Bible Shopping?

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Timonator348

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I like reading a lot of different Bible versions to contrast and compare. It bothers me that when looking to buy a Bible I have to go to Catholic bookstore or online just to get a complete (73 booked) Bible. Wal-Mart and other retailers all have multiple versions of the Bible but all lacking 7 books. It seems to me these retailers should at least provide the option of a Catholic Bible otherwise how will the complete Bible reach more eager Bible readers. Can anyone explain why they do not?
 
I think this is regional, though I could be wrong. When I was in Louisiana there were Catholic books, including bibles, all over the place. In northern Virginia, you would never find a bible in Walmart but you would in bookstores. Here in Tennessee, you will find protestant bibles in Walmart but have to go to a bookstore to find anything Catholic. Even the local Christian bookstore where I live in TN, does not carry anything related to the Catholic Church.

I do 99% of my book buying on Amazon anyways so it doesn’t matter to me all that much.
 
Timonator348 said:
I like reading a lot of different Bible versions to contrast and compare. It bothers me that when looking to buy a Bible I have to go to Catholic bookstore or online just to get a complete (73 booked) Bible. Wal-Mart and other retailers all have multiple versions of the Bible but all lacking 7 books. It seems to me these retailers should at least provide the option of a Catholic Bible otherwise how will the complete Bible reach more eager Bible readers. Can anyone explain why they do not?
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Actually believe it or not I bought a Catholic Good News Translation (parallel bilingual Bible) with all 73 books at WalMart about 4 years ago here in So.Cal. Well since I used to work for a publisher a few years back, one reason could be is the publisher simply does not conduct enough business or any business with specific retailers. I remember many customers would call our offices all upset why a specific book/magazine was being sold in the supermarket/Barnes & Nobles while they still had to wait for it? Because large books stores and retailers buy in large volumes and also because it is all business and contract related. Anyway just my 2 pennies.
 
The New American Bible is the only real Bible. That is exactly how Jesus would have wanted it. 😃

No, in all seriousness, it’s a great thing that you are doing comparative Bible study!!! Kudos to you!!!
 
Well, this is conjecture on my part, but I suspect the reasons behind this is the problem with getting good Catholic Bible materials in general. Most Catholic book and Bible publishers are small operations and don’t have the resources to commit to producing and promoting their products as do the gimongous Protestant publishing houses. The bigger the house, the more you are able to market yourself and offer large bulk discounting that appeals to huge retailers like Walmart.

Some of it also may be supply and demand. There’s no denying that most-- I emphasize most, as in your average pew-sitter Catholic- are simply not as interested or motivated as your average practicing Protestant to read or study their Bibles, or actively seek out and demand good Catholic Bibles and Scripture study materials. Stores aren’t going to stock items that have a history of not moving.

There are some good Catholic publishing houses that are doing their best to produce and promote good quality products. More Catholics than in previous years are becoming more familiar with the Scriptures. But it is still an uphill battle against laziness, presumption, complacency and ignorance.

How to remedy this? Be part of the solution.
 
Guess it depends on how many catholics there are in the area that can actually tell a catholic from a non-catholic bible to buy one or the people in the store who order the type of books are protestant since Protestants have rejected the Deutero-Canonical books because they don’t agree with their theology they wouldn’t want people reading them so they just don’t order them.
 
Me1234 said:
Guess it depends on how many catholics there are in the area that can actually tell a catholic from a non-catholic bible to buy one or the people in the store who order the type of books are protestant since Protestants have rejected the Deutero-Canonical books because they don’t agree with their theology they wouldn’t want people reading them so they just don’t order them.
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That reminds of when, several years ago, I went into a large-chain Protestant bookstore here in Arizona and asked if they carried the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition. The woman behind the counter *literally *sneered (did the whole snarky voice and sneery mouth-thing and everything) and said, “Why? Is that the one Mother Angelica told you you had to buy?”
 
Here in the Atlanta suburbse, one of the regional chain book stores near me has a mile long shelf full of Protestant Bibles, a giant “Christian Inspiration” section and a ton of non-Catholic devotionals but a tiny section labled “Catholic Bibles” with a few wedding and confirmation gift type Bibles.

The same store has a large section of “Religion and Church History” in the very next aisle and it is all Catholic… Fulton Sheen, Bl. John Paul II, Scott Hahn, Aquainas, Augustine, St. Joe missals, St. John of the Cross, Bl. Mother Theresa, Mother Angelica, Kempis, Chesterton, etc.

All things considered, I think the store inventory is a fair representation what the strongly Evangelical Protestant/Baptist population purchases vs what the growing Catholic community purchases here in the deep south. The Catholic section is full of Carmelite spirituality, Doctors of the Church, Church history and modern theology and apolgetics. The Protestant section is full of Bibles, devotionals, Nascar Bible covers, novels and TD Jakes/Joel Osteen self-help prosperity material.

