One thing I would love to ask a historian of 20th century Catholicism is to what degree the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu came as a surprise to the churchmen of the day. The 1943 encyclical blessed the pursuit of textual criticism by Catholic scholars, gave cautious approval to the use of historical critical study, and for the first time made a top-down call for biblical translations from the original languages, rather than ones mediated by Jerome’s Vulgate.
I can only imagine the look on Ronald Knox’s face when he read the encyclical as his rendering of the New Testament of the Clementine Vulgate was being prepared for release. His complete translation, a towering literary accomplishment much loved in the pages of this blog, was obsolete before it was ever published.
Across the pond, the Catholic Biblical Association, which had been formed to revise Challoner’s revision of the Douay Rheims Bible for American Catholics, had just released their New Testament in 1941. A rapid change of direction was necessary.
The Confraternity Bible project, like the Jerusalem Bible, was not published all at once, but in dribs and drabs as the translations were completed. Rather than appearing in booklets, however, the new renderings were swapped into printed editions of the Bible as they were completed. At first there were editions in which the Old Testament was in the Douay Rheims while the New Testament was the 1941 revision. Editions from 1948 featured a new translation of Genesis from the Hebrew. By 1955 a new Psalter, newly rendered wisdom books, and the books up to and including Ruth were in the new translation. The prophetic books followed in 1961. This is the edition I own. It is an odd volume. Except for the historical books from 1 Samuel to 2 Maccabees the Old Testament is in modern English translated from the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Those historical books are straight from the Douay Rheims, and the New Testament is the 1941 Confraternity revision of the englished Vulgate.
In 1969 those last books present in the Douay Rheims translation were replaced by the new renderings. I suppose these must be rare editions, because the very next year they were replaced by the first printings of the New American Bible. The NAB simply kept the Confraternity Old Testament translations and replaced the 1941 New Testament with the new 1970 New Testament.
There was one exception, though. Genesis, the first Old Testament translation completed by the CBA in 1948 was entirely re-translated.
I have long owned a copy of the Confraternity Bible. They printed lots of these and decent copies are available on the secondary market for ten to fifteen dollars. The volume is something I keep more as a curio on the shelf than as something I read, though I have read through one of those little pocket Confraternity New Testaments several times. I have sometimes idly wondered what the 1948 Confraternity Genesis was like and how it compared with the 1970 NAB Genesis, but it was never until this NABRE farewell tour that I decided I had to dig deep and see what was going on. Was the change mostly in the text, or the notes, or both? Was it a light revision being called a “new translation” or had they started from scratch? Which flows better with the rest of the rest of the Confraternity Pentateuch, which was released in 1952 and remained substantially unchanged until the revised Old Testament of 2011. So, for this stage of the NABRE farewell tour, let’s start at the very start of the NAB project, fittingly in the very first book of the Bible.
This is not very important, of course, nor is it particularly timely. But you come to this blog to find information and commentary that you won’t find anywhere else don’t you? My peculiar interest in the Confraternity and NAB 1970 Old Testament is mainly liturgical. For anyone belonging to a parish that uses the American lectionary, these translations, some of which are nearing 75 years old, are still what we hear at Mass. (Well, at least a very light revision of it.) Let’s dig in.
For purpose of comparison, I had my 1961 Confraternity Bible and a nice red Daughters of St. Paul edition of the New American Bible from 1976. The first thing I notice is that everything about the Confraternity Bible seems old in comparison—the typeface and the darkness of the text especially, which somehow feels more heavy than bold. There is something appealing about the sans-serif letters from the book titles that nostalgically scream out “mid-20th Century” to me.
Introduction and Footnotes to Genesis
But we are not here to discuss design. Right in the introduction, we see major differences. The NAB notes, familiar to many of us, begin with an introduction to the Pentateuch that runs nearly two pages before an introduction to Genesis which is a page and a half long. The Confraternity Genesis introduction is very brief, about equal in length to the book introductions contained in the 1941 New Testament. There is no general introduction to the Pentateuch. My main observation is that the introduction and notes of the Confraternity Bible seem very close to the ethos of the team’s earlier work on the New Testament. I think many readers of this blog would be happy if the entirety of the NAB project retained this style of annotations. There are generally fewer notes, and what notes there are seem meant to clarify our interpretation of the text. (My sense is that when the Church required that Bibles be printed with notes, the notes they had in mind were more like this; not like the notes which turn every edition of the NAB into a scholarly study bible, not the elegant textual information featured in the NRSV or ESV, nor the inconsistent and sparse explanatory notes from the original RSV-CE.)
