How can two versions (RSV and NAB) be so different?

[JillD]

As a protestant, no matter which version anyone was using, when we all turned to a passage, we all were looking at the same passage.  The numbering was the same and all the same verses were there.

I cannot believe how often, as we use the RSV and the NAB in this Bible study, a particular address leads us to different passages altogether.  Or, in the case of the NAB, once a fairly long section of Scripture was entirely missing from the OT.  Not to mention the grossly different words used to translate many of the passages.

It's been very frustrating - not particularly enlightening.  Yes, I remember when different versions of a protestant Bible would shed light on each other.  These two Catholic versions seem to more often confuse us.

Psalm 23 in the NAB is awful.  I will dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come???  What happened to "forever"?

Has the CC always used the NAB?  What did it used to use?  Why did it change?

The RSV is so much better, IMHO....

Jill

[japhy]

I cannot believe how often, as we use the RSV and the NAB in this Bible study, a particular address leads us to different passages altogether.  Or, in the case of the NAB, once a fairly long section of Scripture was entirely missing from the OT.  Not to mention the grossly different words used to translate many of the passages.

Psalm 23 in the NAB is awful.  I will dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come???  What happened to "forever"?

The NAB is a very recent translation (from around 1970).  I don't usually hear good things about it.  It leans towards paraphrasing a bit too much for my liking, and some words and phrases it translates VERY poorly, regardless of being Catholic or not (although some particularly important Catholic verses are translated terribly without so much as a footnote, like Luke 1:28).  The NAB had to be revised to be used in the Lectionary, so what we hear at Mass doesn't match what our bibles say!

The Book of Ezekiel got jumbled around in an attempt to correct it.

[David W. Emery]

Jill, suffice it to say that I mostly use the RSV. Moreover, the best modern Catholic commentaries (the Navarre Bible and the Ignatius Study Bible) are based on the RSV. The RSV isn’t perfect (no version is or can be, because of the nature of languages and translation), but it is far ahead of whatever is in second place for English-language readers.

Concerning Psalm 23 in the NAB, the Hebrew of verse 6 has l’orach yomim, “for length of days,” and the Vulgate and Novus Vulgatus render it literally as in longitudinem dierum. The Douay version follows suit: “unto length of days.” The Hebrew phrase refers to extreme longevity or a very long period of time, and it is in this sense that the Biblia Navarra (the version on which the original Spanish text of the Navarre Bible was based) translates it as por dilatados dí­as, “for days that go on and on.” I agree that, in comparison, “for years to come” is weak and gives a short-sighted impression. On the other hand, “forever” (KJB and RSV) might be considered an exaggeration in the opposite direction.

As Jeff has pointed out, the NAB came into existence (as the literary successor to the Confraternity Version, which remained incomplete after decades of official indecision and scholarly stagnation) in the days following the Second Vatican Council and was thus filled with the enthusiasm (and mistakes) of the post-conciliar period. It has been revised three times since its original edition. The second of these revisions, from 1991, is the currently published NAB, while the third (never worked into standard biblical form) exists as the current version of the readings for Mass in the United States.

David

[Dave Armstrong]

Some differences are accounted for by style of translation: literal vs. paraphrase, etc.

I'm a big RSV fan, too, because I like the style of the King James and RSV is a revision of that and it is fairly literal to the original.

I think NAB has absolutely terrible style, just from a literary standpoint, but of course that is a subjective judgment. In this case, however, many many people are of the same opinion!

I'm a writer, myself, and I would tell you (and any writer would) that good style is a crucial component of any effective writing, in addition to content. That goes for the Bible as well. People will differ on particular styles, but as a general rule, some level of decent style is necessary.

I just don't see it in the NAB. If others do, more power to them, but I  don't get it, as an admirer of many different Bible versions. Paraphrases can be done very well (e.g., Phillips).

[hpj0828]

Hi Jill,

I would suggest one of the Interlinear Bibles keyed to the Strong's Concordance reference numbers.  This gives you as close as you can get to a "literal" translation without being able to read the original languages.

I find it indispensible, since I simply don't trust most English translations of the Bible.  Unfortunately, their translators so often come from a tradition of anti-Semitic theology, and they really haven't understood the meanings of Semitisms--idiomatic words and phrases, in either the New or the Old Testament.   I think you are "outgrowing" standard English translations.

