Here’s a roundup of a couple of recent developments which readers have shared with me by email and the comments:
Updates to the ESV
The English Standard Version Translation Oversight Committee announced in early February that they would be releasing a small update to the ESV text in 2025. The change includes:
- 68 word changes
- 57 footnote changes
- Punctuation changes in 14 verses
This is the first update to the ESV since the 2016 edition, which was originally advertised (in August of 2016) as a final and permanent edition of the ESV text. That decision was reversed in September of 2016 with an explanation from Dr. Lane Dennis, President of Crossway (the publisher of the ESV).
A complete list of the changes that will be introduced in the 2025 revision is available here. I’m personally happy to see that the translation of Genesis 3:16 and Genesis 4:7 has been revised. The 2016 version of the ESV introduced an interpretive rendering in these verses (translating it as “desire is contrary to” instead of “desire is for”). The 2025 text takes the ESV back into line with many other English translations.
The new 2025 text has been implemented on the ESV.org website and their associated Android and iOS apps. All of these include only the protestant canon.
RNJB Approved for Use in the Episcopal Church
The Episcopal Church has revised its canons to include the RNJB as an authorized translation. The revised list also includes the NRSVue (listed as the 2022 edition of the NRSV). This is the first official approval of the RNJB from a non-Catholic communion which I’m aware of. Meanwhile, the bishops of Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand are joining efforts to produce a lectionary based on the RNJB text. This is likely to be a multi-year project.
I’m still holding out hope for new editions of the RNJB. All I ask for is a sewn reader’s edition printed on decent paper. If only they could’ve gotten Doubleday involved to produce a matching slipcase edition like they made for the original JB in ’66 and the NJB in ’85, but that appears to be asking too much.
You can order the RNJB Readerś Edition from the publisher, Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd, in the UK. It’s a hardcover, sewn binding edition.
Any news on the LOTH 2nd edition?
I contacted the USCCB a few weeks ago and received an email saying the LOTH 2nd edition won’t be published until 2027
There should be a sly wink after the year 2027. 😉
From what I’ve read of the ESV changes, they seem to be most welcome, and to me, an improvement over the 2016 version. Next for me to read will be the NRSVue, once the Diadem version is released. Also intreating to see RNJB receiving attention outside of Catholic circles!
I got an email from Ignatius Press today saying the Ignatius Study Bible is available for pre-order with a second printing in April after the first printing sold out.
I wonder if there are any changes in the second printing.
I caught a typo in the footnote on Luke 1:34 in the Study Bible, where they forgot to update it in accordance with how they changed that verse to the updated reading “do not know man,” so that’d be a correction to watch out for if they make any changes in the second printing. I have a hardcover copy of the regular RSV-2CE from Ignatius and it has the update in the verse but with the correct footnote.
I do not understand what the theological implications are of the old renderings in Genesis. Is this an attempt of the ESV translators then to be accepted in even more wider circles?
It is difficult to imagine how that could be possible given both the crowded marketplace of Bible translations and the ESV’s massive sales. I think the ESV has already reached something resembling saturation. I think just about everyone interested in the ESV already has one, or perhaps more than one, as I do.
Hodder & Stoughton (the UK publisher of the NIV) has now taken over the publication – and copyright – of the RNJB. My 2024 Hodder printing of the Study Edition appears to be sewn.
https://www.hodderbibles.co.uk/?s=RNJB
And it’s not just Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
The Catholic Bishops of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei are also adopting an RNJB lectionary too: https://praytellblog.com/index.php/2024/09/17/catholic-bishops-conference-of-malaysia-singapore-brunei-opt-for-rnjb-lectionary/
Looks like it’s starting to pick up a little steam as the “sound” of Catholic scripture in the Commonwealth.
Which is a shame because it is a terrible translation filled with typos and other obvious errors. Not much effort went into producing it, and many of the passages are just passages from the vastly superior NJB in a slightly different order.
Yep. The RNJB was a rush job to compete with the ESV for the English lectionary, and then after it lost that fight, it’s been wandering in the wilderness looking for other countries to adopt it so that it can have a new purpose.
