A new translation of the Bible is needed for use in the readings at Mass. The bishops’ decision – made without meaningful consultation with scholars, clergy or faithful – to choose a literal translation which lacks inclusive language has sparked fury. But have the critics got it wrong?

In 2006, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor intimated that it was time to begin the process of producing a new lectionary. Although the Revised Standard Version (RSV) is also approved for use in the liturgy, the translation used in almost all parishes since the late 1960s has been the Jerusalem Bible (JB), and there was general agreement that it needed to be replaced.

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) was the first alternative to be considered but finally in 2016 the bishops of England and Wales decided that the new lectionary will use the English Standard Version Catholic Edition (ESV-CE), a tighter, more literal translation of the RSV than the NRSV. Like the RSV and the NRSV, the ESV is in a line of translations going back to the King James Version, and beyond that to William Tyndale.