When I am trying to explain the meaning in context of the Jewish society at the time certain Scriptures were written, I find myself constantly fighting with particularly poor translations.

So:

The Interlinear Bible, Jay P. Green, Sr., General Editor and Translator, Sovereign Grace Publishers, Lafayette, Indiana, 1986.

The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990.

Are what I use as a base.

You can also get excellent Bible software with modules for historical sources such as Josephus and Philo, Septuagint, etc. for free at:

http://www.onlinebible.net/

browse through the downloads there.  The information is profoundly extensive! 

Extensive Jewish source information, including online searchable Talmud and Midrashim, is available for a $30.00 per year membership fee from the  Feinberg e-collection of the Spertus Institue of Jewish Studies in Chicago:

http://www.spertus.edu/asher_cja/feinberg/index.php

Happy Passover!

Henry

 

[BeProf]

Short answer:

Hebrew is a really funny language.

Hebrew, like Arabic and other Semitic languages, uses a system of roots made only of consonants with vowels added to it depending on what word your trying to say. There are a relatively small number of these roots and so each of them tends to do double and even triple duty, sometimes in rather fanciful ways (at least to our Romance and Germanic influenced sensibilities).

The word for "tree," for instance, also can mean "door" or even "spine" depending on how you use it. There's a sadly all too common heresy among some "christians" that use this root relationship to say that Eve and the Tree of Knowledge is coded language for the fact that Eve had sexual relations with the serpent. Cain was descended from the devil, literally, and Abel and Seth were descended from Adam. Guess who Adams descendants are today? That's right! White folk - Chosen by God and the only beings truly possessed of souls. And the descendants of Cain? Still around. They're the Jews and, as the literal physical descendants of Satan, they must be destroyed utterly. Everybody else are just the "beasts of the field", and can be exploited like mules as the white folk see fit.

Another example is the name of God "El Shaddai" - Almighty God. You can, if you're inclined to do some fancy footwork with the root words, arrive at the meaning "The goat who destroys utterly". I don't think anyone conceives of God as a giant billy goat who snorts atomic fire from on top of Mt. Sinai, but, if you try to read too much into the text (like the Christian Identity folks do in the example above), that's where you'll end up.

Long and short, Hebrew isn't like Greek or Latin. If two words are related in Greek or Latin, they're meanings will always (or almost always) be likewise related. That isn't necessarily so in Hebrew. So you end up, sometimes, with some texts that just aren't all that clear.

PS - That's precisely why St. Jerome and others in the Catholic tradition  (but also some Protestants) lean so heavily on the Septuagint as a kind of "Rosetta Stone" for discerning the proper translation of some of the trickier passages.

[JillD]

Thank you, Ed.  And I guess when you throw your own or your group's theological bent in the mix, a lot of strange stuff can happen...

[hpj0828]

This is why cantillation is so integral to the meaning of the Hebrew text.  The original Hebrew text consisted only of consonant letters (vowels were assumed) with no spaces between words and no punctuation to divide sentences.

Through cantillation, the vowels are preserved, the division of the text into phrases-units of discrete thought, the division of the text into sentences.

So the oral cantillation actually imposes an interpretation onto the text.

Whenever rabbis in the Talmuds or the Midrashim want to apply a new interpretation to a text, they change the vowels normally used, add a letter that is usually thought of as the end of a word to the beginning of the following word, attribute a word normally thought of as the end of a sentence as the beginning word of the following sentence.  Not surprisingly, the rabbis could come up with some pretty imaginative interpretations in this way!

This type of "magic" led me to realize that the written text required an authoritative interpretation to be comprehensible.  The first piece of the puzzle that led me to a Catholic understanding that Scripture was part of a three-legged stool along with tradition and magisterium.

H.

[moonshadow]

Whenever I've had reason to work through the New Testament in the original language, e.g., while reading White's "The King James Only Controversy," I'm always most satisfied with the New American Bible's rendering of crucial verses over those of other, popular English versions.  

