55 thoughts on “New Douay-Rheims Large Print from Tan”
Hot take: It’s about time for DRB publishers to retire the 1899 layout. The translation text is public domain. There is zero reason why there shouldn’t at least be a single-column edition. In my opinion, a DRB with the layout of the old Jerusalem Bible would be perfect: single-column layout with verse numbers and cross-references in the margin and footnotes on the right-hand page’s footer. It’d break up the monotony of all the DRB publishers printing the exact same century-old layout with minor adjustments.
And while they’re at it, they can fix the century-old typos too; the one that always comes to mind is Nehemiah 3:15, which reads “the king’s guard” in the 1899 DRB instead of “the king’s garden” despite the Latin reading “hortum regis” and the 1609 original having the correct English. They were corrected, at least in part, in the Benziger version from 1943, but that one is never used as the base for new editions. And I completely agree re: the KJV. Modern KJV editions even give new notes to define unfamiliar words, which does wonders for functional usage.
Single column, paragraph format, wide margin, prose as prose and poetry as poetry… man, it is truly bizarre that every Douay Bible for the last hundred years has been stuck as double column with verse by verse when, as you said, a new layout alone can do a lot to refresh an old text.
Here is an even hotter hot take: it is time retire the Douay Rheims and the KJV both permanently. This is the 21st century, if 400 year old translations in archaic language that requires a special dictionary to be able to understand it is the most accurate translation, then only possible conclusions follow:
1. The English language is dead
or
2. The English language is dead
or perhaps
3. The English language is dead
That is all. Nostalgia be damned, we need a current Bible in modern English based on current research.
Amen to that.
Even the video reeks of this backward-looking, defensive approach to faith. Sort of “Remember when everything was right with the Church and the world? Then this is the Bible for you! Hide from all that pesky growth and deepening of faith and live the unexamined life the way real Catholics should.”
The form IS the function: freeze a moment in time. This is the mindset that God is only to be found in what was, not in what is becoming. Stay in Egypt.
Well, 2/3 of US Catholics reject transubstantiation. And there are far less priests in the world now than in 1970, even though the world’s population has nearly doubled. Religious vocations have dwindled since that time. So much for “all that pesky growth and deepening of faith.” And shudder the thought that we can have an orthodox Catholic bible translation, which has stood the test of time.
I agree. There have been a lot versions of the Bible. They were good for their time and then were retired. DR and KJV just continue to plod along. They are good for historical purposes, but I shouldn’t need a translation for the translation.
It will be the same old layout as every other DRB, with a cheap cover for a premium price.
Why can’t we have premium editions of the Bible? If you go on Amazon the Protestants have unlimited versions of the Bible to choose from. You can get a nice NKJV bible for under $30.00 with unbelievable quality. The layout is beautiful, large print, dark letters, nice ribbons. But Catholic bibles are much more costly with much less quality. Take the St. Joseph Bibles as an example. They have been using the same font and the same black and white as well as the tacky color photos for over 50 years! They never change or update. The ESV Catholic edition is better than most but hardly worth the price. It’s not rocket science.
The NRSV illustrated Catholic bible by Catholic bible press is currently on Amazon for $55 . It’s by far the most premium Catholic bible I’ve found. Though it’s a bit big for a everyday bible.
This looks like the exact same layout as the existing Tan Books/St Benedict press Douay Rheims. That version has some typos that I’m anxious to find out if they were corrected or not.
— The First epistle of St Paul to Timothy is titled as “ The first epistle TO Saint Paul to Timothy”
—. Also I’ve found a few instances where one word is extremely spaced out taking up a full sentence worth of space. One example is the word “brought” in Ezechiel 31:15. I have the leather, ultra soft and paperback editions and they all contain the same typos. I am curious if this edition does as well.
I’d recommend getting it, but also getting a leather cover from OreMoose. The cover breaks in really nicely, so my Great Adventure Bible basically has a floppy leather cover now.
Sorry, I misunderstood you, I thought you meant that you didn’t get a Great Adventure Bible because of the cover–hence, my suggestion about OreMoose. You were talking about red letters. I’ve found the GAB red letters to be, on the whole, very easy to read. Very dark crimson, and easy to make out. I could do without the red letters, and I could go for .5-1pt larger font. But hey, I just really like the RSV-2CE in that edition.
Do you think that so many publishers keep the look of the DR the same old way is just due to nostalgia or a sort of elevation of the “good old days”? It just seems to me that a larger audience might be tapped if someone (an actual publisher) took on the task of reformatting the text to look modern, adding some (even modest) modern study helps like newer maps, and dress it in a modern style cover and binding. Surely it can be done.
I often wonder if they think the only way they can retain that imprimatur of Cardinal Gibbons from 1899 is to essentially photocopy the exact same text block, layout and all. Even though, if needed, the USCCB could probably give a new one without even needing to look at the text because, obviously, it’s still the Douay-Rheims. After all, the Baronius Knox got a fresh imprimatur and a foreword by Dr. Scott Hahn, so what makes the 1899 Douay different? Clearly Latin-based Bibles can still get approvals. Personally, I wish they could go back and review the 1899 text to correct all the typos that have long been known and written about but have never been fixed, and then place it in a new layout, give it a fresh imprimatur, and make it look vaguely from this century. If you don’t want to write new notes for it, but acknowledge that Challoner’s lean notes don’t quite do it anymore, then just create an abridged set from the Haydock Bible by sticking to timeless pastoral stuff and skipping over the obsolete stuff.
Recently, Emmaus Academic began publishing a translation of the Glossa Ordinaria, and the volume is a good quality hardback, so I’d love to picture them one day entering the Bible publishing market with something like a “definitive” Douay-Rheims printing. With all the trads congregating in Steubenville, it’d be my bet for where a quality Douay-Rheims could emerge.
I have been thinking about this for the past couple days. I can’t imagine that they would need another imprimatur to print the text in a different format. I am trying to remember the discussions I had with Baronius back in the day concerning the Knox, and I just don’t remember exactly why they got another imprimatur for the Knox. Perhaps that had something to do with the Archdiocese of Westminster owning the copyright to the Knox text. So, I think you bring up a good question, but I am just not sure how to answer it.
That’s another valid point. Even though it went out of print, it seems the Knox never left copyright protection, and the Archdiocese of Westminster either always had the copyright itself or renewed it when the publishers that had it didn’t do so themselves.