The first words of the introduction to Confraternity Genesis are “the Pentateuch is substantially the work of Moses.” On first glance, this is quite traditional, but they chose quite the curious adverb here. The word “substantially” is used in many different ways, from a stubborn fidelity to its root meaning to a debasement into a meaningless intensifier, a trend shared with words like “basically”, “truly”, and “literally”. I wonder if perhaps they are using “substantially” to mean what the NAB introduction goes at length to say: “It is true that we do not conceive of him as the author of the books in the modern sense. But there is no reason to doubt that, in the events described in these traditions, he had a uniquely important role, especially as lawgiver. Even the later laws which have been added in P and D are presented as a Mosaic heritage. Moses is the lawgiver par excellence, and all later legislation is conceived in his spirit, and therefore attributed to him. Hence, the reader is not held to undeviating literalness in interpreting the words, ‘the Lord said to Moses.’ One must keep in mind that the Pentateuch is the crystallization of Israel’s age-old relationship with God.”
Genesis 1:1
The Biblical text itself begins: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; the earth was waste and void; darkness covered the abyss, and the spirit of God was stirring above the waters.”
Compare the NAB: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters.”
And the NABRE: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth—and the earth was without form and shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters—“
The first thing I notice is the contentious move from “spirit of God” to “a mighty wind”. If you are unfamiliar with the issues involved, in ancient Hebrew an expression of divinity could be used in certain cases as an expression of superlative. In this verse, this linguistic riddle is combined with one of the more famous of nuances in Biblical literature: the identity between “breath”, “wind”, and “spirit” that existed in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, among other languages. (The NRSV split the difference here and rendered it “a wind from God”, a choice which an NAB footnote claims to be not a compromise but quite literal. The RSV-CE chose “Spirit”—note the capitalization—but footnoted the reading “wind” as an alternative. The ESV, which has a reputation for not papering over obscurities in the text, papers over the nuance completely with an unfootnoted “Spirit”. )
I have sympathy for those who say that the Church’s liturgical tradition canonized the interpretation of this verse as being about the Holy Spirit on the waters. Especially at the Easter Vigil, this interpretation connects the recounting of salvation history with the baptismal rite. I will say, however, that being aware of the nuance between Spirit and wind has brought new life for me into the crossing of the Red Sea, the storm in Jonah, and other significant meteorological events from the Scriptures.
Confraternity Footnote to Genesis 1:1: Creation Ex Nihilo
The very first note in Confraternity Genesis illustrates what seems to me to be an even deeper split that has emerged in Biblical interpretation: it reads “1:1: Created: both the Hebrew word and the context show that a real creation, i.e., a making out of nothing, is meant. This Hebrew word is used only in reference to God in the Old Testament.”
While we can all agree that creation ex nihilo is what the Bible teaches as a whole, modern scholars are in agreement that the image Genesis 1 painted for its original hearers is the ancient idea of the watery primeval chaos, echoes of which may be found elsewhere in the Bible, such as Psalm 74. What does it do to us when Bibles annotations follow the historical critical method of viewing each book, or even smaller units, as individual units with particular audiences? In my introduction to this farewell tour, I gave some upsides to this approach. There are certainly downsides, chiefly how this can lead eventually to a certain mania that has us cleaving a book like Isaiah into parts and then ends with us pitting Mark’s Jesus against John’s Jesus against Paul’s Jesus.
I think that what is sometimes called “canonical exegesis” provides a way forward, which neither ignores historical-critical exegesis, nor considers it the only method of interpretation for the intelligent Christian. But what would a Bible with annotations along canonical lines look like? Perhaps it could look like the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, but I think it could also look like a Bible with numerous and well chosen cross references. Does a Bible besides the NAB exist which cross references Genesis 1:1-2 with 2 Maccabees 7:28? This is, as I understand it, the first Biblical reference to creation ex nihilo, but I have never seen it in the cross references of any other translation or edition, even the study edition of the New Jerusalem Bible, which has the best cross references of any Bible I know of. The NABRE contains this cross reference as well.
I am beginning to think that more and better cross-references could, for the person well versed in Scripture, be far better than any notes.
