Hey FYS,
I suggest a couple of good Catholic translations.
One is the
Douay-Rheims Bible, which came out two years before the KJV and is similar in period English (if you like that) and is distinctly Catholic.
The other is
The Revised Standard Version-Catholic Edition. This is a revision of the KJV and is noted for having good notes as well as all of the books. (Both of these do…)
The last one that I would get is
the New American Bible. Though language wise it is comparable to the NIV, depending upon which edition you get the notes have a reputation for being the pitts.
I have all three, and use the first two most all of the time. My NAB just sorta sits there…
Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum.
I used the NAB a lot, of course,like everybody else. Then, I did notice some comments that I thought were controversial, and I was shopping for another version, and came upon the RSV-CE that is mentioned in previous posts. The 2nd Edition has some pretty biased comments, too. Largely, the comments are very sparse, and more than half seem to treat translation issues.
In these forums, there are a lots of threads criticizing each version of the Bible. In one post someplace, I compared eight different versions of some verse, and there was no overwhemingly superior version of that important verse.
Look. The Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraphs 51 to 141 talks about Divine Revelation (scripture). Amongst other things, it says that there are four “senses” of scripture - the literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical. I have yet to find a study bible or a commentary which is based on the 1994 Catechism. THAT is probably what we all want in a study bible.
An ideal study bible would probably have a lot of cross-references and foot-note commentaries, as well as a separate expanded commentary. And these two would be cross-referenced to each other and to the CCC itself, Vatican II, and other modern encyclicals and other writings.
(
Remember, the text is inspired, not the chapter numbers, verse numbers, any headings or subdivided headings, the side-notes and footnotes, and other commentary.)
There’s no existing Catholic Bible that meets all these study criteria. Further, the supplementary commentary should probably be in several versions, for children, older students, adults, and for researchers.
Until then, just get one, preferably a modern language version, and READ IT. I’m reading the RSV-CE 2nd Ed. and the language is very modern. It helps to alleviate the tedium of the detail in many books of the Bible.
I’m sure we all have extreme reverence for the sacred scripture, but there’s one other type of Bible I’d like to see, or a modification in every Bible: I’d like to see less-important parts of the text highlighted,say, in a light grey. These portions could be skipped without missing the main ideas in the writing. If anyone wanted to read the entire text, it would still be right there.
Dr. Scott Hahn’s website for the St. Paul Center for Biblical Study has some books that he has recommended and I have found to be very good for understanding the “spiritual” sense of scripture. “Pathways in Scripture” by Fr. Damasus Wenzen is a handy Catholic commentary on the Bible.
Although it is not Catholic, I find Matthew Henry’s Condensed Commentary on the Bible to be very useful. If you’re in a bookstore and find this volume, find a quiet corner and read his insightful commentary on the first couple chapters of Genesis. He has a lot of deep insights on the psychological aspects of Adam and Eve. This commentary slows you right down to consider each word of the Genesis account. There’s a lot of subtlety in the account of our first parents.
