"Your Bible" Series: Joshua's Good News Bible

My name is Joshua. I stumbled on Timothy's blog a few months back as I was researching a product. I have been a pretty loyal reader ever since. I'm Protestant (Southern Baptist for the most part). In the almost 20 years I have walked with Jesus, I have used many versions ranging from the colloquialism of The Living Bible to the traditional language of the KJV and RSV-2CE. Out of all these, one is really special.

I became acquainted with the Good News Bible* (GNB) 20 years ago. This occurred while on a trip to see relatives in Tennessee. While I was there, I saw a box of Bibles. I asked if I could read one during my stay. Reading it helped me see that the Bible was a special book and not just another thing to read. Before this, the only Bibles I had were the aforementioned KJV and Living Bible as well as the New International Version (NIV). After this, I started going to a Baptist church and got saved, giving my life to Christ. That Christmas, I got my own copy.

You might be asking yourself: Is there a need for the GNB when we have other versions such as the NABRE or NIV? I say yes and here’s why. It’s easy to understand. (I'm not saying it’s the easiest to understand. That title would go to the International Children's Bible. This is a Protestant translation written at a 3rd grade reading level.) This understandability helps clarify passages that can be difficult at times. On the down side, this isn’t a version suited for liturgical use or study. The second reason I like the GNB is the illustrations by Swiss artist Annie Vallotton. They are engrossing, drawing you into the text. For example, I’m reading through Ecclesiastes. At Ecclesiastes 1:14 there is a drawing that shows Solomon showing regret. This helps me to better understand what’s being said. The last reason I like the GNB is that it’s a version for everyone. It is available with the Protestant canon and in a Catholic edition. If you desire to get a copy, I would look for the 1979 edition. A 1992 revision added gender-inclusive language.

In short the GNB has been a blessing to me! I want to thank Timothy for allowing me to share my story and thoughts.

 *The Good News Bible is known as the Good News Translation (GNT) in the United States.

Thank you Joshua for sharing your story.  I am always looking for additional entries in the monthly  "Your Bible" Series, so please send an email to mccorm45(at)yahoo(dot)com if you are interested.  

Your Bible: Ronald's RSV

Gone Wrong?

I once had a Murphy’s Law calendar which offered a daily page with a humorous variation on the famous maxim, whatever can go wrong will go wrong.  It may seem this piece is a perfect example of the truth of Murphy’s Law; I’m not following my gracious host’s plan that a few guest writers talk about the Bible they use daily for study and prayer.  Even so, I do propose to share a little about a Bible I use every day, just in another way.  It’s sitting on the desk next to me now, in fact, not being read, but still in an important way, in use nonetheless.  The story of this little Bible parallels my own faith journey; it’s been with me through it all and is with me still, every day.  I’ll begin by telling you about the Bible itself, and then how it fits into my story.

It’s easy to provide you a description of the volume – it's an RSV edition published by Thomas Nelson & Sons in the early 1950s.  It’s quite small, only 5 ½ by 7 ½ .  As you might expect with such a small book, the print is small although still legible; it has few study aids, no maps, concordance or the like.  It’s a no nonsense little volume, typical of Bibles its age.  Because of its age, the wear and tear it’s seen is clearly visible and so I no longer risk putting it through daily use.

As for my faith journey, when I was seven years old I was baptized in a Lutheran church in St Clair Shores, Michigan.  My parents wanted to let me choose when I was ready to take such a step, so I wasn’t baptized as an infant.  When they decided it was time to ask me, I agreed, obviously being led by the Spirit because I don’t think I clearly understood what I was doing.  After my baptism, on beautiful April morning, much to my surprise, my aunt and uncle gave me this Bible to commemorate the event.  It was enclosed in a maroon box wrapped in white wrapping paper and I loved it.  All through my elementary and high school years, by which time we were Presbyterians, I used my Bible for reading and taking to church each week for Sunday school and to refer to during the pastor’s sermons. 

