Customer Reviews

The NRSV Catholic Edition: Standard Edition: New Revised Standard Version

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Revised Standard Version is the first serious combined effort of Biblical scholars of Catholic and mainstream Protestant traditions. The translators have tried to give both the ordinary reader and the student of biblical studies an easily readable modern English version of the Bible. This was my "text book" when I studied exegesis in the sixties. The latest version incorporates the results of studies during the four decades after its first publication.

I picked up my copy of this version of the Bible used and cheap, figuring I had nothing to lose. As it turns out, I really like the translation. It is compact, easy to read, reasonably accurate (exceptions noted below), fairly literal, and has nice little maps, diagraphs, and charts. The font is readable (unlike micro-Bibles which are all but unreadable). It is fairly bare bones, with few notes - far fewer then the NAB, my other favorite translation - which makes reading a breeze but is less than comprehensive.

Now for the bad news. I really hate inclusive language translations, and this one is full of inclusive language, particularly in the Psalms and Proverbs, so I had to do a lot of cross-referencing with other translations. But overall I got more than my money's worth.

This Bible ranks right behind the NAB (in my opinion) as it pertains to Catholics who wish to have a complete Bible to read from. I say complete because this version of the NRSV contains the deuterocanonicals (which non-Catholic Christians call the "apocrypha"), and has them listed amongst the books of the Old Testament instead of stuck in the back. The NRSV is used by the Catholic Church in Canada for the Liturgy, and so all Canadians would find this Bible especially useful. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an updating of the King James Bible, removing the Victorian language and updating the translation (the English language HAD developed over the almost 400 years since the KJV had been written) to make the Bible more readily accessible and understandable for today's reader. The NEW Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is almost a totally different translation, and contains changes that may not be appreciated by some people. The biggest difference between the NRSV and RSV is the use of "gender-inclusive language". Personally, I don't find this to be a problem, because if the text is meant to include both sexes then the appropriate words should be used to convey this in the translation. Overall, I think this adds to the accuracy of the translation.

Now, as for this particular book. The softcover book is extremely sturdy. The paper is thin, but does not suffer from "bleed-through" if you decide to mark the book with notes or high-lighting. Another bonus of this book is the myriad of maps (64 in all) that pepper the book. There are also over a dozen charts that are found in appropriate locations and serve as useful references. In addition, the softcover version contains a papal encyclical which speaks about the importance of the Bible and the serious study of it that Catholics should do (in direct contrast to the fallacious anti-Catholic claim that Catholics are told NOT to read the Bible).