http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay-Rheims_Bible
The Douay-Rheims Bible (also known as the Rheims-Douai Bible or Douai Bible, and abbreviated as D-R) is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English. The New Testament was published in one volume with extensive commentary and notes in 1582. The Old Testament followed nearly thirty years later in two volumes; the first volume (Genesis to Job) in 1609, the second (Psalms to 2 Machabees plus the apocrypha of the Clementine Vulgate) in 1610. Marginal notes took up the bulk of the volumes and had a strong polemical and patristic character. They also offered insights on issues of translation, and on the Hebrew and Greek source texts of the Vulgate. The purpose of the version, both the text and notes, was to uphold Catholic tradition in the face of the Protestant Reformation which was heavily influencing England. As such it was an impressive effort by English Catholics to support the Counter-Reformation. The New Testament was reprinted in 1600, 1621 and 1633, while both the Old Testament volumes were reprinted in 1635, but neither thereafter for another hundred years. In 1589, William Fulke produced an attempted refutation of the Rheims New Testament, in the form of an edition with the Rheims text and notes in parallel columns with those of the Bishop's Bible. This work sold widely, being re-issued in three further editions to 1633; and it was predominantly through these editions that the Rheims New Testament came to exercise a significant influence on the development of 17th Century English.
Much of the text of the 1582/1610 bible, however, employed a densely latinate vocabulary, to the extent of being in places unreadable; and consequently this translation was replaced by a revision undertaken by bishop Richard Challoner; the New Testament in three editions 1749, 1750, and 1752; the Old Testament (minus the Vulgate apocrypha), in 1750. Although retaining the title Douay-Rheims Bible, the Challoner revision was in fact a new version, tending to take as its base text the King James Bible rigorously checked and extensively adjusted for improved readability and consistency with the Clementine edition of the Vulgate. Subsequent editions of the Challoner revision, of which there have been very many, reproduce his Old Testament of 1750 with very few changes. Challoner's New Testament was, however, extensively revised by Bernard MacMahon in a series of Dublin editions from 1783 to 1810; and these various Dublin versions are the source of some Challoner bibles printed in the United States in the 19th Century. Subsequent editions of the Challoner bible printed in England most often follow Challoner's earlier New Testament texts of 1749 and 1750; as do most 20th century printings, and on-line versions of the Douay-Rheims bible circulating on the internet.
Although the Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible (in the United States), the Revised Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version and the New Jerusalem Bible are the most commonly used in English-speaking Catholic churches, the Challoner revision of the Douay-Rheims is still often the Bible of choice of English-speaking Traditionalist Catholics. |