Which Bible?

[turtletwo]

4 minutes ago, Worship Warriors said:

i use the KJV easy read . its called the sword bible where they have taken away all the thee and thou and have also updated the old grammar to modern grammar

 Me too. The sword KJV ER bible is very helpful.

[frienduff thaylorde]

3 hours ago, Abby-Joy said:

I came to the Lord when I was age 13 and a KJV Bible is what I had.  I never found it difficult to understand.  When I was 14, my youth pastor gifted me a KJV Thompson Chain Reference Bible and that is what I used for many years.  It's all marked up and the pages are falling out.  lol  Finally, in 2002, when I was 30 yrs old, a friend bought me a NKJV Bible.  I didn't like it because I found discrepancies (between it and the actual KJV).  So I went back to my old falling-apart KJV Thompson Chain Bible.  I just stuck with that one the best I could until I purchased my newest Bible.  It is a Holman KJV Study Bible.  I like it a lot! 

Wow.   in two thousand and two I was thirty also .      T minus two days and a wake up dear sister .     you are loved .  

[GandalfTheWise]

On 6/27/2019 at 10:09 AM, Waiting2BwithHim said:

Which bible version(s) do you like to read? Why do you like it (them) ?

Which ones don't you like and why?

 

I've read the Bible through probably on the order of 30 or so times in my life plus some particular books many more times.   I now do most of my reading in Greek (Greek NT and Septuagint) and am working on learning Hebrew.  I've read the Bible through in a number of English versions and two Spanish versions.  I use the Bible as my basis for language learning which means there are some chapters and books I've been through a large number of times.  

I distinguish between three different types of "reading",  devotional reading, extensive reading, and study.  Devotional reading is basically just reading limited amounts (perhaps a few sentences, a paragraph, a chapter, or a page) and spending time just reflecting on it.  Extensive reading is reading some number of pages on a consistent basis in order to gain familiarity with entire books and the entire Bible.  Study is doing detailed research (usually on a particular book or topic) including using various types of reference materials (Bible dictionaries, Bible encyclopedias, atlases, history books, etc.).   I think each of the three types of reading (devotional, extensive, and study) help us grow in different and necessary ways.

When I became a Christian back in the 1970s,  my favorite was the first version of the Living Bible.   I also had an old KJV Schofield reference Bible I read.  I did most of my devotional reading and extensive reading in the  LB.  I always did my study comparing a few versions.   After the NIV came out, I started using that as my primary Bible.  For many years, I preferred the 1901 ASV for OT reading and the NIV for NT reading.  I like the 1901 ASV because instead of following the tradition of using LORD (in caps) it uses Jehovah as well as using the old pronouns (distinguishing singular thee/thou and plural ye/you).  I used the ASV and NIV for my devotional and extensive reading.  I'd use multiple versions for study.

As my Greek skills improved, I've moved most of my reading and study to Greek.  At first, I started reading the Septuagint thinking of it as a stop gap measure until I could learn Hebrew.  I found however that I started falling in love with the Septuagint and realized that I was reading the very same words that many of the early Christians were using as scripture.  I also find that the Greek NT retains the language and style of each of the original writers much better than any translation does.  As I started to do this, I also did much research on various text traditions of the Greek NT and have spent a fair amount of time comparing Greek texts to various translations in English and Spanish.

The recommendation I give people about Bible versions is this.  My opinion is that the best version for devotional and extensive reading is one that you are comfortable reading.  Find a version that you enjoy reading.  For study, my opinion is that several versions should be compared.   I think most translations are reasonable to use for devotional and extensive reading.   It is helpful to find an edition printed on paper and with a font size that is easy to read.  Some people like to have an edition with study notes, maps, and references whereas other people prefer to have one without any distractions from the text itself.

The main objections I have to particular versions and editions fit into 3 general categories:  explicitly doctrinally biased, too much paraphrase, and biased commentaries and notes.

There are a few translations (e.g. the New World Translation of the Jehovah's Witnesses) which have explicitly made translation choices based on doctrinal reasons which are well outside the mainstream of Christianity.  There are a few translations which are so paraphrased that they almost become a commentary rather than a translation.  The Message is one of these in many places.  The original Living Bible too had some passages that were overly paraphrased.  Then there are "study" Bibles which contain commentary and notes from a single person or a small group with similar views.  In hindsight, my old Schofield KJV was an example of highly biased commentary in a study Bible.  The problem is that there is no way to know which notes and comments reflect what the vast majority of Christians agree with and which are way out in left field.  As I see now, Schofield had some very strong doctrinal opinions that showed up in his notes but without any caveat that other Christians might disagree.  My opinion is that any study notes or reference materials printed with a Bible should educate someone and not indoctrinate them.

