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Originally Posted by Bęthberry
To return this to Tolkien more specifically:
I've seen a scholarly claim that Tolkien is acknowledged in the work done to produce The New Jerusalem Bible. I don't know what the extent of his contributions, if any, were. Does anyone?
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Tolkien did indeed contribute to the Jerusalem Bible (not the New one, but the original one- in English). You'll find his name in the "credits". I would know... I've looked.
However, he considered his contribution quite small. I believe he only worked on the Book of Jonah, which is a mere four chapters long.
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If we can find any of Tolkien's professional articles or opinions I think it might be interesting to explore them. After all, we know how important words were to him and languages. We know how he fulminated against inaccurate or misrepresentative translations of LotR. How did he view work on the translation of the Bible? After all, it was first in Aramaic, no? And then Greek and Latin versions became dominant before translations into the vernacular. Figuring out just which words are inspired is a handful. I know many people who profess a great love for the King James Bible because of its aesthetic or lyrical beauty, but anyone who has read even a little bit about the history of biblical translation knows that compromise and historical/political pressures are part of translation.
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I've never read anywhere what Tolkien's views on Biblical translation were, but I think one can assume that they were fairly similar to his LotR ones, except possibly with regard to the treatment of names. He did, after all, feel that the English names of the Hobbits should remain unchanged in the translations, but I do not see him advocating "Christus" or "Cephas" or "Paulus" for the Biblical "Christ", "Peter", or "Paul".