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This style of the New American Bible offers readers a varied selection of binding and color options from which they may choose - and all at extremely competitive prices. It is the perfect size for students, commuters, hospital visitors, and anyone that needs a compact, high quality NAB. TheCompact Edition features a Presentation Section (all except the paperback), the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum), placement of the NAB notes at the end of each book to enhance the readability of the biblical text, a select NAB Concordance, an essay on using the Lectionary, atable of Weekday and Sunday Lectionary readings, and a table of Weights and Measures in the Bible. The sturdy zipper closure, which offers additional protection to the page edges, features a lovely Christopher's medal on its pull.… (more)
User reviews
Genesis: I love this stuff.
Exodus: The first half or so, enjoyable and interesting. The rest is lists of laws and instructions.
Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy: Essentially the law books of ancient Israel, and about as good a read as you might expect from a
Joshua, Judges and Ruth: Respectively: genocide at God's command, 300-years of genocide at God's command, and praise for a girl who seduces her dead husband's uncle.
1 & 2 Samuel: Samuel is a sort of historical epic covering 3 generations, with most of the focus on wars, and although I don't really like that sort of thing, it's not bad.
1 & 2 Kings: These books are an impossible mess. The facts presented concerning the years of Kings' reigns (which makes up most of the book) are impossible and/or contradictory (according to the scholarly folk who wrote the footnotes). Peoples' names are inconsistent and often duplicated to the point where the (modern) editors gave up and just changed to wording to "the king of such and such" wherever possible. I happened to get a trivia question about something from one of these books, maybe two days after reading the pertinent chapter, and failed to answer the question correctly.
1 & 2 Chronicles: I don't understand why this is in the Bible. Basically, it's just information copied out of Samuel and Kings.
Ezra and Nehemia: The author of Chronicles talks about the return of Israel from exile, the rebuilding of the temple and re-instituting of Mosaic law in Israel. To sum up the morals of these books: Persian Kings love Jews, and any man in a mixed marriage should abandon his family.
Tobit, Judith & Esther: Three short (relative to the historical books) folktales, and the first books in the bible to have traditional narrative structures.
1 & 2 Maccabees: Historic war epic, similar to Samuel. Not very well-written compared with Samuel, though, and the story's not nearly as interesting. Also, the cruelty and violence of the Israelite heroes is starting to disturb me more than a little (this coming from someone who likes games like GTA and movies like Kill Bill).
On the other hand, the introductions, footnotes, and each page's box listing which verses on the page correlate with other Biblical books or epistles are helpful. I appreciate being told about puns in the original languages, customs, scientific information about miracles, inconsistencies between books, etc. (We Catholics are not required to take the Bible literally. Some footnotes or introductions even state that the language is figurative, not literal.)
I don't always agree with footnotes or introductions' conclusions, but I do like the fact that this Bible expects its readers to have brains and know how to use them.