The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard Edition

Review of "The New Jerusalem Bible"This review is from the 1999 printing by Doubleday. It has the Imprimatur of John Crowley and Nihil obstat of Anton Cowan marking this translation safe for a Catholic reader. It includes the Apocrypha, just a few footnotes, and two maps of Palestine. There is a short forward explaining the history and features of this Bible edition.As with the Jerusalem Bible throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) the New Jerusalem Bible uses God's Name Yahweh to translate the Tetragrammaton (YHWH). As far as the Christian Greek Scriptures (New Testament) the only reference to God's Name Jehovah is at Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, and 6 where "Alleluia" is used which means "Praise Jah".When is comes to some particular trinitarian bias in Bible translation the following verses are translated as:John 1:1 - Here it is translated "the Word was God." of note though is the footnote it talks about "the Word or Wisdom of God is present with God..." but not is God.John 8:28, 58 - At verse 58 the editors do what many translations do and leave out the implied pronoun and failto translate the Greek idiom past and future tense. It is translated as "before Abraham ever was, I am." Now toverse 28 the actual translation is normal except that it capitalizes the word "he" so that it reads "then you willknow that I am He." and the footnotes reads that here Jesus appropriates the divine name revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. This is odd for the fact that the whole discussion with the Jews in this chapter centers on Jesus being the Messiah not Jesus being God. Even in verse 58 the Jews are questioning whether he has seen Abraham and as The Living Bible brings out correctly he was in existence before Abraham, not that he is God.Philippians 2:6 - Here the main concern is the use of the word `grasped' in English this word can mean either tograsp at something that you don't have or to hold on to something you already have whereas the Greek wordharpagmos translated here as grasped means to steal, seize, rob to take something that does not belong to you,there is no ambiguity in its meaning. So in this verse Jesus wasn't trying to hold on to equality with God,something he never claims to have but showing his complete obedience to God even as far as death, and thathis followers should have a like "mind" as verse 5 brings out.For a frank discussion of the Greek please see Jason D. BeDuhn's book "Truth in Translation" as far asBible translations there are examples in each of these cases that translates these verses correctly.As a side point at Exodus 3:14 the New Jerusalem Bible translates the Hebrew "Eh-yeh Asher Eh-yeh" not from Hebrew meaning "I will be what I will be" or "I will be whatsoever I please" but from the Greek Septuagint (LXX) in Greek "egoeimi ho on" meaning when translated "I am the being" or "I am the one that exists". In this edition there is no way to know if the translators are using the Hebrew text or the LXX for the translation of the Hebrew portion of the Bible. Also the footnote to this verse makes a rather odd and confusing statement saying "God either refuses to give a name or reveal he is the key to existence." God does give his name Jehovah (Yahweh) almost 7000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures alone more then any other name or title in the Bible as well as the fact Abraham uses and knows God's name hundreds of years before Moses ever came along.The New Jerusalem Bible does a nice job translating the Greek proskuneo which means to do obeisance in thistranslation they use homage or fell down before instead of worship as some other translations incorrectly do. The verses as are follows: Matthew 2:2, 8, 11; 14:33; 18:26; 28:9, 17; Mark 15:19; Revelation 3:9.Another word that is sometimes translated as if on a whim of the translator is the Hebrew and Greek word for soul, ne'phesh or psy-khe' respectively. Unfortunately this is exactly what the New Jerusalem Bible does, a sampling of verses that use ne'phesh in the Hebrew Scriptures has the following: creature; being; someone dies; person; soul; those, life, one (pronoun not number); creatures; corpse. The Christian Greek Scriptures fare much better as using mostly soul except for a few places in my sampling, in Revelation it uses "cling to life (soul)" and "living creature (soul)". One thing of interest is that at 1 Corinthians 15:45 it has a footnote showing Paul's quotation of Genesis 2:7 pointing out that Adam became a "living soul" but if you refer back to Genesis 2:7 is says Adam became a living being. The translators of this Bible are inconsistent when it comes to the use of the word soul. The scriptures that were sampled are: Ge 1:20; 2:7; Le 19:28; De 10:22; Ps 19:7; Eze 13:19; 18:4 (soul is used for times in the original Hebrew in this verse); 47:9; Haggai 2:13; Matt 10:28; Acts 27:37; 1 Cor 15:45; James 5:20; 1 Pe 3:20; 2 Pe 2:14; Re 12:11; 16:3.A word that is sometimes rendered into English in different ways is the Hebrew word `sheol' this can be confusing to the reader but in the New Jerusalem Bible out of a sample of verses it used "Sheol" everywhere except at Jonah 2:2 translating "belly of the fish" replacing `sheol' with `fish'. Sheol is used sixty-six times in the Hebrew Scriptures.In the Septuagint (LXX) the Jewish translators used the Greek `hades' in place of the Hebrew `sheol' as the equivalent term. In the New Jerusalem Bible the ten occurrences of `hades' are translated hell twice, underworld once, and the remaining seven times as hades.The word Gehenna which means the valley of Hinnom in Greek is sometimes also translated misleadingly. In this case that is so, in ten places it is translated hell, once as hell fire, and once as hell of fire. Not only does this confuse this word with hades which they translate hell in two places but it obscures the meaning of the word, Mark 9:48 has the only indication of it's meaning the footnote for this verse reads "The word for hell is `Gehenna', the rubbish-dump of Jerusalem, with its perpetual fires." Besides being confusing using `hell' draws to mind this idea of God torturing, burning people, some sort of everlasting punishment rather than the simple scriptural truth that some will be destroyed completely as if by fire with no chance for any future life prospects or resurrection.Over all the inclusion of God's Name Yahweh throughout this translation marks it as a very good version of the Bible and a worthy reference, the places where is deviates some from the original Hebrew or Greek can easily be seen by comparison to other Bible translation and reference works.

