The New Catholic Bible, St Joseph Edition

A review of the Large Type St. Joseph Edition of the New Catholic Bible (ISBN 9781953152275, No. 614/22). This volume is a large, brown, cloth-over-board hardback, 9 11/15 x 6 15/16 x 1.74 inches in dimensions. It contains the 73 books usually found in Catholic Bibles.

The binding is sewn with an additional line of stitching in both front and back, and the Bible lies flat in Genesis. The approximately 36 gsm (grams per square meter) paper is opaque, with a light sheen to the surface and a faint blue tinge. At 10.5 points, the font is relatively large. The printing is crisp and dark. The words of Christ are in dark red. Print non-uniformity (fading) is uncommon and moderate.

The Bible features cross references at the bottom of the inner text columns, printed in a bold, 7 point san serif font. Explanatory notes appear at the bottoms of both inner and outer columns. They are also in a bold, 7 point san serif font.

A Bible Dictionary with 189 entries is place in the back of the Bible, along with a Doctrinal Bible Index. Both are printed in a 9 point font. A list of the Sunday Gospels in the modern three-year cycle also appears there. No concordance is present, nor are color maps.

The head and tail bands are black and yellow. Page edges are in orange. No ribbon markers are present in this hardback edition.

A family records section, in heavy paper, is printed on heavy paper between the testaments.

The translation is somewhat dynamic or free. It reminds me of the New International Version in that regard. It also seems to be more conservative than the NABRE.

Video Contents

00:00 Introduction
01:22 Page layout
02:20 The text is not line-matched
02:36 Page layout (continued)
03:04 The words of Christ are in red
03:20 Headings in the text
03:47 The font in the text
04:16 Print non-uniformity
04:38 Cross references and notes
05:31 Book introductions
06:05 Page layout (continued)
06:30 Paper qualities
07:20 The material in back
09:44 The head and tail bands
10:05 The sewn binding
10:51 The volume lies open in Genesis
11:32 Title and copyright pages
12:09 Other material in front
14:24 Family records pages
14:53 The material at the beginning of the New Testament
15:27 Page sheen
15:49 Font comparisons
16:16 The character of the essays, introductions, and notes
19:22 The character of the translation
30:07 Summary