On Reading the Scriptures

Extract

It is two years since the attention of readers of the Life of the Spirit was first drawn to the Jerusalem Bible—the new French translation of the scriptures, with an introduction and notes to each book, brought out in a series of beautifully printed fascicules by Les Editions du Cerf. Seven of these fascicules appeared in 1949 containing various books of the Old and New Testaments, five more in 1950, and a further eight in 1951 giving us Leviticus, Tobias, Proverbs, Wisdom, Isaias, Jonas, Matthew, I and II Timothy, and Titus. At this rate the series will soon be complete.

The more I see of this splendid and monumental work the more I hope to see it one day available in English for those who have no facility for French. Monumental seems to be the right word here. Not only is the work under the able direction of the École Biblique of Jerusalem (and the learned Dominicans there have allowed fifty years of preparatory research to precede the venturing on such a task as this), but those responsible for the undertaking have show a fine sense of scholarship by inviting from all sides the collaboration of biblical and literary experts, priests and laymen.