Catholic Room

Read more: catholic bible: Frequently tagged products at Amazon.com

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful: Magnificent bible!, February 25, 2007 By  Brandon Hale (Mississippi Gulf Coast) - See all my reviews    As a big fan of the superior RSV translation, I have been waiting for an RSV Bible of this quality for a long time. I own the blue, hardback "Ingatius Bible" and have never been very happy with it's workmanship. The type in that Bible is hard to read, the text is not divided into clean, easily-read paragraphs, and the margins are too narrow, causing the text to practically run into the spine of the book. Also, I prefer leather to a hard-back. Scepter press makes a RSV leather Bible but it apparently suffers from the same deficiencies as the blue Ignatius Bible. Ignatius Press came out with a new RSV "Second Ed." Bible that is a higher quality product. However, after reading the Amazon.com reviews, I was deterred from buying it. Amazon.com reviewers say that while the new, second edition leather Bible is of high material quality, the minor changes that constitute the "second edition" are not an improvement upon the original and there are some sloppy typographical errors. Further, some reviewers who seem to have a lot more knowledge about Bible translation than me claim that there are some problems with accuracy of some of the English word choices (evidently the translators were priests but not scholars, per se, at least according to one reviewer). I held off on buying the Ignatius RSV "second ed." I was thus thrilled when Oxford University Press and Ignatius press teamed up to publish this beautiful "RSV Catholic Bible: Reader's Ed." in Dec 06. It features very high quality leather, gilded pages, indexing, readable type, easily read paragraphs and sections, and there are no margin problems or typos. Further, the list price on the Bible itself that arrived in the mail said $89.00. I paid $34 on Amazon.com and got free shipping to boot. It's rare these days when the quality of a retail product is higher than the price tag, but this Bible on Amazon is a steal. It's a magnificent product and I am tremendously pleased with it.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful: FINALLY! A beautiful, quality, leatherbound RSV Catholic Bible!, October 27, 2007 By  K. Franklin "klfbooks" (Hibbing, MN USA) - See all my reviews       This Bible is awesome! I don't mind the tabs and will probably get to like them in time. The leather is gorgeous, the details are beautiful, and the print is a decent size even for my middle-aged, bi-focaled eyes. I LOVE the size of the margins! There is plenty of room to write notes. If you are looking for a good basic RSV Catholic Bible that will last for decades of use, this is a beauty, at a good price to boot.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful: An Excellent Catholic Bible with a Conservative Translation, April 28, 2007 By  Michael Villegas (Los Angeles, California, USA) - See all my reviews    What is the RSV? The RSV or Revised Standard Version is an American English translation of the 1611 King James Bible. Since the King James Bible was archaic, Protestant churches decided to make revised versions of it in modern American English. The American Standard Bible, the RSV, and the New King James Bible were created as modern revisions of the 1611 King James Bible. However, the Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition is a Bible translation that was collaborated by Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. During the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Biblical Association in England asked the American Protestant churches to make a Catholic version of the Revised Standard Version. The translation process and approval was stalled partly due to the unexpected death of the Archbishop of Westminster in 1956. The RSV: Catholic Edition was finally completed during the pontificate of Pope Paul VI in 1965. In accordance with Pope Paul VI's Constitution called Dei Verbum, the RSV: Catholic edition was translated by Roman Catholic and Protestant Bible scholars. Though collaborated ecumenically, the RSV's translation was made similar to the Douay Rheims. The footnotes and commentaries in the RSV: Catholic edition are directly from the Douay Rheims Bible and not Modernist theologians. Unlike the New American Bible, the RSV was translated CORRECTLY by the Protestants scholars. For example, in the RSV, St. Luke 1:28 reads, "Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you". The NAB and the Jersualem Bible reads, "Hail favored one, the Lord is with you". In akin to the RSV, the New American Bible was ecumenically translated by Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. The Jerusalem Bible however was made by Roman Catholic scholars only. Unlike the Douay Rheims Bible, the RSV was directly translated from the 12th century Greek and Hebrew manuscripts rather than from St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate (c. 7th century). Hence, the Book of Ecclesiasticus (Book of Sirach) is quite shorter in the RSV: Catholic edition than the Douay Rheims Bible. This is also the case with previous Catholic Bibles that weren't translated from the Latin Vulgate such as the Westminster Version and the 1941 Confraternity Version---both of which were approved under Pope Pius XII. The RSV possess a simple yet conservative literal translation of the Bible unlike the New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, and New Revised Standard Version. It is officially used in the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome when the Bible is being studied in Greek and English. The RSV also is officially used by the Vatican when they quote the Bible in English. It is also used by Opus Dei and it was the former lectionary of the hybrid 1965 Tridentine Mass until 1969. The RSV: Catholic Edition's revision and translation was great that even Pope Paul VI awarded a Bible scholar for correcting St. Luke 1:28, which had been deviously distorted by Protestant scholars. I recommend Catholics to read this Bible. This Bible becomes handy when the Douay Rheims Bible at times can be an obstacle in its late, 16th century Shakesperean English. The RSV is also handy as a reference when you read the Douay Rheims Bible because you are able to see the big differences with the former due to its direct translation from the Greek and Hebrew only as opposed to the Latin Vulgate. The Latin Vulgate is the Latin Bible based on the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Chadaic manuscripts. Quality and quantity do matter in Bible reading, comparison, and reading. This RSV publication by Oxford University Press contains Pope Paul VI's Dogmatic Constitution: Dei Verbum, Bible Weights and Measures, An Appendix. Sadly it doesn't have any maps whatsoever. The pages are great because it has gold edges. The quality of the paper seems that it won't turn brown over the years.  Comments (5) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)