Monday, October 9, 2017

Local Kid Beat Up On Church Playground For Carrying NIV

Thanks to Chris for passing along this article from the satirical site The Babylon Bee:

DALLAS, TX—Local youngster Caleb Beckett brought his trusty NIV Bible For Boys to church Sunday, as he does every week. But this Sunday was different, as a classmate reportedly noticed for the first time that Beckett was using the NIV translation.
According to sources, the classmate began to loudly ridicule him for his choice of translation, resulting in a group of young hooligans assaulting the youth and mocking him.
Witnesses confirmed that Beckett effectively shielded himself with his Bible—aided by the fact that it was housed in a very large and elaborate Bible cover—until one of the bullies got a hold of him while the others pummeled him, shouting insults like, “Dynamically equivalent little dork!” and “You wouldn’t know a good translation if it bit you in the butt!”
Finally, Beckett was thrown to the ground while the gang of ESV-wielding youths threw his NIV translation up onto a tree branch, far out of his reach.
“You’ll have better luck jumping up to grab your so-called ‘Bible’ than the NIV translators did imposing their gender neutrality on the text, you chump!” one of the bullies called out as they high-fived each other and left Beckett moaning in the playground sand, sources confirmed.
This made me think, if there was an equivalent in the Catholic bible translation world.  Hmmm.....I would think in some circles the NAB takes a lot of grief/crap from people who generally aren't aware of how that text has changed over the years.  Your thoughts?  (Let's not take this too serious, just have some fun.)

20 comments:

Jason MSpyridonP said...

LOL @ "dynamically equivalent little dork!"

Anonymous said...

Liked this one almost as much.

http://babylonbee.com/news/ancient-documents-confirm-selah-best-translated-extended-guitar-solo/

CWBuckley said...

It would definitely be NAB or Jerusalem Bible vs. RSV-CE advocates in our arena.

If you enjoy the Babylon Bee, you may also want to check out the Catholic satirical site Eye of the Tiber:

http://www.eyeofthetiber.com/

Anonymous said...

The NABRE just is so....so....just ughh. But the thing I can't get around are the dreadful notes. Apparently we're condemned to a Bible with notes from the felt-banner age forever.

Peter Brennan

Matthew Doe said...

If someone arrived with a Not A Bible - Really Egregious text instead of a Divinely Received - Completely Righteous one, most Catholics wouldn't bat an eyelid. After all, their dust-carrying capacity will be roughly equal, one squashes a spider just as well as the other, and neither has a clear advantage as doorstop...

Timothy said...

Easy there Peter. Let’s not take this thread down the same old rabbit hole. It is meant to fun.

Timothy said...

Most Catholics, of course, aren’t reading the Bible, that is true. Easy, though, on the conjecture you just made. This is for fun. Avoid the rabbit hole!

James Ignatius McAuley said...

Actually, the old NAB 1970 psalms are pretty good. I prefer them any day to the old Grail ones.

The notes of the NAB are one thing. But, the NAB is a pretty good reading/chanting text for liturgy and my local parish still uses them.

I think in the NAB the miscreant flashes his teeth, but in the NABRE he grinds them. Gnash is so much more evocative- you can hear some one gnash, but grind? They will then have a bite plate, lol.

Fortunately, I have away all my NAB bibles, so no one can beat me up for that

Theophrastus said...

Wait, you folks use English Bibles in public? How shameful!

I only carry the Latin Bible with me. The Vulgate was good enough for Abraham, Moses, King David, Jesus, and Paul; and it is good enough for me too.

Jerry Mc Kenna said...

I am sad to say that I don't know any people who have a strong opinion about Bible translations. Most of my generation started with the Douay Rheims, and its been mostly improvements since then.

Erica M said...

Stand back guys, I got it! *Pulls out original 1600's KJV family bible* Have a taste of the real English language, you limited-vocabulary-having dweeb! Dost thou wanteth some? *cracks NIV bible's spine*

CWBuckley said...

Whoa!

I call foul on today's piece:
http://babylonbee.com/news/bee-explains-main-differences-popular-bible-translations/

We got there first (and arguably better) two years ago with:
http://www.catholicbiblesblog.com/2016/01/a-little-fun-bible-translation-acronyms.html

Timothy said...

Shenanigans!

Ronny Tadena said...

From the link above, my favorite two:
-------
NASB

A group of really lazy translators in the early 1960s decided to just copy the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts of the Scriptures word for word, throwing readability to the wind, and the result was the Nerdy Academics’ Snooty Bible. Parsing convoluted renderings and scratching your head trying to figure out what a sentence could possibly mean is half the fun of Bible reading, anyway.

ESV

For the Bible nerd who wants everyone to think he’s cool, the Elect Standard Version is perfect. Crossway has pumped out literally billions of different varieties so people will know that you’re one of the unique elect. We highly recommend the authentic mink cover with real tobacco-scented pages—you haven’t read the Bible until you’ve read a designer ESV.
-------
ESV comments hit a little too close to home for this re-binding obsessed reader lol!

Biblical Catholic said...

Actually, the best Bible parody article from The Babylon Bee is the following skewering of the New Living Translation:

https://babylonbee.com/news/confirmed-nlt-translated-entirely-first-year-bible-student-named-greg/

Steve Molitor said...

This is funny: https://babylonbee.com/news/youversion-apologizes-adding-comment-section-bible-app/.

I'm thankful for Tim's moderation of the comments! I read religious blogs for spiritual nourishment, but there are some religious blogs and sites I give up for lent because the comments are, well, not so spiritually nourishing! Fortunately this blog has not made that list.

Unknown said...

In a gesture of support for NIV boy, I think we should grab our NABREs and head over to the Catholic Answers Forums. :-D

Brother William said...

I know a man who use to read his original version of the NIV everyday at lunch and in the evenings until a friend of his told him the Church did not approve of that translation.
He quit reading it and tried other translations but in the end just gave up reading the bible altogether.
I guess there is some wisdom in Billy Gramm's quote of "The best bible translation is the one you'll read."

Timothy said...

Totally agree with that

Surly Hermit said...

I just read an interesting essay in First Things about Bible translation, focusing on the KJV and it's "sacral" English. What do you all think?

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/11/thus-saith-the-lord