I’m glad I’m not the only one whose first impression is “this layout again?” I can’t help but think of the Evangelicals who’ve in recent times started their own in-house “high-end” Bible print shops like Humble Lamb or Warner Bibles, and found great success in the process, and wonder who’s going to be the first Catholic to take the plunge?
How about this: Revive the original pre-Challoner Douay-Rheims to be used as a historical reference work, retire the Challoner revision outside of TLM missals because anyone who knows the history of it knows it’s a woefully inconsistent text with so many permutations that there really isn’t “a” Challoner text, and we all agree to use the ESV-CE, and the 2025 NAB successor and CSV when they come. Besides, if someone wants a translation from Latin, the Knox and Confraternity versions are far better.
I do think that the popularity of the D-R is stimulated by nostalgia and many copies in readers homes remain on a respected shelf in their personal library. However, if you want to really appreciate what the D-R is all about you need to look at the original, I suggest that you go to the original 1582 D-R and pick your favorite Pauline Epistle. Then, read the Argument, the Text, and the Marginal notes, and the Annotations. This is not an easy study as it takes a little time to get through the spelling and dense archaic language. When you do this, you will see that this is not the bland Chaloner document, but rather a Study Bible with Cross-References, notes and Commentary. It is a Counterreformation work that pays close attention to the works of the “heretics.” To me, most of the commentary is sound and relevant today. I think you will find this a rich and rewarding experience. However, I would not recommend the original D-R as your go to Bible. A good website to use to read the original D-R is: The Catholic Resource Page https://catholicresourcepage.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-original-douay-rheims-bible-pre.html. You only need to read a few pages to see what is missing in the Challoner version.
It’s not “nostalgia.” Catholics who worship at the TLM have the DRC translation in their Missals. It’s the best and most reliable translation in the English language.
Protestants are absolutely kicking our butts in the premium Bible market. They are also destroying us in the under $5 Bible market too! I pray that the 2025 NAB solves our problems. The scholars on the revision committee are really solid and should fix the problematic notes and wooden translation.
Let me just say…. I totally get where people are coming from in that it seems that this is sort of a reactionary product. And yeah, it would be great to get some modern formatting for a DR…
But, I’ll also add that I’ve benefited tremendously from using the DR as an ancillary text, especially since I’ve done a great deal of study on St. John of the Cross. There’s a great deal of Hebrew imagery that (ironically enough) really comes through in the Latin textual tradition, and it’s imagery that plays an important role in the language of the mystical tradition. So, I absolutely think having a DR is valuable, and I think having a solid critical-text translation is valuable. I say that as someone who is pretty well versed in Biblical Greek and Latin.
The Vulgate is an important enough text by itself that an English translation is quite useful. But there are better translations of the Vulgate than the D-R, and more can be made, similar to the way new translations of the Septuagint have been made recently.
And I have heard from some traditionalists the complaint that the Nova Vulgata, the New Vulgate of 1979 is such a radical revision that it is essentially a new Latin translation. I certainly don’t know Latin well enough to be able to decide that question. But I think a translation of the New Vulgae would also be quite useful.
There is no major reason to have a translation of the Nova Vulgata, since it was essentially a Latin translation of the Nestle-Aland of the time, contrary to the popular assumption that it was a direct revision of the Clementine Vulgate, so a “translation” of the NV would probably only require a very light touch-up of the RSV71, much of which the 2CE actually did; IIRC, the 2CE was created to serve as a liturgical text, so it makes sense it’d be close to the NV. The truth is, the best hope recently for a good fresh translation of the Vulgate would’ve been the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library editions from Harvard; sadly, they created an artificial Vulgate text, rather than using the Clementine Vulgate or the Stuttgart Vulgate critical edition, and their English is, once again, the 1899 DR with light tweaks. That said, the Glossa Ordinaria Genesis from Emmaus Academic also uses a tweaked 1899 DR for its Bible text, so we’re probably just stuck with things this way. I’ve taken to using the Confraternity Version whenever I want a clearer look at the Clementine’s New Testament text, especially since it was advertised as a “revision” of the Rheims-Challoner version.
Biblical Catholic, is the ESV-CE (and/or ESV with apocrypha) your go-to for reading, studying, etc.? Just wondering. You seem to be quite well-versed in the world of manuscripts, translations, etc.
And I’ve also bought copies of the original printings of 1582-1609 and 1635 Douay-Rheims.
Most recently from https://www.churchlatin.com/ and also the complete Latin printing
by them of Biblia Sacra which you’ll also see on their website
The problem with the copies is that the old English is really not fun to read because the
different letters in many cases and the quality of the printing is just not very attractive.
On the other hand, the Biblia Sacra is beautifully printed; my only problem is that I’ve
forgotten the Latin I learned in high school and will have to relearn it again!
The first mentioned from “realdouayrheims” is actually printed in very easy on the eyes style.
And you can tell that it was a complete labor of love by the guy (Von Peters) who took many
years to transcribe it, including the notes on the side margins!
I managed to read the entire version by Von Peters in less than a year.
My hope would be that he could end up making a deal with a high quality bible printing firm
AND get an imprimatur. Wouldn’t it be funny and ironic if the Catholic Church refused to give
an imprimatur to its literal original English language bible.
The Douay-Rheims is the best English translation, and it’s not even debatable. Anyone who disagrees is a modernist. Period. And the best edition by far is the one put out by Loreto Publications. It is black letter, and has a sharp, bold, dark font.
That said, I don’t mind if the language in the Douay-Rheims were to be moderately updated. Of course, that would NOT include “gender inclusive” language and other liberal/feminist nonsense.
I don’t think you know what the term “modernist” means. “Modernism” is a heresy, not just “thing I don’t like.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the RSV text, the official Latin text of the whole Church is the Nova Vulgata (a Latin translation of the critical Hebrew and Greek editions) which is not the Vulgate the DR was translated from, and to say all post-DR translations are “modernist” would be to say the Church gave and gives full approbations to heretical translations. The DR is not “the best English translation”; I wouldn’t even call it the best English translation based on Latin.
It is barely even English to be completely honest. And may need to repeat my mantra above about how the only way the Douay Rheims or any 400 year old translation could possibly be the most accurate would be if the English language has been dead for centuries.
Modernism is the view that all doctrine is revisable.
