Yesterday afternoon, I received the brown calfskin Cambridge Diadem NRSVue with Apocrypha which I preordered. I’ll be publishing a follow-up review at a later date after I spend some quality time using this Bible. In the meantime, here are several quick observations for anyone who is considering preordering this Bible to take advantage of the preorder discount:
The calfskin is soft and flexible — truly a joy to hold.
I checked the verses and footnotes for the full list of errata for the NRSVue, and almost all of the listed corrections are present in this edition (including the updated footnotes for 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10). There are 4 corrections from the errata list which are not present:
- The change to the title page for the full Bible
- The change to the title page for the Old Testament
- A change from “NRSV” to “NRSVue” in the introduction to Greek Esther
- A grammatical change to the subject heading for Greek Esther 1:1.
There is some noticeable variation in print darkness in my copy. It reminds me of the print variation in the Schuyler Quentel ESV with Apocrypha which I noted in my review of that edition. In more than one place, I’ve found abnormally bold, dark ink in the inner column of the left-hand page, and lighter printing in the outer column on the right-hand page. So far, I have not found anything that interferes with reading.
The font size is listed as 8.2 pt, but based on my homemade font size comparison sheet, the lower case letters are equivalent to 9.25 pt Times New Roman. This is surprisingly close to the text in the NRSVue Popular Text edition (which corresponds to about 9.75 pt on my homemade tool). The line spacing and space between words and characters is noticeably more cramped in the Diadem than the Popular Text edition, though, and I think the Popular Text Bible is significantly more comfortable to read.
The center column cross-references appear to be identical to the references in the old NRSV Reference Edition from Cambridge.
The center column is noticeably narrower than the ESV Diadem, and as a result, the columns of biblical text are slightly wider than the ESV Diadem.
Textual footnotes are tiny. They are equivalent in size to 5.25 pt Times New Roman. By contrast, the textual notes in the ESV Diadem are equivalent to 7.0 pt Times New Roman.
My calf split leather edition arrived last week with hundreds of warped pages. Cambridge is sending a replacement. This follows on from the calf split leather Popular Text edition I ordered which was damaged. I opted for a hardback as a replacement, which is in perfect condition. All orders placed directly with Cambridge here in the UK. It seems that quality control isn’t working well, or perhaps I was just unlucky.
Do we know when Catholic editions of the NRSVue are going to be available for purchase?
I would also very much like to know this. As much as I don’t want to like the NRSVue due to the level of gender neutral language, “Happy is the man…”, etc, I find that it has become my second favorite translation after the ESV/ESV-CE.
The Bible Society in the UK published an NRSVue-CE a few months ago.
https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/products/9780564037216/
I think the Bible Society NRSVue-CE uses the same text block – is that the technical term? – as the Cambridge Popular Text edition of the NRSVue.
Oh I think you’re right! The Bible Society has a limited preview of that edition on their webpage:
https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/uploads/content/shop/files/Look%20inside%202024/NRSVue-Catholic-Look-Inside.pdf
The page layout and font looks the same as the Popular Text NRSVue. I really like the font in that edition. It’s easy to read and very clear.
I just received this edition of the NRSVue-CE this afternoon.
1) I can confirm that the typesetting is basically identical to Cambridge’s Popular Text edition.
2) Unlike the Cambridge edition, this was not printed and bound in Italy by Lego; it was printed in China. That difference shows. The paper is very thin and somewhat rough, and the ghosting is noticeably worse than in the Cambridge. Additionally, while it is line matched, the printing is slightly misaligned on some pages, negating the benefit.
4) Nevertheless, it has a Smyth sewn binding and is still fairly readable.
5) It also has some pretty awesome bonus goodies at the end: a table of readings according to the Catholic lectionary for all Sundays, solemnities, and weekdays; a small collection of Catholic prayers and devotions; and a 155-page concordance that includes citations to the deuterocanonical books. It does not have cross references or maps.
If this were on nicer paper, I would 100% get it rebound and read it forever. As it is, I think it’s going back.
The publications of the British and Foreign Bible Society are at the budget end of the market. Their Catholic Edition of the Good News Bible – bear in mind that the NLT has made no real inroads in the UK – is, like the NRSVue-CE, a budget publication. The Bible Society is, of course, a charity working to put Bibles in the hands of what Pope Francis referred to as people at the margins. Although predominantly Protestant they are fairly Catholic-friendly.
I’ll have to check it out. Thanks!
