Yesterday I bought the second edition of the Catholic Study Bible from OUP, put contact paper on it, stuffed a holy card inside and brought it to the Revelation study last night along with my Scofield Study Bible, also from OUP.

Did I tell you I found a typo in the Scofield? I should write Oxford Univ. Pr. about it. I'm always finding typos in books. I think I was an editor in a past life which accounts for most of my misery. I must have been a real stickler. Page 1100, the section heading reads "Ezekiel 27:14-16" but the text on the page is, in fact, Ezekiel 37:14-16.

The footnotes in the second edition are, as far as I can tell, unchanged. Of course, the biblical text itself is unchanged. The font is darker and crisper and easier to read.

The Reading Guides are completely updated. I never bothered with the Reading Guides in the first edition so I don't know whether I will delve into them or not. Actually, it's an annoying feature of the Catholic Study Bible that Genesis 1:1 doesn't appear until page 527! A third of the way into most Bibles. But the extensive Reading Guides are all upfront instead of interspersed throughout as in most cases.

I'm tempted to rip out the Reading Guides material from the Catholic Study Bible. Just like I wanted to rip out the sixty felt-need courses, the grey pages in my NAB Catholic Serendipity Bible from Zondervan. But it's such a large chunk of pages, it wouldn't look good afterwards. I bought the Serendipity Bible because a study that I attended used it. I like to use whatever version everyone else uses at a given study so I don't stick out. But I thought I would be slightly obstinate and at least buy the "Catholic" Serendipity edition. Zondervan got the last laugh, however, because the editors stripped out all of the scholarly Catholic footnotes and replaced them with touchy-feely, probing personal questions and pictures of coffee mugs! I vowed never to buy another book from Zondervan. A vow I haven't been able to keep.