-Tim-
 
Fidelis said:
That reminds of when, several years ago, I went into a large-chain Protestant bookstore here in Arizona and asked if they carried the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition. The woman behind the counter *literally *sneered (did the whole snarky voice and sneery mouth-thing and everything) and said, “Why? Is that the one Mother Angelica told you you had to buy?”
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Now see, I would’vd lit up like a candle, gushing and cooing saying, “You listen to her too?? Isn’t she wonderful?”
 
Timonator348 said:
I like reading a lot of different Bible versions to contrast and compare. It bothers me that when looking to buy a Bible I have to go to Catholic bookstore or online just to get a complete (73 booked) Bible. Wal-Mart and other retailers all have multiple versions of the Bible but all lacking 7 books. It seems to me these retailers should at least provide the option of a Catholic Bible otherwise how will the complete Bible reach more eager Bible readers. Can anyone explain why they do not?
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this might be an addendum but my son graduated from high school this spring and everyone in his class was given a Bible. Now I have 2 or 3 Bibles at home already but hey, I wouldn’t mind having one for every room. 👍

but I was disappointed that they were lacking 7 books. Isn’t it easier to give someone all the books and let those that want to skip books just not read them and let those that do read them have them?

Also got upset when I bought adhesive tabs for my bible only to find out they didn’t have the missing 7 books. Last time I buy anything from that ‘Christian’ book store.
 
Fidelis said:
That reminds of when, several years ago, I went into a large-chain Protestant bookstore here in Arizona and asked if they carried the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition. The woman behind the counter *literally *sneered (did the whole snarky voice and sneery mouth-thing and everything) and said, “Why? Is that the one Mother Angelica told you you had to buy?”
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I went into a local Christian book/gift store one afternoon and was wandering around looking at bibles in general, then I finally drifted over into the very small ‘Catholic section’ that was in the back. A sales woman that had seen me in the Protestant bible section earlier, saw me pickup a Catholic bible and walked over to me and said, "Oooh! That is a Catholic bible!!! :eek: (as if to warn me that I had strayed by accident into the wrong section). I answered, "yes it is, I’m Catholic (hissssss!). Ok, I didn’t hiss, but I felt like doing it for effect. 🙂
 
^^ lol! Funny, funny…

Here in Michigan, none of the wal-marts or dollar stores have any catholic bibles…

A book store 20 miles from me (nearest one) had quite a few Catholic Bibles and study guides, but only one copy of the generic red paperback NAB I was looking for… (Don’t ask me why I was looking for an NAB… I guess I was just starting out on my journey and didn’t know better 😛 lol jk)…Not to mention that copy had a folded page binding error…

In a Barnes and Noble I went to in our capital city, there was only one lonely copy of the NAB sitting on the shelf… And its cover was bent 😛 … I bought it anyway cuz I figured I’d have it all tore up within a couple months from use 😃 lol… I was right… Today is four months later and it pretty much broke right thru the Book of Sirach XP … Nothing a little tape can’t fix 😉
 
vsedriver said:
this might be an addendum but my son graduated from high school this spring and everyone in his class was given a Bible. Now I have 2 or 3 Bibles at home already but hey, I wouldn’t mind having one for every room. 👍

but I was disappointed that they were lacking 7 books. Isn’t it easier to give someone all the books and let those that want to skip books just not read them and let those that do read them have them?

Also got upset when I bought adhesive tabs for my bible only to find out they didn’t have the missing 7 books. Last time I buy anything from that ‘Christian’ book store.
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…You know we really should only use bibles that have been approved by a the church. Unless they’ve been given a *Nihil obstat * and an Imprimatur you could be reading a translation that is probably ‘thought-for-thought’ according to are Protestant interpretator/translator believes it’s saying when it isn’t. They can think the Bible is trying to say some really wrong things and just put 'em in the translation so people don’t ‘get thrown off’ from “the correct meaning” which their denomination believes. Unless they are all super literal word-for-word translations with no notes those bibles are probably too dangerous to read.

I don’t know of a single bible that has been approved for catholic use that doesn’t have all of the books including the 7 protestants reject.
 
Here: ewtn.com/expert/answers/bible_versions.htm
is a list of all bibles currently approved for catholic use and a small description of each. You should probably stick to these at least until you know the whole bible really well to tell if there is something in it that is just added on, removed or changed by a well meaning translator. I recommend the Douay-Rheims because it is very very literal if you have already read something that sounds fishy to see what they did compared to what it literally says.
 
Wal-Mart sells Bibles? Not here anyway. So don’t go on complaining ;). I just got a new NAB-RE at Barnes and Noble though. It’s a nice Bible, but like the normal NAB, the footnotes can be questionable. If you want a Bible that gives you Scripture to read everyday (which I like), it’s a good Bible (atleast the one I got). It seems to flow better than the RSV-CE, but that’s just my opinion. So yeah, I’m not that conservative, even though everyone up in Scandihoovia Minnesota thinks so 😃
 
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