Most Catholics accept the authority of the Bible because they believe its authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit close Holy Spirit The third element of the 'Trinity' (God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). The Holy Spirit is active as God's presence and power in the world. to write the word of God. The following four translations of the Bible are all approved for Catholic use and are among the most commonly used translations.

Following the highly acclaimed publication of the New Catholic Version of The Psalms in 2002 and The New Testament in 2015, this translation of the New Catholic Bible has been accomplished by the same board of highly qualified Scripture scholars under the direction of Rev. Jude Winkler, OFM Conv., S.S.L. They were committed to render as perfectly as possible a translation of literal or formal equivalence. Numerous translations were consulted and decisions were made by consensus according to accepted principles of textual criticism. Nathanael asked, 'How do you know me?' Jesus replied, 'Before Philip came to call you, I saw you under the fig tree.' With a deep desire to be faithful to God’s inspired Word, the translators used the best available Hebrew and Greek texts to achieve a dignified and accurate version of the sacred text in language that is clear and meaningful to today’s readers. With extensive explanatory notes that reflect the most current consensus of Catholic scholarship, the New Catholic Bible is a translation that can be trusted to provide the reader with a prayerful and fulfilling Bible experience suitable for private devotion and study.

How Did the Catholic Bible Come to Be?

It includes the deuterocanonical books. These are texts in the Old Testament where there is an ancient Greek Jewish source but not a Hebrew one. These include Tobit, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch. They have always been accepted by the Catholic Church as part of the Canon of Scripture.

The principles expounded in Pope Pius XII's encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu regarding exegesis or interpretation, as in commentaries on the Bible, apply also to the preparation of a translation. These include the need for familiarity with the original languages and other cognate languages, the study of ancient codices and even papyrus fragments of the text and the application to them of textual criticism, "to insure that the sacred text be restored as perfectly as possible, be purified from the corruptions due to the carelessness of the copyists and be freed, as far as may be done, from glosses and omissions, from the interchange and repetition of words and from all other kinds of mistakes, which are wont to make their way gradually into writings handed down through many centuries". [10] Catholic English versions [ edit ] Without diminishing the authority of the texts of the books of Scripture in the original languages, the Council of Trent declared the Vulgate the official translation of the Bible for the Latin Church, but did not forbid the making of translations directly from the original languages. [5] [6] Before the middle of the 20th century, Catholic translations were often made from that text rather than from the original languages. Thus Ronald Knox, the author of what has been called the Knox Bible, a formal equivalence mode bible, wrote: "When I talk about translating the Bible, I mean translating the Vulgate." [7] Today, the version of the Bible that is used in official documents in Latin is the Nova Vulgata, a revision of the Vulgate. [8] The Catholic Bible is composed of 73 books: an Old Testament of 46 books (including 7 deuterocanonical books and additional deuterocanonical content in 2 books) and a New Testament of 27 books. Bauman, Michelle. "New American Bible to be revised into single translation". Catholic News Agency . Retrieved 14 January 2015. Int. For. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, 'What do you want?' They answered, 'Rabbi' -- which means Teacher -- 'where do you live?' Ten years later, Catholic Book Publishing acquired Regina Press, a long-established and respected publisher of devotional and children’s gift titles. This acquisition added over 100 titles to Catholic Book’s offerings and provided a wealth of meaningful resources to an already bountiful collection of trusted titles. So he said, 'I am, as Isaiah prophesied: A voice of one that cries in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord. Make his paths straight!' The Apocrypha was not formally/officially made a part of the Catholic Bible, though, until the Council of Trent, in response to the Protestant Reformation. The early Protestant Reformers, in agreement with Judaism, determined that the Apocrypha did not belong in the Bible, and therefore removed the Apocrypha from Protestant Bibles.