pt/6pt font for the text/notes, which is small is still a small font size, but it's readable. I like how they went for a small size of this Bible, but I kind of wish they offered it in something like a "Desk" or "Study" version with something like 10/8pt text/notes.
Anyways, enjoy your new CTC New Catholic Bible Jerusalem Bible - it's a blessing having an exact Bible which is the same as you hear in the Lectionary. If you lived in the UK, you could go to Mass, pray the Liturgy of the Hours, and read the Bible at home - and all three would match up perfectly if you were using a CTS JB!
Hopefully we will have this luxury in America sometime in the mid-late 2020's when the new NAB is released!
It's funny you should mention the RSV Catholic edition Leighton as im also picking up a cop of this https://wordery.com/ignatius-bible-rsv-ignatius-press-9781586179274?currency=GBP>rck=YmVRcHlBcXkxUjFwQWIxWFUyZ25WL2xqUVJsR0FHMnBnOHl0QWx2UkNOd2pRVFZkNnovQXRDWFdxaDRTODZKMXN3Vy9qbHNnd1B3YmhEaVV5VlNSWWc9PQ&gclid=Cj0KEQjwuOHHBRDmvsHs8PukyIQBEiQAlEMW0OOQRRHcregfFoDEjRFgIi0Ik89YTrSaxQvC4a6a3iAaAsbE8P8HAQ
After buying the RSV Catholic edition and the CTS presentation edition that will complete my Bible purchases. Along with my CTS Daily missal I'll be set.
I'm just going to throw this out here. Does anyone have any knowledge of this Bible NRSV Popular Text Edition with Apocrypha NR533:TA Black French Morocco Leather
30 comments:
I'm about 5 minutes in. Seems pretty reasonable so far, but his definition of translations seems a bit slanted towards dynamic translations. He says the goal of translation is to translate the meaning of a text in one language to another. He has "meaning" underlined in his slide.
That's certainly one goal, maybe even the primary goal of translation. However other goals can and perhaps should include capturing some of the style and beauty of the original.
Another goal is to translate in such a way that references from one text to another are clear. For example, "son of man" may mean mortal, but translating it that way can obscure the references Jesus is making when he calls himself the "son of man". It's desirable to make the meaning of the tradition as a whole clear.
He may get into this later though - will see!
I liked it when he said you should read multiple translations.
While I have lurked on this blog for years, and benefited from email exchanges with Timothy, this is my first post.
Mark Strauss presents an interesting and reasonable approach to Bible translations that just about anyone can understand. I think it should be required viewing for those who rigidly and dogmatically defend one type of translation over the other, and especially for those entrenched in any of the ______ - only camps.
I appreciate that Dr. Strauss emphasizes that no translation can capture all the meaning and all translations capture important aspects of meaning. Thus, all translations are valuable.
We all have our proclivities and that's fine. While I appreciate the scholarship of more literal translations like the NRSV and NABRE, I've always preferred more functional equivalent translations like the GNB/TEV and CEV. As one who has earned advanced degrees and works in education, I bristle a bit when those translations are described as only for those with limited English skills or for young children. I am no Biblical scholar; I teach English, and love reading Shakespeare and Melville, but I benefit greatly from those "simplified" translations. To me, they are like a breath of fresh air, and they certainly assist in my walk as a Christian. And, really, isn't that the whole idea behind Bible translations?
Thanks for posting this excellent video, Timothy.
Keith S.
I liked the video a lot. It is correct concerning all aspects of the translator's business. Except for one. He largely ignores the importance of the audience.
Simply put, what sort of effect a specific form of translation will have does not just depend on some abstract "English usage". It depends on the kind of English-speaking people that happen to be listening (or reading).
And as it happens, most people that will listen to or read a bible translation are not average English-speaking people. It's just not true, though it is a common conceit. They are rather a particular group, which one might label "practising Christians", much like say a bunch of medical doctors are a particular group.
For example, the meaning of the word "flesh" will be different for practising Christians because the specific semantic range of that word will have already been extended for them, due to encounters with other translations, preaching, spiritual texts etc. Basically, they will stand in a language tradition that already has used "flesh" to mean things that word normally does not imply in English, like "worldly" or "merely human, not Divine" or even "prone to sin". And a new Christian will rapidly learn this modified range of meaning, just as we always quickly adapt to the lingo used in our peer groups.
