Critical notices and appreciative readings

The Holy Bible: Knox Version
Translated by Ronald Knox,
Newly republished by Baronius Press
£39.95 / $54.95

Ronald Knox's translation of the Bible has for too long been a forgotten masterpiece of twentieth-century English Catholicism. It is a last flourishing of that hundred years, the Second Spring, that produced so many great Catholic writers: Newman, Chesterton, Greene, Waugh and many others.

For unlike in our own day when translations of the Bible abound to suit every taste and style, in Knox's time Catholics used the Douay-Rheims version, as Anglicans used the Authorised Version. Despite the enduring importance of the Douay version, there was a long recognised need for a new translation.

The task of producing a modern translation from the Latin Vulgate but with reference to the Greek texts and the Hebrew therefore fell to Knox, who was commissioned by the English bishops in 1936. Having worked on this project for nine years throughout the Second World War, the New Testament was published in 1945 and the Old Testament, though completed and approved by the Diocese of Westminster by 1948, was not published until 1955.

Knox was aiming for a “timeless” English in his translation; to be elegant without being archaic, to be accurate but also natural. In this way it bridges the gap between the classic phraseology of the King James and Douay-Rheims versions and those modern editions which are idiomatic and unpoetic in their rendering of the word of God.

Baronius Press is a London-based publisher which has now amassed an impressive catalogue of Catholic classics. This book has fine leather binding and gilt edges, and the font is a good size. This is not a compact edition but neither is it too bulky. It would make a wonderful gift.