In my previous review of the St. Joseph personal size edition of the New Catholic Bible (NCB), I complained about the glossy color illustrations and family record pages which Catholic Book Publishing Corporation (CBPC) interspersed throughout the biblical text. Readers pointed out in the comments that the NCB gift Bibles from World Catholic Press (a publishing imprint of CBPC) do not include any glossy insert pages. I finally purchased a copy of the “deluxe gift Bible” in burgundy bonded leather to review, and I’ve now owned it for a couple of months.
Top-Line Conclusions
I’m surprised at how good this Bible is. It has the same excellent, bright white paper (with minimal ghosting) as the St. Joseph personal size edition. It also has a sewn binding. It is an excellent size for both reading and portability. It has no glossy inserts of any kind and is a red-letter edition (with the words of Christ printed in bright red). The main drawbacks are a slightly more cramped line spacing (compared to the St. Joseph personal size edition), and all poetry is printed in a font size that is a half-point smaller than prose.
Physical Construction
This Bible measures 9 X 6 X 1.25 inches — almost identical in size to the NRSV-CE personal size edition from Catholic Bible Press. It has a textured burgundy bonded leather cover which feels better to hold than I expected. In recent years, I think imitation leather often has a softer texture than bonded leather, and that remains true when I compare this Bible to the imitation leather on the NRSV-CE personal size edition. But this bonded leather cover is not bad by any means. it feels substantial enough that it will probably hold up to a decent amount of use before it starts to wear out. If the New Catholic Bible is your preferred translation, I could see this Bible being a good candidate for a leather rebind.
The binding is sewn, with a red and gold headband and tailband and a single, basic, burgundy ribbon marker. The gold gilding on the page edges is pretty good — not a high-end mirror-like gilding, but noticeably better than many basic Bibles.
The Bible arrives in a two-piece paperboard gift box which could be used to protect it in a backpack or travel bag.
Page Layout, Typesetting, and Ghosting
In recent years, Catholic Book Publishing Corporation has been using some of the best paper in the business outside of the high-end premium Bible market. It is stunningly opaque and bright white. The text is also printed bolder and darker than many other Bibles in my collection (including the St. Benedict Press NABRE). Their ability to achieve high-contrast printing with almost no ghosting is remarkable and unparalleled among other Catholic Bibles at this price point ($50 and below), with the single exception of the paperback Great Adventure Catholic Bible, which also has excellent paper.
According to my homemade font size comparison sheet, the biblical text is printed in 9 pt. font in prose sections and 8.5 pt. font in poetic sections. This applies to all poetry, even short snippets of verse interspersed with prose. Here is an example from Jeremiah with poetry on the left side of the page and prose on the right side:
By comparison, the St. Joseph personal size edition uses 9 pt. font for both prose and poetry. The line spacing is also slightly wider in the St. Joseph edition. Finally, it’s worth noting that the verse numbers in the World Catholic Press Bible are large and bold, while the St. Joseph edition uses smaller, superscript-style verse numbers.
The footnotes are easier to read in the World Catholic Press edition compared to the St. Joseph edition. They are printed in 7.5 pt. sans-serif font (similar to Arial). The St. Joseph edition uses a blocky, very bold, 7 pt. font which is harder to read.
Finally, this Bible is a red letter edition, with the words of Christ printed in the same bright red ink that is used in the St. Joseph edition:
Conclusion
I can easily recommend this edition. I hesitated to buy a copy for a long time, because I’ve owned a New American Bible from World Catholic Press since the late 1990s (which I received as a confirmation Bible). That edition is a good bare-bones Bible, but the cover is not high quality and the gilding is mediocre. I struggled to justify paying $45 for what I expected to be a lower-quality edition compared to the St. Joseph Edition. I’m very happy that the quality is substantially better than I expected.
It’s worth noting that there are three variants of this Bible:
- NCB Gift and Award Bible (imitation leather) – $21 MSRP
- NCB Deluxe Gift Bible (bonded leather) – $45 MSRP
- NCB Deluxe Gift Bible with thumb index (bonded leather) – $54 MSRP
I suspect the imitation leather gift and award Bible (with its lower purchase price) would be the modern equivalent of the NAB confirmation Bible which I received. Given the overall improvement in paper quality of CBPC’s books in recent years, it’s possible that the gift and award Bible is now higher quality than the older version, but I have not seen it in person to make a judgment.
Now that I’ve seen it in person, I think the $45 price for the Deluxe Gift Edition is fair for the overall quality of the paper and printing. This is a nearly ideal-sized Bible for daily use in my opinion. The only drawbacks are a slightly more cramped page layout compared to the St. Joseph personal size edition and a half-point smaller font used for poetry.