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Revised Bible provides ‘more clarity, more detail’

Patricia Zapor | Catholic News Service

Copies of the New American Bible, a Catholic Bible in English first published in 1970, are pictured in the book store at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

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WASHINGTON – The revised New American Bible that will be
released on Ash Wednesday, March 9, may seem most notably
different to casual readers for its efforts at providing
context and clarity in how the passages fit together,
according to the coordinator of its publication.

“It will be like going from regular TV to high-definition,”
said Mary Elizabeth Sperry, associate director of New
American Bible utilization for the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops. “You’ll have the same programs but more
clarity, more detail.”

What is being called the New American Bible Revised Edition,
or NABRE, will include the first revised translation since
1970 of the Old Testament. The New Testament translation is
the same as in 1986 and later editions of the New American
Bible.

The NABRE also will include the updated Book of Psalms, which
was revised between 1991 and 2010 and has been included in
versions of the New American Bible published since 1991.

The new Bible will be available in an assortment of print,
audio and electronic formats, from a variety of publishers.
Individual publishers will roll out their versions on their
own schedules. For instance, Oxford University Press
announced its line of compact NABRE editions will be
available by Easter, April 24, and its study Bibles will be
on the market for fall 2011 courses.

The NABRE’s publication will not affect what Scripture texts
are used for Mass. The Lectionary translation has already
been updated recently.

Sperry explained that some of the updating in the Old
Testament resulted from developments in biblical scholarship
since the last time it was translated. For instance, recent
archaeological discoveries have provided better texts, which
affected scholarly views on how certain passages should be
translated, she said.

The goal of retranslating the Old Testament was to “get it
closer to the original language,” Sperry said. Scholars start
with the original Hebrew or Greek text, for instance, rather
than simply working from the 1970 New American Bible version,
or from translations used in other Bible editions.

For the most part, the changes will be hard to spot, except
by those who are serious students or scholars, she said.

In other places in the NABRE, even casual readers may catch
the differences.

She and Benedictine Father Joseph Jensen, executive secretary
of the Catholic Biblical Association and one of the scholars
who worked on the translation, both gave two examples of the
type of changes everyday readers might notice: the
disappearance of the words “cereal” and “booty.”

The goal when possible was “to make the language more
contemporary,” said Father Jensen. In today’s culture the
phrase “cereal offering” conjures up images of Wheaties and
Cheerios, not the bushels of wheat type of offering that the
term is intended to mean, he said.

The word “booty” also has taken on the slang meanings of
“buttocks” or sometimes, “sexual intercourse,” instead of its
primary meaning of “plunder,” such as a marauding army might
acquire.

Sperry said another change made for contemporary readers was
the elimination of the word “holocaust” in favor of “burnt
offerings.” Since millions of Jews were killed in German
death camps before and during World War II, the word
Holocaust has gradually come to specifically refer only to
that period of history, she explained.

Kathleen Nash, associate professor and chair of the religious
studies department at Le Moyne College, translated the book
of Joel for the NABRE and “shepherded” 1 Samuel through the
process after it was translated by Carmelite Father Craig
Morrison, currently of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in
Rome. Nash joined the process in 1996, several years after
the team of translators got started.

It turned out to be a long-term commitment. The editorial
board met one weekend a month for years, reviewing each
others’ work, sometimes spending multiple weekends on a
single book, she explained. Later the group’s meetings
revolved around queries from bishops who had their own
questions and suggestions after they received the
translations.

“For a good number of years, that’s all I did: live and
breathe translation,” Nash said.

Coming into the work fairly early in her academic career,
Nash said, she was very excited to be involved in the
process, especially since the team was “a good mix of senior
and younger scholars. … we worked well together.”

There were disagreements, to be sure, such as over whether
the pronoun “he” should be used in all references to God, she
said. Another effort was made to substitute “it” for
references to the church as “she.”

“That didn’t fly,” Nash said.

The completed Old Testament revision was approved by the
bishops at their November 2008 meeting. In 2010 the bishops
signed off on the latest revision of the Psalter, as the Book
of Psalms is called.

The publication of the revised Bible also reinvigorates an
ongoing dispute between the Catholic Biblical Association and
the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, a separately
incorporated entity whose membership is composed of the
members of the USCCB Administrative Committee. The
confraternity licenses religious and spiritual literature.

For decades, the association received payments from the
confraternity for sales of Bibles and other publications that
use the NAB translation. Payments – which the association
said represented 25 percent of the income from licensing –
but were stopped in 2008 while the confraternity sought
changes in the arrangement.

The two sides entered into the process of conciliation
provided for under canon law. Both the USCCB and Father
Jensen declined to comment on the specifics of the case.

In a statement to CNS, Sperry said: “At the request of the
CBA, the matter is in canonical conciliation. That process
requires confidentiality. The bishops take the process
seriously and will abide by its terms.”

Father Jensen said that conciliation effort “has not been
effective, but we are continuing to try.”

Father Jensen said the suspension of the payments had various
ramifications, from the issue of who has the legal rights to
the payments to how the association would continue to pay for
its program of scholarships and stipends for scholars and
students.

The first year after the payments were cut off, the Catholic
Biblical Association had a $170,000 deficit because it
honored the grants to which it was already committed, he
said, adding that the association has suspended all its
grants except for a few student stipends and a famine relief
donation.

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