I’ve been comparing, on and off, the NRSV-CE and NRSVue. One difference (amongst many!) I’ve noticed is in the NRSV the translators sometimes translated “brothers” as “friends”, usually in St. Paul’s letters. However, the NRSVue translated “brothers” as “brothers and sisters” in those areas.
I just came across another interesting small update in the NRSVue. In Acts 22:25, the original NRSV translates Paul refering to himself as a “Roman citizen,” while the NRSVue says “Roman person.” Then, in verses 26-29, the NRSVue uses the single word “Roman” instead of “Roman citizen” in the NRSV:
“When the centurion heard that, he went to the tribune and said to him, “What are you about to do? This man is a Roman.” The tribune came and asked Paul, “Tell me, are you a Roman?” And he said, “Yes.” The tribune answered, “It cost me a large sum of money to get my citizenship.” Paul said, “But I was born a Roman.” Immediately those who were about to examine him drew back from him, and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman and that he had bound him.” (Acts 22:26-29 NRSVue)
I checked the Greek text and used Google Gemini to translate it. As best I can tell, the Greek word for “citizen” is not in the text, so the NRSVue is technically more literal here. It feels a bit odd to me to refer to Paul as a “Roman” when he was from Tarsus, but apparently that is how the text reads in Greek.
That’s my favorite update in the ue. I can abide “brother and sisters” vs. “brethren” throughout the Epistles, and “mortal” vs. “son of man” in Ezekiel, but translating adelphoi as “friends,” “believers,” “members of the church,” and those other cringey periphrastic renderings totally drove me nuts with the NRSV–as much as I love the translation over all. So, the Updated Edition essentially fixed my major hang-up with the NRSV. Of course, I can always pen in an “alt. trans.” in the margin, and I often do!
One of my favorite “hacks” that I learned from biblical scholarship books is that it is perfectly acceptable to just ignore a translation in the text and go with the alternative marginal translation if one prefers, and no one in scholarship will object. The recent “errata” updates to the controversial NRSVue translations in 1 Corinthians 6.9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 helped me overcome that hangup with the NRSVue, as I can just cross out the controversial translation in the main text and circle the alternate text in the footnote, margin, or center column.
So it’s a pretty comfortable read, in your opinion? Better than the ESV Diadem?
Overall, yes it’s a surprisingly comfortable read for me — better than I would expect given the relatively cramped line spacing. The text is clear, and my eyes have no trouble with it (for reference, I’m in my mid-30s and I don’t need any corrective lenses for close-up reading yet).
Compared to the ESV Diadem, though, I’d have to give the ESV the edge on readability. They are identical on the biblical text itself (both Bibles have exactly the same font and line spacing), but the ESV uses a larger font size for textual notes and cross references compared to the NRSVue. On one hand, that helps to highlight the biblical text and make the overall Bible thinner (by keeping the page count down), but the textual notes are truly tiny in the NRSVue. The cross references are not quite as small and I have no problem reading them, but they are definitely printed in smaller font than the ESV Diadem’s references.
How does it read in comparison to Zondervan’s personal size with Apocrypha? I don’t know what it is, but I find it one of the easiest to read Bible text blocs I’ve ever seen.
Also, does it have as many superscript letters in the text as the ESV Diadem? I wanted to like it, but I am neurodivergent and I my brain had trouble processing the text in the ESV Diadem with as many superscript characters as there were.
Just to clarify, is this the Zondervan edition you’re referring to:
https://catholicbibletalk.com/2022/10/first-look-zondervan-personal-size-nrsvue-with-apocrypha/
I just put that edition side-by-side with the Diadem to compare. The font size is basically identical between them, but the Zondervan has slightly more generous line spacing compared to the Diadem. I can’t discern any obvious difference in readability between the two. The text columns in the two editions are also nearly identical in width. The Diadem’s text block is about a half inch wider than the Zondervan, simply because of the extra center reference column. Otherwise, the two Bibles are essentially the same length and thickness.
The NRSVue Diadem only uses superscript letters for the textual footnotes (as opposed to the ESV Diadem, which uses superscripts for both cross-references and footnotes). As a result, the NRSVue has far fewer superscripts interspersed in the text than the ESV. That’s a welcome change in my view. The ESV Diadem is extremely cluttered with superscripts.
Yes it is the one I was referring to!
That’s great. I may actually consider an NRSVue Diadem then. Wonderful to hear that it isn’t cluttered.