Customer Reviews

The New Jerusalem Bible, Pocket Edition

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One of the earlier contemporary bibles to incorporate the results of scholarly study of the Dead Sea Scrolls (cf.Qumrun) was the Jerusalem Bible, originally published in French. Many gifted scholars and writers participated in an English rendering of the Jerusalem Bible ( J. R. R. Tolkien, for example, did the Book of Job) yet there was criticism of the work because it was a re-translation from the French. The New Jerusalem Bible again worked from the most recent accepted and examined sources available, and was a direct rendering into contemporary English. This pocket edition is pocket size (though a bit thick for the stylish as opposed to the practical pocket) and does fit easily into brief-case or carry-on luggage. For those who have struggled with the omnipresent King James Version often found in hotel rooms, the New Jersulaem Bible is in thoroughly readable contemporary English. Lacking are the extended foot-notes and introductory essays of the full-size version, which can add much to the reader's appreciation of the organization of the text and the background of its writing. Nonetheless, this is a complete Bible, including the generally found Aprocryphal or deutero-canonical books. It might be added that this translation itself is regarded as an authoritative translation of all of its textual portions by the major denominations, despite the lack of agreement on the status of some of the Apocryphal books. For anyone seeking a highly portable and eminently readable complete Bible, this compact volume is the best choice available.

This was my first reading of the Bible. I began with the New Testament and once done, read the Old Testament. It was like watching Star Wars and then watching the prequel where the foundational history is detailed. Somewhere in the middle, I knew I was well on the way on the road to the straight and narrow.

I found the contempory English easy to follow and highly recommend it to those who have never read the Bible as well as to those looking for a compact travelling companion.

This edition is so much easier to keep with me than the large (6.5"x9.5"x2") New Jerusalem Bible I also own. In addition, since it is so much lighter, it is much easier for me to hold while reading in bed. Very sturdy and well-made too. If you can find a good copy, don't hesitate to snatch it up!!!

It is not literally "pocket size", but still small and light enough to fit comfortably in your briefcase or hand luggage. Perfectly readable without straining your eyes. It does not carry the excellent notes of the regular size New Jerusalem Bible but still is a wonderful travelling bible, which is exactly what I was looking for.

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 fail
to translate the Greek idiom past and future tense. It is translated as "before Abraham ever was, I am." Now to
verse 28 the actual translation is normal except that it capitalizes the word "he" so that it reads "then you will
know 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 to
grasp at something that you don't have or to hold on to something you already have whereas the Greek word
harpagmos 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 that
his 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 as
Bible 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 this
translation 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.

Love this version of the New Jerusalem Bible. Everything about it is about perfect, size, text size etc. It is bigger then most pocket size bibles but the paper is higher quality and everything is well layed out and since a little bigger and thicker it is very easy to read and to tuck away.

The feature that stands out most in this Catholic translation is it's rendering of the divine name. In most translations of the Bible, God's personal name has been taken out and substituted with the word "LORD" in all upper case letters as shown. This substitution occurs almost 7,000 times in most translations.

"Jehovah" is the best known English pronunciation of the divine name, although "Yahweh" is favored by most Hebrew scholars. The oldest Hebrew manuscripts present the name in the form of four consonants, commonly called the Tetragrammaton (from Greek te·tra-, meaning "four," and gram'ma, "letter"). These four letters (written from right to left) may be transliterated into English as YHWH (or, JHVH).

In this translation those four Hebrew letters have been translated as "Yahweh" instead of "LORD". So, instead of the word "LORD" in all capitals occurring, the name "Yahweh" appears in this translation almost 7,000 times. It would seem though that "Jehovah" the best known English pronunciation of the divine name should be used.

I can't but help to ask myself the question, if our creator saw to it to have his personal name recorded some 7,000 times so that all generations have the oppertunity to know him by his personal name, what translator or translation comittee has the right to remove that name from the historical records found in the Bible?

If a book publisher took the liberty to remove an authors name from the book that was being printed by them, no doubt that publisher would find itself in a court of law with the author. How much more the Creator exacting accountability with translators that remove his personal name from the Bible.

I love the small compact version of this bible and I enjoy the New Jerusalem wording that is a little more modern in places. The book was received so quickly and in terrific shape.

The book was in Great condition, almost Brand New. I liked how it arrived so prompt and neatly packaged. This was the first time I have ordered from Amazon. Thank you for the good experience.

This new translation is very clear and well written as it should be, being translated from the French version by English authors. Highly recommend this Bible for anyone wanting a
an excellent version of Scripture based on original texts well re-executed.