NAB and NABRE Footnotes to Genesis 1:1:
Back to the task at hand. The NAB note here reads: “This section introduces the whole Pentateuch. It shows how God brought an orderly universe out of primordial chaos.” Another note: “The abyss: the primordial ocean according to the ancient Semitic cosmogony. After God’s creative activity, part of this vast body forms the salt-water seas (vv 9f); part of it is the fresh water under the earth (Ps 33:7; Ez 31:4), which wells forth on the earth as springs and fountains (Gn 7:11; 8:2; Prv 3:20). Part of it, “the upper water” (Psalm 148:4, Dn 3:60), is held up by the dome of the sky (Gn 1:6f) from which rain descends on the earth (Genesis 7:11; 2 Kgs 7:2, 19; Ps 104:13). A mighty wind: Literally “a wind of God” or “a spirit of God”, cf Gn 8:1.”
The NABRE expands this: “This section, from the Priestly source, functions as an introduction, as ancient stories of the origin of the world (cosmogonies) often did. It introduces the primordial story (2:4–11:26), the stories of the ancestors (11:27–50:26), and indeed the whole Pentateuch. The chapter highlights the goodness of creation and the divine desire that human beings share in that goodness. God brings an orderly universe out of primordial chaos merely by uttering a word. In the literary structure of six days, the creation events in the first three days are related to those in the second three.
| 1. | light (day)/darkness (night) | = | 4. | sun/moon |
| 2. | arrangement of water | = | 5. | fish + birds from waters |
| 3. | a) dry land | = | 6. | a) animals |
| b) vegetation | b) human beings: male/female |
The seventh day, on which God rests, the climax of the account, falls outside the six-day structure.
Until modern times the first line was always translated, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Several comparable ancient cosmogonies, discovered in recent times, have a “when…then” construction, confirming the translation “when…then” here as well. “When” introduces the pre-creation state and “then” introduces the creative act affecting that state. The traditional translation, “In the beginning,” does not reflect the Hebrew syntax of the clause.”
Note here how the NABRE alters the NAB note but keeps much of the work from 1970.
Additional Impressions of the Confraternity and NAB Translations of Genesis
To keep things to a reasonable length, I will not do any more footnote comparisons. The example of Genesis 1:1-2 is in one sense illustrative, but in another sense shows an abnormally long footnote in the NAB and NABRE. Avid users of these translations by now know that there are sections of the Bible (chiefly, the creation narrative, Matthew, John, and the Epistles) with lots of notes, and other sections with comparatively little.
Firmament vs. Dome
Back to the translation itself. Confraternity Genesis chooses “firmament” whereas the NAB has chosen “dome”. On one level, this is what I suppose people are talking about when they refer to the NAB’s tin ear, but I have never understood our attachment to the word “firmament”, other than the fact it was used in the King James Version. At any rate, it is practically a hapax legomenon that I had to define for the children when I taught at a school which used the RSV-2CE each time we studied the Creation. (The NRSV also renders the word “dome”.)
Spelling of Proper Names
I was surprised to discover that many proper nouns in the Confraternity Bible retain their traditional Catholic spellings: “Phison” for “Pishon”, “Hevila” for “Havilah”, “Chus” for “Cush”, “Assur” for “Asshur”. In the description of Eden’s location, only Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates have their familiar spellings. Later on, we hear of “Noe’s Ark”. The biggest surprise to me is that this is not just the case in Genesis, but in every book in the Confraternity Old Testament. “Chanaanite” is a word we see a lot in the Historical Books of the Confraternity Bible. In the transition to the NAB, thousands of proper nouns had to be changed, including book names like “Josue”, “Machabees”, “Paralipomenon”, “Isaia”, “Jeremia”, and “Malachias”. Later in the series I will show some comparisons, but as of now I think that nothing was changed in the Exodus-Malachi books besides bringing proper nouns into conformity with that of the rest of the (Protestant) English speaking world. Much like how we changed our numbering of the Psalter to correspond with Protestant usage, part of me resents that we felt like we had to change our spellings, but I do know this is more due to Catholic adoption of the Masoretic Text as the base of Old Testament translations. By now I cannot think of these words any other way. When I spend time with the Knox Bible, I am far more distracted by the alternate spellings than by the high flying poetry.
Giants vs. Nephilim
One place that the NAB introduces a word of incredible rarity is in Chapter 6, where it transliterates Nephilim to replace what the Confraternity had rendered “giants”. Like the NAB’s use of Magi in Matthew, this shows one way the translation gives us the difficult word rather than giving an explanatory gloss. What, you might ask, makes me pro-Nephilim but anti-firmament? To research the meaning of “Nephilim” is to learn about ancient Hebrew beliefs. To research “firmament” is to learn about the Latinate vocabulary of the King James Bible and its uneven influence on modern English.
