How does Roman Catholics read the bible?

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Welcome and a good question.

One point is the douay is like the KJV in protestant land. You will find the language older. I do like it myself but don’t usually read it. I use the RSV-CE there are other versions that are catholic.

In the Catholic faith the scripture is read publicly in church to the members. I find they actually read far more scripture in church than any protestant church I ever attended, except high church anglican/lutheran which essentially follow the same approach as catholics. You can follow along with the daily readings via this link : usccb.org/bible/readings/120312.cfm though there are other methods.

I recently ran across the monastic pratice of lectio divina which is a fancy latin word for Divine Reading.

There is no unique or special way of reading the Bible. There is however approved interpretations. As you no doubt have observed in other protestant churches they all follow the bible yet all disagree with each other in one way or another what it means, and this is why they are dividided. That is one of the roles of the Church to settle and establish what the meaning is.

In any case good question and enjoy your stay.
 
While as others have pointed out there isn’t some one unique Catholic approach to reading the Bible, there are some differences in how Catholics approach it.

One difference is obviously that we do not accept the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. We read the Bible in the context of the entirety of Apostolic Tradition and Church teaching, of which the Bible is a part.

Another difference is that Catholics traditionally view the liturgy as the natural “habitat” so to speak for the Bible, with private reading of the Bible something good but more supplemental. Protestants often view it the opposite way, with private reading on one’s own the primary place of the Bible in the life of the church and readings at services something extra.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
While as others have pointed out there isn’t some one unique Catholic approach to reading the Bible, there are some differences in how Catholics approach it.

One difference is obviously that we do not accept the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. We read the Bible in the context of the entirety of Apostolic Tradition and Church teaching, of which the Bible is a part.

Another difference is that Catholics traditionally view the liturgy as the natural “habitat” so to speak for the Bible, with private reading of the Bible something good but more supplemental. Protestants often view it the opposite way, with private reading on one’s own the primary place of the Bible in the life of the church and readings at services something extra.
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Good point! If a Catholic were to couple reading the Bible with the daily readings, and attending frequent Mass you would have a wonderful way to read the scriptures.
 
php111 said:
Thank you very much! May you please provide some sites you could find specifically for Catholic reading plans? I know you said you are not sure about Catholic reading plans, but maybe you could find some for me?

I’m not getting my DR Holy Bible for free. I’m actually buying it brand new. It already been ordered. It should be in the store next week the earliest, or the following week the latest. I can’t wait until I receive it.
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Sure, I’ll look around for you! Happy to do it.

👍
 
I read the words from the left to right. 😃

Seriously though, you should always have the Catechism of the Catholic Church alongside the Bible. It clearly explains the Catholic interpretation of Scripture.

My favourite books are the Apocryphal books. I have read the entire Bible a couple of times through but find that randomly choosing a chapter to read from and meditate on daily is the most spiritually edifying. I try to keep up with the readings according to the Liturgical Calendar.
 
LEMAITRE said:
I read the words from the left to right. 😃

Seriously though, you should always have the Catechism of the Catholic Church alongside the Bible. It clearly explains the Catholic interpretation of Scripture.

My favourite books are the Apocryphal books. I have read the entire Bible a couple of times through but find that randomly choosing a chapter to read from and meditate on daily is the most spiritually edifying. I try to keep up with the readings according to the Liturgical Calendar.
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This is interesting. Do you mean the Deuterocanonical books which Protestants (wrongly) call Apocryphal, or do you mean books like 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh which are still truely apocryphal from the Catholic point of view?
 
Aelred_Minor said:
This is interesting. Do you mean the Deuterocanonical books which Protestants (wrongly) call Apocryphal, or do you mean books like 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh which are still truely apocryphal from the Catholic point of view?
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My favourite Apocryphal books are The Wisdom of Solomon and Tobit. Which are your favourite?
 
Hi php111, once you start reading your Douay Rheims, you can refer to this online Haydocks Commentary for bible verses you need clarification on.

haydock1859.tripod.com/

Hope this helps.
 
It is useful to get a ‘big picture’ overview of the Bible before zoning in with more detail.
It kind of gives our brain a framework so we understand the context of what we learn in more detail later on, and where to slot new information in. The approach I like is looking at Salvation history through Covenants.

