Catholics and the Bible:Update

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MeanAffe said:
Good evening dear fellow Catholics!

I am new here, joined the Forum just yesterday and find this thread a fantastic place to start. Reading Scripture is such a wonderful thing to do, though sadly I’ve missed it out rather often lately. Gladly, the facebook group “Catholic Church” offers daily Mass Readings, so even when I do not have enough time to study thoroughly I can at least enjoy the day’s Readings.

Because I’m German I do not own any English translations (purchasing a Douay-Rheims is a bit of a struggle over here).
Currently, I have two versions of the Einheitsübersetzung (Unity Translation), one being the catechumen’s edition, the other is the 2006 re-edit with an artistically painted hard cover that my parish priest presented me after Confirmation. 🙂 The Unity Translation is the only translation officially approved by the Catholic Church in the German language area. Its language is very solemn, comparable to Martin Luther’s in poetic quality, albeit a bit more in line with common German.
Another translation I have on my shelf is the Gute Nachricht (Good News). My edition is rather large physically and contains some works by German painter Joerg Immendorff. Very beautifully done. The language is very close to everday German, so it is very easy to understand, but not exactly solemn and not suitable for studying. Personally, I do not like the Gute Nachricht because the language is in no way close to how I pray or talk about God.
Then, I own three Luther translations, all of them rather old, from around 1900 or so to the 1930s, which means that they are printed in the Fraktur font (vacationers to Germany may know it from a couple of breweries, restaurants etc.). The Fraktur together with Luther’s phenomenal way of using the language make it a very enjoyable read. Sadly, it isn’t as accurate as the Unity Translation (directly from the original texts) because he only had Greek and Latin texts at his disposal.

I hope I can get hold of a Douay-Rheims to be able to participate in discussing quotes with the community here.

Have a great week and God bless!
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Gosh, now I wish I remembered my high school German better. 😃

That’s great info MA and thanks for joining in.

I completely agree with you about the Good News Bible because it really is designed for the lowest levels of readers. I have one copy of the English version and it’s got great line drawings illustrating the text but I just hardly every use it.

Here’s a link that will take you to an online Douay-Rheims Bible, and then there is also VeritasBible.com. As for getting a copy, Amazon.com will no doubt have them as doesTAN Books so try them. I understand that Baronius Press also has some nice ones you might look into. I hope that helps. 🙂
 
I am a cradle Catholic and have owned several Bibles, catholic and protestant, over the years. Currently my main Bible is the Douay-Rheims. I also have the Ignatius RSV-2CE and the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament. I also have the Faith Database, so I do not anticipate buying any more Bibles ( I wish we had this 40 years ago 😛 ).
 
JM3 said:
I am a cradle Catholic and have owned several Bibles, catholic and protestant, over the years. Currently my main Bible is the Douay-Rheims. I also have the Ignatius RSV-2CE and the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament. I also have the Faith Database, so I do not anticipate buying any more Bibles ( I wish we had this 40 years ago 😛 ).
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Amen to that!
 
I have lots of Bibles. I read several times a week.
Ignatius Study Bible NT 2CE
RSV-2CE
NAB
NAB 1970
Jerusalem Bible
New Jerusalem Bible
GNT with Apo.
Christian Community Bible
Orthodox Study Bible
NLT-Catholic reference edition
NLT-2nd ed
New American Standard Bible
NIV
TNIV
God’s Word translation
 
Lets see, I own 10 Bibles or so (sorry, I’m being lazy and not getting up to go count 😉 ), but most are from before I was Catholic. I have one and a half Catholic Bibles, an NAB, and a NRSV w/ apocrypha (so it has all the books, but they aren’t in the “right” place). Other than that, I have a variety of translations, NIV, The Message, NASB, a Spanish one. I don’t use the non-Catholic ones anymore really, but keep them for sentimental reasons.

As for how often I read the Bible, it depends on the definition as well as when you ask me. I pray morning and evening prayer from the LOTH and have for just over three years. So that is all stuff from the Bible, but not in an actual Bible.

