Bible Study - Catholic Bibles

In this chapter, I am presenting a few Catholic Bibles that are available on the market. There are many others but I am limiting myself to the ones I can comment on, the ones I use for my own study. Hopefully, my short reviews of the various Catholic Bibles will help you to make your own choice(s). At the end of the day, what is most important is that you study the Word of God following the guidance of the Church, rather than argueing all day which Bible is the best.

I am going to write a very short review for each of the Bible presented on this page. You are invited to click on the Bible images to read further comments on each of them.

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1. The Douay-Rheims Bible is the English translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible that was used in the Catholic Church for over 1500 years. The fact that the translators of the Douay-Rheims Bible stayed faithful to the Latin Vulgate, the Bible that has passed the test of time, is a good sign. I will give a few examples in my more detailed review on this Bible. The Douay-Rheims Bible is a literal translation combined with the old English used 400 years so it is much more difficult to read. Once again, in order to read my further review on each Bible, please click on the corresponding Bible icon.

2. The Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSV-CE) is the RSV Bible edited by a team of Catholic scholars. The RSV-CE is neither a literal translation nor a dynamic one. This translation is considered to be somewhere half way between the literal and the dynamic translations. This Bible improves readability without getting too much on the dynamic side. If you plan to buy the RSV-CE Bible, I would recommend the Second Catholic Edition published by Ignatius, also called the Ignatius Bible. The second edition features a nicer printing font; a better spacing between lines and between words; a warm tone paper; and an overall new presentation with titles and sub-titles. All these new features contribute to a very agreeable and less tiring reading compared to the first edition.

3. The Haydock Bible, third on the above list of images, is actually a Douay-Rheims Bible to which Father George Leo Haydock has richly complemented with finely selected commentaries and writings of the Early Church Fathers, of the Doctors of the Church and of the Saints. This Bible is presented in hardcover version and is available but is difficult to obtain due to its popularity. If you are looking for some Bible commentaries, you can't go wrong with this Bible.

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4. The New American Bible is the first Catholic Bible that I bought for my study. The copy that I have is called the Catholic Study Bible. The New American Bible is in the category of dynamic translation. It includes a Reading Guide of almost 600 pages. The text of the Holy Scripture has references that tell you which paragraphs of the Reading Guide to read for further explanation of the text. This Catholic Study Bible is handy because you have the New American Bible and the Reading Guide in one volume. However, the footnotes of the New American Bible are very problematic. If you would like to know why some of the footnotes are questionable, I have extracted some of them so you can read for yourself. Please click on the above green icon for further details. I think that the New American Bible is fine for Bible reading (ignore the footnotes ;-). For Bible study, due to these problematic footnotes, I'd rather have a Bible and footnotes/commentaries that are faithful to the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church.

5. La Bible de Jérusalem presented here is the French version of the Jerusalem Bible. It's a good idea to have a good Catholic Bible in a foreign language of your choice. Like any other language, the English language is rich in vocabulary for some domains, but lacks words in other areas. Sometimes, other languages have words that better describe something, as shown in the more detail description of this French Jerusalem Bible. As usual, please click on the Jerusalem Bible icon above for more details.

6. The Navarre Bible is described in detail in a separate chapter. Please use the menu on your left to access to the chapter on the Navarre Bible. It is shown here to remind readers that the Navarre Bible is part of the many beautiful Catholic Bibles.

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7. The New Catholic Answer Bible is another Catholic Bible using the New American Bible text. All comments that I wrote for the Catholic Study Bible above apply for this Bible too, it's the same translation. However, this New Catholic Answer Bible differs from other New American Bible by its inserts. These inserts were written by Paul Thigpen, the editor of The Catholic Answer Magazine, and by Dave Armstrong, a former Protestant campus missionary, who converted to the Catholic faith. Through these excellent 88 inserts, the authors use the Holy Scripture answer to common questions raised against the Catholic Church, such as: Why do Catholics call priests "Father"? Why do Catholic baptize children? etc.

8. The remaining books presented above and below (items number 08 to 12) are a few samples of the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. This Catholic Study Bible is presented in the form of books of about 100 pages each. A separate book is dedicated for each book of the New Testament, and features excellent and concise commentaries, notes and study questions. The text of this Study Bible is from the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition. If you prefer shorter commentaries than the Navarre Bible Series, this Ignatius Catholic Study Bible is definitively a good alternative.

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