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 The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Is Among the Best of Modern English Bibles Available
This Bible from Ignatius Press essentially is a reprint of the full "Catholic Edition" of the Revised Standard Version (R.S.V.-C.E.) of the Holy Bible, which Thomas Nelson (of Nashville, Tenn.) had published in 1966, grouping together, according to the copyright statement, the 1965 "Catholic Edition of the New Testament" and the 1966 "Catholic Edition of the Old Testament, Incorporating the Apocrypha", i.e. including the Roman Catholic edition of the entire Bible, with occasional alterations (to the originally pan-Protestant sponsored and produced texts of the Revised Standard Version Bible with Apocrypha) incorporated into the text itself of this translation better to reflect Roman Catholic teaching and usage, and, more importantly, with the deutero-canonical writings of the Old Testament included as interspersed among the other writings of the O.T. in their usual Roman Catholic biblical sequence. This is a "text edition", with only minimal notes (e.g, references limited to such matters as those which concern source variants, occasional variant English rendering, etc., rather than a "study Bible" that includes more extensive notes and annotations as aids to studying the Sacred Texts. (Ignatius Press also published a "Second Catholic Edition" of the R.S.V. in 2005, equally recommendable, which differs only in rather minor details from its 1990 R.S.V.-C.E.) How does the R.S.V.-C.E. stack up against other English-language translations ("versions") of the Bible, especially those in more-or-less "modern English"?
The Revised Standard Version has many virtues. (Be it noted that here one is not referring to the N.R.S.V., i.e. the New Revised Standard Version, which is a later revision and less reliable than the R.S.V. itself, C.E. or otherwise). The R.S.V. is literate and dignified in language, for one thing, welcome after so many "street language" translations that have followed. Best of all is the R.S.V. translation's very careful attention to nuance. Consider, for example, the canonical and deutero-canonical Wisdom Books of the Old Testament, which are particularly difficult to translate as well as the R.S.V. has done so, and as the English Standard Version (E.S.V.), the latest (and, for once, improved) permutation of the R.S.V. (one produced by Protestant scholars) also does even rather better. (Alas, the E.S.V., which has even finer and more elegant style than even the R.S.V. itself has, does not yet include the deutero-canonical books of the O.T., at least not yet.) There is a level of conveyance of subtle nuance in the R.S.V.'s and E.S.V.'s translation of the Sacred Texts into English which is hard to equal.
Unfortunately, the modernist bias of the liberal R.S.V.'s translators spoils the translation of many passages (especially Messianically prophetical ones) in the O.T. and even more damagingly in the N.T., many of which are of capital importance doctrinally regarding Christology and the Holy Trinity. Atop that, the translators often resort to appallingly bad and minority readings (when this suits their devious and unbelieving agenda) from manuscript sources that do not deserve preferment over majority readings. These defects badly mar what should have been a definitively fine version for the 20th and now the 21st centuries.
A big problem with Bibles, Roman Catholic and otherwise, is the notes that go with them, especially in "study Bibles" ("annotated Bibles", "reference Bibles", etc.). Some versions that basically have good texts are published with dreadful annotations and other notes, especially those whose editors and contributors are "punch drunk" on the Higher Critical method. The choice of editions of the Revised Standard Version at least does not necessarily force upon the reader a battery of extended notes of dubious value or downright noxious character, since texts of the R.S.V. without such study annotations have been readily available. Alas, some otherwise fine Roman Catholic Bible translations are difficult to find in equally straightforward "text editions". (One rare exception is the welcome "Pocket Edition" of the New Jerusalem Bible, from the publisher Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1990, of which the ISBN for the econominically priced hardback, "printed cased edition", is 0-232-51890-4, and which omits the relatively extensive notes of the more standard editions for this version, although it includes introductions, blessedly brief, for the major groups of biblical literature and for the individual books of the O.T. and N.T.) Such notes in too great abundance spoil even the most standard editions of translations such as the N.A.B. and The New Jersusalem Bible (N.J.B.). The best thing for a reader of theologically and exegetically orthodox views simply is to ignore such notes most of the time, when reading such versions and the notes, to varying degree, which tend to be attached to nearly all of the customary editions of modern Roman Catholic translations. After all, the Jerusalem Bible (J.B.) and the N.J.B. are eminently worth reading, for their texts, but, Lord save us, just ignore the nonsense in the notes!
