I recently acquired The Jerusalem Bible: an authorised Catholic translation of the Old Testament (including the deuterocanonical literature) and the New Testament. To the best of my knowledge, this book has been out of print since 1966. Having been criticised for its lack of attention (in some cases) to the original languages, the Bible then passed through the hands of an editorial committee and emerged as The New Jerusalem Bible in 1985. This new edition features egalitarian language and is also generally considered to be more faithful to the underlying Hebrew and Greek. Nonetheless, the 1966 edition was the one that I sought and, after struggling with Amazon’s refusal to ship it to Australia, I eventually found a copy on eBay.
At 2,000 pages, plus introductions and supplements, The Jerusalem Bible is a bit of a handful. The prose, from what I have read, is sharp and eloquent and the poetry natural to my ears. It reads less like a translation of the Bible and more like something that I am supposed to be reading in English. But I did not purchase it simply because I wanted a fresh take on an ancient book. On the contrary, observe the opening page:
Echoes from the Ether: