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Rating: 
Summary: Great translation, quality binding
Review: This Catholic translation of Scripture is clear and quite readable, but does not lose any of the reverence. There are extensive footnotes and a comprehensive Bible dictionary. It can be read on an everyday basis or used for study. The leather binding and overall quality of the book is excellent. It opens readily and is comfortable to hold; neither overly stiff nor annoyingly floppy. I own many Bibles and this one is my favorite by far.
Rating:
Summary: A great translation, even for non-Catholics
Review: This translation is a very good one; it has it's problems like any translation...but these are few and often depend on personal taste. What's the best balance between clumsy, dry transliteration and more pertaintant or poetic intrepretation? Hard to say. This translation strikes a very good balance leaning somewhat towards the literal side. (Coming from a background of the inaccurate but beautifully poetic King James, I have a problem with Christ's statments starting with "Amen" instead of "Verily" since everyone knows that Amen comes at the end of a verse! ;) But this is simply taste)The liner notes are wonderful; they include points of Catholic doctrine, of course, but also address history (and the "we just don't know" of history) rationally and with minimal bias. For anyone familiar with many Protestant Study Bibles, like the unduly popular and frustrating Ryrie NIV Study Bible (which I have studied), this is refreshing. I'm not Catholic (yet?), but I appreciate the Catholic ability to use reason in its approach scripture, rather than compel the Word into a specific ideological box. This, as with the above Ryrie example, tends to result in a studied fundamentalism, and a very unconvincing Christianity (i.e., Literal 7-day creation and etc.) As to this particular Fireside edition...
It's nicely bound, a nice size and has a limited but helpful dictionary in the back. It does NOT have an extensive topical reference however. And if you like to write a lot in the margins...get a larger edition, as the margins are very narrow (something I failed to notice when I ordered). The discussion below may not make a difference for most considering this translation, but it did to me...so I'm including it. Better too much info than not enough when making a decision. The one area where I've noticed a bit of Catholic doctrine distorting the original Greek seems to have been eliminated in this 2000 - 2001 addition although I can't find any indication that there has been an update since 1991, so I'm baffled. I had the red paperback NAB by "World" publishers, and it uses the phrase "practicing homosexuals" in 1Cor 6:9. Regardless of ones perspective on this issue, this is more distorted than the common insertion of "homosexuals" without qualification. It's friendlier than those translations, of course, in that it does not condemn all gay people but only those who engage in homosexual acts. Nevertheless, this itself points to a rather unwarranted doctrinal influence on the translation, since the Catholic Church makes just that distinction between being homosexual and practicing homosexuality. In fact the term in question is a Greek translation of a Hebrew word "kadesh" or "kadeshim." The King James translators gave us the popular "Sodomite" from this word, which actually referred to male temple prostitutes. This version of the NAB seems to have replaced "practicing homosexuals" with the old "Sodomite." A wise move I think, since there really is no entirely modern term that approaches the original Greek. "Sodomite" allows those who intently believe the text applies to homosexuality, to feel confirmed in that belief since there is a long tradition of associating "Sodomite" with homosexual. Conversely, those of us sensitive to the use of scripture against Gay people need not be confronted with the blatant bias and linguistic dishonesty of the word "homosexual." We can examine the etymology of the word and be confident that "Sodomite" is hardly homosexuality. Again, in a very timely and subtle way, the Catholic Church has demonstrated it's amazing gift of holding together in one family a very diverse and often mutually antagonistic flock. Bravo! Especially now. when it's such a pertinent and charged issue. Keith Spencer
[website]
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