From National Review:
I got an e-mail today informing me of a delightful new resource available free of charge at the website of the Catholic publisher Baronius Press. It’s a complete side-by-side text of the Latin Vulgate, the Douay-Rheims Catholic translation, and the mid-20th-century translation by Monsignor Ronald Knox.
I have always had a soft spot for the Douay-Rheims translation, because it has the venerable old style of the King James Version (“thee” and “thou,” of course, plus a generally high diction), but – because the Douay-Rheims version currently most commonly printed is the 18th-century Challoner revision – it lacks some of the KJV phrasings that have come to sound clunky if not barbaric in the intervening centuries. (Among these latter, the one that grates on me most is when the KJV has St. Paul, St. Peter, and the Psalmist all use the phrase “to us-ward.” Ugh.)
Read the rest here
6 comments:
Yoda and Knox, she must compare not. To a dark place, this line of questioning goes. When 900 years old it reaches, look as good it will not.
(Done in my best Yoda impression voice)
Knox says the same thing.
I strongly disagree.
I have spent a good amount of time comparing the original 1582/1609-1610 Rheims-Douay with the 1750 Douay-Rheims-Challoner, and I'd say it's over 90% exactly the same.
The biggest changes are in updated spelling and grammar and the change in format from paragraph to verse. In other words, the changes are cosmetic, not in the translation.
The biggest translation difference which is quickly noticed is the way the Tetragrammaton is rendered: it is consistently rendered "Our Lord" in the old 1610 Douay and was updated to reflect common English usage of "the Lord" by Challoner - I actually really like the our Lord usage though.
The one thing I don't like about Knox is the thou/thee, which is completely obsolete in English, even among the Quakers as far I know. *That* is what dates the translation far more than any inversion style can, and until a "you" edition is published, the only people who will really understand or appreciate it are the ones who regularly read Douai or even KJV, and even then the regular Douai readers will say, "why do I need this modern translation when I can read the good old Douai"?
Anon,
I actually agree with much of what you said there. I will say, however, that as one who does not read, nor has ever, the Douay, I find the Knox a true joy. Now, I may be in the minority, but it remains the only translation I have that employs "archaic" English which I read regularly. Perhaps it is the style, or the format of the Baronius edition, or Yoda-isms, or the man behind the translation, yet in the end I am not sure but my attraction to it remains. I find that of all my translations, and I have a few, it is the only one I slow down to read. It just happens. Again, to each there own, even with the difficulties you describe, which I largely agree with.
Knox wanted to eliminate all the archaisms and use completely modern English, but he was forbidden from doing so and required to retain the 'thees' and 'thous' as part of the mandate he was given by the English bishops.
Keep in mind, even editors the RSV, released only a couple years after the Knox edition was published, didn't have the courage to completely eliminate all archaic language, retaining the 'thees' and 'thous' in the Psalms and other places judged to be 'poetic'.
After 4 centuries of widespread use of the KJV and the Douay-Rheims, and the commitment of many of the laity to that kind of language, it is natural that the move towards completely modern English would be gradual rather than abrupt.
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