Yes, even Romans 9:5!

http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/romans/romans9.htm#foot3  

YES, especially "expiation" in 1 John 2:2, 4:10 and Romans 3:25!

http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/romans/romans3.htm#foot8

:woohoo:


Any deviation from the published version of the NAB for the lectionary readings at Mass is due to inclusive language in the former's psalms and New Testament.  The overall difference between what's publicly proclaimed and what's printed in our Bibles is miniscule.  Moreover, the problem of inclusive language doesn't extend to the NAB's OT at all.

http://cba.cua.edu/nab.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_American_Bible#.22Fourth_version.22

:waving:

JillD: On OT chapter and verse numbering differences, all you need is Fr. Just's color-coded chart! He's the cat's meow on Bible and Lectionary data.

http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/OT-Statistics-Compared.htm  

The NAB OT follows the Hebrew numbering while other English-version OTs do not.

http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/psalms/intro.htm

I eagerly await the NAB's revised OT, completed already over ten years ago now, and planned available in early 2009.

http://www.usccb.org/nab/faq.shtml


:confused:
My concern with the RSV is, being an older translation, whether it is sufficiently based upon the latest editions of original language texts. It's difficult to gauge that, imo. :reading:

So, please help me understand how y'all can be so down on the version of the Bible we Catholics proclaim at Mass every day, the NAB?! :shrugging:

[Dave Armstrong]

My concern with the RSV is, being an older translation, whether it is sufficiently based upon the latest editions of original language texts. It's difficult to gauge that, imo. :reading:

The date of the OT in the RSV is 1952. The NT was published in 1946 and 1971 (2nd ed.). The Editor's Preface to the 1971 edition states that it


. . . takes into account further advances made in Biblical studies and translation. . . . [and] textual and linguistic studies published since the Revised Standard Version New Testament was first issued in 1946.

 

The NAB was published in 1970 with a revision of the NT in 1986. In 1991 some inclusive language was added to the Psalms (which is a travesty in terms of literal translation). So I don't seee a whole lotta difference between them in this particular regard (the latest textual findings). According to the Wikipedia article on the NAB:



The revised Psalter of 1991 was rejected for liturgical use by the Holy See in 1994. The revised text (New Testament and Psalms) was specifically disallowed by the provisional norms for translation of biblical texts sent by Vatican officials to American Bishops in June of 1997, . . .

So, please help me understand how y'all can be so down on the version of the Bible we Catholics proclaim at Mass every day, the NAB?!

For me, as I stated above, it is mainly an aversion to what I consider lousy literary style, which is a matter of taste. We are free to use different translations. Style is a necessary component of good writing. I agree with Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin:


I just think the NAB is a lousy translation. There was a period in which I would tense up at Mass every day, worried about what the NAB would get wrong today. There are so many squishy, tone-deaf, and way-beyond-the-text translations in the NAB that anyone with a knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew has to cringe when it's read at Mass.

 

He provides an example of a flat-out heretical footnote, too:



First, there are the footnotes. In some editions these are likely worse than others, but even the better ones still have some bad notes (not all are bad, but some are). The notes, apparently, have been cleaned up somewhat since the 1970s, but there are still clunkers that will misinform, disturb, or even challenge the faith of readers. For example, consider this note on Matthew 16:21-23:


[21-23] This first prediction of the passion follows Mark 8:31-33 in the main and serves as a corrective to an understanding of Jesus' messiahship as solely one of glory and triumph. By his addition of from that time on (Matthew 16:21) Matthew has emphasized that Jesus' revelation of his coming suffering and death marks a new phase of the gospel. Neither this nor the two later passion predictions (Matthew 17:22-23; 20:17-19) can be taken as sayings that, as they stand, go back to Jesus himself. However, it is probable that he foresaw that his mission would entail suffering and perhaps death, but was confident that he would ultimately be vindicated by God (see Matthew 26:29). [SOURCE]

 

HUH???

Jesus couldn't actually predict the future? He wasn't a true prophet? He didn't know about his death and resurrection? He could only foresee that "his mission would entail suffering and perhaps death?"

Sorry, but this is flatly inconsistent with the Christian faith.

Indeed . . .

For a general treatment on the topic of Bible versions, I'd recommend Jimmy's article, Choosing a Bible Translation.

[JillD]

Dave, or anyone...

Is it true that, at one time, the RSV was the standard translation used for the Catholic missal, etc?  If so, when and why did it switch to the NAB which I also don't like?   Is there any hope that it might someday switch back to the RSV??

Jill

[David W. Emery]

Yes, Jill, at one time back in the 70s the RSV was one of several alternatives for use in the Mass in the United States. Another was the original Jerusalem Bible. But this was short-lived when the USCCB (then known as the NCCB/USCCA) designated the NAB as the only official liturgical text.