The DR was used for hundreds of years in the Catholic liturgical readings, and during times when we had solid, orthodox Catholic popes. It is the only trustworthy Catholic translation in the English language. It is just as understandable as the KJV. If you cannot understand a word occasionally, then Heaven forbid anyone from picking up a dictionary and buidling up his vocabulary skills.
The DRC was displaced in the US by the NAB, a dull, bland, modernist translation with heretical footnotes, done by “Spirit of Vatican II” era hippies.
The RSV is better than the NAB/NABRE but still deficient because it is a translation done by mainline Protestant heretics, and reflects their theology. E.g., Genesis 3:15 (“he” instead of “she’) , Psalm 7:14 (“young man” instead of “virgin,” which is idiotic), and Luke 1:28 (“favored one” instead of “full of grace”), etc.
How do we KNOW that the NAB and RSV are inferior to the DRC? Because the Church has to change the NAB and RSV when used in the Lectionary. The changes pretty much match what ALREADY was in the DRC. (Thank goodness the diocesan TLM I attend still uses the DRC, and not the NAB in the readings.)
>The DR was used for hundreds of years in the Catholic liturgical readings
For hundreds of years, the Catholic liturgical readings were in Latin, not English, DR or otherwise. As for translations in missals, they were often, though not exclusively, the DR. The missal I use for my diocesan Extraordinary Form, printed in 1957, uses the Confraternity Version, for example. Certain missals in the UK used the Knox Version.
>and during times when we had solid, orthodox Catholic popes
So… right now?
>It is the only trustworthy Catholic translation in the English language.
Shame about all the other Catholic translations in the English language that the Church approved as trustworthy. Guess the gates of Hades prevailed against the Church and started publishing the NWT out of the Vatican printing office. /s
>The DRC was displaced in the US by the NAB, a dull, bland, modernist translation with heretical footnotes, done by “Spirit of Vatican II” era hippies.
Actually, if you go and purchase a missal from the 1940s, 50s, or early 60s, you’ll find that the DRC was already largely displaced by the Confraternity Version, the official American revision of the DRC, also translated from the Latin. If you ignore modern missals that claim to be “1962 missals” and try to dig around for an actual missal printed in 1962, you’ll have a quite difficult time tracking down one using the DRC translation for its English, because the overwhelming number of them used the Confraternity Version. And as for Bibles, there’s a reason you can easily find Douay-Confraternity “New Catholic Bibles” on the secondhand market, because those were printed widely, displacing the DRC as the standard English translation in the US, starting in the 40s, years before the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican and all the other boogeymen. If you were an American Catholic living in the 1950s, you were probably reading the NT and the Sunday readings in the Confraternity Version’s English. Just saying.
>The RSV is better than the NAB/NABRE but still deficient because it is a translation done by mainline Protestant heretics, and reflects their theology.
And the NCC allowed the Catholic bishops in 1966 to change what they needed to change for the RSV-CE, which included Luke 1:28. The same NCC then allowed Ignatius Press in 2006 to change even more for the RSV-2CE, which included Isaiah 7:14.
>E.g., Genesis 3:15 (“he” instead of “she’)
The Masoretic Text, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Septuagint all say “he,” as do multiple ancient Latin manuscripts and the current Vulgate, the Nova Vulgata, promulgated by Pope St. John Paul II. Textual scholarship isn’t even sure the “she” was original to St. Jerome or whether it was a typo by later copyists. After all, St. Jerome himself lamented within his own lifetime that copyists had already created mistakes.
>Psalm 7:14 (“young man” instead of “virgin,” which is idiotic)
The verse you’re thinking about is Isaiah 7:14, not Psalm 7:14, and the Masoretic Hebrew (and Dead Sea Scrolls) reading is literally “young woman,” not “young man.” And you rail against the RSV’s reading of this due to “mainline Protestant heretics,” but you presumably have no problem with the ESV, NASB, LSB, etc., reading “virgin,” based on the Greek Septuagint, even if those are from “conservative Protestant heretics” or whatever.
>and Luke 1:28 (“favored one” instead of “full of grace”)
Because they’re giving literal translations of the Greek (kecharitomene) and not the Latin (gratia plena), because different Greek words are used in other places where “full of grace” is used; see John 1:14 and Acts 6:8 (pleres charitos). You can believe “Hail, full of grace” is more accurate to the intended meaning of Luke 1:28, as many conservative Catholic scholars do, but in that case, you can get the RSV-CE, RSV-2CE, NCB, or the forthcoming CSV.
>The changes pretty much match what ALREADY was in the DRC.
And the Knox… and the Confraternity Version… and all those other Catholic translations from the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s that nobody remembers. Oh, and the Wycliffe Bible too, which predates the DR by 200 years. BTW, those “changes” for liturgical use aren’t to match the DRC, but to match the Nova Vulgata.
If the DR is the only orthodox Bible in the English language I would have to conclude that Catholicism in the English-speaking world must be extinct.
The NAB in its current form was begun in 1944 following the advice of Pope Pius XII that Bible translations should be from the original language and not the Vulgate. Don’t you think that is a little early for “The Spirit of Vatican II”? Pius XII was an advocate of Vatican II? How? Was he a time traveler?
Moreover, to say that the NAB “replaced” the DR is to imply that the DR was at one time an “official” Bible for the Catholic Church in the United States, this is not the case. The DR never held any kind of official status either in the United States or anywhere else.
The DR was widely purchased, I can’t honestly say “read” because the DR is very much like the Qu’ran and the Book of Mormon in that everyone owns one, and claims to revere it, but no one ever actually reads it, not because it is such a great, wonderful translation or that anyone ever thought it was. Rather it was purchased by Catholics for the same reason Protestants purchased the KJV: because it was the only Bible widely available for centuries.
As soon as other, higher quality and more readable Bibles became available for Catholics in the 1950s-1970s, Knox, Kleist-Lily New Testament, RSV Catholic Edition, Jerusalem Bible, NAB, and even the Catholic Edition of the original Living Bible, Catholics, who never really liked the DR to begin with, began to drop it.
A similar thing happened to Protestants with the KJV.
It was also at this time that Onyists, both KJV Onlyism and the much less common DR onlyism, began to develop among certain reactionary fringe elements.
That’s the true history, whether you wish to admit it or not.