What is the paper quality like? My Darton Longman & Todd publication of the Reader’s Edition has the worst paper I’ve ever seen in a bible. It’s got no business being so terrible when there are $12 Protestant bibles with far superior paper.
Honesty, with all the time and effort the US has had to go through with the NAB lectionary, and the UK bishops with the ESV, I have a very hard time believing these other jurisdictions are actually going to be able to manage a third English lectionary. I mean, I don’t have hard numbers, but I have to believe that the US and UK must be the some of the wealthiest bishops conferences in the anglophone world, and it’s still taken them years to get they’re lectionaries together, even with all the money and expertise they likely have at their disposal. I strongly suspect that after a couple of years go by and everyone in the UK acclimates themselves to the ESV lectionary, these other jurisdictions will probably quietly adopt the ESV as well. I mean, why not? You’re telling me they gonna kill themselves financially and administratively to come up with an entirely new lectionary, something to my knowledge none of these jurisdictions have ever done independently before, when you’ve already got two freshly approved English lectionaries right there on the table? These guys really hate the ESV THAT much? I don’t buy it. I mean, fine, the ESV doesn’t have enough inclusive language for you, fine, but you’re telling me the NAB doesn’t either? It’s all just posturing, maybe they’re hoping for some kind of licensing discount from Crossways or whoever it is who holds the rights to the ESV lectionary.
The bigger issue is that when you get right down to it, there is nothing wrong with the lectionary most in the Anglosphere are using right now. The Canadians are using the NRSV, which is not my favorite choice, but there doesn’t seem to be a reason to change the NRSV UE or any other Bible.
The countries that are using the 1966 Jerusalem Bible, which is just about everywhere in the English-speaking world outside North America, okay, they don’t want to use a 60-year-old translation, I get that. But the Jerusalem Bible is literary, respected, and fairly easy to understand. And for those countries that have been using it, it is familiar to them, it is what the Bible is “supposed to” sound like. The problem with changing is that people start saying “this isn’t the Bible” and they tend to be unhappy, even if scholars think the new translation is better. People tend to become familiar with one Bible and be resistant to all change, this is the real reason Jerome was reluctant to revise the “Old Latin” versions of the Bible to create the Vulgate, he knew he would be thought of as “the guy who ruined the Bible”. which he was for the first several centuries after the Vulgate was published. Is it all that urgent to make a new lectionary new?
In the US, the bishops have long wanted the NAB to be used as the basis for the lectionary, but it keeps getting rejected and so significant changes to the text have to be made. The Bishops want a version that won’t require as many changes. I get that.
I don’t understand the urgency for a new lectionary at all, even in the US the goal is merely a revised lectionary, not a brand new one.
Agreed. The Jerusalem Bible may be “old” now, but to Anglophone churchgoing ears, it’s become venerable and “the way the Bible is supposed to sound,” as you say. In those 60 years, whole generations of Anglophone Catholics have absorbed its wording and cadence. And like it or not, the NAB (or at least the lectionary version of the NAB) is how churchgoing American Catholics have heard the Bible in Mass for 50 years. Unless they’re trads going to Latin Mass and clinging to their Douays or listeners to Bible in a Year who are thus exposed to the RSV-2CE, the Bible on their bookcase is probably the NAB they got for Confirmation. Lectionaries, ideally, should not be changing as quickly as new Bible translations are published.
Britain no longer uses the 1966 JB for the Lectionary. We moved to the ESV-CE in Advent 2024.
I know, I am just questioning why they felt it needed to be done, why was it suddenly so urgent to get a new lectionary? I don’t get it.
Perhaps there are political issues behind the scenes I am unaware of, or maybe the licensing fees for the 1966 Jerusalem Bible have recently been increased so it is more expensive. When a church suddenly discards a translation they have used for decades, the reason is usually internal church politics.