However, the RSV still serves in a few areas outside the United States. The RSV-CE2 is the official liturgical text for some of the English-speaking islands in the West Indies. This is why Ignatius Press made a liturgical lectionary of it as well as a standard bible. It is refreshing to note that this revision of the RSV is in full conformity with the Vatican’s rules for liturgical translations, being specifically made for that purpose.

Meanwhile, the NRSV (the N standing not only for New but for the strident use of genderless language) is the official liturgical text for Canada. In England and several other countries, the New Jerusalem Bible holds sway. It is mildly genderless, about on a par with the current liturgical version of the NAB.

I do not think that the bishops in this country will allow anything but the NAB within my lifetime. The good news is that there is still some chance that it could be revised yet again in a decade or so, when the new Mass text (the ordinary and the proper) has been thoroughly absorbed. It is widely known that the Vatican is still unhappy with the current version, which does not entirely conform with the recently revised rules of translation issued by the Vatican in 1999. But somewhere along the way ICEL (International Committee on English in the Liturgy, the official agency that translates the Church’s liturgical texts into English) will also have to revise the Liturgy of the Hours, which is still in its 1970s garb. This may interfere with work on the NAB.

Bottom line: In any realistic scenario, it will be a while in coming. Nothing is promised, but we can hope.

David

[David W. Emery]

My concern with the RSV is, being an older translation, whether it is sufficiently based upon the latest editions of original language texts.

Begging your pardon, moonshadow, the RSV is a work from entirely within my lifetime. Its grammar corresponds to that which I learned in the public schools of America and which I use today with no difficulty in speaking to a wide variety of people throughout the English-speaking world.

The rendering preferences you cite for the NAB from Romans and 1 John read similarly in the RSV, but the latter is more literal, more explicitly enunciates the meaning of the original, and more clearly maintains the doctrinal content of the passages. If I am going to study the bible, the RSV has all these points in its favor. The only advantage of the NAB is that, for some people in some cases, the words roll off the tongue a little more easily. But are they better understood in the pew? I doubt it.

Any deviation from the published version of the NAB for the lectionary readings at Mass is due to inclusive language.

I’m afraid you are misinformed as to the extent of deviation. Genderless language is not the only objection the Vatican has to the NAB renderings. The book of Psalms, for instance, was rejected outright on the basis of its lack of faithfulness to the original text, not merely for its use of genderless circumlocution; it stands as a prime example of human invention at the expense of fidelity to what the Psalms actually say.

While there are certain texts which scholars have discovered and studied since the 1950s, the bland doctrinal whitewash that I see in the NAB thoroughly negates any advantage it might have had. And in any event, the discoveries are not so earth-shaking as one might be led to believe. In nearly every case, they only confirm what the Church’s tradition has held for centuries, as against the innovationists who promote personal speculations.

To sum up my impressions in comparison with the RSV-CE and RSV-CE2 (copyright 2006 on the latter — hardly an “older translation”), I find the NAB’s renderings vague, verbally flat, and doctrinally impoverished. To make matters worse, the notes that accompany the published NAB text are notorious for their lack of adherence to traditional Catholic principles of exegesis, not to mention their downplaying of distinctive Catholic doctrine. Dave Armstrong has presented a notable example of this above. I have seen a listing and explication of hundreds of similar points posted on the internet.

I do not know of a single Catholic scholar who recommends the NAB over the RSV-CE. The top contemporary Catholic biblical commentaries are based on the RSV-CE (Navarre Bible) or RSV-CE2 (Ignatius Study Bible). As I said above, this does not mean that the RSV is perfect; it is not because no translation can convey all the subtleties of the original language, and because no scholar at the distance of 2,000 years can know enough to unravel the textual difficulties that are invariably encountered in any lengthy work. The reason Catholic scholars give it the nod is that it’s the best we have today.

One final comment. Certainly one cannot censure others on matters of taste. If you still prefer the NAB, so be it. I only needed to set the record straight on a number of allegations you made regarding verifiable facts. I thank you for bearing with me.

David

[JillD]

Because the NAB is the version in use, the folks in our Bible study use it for the most part, though the study (Steve Ray's "Footprints of God") is based on the RSV.  Given that the Psalms are virtually unacceptable,

The book of Psalms, for instance, was rejected outright on the basis of its lack of faithfulness to the original text,

would it be worthwhile to encourage anyone who's willing to consider purchasing and using the RSV for our study?
 
