Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Mea Culpa


Apparently I was asleep yesterday morning when I wrote my post. First, the revision of the RSV came out in 1971, not 1970. And the NT of the RSV appeared in 1946, with the whole Bible in 1952 (yes, Richard, I was right about that).

Now to more substantive matters. To anyone who thought I was making a connection between the CEB and the National Council of Churches, my apologies. The relevant line is, “And there appears to be no direct connection between the publishers of the Common English Bible and the Division of Christian Education of the NCC.” To state it more clearly, so that even the possible implication is removed: There is no connection between the CEB and the NCC.

As to the “implicit support of the SBL for the CEB:” as far as I know all the modern versions available in English have been done by translation teams made up entirely, or mostly, of scholars who are members of SBL. In that sense, all of the versions have the implicit support of the SBL, though I doubt the SBL would be interested in trying to stop any of its members from participating in a Bible translation team. What seems interesting to me is the fact that the SBL has devoted a panel discussion to the CEB. I don’t think that has previously been done for a Bible translation, except maybe the NRSV. If any of my readers knows to the contrary, I’ll be happy to stand corrected on that.

As far as the panel goes, this is the situation. I was wrong about the make-up of the panel. The presenting panel (Why We Need a New Bible Translation) includes one member of the CEB editorial team, and four people not associated with the CEB. The respondents, however, are all members of the CEB editorial team. This still seems to me to be an odd arrangement. I assumed that the presenting panel would be making the case for a new translation, while the respondents would be arguing contrary. Too bad I’m not going to SBL this year.

What the CEB does not have at this point is the explicit identification with the SBL (compare the HarperCollins Study Bible). Will it come? Who knows? 

4 comments:

KingofElfland said...

I thought the CEV was the Methodist --and her partners at Cokesbury: PC(USA), CC(DC), TEC, UCC--version of what the SBC did with with the HCSV: they came up with their own version to avoid licensing fees of either the NIV or the NRSV.

Benjamin Shaw said...

Mr. Acton, that appears to be the case on the basis of what is said at the CEB website. One could wish, however, that the description and explanation given there were fuller. A lot has to be read between the lines. If you have other sources of information, I'd love to know. Note that the acronym is CEB (Common English Bible), as opposed to CEV (Contemporary English Version). The latter is a product of the American Bible Society.

Unknown said...

Yes, you ARE right about which testament was published in 1946. As for your other corrections and clarifications, you're either drinking too much coffee or not enough!

KingofElfland said...

I forget where I got the info, but it was actually a couple of years ago. I've been loosely following the CEB website ever since out of curiosity. The original story did introduce it as Cokesbury following the Holman solution for Sunday School material.