Bible Study - The Navarre Bible

The Navarre Bible is the main Bible with commentaries that I use for my personal study. My decision to use the Navarre Bible is based on my personal experience with trying many other Catholic Bibles and commentaries. Although, most of other Catholic Bibles and commentaries range from good to excellent, the Navarre Bible was the only one that fits my personal needs. Please refer to chapter Choosing a Bible to read some of my considerations in selecting a Bible.

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The version that I am presenting here is the Standard Edition, with 7 volumes for the Old Testament and 12 volumes for the New Testament. I prefer the Standard Edition because I want all the commentaries I can get ;-). The Navarre Bible is also available in Compact Edition where the commentaries are shorter.

The Navarre Bible series use the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSV-CE) for its biblical texts. The RSV-CE is also quoted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Please refer to chapter Catholic Bibles for more information on the RSV-CE. Every volume of the Navarre Bible series features the corresponding sacred text from the Latin Vulgate. I don't know Latin enough to make use of the Latin text, but there are a lot people out there who will be very happy with the parallel Latin translation in the Navarre Bible. That being said, one needs not be fluent in Latin to understand "gratia plena" in Luke 1:28; more detail on this, please see section on the Douay Rheims Bible.

The size of the Navarre Bible series is handy. Most volumes are about 6 inches wide (15 cm) and 8.5 inches tall (22 cm). Each of the twelve New Testament volumes has between 160 and 300 pages. Regarding the seven Old Testament volumes, the "Major Prophets" volume tops the list with 896 pages; and the "Minor Prophets" has 362 pages

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Besides the thorough introductions for each of the 73 books of the Bible, the Navarre Bible series features the Essays on Biblical Subjects where the most common and important questions about the Bible are answered. These essays are located in several different volumes of the New Testament. If I may, I would suggest to new readers of the Navarre Bible to start reading these essays before starting their study of the Holy Scripture with the Navarre Bible commentaries. The essays give so much information about the origin, the history, the chronology ... of the Bible that are important to prepare readers to be in good disposition to approach the Word of God.

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I am listing below all the questions/topics related to Bible study addressed by the essays, in different volumes of the Navarre Bible series. Through the list of topics related to the Bible presented below, there is a good chance that you find aspects of the Bible that you haven't thought about before. Volume "St Mark" covers more questions than any other volume:

St Mark: General Introduction to the Bible - What is the Bible? - Divine Revelation - The divine inspiration of the Bible - The message of the Bible - The books which make up the Bible - Conservation of the sacred books - Interpretation of the Bible - Truthfulness in inerrancy of the Bible - Christian reading of the Bible	St Mark: Introduction to the Books of the New Testament - What is the New Testament? - The books of the New Testament - The great respect due to the New Testament - Doctrinal content of the New Testament - When were the books of the New Testament written?
St Mark: Introduction to the Holy Gospels - What are the Gospels? - The content of the Gospels - Who wrote the Gospels - When were the Gospels written? - How were the Gospels written? - The Synoptic Gospels - The Gospels are true history	St Mark: The Dates of the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ - Year of birth - The beginning of his public ministry - The duration of his public ministry - The date of Jesus' death - Table of dates in the life of Jesus Christ
St Mark: Dispositions for Reading the Gospel

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Corinthians: Divine Inspiration of the Bible - Divine revelation and its transmission - It is a truth of faith that the Bible is inspired - Biblical inspiration - The entire Bible is inspired	Acts of the Apostles: The History of the New Testament - The inspired text of the Bible and the manuscript sources - Papyri and codexes - Textual variaations and rules of textual criticism - The main critical editions of the Greek New Testament
Thessalonians: The Truth of Sacred Scripture - General - Biblical inerrancy and the natural sciences - The reliability of the Bible in matters of history - Moral truths contained in the Bible - Bible teaching on the nature of man - Biblical teaching concerning God	Captivity Epistles: The Canon of Scripture - The notion of canon - Criteria used by the Church to establish canonicity - The history of the biblical canon

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Catholic Epistles: Rules for Biblical Interpretation - The special nature of Sacred Scripture - Two kinds of principles for biblical interpretation - General principles of interpretation - Specific principles of biblical hermeneutics	Hebrews: Interpretation of Sacred Scripture and its various Kinds of Meaning - The literal sense - Beyond the literal sense - The plenary sense - The typological sense: biblical "types" - The Holy Spirit and reading the Bible - Tradition, the Magisterium and interpretation of the Bible
St Luke: Index to the Four Gospels	Revelation: Index to the New Testament

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By reading 5 to 10 pages everyday, it took me a little bit over a year to read the twelve volumes of the New Testament. Needless to say, every time I open the Navarre Bible, it is a pleasure and I certainly do not want to rush through it. The commentaries are well explained and provide a lot of information to show how events of the New Testament were prefigured in the Old Testament. Reading the Navarre Bible commentaries is like having faithful Catholic experts and scholars sitting next to me to shed light on Holy Scripture.

At the beginning, I was quite reluctant to spend too much money on the Navarre Bible series. The price tag of all 19 volumes is not cheap. However, after reading the 12 volumes of the New Testament, I realized that I have learned so many priceless insights into the Holy Scripture, I then ordered the remaining 7 volumes of the Old Testament. The Navarre Bible commentaries are worth every penny I spent. They are way cheaper than all my music CDs and DVD movies put together ... and certainly much more useful ;-)

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