And that's exactly why more formal translations like the NASB work much better than he pretends that they do. Because they are actually a lot more functional when considered in the light of the actual target audience, rather than in the light of some purported "average speaker of English".
For most practising Christians what he groups as "functional equivalent" are more like paraphrases, and paraphrases have a tendency to strongly vary between good, bad and ugly. Whereas what he calls "mediating" is more like a "functional equivalent" translation. And his "formal equivalent" is more a "mediating" style. What then is the "formal" translation for practising Christians? But of course, it is the interlinear type of translation, which truly matches word to word with little regard to English structure.
So I think for all the many good points he makes, he is simply mistaken in trying to place his translation into the "middle ground". That is only true if we are talking about someone who is not a practising Christian, a secular reader. The more people have lived their faith and have learned the traditions and manners of speaking of their Christian communities, the more a translation like the NIV becomes "functional equivalent" to them and the less "formal equivalent" is a translation like the NASB.
A very good video, at least for someone at my level of understanding of the Bible. His example of 'wise' is excellent, especially since wisdom in that era often meant specific knowledge rather than how we would use wisdom today.
I prefer a translation leaves traces of the original wording if possible. His suggestion is to use multiple Bibles and I think that is probably the best.
All right I finished it, and he does bring up the advantages of formal equivalence translations towards the end.
He used a different example, but I looked it up and the NIV does translate Daniel 7:13 as "son of man", with a note that says:
"The Aramaic phrase bar enash means human being. The phrase son of man is retained here because of its use in the New Testament as a title of Jesus, probably based largely on this verse."
Seems pretty reasonable to me.
His example from Amos 4:6 is interesting. The literal translation of "I gave you cleanness of teeth" would be totally unintelligible, until you read the next bit which says "and lack of bread" - at which point it's kind of funny! Oh boy, my teeth are clean ... because I have nothing to eat!
Overall an excellent presentation. I learned some things and really enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing Tim.
"I'm about 5 minutes in. Seems pretty reasonable so far, but his definition of translations seems a bit slanted towards dynamic translations. He says the goal of translation is to translate the meaning of a text in one language to another. He has "meaning" underlined in his slide."
This is very perceptive, and that is a common problem with Mark Strauss. He is the author of a paper attacking the English Standard Version called 'Why the English Standard Version should not become the standard English version', the paper presents a series of supposedly 'bad' translations in the ESV, and in each case he essentially argues that the translation is 'bad' because it is literal, and that the 'right' translation would be a dynamic one. And he makes this argument repeatedly, not even taking into account the fact that in most of the cases he cites, the translation given by the ESV is the only possible translation given the ESV translation philosophy. So, ultimately, he argue that the ESV is 'bad' it has the 'wrong' translation philosophy, which is frankly ridiculous.
Biblical Catholic,
Thanks, I had read that article by Mark Strauss a while back. I didn't realize it was the same guy. Paradoxically, that article motivated me to check out the ESV and friends (RSV, RSV-CE2)!
I use the RSV as my primary bible, so no I don't agree with him. But I don't think his point is ridiculous. He states clearly that his problem with the ESV is its translation philosophy, and gives a zillion examples of why he thinks it's a problem.
Some of the examples make sense to me. "Ahead of you" does seem clearer than "before your face."
In other cases I actually prefer the ESV (and RSV). "The ants are a people..." seems clear to me. We commonly anthropomorphise in English too. I like it!
The example from Amos, "clean of teeth", is unclear taken out of context, but the next part of the verse, "I gave you empty stomachs", makes it clear enough, and funny. The NABRE strikes a decent compromise here: "I made your teeth clean of food."
Like I said, I use the RSV, but I don't necessarily recommend it to new bible readers, precisely because the meaning may not be clear, and may discourage the reader from continuing to read the bible. I think Mark Strauss's paper leans to far the other way, but he does make some good points.
The New Community Bible though being on the dynamic scale still keeps the main part of the more formal translations:
"Though I have made your teeth clean of food in every city, though I have made your bread in all your dwellings scarce, yet you did not return to me," says the LORD.