Explaining the Anthropomorphism of God
In the Tower of Babel story, the Confraternity explains the anthropomorphic reference to God having “come down” to see what the workers were up to. The note reads “a figure of speech meaning that God had inspected the work and especially the intentions of the builders.” This reminds me of something I have read about some translations in the Septuagint, which seemed to come from an embarrassment at the apparent anthropomorphism present in the most ancient stories in the Scriptures. The NAB and NABRE have no note here. Recently I read a commentary on Genesis 1-11 by the Orthodox priest Fr. Lawrence Farley, who points out the humor in this verse that I had been blind to. The builders think they can build a tower up to heaven, but their project is so comically beyond their capabilities that God in heaven is looking down and thinking, “what are those tiny and faraway people up to? I can barely see them from way up here. I need to go down to check it out.” Gensis is a subtle book. The more I study it the more I see that depiction is not endorsement in the Scriptures and there is lots of humor and wordplay we usually only see in glances.
Rachel, the Household Gods, and Period(s)
When the new midcentury translations like the New English Bible, the New American Bible, and the Jerusalem Bible were first released, there were complaints about the frankness of the new translations on things few suspected were in the Scriptures. One can be found in Genesis, where Rachel is hiding the household gods which she stole from her father by sitting on them and claiming she can’t get up. “I am having my period”, she says in the NABRE. (The NAB had put it “a woman’s period is upon me”.) Surprisingly, the Confraternity Bible puts it similarly, but awkwardly: “I am having my periods”. (Was pluralizing “period” common in the 40s or 50s?) As you can imagine, many translations make the verse opaque by literally translating the Hebrew euphemism, “the way of women is upon me”—a choice made by the RSV, ESV, but also, surprisingly, the NRSV and NRSVUE. I wonder if one of those clean Evangelical comedians has done one of those lazy “women be shopping” routines on what “the way of women” might be?
Masoretic Text vs. LXX
One thing the NRSV is known for, as is the NAB, is making ample use of the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls. In a future article on this farewell tour, I aim to take a good hard look into the NABRE’s departures from the Masoretic Text, but I found something interesting in 3:24. In the Confraternity Bible, there is a footnote which alerts the reader to an alternate reading in the LXX, in which we find that it is Adam who is settled east of the garden, not the cherubim with the rotating sword. This Septuagint reading found its way into the 1970 NAB Genesis, but the NABRE returns to the reading found in the Masoretic Text. I had not previously noticed any place where the NABRE translated a different text than the 1970 NAB. I look forward to digging into how common that is.
Poetic Setitngs
One of my firmest held opinions is that the New American Bible excels in poetry. (I feel this way despite having little idea what it means to “batten on spoil”, as I have prayed in the Canticle of Hannah in the Liturgy of the Hours countless times.) Whereas the NAB and NABRE frequently arrange text as poetry, it is never done in Confraternity Genesis. We will do a deeper dive into NAB poetry at some point, but here I just wish to show how often that translation uses poetic setting in the first 11 chapters of Genesis: 1:27, 2:23, 3:14-19, 4:23-24, 7:11, 8:22, 9:6, and 9:25-27. The NABRE is identical in this regard.
Final Thoughts
After reading through all of Genesis in the Confraternity, NAB, and NABRE over the last month or so, I conclude that the NAB and NABRE are very close, but the NABRE is a definite improvement. Things feel more precise and vivid. The Confraternity feels a little dusty to me. I never exactly felt like I was steeping myself in tradition, a feeling I even had with the 1941 Confraternity New Testament. Rather, it seemed like a relic of a time just slightly before truly contemporary English became the coin of the realm. I was curious if I would feel Confraternity Genesis was a missed opportunity or a false start. I have to say I feel it to be the latter. You, however might disagree! Have any of you spent much time with the Confraternity Bible?
I leave you with the verse which I feel to be the core of the first book of the Holy Bible:
Confraternity: But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear; can I take the place of God? You intended evil against me, but God intended it for good, to do as he has done today, namely, to save the lives of many people.
1970 NAB: But Joseph replied to them: “Have no fear. Can I take the place of God? Even though you meant harm to me, God meant it for good, to achieve his present end, the survival of many people.”
NABRE: The exact same as the NAB, but reading “this present end” as opposed to “his present end”.