Oh, c’mon Biblical Catholic. You actually defend the integrity of the NAB? It’s an awful translation, utterly lacking in elegance. And you deny that it has heretical footnotes? Really?
In terms of the NAB “replacing” the DRC, I was referring to the MISSALS. The St Andrew and Fr Lasance (both from 1945) use the DRC, as does the 1962 Missal. Those are the Missals that I use. (The NO Missal uses the NAB.)
And I’m not a DR “onlyist.” Good grief. I said above that I would not be opposed to a MINOR revision to update some of the dated language. But NOT to change it to NAB nonsense like “young woman” at Isaiah 7:14. Or to use radical feminist language, as with the NRSV.
Comparing the DRC to the Qu’ran or the Book of Mormon is absurd. (As for it “not being read,” that too is absurd.) The TLMs I attend are replete with people who have their nose in front of a Missal that uses the DRC. When I find myself at a NOM on the other hand, I rarely ever see anyone using a Missal. I’d dare say that the median TLM attendees reads Scripture far more frequently than the median NOM attendee. And the DRC is the preferred translation for TLM attendees. (Maybe the NAB’s use in the NOM is part of the reason that 2/3 of US Catholics today reject transubstantiation.)
This the the kind of Catholicking that makes me back slowly away. It’s bad for my spirit, and other living things.
I’ll go back to running silent and skipping the comments for another year. Have a blessed Lent and Easter everyone.
It is pretty amazing to see such a comment on this blog.
I forgot to mention the whine about how translations need to be changed for the lectionary. It has been that way since the Early Church, even the earliest extant lectionaries make hundreds of minor modifications to the text for public reading. This is necessary for readings to be coherent. On of the more common changes is to long passages in the gospels where Jesus is speaking and the text simply says “he” several times in a row, since these passages are split up in the lectionary, “he said” is changed in the lectionary to “Jesus said”, otherwise the passage would not be coherent when read aloud because it wouldn’t be clear who is speaking. That this is done is a really dumb complaint to make about a translation.
The changes in the lectionary have a helluva lot more to do than substantive changes like making the passages more coherent when read aloud. Read Peter Kwasniewski re: this. Several articles at the New Liturgical Movement.
Sorry, was typing too fast. Meant to say that the changes in the lectionary from the NAB are not merely trivial changes such as making the passages more coherent when read aloud. The NAB/NABRE is an embarrassment to Catholicism.
“The missal I use for my diocesan Extraordinary Form, printed in 1957, uses the Confraternity Version, for example. Certain missals in the UK used the Knox Version.”
I mainly use the St Andrew’s and Father Lasance missals, both from 1945. Occasionally, I use the 1962 Missal from Angelus Press. All three use the DRC. Knox is too loose a translation. The Confraternity is not bad, bit occasionally quirky, and definitely superior to “modern” translations like the JB, NABRE, RSV2CE, NRSVCE, ESVCE, etc. It’s no longer in print, though.
“So… right now?”
No. See V2, NOM, AL, TC, and FS. Not going to debate it in this forum, other than to say that it would be good to dispense with the following:
SC22; LG1, 8, 15-16, 20; UR3; DH 2-3; DV 8; GES whole document; NA whole document; NOM scrap entirely; AL, TC, and FS, scrap all three documents in their entirety. Also, versus populum is ridiculous.
“Shame about all the other Catholic translations in the English language that the Church approved as trustworthy.”
Oh, c’mon. You know all about the heretical footnotes in the NABRE, and that the NRSV is a radical feminist translation. I provided examples above. If you like a translation that departs from Catholic interpretations of the OT, then good for you.
Even the RNJB is modernist with its refusal to assign a male OR female pronoun next to “life” in Matthew 16:25-26. (The translator, Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB, has publicly stated that he has a “gender inclusive” translation agenda, and has been critical of the ESV for lacking one.)
“And the NCC allowed the Catholic bishops in 1966 to change what they needed to change for the RSV-CE, which included Luke 1:28. The same NCC then allowed Ignatius Press in 2006 to change even more for the RSV-2CE, which included Isaiah 7:14.”
Yes, I know all that. My point is the fact that they had to make those changes speaks volumes. (That said, the RSV2CE is not a bad translation, and gets a lot of things right.)
Genesis 3:15.
St Jerome had access to manuscripts that no longer exist. I trust the Vulgate.
Isaiah 7:14.
Yes, I meant Isaiah. Thanks. And yes, it’s good that some evangelical Protestant versions translate it to “virgin.” (Even Knox butchered this.). Using “young woman” makes a fool of the Gospel writer of Matthew 1:23. In any case the issue is how should a CATHOLIC translation render Isaiah 7:14.
Luke 1:28.
Yes. I know the debate. Thanks. The issue again is how should CATHOLIC translation render the passage? The modernist NABRE drops the ball here.
Thank you, James. I generally don’t care for Reader editions, but given the dearth of Confraternity bibles still in print, I might order it, and Sophia is offering both editions for a total of $15.
I do have the portable Confraternity NT put out by Sceptre Publications. Not the easiest to read. I also have about 3-4 old Confraternity bibles from the 1950s that I bought on Ebay. They are in decent shape. One thing I notice is that bibles published then, at least these ones, have nice bold sharp and DARK print, with very good paper. Most of the bibles today are published in China, and of inferior quality.
FWIW, you argue like someone who thinks Catholicism began in 1965. To be more precise, you argue like some Georgetown theology grad student in 1975. 😉
E.g., “time to retire the Douay Rheims permanently.” “This is the 21st century.” “Nostalgia be damned.” “We need a current Bible in modern English based on current research.” “DR is very much like the Qu’ran.” Blah blah blah. You also refuse to even acknowledge the heretical footnotes in the NABRE. So caught up in the Spirit of the Times.
Hot take: It’s about time for DRB publishers to retire the 1899 layout. The translation text is public domain. There is zero reason why there shouldn’t at least be a single-column edition. In my opinion, a DRB with the layout of the old Jerusalem Bible would be perfect: single-column layout with verse numbers and cross-references in the margin and footnotes on the right-hand page’s footer. It’d break up the monotony of all the DRB publishers printing the exact same century-old layout with minor adjustments.
James,
100% If you want more people to get to read the DR, create an edition that looks like a modern Bible. Look what is done with the KJV.
