Confraternity Bible Explained

The Confraternity Bible is any edition of the Catholic Bible translated under the auspices of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) between 1941 and 1969.

Description

The Confraternity Bible was created to replace the older Douay-Rheims, which was the standard English-language Bible for Catholics at the time. The aim of the Confraternity version was to update the Bible into "intelligible, modern English".[1] The translation was done by members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America, and sponsored by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, which is where the name "Confraternity Bible" originates. Initially, the Bible was simply a modern English translation of the Latin Vulgate, and the New Testament was completed this way and published in 1941.[2]

Publication history

Volumes were released serially by St. Anthony Guild Press in New Jersey as they were completed. Their publishing history is as follows:[3]

Because of the hybrid nature of the various versions of the Confraternity Bible, it has been referred to as the "Douay-Confraternity Bible", referencing the fact that the Old Testament section was made up partly of books from the Challoner-Douay Old Testament and partly from books translated or revised by the CCD Publishers released "Confraternity Bibles" up to 1969, always indicating to what extent they featured Confraternity translations of the Old Testament. They typically included some variation on the following description of the edition's Old Testament contents: "With the New Confraternity of Christian Doctrine Translation of the First Eight Books, the Seven Sapiential Books, and the Eighteen Prophetic Books of the Old Testament. The balance is in the Douay Version."[4]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The Catholic Transcript 15 July 1965 — The Catholic News Archive . 2023-05-08 . thecatholicnewsarchive.org.
  2. Web site: The Confraternity Version (1941). www.bible-researcher.com.
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