Bible Information

Quick explanation of the Catholic view on The Bible, as well as brief treatment of various translations.

There are gobs of translations of the bible. I will attempt to present here a coherent overview for your casual review.

Special note: At the present time Catholic Scholars agree that the best translation for Catholics is the
Revised Standard Version:CE.

There are two major bible camps: Catholic and Protestant.

The Catholic bible has 73 books. The 73 books were settled as canon by the church about 395 A.D. at the Council of Hippo.

[Take Note: All historical Christianity has 73 books (or more) in the bible, except protestants; Only protestants have 66 books.]

The first widely used bible was the Latin Vulgate, the work of St. Jerome completed in the 4^th century. By "widely" I mean used by the Church. Since there were no printing presses in the early days, bibles were extremely rare. This bible was used by the church for centuries and was declared free of error by the church at the Council of Trent. It was written in Latin and is the official bible of the Church. [This bible was never declared to be perfect or complete -- it is neither]

The first Catholic bible written in English was the Douay-Rhiems. It was finished in 1609. This bible was filled with "Thee" and "Thou" and "hast", etc. It was in common use in the United States until the 1960's and 1970's. It is considered a "literal" translation from the original texts. Incredibly, there was not another translation provided by the Church to it's flock in all this time, a span of about 350 years.

In the 1960's the Catholic Church accepted the accuracy of and adopted as it's own, the Revised Standard Version:CE. The Church added the deuterocanonicals and granted it's imprimatur. This bible was originally a protestant translation and is still considered to be one of the most accurate and beautiful of translations. It is considered a "literal" translation. This is the bible that was used for the readings in the Church when I was in high school, but I heard plenty of the old Douay-Rhiems also. This text is approved by the Church for use in the Mass.

The Jerusalem Bible was the next major translation in English. It was originally done in French, and then translated into English with a copyright date of 1966. The Jerusalem Bible is a "very dynamic" translation. This text is approved for use in the Mass.

There is extant a New Jerusalem Bible that is translated from the original texts directly into English and is inclusive and "very dynamic", with a copyright date of 1985. This text is not approved for use in the Mass.

The New American Bible was the next major Catholic bible to appear. It was translated from the original languages by a large team of Catholic scholars, along with a few protestant scholars. It is a dynamic translation. This bible was first published in 1970, and had a copyright date of 1970. There were reports of much bickering between the translators and church officials about the syntax and wording of well-known phrases and passages. The NAB was filled with non-traditional phrasings and odd syntax. In 1986 the New Testament was revised. The revision of the New Testament returned to more traditional phrasings and also to mildly inclusive language to the chagrin of most Catholic laymen and clergy. The reasons for the change are said to be political.

So at this point, the Catholic bible had two copyright dates; 1970 and 1986. The inconsistency of the style of the New Testament and the Old Testament were obvious and startling. In 1991, Church officials (American Bishops) threw out the entire book of Psalms and replaced it with another translation that used inclusive language and removed all male pronouns. At this point, and to this day (3/21/98) the Catholic bible has three copyright dates. While there is no error in the NAB (with the exception of some of the footnotes) it is not generally regarded as a very good translation. Stand by…there is a Revised New American Bible in the works, and, you guessed it, it is completely inclusive. Only the 1970 copyright NAB is approved for use in the Mass.

***Note of Scholars***In early history it was universally known that the Gospel of Matthew was the first Gospel to be written .There was historic evidence such as references in letters and teachings of persons who knew Jesus, and a vast oral tradition of the populace whose parents and grandparents were alive when Jesus walked among us,  and had seen and heard Jesus personally. Also the  oral testimony such as that taught by Polycarp was widely known and can be researched even today. Later in history, scholars began to claim that the Gospel of Mark was the first Gospel to be written because "it just had to be", because of the style of writing, and so on. Scholars went on to say that there must have been some mysterious document floating around that contained a "history of Jesus", that the synoptic writers must have all referred to, thereby explaining why there is such a similarity between the Gospels. These scholars refer to this mysterious document as "Q". There is no evidence whatsoever that any document such as "Q" exists or ever existed. The notion of the "Q" document is merely a construct built by scholars in order to prove a previously determined hypothesis. Guess what. Recent scholarship as well as more complete evidence now point to the Gospel of Matthew as the first written Gospel. Further, the theoretical dating of all of the Gospels has been moved much further back in time, making it likely that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew knew Jesus personally.

***Update*** Note: the new Lectionary (Advent 1998) approved for use in the U.S. is derived from the New American Bible, but was retranslated several times - Rome forced the American Bishops to remove inclusive language. Now, the bible readings in the celebration of the Mass do not match any translation of any existing bible.

Note: A recent survey of American Catholics demonstrated that an overwhelming majority (over 75%) of Catholics preferred Standard English to inclusive renderings. Most Catholics had never heard of inclusive language until they saw the survey.

Note: There is some good news on the horizon. Ignatius Press, the publisher of the RSV:CE is now working on a study bible based on the RSV:CE which is being developed by Scott Hahn. This will be a dynamite Catholic Bible! I am excited by this prospect!

"apocrypha" in the King James Version