For example, the Southern Baptist Convention used the NIV for over 30 years, then suddenly they thrust it aside in favor of their translation, the (Holman) Christian Standard Bible. Part of the reason they got rid of the NIV was that they got tired of paying licensing fees, and part of it is the increasing trend towards inclusive language in the NIV,
The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod also dropped the NIV in 2006 in favor of the ESV, also due to dissatisfaction over the NIV’s supposed drift ieftward nto progressivism.
Evemn
Whatever the reason why, after 50 years, everyone in the English speaking world seems to think the most important thing in the world is a new lectionary, is probably the result of internal church politics such as what happened in the Southern Baptist Convention or the LCMS. Whatever the reason, I’m sure the “We need a modern translation with more updated scholarship” is just a pretext.
I’ve not picked up any “political signals” surrounding the lectionary in Britain, apart from unwarranted fears on the part of some liberals. I think the Bishops were genuinely looking for a translation in the spirit of Liturgiam Authenticam and saw an opportunity to build on the good work of the Indian Bishops. The JB was never universally loved and now seems of its time.
Well, as I said, behind the scenes, you wouldn’t know about something unless you were either a bishop yourself or someone so intimately acquainted with the bishops that you’re aware of all the back stage shenanigans.
There must be some reason why there seems to be a move in the entire Anglosphere to get rid of the 1966 JB, it cannot possibly be that everyone suddenly realized it is an old translation and they want a more modern one.
Just as every preface to a new Bible translation claims that a new version is necessary “due to changes in the English language” and “more updated scholarship” that’s never actually the real reason, that is just boilerplate language that can never be taken at face value.
Well, rarely, anyway, they were legitimate in 1952 to justify getting rid of the antiquated and out of date King James Version in favor of the modern Revised Standard Version. But neither the English language nor the state of Biblical scholarship has changed all that much since 1952, let alone 1966, to justify immediate radical change for that reason alone.
I always assumed that Liturgiam Authenticam was the driving force behind the push for new lectionaries. I’m assuming that the JB would not be considered literal enough to be in compliance with Liturgiam Authenticam, and the bishops’ conferences can only wait so long on implementing a major directive like that without coming under criticism.
There would always be disruptions that percolate down the ecosystem.
Magnificat must be going crazy trying to figure out their international editions (currently only US and ESV, I think). Fortunately, their issues are disposable.
The new US lectionary will lead to revisions of readings-based stuff like Kreeft’s 3-volume Food of the Soul and Bergsma’s 4-volume Word of the Lord (both of which I like) reflections and related literature. I’m in the process of buying both of those series, knowing that these handsome books will be sort-of-obsolete very soon.
For the UK, it’s interesting that the JB-based NCB is still the only Bible that the CTS is selling. I’m keeping an eye on that because CTS is one of the few sources of decent JB-ish Bibles available. So once they switch to ESV I better hurry up and import their JB-based Bible.
The ESV-CE Lectionary adopts inclusive elements from the ESV translation notes. Every other reading from St Paul seems to begin ” Brothers and sisters”.
The delay in publishing a new lectionary has very little to do with its cost, but a lot more in regards to the powers that be coming into agreement in what the lectionary should contain and any tweaks to the translation they’re basing the lectionary on.
In a bishops’ conference with a wide range of opinions, like the U.S. and England, it can be a very time consuming process. Note that it didn’t take the bishops of India to approve they’re new lectionary based on the ESV.
The change in the ESV at Genesis 3:16 is most welcome. Interestingly, the Vulgate gives us the “non-normative” reading of this verse (as in the ESV prior to the 2025 changes), whereas the New Vulgate has a more “normative ” reading. In Britain we now have the ESV-CE for the Lectionary – a welcome change from the JB – but the 2025 changes are unlikely ever to filter down to us. This means we have a translation out of sync with the New Vulgate, putting us out of line with – on my reading – with Liturgiam Authenticam. Okay, it’s a minor point but I’m sure other examples of verses out of line with the New Vulgate can be found.
I still struggle with the fondness of some for the RNJB. I have the greatest respect for Dom Henry Wansbrough but I’m not sure why the RNJB was produced other than as a contender for Lectionary.
