Peter CostelloHoly Bible: New International Version
large print edition
(Hodder & Stoughton, €28.99)
God’s Smuggler: One Man’s Mission to Change the World
by Brother Andrew with John and Elizabeth Sherrill
(Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99)
Though the New International Version as a translation is not approved by the Church for devotional use, many Catholics use this text of the Scriptures for study purposes.
The merits of the Bible translations available these days are a much debated topic, beyond the scope of a review. But even for study purposes a version of the Bible that excludes the deuterocanonical texts that Protestant denominations refer to as the ‘Apocrypha’ is hardly a version which will encompass the study needs of those seeking to understand later Judaism and early Christianity, not to speak of much of the literature, religious and secular, of the Middle Ages, when these texts were more familiar to many and were widely alluded to.
The concordance and the maps that are added to the Hodder NIV version are of limited use to either readers or students.
All that aside, on first appearance this looked like an attractive volume. The large type was certainly an attraction – small print has begun to defeat this reviewer who was once able to read on sight the micro edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, but now has to use the supplied magnifying glass.
However, aside from debatable issues, this book has a serious technical problem. I was dismayed on opening the book to find that the text swam before my eyes. The selected paper was of very poor opacity.
The see through on the folio side from the verso was so obvious that the text seemed to swim before my eyes.
This is not a new problem, of course, for the need to compress a very long book into a handy and readable size has meant that the weight of paper is often reduced. Yet what used to be called India paper in the great days of print never had such a show through.
So those who might like to use this Bible should be warned: have a look at it first. They may well prefer both for the text and the physical appearance, the Bible produced by Collins (€42.99), which uses the text of the New Revised Standard Version.
Established book
On the same day, the publisher also sent for review a well-established book of which some 10 million copies have already been sold since 1967. Brother Andrew is the nom de foi of a Dutch evangelical, Andrew van deer Bijl, who founded Open Door International, a ministry dedicated to bringing the Bible into countries where it was forbidden.
Today these countries are largely Islamic; but when the book first appeared they were Communist.
The dangers Brother Andrew and many other Christians faced have not altered, only their location has changed. He himself now tries to work across the Middle East, a very fraught activity.
This account of his courage in earlier decades still makes interesting reading, even if the much touted “fall of Communism” has not everywhere produced the benefits of peace and harmony that was so piously hoped for.
Given the difficult life that many Christians have endured under the Communist regime in China since 1948, it is worth mentioning that the version of the Hodder Bible above is actually printed in China.
But then most of the Bibles that now circulate around the world in whatever version, are printed in China, where labour is cheap.
The Chinese government would never let mere intolerance of local Christians get in the way of international