In another thread, I pointed out places where you CAN purchase the original Duoay-Rheims Bible, both as written in the “old english” style, as well as where the original was translated, word for word, into modern english - with NO “guessing” or “dynamic equivalence” translating. I also pointed out the site for The Apostolic Bible, which is a word for word translation of the Septuagint that served as the basis for OT quotes by Jesus as well as the Apostles. Here is the relevant post and discussion:
"1.
realdouayrheims.com/ - the person who produced this version, Dr. William von Peters, spent eleven years preparing the Douay Rheims for modern readers by retyping the entire bible in its entirety, with all thenotes and annotations, into modern English text foreasy reading. He changed nothing nothing in the text, other than to transliterate old english words into modern english. I assure you, even though you would eventually get the hang out of deciphering how the English spelled words 500 years ago, it is VERY tedious to read a bible written in “old english”.
- stores.lulu.com/maximusscriptorius - this site is the “real deal”. You can purchase either hardbound copies, a CD, or download. I opted for the download version and it works perfectly with my Adobe reader on my computer. The text is described as follows:
“This is a download of a digital facsimilie of the complete original Douay Rheims Bible. The New Testament was first printed in 1582 AD and the Old Testament in 1609 AD. The Old Testament edition of this download was printed in 1635 AD. This is not the “Challoner Revision” of the Douay Rheims. This edition contains over 2800 pages of biblical text, notes, and annotations. This pdf is fully readable using Adobe Reader (available free on the internet). The text quality is pretty good, considering the scans were created from a “copy of a copy”. There are a few scattered places where the text is very difficult to read, but the majority of the text is very readable especially the biblical text itself, which is in a larger font than the notes and annotations. One bonus of this download is that it is fully bookmarked. Every chapter of every book is instantly accessible from Adobe’s bookmark system.”
As mentioned above for No. 1, unless you are adept at reading old english, you will tire VERY quickly in trying to get through the text. But, you will be reading the Duoay-Rheims as it was actually printed, without any Challoner, Haydock, Knox revisions, and without even the transliteration into modern English that Dr. von Peters produced for No. 1 above. This is as close to owning an original Duoay-Rheims Bible from the 1500s/1600s as you can get.
- apostolicbible.com/index.htm - I purchased this one because it not only is the best leather bound bible I have ever owned, but the translator actually used the oldest Greek manuscripts available to produce the Septuagint version of the OT, which is what Christ himself and his Apostles quoted approximately 90% of the time while they taught Christian doctrine and tried to convert Jews and Gentiles into Christians. What is amazing about this bible is that the translator did not produce the usual “page parallel page” translation you often find in most polyglot bibles. The translator translated EVERY WORD OF THE ENTIRE BIBLE from the original Greek spoken at the time of Christ and put english wording directly underneath (or above - I have forgotten) each Greek word. In other words, if a verse has 5 Greek words, you will get as close to 5 direct english translation words directly underneath each translated Greek word (some Greek words do not have one word equivalents). It is truly a work of art and scholarship.
With these three bibles, you will be reading the bible as close to how St. Jerome originally translated the “old latin transcripts” to produce the Latin Vulgate.
As I also mentioned in the previous, lengthy post, although I do not believe marketers of “new” DR bibles are intentionally trying to mislead purchasers, the phrase that usually appears at the beginning (which states something like “original manuscripts were consulted to produce the most accurate bible translation today”, or words to that effect) is simply not true.
Unless someone out in the world is sitting on the Holy Grail of biblical archaeology (that is, has a copy of an original St. Jerome Latin Vulgate Bible, along with manuscripts he actually used to produce his Vulgate), NO bible in existence today was produced referring to “the most ancient manuscripts in the original tongues” for one simple reason: they don’t exist.
All we have today are translations of translations of translations of translations, etc. And with each translation, the possibility of error creeps into the mix.
I hope this helps."
