credmond@watmath.waterloo.edu (Chris Redmond) (09/25/89)
I don't think anyone has yet mentioned on this newsgroup that the
Revised English Bible is now available.
What we have here -- in a handsome "Bible-shaped" volume published
jointly by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press --
is a new translation of both Testaments and the Apocrypha, described
by its publishers as "a radical revision of the New English Bible"
as published in the 1970s. The REB not only draws on new scholarship
over the past two decades, but gives more attention than the NEB did
to the formal quality of the text: it is suitable, where the NEB may
not have been, for use in public worship as well as private reading.
The REB is the work of a joint committee representing Presbyterians,
Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans (Episcopalians),
Quakers, Moravians, and the Salvation Army, through their various
organizations in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
I am already finding passages that come clearer to me in this translation
than in any other I have seen.
Here is a passage chosen almost at random (Luke 1:46ff):
And Mary said:
My soul tells out the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour;
for he has looked with favour on his servant,
lowly as she is.
From this day forward
all generations will count me blessed,
for the Mighty God has done great things for me.
His name is holy,
his mercy sure from generation to generation
toward those who fear him.
Now *that* sounds like Bible language, but it's still modern English.
Chris Redmond
credmond@watmath
[That's far less free than the original NEB, which I think is a good
sign. It's very close in style to NIV and NJB. (Note however that it
still follows the NEB in having God look on his servant, lowly as she
is, rather than having him look at the lowly estate of his servant.
Only TEV joins them in this translation, although NAB is ambiguous.
There is no textual issue involved here.) This must be a time for
Bibles. The New Revised Standard Version is now ready as well,
although apparently it won't actually be on bookstands until next
summer. And of course the New Jerusalem Bible is fairly recent as
well (1985 copyright). I'll try to find a copy of the REB. Revised
English is perhaps not the most brilliant of names, since there is
also a version that is often referred to as the English Revised.
Maybe they are running short on names... Then there's the New Red
Letter Edition of the Five Gospels, scheduled for 1991. This will
have Jesus' words in black, grey, pink, or red, according to votes by
scholars as to how likely it was that he really said them. (The fifth
gospel is Thomas.) --clh]