How bad IS the translation of the Psalms? 

Do you have any examples?  (Actually, as I said before, to me Psalm 23 is atrocious in the NAB, but that may be as much for style as substance.)

Jill

[David W. Emery]

I’ll oblige you, Jill. Yes, I remember what you said about Psalm 23. But now the charges are much more serious.

Let’s start with the first psalm. You will notice its immediate drawback is the switch from singular to plural to avoid gender specificity. This is a constant practice. What if the meaning of a passage depends on a correct understanding of the number and/or gender? (I’ll show you just such a problem later on.)

Psalm 1:1 Happy those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked, Nor go the way of sinners, nor sit in company with scoffers. 2 Rather, the law of the LORD is their joy; God’s law they study day and night. 3 They are like a tree planted near streams of water, that yields its fruit in season; Its leaves never wither; whatever they do prospers.

Following is an example of “backwards” translation, where noun and adjective have been switched around for no good reason.

Psalm 69:3 I have sunk into the mire of the deep, where there is no foothold. I have gone down to the watery depths; the flood overwhelms me.

The more literal RSV reads: “I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.” The “mire of the deep” implies the ocean, whereas “deep mire” could be any muddy place. Likewise with the change of “deep waters” to “watery depths.” Scholars will tell you that all this talk of floods of water and deep mud is a conventional way of speaking about the difficulties of life. Why twist the words to speak of the ocean? What does this accomplish but to pull the narrative off track and obfuscate the meaning?

Here is a more subtle difference that has to do with the meaning of words and the theological consequences of tampering with the text:

NAB Psalm 91:13 You shall tread upon the asp and the viper, trample the lion and the dragon. 14 Whoever clings to me I will deliver; whoever knows my name I will set on high. 15 All who call upon me I will answer; I will be with them in distress; I will deliver them and give them honor. 16 With length of days I will satisfy them and show them my saving power.

RSV Psalm 91:13 You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot. 14 Because he cleaves to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. 15 When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will rescue him and honor him. 16 With long life I will satisfy him, and show him my salvation.

Notice that in the original, reflected in the RSV, we have a two-tiered parallelism: lion/adder, young lion/serpent. In the NAB, this has been disjointed by pairing the two snake terms, while the lion’s partner now appears inexplicably as a dragon. This not only displaces the sequence (which may be significant in an allegorical interpretation) but also destroys the parallelism in the second pair.

In the following verse, the NAB rejects the singular male pronoun and casts God’s specific word about the faithful man as a general statement. It also uses an obscure phrase “set on high” instead of the readily intelligible “protect.” How does this convey the message of the original text? How does it promote understanding? (The RSV, on the other hand, adds the words “in love,” which are not in the original, to explain what is meant by “clings to me.” The point is that it is not done out of fear. I’m not convinced this is necessary, and it shows what I meant when I said that the RSV is not perfect.)

Verses 15 and 16 show more of the same refusal in the NAB to specify that God is speaking of the righteous man, claiming instead that anyone at all, righteous or not, who calls on the Lord for protection from harm will receive it. This is manifestly untrue by biblical standards.

Finally, in verse 16 the NAB refers to God’s ability to save, while the RSV shows the original language’s clear intent to refer to actual salvation. The theological question then arises: Is God, who is obviously capable of saving, actually willing to do so? The RSV affirms it; the NAB re-wording implies the possibility that God doesn’t care — which is contrary to Christian doctrine.

Since these are just random samples — thumbing through the book of Psalms and lighting on a passage without any previous preparation — you see that the likelihood of more problems is immense. Truth to tell, I find occasional passages in the NAB New Testament that are just as bad.

Would it be worthwhile to encourage anyone who’s willing to consider purchasing and using the RSV for our study?

I believe so, especially through one of the commentaries I referred to in my previous post, if you can afford them. Both contain the RSV text in addition to the commentary for the book(s) it covers, so you will not need a separate volume. The Ignatius Study Bible (which I am thinking you will prefer, although because of my specific background and interest I am partial to Navarre’s treatment) also includes study questions designed for group use. Ray’s Footprints of God series is also excellent, especially in its ability to make scripture accessible, although what it gains in this regard, by the nature of things it necessarily loses in overall depth and breadth.

David