Showing posts with label Bible reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible reviews. Show all posts

August 3, 2020

Holy Bible: Douay-Rheims Version


Sometime between 1582 and 1610 A.D., the
Holy Bible: Douay-Rheims Version (DR) came into constant use, paralleling the 1604 to 1611 translation of the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) into English.

Both translations included the deuterocanonical books often referred to now as the Apocrypha, and, from time to time, both saw revision. But for over 200 years, the original version of the Douay-Rheims remained the only English translation commonly used among Catholic Christians.

With many fine English translations available to us now, I’d never read the DR nor received a review copy, so I did what any Bible lover might do. I bought a copy.

Saint Benedict Press, in association with TAN Books, published my choice in a handy-sized paperback edition with an attractive, slick-to-the-touch cover. Inside, a small but readable font shows little bleed-through on the smooth pages.

More important, the title page tells us:

Douay-Rheims Version

Translated From The Latin Vulgate

Diligently Compared with the Hebrew, Greek,

and Other Editions in Diverse Languages

Then the copyright page following lets us know this revision received the Imprimatur on September 1, 1899, which shows its continued acceptance by the Roman Catholic Church as well as the “catholic” church or church universal.

Because of its reliance on the Septuagint (ancient Greek version of the Bible), the names of the individual books retain their Greek names, for example, First and Second Paralipomenon instead of Chronicles, The Apocalypse of the Apostle St. John instead of Revelation, and Isaias instead of Isaiah. (I’m writing this as the tropical storm by that name passes by.)

Wording occasionally differs slightly, too, giving readers of other translations cause to pause and think or to enjoy an unexpected poetic moment. For instance, in Genesis 1, verse 3 reads, “And God said: Be light made. And light was made.” Maybe it’s my pleasure in poetry, but I just loved that!

Speaking of poetry, the DR translation of Psalms is as exquisite as any. For example:

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof: the world, and all they that dwell therein.” What’s surprising is that verse begin the 23rd Psalm!

I’d often seen footnotes in various study Bibles that said Psalm 9 and 10 were originally one prayer-poem. With that clue, I turned to Psalm 9 in DR and saw a note identifying the second part as “Psalm 10 according to the Hebrews” – ironic since the psalm is a Hebrew acrostic poem.

Back to more important matters, such as word choices that cause us to ponder.

If you’ve ever searched for a synonym, you know that most words offer many choices. And, if you’ve lived a while, you know that common phrases can take on a different turn or nuance, again giving us cause to pause, which is what happened to me when I read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 of the DR.

Most translations of verse 6 say something like “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (or justice), for they shall be filled (or satisfied.)” The Douay-Rheims Version puts it this way:

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.”

If you’ve ever had your fill of justice, you might long for mercy, which verse 7 gives:

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (DR.)

In today’s heated political and social climate, mercy may be sorely needed!

The Douay-Rheims Version gives us an English version of all the books of the Bible known to Jesus, the apostles, and early church, each of whom has referred to those deuterocanonical books. That alone made me interested, but I also wanted to see what the “missing” books of the Old Testament had to say.

However, the New Testament (which has always been in Greek or Aramaic and never included in the Hebrew Bible) is pretty much the same from one translation to the next. As a favorite example, here’s the Douay-RheimsVersion of John 3:16-17.

For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.”


Amen.

 

 ©2020, Mary Harwell Sayler, poet-writer, Bible reviewer

 

 


May 12, 2017

CSB Study Bible

The new CSB Study Bible, which Holman kindly sent me to review, has many of the features found in the previously reviewed award-winning Holman Study Bible. The most notable difference, of course, is its use of the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) text – the newly published revision of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) translation, which came out in 2004.

As an “optimal equivalence” translation, the CSB provides a word-for-word rendering of scripture unless the meaning might be obscure to most readers, in which case a thought-for-thought translation takes precedence.

To give you an idea of how those options compare, read the HCSB translation of Psalm 1:1 below, followed by the revised text in CSB:

How happy is the man
who does not follow the advice of the wicked
or take the path of sinners
or join a group of mockers!
” (HCSB)

“How happy is the one who does not
walk in the advice of the wicked
or stand in the pathway with sinners
or sit in the company of mockers!
” (CSB)

Besides the implication that women and children may also be “the one” struggling with a choice of peers, the CSB retained the parallelism of walk/ stand/ sit found in most translations.

That same page in the CSB Study Bible includes a sidebar on the Hebrew word “’ashrey” [pronounced ash-RAY] and gives the number of occurrences in the Psalms, along with a definition, shown in part here:

“’Ashrey, an interjection especially frequent in Psalms, means happy (Ps. 1:1) and implies blessed (Ec. 10:17) and happy (DN. 12:12.) It is similar to baruk (“blessed”) but probably more secular. ‘Ashrey is never used of or by God.”

Such sidebars on key words can be found throughout the book. In addition to those word studies, this edition also uses bold type to highlight quotations from scripture found elsewhere. For example, in the third chapter of his gospel, Luke includes a quote from Isaiah 40. The CSB Study Bible then uses a boldface font to call our attention to this as we read, “A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord.”

Both the original and present study editions from Holman provide such excellent features as cross references, introductions to the individual books, helpful footnotes, photos, charts, maps, timelines, and essays on major biblical and theological issues. However, the CSB Study Bible has even more articles, such as “Reading the Bible for Transformation,” “Faith and Works,” and introductions to the Pentateuch, historical books, wisdom books, prophetic books, and the gospels.

Instead of one bookmark, the new edition has two, which I appreciate because of Sunday School discussions on the Old Testament and Wednesday studies on the new. However, both of these Bibles have sewn-in pages, which lay flat on a desk – the most likely place for reading and studying the impressive aids found in both of these highly recommended Holman study editions.

Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2017, poet-writer, reviewer


CSB Study Bible, hardcover



CSB Study Bible, genuine leather