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Catholic Apologetics Study Bible

Please tell me what Study Bible should I buy that fits...

... these requirements:
It must be approved by the Catholic Church
Up-to-date notes, cross-references, explanations
Helps me understand how the passages relate to RC apologetics, Catechism of the Catholic Church
Medium/Large font
And please, if you have it, what's your personal opinion about it? Do you have the ISBN? Thanks and blessings.

OK, first: you are asking for quite a bit, here. Study bibles are, by their nature, not frequently found with a "medium / large font", as study bibles have **so much more** content than do "standard" bibles. You will be lucky to find such a bible.

However, I can help with the other aspects.

The Roman Catholic Church has approved the following versions for *liturgical use*, which is the highest approval rating available from the Roman Catholic Church. Note that other English versions may also have liturgical approval: however, I am not aware of others.

New Jerusalem Bible
New American Bible, revised for liturgy (not available for sale)
New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition
Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition

Considering your wish for study notes relevant to the Roman Catholic Church, I would restrict myself to these (or any other that you can verify has earned liturgical approval).

Note that the NAB available for sale has **not** earned liturgical approval! For some inexplicable reason, the American bishops responsible for the NAB have refused to offer the liturgically-approved revision, and offer only the prior version which was unable to earn this approval. For this reason, I recommend (but not unconditionally) that you avoid this version. **IF** you can find an NAB that meets every one of your other qualifications, it may be worth your while to get an NAB rather than one of the liturgically approved versions.

Now, hands down the New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition (RE) is the best study bible available today. Here's why I think so

http://www.jimpettis.com/bibles/njb.htm

Note that the NJB is now available in something known as the "Standard Edition" (SE). This edition has updated but significantly shortened study notes, which is why I value the RE above the SE.

The NJB is a superior translation to either the RSV or the NRSV, which is why I find it unquestionably superior as a study bible. The RE study notes are scholarly (read: tend to be a-religious) but frequently bring up Catholic liturgical practices and doctrines as examples.

The RE uses what I would call "bible standard" size text for the scriptures, and even smaller text for the study notes. The text of the book introductions (there are extensive notes about each book) is larger and quite comfortable. AllBibles claims that the text is 10 point.

Amazon has viewable pages ("search inside") for both the RE and SE. My advice is that you compare the "surprise me" sections of both texts. The RE will only show you the excellent cross references and study notes with the "surprise me" link. You can also compare the extensive book introductory notes of the RE in the lead-up to Genesis to the paltry notes of the SE.
RE

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FNew-Jerusalem-Bible-Henry-Wansbrough%2Fdp%2F0385142641%3Fie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1218068003%26sr%3D11-1&tag=wwwjimpettico-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

SE

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FNew-Jerusalem-Bible-Standard%2Fdp%2F0385493207%3Fie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1218068258%26sr%3D11-1&tag=wwwjimpettico-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

Additional options

http://www.allbibles.com/items.asp?Cc=BIBCZSB&CatName=Catholic+Study+Bibles

Note that font size can usually be found in the "details" tab at allbibles.

http://www.catholicbiblesource.com/site/1319755/page/527876

Final thoughts: I thought that I would mention that the NJB-RE is my favorite study bible despite the fact that I am not Roman Catholic. It's just that good.

My 2nd favorite is the Oxford Annotated NRSV, The study notes are even better than the NJB-RE (but only marginally better), but the translation, by comparison, suffers. On the other hand, the Oxford includes several scriptures not included in the NJB (not canonical: 3 & 4 Maccabees, 1 & 2 Esdras, Psalm 151, Prayer of Manasseh). It also does not use the Catholic arrangement - in other words, the "deutero-canonicals" are placed in the section titled "Apocrypha". This is one of the major differences between Catholic bibles and non-Catholic bibles.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FAnnotated-Apocrypha-Augmented-Revised-Standard%2Fdp%2F0195288815%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1189044490%26sr%3D8-1&tag=wwwjimpettico-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

Jim, http://www.bible-reviews.com/

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