On September 30, the feast of St Jerome, the bishops of England and Wales will unveil a programme of events for the 2020 Year of the Word, with the title “The God Who Speaks”.
The year was chosen because it falls on the 1,600th anniversary of the death of St Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, and the 10th anniversary of the publication of Verbum Domini, the 2010 post-synodal exhortation of Pope Benedict XVI.
A high point of the year was supposed to have included the launch of a new English Standard Version of the Bible, but the project is delayed and Catholic churches must now wait until 2021 to be furnished with their new lectionaries.
If there is no urgency to purchase a translation of the Bible, it may be an idea to wait 18 months for the version that will be used the length and breadth of the country.
The New Jerusalem Bible, the text of which is generally used during Masses, remains an excellent choice, however, and the Revised New Jerusalem Bible: Study Edition, a recent project of Dom Henry Wansbrough, a Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar, is certainly deserving of attention.
