Westminster Version of the Sacred Scriptures

The Westminster Version of the Sacred Scriptures represents an important British Catholic move toward direct translation from the Greek rather than exclusive dependence on the Latin Vulgate, which had long served as the base text for English Catholic Bibles in the Douay-Rheims tradition. Its scope covers the New Testament, rendered from a critical Greek New Testament, with Old Testament work undertaken later remaining incomplete. Classed as a fresh translation rather than a revision, it follows a formal and scholarly philosophy, aiming at accuracy and close correspondence to the underlying text. A distinctive feature of the project is that it was issued over many years by different scholars, appearing in parts as individual books were completed rather than as a single volume. It stands as a notable stage in the wider twentieth-century shift among Catholic translators toward the original languages, a development later reflected in more widely circulated versions.