A Couple New Items

Thank you to Michael and Dr. von Peters for letting me know about the following two items:

The Catholic Youth Bible 4th Edition from St. Mary's Press.  It will be available in both the NABRE and NRSV translations.

What is new?

The completely refreshed Catholic Youth Bible®, beautifully illustrated in living color!

Create a Lived Faith:

We know that faith means little unless it is lived, so these Challenge features charge youth to bring the Scriptures to life through specific, suggested actions!

Interact with Scripture:

In Scripture Highlights, encouraging verses are featured to offer an opportunity to reflect and are designed so youth can color them!

Nourish Relationships:

The Searching for God features offer reflections and prayers that focus specifically on aspects of our relationship with God, and the Who Is My Neighbor? features focus on our relationship and responsibility to others as a Christian community.

Explore the Bible:

Young people can explore the scripture easily with themed Reading Plans, as well as When I'm Feeling verses that help youth explore what the Bible might say to them about their own life experiences and feelings.

Navigate with Confidence:

Easy-to-use navigation enables faster Scripture reading for youth at all levels of Biblical knowledge

AND

Dr. von Peter's alerted me that he's finally gotten the REAL Douay Old Testament Red Letter download available.  You can find it here for download.  

Christmas Special, only good until Feast of the Magi, and then the price will return to the normal price of $79.95. NOTE: This is for the download version only, and not with CD, at the low price of $59.95.

For more on the REAL Douay-Rheims Bible, you can see my interview and review here.

 

Live Youth Bible: Catholic Edition Review

Now that I work full time in high school ministry to youth, the desire to have a solidly Catholic youth Bible continues to be an important need. Most of you are familiar with St. Mary's Press Catholic Youth Bible, which comes in both the NAB and NRSV. In addition, there are some others out there on the market, however many of them tend to simply be a standard edition of the NAB with various "youth" inserts. I always thought that was kind of lazy and uninspiring. On the other hand, one can easily go to their local Christian or secular book store and find many more options for Protestant youth. Many of them are very attractive in both their content and overall layout. So, for many Catholic youth looking for a personal youth Bible that is accessible and engaging, the Catholic Youth Bible has been the only real option. But, happily, that is beginning to change.

HarperOne, in cooperation with Our Sunday Visitor, has released this week the Live Youth Bible: Catholic Edition which comes in the NRSV translation. If this name and format look similar, Tyndale happens to publish a Protestant youth edition using the NLT. (I haven't had a chance to thumb through it yet to compare the two.) Either way, I am happy to say that, so far, I really like what I see. But first, here are some of the features:

LIVE includes art, photos, and other creative forms of self-expression by people their age who looked for God in their neighborhoods, schools, families, parishes, the world.

Challenging sidebars to help teens discover how the Bible can be a map for their lifelong faith journey and how it’s connected to every part of their lives.

Creative space to respond to what they’re reading—to doodle, journal, or paste pictures.

An invitation to join the online community at Learner.CalltoDiscipleship.com, where they can post their art, writing, and insights with others on the same journey.

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Catholic Edition text that is fully approved for study by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In addition to what was stated above, the Live Youth Bible also contains new introductions to each Biblical book, a few Bible reading plans, features index, a list of helpful scriptural passages for various needs, and a concordance. The challenging sidebars include both inspirational quotes, as well as profiles of Catholic saints, questions/challenges, and forty "It's Tradition" which examines and explains various Catholic beliefs. There are probably over a hundred quotes scattered throughout this Bible from a broad range of people. One page you might find a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Ambrose, while on another you might read something from Jim Caviezel or Bono. Many of the quotes that I have read so far have been quite good, and they help to break up the text on each page. The "It's Tradition" treats areas such as Lectio Divina, the Deuterocanonical Books, Intercessory Prayer, the Litany of the Saints, and much more. Each is typically placed at a point in Scripture that is directly relevant to the topic.

The most unique element of this Bible is the desire by the publishers to have Catholic youth truly engage with the text. They really want the youth to write in their Bibles! Personally, I like this since I often encourage my students to do the same, even though many of them are hesitant to do so. The Live Youth Bible attempts to do this through the various sidebars that ask and challenge the youth to respond to a host of issues that relate either directly to the Biblical text or a particular youth issue. However, this is also accomplished through the "creative spaces" that are left blank at many places throughout the Bible. These "creative spaces" are of various sizes, some even taking up half a page or more. Tied into this Bible is a website, which intends to be a forum for youth to share their thoughts and creativity.

