Biblical translation is an inexact science: a truth of which I was reminded on a recent visit to the American Bible Society’s Museum of Biblical Art in New York, where I enjoyed a brisk walk through a fine exhibit, “More Precious than Fine Gold: The English Bible in the Gilded Age.”
The curator, Dr. Liana Lupas, pointed out the Modern
American Bible, a New Testament translation by Frank S. Ballentine,
published as the 19th century was drawing to a close. One suspects that Mr. Ballentine’s labors were influenced by a commitment to Prohibition, then a hot cause among many American Protestants; his translation of Luke 5:30 has the Pharisees inveighing against Jesus’ eating with “saloon-keepers and prostitutes,” where the original Greek clearly indicates “tax collectors and sinners.”
Then there was the translation by Julia Evelina Smith (1792-1886), the only woman ever to have translated the entire Bible by herself. Miss Smith was unhappy with the King James Bible (which strikes me as the only great work of art ever produced by a committee); to her mind, the Authorized Version did not hew closely enough to the original Hebrew and Greek, a putative fault she intended to repair in her own Bible.
That her literal, word-for-word translation was not altogether successful is suggested by her rendering of Proverbs 15:17: “Good a ration of herbs and love there, above an ox of the stall and hatred with it.” (Which, in case you’re lost, King James’s committeemen translated, “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, then a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”)
U.S. Catholics are unhappily familiar with unappealing biblical translations, for we are regularly subjected at Mass to the supremely clunky vocabulary, syntax, and cadences of the Revised New American Bible (RNAB), as further gelded to satisfy the more perfervid American Catholic feminists. The results of the latter preoccupation are clear in the butchery of 1 Corinthians 13:1, where what the Revised Standard Version (RSV) renders euphonically (“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels . . .”), the RNAB Lectionary renders as if its primary audience were the editors of the neo-bolshevik Chicago Manual of Style: “If I speak with human and angelic tongues . . .”
The RNAB is also striking for its ability to drain the Bible of the poetry evident even in its historical books. Take two examples from the twenty-first Sunday of the Year:
RSV: “And if you be unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).
RNAB: “If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
Or:
RSV: “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, ‘Do you take offense at this?’” (John 6:60).
RNAB: “Then many of his disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’ Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, ‘Does this shock you?’”
A new and thorough revision of the RNAB is promised by the U.S. bishops’ conference (which holds the copyright, and thus enjoys the royalty income, from the RNAB’s mandated monopoly as a liturgical text).
But while that lengthy process is underway, the bishops should authorize the use of the beautifully printed and bound RSV-Catholic Edition Lectionary published by Ignatius Press, which is read in many Anglophone countries. The effect of the RSV Lectionary on the RNAB revision could be similar to the effect that familiarity with the 1962 Missal should have on the celebration of the Novus Ordo Mass: drawing out the shrapnel, so that ugly wounds are healed.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. His previous “On the Square” articles can be found here.
Become a fan of First Things on Facebook, subscribe to First Things via RSS, and follow First Things on Twitter.
Comments:
Sorry, a need to dream a little after yesterday's sadness.
Oh, and would it have really been too much to have at least mentioned the existence of the NABRE? It surely is a big improvement on the old NAB, and presumably with be the basis for the revision of the English lectionary.
Mr. Steadman: I am envious you are getting Bishop Conley. His body language when celebrating the mass according to the Extraordinary Form is a poem of reverence. Do not be surprised if you see more Latin creeping into the liturgy according to the Ordinary Form as well. When you write, "The Creed with the larger words may reflect a higher language skill but do nothing to uplift those in the pews," you miss the fact that the changes translation move the text closer to what the Latin says. The changes have been least in the parts said or sung by the congregation. The 1970s translation of the mass ruthlessly edited out poetic images and gave a Readers Digest condensation of the Propers and the Ordinary of the mass. Compare the Latin text with the old translation and you will see the problem writ large. Read the Eucharistic Prayers and the Propers in the new corrected translation and you might discover you like what you find.
The biggest problem with the NAB is its blandness, a result of the language wars waged over the attempt to desex it. I can say, as both someone who enjoys reading aloud and as a lector who has moved around, that I would rate highly the old Knox translation and the original Jerusalem Bible (which I read from in Australia) for sonorousness. Neither is very literal. I do hope I have not been too guilty of the sins committed by Jim's lectors.
I have observed as a universal law that people find any change from the translation of their youth is to a translation that is bad and smacks of heresy.
