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Title: Stands the test of time
Review: The now out-of-print RSV "Common Bible" was the first complete Bible I ever owned. That was over 30 years ago. Although I've had a lot of other study Bibles in various translations since then, this edition is what I now use. The notes reflect reliable, mainstream, scholarship. Without being overtly exclusive, they also tend to provide a more overtly traditional Christian perspective than the successor editions with the NRSV text. As someone else wrote, at times they even have a devotional quality. While its certainly more profitable for publishers to continually push out new editions, the question always arises as to whether they really add that much more value. As for the translation, given that it's only slightly older than I am, the RSV has held up remarkably well as both an accurate and readable version. It's no wonder major churches that have been around for more than a millennium continue to stick with it rather than "upgrade" to another every few years.
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