Back then, I was pretty ardent in my faith and my Scot’s Calvinist aunt was absolutely certain I would grow up to become a famous Presbyterian pastor, along the lines of Peter Marshall.  It wasn’t to be; about the time I graduated from high school I decided that I was through with “organized religion.”  When I joined the Air Force soon after, I knew I was no longer a believer.  Yet, this Bible, now a little worn but still in good shape, went with me to Lackland AFB for basic training and, later, to Sheppard AFB where I spent two years of my enlistment.  I don’t know why I other than to say it was God acting in my life, maybe trying to keep me from straying too far.  It could only have been the Spirit which made me pick up my Bible now and then and read a familiar passage, Psalm 23 perhaps, or the first chapter of Genesis.  Perhaps God was reminding me that He was near and wanted me to come back to Him.

When I went to Viet Nam, however, the Bible stayed with my parents and I forgot about it, sort of like my faith, until my mother passed away roughly 15 years later.  One day I was sorting out her things and found it carefully stored in her dresser drawer.  She had kept it safe for me and must have used it herself, judging by the signs of wear it now showed. 

I was shocked and, surprisingly, elated at the same time; it was like finding an old, long lost but still much loved friend.  Even though I still claimed I didn’t believe in God, I think it was at His instigation that I again opened up my Bible on occasion and reread those familiar passages from my youth.   It must have been so, because it was only a couple of years later I began my journey back to faith by becoming a member of a Presbyterian church in El Paso, Texas.  Once more I was using my Bible regularly, but by now it was obvious it wouldn’t hold up to that, it was tattered and becoming fragile and so I purchased a nice new NIV version for daily use.

Within five years I found myself receiving the sacraments of the Church at the Easter Vigil in 1995.  Just a few days later I happened to spot my first Bible on the bookshelf. I picked it up and opened it to my aunt's inscription, written nearly 41 years to the day of our reception into the Church. 

It’s because of that inscription, and the occasion it marks, that my Bible is never far from me; I look at it often because it reminds me of the incredible journey I’ve been on, a long and hard one, beginning with my baptism so long ago.  While it started with an ill-informed decision, I see it could only have been through the working of the Spirit that I made it at all.  Also, I can’t help but see that, when I chose to run away from God, I left my Bible behind too.  And when I woke up to the truth, my old friend was there again to help me return to the God I thought I’d left behind so long ago. 

Finally, my Bible shows me that God can work in mysterious ways indeed.  I know my Scots Calvinist aunt had a plan that, in giving me that Bible, she thought she was guiding me to become a Presbyterian minister.  She could never have imagined it would lead me to Rome instead.  It calls to mind a saying from that old Murphy’s Law calendar: “The best laid plans of mice and men are usually about equal.”  My Bible offers daily proof of that, my own and my aunts.  Come to think of it, maybe things haven’t gone too wrong after all.

Thank you to Ronald for sharing with us.  If you would be interested in participating in the "Your Bible" series, just send an email to me at: mccorm45(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Your Bible: Jonny's RSV-CE

I wrote a post for this blog a while back about the Douay-Rheims Bible, and how it was instrumental to my conversion to the Catholic Church.  I will always have a deep affection and appreciation for the Douay-Rheims Bible, and it continues to be one of the few translations I read on a regular basis.  However, after I became Catholic, I began to be active in various ministries throughout my parish, and found I needed a more modern translation to communicate the Scriptures more effectively.  This post is not only features the Bible I use for ministry, but is also the story of how I came to use that particular edition.

The first modern English Catholic Bible I bought was a 1991 NAB.  I was excited about this because as a Protestant I had general distrust in modern translations, but I felt like I could trust the NAB because it had official Catholic approval.  I turned out that I really didn’t care for the translation after being spoiled on the D-R and more literal non-Catholic translations.  Then one day, in a parish gift shop, I spotted the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.  It was the blue-covered, Ignatius Press reprint of the original 1966 edition.  As I thumbed through and read here and there, I saw that this Bible had more formal language, and the font and page layout were more traditional looking as well.  When I saw the self-pronouncing text I was sold for sure, despite the Bible’s overall humble appearance.

I have really enjoyed reading out of this edition, and definitely got my money’s worth, but I was a little disappointed as the glossy blue cover began flaking away.  I then began looking for another edition that was a little nicer.  I think I got one of every edition of the RSV-CE available, but there seemed to be some serious defect with each of them: cheap leather, no cross-references, glued binding, manifold typos (that edition is no longer available), or any combination of the above.  I also searched web and bookstore for any and all Catholic translations and available editions, and collected what I considered the best specimen of each.  In the end of this search, I was left even more frustrated than what I was in the beginning!

