In the last half of May, the makers of Logos and Verbum Bible software announced that the NRSV and NRSV-CE would not be available for purchase on their platforms after May 31st due to licensing changes. Does this mean that the NRSV-CE will no longer be sold? How will it affect ongoing projects that use the NRSV-CE, like the Word on Fire Bible? I reached out to Friendship Press for insight on these questions. Friendship Press is supported by the National Council of Churches (NCC) and manages the copyrights for the RSV, NRSV, and NRSVue, which are held by the NCC. I’m very grateful to the CEO of Friendship Press, Dr. Brian Sigmon, for responding to my questions for this post.
Licensing Timelines
The recent announcement by Verbum and Logos stems from the goal to eventually replace the NRSV and NRSV-CE with the updated edition in the production of printed Bibles and materials. Key licensing milestones are as follows:
- May 31, 2025: Last day for basic text and pew editions of the NRSV to be sold by publishers. All remaining stock must be sold by this date. This date also applies to electronic editions such as Logos.
- May 31, 2027: Last day for NRSV study Bibles, commentaries, and high-end text Bibles (lectern Bibles) to be sold by publishers.
- Later date TBD: Last day of sales for commentary projects that were already in development using the NRSV when the NRSVue was released.
The Word on Fire Bible is considered to fit in the same category of study Bibles and lectern Bibles, so it can be sold using the NRSV-CE text until May 31, 2027. It’s worth emphasizing that these dates are sales deadlines, not publication deadlines. A published edition of the NRSV is not “grandfathered in” by being published prior to the listed date. Rather, it may no longer be sold by the publisher after that date.
Imprimatur for the NRSVue
Dr. Sigmon confirmed that Friendship Press is working diligently on obtaining an imprimatur from the USCCB for the NRSVue. The review process is ongoing. Eventually, the goal is to replace the NRSV-CE with the NRSVue-CE. In the meantime, Friendship Press will make exceptions to the phase-out timeline above for editions of the NRSV-CE to avoid a complete pause in production of Catholic editions. This was also confirmed by Cindy Riggins of Riggins Rights Management (which manages licensing agreements with publishers) on the “Fans of the NRSV Bible” Facebook Page:
Due to the delay on the Imprimatur of the NRSVue-CE, all publishers are granted extensions to be able to continue to sell the NRSV-CE.
Cindy Riggins, Riggins Rights Management
I hope the Church can soon openly embrace the work done on the NRSVue! Though, I feel like there might be some resistance to that in certain sectors of the Church which play into translation wars.
Translation wars? My beef with the NRSV-UE and the old NRSV is that they make non-Christological translation choices, or rather the drive for inclusive language has that effect. Even so, I wasn’t aware that I was in a war.
My NT tutor at university was a radical feminist but she always favoured the RSV over the NRSV for the sake of accuracy. I wonder which war she was fighting?!
Edward from Bournemouth, England
If you look at the comment right under yours, you’ll see the symptoms of translation wars. It’s a polemmic, knee jerk reaction to a particular translation. In catholic circles, it tends to be non Douay-Rheims users. In protestant circles, non AV/KJV.
Noted. Thanks. I’m content to read the RSV, NRSV and ESV for personal reflection and study. I have an attachment to the RSV because it was the standard translation we used when I was studying theology at Heythrop College, University of London, back in the early 2000s. In Britain, of course, we now use the ESV in the Lectionary. They all have their merits and demerits. Interestingly, the Ordinariate adopted the RSV2CE for the Lectionary and Divine Office; the latter, of course, retaining the Prayer Book psalter. I wonder if this decision preceded the rise of the ESV-CE.
We don’t need another translation that renders “Blessed is the Man” as “Happy are those.”
How about “Blessed is the one”?
I’ll never say never, because the Word on Fire Bible was what broke the dam and got me to own the NRSV translation for the first time (soon followed up by me grabbing the NRSV w/ Apocrypha Reference Edition for the cross-references), and the combination of David Norton’s books about the KJV in its historical context and Ordinariate Catholics defending the KJV eventually broke the dam and got me to own the KJV translation via Norton’s NCPB. But since I really only use the NRSV-CE as a desk reference, I just don’t see it for me. Kinda like how I always decide to give the ESV-CE translation another look every year or so, only to reach the same conclusion and decide, again, not to buy it, I could see me ghosting the NRSVue-CE all the same, not out of malice, but out of apathy. Besides, BibleGateway’s got the NRSVue text if I really need to check the translation for something, and they’ll have the NRSVue-CE there when it comes. My guess is that the first in-person, physical interaction I’ll have with the NRSVue-CE will be when it’s used as the translation for biblical quotations in a future Word on Fire book (not the WOF Bible itself), in some random Bible commentary years down the line, or via a Catholic scholar like Brant Pitre when he publishes with an academic press like Eerdmans (his last book was with them and they made him use the NRSV).
