Customer Reviews

Saint Joseph Personal Size Bible-NABRE

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This Bible's advantage is it's size. It's very compact, fits easy in a brief case or purse, yet easy to read. My son needed a Bible for his confirmation class and he wanted one like dad's. So, now we both have one. If you want to keep God's word with you at work and on the go, this is the Bible you want.

. . . and I've tried a few! I have already purchased three copies of this version of the NAB, for school, chapel, and time at home from seminary. Its best features are its small size and the FOOTnotes. Nothing drives me more crazy than flipping around for endnotes on a point I'm interested in pursuing. The quality of the footnotes is very high as well. The text is small but very readable, sharply printed on bright white paper. This publication of God's Word remains the best I've seen in years.

I purchased this Bible because of the magnetic flap feature and plan to use it for camping or travel purposes. The size is almost perfect for any use. It is a solid product and so far has held up well. My copy is in bonded burgundy leather and corresponds to the ISBN given at amazon. It is indeed a mini St. Joseph Edition New American Bible with all the terrific features of that edition. Text of Dei Verbum from Vatican II, along with a Bible dictionary and doctrinal index being most helpful additions to this compact Bible.

About the best thing I can say about this version of the Bible is that it is readable - very readable. Not majestic, not antiquated, not overly slangy, not particularly beautiful - just good, readable, and pretty reliable. Very copious notes and many simple but useful black & white maps.

I have a few beefs with this version of the NAB, however.

First is the sometimes mediocre word translation. "Hail, full of grace" in Lk 1,28 becomes "Hail, favored one!" - other reviewers have noticed this. The lilies of the field in Mt 6,28 gets blandly (and inaccurately - the Greek literally is "lilies"!) translated as wild flowers. There is an "All right!" in the bizarre game/combat incident in 2 Samuel 2,14. Ten thousand talents in Mt 18, 24 now is "a great amount" and 300 dinari is "a small amount". Goliath is 6 1/2 feet, not 6 1/2 cubits tall, and so on.

The introductory essay, "How To Read Your Bible" is an atrocity, as are many of the individual book intros. Way too much modernist garbage presented as fact, without even a hint of a counterpoint or a shred of discussion.

Which brings me to my next problem -this version isn't very Catholic. Aside from the Vatican II constitution on Divine Revelation, some of the footnotes, and the extra "Catholic" books not found in Protestant Bibles, one would be hard pressed to find any real differences between this version and, say, a NRSV or NKJV version.

Finally, the use of inclusive language in the Psalms is annoying, inaccurate, and politically correct, i.e. "Happy the man" in Psalm 1 becomes "Happy those" etc., but newer versions such as the NRSV or even newer editions of the NAB are much worse - some translations use it throughout.

On the whole I really liked the NAB, although with many reservations. Additionally, it is widely available, well bound, and pretty inexpensive.

The New American Bible (St. Joseph edition) has many excellent points in its favor: the production is outstanding, and as others have pointed out, it has nice footnotes; it has extra study materials in it; and it is on the whole a good readable translation. The downside is that the book has some very irritating flaws in it. The editors seem to go out of their way, in the chapter introductions, to negate the possibility that any of the apostles wrote any of the books. Matthew is not THE Matthew; John is not THE John. This Bible goes to far being "scholarly" as such, and has lost some of the spirit of the bible.

However, the tragic flaw of this bible is that for some reason they chose to publish a new edition of the psalms, which is included in this edition. The pre-1991 editions of the NAB had a great version of the pslalms. I will show two comparisons, from psalm 1 and 23, which are always the two I check in any translation.

Pre-1991 Ps. 1: "Happy the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked". Post-1991 Ps. 1: "Happy those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked." Those? The attempts to genericize sex are always awkward in these new editions of the bible, but "those" as a susbstitute subject for "the man" is just as bad as it gets.

Pre-1991 Ps. 23: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. In verdant pastures he gives me repose." THAT is as beautiful an intro to the 23rd psalm as there is, IMO. It avoids the awkwards "he makes me lie down..." that you see in many protestant versions. But look at this doozie from the post-1991 NAB, which is just AWFUL: "The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I lack. In green pastures you let me graze." This proves there is such a thing as taking the "sheep" metaphor a little too far. People do not graze.

Fortunately, I have a pre-1991 NAB, which is probably my favorite bible.

I am a protestant wanting to learn more about the Catholic tradition and this edition of the Bible does a good job with that.