His problem is that he either doesn't recognize or refuses to admit that the chief problem with his translation philosophy is that it makes it very easy to create a translation that is extremely biased in favor of one particular theology, and that, when taken too far, the dynamic translation philosophy ultimately leads to the 'translator' completely removing any trace of the original and replacing it with his own thought. And frankly, this happens a lot more frequently with dynamic translations that he wants to admit.
In this instance, it is very important to recall that he is on the NIV committee, and the NIV is easily one of the most biased Bible translations on the market today. There are literally dozens of places in NIV text where the translators display a bias in favor of their particular brand of evangelical theology, and trying to make it impossible to adopt any interpretation of the text other than the one favored by the translation committee. There is a deliberate attempt within the NIV to de-Catholicize the New Testament, but not remove any hint of Catholicism, but any hint of sacramentalism or the notion of a church hierarchy. Thus, the NIV tries to impose a low church, Congregationalist, anti-sacramentalist, basically Baptist theology on the New Testament. Not only do they try to make a Catholic interpretation impossible, but they also try to make a Protestant interpretation other than their own low church, Congregationalist views, impossible.
There are entire websites devoted to pointing out places where the NIV displays an evangelical bias. They try to get around this accusation by saying that their translation committee represents 'many denominations', but all the denominations are evangelical, there are no Catholics, Orthodox, or even mainline Protestants on that committee, and in fact, the very rules put in place by the ISB make anyone who ISN'T an evangelical automatically ineligible for membership on the committee. So the NIV is not just biased, it is biased by design.
Now, the main benefit of a formal equivalent translation like the ESV or NASB is that the translation philosophy, by itself, makes it very difficult, if not close to impossible, for a translation to be biased in the way that the NIV is. The NIV is biased in favor of evangelical theology, the ESV is not. To me, that's a huge point in favor of the ESV.
Matthew Doe.
"And that's exactly why more formal translations like the NASB work much better than he pretends that they do. Because they are actually a lot more functional when considered in the light of the actual target audience, rather than in the light of some purported "average speaker of English"."
Yes, precisely, and dynamic equivalent translations like the GNT, NLT and others which seem to go out of their way to avoid using technical theological terms like 'justification', 'sanctification' etc. are really doing their readers a disservice, and not only that, but they display a bias.
Let me give you an example of a failure to use a technical term and how it can represent bias. The GNT tends to avoid the word 'justification' in favor of circumlocutions like 'made righteous.' They would no doubt justify (no pun intended) this decision by arguing that:
a. most people don't know what 'justification' means and
b. 'being made righteous' is a good substitute because, well 'that's simply what the text means by justification'
Note that by doing this what the translators of the GNT are is trying to not merely translate, but interpret the text. The question 'what does justification mean?' is a very difficult theological question, and many different Christians give many different answers to that question. 'Being made righteous' seems to represent a bias, not every Christian agrees that that is what justification means. The only way to avoid that kind of bias is to just use the technical term 'justification' and don't try to 'explain the meaning' by substituting some other phrase.
The problem I have with Mark Strauss' presentation is that he seems to be intentionally loading the dice, so to speak, so that, to him, the only legitimate translation philosophy is his own, everyone who disagrees with him is just 'wrong' and isn't really translating at all.
I find that many people who argue for dynamic translations tend to overstate their case in the same way that Strauss does here, by making generic statements like 'literal translations are not accurate' without really justifying the claim. There is a whole lot of assertion in this video, and very little real argument.
I don't think there is any one "right" translation -- the best approach, IMHO, is to use a responsible literal translation and a more dynamic translation. I know for myself, I read the Bible more when I am using a dynamic translation -- like the NEB -- than if I am using a translation like the RSV. I haven't read so much scripture as I have since I started using The Message Catholic Edition as my primary reading Bible since Advent. The problem, though, is that for serious study, those kind of dynamic/paraphrased translations don't work very well on their own. So, that's when I reach for my NABRE.
I would also say that the often repeated claim (also in this video) that one can fix things by reading multiple bible translations is questionable.