Tim,
And while they’re at it, they can fix the century-old typos too; the one that always comes to mind is Nehemiah 3:15, which reads “the king’s guard” in the 1899 DRB instead of “the king’s garden” despite the Latin reading “hortum regis” and the 1609 original having the correct English. They were corrected, at least in part, in the Benziger version from 1943, but that one is never used as the base for new editions. And I completely agree re: the KJV. Modern KJV editions even give new notes to define unfamiliar words, which does wonders for functional usage.
Single column, paragraph format, wide margin, prose as prose and poetry as poetry… man, it is truly bizarre that every Douay Bible for the last hundred years has been stuck as double column with verse by verse when, as you said, a new layout alone can do a lot to refresh an old text.
Here is an even hotter hot take: it is time retire the Douay Rheims and the KJV both permanently. This is the 21st century, if 400 year old translations in archaic language that requires a special dictionary to be able to understand it is the most accurate translation, then only possible conclusions follow:
1. The English language is dead
or
2. The English language is dead
or perhaps
3. The English language is dead
That is all. Nostalgia be damned, we need a current Bible in modern English based on current research.
Amen to that.
Even the video reeks of this backward-looking, defensive approach to faith. Sort of “Remember when everything was right with the Church and the world? Then this is the Bible for you! Hide from all that pesky growth and deepening of faith and live the unexamined life the way real Catholics should.”
The form IS the function: freeze a moment in time. This is the mindset that God is only to be found in what was, not in what is becoming. Stay in Egypt.
Well, 2/3 of US Catholics reject transubstantiation. And there are far less priests in the world now than in 1970, even though the world’s population has nearly doubled. Religious vocations have dwindled since that time. So much for “all that pesky growth and deepening of faith.” And shudder the thought that we can have an orthodox Catholic bible translation, which has stood the test of time.
I agree. There have been a lot versions of the Bible. They were good for their time and then were retired. DR and KJV just continue to plod along. They are good for historical purposes, but I shouldn’t need a translation for the translation.
I most certainly have a Douay Rheims, but, as my vision is going, this may be something worth checking out.
It will be the same old layout as every other DRB, with a cheap cover for a premium price.
Why can’t we have premium editions of the Bible? If you go on Amazon the Protestants have unlimited versions of the Bible to choose from. You can get a nice NKJV bible for under $30.00 with unbelievable quality. The layout is beautiful, large print, dark letters, nice ribbons. But Catholic bibles are much more costly with much less quality. Take the St. Joseph Bibles as an example. They have been using the same font and the same black and white as well as the tacky color photos for over 50 years! They never change or update. The ESV Catholic edition is better than most but hardly worth the price. It’s not rocket science.
The NRSV illustrated Catholic bible by Catholic bible press is currently on Amazon for $55 . It’s by far the most premium Catholic bible I’ve found. Though it’s a bit big for a everyday bible.
This looks like the exact same layout as the existing Tan Books/St Benedict press Douay Rheims. That version has some typos that I’m anxious to find out if they were corrected or not.
— The First epistle of St Paul to Timothy is titled as “ The first epistle TO Saint Paul to Timothy”
—. Also I’ve found a few instances where one word is extremely spaced out taking up a full sentence worth of space. One example is the word “brought” in Ezechiel 31:15. I have the leather, ultra soft and paperback editions and they all contain the same typos. I am curious if this edition does as well.
May the Lord save us from Red Letter Bibles!
Amen!
Amen! Literally the only thing keeping me from getting the Great Adventure Bible. Sad.
I’d recommend getting it, but also getting a leather cover from OreMoose. The cover breaks in really nicely, so my Great Adventure Bible basically has a floppy leather cover now.
FrJT,
Yes, that is a good idea. I have an OreMoose cover on my ESVCE. It fits perfectly. Highly recommend their work.
Sorry, I misunderstood you, I thought you meant that you didn’t get a Great Adventure Bible because of the cover–hence, my suggestion about OreMoose. You were talking about red letters. I’ve found the GAB red letters to be, on the whole, very easy to read. Very dark crimson, and easy to make out. I could do without the red letters, and I could go for .5-1pt larger font. But hey, I just really like the RSV-2CE in that edition.
Do you think that so many publishers keep the look of the DR the same old way is just due to nostalgia or a sort of elevation of the “good old days”? It just seems to me that a larger audience might be tapped if someone (an actual publisher) took on the task of reformatting the text to look modern, adding some (even modest) modern study helps like newer maps, and dress it in a modern style cover and binding. Surely it can be done.
Timothy,
I often wonder if they think the only way they can retain that imprimatur of Cardinal Gibbons from 1899 is to essentially photocopy the exact same text block, layout and all. Even though, if needed, the USCCB could probably give a new one without even needing to look at the text because, obviously, it’s still the Douay-Rheims. After all, the Baronius Knox got a fresh imprimatur and a foreword by Dr. Scott Hahn, so what makes the 1899 Douay different? Clearly Latin-based Bibles can still get approvals. Personally, I wish they could go back and review the 1899 text to correct all the typos that have long been known and written about but have never been fixed, and then place it in a new layout, give it a fresh imprimatur, and make it look vaguely from this century. If you don’t want to write new notes for it, but acknowledge that Challoner’s lean notes don’t quite do it anymore, then just create an abridged set from the Haydock Bible by sticking to timeless pastoral stuff and skipping over the obsolete stuff.
Recently, Emmaus Academic began publishing a translation of the Glossa Ordinaria, and the volume is a good quality hardback, so I’d love to picture them one day entering the Bible publishing market with something like a “definitive” Douay-Rheims printing. With all the trads congregating in Steubenville, it’d be my bet for where a quality Douay-Rheims could emerge.
James,
I have been thinking about this for the past couple days. I can’t imagine that they would need another imprimatur to print the text in a different format. I am trying to remember the discussions I had with Baronius back in the day concerning the Knox, and I just don’t remember exactly why they got another imprimatur for the Knox. Perhaps that had something to do with the Archdiocese of Westminster owning the copyright to the Knox text. So, I think you bring up a good question, but I am just not sure how to answer it.
That’s another valid point. Even though it went out of print, it seems the Knox never left copyright protection, and the Archdiocese of Westminster either always had the copyright itself or renewed it when the publishers that had it didn’t do so themselves.
I’m glad I’m not the only one whose first impression is “this layout again?” I can’t help but think of the Evangelicals who’ve in recent times started their own in-house “high-end” Bible print shops like Humble Lamb or Warner Bibles, and found great success in the process, and wonder who’s going to be the first Catholic to take the plunge?
