Translation on Trial

Bible translators feel that since the New Testament was written in brisk, koine (common) Greek, contemporary versions should reflect its informal spirit, even if they have to be updated every generation as language changes. For the first time, U.S. Roman Catholics are now finding out what this theory means in practice (Protestants, by comparison, have had the racy J. B. Phillips version since 1958, and the New English Bible since 1961). When they adopted the vernacular Mass last fall, with Epistle and Gospel readings in English instead of Latin, the U.S. hierarchy took their texts from the still unfinished Confraternity Bible--and have been hearing about it ever since.

No More Amens. The New Testament translation was undertaken in 1956 by a team of Catholic Biblical scholars under the sponsorship of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, which directs the religious training of Catholic children outside parochial schools. Since the translators followed the original Greek rather than the Latin Vulgate, they had to sacrifice some sonorous phrases familiar to Catholic ears from the Douay version and from a prewar Confraternity New Testament that was based on the Vulgate. Instead of "Amen, amen, I say to you," Jesus' teaching is prefaced by "I solemnly assure you."

Notably successful in straightening out the tangled prose of the Pauline Epistles, the Confraternity translation occasionally falters into leaden phrasing in the Gospels. The parable of the sower and the seed (Matthew 13:24-30) begins with all the grace of an Agriculture Department bulletin: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to the situation of a farmer who sowed good seed in his field."

Not This Fellow. The blunt modern quality of the translation has delighted many Catholics but shocked others, and the correspondence columns of diocesan newspapers have recently been filled with letters about the version. "I haven't met anybody who has liked it," says Msgr. Charles Finn, pastor of Boston's Holy Name Church, and Bishop Robert J. Dwyer of Reno complains that the translation reduces "language to its lowest common denominator of intelligibility." Some critics saw an implied denial of Christ's divinity in the Confraternity phrasing of Matthew 28:6: the two women at Jesus' tomb are told, "He has been raised," not "He has risen."

"The charges of heresy are nonsensical," answers Msgr. Myles Bourke of St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. One of the nation's most respected New Testament scholars, Bourke explains that many Protestant versions use "fellow" where Jesus' enemies speak of him contemptuously, and that the passive "He has been raised" follows the Greek verb precisely. Bourke further notes that the New Testament translation is only about half completed, and that the texts will be reviewed for style by a literary editor before they are formally published in 1968. By then, the translators feel, Catholic critics may change their minds, and take pride in having for their own one of the century's most accurate and up-to-date versions of the New Testament.

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