At least the three best ever Roman Catholic Versions of the Bible in English, i.e. the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version, the Confraternity Version (i.e. the text including th 1941 N.T. and the O.T. as of no later than 1969), and the Knox Version, lack such acidly degrading notes. The newly published Orthodox Study Bible's O.T. was translated from the Septuagint (O.T.) and Byzantine (N.T.) Greek texts, and its notes are quite traditionalist, so it is a fine recommendation, as well, for traditionalist Roman Catholic readers and for others. There are notes in these three English Bibles, but they are helpful (at least for the most part) and do not depart from doctrinal and exegetical orthodoxy. The texts, too, translate from their base (Latin with or without resort, variously, to Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek original language souces, in the case of the Roman Catholic translations mentioned, and entirely from Greek, in the case of the Orthodox Study Bible) with fidelity and an avoidance of undue use of paraphrase.
The scholars who produced the Revised Standard Version (whether in its entirely Protestant text or in the "Catholic Edition"), like those to whose account are almost all of the other modern English versions, in their introductions and notes, make much of the supposed importance and added value of their resort to "critical texts" of recent decades based upon certain early manuscripts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to which they give much favour. Translators (Anglicans, Protestants, even Roman Catholics) long have had access, since the time of the Renaissance, to manuscripts that convey the best Hebrew and Greek texts of the Biblical writings, even if there have been interesting sources which have been discovered later. There also is a lot of foolish drivel that has been written and published to deride versions that had been translated into English from the Septuagint (LXX) Greek O.T. and (for both Testaments) from Latin. The Clementine Latin Vulgate Bible, to take the Bible of antiquity that was foremost in Western Catholic transmission, was an exceedingly fine ancient translation, one which those who prepared and transmitted its manuscripts did with such fidelity to the older texts from which it was prepared (compared, for example, to very late and rabbinical O.T. Hebrew Masoretic Text) that it is better to translate from the Clementine Vulgate than from some of the degraded and Hebrew O.T. and Greek N.T. texts which modernist scholars favour.
At any rate, the 1990 Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (or 2005 Second Catholic Edition) provides the reader a superior translation in many regards, from which the average reader best can benefit if he uses it in conjunction with the finer earlier versions, i.e. the Douay-Rheims Challoner, the Confraternity Version (as defined above), the Knox Version, which are the great Roman Catholic translations of the Holy Scriptures, and the venerable and greatly esteemed Authorised "King James" Version (in editions which include the A.V.'s O.T. Apocrypha) among moderate Anglican-Protestant versions of the past.
 rsv
I found the small type size to be so irritating that I don't use this book at all.
 Good Book at Good Price.
Always happy with the Ignatius translation, though like the Revised as well for the introductions.
Great Bible
I had the same Bible soft cover and I wanted to have the hard cover so that it will last better. I love this Bible it is easy to read and find what I need to find in it. Plus it is small enough to take anywhere.
The Bible of Catholic Scholars
I was drawn to this edition of the Ignatius Bible after purchasing a hardback edition. I use this as a spare: one for the car and for for the desk. I love both of my RSV Catholic Editions because they're so much better of a translation than the USCCB's NAB.
Take, for example, (The Gospel according to) Luke 1:28, which is one of the Scriptural sources of the "Hail Mary" prayer. The Ignatius RSV-CE renders it as:
And he came to her and said, "Hail, fully of grace, the Lord is with you!"
Whereas, the NAB used at Sunday masses in the US renders it:
And coming to her, he said, "Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you."
Favored one? It doesn't quite get across the fullness of Marian belief, does it? I don't understand why the NAB Catholic bible obscures Marian doctrine. For the interested there are websites out there that contrast the two.
Perhaps the best recommendation is Scott Hahn's. He and his group use the RSV-CE for their Study Bible Series, which go through books of the bible with a fine toothed comb, unveiling the beauty of Scriptures for those of us who don't speak Greek, Latin, or Aramaic.
In short, I strongly recommend this edition of the bible. I would like it even better if it included a preface before each book.
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