How to Pick a Catholic Bible

The Christian book market exploded in the late twentieth-century. As demand increased, so did the available range of products. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the matter of bibles. If you walked into a Catholic bookstore to buy a bible, how would you decided which of the various versions to buy?

Instructions

1. Choose the Vulgate edition if you appreciate the Church's Latin tradition. This was the official Bible of the Catholic Church, written in Latin by St. Jerome. You'd probably have to special order it, as you're unlikely to find it in a bookstore.

2. Note the bridge between two religions in the Douai-Rheims version. This English translation was made from the Vulgate between 1582 and 1610. The language is such that it's the closest thing Catholics have to the Protestant King James translation. Between 1749 and 1777 Richard Challoner made revisions of the Douai-Rheims and those revisions appeared in all future editions. The Douai-Rheims has been hard to find for a few years, but has started appearing in reprints from conservative Catholic presses.

3. Learn the history of Confraternity. This was an American revision of the Challoner-Rheims Bible. The scholars finished the New Testament first and were working on the Old Testament when Pope Pius XII announced that future Bible translations should rely on Greek and Hebrew texts, rather than the Latin Vulgate. As a result of this, the Confraternity project was abandoned and American scholars began working on the New American translation.

4. Study the work of Monsignor Ronald Knox, a British cleric who was commissioned to write a contemporary English translation of the Bible from the Vulgate, but using modern discoveries in the Hebrew and Greek texts. The Knox Bible was approved for use in British churches, though it was not supposed to replace the Douai-Rheims. Copies can still be purchased through online auction sites.

5. Trace the American roots of the Revised Standard Version. At the turn of the twentieth-century, American scholars did their own translation, the American Standard Version, of the Authorized or King James Protestant Bible. Between 1946 and 1977 a revision of the American Standard Version was done, but using Hebrew and Greek texts. This was known as the Revised Standard Version. The Catholic version of the RSV appeared in 1965. Orthodox scholars highly regard this translation.

6. Buy a Bible co-translated by the author of "Lord of the Rings." French scholars did a translation, "La Bible de Jérusalem," from the Hebrew and Greek. The Jerusalem Bible is the English translation of that. One of its contributors was J.R.R. Tolkien.

7. Go modern with the New American edition. This translation has appeared in several editions since 1970. It is the standard version read in masses in the United States. The third of 1991 version, while approved by the American bishops, was frowned upon by Pope John Paul II and the Vatican because of its use of inclusive language.

8. If you're PC, buy the the New Jerusalem bible, which is based on the Hebrew and Greek texts. Unlike the original Jerusalem Bible, it uses politically correct, inclusive language. Outside the United States, this is the most popular Catholic Bible in English.

9. For the scholar, choose the Navarre. This study Bible, featuring both the Vulgate and Revised Standard Version texts and extensive commentaries, is popular with clergy. Students might also enjoy Ignatius. This Revised Standard Version study Bible includes commentaries by Catholic apologist Scott Hahn.