I like the RNJB a lot more than most, it appears. I think Dom Henry Wansbrough wanted a more literal translation. He also wanted the take Yahweh out and replace with the Lord. I like the translation best of the three JB versions (four if you count the CTS). The NJB has better notes and cross references.
To change the topic, will there be a release of the Catholic Standard Version of Luke? I kind of forgot that project existed until I found Matthew and Mark on my shelf. Following the pattern of those little books, it should have been released around the time Advent started last year.
I have also been wondering where CSV Luke is. I read through both Matthew and Mark in the CSV and submitted my own lists of errata/suggestions to the Augustine Institute, and was looking forward to doing the same with Luke.
I too am a fan.
It’s a more formal equivalent translation that somehow retains a lot of the “sound” of the original JB.
I read complaints here about the translation, but as often as not the beef seems to be as much about the slimmed down notes as with the translation itself.
On the flip side, you have the NABRE OT (which made a similar move from dynamic equivalence to a balance of formal and dynamic renderings) and voice on this site tends kvetch about the quantity and historical critical approach of the extensive notes it contains.
So take the criticisms with a grain of salt. People here are often grinding axes against the translation they think is detracting from their favorite, and then using the notes to make a case against it as a translation.
It’s OK to like the version(s) that speak to you.
The problem with the RNJB is mostly the typos and other errors, plus the passages which seem to be barely different, all of which give the sense that it was a rushed production that wasn’t produced with much care.
I think most reviewers think it was rushed to compete with the ESV for a new lectionary because they were concerned about the 1966 Jerusalem Bible being dismissed. The 1985 text having previously been rejected for a lectionary.
The truth is that the only version of the Jerusalem Bible that has had, or will probably ever have, any meaningful impact is the 1966 original, even the 1985 New Jerusalem Bible was kind of a flop.
Is it a sign of increased biblical literacy among Catholics that the trend among the faithful is toward more literal translations?
I doubt very much money was put into the NJB and RNJB. They were largely one man projects. Certainly they weren’t the expensive and long projects that the RSV and NRSV must have been. They may certainly have been flops publishing-wise, but the NJB certainly made an impact with me. It was what I used for my first 3 or 4 years of practicing lectio divina frequently. I love cruising around from cross reference to cross reference.
If you follow the global trends it might just be a very delayed response to dynamic equivalence falling out of popularity in the late 70s and into the 80s. The success of the English New International Version in 1984 is more surprising when you consider that the dynamic model of the Jerusalem Bible was no longer that popular in the 1980s in much of the world. For example, in Japan the Seisho Shinkyoudoyaku [1987] came about only after the original New Testament Kyoudoyaku translation [1978], which followed the dynamic equivalence model, was criticized for not being formal equivalence.
I recently read an excellent book on Bible translation, “The Bible in Translation,” by John Barton (one of the editors of the Oxford Bible Commentary). When I started reading it, I had no idea what I was getting into. It is an extraordinarily detailed and enlightening book on the philosophy of Bible translation throughout history. He notes that translation philosophy largely comes from theology, and one’s theology of the nature and inspiration of the Bible. Catholics and Jews have always favored more literal translations, while evangelicals prefer a looser translation.
One thing I have noticed is that over time, Bibles written with one translation philosophy tend to evolve towards the opposite end of the spectrum as they are revised and updated. Literal translations gradually become less literal (example: NRSV is much less literal than the RSV) while loose translations tend to become more literal, notice the 2019 NRJB is much more literal even than the 1985 NJB, which itself was more literal than the 1966 JB.
Has anyone here read Michael Pakaluk’s translation of the Gospels? I was pleased to hear his translation of Matthew is now out under the name The Good Bankers.
Good to hear! With that, it seems there’s only Luke’s Gospel left to do and then he’ll have all the Gospels with his translation and commentary.
Great to hear! My favorite line from Pakaluk’s translation of John is 1:28: “But Jesus turns in his tracks and takes a look at them…” I appreciate how the unfamiliarity of his translation shakes you out of complacency and puts you in the scene.
So 1 Tim 3:15 will still have “a pillar and bulwark” instead of “the pillar…?”