Kleist-Lilly New Testament

The Kleist-Lilly New Testament is a prominent American Catholic rendering of the New Testament, produced in the mid-twentieth century during the pre-Vatican II period and named for its translators, James A. Kleist and Joseph L. Lilly. Its scope is limited to the New Testament, and it works from a critical Greek New Testament as its base text rather than from the Latin Vulgate, reflecting a modern Catholic scholarly translation philosophy that gained ground in Catholic biblical work of the era. It is classed as a fresh translation rather than a revision, setting it apart from the many English Catholic Bibles that descended by successive revision from the Douay-Rheims tradition. Among its distinctive features is a natural, modern style when compared with Douay-derived texts, and it circulated widely among English-speaking Catholic readers in the years before the appearance of later mid-century Catholic versions.