Richard John Neuhaus wrote in these pages that if he had the authority, “everyone would use the Revised Standard Version.” Over at The American Conservative, Michael Brendan Dougherty fires off a volley against the venerable translation:
The mainstream option for believing Catholics is found in the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, which is descended from the King James, but adds a few Romish flourishes like “Hail Mary, full of grace” in Luke. Like the NAS and other “formal equivalence” translations it has a kind of dignity and is usefully accurate. But I find it unmemorable and unexciting. You wouldn’t read it but for an intense feeling of religious duty to do so.
Enter Baronius Press, an English publisher heretofore firmly in the Douay camp. They’ve just reprinted the Knox Version of the 1940s, a “dynamic equivalence” translation produced by English Catholic litterateur and apologist Fr. Ronald Knox. This witty priest was asked to to complete the task that never was successfully forced on Cardinal Newman, though many tried. [ . . . ]
With Knox translating, St. Paul is so much more fully alive: disputatious, cajoling, sarcastic, awed and bursting with enthusiasm and humor. In the RSV and so many others Paul sounds like a man reading a committee’s letter on topics of theological interest to Corinthians–with a knife pointed at his back.
Alan Jacobs, for his part, would like to see Christians circle around the English Standard Version.
November 20th, 2012 | 11:04 am
Translation wars can be interesting, but what is often lost in the discussion is the value of having a common translation, no matter what it is.
There’s a value to the culture when everyone is reading from the same translation because a simple phrase reminds everyone of the same passage. But if we’re all reading something different, the Bible has less net impact on language.
November 20th, 2012 | 11:58 am
[...] the RSV — in whatever edition, including Ignatius’ 2nd Catholic Edition — is better than MBD gives it credit for. It stands in the grand tradition of English Bibles, beginning with Tyndale, [...]
November 20th, 2012 | 2:34 pm
In seminary (which I just recently completed), the Old Testament scholars tended to prefer two for study (outside of the original languages): the RSV and the Jerusalem Bible.
To this day, I prefer the Jerusalem Bible (not to be confused with the NJB, which I recommend only for its ability to serve as an adequate doorstop), because it stays relatively true to the original while maintaining an elevated poetic ear. The same is true for the Knox Bible. These texts avoid reading like phone books, but aren’t “out there” either, in terms of their translation.
Still, the RSV is a fine work, in that it gets the job done in a faithful way.
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