As I said above, I really like this youth Bible. I appreciate the desire of the publishers to encourage the youth to physically engage with the sacred text. The added online content will hopefully be updated regularly and be interesting to youth. I also like the size of this youth Bible, which is considerably smaller than the St. Mary's Press Catholic Youth Bible. I know that some of my students who used the CYB last year felt it was a bit too bulky. This is not the case with the Live Youth Bible. The addition of a concordance is also helpful, which is now missing on the latest revision of the CYB. I also like the fact that the Live Youth Bible does not contain any laminated page inserts. Again, the CYB has done this for their most recent edition, which I think just makes the book more awkward and the binding less secure.

Some things that I would like to see added to any future editions of the Live Youth Bible:

* Biblical Maps

* Sunday Lectionary Readings

* Additional "It's Tradition" sidebars

* Cross-References (That is an NRSV thing I know!)

New Edition of Catholic Youth Bible (3rd Edition)

Coming this month, Saint Mary's Press will be releasing an update to their very popular Catholic Youth Bible. I recently received a copy in the mail, which I hope to review in the coming weeks once I get a little time to look it over. So far, it looks like they have added some nice sections on lectio divina and the memorization of scripture. I also like the overall look and page format of the new CYB. Once again, it comes in two versions, the NAB and the NRSV-CE.

Here are some of the new features found in the 3rd edition:

•New 40 expanded "Catholic Connection" articles that provide a more complete presentation of those Catholic teachings that are scripturally based

• New 28 articles that address the seven principles of Catholic social teaching

• New 40 pages of 4-color inserts that help you pray, study, and live the Bible and Catholic teachings

• New Illustrations throughout to provide a visual context for the biblical stories

• New Over 275 articles updated to reflect contemporary issues and biblical scholarship

More in the coming weeks.

The Catholic Youth Bible

With the recent changes in ministry work, the need for a good Catholic youth Bible has become a necessity. However, many of the youth Bibles I began to look at were rather disappointing to be honest. Most of them simply consisted of youth insert pages placed at periodic points within a standard Catholic Bible translation. Not much originality or quality needed it seemed!

This cannot be said for the Catholic Youth Bible published by Saint Mary's Press. Available in both the NAB and NRSV translations, presumably for both an American and Canadian audience, the Catholic Youth Bible (CYB) is simply the best Catholic youth Bible on the market period. Both editions are available in multiple cover options, including paperback, hardcover, some form of leather (not sure if it's genuine or bonded), and nu-tone/imitation leatherette. The edition that I am currently using, the NAB nu-tone/leatherette, is very smooth and lays flat when opened.

Here is a list of all that is packed into this youth Bible:

*50-page concordance to help readers locate scripture

*An expanded reading plan with all the Sunday lectionary readings

*Over 700 lively articles help readers

*Introductions to the major sections of the Bible and all the books of the Bible

*Biblical connections to many different cultures, illustrating the universality of the Catholic Church

*Insights into how the Church has interpreted certain scripture passages throughout history

*4 special indexes, 9 color maps, a 4-page color timeline, and 4 pages of full-color biblical art and photos

Both the NAB and NRSV editions contain all of these youth study tools. The NAB edition has the advantage of coming with the NAB notes and cross-references, while the NRSV edition is simply the translation and textual notes. (Perhaps one day there will be an easily available NRSV edition, of any kind, that includes cross-references!)

The most impressive element of the CYB is the attractive page layout. While it is a dual column format, the font size is very readable and the various articles that appear on almost every page is quite inviting to the reader. If I were a teen, I would imagine that just the overall layout of this Bible would make it more appealing to pick and read. However, if I were to be picky about one thing, it would be that the paper is very thin thus making pen marks bleed over to the other side with relative ease.

As mentioned above, there are over 700 different articles scattered throughout the Bible. All of these, which are thankfully indexed, span issues from abandonment and abortion to war and worship. Since I have yet to read all of these articles, I hope to make note of them during the school year and perhaps report on them in a future post. In addition to these articles, there are also pages devoted to biblical references to the Sacraments, as well as life and faith issues faced by many teens.

Overall, the CYB is a unique and attractive youth Bible. It's design makes it clearly the best option for youth, while also being a good model for other Catholic Bible publishers.

I would like to thank Cris at Saint Mary's Press for sending me a review copy. If you would like to view some page samples, you can do so here.