The Navarre Bible: Psalms And Song of Solomon

The Navarre Bible #4

by University of Navarra

Book by Navarre, University of

Genres: Catholic, Religion, Nonfiction, Scripture

528 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

The University of Navarra is a private university located on the southeast border of Pamplona, Spain. It was founded in 1952 by Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei, as a corporate work of the apostolate of Opus Dei.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pre-pandemic I sang in a choir year round. Each week we would sing one of the one hundred fifty psalms. I picked up this Bible at a local monastery gift shop to explore the psalms more deeply.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biblical text is the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, so the wording is not exactly what you would hear during the responsory psalm during mass in the U.S.

The commentary takes up the majority of the book and instructs the faithful through quotations from various saints, ancient and modern, and notes and essays translated into English from the Spanish edition of the Navarre Bible. Frequent notes from Jose Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, show his hand in the creation of that Spanish bible.

This volume is one of a set of the complete bible, Old and New Testaments, with the notes translated from Spanish. It begins with an essay on the Old Testament Wisdom and Poetical books.
Then, each book has an introductory essay discussing literary structure, theories of when, who and how written, how used in the Church, etc.

Then each book has notes on the bottom of each page following the text above. The notes do not go verse by individual verse, but by groups of verses. To illustrate, for each Psalm, an introductory note ties it to the Psalm before it and to the general grouping of Psalms being discussed, lists content in a general way and gives common Christian interpretations. Then, in longer Psalms, a note on a large group of verses followed by notes on smaller groups of verses. These notes may explain meaning, give information on original language translation choices and tie the ideas to Christian thought, often with a quotation or two from saints showing the Church's tradition. The result is a focusing in on individual verses in a larger context leading to a connection to Jesus Christ and his gospel.

If you like to read, you'll love this. I did.

[Peter]

Best commentary on the Psalms & Song of Songs available to the layman. A great preparation for the Year of Faith (though it took me through the first half of the Year to finish it).