A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture by Bishop Knecht, Saint Austin Press edition in green cloth

Bishop Knecht's Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture

  • THE SACRED HISTORY IN ONE VOLUME – More than 800 pages on the great episodes of the Old and New Testaments.
  • SHORT CHAPTERS FOR DAILY READING – Ideal for family reading, catechesis and private study.
  • DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL – Draws out the doctrine and the moral lesson of each passage, and links Scripture to the liturgy.
  • IN PRINT FOR OVER A CENTURY – Trusted by catechists, parents and priests since the nineteenth century.
  • MADE FOR READING – Sewn, green cloth, gilt-lettered spine, patterned endpapers and a silk ribbon marker; illustrated.

Many Catholics would like to know the Bible better and are not sure where to start. Bishop Knecht's Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture was written for exactly that need, and after more than a century it still meets it better than almost anything else.

The author

Friedrich Justus Knecht (1839–1921) was a priest of the Archdiocese of Freiburg in south-western Germany, and later its auxiliary bishop. He spent much of his life in Catholic education, and took an active part in the Church's resistance to Bismarck's Kulturkampf. He wrote the Commentary for catechists: priests and teachers who had to explain the sacred history to children and to do it well.

How it works

Knecht takes the great episodes of the Old and New Testaments in order, from the Creation to the Acts of the Apostles. Each chapter explains the passage, clears up its difficulties, and then draws out what it teaches: the doctrine it contains, the virtues it commends, the lessons it holds for daily life, and the way it is echoed in the Church's liturgy and sacraments. He takes the Bible for what the Church says it is, the Word of God, and has no time for the kind of criticism that explains the miraculous away. The chapters are short enough to read in a sitting, which makes the book as good for a family at the supper table as for a teacher preparing a lesson.

Our edition

More than 800 pages in a single sewn volume, illustrated, and bound in green cloth with a gilt-lettered spine, patterned endpapers and a silk ribbon marker. The Commentary is back in stock in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Order it here.

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