The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard edition

I've been using this edition of the NJB as my primary Bible for the last several years now. I've read it cover to cover twice, have now worn the cover off, and have been using it for Bible studies. I had heard it recommended by a friend, and wanted to be able to read the apocryphal books, and overall I have been happy with it and will probably buy another soon since mine is badly beaten up now.

The translation work overall is very good and about as readable as any other decent translation. What I have especially appreciated is the use of "Yahweh" as a direct transliteration in the Old Testament. As a reviewer elsewhere pointed out, it is silly to take a passage like Psalm 83:16-18 which refers explicitly to God's "name", and then translate it as "LORD", which is a title rather than a name.

I have one major and two minor problems with this translation though. The major problem is the apparent love of critical reconstruction in some of the Old Testament books. One example is I Kings chapters 4 and 5. The text chops them up and rearranges them, apparently following the Septuagint (though the Septuagint is not explicitly mentioned in this edition). While it is possible that this ordering is more sensible, it makes it impossible to use this Bible in this section in a Bible study setting with people with other translations. It is also extremely distracting in its own right to see verses all out of order. Fortunately there are not too many of these sections.

The minor problems are occasional strange word choices ("manjack"?!) or speculative translations here or there, and also the use of archaic second person address in the Psalms (thee and thou). I suppose for the latter there is some sort of case to be made that these terms connote respectfulness, but I still find it distracting. We don't use these terms as terms of respect in any situation I am aware of in English, so it seems like a weak case.

That being said, I still enjoy this Bible and imagine that I will continue to own it and consult it for many years to come. I also hope that future English translations will follow the NJB's lead in including the name of Yahweh consistently in the Old Testament.

The Seller was prompt and exacting in the delivering and description. Thank you, the Bible is all that you said it would be--------

This Bible is popularly known as the best translation but the hardest to find in stores. I finally found it on Amazon, for a good price.It's a birthday gift. I will know exactly how good it truly is when the person who reads it raves about its immaculate interpretation of the Scriptures next to my ear.

I bought this bible through the mail but I wish I had gone to the bible book store and did a little more research by reading it a little more thoroughly. I feel that I've wasted my money because of what I feel are errors in translation.

Example 1: Gen 1-2 "And the earth was formless and void..." The word "was" is also translated as "became". I find that the word `became' is very important because it hints of Satan as destroying God's creation. This leads God to creating man in His image and likeness. Creating man in His image and likeness is a spiritual mater and not a physical one, and God has now given man the spiritual power and ability to rule all of His creation and to keep it in line - which means Satan too. We know from archaeology that man has been around much longer than Adam, but man never had the ability to rule all of God's creation up until the time that Adam was made. Psalm 8 backs up this claim that man was made in order to rule all of God's creation - in a sense God made man to be His manager and to subdue it.

The NJB it doesn't even give a reference for the word "was".

Example 2:
NJB Gen: 1-2 ....there was darkness over the deep, with a `divine wind' sweeping over the waters.
NASB Gen: 1-2 ...and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

If you look up the meaning of the word deep it doesn't imply the same thing as the Spirit of God moving over the surface of the waters. They are two different things. The deep is classified as the pit, not necessarily deep waters, but could imply the bowels of Hell, which leads God to the wonderful act of separating light from darkness, or Himself from Satan - forever. The light was good, and God separated it from the darkness.

When the NJB calls the Spirit of God a `divine wind', without any capitalization, it can only lead to misinterpreting of what God was doing. It actually is correct that it is a wind, but it leads to misinterpretation of what God was actually doing in this instance, and that it was His Spirit that was over the surface of the waters not just a `wind'.

A study of archaeology also reveals that the earth has gone through not one, but a couple of total disasters that wiped out everything on the planet - not including the flood. So I find that these couple of versus are very important, but the NJB in interpreting these and many other versus, leads one down a different path. If I use this bible I've got a feeling that I'll be spending more time trying to find the actual meaning of words and being disappointed in their interpretation.

The current bible that I use is the NASB - Key Word Bible Study published by AMG. I like this version, but am still looking for a more in-depth bible. Having found these discrepancies and others right away with the NJB, I wish I'd saved my money and spent it elsewhere on a good lexicon.

I bought this translation hoping it would be like the Jeruasalem Bible. While it is poetic I find it almost unuseable because of the inclusive language. I'm getting rid of this translation in favor of St Ignatius RSV 2nd Edition.