Welcome to NRSV Notes!

The purpose of this site is to collect additional footnotes to supplement the reading of the NRSV.  I am working with the Catholic Edition (i.e., including the additional portions of the Catholic canon in Catholic presentation order), Anglicized Text, although contributions based on any edition of the NRSV will probably be relevant.

We will not be duplicating footnotes that appear in the NRSV itself, but rather adding potential insights, e.g. from other translations.  My own contributions will be from comparison with the NAB, the RSV-SCE, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible, the Douay-Rheims and the (Latin) Nova Vulgata.  Comparisons with other translations from Protestant and Orthodox sources are also welcome, as well as insights not purely represented by English word choice.

This project is based on my own conviction that we need more cross-pollination between translations and probably fewer distinctive translations.  The average reader wants to know his options working from a decent base text (none of which will be perfect), and additional notes meet the need.  This project is not attempting to create an approved liturgical text, but rather a supplemented text for "lecto divina" ("divine" or holy/prayerful reading).

So why the NRSV?

• avoidance of this translation based on a critique of "neutered gender" language is unwarranted if we can represent the original in the footnotes, which we can do (and which is already done to a significant degree in the NRSV notes)
• the NRSV does represent better scholarship in some situations than is found in the RSV, from my experience
• the RSV family (from the KJV, and represented by the NRSV and ESV) represents the most prevelant and beloved tradition of English translation
• there is no Catholic edition of the ESV (although there is one now with non-inline Apocrypha)
• the NRSV already includes an unusually large number of translation notes
• there are many excellent formatting and binding options for the NRSV
• the Gospel adjures "scribes of the Kingdom" to bring forth out of their treasure "what is old, and what is new", and we more often set up the false dichotomy of "conservative" or "traditionalist" versus "liberal" or "innovator"; the NRSV leans towards "what is new" and therefore interacts relevantly with culture, but this does not seem to erect a barrier to supplementing with "what is old"

Rather than removing insights with which we disagree, they will be annotated as questionable.  I would ask that this only be done when a word choice or other insight is considered to be impossible or outright damaging to the original.  Our effort is to expose the credible intentions of the original authors, so critiques or fanciful reinterpretations of their actual message are not welcome.  I will say that this effort is directed primarily towards Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant readers who follow the historic decisions of the "undivided Church" at least until Nicea and truly believe these core theological and christological doctrines dogmatically, although other input is welcome so long as it is not designed to outrage "the tradition."  For example, we are not looking for a footnote that says Jesus was "a god" in the beginning of John's Gospel.

Footnotes should not be interpretive in nature unless the information is thought to be relatively non-controversial.  If a controversial interpretive footnote is added anyway, please at least indicate the interpretive tradition from which is springs.  I am hoping to keep interpretive footnotes to a minimum.

My hope is to eventually support the periodic publication of booklets that can be carried along with printed editions of the NRSV for ready reference!  Please also note that this wiki can be accessed in an optimized format from devices such as the iPhone and Blackberry.

If it turns out that I am the only contributor, then my hope is that God blesses you through my own efforts to understand His written Word.

Go ahead and get started reading or request access to edit!

-John Muehlhausen