If translations are in fact overlapping in meaning, then all I get from multiple bibles is a range of literary quality and beauty (which to a large extent will be in the eye of the beholder). Reading the same thing multiple times in different words does not provide much extra "semantic range". At best I might be able to pick up different nuances in different translations. Is that worth the time and effort? For more academic study, perhaps, but I would argue generally not for spiritual reading. It is usually better to just read one translation in large chunks for flow and context.
If however different translations are actually significantly different in the meaning that they propose, then what exactly do I learn from experiencing this "semantic range"? Assuming that I read this spiritually (rather than out of an interest in say translating as such), not a whole lot! Obviously, I will have to side in my understanding with one the proposed meanings against the others, if they are incompatible. How do I do that? Well, by making use of what I already know and believe to judge. But this means the text has largely stopped teaching me. Rather I am now imposing my preconceptions on the text. In the extreme case, I might be hopping between multiple translations verse by verse, thus accurately tracing my own biases but not much else.
I do think there is a place for "checking against other translations", but it is actually quite limited. Basically, if one is sure of some aspect of the faith (say a dogma), and is reading a translation where this seems to be put in question, one can consult other translations to see if the translators just failed in their job (other translations show no conflict) or if one has failed oneself (by not understanding either dogma or scripture rightly, if all translations agree). That's about it...
What I consider most intriguing about all these "translation wars" is that they are a de facto refutation of Protestantism. It is in fact strictly impossible to derive true doctrine unequivocally from "just reading scripture", as Protestantism requires. If significant variations in meaning can be introduced by translators, without being "obviously wrong", then that simply means that the text does not have an unequivocal meaning in and by itself. This is practically demonstrated by diverging translations that all can be defended. What is the alternative? Well, quite obviously one needs some trustworthy authority which decides - bindingly - which one of the possible meanings is the true one. And that's nothing but what we call the "magisterium" among Catholics (in the wide sense, including the Church Fathers etc.).
The only alternative is something like "KJV-only-ism" - and an extreme variant of that, which claims that at any history in time there is exactly one version in one language that is authoritative (and in these times then the KJV in English, apparently). Even that doesn't quite work, since of course also an English sentence can be ambiguous to native English speakers. But it is as close as a Protestant can get to resolving textual ambiguity.
One thing I find interesting when visiting Protestant Bible blogs is that many of the commenters are pastors, and they are interested in the issue of translation because they use the Bibles to preach from.
And what interests me is that I read comments like 'Last year, I preached from the ESV, this year, I am using the CSB.'
There seems to be a tendency to 'translation shop', in the same way that people 'church shop'. People will jump from one church to another, every time they encounter something at a particular church that they don't like, they start attending another church. And so you get that old joke about the Baptist who is stranded on a desert isle, and when he is rescued he explains 'that hut is my house, the first hut is the church I used to go, the third hut is the one I go to now.'
In the same way, there seems to be some who engage in 'translation shopping', even among pastors, constantly searching for the one translation that will tell them what they want to hear, often doing it almost on a verse by verse basis, 'well, the best translation for Mark 1:3 is this one, but the verse translation for Mark 1:4 is this other translation.'
And sometimes you have pastors choosing which translation they want to preach from each week based on which one seems to be most amenable to their particular theological needs that week.'
"Obviously, I will have to side in my understanding with one the proposed meanings against the others, if they are incompatible."
But often they are not incompatible, but rather complementary. One translation of a phrase can't always capture the full range of meaning in the original. Sometimes both translations are correct, capturing different aspects of the original.
If one translates Daniel 7:13 as "son of man", one can miss the fact that the author means a mortal human being. If one translates it as "mortal" or similar, one misses the reference Jesus makes when he refers to himself as the "son of man."
A note can help, which is the editor doing the work of supplying alternate translations for you.
Steve Molitor,
I discussed two cases. What you are describing is part of my first case (overlapping meaning), not the second one (conflicting meaning). So it is misses the point to comment on the second case in terms of the first...
I agree, and already said so above, that one can get nuances of meaning from reading several translations, if they are indeed compatible. However, again as already pointed out above, I think for most spiritual practices it is then more advantageous to read longer parts in just one translation. That provides needed context and narrative / poetic flow. If you compare verse by verse across multiple translations, then it is easy to get lost in that as a kind of academic / literary puzzle.