I have gone in spurts on how much I read the actual Bible. Sometimes I’m really go and do it almost every day, then others I lag off and don’t. :rolleyes: During lent this year my goal has been to read it every day and hopefully that habit will stick. I have also realized that a large portion of my knowledge has come from before I was Catholic. A lot is fairly similar (I was United Methodist and they tend to be pretty middle of the road), but I know very little about the “extra” books, so I’m working my way through all of them as they are the only parts I haven’t read. 😃
 
KarenElissa said:
Lets see, I own 10 Bibles or so (sorry, I’m being lazy and not getting up to go count 😉 ), but most are from before I was Catholic. I have one and a half Catholic Bibles, an NAB, and a NRSV w/ apocrypha (so it has all the books, but they aren’t in the “right” place). Other than that, I have a variety of translations, NIV, The Message, NASB, a Spanish one. I don’t use the non-Catholic ones anymore really, but keep them for sentimental reasons.

As for how often I read the Bible, it depends on the definition as well as when you ask me. I pray morning and evening prayer from the LOTH and have for just over three years. So that is all stuff from the Bible, but not in an actual Bible.

I have gone in spurts on how much I read the actual Bible. Sometimes I’m really go and do it almost every day, then others I lag off and don’t. :rolleyes: During lent this year my goal has been to read it every day and hopefully that habit will stick. I have also realized that a large portion of my knowledge has come from before I was Catholic. A lot is fairly similar (I was United Methodist and they tend to be pretty middle of the road), but I know very little about the “extra” books, so I’m working my way through all of them as they are the only parts I haven’t read. 😃
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The Deuterocanonical books get a lot of press and controversy from some folks, but if you’re fairly new to them, here’s some links to info that might help.
 
thank you so much, I do not have much knowledge, intellect, and wisdom but every time before I rest or sleep i always visit and read in our religion forums because I like and I wanted to understand and learn more about the holy bible, and I have so many bible versions, like for example: Jerusalem, Holy Community, NAB, KJV, Christian Community but their is one thing that i do not understand about KJV because my bible version of KJV is different it is named King James Version With Concordance what does this mean?, and right now I’ m just waiting for my Douay rheims to arrive

Thank you very much to all
 
A concordance is nothing more than a simple reference tool usually located in the back that gives a list of verses where different words appear. Yours will be fairly limited. There are others that are more extensive, (like Strong’s Exhaustive) that come in single volumes without the Bible attached.

IIRC I read where a new Catholic concordance just recently came out.
 
Post 8 asks the question, why don’t Catholics take their Bible to church? This was from a Protestant woman who is married to a Catholic man.

If she ever attended a Mass, she would have the answer.

Churches around here don’t even have missalettes – cost I suppose. And, they use church hymnals which stay in the pews. It’s really not the best way to absorb scripture - to just listen to it. Sure, it’s the old, old, old original way of doing things.

The Sunday Mass is long enough so that it isn’t a “bible school” where we would take out our Bibles and look up ten scriptures, to meditate on. The Mass is in terms of time units, mostly a liturgical celebration of the Eucharist – created by Jesus Christ.

At best, Catholics might know the general type of scripture that will be used at Mass, from the liturgical season of the year. But, there is generally NO publication ahead of times (I know that it does happen) of the scripture selections to be used even on the next Sunday.

Put all this together, and it’s something like a close encounter of the third kind.

What should it be? Read Verbum Domini by Pope Benedict XVI, his apostolic exhortation on the Bible in the Life of the Church, free for down load from the document library at www.ewtn.com which is this link actually a pdf file at the Vatican website
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini_en.pdf

be advised, the first couple of pages are blank; you need to scroll down to the document

The Pope urges us to read our bible every day, personally and with our families, and to use the Bible in EVERY Church event of any type.
 
Crumpy said:
Post 8 asks the question, why don’t Catholics take their Bible to church? This was from a Protestant woman who is married to a Catholic man.
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Being a convert of many years ago, I was used to carying a Bible to church. When I came into the RCC, I bought a Sunday Missal. I take it with me every Sunday, so it kind of is the same thing.
 
