New American Bible (Revised Edition) to be Available Wednesday

On Ash Wednesday (March 9) the New American Bible Revised Edition (NAB-RE) will be available. The NAB is the US Bishops' official English translation of Holy Scripture, and this revision was approved for publication last September. It includes a complete revision of the Old Testament which hadn't been changed since 1970. It also, thankfully, includes a major revision of the 1991 translation of the Psalms. The New Testament of the NAB was revised in 1986 and will remain in the new edition.

I have not yet seen it, so I really can't comment on it. I know only that the translation has been in the works for some time -- for almost 20 years according to several reports. I've never been a big fan of the current NAB and prefer both the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version and the New Jerusalem Bible. Perhaps this translation is a more accurate rendering of the original Hebrew and Greek, as the translators claim. That would be nice. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

The US Bishops' website has a page devoted to the NAB Revised Edition but it really contains very little useful information; indeed it doesn't even mention that it will be available next week. And information about the Revised Edition is almost totally absent from their NAB Frequently Asked Questions page. I find it all a bit odd. Perhaps their webmaster is on vacation. There are, of course, no lack of opinions on the revised edition, and you can read them for yourself simply by googling "New American Bible Revised Edition".

And all you pastors and liturgists can relax and put away your parish checkbooks. There will be no changes to the version of the NAB used in the readings at Mass in the United States, so you won't have to buy new, expensive Lectionaries to match your new, expensive Roman Missals that will go into effect on the First Sunday of Advent.