For it was during this time of intense Bible collecting I increased in responsibility with the various ministries in my parish.  As I interacted with an increasing number of Priests, Deacons, and lay people of all ages, I came to realize there are four points that need to be true of a Bible I use for ministry:

a)      Must be translated from the original languages

b)      Must have an imprimatur

c)       Must not use excessive inclusive language

d)      Must say “Hail, full of grace” in Luke 1:28

I know that list might seem like a bit superficial, but my experience has been that those are the four points that are recurring obstacles to using a Bible to interact amongst Catholics.  Long story short, the RSV-CE has proven, in my experience, to be the most universally accepted translation for use in ministry.

So now back to the story of “My Bible.”  Given the information above, I found it meet to give Ignatius RSV-CEs as gifts to some of my Catholic friends.  This was a couple of years after I had purchased mine with the flakey cover, and I noticed on the new ones I bought that the deep blue color was replaced by a brighter blue cover of the same design.  I wondered if the new one was better, so I ordered one for myself.  I found that my old one was published by Thomas Nelson for Ignatius Press in the U.S., while the new one was printed in Colombia, apparently with Ignatius applying the covers themselves.  The new cover was of better quality, and didn’t peel, but the book was not bound together well.  I decided to grin and bear the imperfection.  A year of so later, I gave the newer copy away to a friend and ordered another new copy for myself.  This one was slightly better, but still not acceptable for a plain hardcover reprint of a book published in 1966 that costs over 30 dollars!  I finally called Ignatius Press and told them of the trouble I had with that particular book, and they sent me a very nice copy with an even, tight binding. This is the Bible I have used as my basic, primary Bible for all things officially connected to my parish ministries ever since.

A few more details about the Ignatius RSV-CE are in order.  As I mentioned before, this is a self-pronouncing edition, meaning that most of the proper names have the phonetic markings printed on the first occurrence of each name per paragraph.  This is also the only edition of the RSV-CE that has the original RSV-CE cross references.  There are a lot in the NT, less in the OT, and none in Deuterocanonical books.  Yet it has more than any other edition of the RSV-CE, which have none at all.  It is actually an exact reprint, page for page, of the original 1966 edition.  I know that because I know someone who owns the 1966 Thomas Nelson edition.  It has the burgundy hardcover with gold lettering just like the original Thomas Nelson Protestant RSVs did.  Like the original, it is also sadly lacking a map section.  I carry my copy in a Bible cover loaded with glossy inserts available from Rose Publishing.  One of the inserts is a booklet entitled “Then and Now Bible Maps Insert,” which has proven to be more useful than the map sections in other Bibles I own.  So that’s it.  No fancy leather or ribbons, just the basic stuff I need to get the job done.  I hope you are as surprised as I was!

Thank you Jonny!  The plan is to make this a monthly series.  So, if you are interested in participating, just send me an email, mccorm45(at)yahoo(dot)com, and we'll talk.

A New Series of Posts....That Involves You!

Over the past five years this blog has been dedicated to reviewing new Bible editions, study tools, and translations.  Most often, these reviews come from yours truly, with the occasional guest blog by one you, my beloved readers.  I really do enjoy providing the "guest posts" on this blog and hope to continue to do so in the future.

However, I would really like to expand this a bit, perhaps moving in a slightly different direction.  Once a month, I would like to publish a guest post from one of you giving a description of your personal Bible.  This would be the Bible you use most often, hopefully daily! I'll call this the "Your Bible" series.  What I am asking is that those who are interested to send me an email letting me know you are interested in doing this. Once you do that, I envision that each "Your Bible" post to contain 1-2 photos of your Bible, along with a short write up focusing on that Bible and how you use it. So what do you say?  I know that there are many of you out there who are daily devoted to reading the Scriptures.  I am sure that your witness will be appreciated by many who read this blog.

As I have mentioned in the past, one of the most beautiful sights, besides my beautiful family, is someone who is reading a well worn Bible.  So, if you are interested, please send me an email letting me know: mccorm45(at)yahoo(dot)com.   If you are new to this blog or have been around from the beginning, I would love to hear from you.  Like I said earlier, I'd really like to make this a regular, perhaps monthly, post here at the Catholic Bibles Blog.  So, don't be shy!