Douay-Rheims Bible with audio
The Douay–Rheims Bible is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by members of the English College, Douai, in the service of the Catholic Church. The New Testament portion was published in Reims, France, in 1582. The Old Testament portion was published twenty-seven years later by the University of Douai. Marginal notes took up most of the volumes and had a strong polemical and patristic character. They 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.
Much of the text of the 1582/1610 bible employed a dense Latin vocabulary, making it extremely difficult to read the text in places. Consequently, this translation was replaced by a revision undertaken by bishop Richard Challoner. Although retaining the title Douay–Rheims Bible, the Challoner revision was a new version. This Challoner edition was edited in Dublin years later and became the source of some Challoner bibles printed in the United States.
Although the Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible Revised Edition, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, and New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition are the most commonly used Bibles in English-speaking Catholic churches, the Challoner revision of the Douay–Rheims remains the Bible of choice of more-traditional English-speaking Catholics.
This app version of the text has a text-to-speech option and is searchable.