I find the DR dreadful. I was going to attempt to write more but Biblical Catholic said it all.
How about this: Revive the original pre-Challoner Douay-Rheims to be used as a historical reference work, retire the Challoner revision outside of TLM missals because anyone who knows the history of it knows it’s a woefully inconsistent text with so many permutations that there really isn’t “a” Challoner text, and we all agree to use the ESV-CE, and the 2025 NAB successor and CSV when they come. Besides, if someone wants a translation from Latin, the Knox and Confraternity versions are far better.
I do think that the popularity of the D-R is stimulated by nostalgia and many copies in readers homes remain on a respected shelf in their personal library. However, if you want to really appreciate what the D-R is all about you need to look at the original, I suggest that you go to the original 1582 D-R and pick your favorite Pauline Epistle. Then, read the Argument, the Text, and the Marginal notes, and the Annotations. This is not an easy study as it takes a little time to get through the spelling and dense archaic language. When you do this, you will see that this is not the bland Chaloner document, but rather a Study Bible with Cross-References, notes and Commentary. It is a Counterreformation work that pays close attention to the works of the “heretics.” To me, most of the commentary is sound and relevant today. I think you will find this a rich and rewarding experience. However, I would not recommend the original D-R as your go to Bible. A good website to use to read the original D-R is: The Catholic Resource Page https://catholicresourcepage.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-original-douay-rheims-bible-pre.html. You only need to read a few pages to see what is missing in the Challoner version.
It’s not “nostalgia.” Catholics who worship at the TLM have the DRC translation in their Missals. It’s the best and most reliable translation in the English language.
Protestants are absolutely kicking our butts in the premium Bible market. They are also destroying us in the under $5 Bible market too! I pray that the 2025 NAB solves our problems. The scholars on the revision committee are really solid and should fix the problematic notes and wooden translation.
Let me just say…. I totally get where people are coming from in that it seems that this is sort of a reactionary product. And yeah, it would be great to get some modern formatting for a DR…
But, I’ll also add that I’ve benefited tremendously from using the DR as an ancillary text, especially since I’ve done a great deal of study on St. John of the Cross. There’s a great deal of Hebrew imagery that (ironically enough) really comes through in the Latin textual tradition, and it’s imagery that plays an important role in the language of the mystical tradition. So, I absolutely think having a DR is valuable, and I think having a solid critical-text translation is valuable. I say that as someone who is pretty well versed in Biblical Greek and Latin.
The Vulgate is an important enough text by itself that an English translation is quite useful. But there are better translations of the Vulgate than the D-R, and more can be made, similar to the way new translations of the Septuagint have been made recently.
And I have heard from some traditionalists the complaint that the Nova Vulgata, the New Vulgate of 1979 is such a radical revision that it is essentially a new Latin translation. I certainly don’t know Latin well enough to be able to decide that question. But I think a translation of the New Vulgae would also be quite useful.
There is no major reason to have a translation of the Nova Vulgata, since it was essentially a Latin translation of the Nestle-Aland of the time, contrary to the popular assumption that it was a direct revision of the Clementine Vulgate, so a “translation” of the NV would probably only require a very light touch-up of the RSV71, much of which the 2CE actually did; IIRC, the 2CE was created to serve as a liturgical text, so it makes sense it’d be close to the NV. The truth is, the best hope recently for a good fresh translation of the Vulgate would’ve been the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library editions from Harvard; sadly, they created an artificial Vulgate text, rather than using the Clementine Vulgate or the Stuttgart Vulgate critical edition, and their English is, once again, the 1899 DR with light tweaks. That said, the Glossa Ordinaria Genesis from Emmaus Academic also uses a tweaked 1899 DR for its Bible text, so we’re probably just stuck with things this way. I’ve taken to using the Confraternity Version whenever I want a clearer look at the Clementine’s New Testament text, especially since it was advertised as a “revision” of the Rheims-Challoner version.
I would love a translation of the Stuttgart Vulgar into contemporary English. But is there really enough of a market for such a Bible?
Biblical Catholic, is the ESV-CE (and/or ESV with apocrypha) your go-to for reading, studying, etc.? Just wondering. You seem to be quite well-versed in the world of manuscripts, translations, etc.
Back in 2010 I purchased the following: both the 5 volume hardcover and the complete CD disk.
https://www.realdouayrheims.com/
And I’ve also bought copies of the original printings of 1582-1609 and 1635 Douay-Rheims.
Most recently from https://www.churchlatin.com/ and also the complete Latin printing
by them of Biblia Sacra which you’ll also see on their website
The problem with the copies is that the old English is really not fun to read because the
different letters in many cases and the quality of the printing is just not very attractive.
On the other hand, the Biblia Sacra is beautifully printed; my only problem is that I’ve
forgotten the Latin I learned in high school and will have to relearn it again!
The first mentioned from “realdouayrheims” is actually printed in very easy on the eyes style.
And you can tell that it was a complete labor of love by the guy (Von Peters) who took many
years to transcribe it, including the notes on the side margins!
I managed to read the entire version by Von Peters in less than a year.
My hope would be that he could end up making a deal with a high quality bible printing firm
AND get an imprimatur. Wouldn’t it be funny and ironic if the Catholic Church refused to give
an imprimatur to its literal original English language bible.
That website just screams “King James Onlyist, but Catholic.”
The Douay-Rheims is the best English translation, and it’s not even debatable. Anyone who disagrees is a modernist. Period. And the best edition by far is the one put out by Loreto Publications. It is black letter, and has a sharp, bold, dark font.
That said, I don’t mind if the language in the Douay-Rheims were to be moderately updated. Of course, that would NOT include “gender inclusive” language and other liberal/feminist nonsense.
I don’t think you know what the term “modernist” means. “Modernism” is a heresy, not just “thing I don’t like.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the RSV text, the official Latin text of the whole Church is the Nova Vulgata (a Latin translation of the critical Hebrew and Greek editions) which is not the Vulgate the DR was translated from, and to say all post-DR translations are “modernist” would be to say the Church gave and gives full approbations to heretical translations. The DR is not “the best English translation”; I wouldn’t even call it the best English translation based on Latin.
