THE HOLY BIBLE

Revised Standard Version | Second Catholic Edition

translated from the original tongues

being the version set forth a.d. 1611

old and new testaments revised a.d. 1881–1885 and a.d. 1901 (apocrypha revised a.d. 1894)

compared with the most ancient authorities and revised a.d. 1946, 1952, and 1965 (apocrypha revised a.d. 1957 and 1966)

THE ORIGINAL CATHOLIC EDITION OF THE RSV TRANSLATION WAS PREPARED BY THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN

THIS EDITION WAS REVISED ACCORDING TO

LITURGIAM AUTHENTICAM, 2001

IGNATIUS PRESS

San Francisco

New Testament, copyright 1946; Old Testament, copyright 1952

The Apocrypha, copyright 1957

Revised Standard Version Bible, Catholic Edition, Copyright © 1965, 1966, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America

Revised Standard Version Bible, Ignatius Edition, Copyright © 2006, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-89870-833-2 [H]

ISBN 978-0-89870-834-9 [P]

ISBN 978-0-89870-936-0 [L]

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005921745

Cover art: The Four Evangelists, by Christopher J. Pelicano

Cover design by Roxanne Mei Lum

Maps by David Notley

Camway Creative Limited, Somerset, England

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Conventions.

INTRODUCTION

(to the 1966 edition)

THIS EDITION of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible has been prepared for the use of Catholics by a committee of the Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britain. It is published with ecclesiastical approval and by agreement with the Standard Bible Committee and the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

The Revised Standard Version itself needs no lengthy introduction, being already well known and widely read. It is, as its Preface states, “an authorized revision of the American Standard Version, published in 1901, which was a revision of the King James Version, published in 1611.” In Britain, the King James Version is more commonly called the Authorized Version. It occupies a unique place in English Biblical and indeed literary tradition. The Standard Bible of 1901 was the work of an American committee revising it in the light of modern textual criticism. In 1937 it was decided to make a revision of the Standard Version which should “embody the best results of modern scholarship as to the meaning of the Scriptures, and express this meaning in English diction which is designed for use in public and private worship and preserves those qualities which have given to the King James Version a supreme place in English literature.” The New Testament in this new version was published in 1946 and the whole Bible in 1952.

The remarkable success which attended the new revision on its appearance seems to be ample justification of the revisers’ aims and it has been acclaimed on all sides ...