With Vatican Approval, Evangelicals And Catholics Collaborated On A Bible Translation
ROME — India’s leading Catholic publisher has been awarded a papal knighthood in recognition of his groundbreaking efforts in developing Catholic editions of the English Standard Version (ESV) and the New Living Translation (NLT), both American Evangelical translations of the Bible.
The papal ambassador to India, Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, bestowed the Knighthood of the Order of St. Sylvester on Nigel Fernandes, CEO of the Asian Trading Corporation, at the plenary assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India this past Feb. 3 in Bangalore, recognizing his landmark contribution in the field of ecumenical Bible translation.
The Ordo Sancti Silvestri Papae is one of five orders of knighthood awarded directly by the Pope to Catholic laypeople — and occasionally others — for outstanding service to the church, particularly in professional roles and in the arts.
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The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (RSV-CE) was the first mainline Protestant Bible translation to be adapted for Catholic use, with the New Testament published in 1965 and the Old Testament in 1966. And now, the ESV and the NLT are the first evangelical versions in the history of Bible translation to be adapted in a Catholic edition.
“The RSV retained archaic expressions in its language. As English usage evolved, these forms became increasingly distant from contemporary speech and less accessible to modern congregations, creating a genuine need for a biblical translation suitable for lectionary and liturgical use,” Fernandes told Religion Unplugged.
Fernandes’ groundbreaking Catholic Edition of the ESV (ESV-CE), originally published as the ESV by the U.S. evangelical publisher Crossway, has already been adopted by the Catholic Church in India and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales as the official translation for liturgical proclamation in the lectionary, catechesis and teaching.
The ESV-CE includes the seven deuterocanonical books, which Catholics recognize as part of the canon.
Fernandes said he was looking for a translation that would be faithful to the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek manuscripts while being easily understandable to the public.
Underlining the interdenominational merits of the ESV, Fernandes explained how the ESV-CE was the fruit of “deep ecumenical sensitivity” between the Catholic hierarchy and Catholic biblical scholars in India, with the team of evangelical scholars and publishers at Crossway.
The Second Vatican Council in the late 1960’s encouraged everyday Catholics to rediscover the Bible and for Catholics and Protestants to collaborate on future translations. Decades later, this new ESV version is a result of that ongoing commitment. Now, the version is catching on in seminaries and other theological institutes across the world.
The Protestant and Catholic scholars reached an unprecedented consensus on the final draft. A team of eight Indian Catholic biblical scholars examined the text for a year to see if it met the norms of Catholic orthodoxy.
The team asked for minimal and minor changes to adapt the ESV for Catholic use. For example, for the Catholic lectionary, Crossway permitted the ESV-CE to render Luke 1:28 “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” as “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” The evangelical publisher also allowed the Catholic scholars to change the phrase “Overseers and deacons” to “Bishops and deacons” in the lectionary, while retaining the original in the ESV-CE.
Acknowledging that the ESV original and Catholic translations are “so close” and the “Catholic changes mutually agreed upon,” Catholic biblical scholar Dr. Mark Giszczak envisions the “really exciting prospect” that Catholics and Protestants will “be able to read the Bible together, and even pray side by side, with the same Bible translation.”
The team earlier used the same methodology to adopt the NLT after being granted permission by the evangelical publisher Tyndale. Cardinal Oswald Gracias, then-archbishop of Bombay, gave the NLT-CE an official license to print the Bible in April 2015, although it was not approved for liturgical use because it is a paraphrase-style rather than a more literal translation.
“The NLT-CE has found special favor with the laity, prayer groups, and scripture students who want to compare a more literal text, such as the RSV or ESV, with this easy-to-read translation,” Fernandes added.
The ESV version may be able to unite Catholic and Protestants with a common Bible, wrote Peter Wolfgang for the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society, an organization which seeks to promote the Anglican tradition and common identity within the Catholic Church.
Wolfgang said adopting the ESV-CE lectionary “could greatly advance the Ordinariate mission.” Pope Benedict XVI established the Ordinariate in 2009 to enable Anglicans who had joined the Catholic church to continue to worship according to their Anglican heritage.
“Ordinariate members wish to preserve their beautiful English language [heritage] within the Catholic church,” he said. “If, then, we must have a lectionary that uses modern English, it ought to be the best modern translation available: both in its accuracy and in maintaining the beautiful cadences of English scriptural translation that we recognize from the Tyndale-King James Bible tradition. That, of course, is the ESV-CE.”
Jules Gomes has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.