Question: There are so-many versions of The Holy Bible. For English- speakers, which is the one you recommend?
God’s answer:
Meaning: God used the words most scholarly and faithful to explain why this is the best version for English-speakers.
"The Douay–Rheims Bible is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by members of the English College, Douai, in the service of the Catholic Church."2
"The translation type of the Douay-Rheims is a literal translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible, initially translated by St. Jerome, which had been reaffirmed as authoritative by the Council of Trent. This is also called “word for Word” translation. Therefore it did not bend word meanings in order to fit biases. A great amount of time was spent ensuring the Bible was translated exactly. Some of the Latin words did not have an exact English equivalent. In these cases, the word was either kept in its original form or “anglicized.” Some words were not changed at all; for example with amen, which passed unchanged from Greek, into Latin, into English, or the word pasch. Conferring with and comparing to the Greek and Hebrew was also done to ensure accuracy.
The Douay-Rheims Bible in its present form is not the exact translation of the 1582 and 1610 versions, but the Challoner revision of 1749-1752. The revisions by Bishop Challoner were minor in terms of meaning and theology. These revisions gave the translation great popularity and it remained the standard Catholic Bible until the mid-20th century and is still the favorite of any Catholics due to its eloquent language and clear, faithful rendering of scripture."3
3 Aquinas and More Catholic Goods, 'What Is The Douay-Rheims Bible' (2015) <http://www.aquinasandmore.com/catholic-articles/what-is-the-douay-rheims- bible/article/190/sort/relevance/productsperpage/12/layout/grid/currentpage/1/keywords/douay- rheims> accessed 26 August 2015.