Knox Bible

The Knox Bible is a major one-man Catholic translation of Scripture, the work of the English priest and writer Ronald Knox, undertaken at the request of the Catholic hierarchy of England and Wales and issued in the 1940s. Covering the complete Catholic Bible, it was made from Latin, with Hebrew and Greek consulted alongside: its base text is the Latin Vulgate, in keeping with then-current Catholic norms, while the original languages were consulted throughout. The translation follows a literary, idiomatic philosophy and is renowned for its polished literary English; it is classed as a fresh translation, standing in relation to the Vulgate and Douay tradition as its predecessor or base translation. For a time it was widely read and used in English-speaking Catholic circles, before later versions prepared directly from Hebrew and Greek came into common use, and it remains valued chiefly for its prose style.