The New Catholic Bible
Keating, Joseph
THE NEW CATHOLIC BIBLE By JOSEPH KEATING Last week Father Keating outlined the history of the Westminster Version of the Scriptures, as the new English translation of the Bible is termed. He...
...The literature of the Bible is unique: it is sacred...
...Saint Paul is excusing himself to the Corinthians for an apparent change of plans: Rheims (1582) Whereas then I was thus minded...
...As God is True the Message that we brought you does not waver between "Yes" and "No...
...What he means" is equivalent to "What we think he means," and thus we are apt to produce an interpretation or a paraphrase rather than a translation...
...the literal exceedingly obscure...
...No student of English literature, for instance, would tolerate his subject being so presented, and his textbook issued as a version in French or German of selections from Caedmon and Alfred, Chaucer and Holinshed, the Elizabethan dramatists, Bacon, Clarendon, the Statutes at Large, Macaulay, Carlyle, Newman, Scott, Keble, Browning, all chopped up into short numbered sections and printed in double columns of small type: yet apart from rare and costly editions de luxe, this is what has long been put before the English-speaking Catholic, as the food of his soul...
...But intelligibility, fidelity, dignity, would all be wasted unless the outward form of the Version were also worthy of the matter...
...But this is impossible unless the Scriptures are studied and read continuously...
...Obviously there were no archaisms or obsolete words in the sacred writings at the time of their composition: they were composed in the language of that time...
...The old narrow columns and numbered verse-divisions (dating only from Stephen's Greek text, 1551) which so interfere with legibility, are abolished, but the numbers are retained in the margin for convenience of reference...
...Or do you think my plans are formed on mere impulse so that in the same breath I say "Yes" and "No...
...The translators of the Westminster Version, therefore, have had constant recourse to the Vulgate for reference and comparison...
...It will be seen that the Westminster Version itself, although here more free than usual, still may claim to follow the text and yet be intelligible: Now in purposing thus, did I, forsooth, show fickleness...
...The free rendering is admirably clear...
...did I use lightness...
...In the Westminster Version the style aims at being simple and harmonious, free from anachronisms and obsolete idioms, having intelligibility first in view and, after that, dignity of utterance...
...Hitherto the exhortations of ecclesiastical authorities that the faithful should study the Scriptures have had the less effect because of the repellent form in which they have been provided...
...Or what I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, so that, with me, it is now "Yea, yea" and now "Nay, nay...
...He described the international character of the undertaking, and gave some account of difficulties successfully overcome...
...I submit that, if only as an attempt to remove this reproach, the Westminster Version of the Sacred Scriptures is well worth the consideration of the faithful...
...A further example will illustrate this twofold peril...
...Or the things that I mind, do I mind according to the flesh, that there be with me It is and It is not...
...The danger of the first course is obvious...
...Even if Old and New Testaments have been separately bound, yet all this literature, comprising every variety of composition-history, folklore, abridged chronicles, genealogies, anecdotal biographies, legislation, proverbs, parables, visions, poetry, speeches, prophecies- and produced during a period of some sixteen centuries, is treated as if it were a single treatise composed by one mind in a uniform literary medium...
...With Him it has always been "Yes...
...we-Silas, Timothy and I -proclaimed among you, never wavered between "Yes" and "No...
...A library has been issued as a single book...
...It may be asked why the editors have deserted the Church's approved version, the Latin Vulgate, a version produced originally by Saint Jerome and declared "authentic" by the Council of Trent...
...The accident of time has created, in English at any rate, a kind of biblical language which should not be indiscriminately discarded...
...God is my witness that our message to you is not now "Yea" and now "Nay...
...So had come to think the promoters of the Westminster Version who, after having been counseled by a prominent English bishop not to press for the appointment of an episcopal commission and the establishment of a board of editors and translators, lest the project should be indefinitely delayed, issued in 1913 a translation of Thessalonians -the shortest and perhaps the first of Saint Paul's Epistles-as Part I of Volume III of the whole New Testament...
...The type chosen is large and clear...
...but the editors have had in view mainly the devout reader who wishes to follow the counsel of Pope Leo and use the Scriptures for spiritual nourishment: Let all understand how deeply the sacred books should be esteemed, and with what eagerness and reverence they should approach this arsenal of heavenly arms...
...Moreover, each separate Scripture, Gospel, Epistle, etc., is dealt with in its appropriate setting of authorship, time and circumstance...
...Add to this the fact that English Protestant versions, which are likely to need correction, are all based on the originals...
...Take an obscure passage, viz., II Corinthians, I, 17-20, as rendered by the Rheims translators and a modern non-Catholic version...
...Should they be rendered in the language of our time...
...There is, finally, no ecclesiastical law or custom binding Catholics to use the Vulgate in their translations, but of course it would be folly to overlook a version the critical value of which is recognized by all scholars...