I'd note that some Christians hold to a strong form of a doctrine of preservation which roughly speaking means that God has preserved His exact Word with particular exact words in each language and generation.  For those with this belief, it is of paramount importance to know which exact original Greek and Hebrew texts are the exactly correct ones as well as to know which translated version is the exactly correct one in each language.  In the English speaking world, this is most common with some variation of a belief colloquially called KJV-onlyism.   This is the belief that God supernaturally empowered the KJV translation committee both to choose correctly among Greek and Hebrew manuscript variations but to choose the best possible words for an English translation.   One of the challenges when reading people's comments about Greek and Hebrew texts and translation is determining what their stand on preservation is.  For those who hold to some form of it, only particular translations and texts are the real Word of God.  Preservation scholarship looks at various Greek and Hebrew texts and translations to map out a history of how the exact Word of God was transmitted across the centuries.  This frequently amounts to starting with today's preserved Word (often a particular edition or version of the KJV or AV) and working backwards from there. 

In contrast, most Christians hold the view that translation is an ongoing work God has entrusted to each generation in the church to carry out in the current language of the day around the world.  In the same way that we wouldn't trust one teacher or one denomination to perfectly teach and expound truth, we don't trust any one translator or translation team to do it perfectly.  We simply expect our teachers to continue learning and interacting with each other.  There's probably not a single good Christian teacher or preacher alive today who has not changed their views on some things and grown and improved their understanding of spiritual matters over the course of their life.  Most Christians apply a similar standard to those involved in text studies and translation.  A good family friend has spent an academic career as a NT and Greek scholar.  Being able to directly interact with someone in the middle of textual studies and translation has been educational for me.  She's spent a career surrounded by evangelical born-again believers whose passion is to come to the most accurate possible understanding of the Bible.   For them, it is about looking at all of the existing Greek manuscripts and studying them in detail as well as studying and researching all they can learn about translation.  Right now, some of them (http://www.csntm.org) are digitizing and publishing images of entire Greek NT manuscripts which are centuries and millennia old.  50 years ago, only a few select scholars who could get permission to visit museums or monasteries could see these.  Today, any Christian with an internet connection can see images of 1000 to 1500 year old NT texts for themselves.  You can go online and see images of the actual physical manuscripts that people like Erasmus held in his hands when he created the first printing press version of a scholarly edited Greek NT in a centuries long string of scholarly edited NTs.  The art, science, and practice of translation has improved over decades as scholars have dealt with the challenges and demands of translating the Bible into hundreds of languages including some oral ones for which some book of the NT is the first written material in that language.  For the many Christians who've devoted their lives to this endeavor, it is about taking millennia old words and thoughts in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic and translating them into the most meaningful equivalent to people walking around the earth today.

Obviously, I fit into the camp that sees Bible translation and textual studies as an ongoing ministry God has entrusted to many Christians in the body of Christ.   I personally think it spiritually unhealthy when any Christian points to a handful of teachers or a particular church as being right on most or all matters.  I take the same view when it comes to Bible translation.  I'd rather listen to different teams of translators and see what they generally agree on and what they disagree on rather than pointing to one and trusting them as God's chosen.  This is why while I use Greek as my main basis of reading and study, I still compare things to see what is generally agreed on by most Christians and which is less agreed on.

 

[simplejeff]

On 6/27/2019 at 10:09 AM, Waiting2BwithHim said:

Which bible version(s) do you like to read? Why do you like it (them) ?

Which ones don't you like and why?

 

I enjoy the Bible,  the Word of Yahuweh (God).   It is a miracle to be able to have a Bible and to read it every day - a BLESSING AVAILABLE<    (but not for all.    For some it is a JUDGMENT, because they could have read it, could have believed it,  could have done what God says,  but refused,  and rejected HIS WORD, OR misused it (like the scribes and pharisees who sought to kill Jesus) .)

If one of the Bibles I read has something wrong,  I lay it aside, or ignore what is wrong,  as God leads.  He KNOWS what HE MEANS.