he Confraternity New Testament was originally published in 1941. It is a translation from the Latin, with reference to the Greek, and is a revision of the Challoner-Rheims New Testament. It is called the Confraternity version because it was commissioned by the U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. The New Testament pages are marked for each day of the year; one can read the entire New Testament through twice a year by following the Confraternity New Testaments simple, built in reading plan. It also has introductions to all the books of the New Testament and lots of study notes and footnotes. The current publication is well made by Scepter Publishers, and is very inexpensive at $10. It features beautiful printing in black and red. It is laid out in single column format, and although the print is somewhat small, it is very easy to read. I enjoy this lovely, Latin-based translation of the New Testament for its dignified, traditional English and religious language. Readers of the Douay-Rheims version and King James Version will find the phraseology and terms used very familiar. It is a reliable, traditional translation. I like that it uses “Amen, Amen,” a transliteration of both the Greek and Latin, rather than “verily, verily,” “truly, truly,” “I solemnly assure you,” “I assure you,” “I tell you the truth,” or other renderings for Jesus famous phrase. At first, the Confraternity New Testament was published in 1941 as a stand-alone volume. In 1950, the Confraternity New Testament was published along with the Douay Old Testament. This complete edition of the Bible was entitled, “The New Catholic Version.” It has also been called the Douay-Confraternity Bible, Douay being mentioned first, because the Old Testament, most of the rest of the Bible, was the Douay Bible. Although as the years went on, portions of the Old Testament were translated for the Confraternity version, the New Catholic Version/Douay-Confraternity Bible was available from Kennedy and Sons Publishers as late as 1962. There was a very brief period, between 1950-1952, where some editions of the New Catholic Version/Douay Confraternity Bible were published incorporating the New English Translation of the Psalms. This version of the Psalms is a translation of the New Latin Version of the Psalms promulgated by Pope Pius XII. The New English Translation of the New Latin Version of the Psalms was published in 1947 in a separate volume before being incorporated into the New Catholic Edition of the Bible. However, the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine began another translation of the Psalms, from the Hebrew, and quickly replaced the New English Translation of the New Latin Psalms. The New English Translation of the New Latin Version of the Psalms is happily still in print and easily obtainable. The Confraternity of the Precious Blood in Brooklyn, New York, you to publish the Confraternity New Testament and New English Translation of the Psalms as a 2 volume companion set. See my post: The Confraternity New Testament & the New English Translation of the New Latin Version of the Psalms In 1952, the first books of the Confraternity Old Testament were published, but they are not translated from the Latin, as is the Confraternity New Testament; It is essentially a different translation. The Confraternity translators had begun to revise the Douay Old Testament from the Latin. But in his 1943 encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, Pope Piux XII allowed Roman Catholics to translate directly from the original languages. So the translators abandon their Douay revision, and the text of the Confraternity Old Testament was translated from the oldest form of the Hebrew or Aramaic text extant. For the Deuterocanonical books, the translators resorted to the Greek and Latin versions where Hebrew versions are lacking. The Old Testament was completed in stages over many years, and so the Bible was often called the “Confraternity-Douay Bible,” to indicate portions of the Bible were the Confraternity version, with Douay version used for untranslated portions. The Confraternity Old Testament eventually became the Old Testament of the New American Bible which was published1970, with some emendation, including a new translation of Genesis and a slight revision of the Psalms. The 1941 Confraternity New Testament was dropped for the publication of the complete Bible, in favor of the very mediocre New American Bible New Testament. I consider the Confraternity Old Testament to be a different translation from the New Testament. The New Testament is from the Latin, and uses much more dignified language, and retains the use of the “thees” and “thou” pronouns, whereas the Confraternity Old Testament does not. As an Anglican, I prefer the longer canon, developed in African synods at Hippo in 393 C.E. and at Carthage 397 C.E. The writers of the New Testament and the ancient Christian communities used the Greek Septuagint which included the deuterocanonical books. When the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament they mostly do so from the Greek renderings, not the Hebrew. These ancient synods listed the deuterocanonical books interspersed with the other books of the Hebrew Bible, not in a separate section between the Testaments or at the back of the Bible, as in ecumenical editions of the Bible. I also prefer Latin and Greek- based translations of the Old Testament, at least for devotional and liturgical purposes, as certain Christological passages are obscured in the Masoretic textual tradition. The Latin Vulgate and the Greek Septuagint represent older editions of the Bible than the Masoretic text, and they agree with each other. How does one obtain a Confraternity Bible? The Douay-Confraternity Bible, with the Douay Old Testament and the Confraternity New Testament is the edition most to be prized in my estimation, and unfortunately, is not in print any more. It is also much more difficult to find than the Confraternity-Douay Bibles. Fortunately, the Confraternity version of the New Testament is still in print and easily attainable, produced by Scepter Publishers. Sinagtala Publishers in the Philippines continue to publish the entire Confraternity-Douay Bible, as it last was printed before the publication of the New American Bible. It is very reasonable at $24 per copy, but the shipping is expensive. Even though it has been out of print since 1969 in this country, one can occasionally find a good used copy of the entire Confraternity Bible on eBay, Amazon, or used book stores. All my copies are used and in good to excellent shape. I did not pay over $10 for any of them. anglicanchurch.blogspot/2013/10/the-confraternity-version-of-holy-bible.html
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 17:48:39 +0000
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