...Perhaps the result might be secured by a private effort which committed no one...
...In the following paper the reader is made to see why previous editions of Holy Writ have been so unsatisfactory-have, indeed, made neglect of even the Gospels quite popular...
...Two objects, as we have said, have been kept constantly in view-the most accurate rendering possible of the sacred record, and a worthy material presentation of a message so sublime...
...Saint Peter himself bears pathetic witness that in the Epistles there are certain things hard to be understood (II Peter, ill, 15, 16...
...The reason is this: In the first place, the Vulgate has been, since 1907, under revision by a commission of Benedictine scholars, originally headed by the late Cardinal Gasquet-a work of such magnitude that it will not be finished for many years...
...This volume has already reached its second edition...
...it is historic...
...Again, the vernacular translations in other European languages -which are more numerous than those in English: there is nothing corresponding to a Douay Version in France or Germany-go back in most cases to the originals...
...The English hierarchy at their annual meeting that year had approved of the enterprise, but this first essay was by way of experiment, and the further prosecution of the work depended on its reception...
...An irrepressible vehemence of utterance breaks through grammar and escapes: there is no one who could not "tidy up" Saint Paul, and supply a word or expand an idea which would remove obscurities and ambiguities, straightening out a tangled sentence, showing logical connections, toning down strained metaphors-but the conscientious translator has no mission to improve his author's style...
...All he should do is to set down whatever is in any way expressed, and leave necessary interpretation to notes...
...which has its use as an explanation of a text but should not appear as the text itself...
...the format of the four-volume New Testament edition is crown octavo...
...Secondly, although Saint Jerome had access to Greek manuscripts much earlier and therefore, presumably more accurate, than any now extant, still biblical scholarship, and, we may add, zeal for exactness at a much higher level than in his day, and the incessant labors of scholars have produced a Greek text the substantial correctness of which is not in any doubt...
...The Son of God, Christ Jesus whom and Sylvanus and Timothy, was not It is and It is not, but It is was in Him: for all the promises of God that are in Him It is...
...The difficulty arises not merely from the sublimity and novelty of the message set forth, but also from the genius of the writer and the individuality of his style-allusive, metaphorical, abrupt, unstudied, eloquent yet disdaining the polish of the rhetorician and overcharged with thoughts too vast and weighty for their vehicle...
...The matter is divided according to sense into sections and paragraphs, with subtitles to indicate change of subject and with all the notes necessary for complete intelligibility...
...Common speech is for common things...
...It must be owned that in translating Saint Paul the temptation to paraphrase is very strong...
...Happily, the welcome it received augured well for its success, and it has been steadily pursued ever since...
...A further question as to the actual language employed...
...For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who hath been preached amongst you by us-by myself, by Silvanus, by Timothy-was not now "Yea" and now "Nay," but "Yea" alone was in Him...
...The first volume to be finished was that which contains Saint Paul's Epistles to the Churches, a new version of which was most urgently needed...
...Their Greek text is in the main that of Westcott and Hort, qualified by the consensus of other very eminent critics, such as von Soden...
...The New Testament has been "edited" with something of the care and consideration hitherto reserved for the profane classics...
...On the other hand, a bold literalism may result in unintelligibility, as we have already seen...
...The great war proved an inevitable cause of delay, and the consequent enhanced cost of production also made it move more slowly...
...But we must own that the first is of the nature of a paraphrase...
...We thus get nearer to the minds of the original writers than if we sought to reach them through Saint Jerome's intellect, powerful and well-equipped as it was...
...But God is faithful, because our preaching which was to you, there is not in it, It is and It is not: for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who by us was preached among you, by me The Twentieth Century New Testament (1904) As this was my plan, where, pray did I show any fickleness of purpose...
...AN OFFICIAL attempt at a new and accurate English rendering of the Vulgate, although backed by a provincial council had failed...
...No other part of the New Testament has suffered more than this from inadequate and misleading renderings and the general editors have frequently been gratified to hear that their work in this regard has made the great Apostle really intelligible for the first time to many readers...
...The Chief French version, the Crampon Bible, does so, and similarly the German...
...The first raises the crucial question to be faced by all translators-are we to put down what we know the author means or merely what he actually says...
...However, clerical students and the educated laity also have been considered...
...Certain points of dogmatic importance are treated more fully in appendices...
...The reader also may learn, in this present discussion, to discern some of the basic problems of Scripture study and translation.-The Editors...
...For as many as are the promises of God in him they find their "yea...
...For many as were the promises of God, in Christ is the "Yes" that fulfils them...
...Modern speech certainly makes for clearness, but there is more than clearness to be considered here...
Vol. 11 • January 1930 • No. 10