A good study for this could be: avemariapress.com/product/1-59471-291-3/Bible-Basics-for-Catholics/

Then there are usually two approaches which work well side by side:
  1. More Biblical studies, based on Catholic doctrine (Catechism of the Catholic Church). There are many. A couple of places online I find useful:
salvationhistory.com/

agapebiblestudy.com/
  1. Taking smaller pieces of scripture and really focusing in and realizing this is God’s Word to YOU and concretely applying it to your life.
ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-what-how-why-of-prayer/praying-with-scripture/

You are going to want to purchase: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, and this will go through the 4 senses of scripture which is how Catholic’s read the Bible. 🙂
 
LEMAITRE said:
My favourite Apocryphal books are The Wisdom of Solomon and Tobit. Which are your favourite?
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They are not apocryphal, but deutrocanonical. Apocryphal books would be Prayer of Manasses and the like
 
asd72 said:
It is useful to get a ‘big picture’ overview of the Bible before zoning in with more detail.
It kind of gives our brain a framework so we understand the context of what we learn in more detail later on, and where to slot new information in. The approach I like is looking at Salvation history through Covenants.

A good study for this could be: avemariapress.com/product/1-59471-291-3/Bible-Basics-for-Catholics/

Then there are usually two approaches which work well side by side:
  1. More Biblical studies, based on Catholic doctrine (Catechism of the Catholic Church). There are many. A couple of places online I find useful:
salvationhistory.com/

agapebiblestudy.com/
  1. Taking smaller pieces of scripture and really focusing in and realizing this is God’s Word to YOU and concretely applying it to your life.
ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-what-how-why-of-prayer/praying-with-scripture/

You are going to want to purchase: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, and this will go through the 4 senses of scripture which is how Catholic’s read the Bible. 🙂
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Thank you for posting these resources! Would you happen to have any on-line Catholic Bible reading websites? I think that is what the OP wants. The suggestion of the Catechism was a good one that I should have thought of.
 
Chatter163 said:
You may not have intended it this way, but the way your question is worded is offensive. It lists Roman Catholics as separate from Christians. Roman Catholics ARE Christians–in fact, they are the ORIGINAL Christians, long before any other sect existed. I think the other word you mean is Protestants.
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Ooooh I just noticed that! You might want to study Church history also, because without the Apostolic Church you would not even have the scriptures!
 
TheRealJuliane said:
Thank you for posting these resources! Would you happen to have any on-line Catholic Bible reading websites? I think that is what the OP wants. The suggestion of the Catechism was a good one that I should have thought of.
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Those sites both offer Bible studies which will help with understanding the Bible from a Catholic perpective. Do you mean like those ‘read the bible in a year’ plans? I’m not sure. I like those sites I mentioned and also ‘Word on Fire’ Fr Barron’s site, lots of good Homilies on there.
 
You may just want to start with the daily readings the church already does.
Every day there is a different reading worldwide for that day. (3 or 4 altogether) In 3 years time, that covers the entire text.

There should be a section in the back which has the readings listed for years A, B, C. We just started year C this past Sunday. (this is something the Lutheran church does too)

There are some good Catholic study bibles out there where they have lots of references at the end of each chapter and a good paragraph of history at the beginning of each book. Do consider one of these and read what the daily reading is in comparison to the chapter and book that it is in.

Don’t try to read the Bible just for the sake of reading it. Take small bites and savor the experience, the lessons and the Word.
 
Thank you everyone. I also saw a site that says read the bible by the footnotes. Would that be true? I think everyone is trying to say the website I gave earlier is not the right way to read a bible from beginning to end, and that site was wrong? I won’t read it like that since its not the right way.
 
asd72 said:
Those sites both offer Bible studies which will help with understanding the Bible from a Catholic perpective. Do you mean like those ‘read the bible in a year’ plans? I’m not sure. I like those sites I mentioned and also ‘Word on Fire’ Fr Barron’s site, lots of good Homilies on there.
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I think the easier, the better…And I’d benefit from it too. I’ll look as well.

🙂
 
I was going to start with Gospels, and then read the rest of the New Testament, and then read the Old Testament, but I didn’t see Gospels. This was the site I was going to use until I receive my bible veritasbible.com/drb
 
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