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?
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.
ReplyDeleteMr. 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.
ReplyDeleteYes, 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!
ReplyDeleteI 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.
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