Curious, though, that it’s “sunsetting” publication of the NRSV.
It stands to reason that sunsetting pre -UE editions of the NCC’s translations would also sunset publication of the RSV too.
Does this impact legacy publishers of the RSV as well? For Ignatius Press and its use of the RSV-2CE? Unlike the ESV (which is owned outright by Crossway), the NCC still owns the copyright for the -2CE which it lists on its official permissions page.
https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/nrsvue-quick-faq
Why sunset NRSV variants and not ALL RSV derivatives before the -UE?
It doesn’t. In the rights and usage page, friendship press explicitly states the ignatius revision of the RSV-CE is not included in their rights usage. There is no announcement, regardless, of any dismissal of the RSV and it’s variants by either company.
I would think the RSV is still licensed out because the NRSV is different enough to legitimately be a different translation rather than just a major update. The Confraternity NT and Douay-Rheims both exist, even though the Confraternity was, strictly speaking, an “update” to the DR – though, in reality, it’s a different translation. Just my 2¢
Because, to the NCC, the NRSVue and NRSV are being treated as the same translation, whereas the RSV and NRSV are explicitly distinct translations. The whole point of making the NRSV in the first place was that they didn’t just want a minor “RSV89” update, but a sweeping revision. For this, it’s no different from how the RSV71’s publication meant that the RSV52 text stopped being printed, or how all the various ESV updates caused the sunsetting of the previous ESV texts. The RSV-CE preceded the RSV71, and so I guess it’s treated as a wholly different animal, and thus so is the RSV-2CE. The NCC doesn’t want to pull a Lockman (NASB) and juggle multiple different versions of the same translation concurrently, so instead they’re just going to kill the NRSV89 so that the only “NRSV” is the NRSVue.
Thanks all. Yeah, I understand that reasoning, and their statement about controlling the permissions for the -2CE.
It just seems odd and illogical to me.
To me it’s a lineage, not a batch of parallel translations.
Each new iteration of the KJV from the official translation committee supercedes the one before. Each step still “exists,” but as a step leading to the current state.
So in that view the UE supercedes the NRSV, which supercedes the RSV, which supercedes the ERV/ASV, which supercedes the KJV.
I can love each, but what I’m attached to is the Tyndale strand among Bible translation options. So if I want to swim in that stream, I’m jumping into the freshest water… whatever the current state of that translation may be.
The RSV was in fact completely discontinued with the publication of the NRSV in 1989. It was reprinted but only after Ignatius Press got special permision several years later. It was never the NCC’s desire to keep the RSV in print, it only got reprinted due to overwhelming demand, specifically from Catholics.
I seriously doubt, after the full transition to the 2021 NRSV is complete that there will be an equal demand for contining the 1989 text.
The RSV was discontinued in 1989 and was unavailable for years until Ignatius Press was able to negotiate a deal with the NCC to reprint it.
Also, the original 1952 RSV has been out of print since 1971 and has never been reprinted. All subsequent RSVs have been either the 1966 Catholic Edition, the 1971 edition, or the 1977 Ecumenical Edition.
Lemme just say… I realize that there are unavoidable presuppositions/biases that go into every translation (even “neutral academic” presupposes a certain materialist worldview), and the NRSVue is obviously no exception. That being said, I’ve really enjoyed the UE for personal reading, and there’s no translation choice that can’t be remedied by just writing the actual Greek in the margin.
One of my favorite improvements is that the NRSV’s periphrastic renderings of “anthropoi” and “adelphoi” (using terms such as friends, comrades, believers, members of the Church, etc) were tightened up in the UE to just be “brothers and sisters” unless the context is specifically male or female. Honestly, deficiencies aside, it’s just nice to read a translation in crystal-clear and flowing English that isn’t functional equivalence.
Marc, did you discuss the Anglicized versions of the NRSV-CE at all? It looks like there are still plenty of those available new. Are those under a different license?
I didn’t ask specifically about the anglicized edition, but I doubt there would be a difference in licensing since an anglicized NRSVue is available:
https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/products/9780564036738/
I’ve noticed that in recent years, the vast majority of NRSV-CE editions have been anglicized. I suspect these editions are aimed at the Canadian market where some forms of British spelling are commonly used, and where the NRSV is used in the lectionary.
Did anybody print hardcopy NRSV-CE Bibles that were not the Anglicized text, in just a “normal” single volume Bible? Lots of anglicized copies from CBP. And multi-volume from Word on Fire and the St John’s Bible.
I’m not aware of any in recent years. Maybe there are out-of-print NRSV-CE editions that were not anglicized? All the CBP editions have been anglicized.