Customer Reviews

The New Jerusalem Bible: Saints Devotional Edition

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"There are many people whose spirits are in their bodies like corpses in their tombs. And, just as God will, at the end of time, raise up dead bodies by his word, so he now gives life to dead spirits by the power of his word." (Blessed Humbert of Romans, 1200-1277)

This work combines the great Jerusalem translation of the Bible with 200 extracts from the writings and teachings of the Saints, each extract placed at the appropriate place within the Bible. There are 100 extracts for the Old Testament, 100 for the New, and an additional 20 texts that allow the Saints to speak about their love and devotion to Scripture reading.

Addtionally, the volume contains a brief biographical sketch of each of the 90 saints featured in the texts, and a topical index to the extracts covering 96 toics from Almsgiving to Worship. A calendar of saints and a list of patron saints is also included.

This is a wonderfuly inspirational volume that shows how, thorughout the ages, the Word of God has inspired men and women to live holy lives filled with the Spirit and in communion with the Church. In this way it encourages us to read and re-read the Scripture, finding in it inspiration for our own lives and providing the Holy Spirit with "the raw material...to work with when he wants to inspire our thoughts".

I would have given it five stars had it (a) been the full study edition of the New Jerusalem Bible text with all the notes and (b) contained a more comprehensive biography and suggested readings for the saints. However, this does not detract from the inspirational value of this book -- truly spiritual food.

Indeed, as Jesus said, "human beings live not on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." This is better than the finest bread.

I bought this for my husband who is an ordained Deacon in the Catholic Church. He likes the Jerusalem Bible translation. He gave his old one to our son. He especially likes the addition of the Saint's writings. He finds it helpful when planning his homilies to read what they had to say. It gives him new insights and often a jumping off point on which to expand.

This is the best bible I have ever had ! I am extremely happy with this great Bible. I have used this bible over and over and love to read the Saint's input which is so great a blessing to have in a bible. I would recommend this bible to anyone who is interested in what the Saint's have to say about Holy Scripture
and in conjuction with their Master.

I am not a Catholic; I am more of a Charasmatic Christian, and I love this bible so much. I have about 9 or 10 bibles and I go back and forth between them all, but I find myself using this one more and more. The NJB, IMHO, is the best modern translation that is not a paraphrase. (NLT, i will always have special place in my heart since it was that one that led me to Christ.) I absoultly adore tHe NJB and get so much inspiration out of the Saint's commentary. I recommend this bible to everyone. If i was only allowed to have one bible, this would be it.

A good supplement to my Catholic Study Bible with appropriate prayers and meditations from the saints of the church related to various parts of scripture. Would not be useful as an only Bible, however, as it lacks extensive footnotes and commentaries but fits my purpose as a second translation and prayer guide to the New American Bible (study) I use as my main source.

I've had this Bible for a year. I had to find it through a reseller. I bought it after I asked the Associate Pastor at our Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church when he quoted from one of the "Saints on Scripture" during his sermons. It is wonderful to read the Word of God and then read the meditations of those that were humble before God, and enjoyed intimacy with God. I find the Holy Spirit teaching me through the words of scripture itself (of course right!), but also through the reflections from the saints, some of whom were well known to me and most Catholics, and others that have become new friends in the Communion of Saints. My second favorite Bible is Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament RSV 2nd Edition. I recommend both. It would be great for the editor of this version to have a revised edition with the full study notes of the Jerusalem Bible, as recommended by another reviewer. It would also make it easier for me to buy these for my family and friends, as the last copy I bought for my Dad was a recycled library version. Of course my ultimate would be for the full Ignatius Study Bible (Scott Hahn commentary) of the whole Bible (I understand the OT is in progress) using the Jerusalem translation, and with all the original Saints Devotional edition selections, and maybe a few additional.

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.