New American Bible

The New American Bible (NAB) is the modern Catholic translation of the Bible for Americans. It was first published in 1970 and quickly replaced the Confraternity Bible as the most widely used by Catholic parishes. It is one of two specifically Catholic translations in modern English which are in wide use today, the other being the New Jerusalem Bible.

It is based on the Douay-Rheims Bible and the Confraternity Bible but with more modern language, and some changes to the wording making it more "inclusive". The New American Bible was initially controversial and ultimately rejected by the Vatican because this translation replaced male-gendered human language with "gender-neutral" terms, and this translation was subsequently revised in part to restore fidelity to the original ancient texts. The 1991 changes, in particular, are controversial because they replaced male-gendered human language with "gender-neutral" terms. Some traditional Catholics reject the New American Bible as a liberal translation and favor the use of the Douay-Rheims and Confraternity Bibles.

Outdated or Awkward Translations

The New American Bible has a high percentage of outdated or awkward translations in key passages, including the following examples below. Note that each of these is a particularly important passage:

• The translation of Luke 2:1-5 (the census at the time of the birth of Jesus) by the New American Bible uses the word "enrollment" instead of "census", and uses the word "enrolled" in instead of "registered"; these terms are unfamiliar to most young people who think that enrollment refers to school and do not connect the terms with a census:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

• The translation of Leviticus 13:45 says the following:

The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, 'Unclean, unclean!'

• The translation of Jonah 3:10 uses an archaic meaning (also used in the King James Version of "change one's mind" for the word "repent" to refer to God's own decision:

When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.

• The translation of Mark 9:3 (the transfiguration of Jesus) uses the word "fuller", an Old English word dating prior to 1100 which meant someone who cleans or bleaches clothes:

"... and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them."

• The translation of Hebrews 5:7 uses the obscure word "supplication", which most young people have never heard before (the term is translated as "petitions" in the Revised English Bible and NIV):

"... [Christ] offered prayers and supplications ...."

• The translation of John 12:24 describes a grain of wheat as bearing "fruit", which strikes the average listener as a mistake (the Revised English Bible translates the "produces much fruit" phrase as "bears a rich harvest" and the NIV is clearer still by translating it as "produces many seeds"):

"Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit."

• The translation of Mark 16:6 of the angel's first communication to the holy women at the empty tomb of Jesus after the Resurrection is "do not be amazed," rather than "do not be alarmed" as translated by the Revised English Bible and New Revised Standard Version:

[The angel] said to them, "Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Behold, the place where they had laid him."

• The translation of Acts 9:31, which explains the growth of early Christianity after the acceptance of Saul (Paul), says that the church was built up "with the consolation of the holy Spirit," when most other translations use the clearer term "encouraged" by the Holy Spirit.

• In Acts 2:11, which describes the Pentecost, in which the Apostles spoke in away that enabled listeners having different tongues or languages to understand. The commonly understood term is "language", and the word "tongue" is now arcane. Yet many translations, including the New American Bible and the NIV, still use "tongue" even where "language" would be clearer:

"... both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."

The New Jerusalem Bible, the New Revised Standard Version and the Holman Christian Standard Bible all use the more modern term of "languages" in that verse rather than "tongues".