The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard edition [Hardcover]

Henry Wansbrough (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 1999

The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard Edition will satisfy the great need for an authoritative version of "the greatest story ever told" in a package so attractive, user friendly, and affordable, this edition is destined to become a classic. Using the same translation that has been hailed as "truly magnificent" (Journal of Bible Literature), the Standard Edition has a completely redesigned interior, set in a two-column format for easy reading. With all the best features of much more cumbersome and costly versions, this Bible is a must-have for home, church, and school.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 1956, scholars from L'Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem set their minds to translating the Scriptures from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts, hoping they could preserve the most sacred Christian traditions and stories. By 1966, the first English-language Jerusalem Bible was published. Since then it has become a favored text for lay readers and scholars alike. The accessible language and richly recounted stories, poetry, and letters in this edition is consistent with previous versions. However, this latest version stands out because of its clear format--clean double columns with easy-to-read type and quick reference headings.

From Library Journal

Catholic readers have made The Jeru salem Bible (1966) a perennially popu lar study Bible. The Jerusalem-based French scholars, upon whose transla tion the work is based, published a re vised French edition in 1973, incorpo rating recent research. General editor Wansbrough and his colleagues base The New Jerusalem Bible on this revi sion, though they have depended less on the French version and more on the original languages than did the English translators. They have thoroughly re vised everything. The biblical text is loftier, more literal, and less colloquial. It is also less gender-specific, when this approach does not do violence to the original. A worthwhile purchase wher ever the earlier edition is popular. Richard S. Watts, San Bernardino Cty. Lib., Cal.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1424 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Religion; 1st Doubleday standard ed edition (March 16, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385493207
• ISBN-13: 978-0385493208
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.5 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (124 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

390 of 393 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best translation + best notes = best modern English Bible, July 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The New Jerusalem Bible (Hardcover)

There is not an English Bible that will bring you closer to the full historical, literary, and religious meaning of the Bible than this one--and I've looked at all the competition up close. The format of the full edition is great, and for most people, this is the only Bible you'll ever need. The translation (made not from French, as some persist in saying, but from the Hebrew and Greek) is faithful without being awkward or obscure, and fluent without being fuzzy (NEB/REB, anyone?) or inaccurate. The scholarly apparatus (especially the footnotes, also the marginal parallel passages, introductions, and indices in the back to places, persons, and major footnotes) is outstanding. Only the Oxford Annotated can compete, and, again and again, I have found that the Oxford editors are guilty of tedious plot summary, while the NJB actually gives historical, cultural, and textual information that deepens your understanding of the text! I am a scholar, not a Roman Catholic, and moments where I think "Catholic" reading a note are EXTREMELY rare. This is not a Catholic Bible, this is a Bible for whoever wants the most objective, historically sound, and readable presentation of the original texts. The way I think, if you're going to read books that are millennia old, you need HELP. It's all here, the perfect marriage of readability (much better on this score than NRSV) and accuracy (arguably the best here too, though of course preferences in this domain are controversial).

Don't be misled by the half-truth that this literarily distinguished translation is somehow "looser" than, say, the NRSV (which, in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, is probably the NJB's only real competition). The NRSV, in the tradition of the KJV, still tilts towards word-for-word translations even when they don't give a clear and accurate sense of what the original text means. Not only is this not ideal for general readers, who will blame themselves for not understanding what the hyper-literal rendition has obscured, but it is not very helpful for more scholarly readers who too often will only see the impenetrability of the original reproduced in English. The fact is, that centuries of scholarship have given us a good understanding of most of these difficult passages. The NJB does the favor of bringing out these accurate understandings in translation; and when it really IS obscure, it explains the difficulty in a note! I have often had the experience of reading the translation of a passage I've studied closely, and thinking "Aha! of COURSE that's the correct nuance that didn't come through in my own clunky 'literal' attempt to read the original correctly."

