What to look for in a Bible purchase?

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Sid Post

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Oct 14, 1998
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I thought I read a good thread in this forum about Bibles but, I can't seem to find it.

I want a Bible that will travel well and is written in plain English so, if you have a recommendation please share it with me.

Best Regards,
Sid
 
Hammer27 said:
What Christian denomination?
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I grew up protestant. I drifted away from the church and want to change that. I'm starting with a good Bible to educate myself some before I start trying to find a new church. I will be on the road a lot so, a good book should come in handy. ;)
 
The system lost that earlier thread and although the system is fixed now we were not able to recover the lost data. The only thing to do is start over. :o
 
Sid Post said:
I grew up protestant. I drifted away from the church and want to change that. I'm starting with a good Bible to educate myself some before I start trying to find a new church. I will be on the road a lot so, a good book should come in handy. ;)
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FWIW the Reims Douay is a fine bible that has commentaries to compliment the scriptures as written.

The Scofield bible isn't bad, the scholarship is off, but it does make a great read.

The NIV is a much easier read, not word for word accurate, but easily read, and can be cross checked to see where the errors are.

My .02 cents
 
As I said in the previous version, it is much more important that you grab a bible and start reading it than that you agonize over which is the prefect version.

An excellent way to start is to spend an hour or so on http://www.biblegateway.com/
Here, you can read the entire bible in 50 different versions if you want to. My idea is not that you should do that but that you should compare selected passages in five or six of the top versions. See which one you like.

New International Version, New American Standard Version, Contemporary English Version, Today's English Version, these are all very good bible translations academically and also easy to read. Any of them would be a good choice.

I especially like New International Version. I think, with a protestant background, you'd like the Concordia NIV Study Bible especially well. It has many nice features such an a cross-reference, index, concise concordance, and it also has a running commentary by well-respected scholars which is clearly separated from the biblical text.

I suggest against leather-bound books. I know it all seems very prestigious, but it's very expensive and most of today's are made of bonded leather which is the particle board of leather. I suggest getting a hard-back book with a cloth binding which will open and lay flat nicely. Look for a bible that you'll be comfortable reading meaning one with a reasonably-sized font, a readable font, white, opaque pages (as opposed to onion-skin paper used to make bibles very thin or newprint paper used to make them very cheap).
 
You could look over some versions online.

The Hebrew Bible in English
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et0.htm

A Hebrew - English Bible
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm

New Advent
Roman Catholic Church resources
http://www.newadvent.org/

Bible Gateway
http://www.biblegateway.com/
foreign language versions and these in English:

21st Century King James Version
American Standard Version
Amplified Bible
Contemporary English Version
Darby Translation
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
English Standard Version
Holman Christian Standard Bible
King James Version
New American Standard Bible
New International Reader's Version
New International Version
New International Version
New King James Version
New Life Version
New Living Translation
The Message
Today's New International Version
Wycliffe New Testament
Young's Literal Translation

The Bible Online
The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
http://www.carm.org/bibleonline.htm
 
the Quest bible. ibelive its either niv or new living. it has 7000 questions and answers along the side of each page that help you understand what you read.

its produced in conjunction with Christianity Today Magazine.

also, dont try to read the Bible straight thru from beginning to end.

concentrate on books like: Luke....Acts....Philppians.....John (NT)

Genesis...Ruth....1 Samuel.....Isiah.....(OT)

Oh..........dont forget my favorite book....Psalms 16...19...30...40...51....86...etc

life application bible is also excellent.

in the book of Ruth, you might not realize that Boaz is her kinsman redeemer and what that implies. But the Quest Study Bible will explain that in the margin.

Also, the Quest will tell you that Jesus is a direct desendant of ruth and that Boaz is a "type" of Christ who is our kinsman redeemer.

thats why a study bible like quest or the life application bible are so valuable

Bill
 
Thanks everyone! I've got a couple of months on the road so, I suspect I will have some time to read bits and pieces at a time while I wait in an airport lounge or train station platform or lobby somewhere.
 
I would recommend King James. Old English I know, but if you do a search on different translation comparison, you will find that the others miss out a lot in the translation. Lots of meaning lost or changed. Not acceptable, at least to me anyway.

singteck
 
I use the King James Version myself. Yes, it's more difficult to understand, but I've found that this difficulty forces me to think more about what I'm reading.
 
if you want the word for word literal accuracy of the king james in modern english....get the NASB...new american standard bible.

how good is it?.........Charles Stanley uses it for his own bible study.

each verse is on its own line just like the king james.
 
bill_G said:
... the word for word literal accuracy of the king james ...
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Translation is an inherently difficult art. Languages don't match up well in vocabulary and even less in grammar.

I have no idea how well the New Testament in English represents the Greek original, but English does not represent the Hebrew of the Jewish Scriptures/Old Testament in a word for word sense.

The scholars who prepared the great and enduring translations did a fine job in bringing the meaning from one culture to another, but the feeling of many passages will always be harder to understand due to structural differences.
 
thats quite true Esav...but short of learning koine greek or hebrew we have to do with what we have. if you want a laughter, the jerusalem bible was translated into english from the french version which was translated from the hebrew and greek. what a mess it was.

also, when Jerome translated the greek new testament into latin (around 400-500AD).....he mistranslated the greek word "metanoia" (sp?). he translated it as "do penance" when actually it means "repent". thats where the RC's get their doctrine on doing penance! it wasn't corrected in their bibles until about 1961.
 
kamagong said:
I use the King James Version myself. Yes, it's more difficult to understand, but I've found that this difficulty forces me to think more about what I'm reading.
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I totally agree with Kamagong. Also a text with Greek translations is a big help for New Testament studies. Best of luck with your studies.
 
ESV is my favorite translation. I also like NASB, and the old KJV.

NIV just seems.....candy coated to me; like they try to ever simplify things. But thats just my opinion. lots of people like the NIV. i think the ESV has the easy readability of the NIV without some of the over-simplification.

Either way, get a good concordance for your translation. I recoment Strongs exaustive concordance.
 
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