Around the time I proposed this series of articles on little discussed aspects and editions of the New American Bible Family, Marc and I had a conversation about the contradiction between imagined and real audiences of some translations. Remembering my own days preparing for Confirmation around the turn of the millennium at a suburban parish, I can only see the absurdity of handing 10 and 12 year olds those cheap red paperback editions of the New American Bible that were—and maybe still are—ubiquitous in parish bookshelves.
Who is the NAB’s imagined audience? I suppose the best answer would be the people in the pews in the United States, where this translation is the base text of the lectionary. But what about the notes?
When I was confirmed, my parents got me as a gift a paperback copy of the Oxford Personal Study Edition of the NAB. This, you might recall, is like the little brother of their Catholic Study Bible. I was not exactly a pious high school sophomore, but I was curious, and so I enjoyed working through the reading guides that sit in the front of those Oxford study editions of the NAB and NABRE. I attended an Ivy League college a few years later, and was still quite curious about the Bible, so I registered for a New Testament class in the fall of my freshman year. The professor was the scholar of women in late antique Roman religions Ross Kraemer, who I took to be Jewish, though maybe that was just her primary academic interest. Knowing less than nothing about anything, I was trying to get out of spending 25 dollars on a Harpercollins Study Bible, which was one of our texts, along with the Q/Thomas Reader, some introductory textbook by Bart Ehrman, a slim book by John Dominic Crossan, and a book about the New Perspective on Paul that had an attractive closeup of Caravaggio’s painting of the Apostle unhorsed.
“I already have a Bible,” I told the professor after the first class.
“You will need a study Bible,” she said.
“I think that is what I have.”
“Not every study Bible is the same. I can’t make you buy the Bible on the reading list, but I can tell you if you try to use something else the page numbers will be different, and the translation may be different too.”
I ended up buying the Harpercollins Study Bible, but I can tell you I got an A in that class, and that most of what I wrote in my long paper on the Synoptic problem was straight from the NAB notes.
For some of you, that story is the most damning condemnation possible on the NAB: in a thoroughly secularized New Testament class in a thoroughly secularized college, the use of the NAB earned an A from a teacher who chose the work of anti-Christian apologists for her reading list.
You have a point there.
There is a positive way of looking at my use of the NAB in that class: the NAB’s notes put it in the same ballpark as the two big dogs of academic Bible study: the Harpercollins Study Bible (now known as the SBL Study Bible in its most recent edition) and the New Oxford Annotated Bible.
These two editions go for over 30 dollars even in paperback. For $10.95, though, you could go on Amazon right now and buy one of those red beauties that I was handed by a volunteer back in 2002.
I thought we could all play a game. I will transcribe five notes from the NABRE and the NOAB. (I wish I had a more recent edition of the NOAB on hand, but I just have the 1991 edition, the first with the NRSV.) In the comments, you will have to guess which is the NABRE and which is the NOAB. For bonus points, explain your reasoning.
1. Genesis 16:7
“Here the angel of the Lord is not a heavenly being subordinate to God but the Lord (Yahweh) in earthly manifestation, as is clear from v. 13 (compare 21:17, 19; Exodus 14:19).”
2. 1 Samuel 7:6
“Drew water and poured it out: this ritual act does not appear elsewhere in the Old Testament. Linked with fasting and admission of sin, it seems to function as a purification ritual that washes away the guilt incurred by worshiping the Canaanite Baal and his consort Astarte. Its effectiveness is immediately evident when the Lord thunders a response to Samuel’s offering.”
3. Jeremiah 1:11
“There is wordplay between the Hebrew noun shaqed, “almond tree”, and the Hebrew verb shoqed, “watcher/watching”. Because the almond tree begins to bloom in late winter in Palestine, it is called “the watcher” for the coming of spring. God is also “watcher”, observing the fulfillment of the prophetic word.”
4. Luke 4:33
“See Mark 1:23 note. Demons were thought of in Jesus’ day as non-material existences of a personal sort, hostile to human welfare and rebellious against God. The gospels reflect widespread dread of demons and a general sense of helplessness before demonic activity. Jesus is portrayed here and elsewhere (compare 11:20-22) as one who can deliver from demonic oppression and from Satan himself, evil’s supreme embodiment (see Matthew 4:24 note; 12:22 note; Luke 7:33 note; 13:16 note).”
5. Revelation 9:1
“A star: late Judaism represented fallen powers as stars (Isaiah 14:12-15; Luke 10:18; Jude 13), but a comparison with Revelation 1:20 and Revelation 20:1 suggests that here it means an angel. The passage to the abyss: referring to Sheol, the netherworld, where Satan and the fallen angels are kept for a thousand years, to be cast afterwards into the pool of fire; cf. Revelation 20:7-10. The abyss was conceived of as a vast subterranean cavern full of fire. Its only link with the earth was a kind of passage or mine shaft, which was kept locked.”
The answers will be posted on the blog with some short remarks in about one week. Play safe and play fair.