By the way, the example you pick is a bad one. "Son of man" might be a bit odd in English, but it can certainly convey the meaning "human being" to us while still retaining the association to the NT's "Son of Man". Additionally, there are Hebrew/Aramaic nuances to be captured here (in particular, that son of So-and-So was a typical family name, like say Gustavson for Scandinavians). Finally, consider the Septuagint version of the OT, i.e., this title may have become a Greek title in the NT only because of a prior literal translation from a Hebrew idiom to the Greek in the OT now (mis?)understood as title. With "son of man" that's all still available for you, with "human being" or "mortal" very much not so... And this is typical. Nine times out of ten the price of some awkwardness of formal equivalence is worth it because the meaning does not get artificially restricted.
"... And this is typical. Nine times out of ten the price of some awkwardness of formal equivalence is worth it because the meaning does not get artificially restricted."
Agreed, and there is also the fact that one should very careful when it comes to translating idioms. This video rather baldly asserts the general notion that no effort at all should be made to attempt to preserve Biblical idioms and that rather the English equivalent, if there is one, should be used.
The problem with this is that the Bible is the Word of God, and if we take the notion of plenary inspiration (that is, the belief that God inspired the human authors even down the choice of each individual word in the text), then we can't be casual about tossing out the precise words used in the original text.
It is possible, perhaps even likely, that the particular idiom chosen by the author was chosen for a reason, and that the idiom, in that particular passage, has a special meaning. In cases like this, simply throwing out the idiom all together and resorting to paraphrase, is likely to completely miss the point of the passage.
An excellent example of this that I always fall back on is the various passages in the books of Kings and Chronicles where a king dies, the text never says 'the king died', it says rather 'he rested with his ancestors'. This is an idiom, but I think it is an important one. There is some meaning to that idiom that I think a translation should attempt to preserve. Those dynamic translations which read simply 'the king died' are really missing the point of the passage. Certainly, even in ancient Israel, if the writer had wanted to say simply 'the king died', he could have said exactly that, therefore, he must have chosen that particular idiom for a reason.
Matthew,
I was responding to this: "If translations are in fact overlapping in meaning, then all I get from multiple bibles is a range of literary quality and beauty (which to a large extent will be in the eye of the beholder)". I took that to mean you don't pick up much in meaning by reading multiple bibles. I disagree, although that becomes less so the more bible reading one does.
I prefer semi-formal translations like the RSV. Even so, I didn't understand things like "before your face" in the RSV initially. I had to compare it to the NABRE rendering in many cases to understand the plain meaning. Similarly I didn't pick up what "son of man" meant until I read the note. So I needed a translation of my translation! I need that much less now, but I still pick up things by comparing with other translations.
I do agree that one can do too much of this, and that for spiritual reading it's beneficial to set that aside for a while, and read one translation in long stretches. Probably good to stay off the bible blogs while doing that too!
Steve,
Fair enough, but you were quoting me across cases before...
I see nothing wrong with alerting the reader to unexpected idiomatic meaning with a footnote. Indeed, with a footnote one learns something, and likely needs not consult the footnote again. For example, now if you read "son of man", your idea of what that means should be "semantically extended".
"Before your face" is a better example, because that might be a bit too gibberish for English ears to keep as is. However, I would worry there about how much distance the English expression "ahead of you" allows. Think of heralds in front of a king, or perhaps bodyguards in front of a VIP. Or maybe scouts and a vanguard securing a path. But in English you could say that you send an associate ahead of you, if that was a year ago and on business overseas... The expression is also referenced to "the prophets" in the text itself, and so one should consider how much the NT Greek owes to the Septuagint rendering of the Hebrew Malachi 3:1. Notably, the Hebrew has "face" in there, and in the typical sense of "presence". Basically, while "before your face" might need a footnote "ahead of you", "ahead of you" in turn might need a footnote "immediately" or "in your sight/presence"...
(As a side note, in German this one is not much a problem... I find being able to read translations into different languages a lot more useful than different translations into the same language.)
"interesting case though: there's an idiom within an idiom here, fathers being an idiom for ancestors. How far do you go?"
The reasons for that specific idiom, however, seem apparent to me.
