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Would not that be a great project for the brethren of the Orthodox Communion and the Eastern Catholic Churches.
A joint adventure in producing a good current commentary from and Eastern perspective and of course some notes from the Fathers of the West.
God hasten the day and grant us the MONEY for such a project.
Stephanos I

I was just looking on alibris and half.com and found that there is a CD-ROM version available of Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Has anyone ever purchased one of these? Copied to one's hard drive, this would seem to be an excellent tool. At $360, it's certainly a big bite to swallow financially. But for those of us whose shelf space is fast disappearing (and whose desk chairs get more use than any other furniture in the house), it might be a worthwhile investment.

Sophia,

A couple of questions would come to mind with that idea. First is how much disk space would be required for that little gem to be there on your hard drive? The next like some bible software I have, is that it is copy protected or needs a special installation, my concern that activating it from a copied program (uninstalled) on the hard drive might cause some problems. Many times they require a verification online from the original CD along with an install code that does not always transfer on a copy.

The price is not bad for something like that, I would just be concerned about possibly having it used improperly on the computer and then having to pay much more getting the problem solved.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Lance:

And the reason is that the US bishops have poured so much money into their NAB. And the reason they object so strongly to having the feminist language excised is because the bishops involved with it are strongly committed to the feminist agenda.

So . . .

BOB

Thanks for your comments, Fr. Anthony. I haven't gotten much into copying anything from CDs to my hard drive so I'm really not up technically on these issues.

It is really too bad, because the inclusive language is not the only problome- it is a rather inelegant translation as well. We are saddled with a pretty mediocre translation in the U.S...

My understanding from Liturgiam Authenticam was that the Nova Vulgata was to be consulted for translation issues regarding the use of the sacred and divine Scriptures in the liturgy (namely, the Holy Mass of the Roman Church). Also, I recall reading from one Vatican official -- but, I don't remember who or where -- that the NV could also be used for the purposes of versification. Well, . . . that seemed to make the NV pretty useless in my opinion.

From my read of His Holiness John Paul II's promulgation of the NV in Scripturarum Thesaurus, it was almost like the Vatican decided to put out the work as a sort of hommage to Pope Paul VI, who began the work, but died before its completion.

Looking at the NV itself, I find it to be an odd bird. Take, for example, the titles to the Pauline literature: All the letters are consistently entitled, "The Letter of St. Paul the Apostle to (So-and-So)" -- even for letters, like Ephesians, that biblical scholars are pretty much agreed were most likely not written by Paul himself. Yet, for other books the titles are curiously ambiguous: "First Letter of Peter" (St. Peter?); "Gospel according to Matthew" (Matthew the Apostle?). Hmm.

The overall goal of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, in its role of support for the Roman Pontiff, is to have a good, recently tweaked, version of the Bible (NV) and the other liturgical texts, IN LATIN, to serve as the nucleus of the Latin Rite Liturgy.

This nucleus would then be used to "plumb-line" all vernacular texts of the Liturgy. As a silly example, if in 50 years the French claimed that their text said one thing, and the Australians said theirs indicated another, then the Vatican would be in a position to indicate which of the two were closer to the Latin text. Where the original languages or texts following "variant traditions" (a technical term for Biblical scholars), the one used in the Nova Vulgata would be the one used for purposes of the liturgy.

The Vatican also has a particular interest in the English vernacular translation because of the international stature of English itself. For example, the Japanese, in making their vernacular translation, try to "true it up" with the official English version, because their Japanese dictionaries are aware of English, but not of Latin generally-speaking. So, take a word like "chalice". What is desired is a Japanese word that is close to the meaning of "chalice". Rather than creating a new Japanese dictionary relating to Latin, Greek or Hebrew, they see what range of meaning the word has in English. So, a "reasonably close to the literal meaning" version in English is necessary so that other languages which relate to the Western vocabulary-set via English, can have ready access to the meanings of these words.

This effort by the Vatican has nothing whatsoever to do with a judgment as to the best way to translate the Bible for other purposes. To use an analogy with software development, they are seeking to establish a standard interface for liturgical purposes which can be used by all for "truing up" liturgical texts now and in the future.

There are those in the hierarchy, including the "bishop from Pennsylvania" mentioned by some, who have a completely different project in mind for the Church. Rather than seeing a good, solid set of liturgical texts promulgated for use over the next several centuries, and then using that to worship God, their project for translations envisions frequent changes to the texts, and dumbing them down as much as possible, so that even recent immigrants who have hardly a word of English would be able to understand the texts. I have even read a piece written over the last year by the above bishop, using this example.

So for these guys, "translation" is never done; and the liturgy is always in a state of flux, and the chief goal is to impart information to the congregation. That provides employment opportunities for many sorts of people to serve as consultants for the Bible, for hymns, for music, you name it, and all of these folks, along with a sub-set of the bishops like Mr. PA above, have been scathing in their contempt and ridicule of the whole project. On the other hand, an increasing number of bishops, priests and lay-folk are "tuned in" to the goal of the Pope and being vocally supportive of the desires of the Popes, and the efforts of the CDW.

Michael McD,

Pardon my ignorance . . . but, I really have no idea what "true it up/truing up" means. Could you please explain what you mean by this? Thanks.

It means "to bring into alignment", and is used by surveyors, engineers and craftsman, when it is important that a beam or something like that, actually be as perpendicular or horizontal as possible. ("Vertical" means to be aligned with the center of the earth; horizontal means to be aligned at a 90 degree angle to the vertical, etc.)

In the sense in which I use it here, it means that Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI want a "standard" or "typical" edition of all the texts of the Liturgy in Latin, and that they want the vernacular translations to be in a certain alignment (now the analogy with physical/mathematical accuracy breaks down) with the standard or typical Latin texts.

The object in mind is to maintain the Liturgical Tradition(s) of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church.

The commentary in the Orthodox Study Bible is excellent.

Regarding Scripture commentaries one that I like for the New Testament is the Sacra Pagina series. I still haven't settled on one for the Old Testament.