EOB
EOB
Orrologion offered a link to Orthodox Answers which is an intriguing Q and A website. You'll also notice at that website a link to the "EOB" or Eastern/Greek Orthodox Bible. A related project of which I'd never heard.
They have the New Testament available for download HERE. Notice who the work is offered in honor of on page 7. You can peruse the website and form your own opinions of how it compares/contrasts with the OSB. It looks to me like they have contracted with a "Print on Demand" company to offer soft and hardback versions for purchase.
I will say this much: I LOVE the format. I've never much liked the divided columns of most Bibles. A billion years ago or so I used to have this really cool leather bound pocket NT that had the same full page format and I really really like it. I've no idea whatever happened to it, but it was an NIV so I don't count it too great a loss.
I'm going to invest some more time in checking this out.
Comments
I have noted and passed on to Fr. Laurence a number of typos and grammatical errors I discovered (quickly). He is the editor but not a proofreader. They rely on volunteers for a great deal of their work, so if you or anyone else out there has a Masters in English they aren't getting enough use out of and would like to assist in this effort, please contact Fr. Laurence Cleenewerck at cleenewerck@euclid.int.
Kevin Edgecomb of the very good blog biblicalia is also involved in some way, it looks like.
Of course, I am also highly annoyed by the fact that the Orthodox jurisdictions in the anglophone world can't just get together and prepare a practical, liturgical version of the 'official text' (which can also allow for and note particular variants in the official Slavonic, Romanian, Bulgarian, Arabic, etc. translations, if there are any of real import). It just seems practical, and cheaper than everyone going off half-cocked on their own to produce texts the try to foist on their congregations but usually don't meet anyone's needs (like the OSB, unfortunately, which is really just an extended length evangelism tract for Evangelical Protestants).
The EOB is definitely a project with a better methodology than the OSB, which in many cases simply took the NKJV and only altered it slightly in the OT (and not everywhere it needed, at that), and used the NKJV wholesale in the NT. The EOB reads very well, too, I've thought.
Hopefully down the line everyone can get together and organize a proper English text, as Chris describes. The EOB can contribute toward that, but it's not intended as a liturgical text, rather as a faithful translation of the full text of the Bible for Orthodox Christians.
I'm always one for the most practical cobbling together of the best bits from wherever they may be, rather than piecemeal or individualistic (idiosyncratic) recreations starting from scratch - no need to reinvent the wheel and come up with a King Iakavos Version of the Bible like the Buena Vista convent did.
But for now, I'd say you're right, Chris. The NETS along with the EOB NT are the best currently complete presentation of the Orthodox Bible available in English. I don't think that's a stretch at all.
The Buena Vista NT is not bad, though it's a little odd reading at first. The Patristic notes are especially nice. It's all the work of one person, Mother Maria there. For that alone, it should be appreciated as an amazing work. On the KJV front, I'm awaiting the corrected edition of the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible to appear in hardback or leather (the original editions from a few years ago are gigantic; the new ones are supposed to be more of a normal size). The paperback is a delight. This is David Norton's text of the KJV corrected back to what the translators intended, with the spelling/orthography modernized, and it's printed in paragraph format, like a normal book, not the usual double-column deal in Bibles, which James commented on in his post.