1. It implies a sense of continuity, from one king to the next
2. It implies hope for the resurrection because the king isn't 'dead', he is merely 'resting', in this case, the idiom is similar to 'fall asleep' as euphemism for death in the New Testament, and in fact, the 'fall asleep' idiom may even be derived from this one
3. It is also hopeful in that it implies that the now dead king has now been reunited with those ancestors. It is reminiscent of king David comforting himself after the death of his son from Bathsheba that 'he will come to me, but I will not return to him.'
Simply saying 'he died' turns that hope for a resurrection into despair.
In addition, I think the idiom is very beautiful and poetic and dignified and I don't think there is any risk in anyone English reader misunderstanding the idiom, the meaning is, I think, clear.
And by the way, there are some excessively dynamic translations that won't even translate 'fall asleep' in the New Testament as 'fall asleep', but insist on being hyperliteral and saying simply 'died'.
This happens, for example, in the discussion of resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, a literal translation is 'and then he appeared to as many as 500 at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep', rendering this as 'died' rather than 'fallen asleep', as some of the more extreme dynamic translations do, ironically undermines the very point that Paul is making about death having been conquered because of the resurrection.
I agree also on the general point about the use of footnotes.
The footnote can be done in one of two ways:
1. the literal translation is in the text, with difficult phrases being explained in a footnote
or
2. the translation in the text is a little looser, but in the footnote is an exact literal translation
So the text could read 'and David rested with his fathers' with a footnote explaining that it is a Hebrew idiom for death, or it could say 'David died' with a footnote saying 'literally 'he rested with his fathers'
Often, it really is possible to have the best of both worlds. These kinds of explanatory notes used to be common in Bibles, but for some reason, they seem to have fallen out favor in recent years.
I have a Darton longman and todd new Jerusalem bible. Is this acceptable here in england?
http://dltbooks.com/titles/1820-9780232516753-njb-standard-edition-black-leather
Andrew,
The NJB by DLT is considered an excellent study Bible. It is not approved for liturgical use (I assume mostly because it uses a fair amount of inclusive language). I think it does a nice job, for the most part, in this area. Many scholars speak highly of the translation and especially of the notes and introductions. It is an improvement on the Jerusalem Bible in terms of accuracy, which makes it seem strange that the JB and not the NJB is the translation approved for liturgy in the U.K.). It's an example of a more functional equivalence leaning translation, but nothing near a paraphrase. I believe it's an excellent resource for study and devotion. As with any Bible, it seems to me that the notes should be compared/balanced with other Catholic study Bibles, for instance, the Didache Bible.
Leighton and Andrew Tillcock:
The NJB and JB are not used liturgically because of there usage of the Tetragrammaton - the fact that they translate the Tetragrammaton (the four Hebrew Letters making up the ineffable Divine Name - Jod, Heh, Vav, Heh - YHVH or YHWH) commonly as "Yahweh" goes against a Vatican directive which was issued at the behest of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI back in 2008.
The directive states "As regards the sacred name of God himself, translators must use the greatest faithfulness and respect. In particular, as the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam (n. 41) states:
In accordance with immemorial tradition, which indeed is already evident in the above- mentioned Septuagint version, the name of almighty God expressed by the Hebrew tetragrammaton and rendered in Latin by the word Dominus, is to be rendered into any given vernacular by a word equivalent in meaning.
[Iuxta traditionem ab immemorabili receptam, immo in (...) versione “LXX virorum” iam perspicuam, nomen Dei omnipotentis, sacro tetragrammate hebaraice expressum, latine vocabulo “Dominus” in quavis lingua populari vocabulo quodam eiusdem significationis reddatur.]"
There is one British version of the JB available publicly (I own an edition of it) called the CTS New Catholic Bible - the Catholic Truth Society New Catholic Bible version of the Jerusalem Bible.
It uses a basic Jerusalem Bible text, with commentary newly updated and adapted from the NJB, and the use of the Tetragrammaton in the OT changed to "Lord", and the JB Psalter replaced with the Grail Psalter. Thus, the CTS JB is one of the few English Catholic Bibles available to the public which is exactly the same version that is used in the Lectionary heard in most of the UK.