It never hurts and hey, if you show up 30+ minutes in advance you can sit and read your Bible and prepare to take advantage of the plenary indulgence attached to it. 👍
 
I’m enjoying reading this thread. It just goes to show that catholics do indeed read the bible. I mainly read the CTS Bible daily to prepare for Mass, and I also own the following:

Douay-Rhiems
New Jerusalem Bible
NRSV ( For Lectio at Carmelite meetings )
RSV Ignatius Study Bible NT ( well it technically belongs to my wife )
Christian Community Bible ( 1st bought this when I returned home to Rome ).

What I’m missing is the complete RSV CE bible. So many church documents use this edition, and I’m going to make sure that we have a copy at home.
 
Stitch said:
I’m enjoying reading this thread. It just goes to show that catholics do indeed read the bible. I mainly read the CTS Bible daily to prepare for Mass, and I also own the following:

Douay-Rhiems
New Jerusalem Bible
NRSV ( For Lectio at Carmelite meetings )
RSV Ignatius Study Bible NT ( well it technically belongs to my wife )
Christian Community Bible ( 1st bought this when I returned home to Rome ).

What I’m missing is the complete RSV CE bible. So many church documents use this edition, and I’m going to make sure that we have a copy at home.
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I have it and it’s actually very good. Between that and the Douay-Rheims Bible, I consider myself pretty much good to go.👍
 
Church_Militant said:
A concordance is nothing more than a simple reference tool usually located in the back that gives a list of verses where different words appear. Yours will be fairly limited. There are others that are more extensive, (like Strong’s Exhaustive) that come in single volumes without the Bible attached.

IIRC I read where a new Catholic concordance just recently came out.
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Ah… I found it.


Item #: 817 Our Price: $39.95

Amazon also has it and for Kindle as well.
 
@Church Militant: Thank you very much for letting me know and understand the meaning of concordance

@Crumpy : yeah your right, but about myself, I always carry a bible anywhere I go it’s making me more comfortable, but my main bible version is Douay-Rhiems, I always keep it safe because I like that bible version
 
Oops sorry. I didnt realize the poll was for Catholics only. I gotta read the first post before I answer the Poll.
I try to read everyday, probably fall into the 4-7 days a week category.
I do not own many Bibles. I have a few old ones, I have a Good news translation, a KJV translation and RSV.
However, I was able to get a ESV for my Kindle, which I have heard is a pretty good version. So I have been reading that one 🙂

My Bibles pretty much stay at home or wherever my kindle goes. And since they have Bibles in the Pews at my Parish so if I wish to reference I just use one of them.
 
So…

I’m a convert to Catholicism from Methodism. I grew up in a home where my mother read the bible and prayed every day (and encouraged the same) but I’ve always struggled with building in my own time for such.

I chose not to answer the frequency question other than answering “I should read it more”, because the frequency with which I read the bible varies so much (and did long before I became Catholic). I’ve always felt that I should read it more than I do.

Between my husband and I we own… a lot of bibles. Some are holdovers from our pre-Catholic days (I don’t really ever get rid of bibles, although these rarely get used): NIV (study bible), TNIV (New Testament), NRSV (New Oxford Annotated Study Bible). Some are foreign language for my husband (Latin Vulgate, Greek Old and New Testaments). Some are newly acquired since we became Catholic (my favorite version now is RSV): we have an Ignatius Catholic Study Bible (only New Testament available right now… waiting for the OT), the Catholic Scripture Study Bible (also RSV), several Ignatius-published RSV Catholic edition bibles (two small leather-covered ones that we got as gifts during RCIA, one hardcover we bought at least a year before starting RCIA). Perhaps one day I’d like to own another version of a Catholic-edition bible (if it’s a really good one and comes highly recommended) and I would really like to have an Amplified version sometime, but that’s what we own right now.

I can quote chapter and verse quite often (my mother trained me well, and I continue to work on memorizing scripture now that I’m Catholic) and even if I can’t I can usually pick up a bible and find it quickly. I do not, however, usually carry my bible to church since a) the church uses a non-published (to my knowledge) version and b) it would take me far longer (and be more distracting) to find the scripture passages in my bible than it would to find them in the missalette (we have a really nice missalette at church) so I really don’t see the point.

I think I’ve answered all of the questions 😉
 
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