<p>S has asked for a “pocket bible” for Christmas. I think when he says “pocket” he just means somewhat smallish (not the 20lb edition we have at home!!!). </p>
<p>We are Catholic and he would like it to have both Old and New Testament (do they not all have both??). I picture buying something that has a leatherish protective cover so he has it for a long time.</p>
<p>Would love to buy it at B and N online today with the Cyber sales - can anyone guide me to a certain edition/copy or give other advice???</p>
<p>Are you looking for a standard Bible, study Bible, Bible geared for Catholics (there are additional books I believe), a Comparative Bible? Do you want a particular translation or is a standard New International Version or King James good enough? Have you considered software for a smartphone, tablet or PC? The best place to browse is a religious store as you can see, handle and look through the physical books.</p>
<p>There are nice actual pocket Bibles–they typically have very thin pages, and may have pretty small print. You might want to find out whether he actually wants to carry this around with him, or just have something that’s not too huge.</p>
<p>As far as a particular version, if you are Catholic, you want a Catholic Bible. You can buy just a New Testament, but it seems you want both the Old and New Testament (including what Protestants call the “Apocrypha,” several books that are in the Catholic Bible but not Protestant versions). I would recommend a recent translation, but not a paraphrase.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Catholic versions, but whatever is the equivalent of the NIV is probably what you want. I would not recommend the equivalent of The Living Bible or The Message, though, because they are too paraphrased, in my opinion. I would also not recommend the equivalent of the King James Version, because although the language may be beautiful, it’s also archaic and hard to understand.</p>
<p>A Bible with notes and helps can also be useful.</p>
<p>The best Catholic translation is the New Jerusalem Bible. If he doesn’t care about it being specifically Catholic, then the NRSV is considered by many (although there’s certainly a variety of opinion out there) to be the best combination of a readable, scholarly, and accurate translation. I wouldn’t get an NIV, also known as the ‘Nearly Inspired Version’ ;), because of its many inaccuracies.</p>
<p>Catholic Bibles often contain the Apocrypha, placed between the Hebrew scriptures and the NT. That will make it much less ‘pocket-like’, but there’s probably an edition of the NJB out there without those books.</p>
<p>I took a course at BC many years ago and one of the required texts was a 10-pound Bible that was something like The New English Revised something or other that did have the Apocrypha in it. I still have it at home somewhere and it’s pretty well-worn. I don’t believe that it was specifically marketed to Catholics.</p>
<p>Study Bibles typically have contain notes to explain, point out errors, or link to related passages so using a particular translation that has errors (they all do) isn’t necessarily a problem. Using a common translation may be useful if everyone else that you know uses that particular translation.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to a page with comparisons of versions from a Catholic perspective. You may want the New American Bible with revised New Testament, because it’s the one that is used in Catholic liturgy.</p>
<p>One note: if you stick to these Catholic verisons, you avoid (mostly) the theological disputes that Protestants have about which version of the Bible to use.</p>
<p>From the perspective of a former HS Sunday School teacher (Episcopalian), thank God for this kid (and others like him) who is asking for his own Bible!</p>
<p>The “additional books” are what the Catholic and Orthodox churches refer to as “deuterocanonical” (i.e., they’re considered canonical, but of a secondary status). They’re the parts of the early Greek OT that aren’t found in the Hebrew OT.</p>
<p>I’m with most of what Hunt says, but am confused a little by the link he posted. I had the impression that the original Jerusalem Bible was based on the French verion but that the New Jerusalem referred to the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. In general, NAB is right of center (US Conference of Catholic Bishops) and New Jerusalem is left of center. The Catholic edition of the NRSV should be good as well. I gave the Oxford Annotated edition of the NRSV as a graduation present to a special Sunday School student one year.</p>
<p>my D had a Bible with the Apocrypha, for her freshman humanities course at Reed, but it was far from a pocket version. I have an e-version, which is easy to search & bookmark. My eyes aren’t good enough for a pocket version that isn’t electronic!</p>
<p>As I said, I don’t know much about Catholic translations, but the New Jerusalem version is apparently more of a new translation than just an updating of the prior Jerusalem Bible. They are both supposed to be a bit “freer” translations than the NSRV.</p>
<p>None of these are far-out translations. Buy the one the kid is likely to read.</p>
<p>Also, the Apocrypha doesn’t add that many pages–that’s not what makes any particular Bible big.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that the NAB, while an excellent literal translation, is not the best for reading. The New Revised Standard (NRSV) is really good in that regard.</p>
<p>Gack! :o Thanks Hunt and Booklady. Don’t know why it didn’t immediately come to mind, but the classic answer to “What’s the best translation?” is “the one you’ll read.” If you’re not in too big a hurry, you might have your S read a few of those mentioned to see if he’ll express a preference.</p>
<p>Which translation generally comes down to what kind of background someone comes from. The NSRV to me is one of the better bibles out there, because of the work that scholars and theologians from various faith groups put into it (just my take). The NSRV I have with the study guide includes the Apocrypha, which Catholics use but protestants and Jews do not use (my understanding is the apocrypha were once part of the Hebrew scripture but were dropped by rabbinical authorities hundreds of years BCE). One of the problems with many of the ‘modern’ bibles, generally the ones used by fundamentalist Christians, is that their translations compared to more traditional ones tend to be done to re-inforce their viewpoints, language gets changed, for example, that has scripture itself supporting literal reading…Catholic Bibles from what I can tell are pretty faithful, my take on the new versus old variations is that the older one was written more for readability, while the newer translation is designed I believe to follow more the structure of the latin versions of the text (take that fwiw, my opinion only)</p>
<p>There are apparently several different types of translations–some are intended to be more word-for-word, and often even try to match, as much as possible, the word order used in Hebrew and Greek. Others are more “dynamic” and try to match the meaning of the text while being more readable in English. Some translations use “inclusive” gender language (i.e., translating “brothers” as “brothers and sisters”), and others don’t. Some translations try to be more poetic, and others try to be more conversational. And each translation has its critics.</p>
<p>For somebody who just wants to read the Bible, as opposed to intensely study it, any reasonably readable translation should be fine. The type size is probably more important. And anybody who gets into more intense study will want to have a couple of different versions, anyway.</p>