It is barely even English to be completely honest. And may need to repeat my mantra above about how the only way the Douay Rheims or any 400 year old translation could possibly be the most accurate would be if the English language has been dead for centuries.
Modernism is the view that all doctrine is revisable.
The DR was used for hundreds of years in the Catholic liturgical readings, and during times when we had solid, orthodox Catholic popes. It is the only trustworthy Catholic translation in the English language. It is just as understandable as the KJV. If you cannot understand a word occasionally, then Heaven forbid anyone from picking up a dictionary and buidling up his vocabulary skills.
The DRC was displaced in the US by the NAB, a dull, bland, modernist translation with heretical footnotes, done by “Spirit of Vatican II” era hippies.
The RSV is better than the NAB/NABRE but still deficient because it is a translation done by mainline Protestant heretics, and reflects their theology. E.g., Genesis 3:15 (“he” instead of “she’) , Psalm 7:14 (“young man” instead of “virgin,” which is idiotic), and Luke 1:28 (“favored one” instead of “full of grace”), etc.
How do we KNOW that the NAB and RSV are inferior to the DRC? Because the Church has to change the NAB and RSV when used in the Lectionary. The changes pretty much match what ALREADY was in the DRC. (Thank goodness the diocesan TLM I attend still uses the DRC, and not the NAB in the readings.)
>The DR was used for hundreds of years in the Catholic liturgical readings
For hundreds of years, the Catholic liturgical readings were in Latin, not English, DR or otherwise. As for translations in missals, they were often, though not exclusively, the DR. The missal I use for my diocesan Extraordinary Form, printed in 1957, uses the Confraternity Version, for example. Certain missals in the UK used the Knox Version.
>and during times when we had solid, orthodox Catholic popes
So… right now?
>It is the only trustworthy Catholic translation in the English language.
Shame about all the other Catholic translations in the English language that the Church approved as trustworthy. Guess the gates of Hades prevailed against the Church and started publishing the NWT out of the Vatican printing office. /s
>The DRC was displaced in the US by the NAB, a dull, bland, modernist translation with heretical footnotes, done by “Spirit of Vatican II” era hippies.
Actually, if you go and purchase a missal from the 1940s, 50s, or early 60s, you’ll find that the DRC was already largely displaced by the Confraternity Version, the official American revision of the DRC, also translated from the Latin. If you ignore modern missals that claim to be “1962 missals” and try to dig around for an actual missal printed in 1962, you’ll have a quite difficult time tracking down one using the DRC translation for its English, because the overwhelming number of them used the Confraternity Version. And as for Bibles, there’s a reason you can easily find Douay-Confraternity “New Catholic Bibles” on the secondhand market, because those were printed widely, displacing the DRC as the standard English translation in the US, starting in the 40s, years before the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican and all the other boogeymen. If you were an American Catholic living in the 1950s, you were probably reading the NT and the Sunday readings in the Confraternity Version’s English. Just saying.
>The RSV is better than the NAB/NABRE but still deficient because it is a translation done by mainline Protestant heretics, and reflects their theology.
And the NCC allowed the Catholic bishops in 1966 to change what they needed to change for the RSV-CE, which included Luke 1:28. The same NCC then allowed Ignatius Press in 2006 to change even more for the RSV-2CE, which included Isaiah 7:14.
>E.g., Genesis 3:15 (“he” instead of “she’)
The Masoretic Text, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Septuagint all say “he,” as do multiple ancient Latin manuscripts and the current Vulgate, the Nova Vulgata, promulgated by Pope St. John Paul II. Textual scholarship isn’t even sure the “she” was original to St. Jerome or whether it was a typo by later copyists. After all, St. Jerome himself lamented within his own lifetime that copyists had already created mistakes.
>Psalm 7:14 (“young man” instead of “virgin,” which is idiotic)
The verse you’re thinking about is Isaiah 7:14, not Psalm 7:14, and the Masoretic Hebrew (and Dead Sea Scrolls) reading is literally “young woman,” not “young man.” And you rail against the RSV’s reading of this due to “mainline Protestant heretics,” but you presumably have no problem with the ESV, NASB, LSB, etc., reading “virgin,” based on the Greek Septuagint, even if those are from “conservative Protestant heretics” or whatever.
>and Luke 1:28 (“favored one” instead of “full of grace”)
Because they’re giving literal translations of the Greek (kecharitomene) and not the Latin (gratia plena), because different Greek words are used in other places where “full of grace” is used; see John 1:14 and Acts 6:8 (pleres charitos). You can believe “Hail, full of grace” is more accurate to the intended meaning of Luke 1:28, as many conservative Catholic scholars do, but in that case, you can get the RSV-CE, RSV-2CE, NCB, or the forthcoming CSV.
>The changes pretty much match what ALREADY was in the DRC.
And the Knox… and the Confraternity Version… and all those other Catholic translations from the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s that nobody remembers. Oh, and the Wycliffe Bible too, which predates the DR by 200 years. BTW, those “changes” for liturgical use aren’t to match the DRC, but to match the Nova Vulgata.
If the DR is the only orthodox Bible in the English language I would have to conclude that Catholicism in the English-speaking world must be extinct.
The NAB in its current form was begun in 1944 following the advice of Pope Pius XII that Bible translations should be from the original language and not the Vulgate. Don’t you think that is a little early for “The Spirit of Vatican II”? Pius XII was an advocate of Vatican II? How? Was he a time traveler?
Moreover, to say that the NAB “replaced” the DR is to imply that the DR was at one time an “official” Bible for the Catholic Church in the United States, this is not the case. The DR never held any kind of official status either in the United States or anywhere else.
The DR was widely purchased, I can’t honestly say “read” because the DR is very much like the Qu’ran and the Book of Mormon in that everyone owns one, and claims to revere it, but no one ever actually reads it, not because it is such a great, wonderful translation or that anyone ever thought it was. Rather it was purchased by Catholics for the same reason Protestants purchased the KJV: because it was the only Bible widely available for centuries.
As soon as other, higher quality and more readable Bibles became available for Catholics in the 1950s-1970s, Knox, Kleist-Lily New Testament, RSV Catholic Edition, Jerusalem Bible, NAB, and even the Catholic Edition of the original Living Bible, Catholics, who never really liked the DR to begin with, began to drop it.
A similar thing happened to Protestants with the KJV.