The New Jerusalem Bible is a bold translation, and it's best read in the hardcover edition. While everyone expects something different out of a Bible, the combination of translation and features have made this one my favorite.The TranslationThis translation does not stand in the Tyndale tradition and lacks the familiar English Biblish. The editor opines that literary fidelity has been everywhere preferred to literary quality, but the translation is by no means wooden. It reads smoothly, and in some cases sacrifices familiar phrasing for correct interpretation:John 3:16For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.The most useful aspect of the translation is the treatment of God's names in the Old Testament. I know of no other modern translation that maintains the distinction of God's OT names so assiduously. El and Elohim are (depending on context) rendered God, god, or gods. El Elyon is rendered God Most High. Yahweh and El Shaddai are transliterated. Readers acquainted with the documentary hypothesis, or bronze age religion as it was practiced, will appreciate this distinction. Two examples:Exodus 6:2-3God spoke to Moses and said to him, 'I am Yahweh. To Abraham, Isaac and Jacob I appeared as El Shaddai, but I did not make my name Yahweh known to them.'Deuteronomy 32:8-9When the Most High gave the nations each their heritage, when he partitioned out the human race, he assigned the boundaries of nations according to the number of the children of God, but Yahweh's portion was his people, Jacob was to be the measure of his inheritance. (Following the Septuagint.)The textual basis of the Old Testament is the Masoretic Text, but as you can see from the Deuteronomy excerpt, the translators availed themselves of other sources which they felt represented a more ancient tradition, or solved problems with the Hebrew text. Editorial emendations have also been made. The deuterocanon (presented in the Roman Catholic order) and New Testament are taken from modern critical texts, with reference to other versions. Footnotes identify anything in the text taken from the versions or created by editorial emendation. Longer questionable passages, such as the ending of Mark and the pericope of the adulteress, are kept in the text, but footnotes discuss the problems with these sections. Shorter spurious passages, like the Johannine comma, are removed to the footnotes.The FeaturesThe text is presented in a single-column, paragraphed format. Poetry is formatted as such. Major divisions within books are given numbered headings (Roman numerals, naturally), and subsections or pericopes have bold headings. Chapter numbers are large and bold in the text, while verse numbers are to be found in the inner margin. If two or more verses begin on the same line, a dot or bullet point is used to separate them. While this is a rather unusual layout, it is very easy to find things in this Bible, by chapter and verse or subject. It combines the best aspects of the traditional chapter and verse bible with the best aspect of the numberless “reader's Bibles” that have recently been (re-)introduced.All footnotes are found at the bottom of the right-hand page. Footnotes comprise mainly translation information, textual variants, and historical notes. These notes usually take a historical-critical approach, and do not assume we possess a completely inerrant text. Doctrinal notes are rare, but there are some. A notable example can be found in Luke 22:32k, which reads in part, “This saying gives Peter a function in directing faith with regard to the other apostles. His primacy within the apostolic college is affirmed more clearly than in Mt 16:17-19, where he could simply be the spokesman and representative of the Twelve.” The text, of course, says nothing of the sort. It only says Peter will “strengthen” his brothers.There are various other features along the margin of the page. At the top of the left-hand page, a page number, the name of the book, and the chapter and verse of the first verse on the page. The top of the right-hand page has the same information, but the chapter and verse are those of the last one on the page. The outer margin has references to parallels, quotations, and allusions. (Quotations in the text are helpfully italicized.) While all this could make the page seem very busy, it is very easy to ignore the marginalia and concentrate on the text due to the single-column format described earlier.Several groupings of books, and several individual books, have introductions of at least several pages each. Like the notes, these are full of historical information. There are fairly detailed discussions of the documentary hypothesis and the synoptic problem, the authenticity and dating of the epistles, etc. The introductions are fairly meaty, as these things go. They compare favorably to other study Bibles.There is also some interesting back matter in this volume. The chronological table presents two or three chronologies in parallel, displaying various events from Biblical and secular history. It runs for about 20 pages. There is a family tree of the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties. There is a page devoted to the calendar, and two pages devoted to measures and money. There are indexes to footnote subjects, to persons, and to the maps—of which there are seven, in full (if tastefully muted) color, one spread over two pages.The Physical ConstructionRemoving the somewhat ostentatious dust cover, one is presented with a slightly-less ostentatious blue hardcover, with a big gold foil JB on the front and more restrained markings on the spine. The paper is thin and there is bleed-through. Text lines are not matched with those on the opposite side of the page. The maps are on thick, glossy paper. It lays flat for reading.