17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, August 14, 2007
This review is from: The Catholic Youth Bible® Revised (Paperback)
Let's start with the good: good maps at the end that are easy to follow and are carefully structured throughout the major periods of Israelite history, some good Catholic connections throughout and some very insightful context notes that will help students (I'm thinking of one in particular at the beginning of Tobit that explains why the Catholic Bible has books that Protestant Bibles have taken out), and some good connections made between the text and prayer life.
Now for the bad: a ridiculous amount of political correctness that is so over-the-top in its own sanctimony, that it's sometimes hard to believe that adults are writing this nonsense. Its paternaltistic and patronizing tone towards "African Americans" is an embarrassment. Consider the text accompanying a verse from 1 Kings where Solomon's wisdom is said to be greater than that of the Cedemites. The CYB text box helpfully explains that these Cedemites were "dark-skinned people" and that current African-Americans can take pride in the fact that their ancestors were the "wise, black people from Egypt." Put aside the absurdity of the suggestion that black Americans today might be "inspired" by something so utterly vapid, what is the author suggesting about black Americans today? That they are dumb? Or inclined to think that they are dumb? Would every "African-American" respond to this as the CYB suggests, or only the stereotyped, fictionalized African-American residing in the fantasy world of the poltically correct multicutural forces? I have never read anything so condescending in my life, and in the attempt to be oh-so anti-racist, the author ends up writing something that reads like a self-parody.
But it gets worse unfortunately, as one of the text boxes in Esther, in the course of making a reasonable point about the need to prevent genocides from ever happening again, veers into ahistorical leftist agitprop. The author tells us that we need to remember the Holocaust and how it came about, but we also need to remember the genocide against the Native Americans in this country. Such a point is arguable, but the author goes on to castigate Europeans who spread diseases that wiped out Native Americans in the name of "progress, civilization, and Christianity." This is complete nonsense. The author would have us believe that the European explorers were intentionally practicing a form of biological warfare on the hapless Native Americans. In fact, the Europeans had no knowledge of microbes and there is simply no evidence that they deliberately passed on diseases in the name of "progress, civilization, and Christianity." This is a slur (and a stereotype!) on all those who came here during that era.
But even worse is the following attempt by the author to explain how the us-vs.-them attitude can lead to genocide. First there is the setting aside of a group for blame, followed by the labeling such as "savages" or "communists" (!) Hmmmm, if I were coming up with a list of people who were potential targets for genocide over the last few hundred years, I don't think the Communists would be near the top of my list. Have the authors and editors never read a history book from the 20th century? Communist governments killed between 85 and 100 million people during that era, making Communism the most murderous ideology in world history, yet our CYB authors see them as potential VICTIMS of genocide. Perpetrators would be more likely. There is more, but the point has been made.
If the authors and editors were not bent on overwhelming the readers with leftist politcal messages and treating its non-white readers as little more than infants, then this book would rate higher. The folks at the CYB need to grow up.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Adult Bible Study, December 3, 2007
This review is from: The Catholic Youth Bible® Revised (Paperback)
This bible is great for bible study even when everyone in the group is an adult. The sidebars add interesting facts that we may not have obtained otherwise.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Great saving, March 17, 2011
This review is from: The Catholic Youth Bible® Revised (Paperback)
I am greatly impressed, having saved $35 on a Bible of perfect quality. My daughter needed this one for school. Although she had to wait for about two months for it to arrive, it was worth it.
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