It was also at this time that Onyists, both KJV Onlyism and the much less common DR onlyism, began to develop among certain reactionary fringe elements.
That’s the true history, whether you wish to admit it or not.
Oh, c’mon Biblical Catholic. You actually defend the integrity of the NAB? It’s an awful translation, utterly lacking in elegance. And you deny that it has heretical footnotes? Really?
In terms of the NAB “replacing” the DRC, I was referring to the MISSALS. The St Andrew and Fr Lasance (both from 1945) use the DRC, as does the 1962 Missal. Those are the Missals that I use. (The NO Missal uses the NAB.)
And I’m not a DR “onlyist.” Good grief. I said above that I would not be opposed to a MINOR revision to update some of the dated language. But NOT to change it to NAB nonsense like “young woman” at Isaiah 7:14. Or to use radical feminist language, as with the NRSV.
Comparing the DRC to the Qu’ran or the Book of Mormon is absurd. (As for it “not being read,” that too is absurd.) The TLMs I attend are replete with people who have their nose in front of a Missal that uses the DRC. When I find myself at a NOM on the other hand, I rarely ever see anyone using a Missal. I’d dare say that the median TLM attendees reads Scripture far more frequently than the median NOM attendee. And the DRC is the preferred translation for TLM attendees. (Maybe the NAB’s use in the NOM is part of the reason that 2/3 of US Catholics today reject transubstantiation.)
This the the kind of Catholicking that makes me back slowly away. It’s bad for my spirit, and other living things.
I’ll go back to running silent and skipping the comments for another year. Have a blessed Lent and Easter everyone.
Oh Lordy.
It is pretty amazing to see such a comment on this blog.
I forgot to mention the whine about how translations need to be changed for the lectionary. It has been that way since the Early Church, even the earliest extant lectionaries make hundreds of minor modifications to the text for public reading. This is necessary for readings to be coherent. On of the more common changes is to long passages in the gospels where Jesus is speaking and the text simply says “he” several times in a row, since these passages are split up in the lectionary, “he said” is changed in the lectionary to “Jesus said”, otherwise the passage would not be coherent when read aloud because it wouldn’t be clear who is speaking. That this is done is a really dumb complaint to make about a translation.
The changes in the lectionary have a helluva lot more to do than substantive changes like making the passages more coherent when read aloud. Read Peter Kwasniewski re: this. Several articles at the New Liturgical Movement.
Sorry, was typing too fast. Meant to say that the changes in the lectionary from the NAB are not merely trivial changes such as making the passages more coherent when read aloud. The NAB/NABRE is an embarrassment to Catholicism.
“The missal I use for my diocesan Extraordinary Form, printed in 1957, uses the Confraternity Version, for example. Certain missals in the UK used the Knox Version.”
I mainly use the St Andrew’s and Father Lasance missals, both from 1945. Occasionally, I use the 1962 Missal from Angelus Press. All three use the DRC. Knox is too loose a translation. The Confraternity is not bad, bit occasionally quirky, and definitely superior to “modern” translations like the JB, NABRE, RSV2CE, NRSVCE, ESVCE, etc. It’s no longer in print, though.
“So… right now?”
No. See V2, NOM, AL, TC, and FS. Not going to debate it in this forum, other than to say that it would be good to dispense with the following:
SC22; LG1, 8, 15-16, 20; UR3; DH 2-3; DV 8; GES whole document; NA whole document; NOM scrap entirely; AL, TC, and FS, scrap all three documents in their entirety. Also, versus populum is ridiculous.
“Shame about all the other Catholic translations in the English language that the Church approved as trustworthy.”
Oh, c’mon. You know all about the heretical footnotes in the NABRE, and that the NRSV is a radical feminist translation. I provided examples above. If you like a translation that departs from Catholic interpretations of the OT, then good for you.
Even the RNJB is modernist with its refusal to assign a male OR female pronoun next to “life” in Matthew 16:25-26. (The translator, Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB, has publicly stated that he has a “gender inclusive” translation agenda, and has been critical of the ESV for lacking one.)
“And the NCC allowed the Catholic bishops in 1966 to change what they needed to change for the RSV-CE, which included Luke 1:28. The same NCC then allowed Ignatius Press in 2006 to change even more for the RSV-2CE, which included Isaiah 7:14.”
Yes, I know all that. My point is the fact that they had to make those changes speaks volumes. (That said, the RSV2CE is not a bad translation, and gets a lot of things right.)
Genesis 3:15.
St Jerome had access to manuscripts that no longer exist. I trust the Vulgate.
Isaiah 7:14.
Yes, I meant Isaiah. Thanks. And yes, it’s good that some evangelical Protestant versions translate it to “virgin.” (Even Knox butchered this.). Using “young woman” makes a fool of the Gospel writer of Matthew 1:23. In any case the issue is how should a CATHOLIC translation render Isaiah 7:14.
Luke 1:28.
Yes. I know the debate. Thanks. The issue again is how should CATHOLIC translation render the passage? The modernist NABRE drops the ball here.
The Confraternity New Testament (2 volumes hardcover) is available currently from Sophia Institute Press.
Thank you, James. I generally don’t care for Reader editions, but given the dearth of Confraternity bibles still in print, I might order it, and Sophia is offering both editions for a total of $15.
I do have the portable Confraternity NT put out by Sceptre Publications. Not the easiest to read. I also have about 3-4 old Confraternity bibles from the 1950s that I bought on Ebay. They are in decent shape. One thing I notice is that bibles published then, at least these ones, have nice bold sharp and DARK print, with very good paper. Most of the bibles today are published in China, and of inferior quality.
You argue like a Sedevacantist, that everything after arbitrary date X is false, heretical, and modernist.
Baaa.
Nope, not a sede. Lol!
FWIW, you argue like someone who thinks Catholicism began in 1965. To be more precise, you argue like some Georgetown theology grad student in 1975. 😉
E.g., “time to retire the Douay Rheims permanently.” “This is the 21st century.” “Nostalgia be damned.” “We need a current Bible in modern English based on current research.” “DR is very much like the Qu’ran.” Blah blah blah. You also refuse to even acknowledge the heretical footnotes in the NABRE. So caught up in the Spirit of the Times.
We need a coherent Bible, and the Douay Rheims doesn’t fit that description
There’s nothing like a good old fashioned biblical text slobberknocker !
I wish the Lions had gone to the Super Bowl b