What to look for in a Bible purchase?

MK 1 said:
Also a text with Greek translations is a big help for New Testament studies.
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Why not get an interlinear version with the original Greek and literal English side-by-side? You can get the Old Testament in its original languages too. Real Bible readers read Sanskrit.

But for someone who is just starting to take a new interest in Bible study, I think it's more important to find a version which is academically sound but which is also comfortable and easy to read for you. If he has to struggle with the words themselves, the newly-interested reader won't get past the first five chapters before giving up either out of frustration, fatigue, or intimidation.

It is much more important that you read the Bible than that you obsess with having the best and most prefect version.

Pick one of the generally-respected versions that you are comfortable with and get reading. Later, you can go back and dive into differences in translation and worry about what the original Greek word was and all of that stuff. If you really get interested, maybe you will take up Sanskrit. But, for now, just get reading.
 
Zondervan, mentioned earlier, by myself and notos&w, publishes versions
with the original Hebrew tracked word-for-word with its English translation
just above the Hebrew - truly a remarkable tool, and accomplishment.

Plus concordances with greatly respected authorities in the same volume.

(They publish many different versions - - many.)

Can only recommend once again, along with the many great suggestions here,
that it's really worth your while to have a look:
http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en...Site=Zondervan
 
Probably this one:
bible-warning.jpg
 
I agree with MK 1. This isn't a discussion of religion. It was a request for Bible information. It would have been simple courtesy for non-believers to avoid commenting.

Oh, courtesy ... what was I thinking. :rolleyes:
 
the_mac said:
And for those of you who would like to look at things from the other side, perhaps starting here would be a good spot.
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:thumbdn: :thumbdn: :thumbdn: :thumbdn: :thumbdn:

Another looser!

Just simply uncalled for.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
I agree with MK 1. This isn't a discussion of religion. It was a request for Bible information. It would have been simple courtesy for non-believers to avoid commenting.

Oh, courtesy ... what was I thinking. :rolleyes:
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I agree.

Those with obvious anti-biases should have a little decency and show a little respect. Making jack-asses out of yourselves in public doesnt help your cause ;) You keep on interjecting your arogance. We will keep on feeding the hungry, and loving our fellow man.


back on topic....


Has anyone else Tried the English Standard Version? As i said earlyer, it is far and away my favorite translation. It is somewhat rare though, so not many people have a copy.
 
Let me post what the TITLE OF THIS THREAD is:
What to look for in a Bible purchase?
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Esav, Gollnick and MK1, you are off-topic. I wasn't.


I do think similar pieces should be rated appropriately to their content. Because of the very same reason e.g. movies get the rating - to prevent people who aren't yet able to fully distinguish reality and fiction from ill-effects and possible psychic altering.


2000 years and religionism have changed not a bit.
 
Meanwhile, moving onward...

I like the New Living Translation study Bible for personal study, it has really good notes and the wording in the translation comes out clearly.

For accuracy, I like a New King James Version interlinear Bible with Greek, at least, Hebrew and Aramaic if I can get it. Can't read the original languages, but it's nice to have the cross-references and multiple English translations of the same original word.
 
I see some folks whose pocket Bibles are bristling with PostIt flags and the pages are filled with personal notations all over the pages. If you're a notation writer, make sure you pick out a Bible that has wide margins.
 
Sid:

Here is my recommendation.

All users:

My choice for a compact Bible is the Revised Standard Version. This is the version used in the liturgy of the catholic church. It contains all the 73 canonical books as defined by the Council of Trent in 1545-1562. That is 6 additional books and portions of the Old Testament that are not included in the Protestant Bible.

You can get it here at a very reasonable price:
http://www.amazon.com/Revised-Standard-Version-Catholic-Bible/dp/019528853X/sr=1-19/qid=1164924910/ref=sr_1_19/002-6230816-2396069?ie=UTF8&s=books

There are many "good" versions of the Bible. None are perfect. Some are better than others.

The time has come for all Christians to unite and restore this nation to its Christian roots. To put back the bible in the classroom and teach are students the truth of God's word.

Go with Christ and stick to His word.
 
I am a reader and supporter of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) in its Protestant form. As jfko6 noted, there is also a Roman Catholic version and, I believe, an Eastern Orthodox version. In all of these, great care has been taken to try to make the translation as accurate to the original language as possible. In attempting this, the scholars have sought out the oldest versions of the books of Scripture that they have been able to locate and used them as their bases for the translation. Much use has been made of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, in their Hebrew Scriptures translations. These bibles are available in all sorts of forms: large, small, study, whatever your need might be.

For a study bible, I can recommend the Harper-Collins, which uses the NRSV as its basis, or the Oxford Study Biblem which uses an updated version of the King James transltion called the New English Version (NEV). I like it because it has a number of really good scholastic essays as introduction. But understand that study bibles, useful as they are, are neither light in weight nor inexpensive.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
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.
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As I understand it, you are quite correct, but there is one scholar, according to the rabbi who tought my wife's Hebrew Studies class for her MTh from Virginia Theological Seminary, whose book makes the best effort so far: The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (The Schocken Bible, Volume 1) by Everett Fox (Paperback - Feb 8, 2000) Buy new: $18.15 from Amazon.
 
I am sure that all the major translations available today are accurate enough and close enough to each other, given some differences in rhetorical mode, that they will not confuse a serious reader.

I only meant to point out that a translation is not going to be word for word, that some inherent tendencies in one language will not be represented by similar tendencies in another, and this can shift the emphasis in many cases. But the meaning will be clear.

For example, where English says "I am going to ..." and Spanish says "Yo voy a .." they can both use this idiom to mean physically going or being about to do something.

But when we read "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want," Hebrew has "Adonai ro'i, lo ehsar." The entire rhythm of the thought is altered by the differences in phrasing, which come from the grammar. On the other hand, in its own language, each was simple and colloquial.
 
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