The
Douay–Rheims Bible (pronounced or ) (also known as the
Rheims–Douai Bible or
Douai Bible, and abbreviated as
D–R and
DV) 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, in one volume with extensive commentary and notes. The
Old Testament portion was published in two volumes thirty years later by the
University of Douai. The first volume, covering
Genesis through
Job, was published in 1609; the second, covering
Psalms to
2 Machabees plus the
apocrypha of the Vulgate was published in 1610. Marginal notes took up the bulk 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.