CASB 1: The Gospel of St. Matthew

First in the Catholic Apologetics Study Bible series, this volume pairs a fresh word-for-word English translation of Matthew with a verse-by-verse exegetical and grammatical commentary. The translation starts from the Douay-Rheims and stays close to the Vulgate: obsolete English is modernized, any word the Greek or Hebrew only implies is set in italics, and the conflations and spurious additions of the various Latin texts are noted. Where the manuscripts disagree, the Greek corresponding to the Vulgate usually stands and the alternative is flagged. Dynamic equivalence is refused on principle, so interpretation goes in the notes, never into the text.

The commentary works at two levels. Footnotes carry the grammatical, historical, patristic and practical detail; longer Apologetics Commentaries at the back argue the Catholic reading of the contested passages, among them the perpetual virginity of Mary at 1:25, the brothers and sisters of Jesus at 13:55, Scripture and Tradition at 15:3, the papacy at 16:18, and the Eucharist at 26:26. The position on inerrancy is stated up front: every word of the seventy-three canonical books is free from error in whatever it asserts as fact, the conclusions of Historical Criticism are rejected, and selected texts show how apparent contradictions between the biblical authors can be harmonized.