The NJB may have been rejected for liturgical use because of overuse of gender neutral language as well as the use of the Tetragrammaton however - if an entity ever revised the NJB and toned down the gender neutral language and replaced the Tetragrammaton with "Lord" I'm sure it would then be approved for liturgical use.
The full Vatican Directive "Letter to the Bishops' Conferences on 'The Nameof God'" can be read here: http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/frequently-asked-questions/upload/name-of-god.pdf
Thanks, Jason. I own the CTS Bible as well and wish they had a NJB edition. When I pray the Psalms in the NJB I tend to use "Lord" instead of the divine name, because, frankly, it just seems right. We don't even know conclusively how the divine name was pronounced, apparently.
It would be great if they could adapt the NJB for the CTS Bible. It's a terrific little Bible for carrying around, and it's good because it has the quality of the NJB notes, but not so much so as to make it a huge volume.
Thanks leighton and jason, my priest said its fine to have and to study from but as you stated is not what is used here for liturgical uses. On your opinion I'm going to pick up a copy of the cts catholic bible. http://www.cenacle.co.uk/catalog/product/view/sku/B1317?gclid=Cj0KEQjwuOHHBRDmvsHs8PukyIQBEiQAlEMW0MMm0Q0uiqm68oQrXH5p6HYPcCYFDxrJQWw_rODmywoaArVp8P8HAQ
And I'm also going to get the .http://www.cenacle.co.uk/cts-new-daily-missal-standard-edition.html
Thanks for your help.
Andrew, my pleasure. The Presentation edition that you linked is the one I own, and in my opinion, the best of the editions by the CTS. The biblical text is somewhat easy to read, and even the smaller font notes are readable. I believe I've heard (perhaps here on this blog?) that the U.K. is looking at the RSV Catholic 2nd edition to be used for liturgy in the future. I may be mistaken.
At any rate, good buy!
Andrew Tilcock,
Yes, great choice!
I would recommend the Presentation (PE) or Standard Editions (SE) of the CTS JB - I own a hardcover Standard Edition.
The Compact Edition (CE) would be very difficult to read because the font is TINY (6.75 pt for the text, 5 pt for the notes!) - 5 pt is so small that if you were going to read more than 1 or 2 notes at a time, you'd probably need a magnifying glass to avoid straining your eyes.
The PE and SE both use a 8pt/6pt font for the text/notes, which is small is still a small font size, but it's readable. I like how they went for a small size of this Bible, but I kind of wish they offered it in something like a "Desk" or "Study" version with something like 10/8pt text/notes.
Anyways, enjoy your new CTC New Catholic Bible Jerusalem Bible - it's a blessing having an exact Bible which is the same as you hear in the Lectionary. If you lived in the UK, you could go to Mass, pray the Liturgy of the Hours, and read the Bible at home - and all three would match up perfectly if you were using a CTS JB!
Hopefully we will have this luxury in America sometime in the mid-late 2020's when the new NAB is released!
It's funny you should mention the RSV Catholic edition Leighton as im also picking up a cop of this https://wordery.com/ignatius-bible-rsv-ignatius-press-9781586179274?currency=GBP>rck=YmVRcHlBcXkxUjFwQWIxWFUyZ25WL2xqUVJsR0FHMnBnOHl0QWx2UkNOd2pRVFZkNnovQXRDWFdxaDRTODZKMXN3Vy9qbHNnd1B3YmhEaVV5VlNSWWc9PQ&gclid=Cj0KEQjwuOHHBRDmvsHs8PukyIQBEiQAlEMW0OOQRRHcregfFoDEjRFgIi0Ik89YTrSaxQvC4a6a3iAaAsbE8P8HAQ
After buying the RSV Catholic edition and the CTS presentation edition that will complete my Bible purchases. Along with my CTS Daily missal I'll be set.
I'm just going to throw this out here. Does anyone have any knowledge of this Bible NRSV Popular Text Edition with Apocrypha NR533:TA Black French Morocco Leather
Also here is a link to it
http://booksplea.se/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=604695&google=GBP&gclid=Cj0KEQjwmIrJBRCRmJ_x7KDo-9oBEiQAuUPKMlgsHMrcCpqdfuiCPAJKO-RcHwQDrwqCcF0ralGsDDwaAks08P8HAQ
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