In all fairness, some criticisms/clarifications. Some have expressed concern that this translation's intention to be "inclusive" has led to departures from the original texts' true meaning. In general, this is not a problem with the NJB. For example, in reading 1300 pp. of the Hebrew Bible, I found the translators' choices to be guided by accuracy and fidelity. (Non-philologists often don't realize that the ancient languages have loads of ways of making gender-non-specific constructions; the problem has often been to get it into modern English!) But there was one howler. In the decalogue, we read "set your heart on your neighbor's spouse." This is a bit of a stretch from the Hebrew "your neighbor's woman [wife]." I think the great fame of the Ten Commandments as "universal" principles clouded the translators' judgments here. A more frequent but minor irritation is that the translators have violated good English usage in writing "the wise" to mean "the wise one" (singular). They thought it was less awkward (and they are right to avoid the inaccurate "man"), but they judged wrong--it's just not good English to use "the wise" with a singular verb. One more complaint. As other reviewers have said, the superior notes (for which you have to buy the full edition, ISBN 0385142641) are one of the biggest reasons to use the NJB. But if you are reading whole books of the Bible at once, you will probably feel some annoyance that the explanatory notes are mixed in with the textual notes. In other words, when you see that a verse has a footnote, you don't know (without reading it) whether it has to do with a minor and uninteresting textual variation in one of the traditions, or whether it is one of the NJB's fantastic notes that contextualize the passage, give a thought-provoking reference to elsewhere, etc. In this regard, the design of Oxford study Bibles (where the two kinds of notes are segregated, though there's no marker in the text that there is an explanatory note, as there is in NJB) is probably superior. In most books, it doesn't matter, but there are some where the textual tradition is so messy that you really get tired of looking at the bottom of the page, and it disrupts the reading experience even for a reader who enjoys a complicated and scholarly view of the Bible.

To me, it speaks volumes that the problems I've mentioned (one howler + occasional infelicity + design error of the notes) don't change the fact that this is the most accurate, fluent, and useful-for-study-purposes Bible in existence!

180 of 183 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Graceful and eloquent translation, February 15, 2000

By 

Lance Goldsberry - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard edition (Hardcover)

The New Jerusalem Bible, along with the Revised English Bible (REB), the New American Bible (NAB) and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), is one of the four great "ecumenical" translations English readers of the Bible are blessed with. Although a product of top notch Catholic scholarship, all Christians- Anglican, Orthodox, mainline Protestants and Evangelicals may enjoy this beautiful version. More literal than its parent, the original Jerusalem Bible of 1966, it is still more free than the NRSV and is very graceful and eloquent in speech. Psalm 23 is particularly lovely. The New Jerusalem Bible also has one of the best renderings of the classic Ephesians 2:8-10 text, rendering verse 10 "we are God's work of art..." I appreciate that the NJB renders the Pauline use of the "flesh" variously as "disordered desire," "weakness of human nature" "natural inclinations" depending on the context. This is much more clear than translating "flesh," which can lead to the misconception that the body is the seat of evil. Rather, as the translation "disordered desires" indicates, Paul is talking about normal, natural human desires that are disordered and dysfunctional. This approach is much to be preferred over the New International Version's very awkward and disappointing translation, "sinful nature" in almost every place where Paul use "flesh (GK, sarx)." The only possible drawback is that the use of "Yahweh" to translate the divine name may be offensive to some of our Jewish brothers and sisters. Many readers do enjoy the use of Yahweh. I also would have liked to see the Reader's Edition use single column like the original Jerusalem Bible, which has been recently republished. The New Jerusalem bible is one of the very best translations available today, in my mind second only to the NRSV. I only wish it was a little more popular, I think many Christians are missing the boat by not owning this wonderful Bible. I am disappointed that my own Roman Catholic Church in America does not use this Catholic translation more in the liturgy- the language of the New Jerusalem Bible sings.

84 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good scholarly/spiritual Bible, January 9, 2000

By 

David Bennett (United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The New Jerusalem Bible (Hardcover)

The NJB as a translation is unique in many ways. The main thing that makes it unique is that rather than using the euphemism LORD, it actually renders the divine name as Yahweh. This makes reading the Old Testament almost a new experience. It also transliterates other Hebrew names for God, like El-Shaddai. Its one of the few accurate versions to use the divine name. The translation is also poetic, yet accurate. The Regular Edition featured here is the best version of the NJB to own. The notes and book intros are extremely concise (and I mean very) and informative. There is a lot of information included in there. The maps and timelines are also very helpful. Overall this package is well put together and a great edition to anyone's collection.