Archbishop of Brisbane and Chairman of the Australian Catholic Bishops Commission on the Liturgy, Mark Coleridge, formally launched the international edition of The New Community Bible (NCB) in Sydney on the feast day of Blessed James Alberione, the founder of the Pauline Family.
Welcoming the release of the NCB in Australia, Archbishop Mark Coleridge said, “Now is the time when we have to become a more biblical Church, a people more immersed in the word of God. This is the best way to know Jesus whose voice we hear and whose face we see on every page of the Bible. That is why The New Community Bible (international edition) is such a gift. May it find its way into many hands and hearts and homes in this time of grace and faith.”
The NCB published by St Pauls Publications is a revised edition of the popular Christian Community Bible translated by Late Bernardo Hurault, a French Priest, from original languages to Spanish in 1971. Since then it has been translated into many languages and millions of copies have been distributed with its unique feature of a pastoral commentary that accompanied the text which has helped the faithful to understand, assimilate and live the word of God in their day to day life.
The Preface and the Presentation of the NCB states that it is the fruit of a challenging project undertaken by the Society of St Paul who brought together a competent team of Bible scholars who worked hard over a decade and undertook the responsible task of “completely re-writing the introduction and the commentary of each book of the Bible based on sound exegesis and relevant pastoral application” and has done a ‘careful revision of the text’ wherever it was required. Another unique feature of the NCB mentioned is “its many references to the deep spiritual message and biblical values found in the scriptures of other great world religions”.
The international edition of the NCB is published for special promotion in the Year of Faith by St Pauls based in Sydney, London and New York. It is a great resource for all those who wish to have a deeper understanding of the scriptures and a great help for all those who make use of Scripture in daily prayer, in Bible study groups and in small communities.
