Since the subject
came up earlier today, for the record I prefer the Septuagint version of the Bible for the Old Testament. The
Douay-Rheims Version is praiseworthy in that it is based
in part on the work of St. Jerome. Of course, the DRV is a later "update" of the great saint's immortal Latin Vulgate; other "diuerse tongues" [sic.] were consulted, including Hebrew, and the text was later "compared" with the King James Version (the Old Testament of which is based on the Masoretic Hebrew text -- thank you, Bp. Challoner). Of course, St. Jerome's did not simply translate the LXX, adding ancient Hebrew texts -- but all these would be far more ancient than the Masoretic Text and are probably now lost to history. One can trust that God led St. Jerome, blessed his work, and allowed the Western part of the Church to use his text for centuries. (The Vulgate, his version then various attempts at "correction," was the official Bible of the West from long before the Schism.) The DRV is
as far as I know the most widely available text
at least partly based on his God-blessed work and the Bible our ancient Western Orthodox forebears would have read. Even with various changes, I find prefer the DRV to the KJV when reading the OT. (IMHO, its NT is also A-OK AFAIK. Decipher that alphabet soup ASAP.)
The
Peshitta (Aramaic, which was Our Lord's tongue) is also well worth reading, if one can find a dependable version. For example, there is an odd Hebraic/
Nestorian/
"Luminous" group calling itself an
"Orthodox Church" -- complete with its own
"Patriarch of Jerusalem" -- selling its translation of the
Peshitta (actually, the
"Orthodox Peshitta" -- note the recurrence of a certain term);
caveat emptor, and yet another reason to be wary of
Pseudodox.
For the New Testament, I prefer the King James Version. In its absence, another version based upon the Byzantine Majority Text/Textus Receptus will do, or the DRV, but none have the serendipity of eloquence and cadence found in the KJV.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why so many Byzantines use the
Revised Standard Version, whose Old Testament is based on the Masoretic Hebrew Text mixed with the Dead Sea Scrolls; and its NT is based on the 17th edition of the
Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece/higher-critical text. Its
reading of Isaiah 7:14 states only "a young woman shall conceive," rather than "a virgin shall conceive." Does anyone know how the RSV came to be used in so many Byzantine Orthodox churches?
At any rate, that's what I read. How about you?
