Which versions of the Bible have you read?
Over the past 5 years, I have enjoyed reading through the TNIV [twice, which includes "The Books of the Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version"], the Zondervan NIV Archaeological Study Bible, the New Living Translation [2nd edition], The ESV Reformation Study Bible, The Good News Bible, Australian edition [which is so far the one with the most typos], the New Jerusalem Bible [I began reading the study notes, but they were so liberal, I quit the notes] and the ESV Study Bible [completed yesterday].
Today I've commenced reading through the Contemporary English Version, Australian edition.
This usually takes me about 5 months, but the last one was a massive undertaking, due to all the articles, introductions and notes. I began reading the ESVSB on 3rd Jan 09, and was going quite slowly for a while.
It is a great blessing to be able to read through and get an overview fairly quickly. You can do this by reading a psalm a day, anotehr 4 chapters of the Old Testament and 2 chapters of the New Testament, to keep things proportional.
This all started when a man in our church brought us a guide to reading through the New Testament in 91 days, which was intended to get folk reading through the New Testament before Christmas.
Only a few people took up the offer, but I got hooked!
Do you think it is too much to expect the average Christian to read through the Bible? Not many people of my acquaintance seem to do it. We read the Bible, but we read the same passages over and over. We read soem of the New Testament, some of the Psalms and not much of the rest of the Old Testament.
Do you think God should have got J K Rowling to write the text to make it an easier read?
Showing posts with label New Living Translation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Living Translation. Show all posts
Friday, April 30, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Retranslating, for the sake of argument
Isn't it frustrating when people argue from their own translation of Scripture, or from a non-standard rendering of Scripture, to prove a point!
I think we would all want to say Amen to that when someone else is doing it, but might want to support doing this in our own individual case!
Discussion can be tricky if your opponent only accepts one translation as authoritative, such as the King James Version or New World Translation, for example.
On Sunday, our minister preached a terrific message from 1 Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath. He made the point that the whole passage is about Goliath and the Philistines defying God and that the Hebrew word translated defy, or a word related to it, occurs over and over in the passage.
Sometimes the word was translated with a different English word in most English versions [though, interestingly the New Living Translation used the word defiance in 1 Sam 17:26, where most other well-known versions don't].
In this case, it was helpful to be told what the original said, even though it didn't show up in our NIVs [or even, whisper, whisper ESVs].
But I think it is a fair point that if you have to retranslate a passage to make your point, you should think about making it from another passage which you don't have to retranslate.
I think we would all want to say Amen to that when someone else is doing it, but might want to support doing this in our own individual case!
Discussion can be tricky if your opponent only accepts one translation as authoritative, such as the King James Version or New World Translation, for example.
On Sunday, our minister preached a terrific message from 1 Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath. He made the point that the whole passage is about Goliath and the Philistines defying God and that the Hebrew word translated defy, or a word related to it, occurs over and over in the passage.
Sometimes the word was translated with a different English word in most English versions [though, interestingly the New Living Translation used the word defiance in 1 Sam 17:26, where most other well-known versions don't].
In this case, it was helpful to be told what the original said, even though it didn't show up in our NIVs [or even, whisper, whisper ESVs].
But I think it is a fair point that if you have to retranslate a passage to make your point, you should think about making it from another passage which you don't have to retranslate.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Suggested TNIV marketing slogans
I like these cheeky slogans, from Scripture Zealot. Good fun
NIV – the bad boy Bible. Hated by Piper, Sproul and MacArthur enough for them to mention it in their sermons!
TNIV – not your father’s Bible
TNIV – we like chicks
TNIV – the best Bible you’ve never heard of
TNIV – Christianity’s best kept secret
TNIV – we catch the flack so the NLT doesn’t have to
The NIV is yesterday’s Bible; use the TNIV
Sunday, March 29, 2009
A great resource
I'm continuing to enjoy wading through the ESV Study Bible. After reading rapidly through the TNIV, a repackaging of it called The Books of the Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version, The NIV Archaeological Study Bible, The ESV Reformation Study Bible and the New Jerusalem Study Bible I'm convinced that the ESV Study Bible is a superior aid to understanding the text and message of the Bible. All of the study bibles listed have good qualities, and all are useful to read through, [though you'd need to be reading the NJSB critically, as it does not take a sufficently high view of the Bible as the Word of God], but the ESV Study Bible has so many wonderful treasures: if you could only afford one, I'd definitely tell you to go for this one.
This morning I've been reading Psalms and am very grateful for the terrific job John Collins has done with his introduction and notes. One thing he keeps pointing out is how often the Old Testament writers go back to Exodus 34:5-7
It is going to take another 2 years or more to complete this read through, based on my current slow rate, but the journey is wonderful.
This morning I've been reading Psalms and am very grateful for the terrific job John Collins has done with his introduction and notes. One thing he keeps pointing out is how often the Old Testament writers go back to Exodus 34:5-7
The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”Though I've read through 7 other Bibles over the past three and a half years [I've also read through The New Living Translation, 2nd edition and the Good News Bible, Australian edition], I had not picked up on this and am grateful that Collins keeps showing us what a central passage that Exodus one is.
It is going to take another 2 years or more to complete this read through, based on my current slow rate, but the journey is wonderful.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The best study Bible?
The ESV Study Bible is the best I have used so far. I highly recommend it, but advise that if you want to understand the Bible, read it firstly without notes and guides.
If you read the Bible prayerfully, as if it is the Word of God, I believe you will find that
Over the past 3 years or so I have read through the Bible seven times in seven different versions, including the TNIV [updated NIV Bible], a special presentation of the TNIV called "The Books of the Bible", The New Living Translation, 2nd edition and the Good News Bible, Australian edition. Each of these is well worth reading, and better if you read it alongside other Bibles.
I have also read the ESV Reformation Study Bible, the NIV Archaeological Study Bible and the New Jerusalem Study Bible and have found each of them worth reading.
The Reformation Study Bible is useful for coming to grips with Reformed Theology and some Bible background.
Zondervan's Archaeological Study Bible is a great help in digging into the Bible's background [whoops!], but fairly light on theology.
I like the way The New Jerusalem Study Bible uses the Hebrew words for God, such as Yahweh, Shaddai and El Elyon, though mercifully it does not use Elohim, but renders it as "God." It also has many interesting renderings of words that you have become familiar with in the many Bible versions which seek to follow in the Wyclif-Tyndale-KJV tradition. But its study notes are written from a critical position which assumes that the Bible is fallible and not God's inerrant Word, and these notes did not help me to get to know the divine author any better.
The ESV Study Bible has 2 million words, 750,000 of which is the biblical text itself. It has a wealth of useful articles, resources, many terrific maps, introductions to each section of the Bible and each Bible book and extensive study notes on the ESV text.
It has taken me from 3 to 6 months to read through each of the other seven versions, but be warned: if you really want to read this whole Bible through [which I enthusiastically urge you to do AFTER you've read the Bible without study note help], it may take you about three years, based on my experience so far. This would be well worth doing, but you will need to plan it. There are excellent Bible reading plans available from the producers of the Bible on their website, which also contains the complete text of the Study Bible and makes ploughing through the many Bible references in the articles much easier to do.
What are you waiting for?
If you read the Bible prayerfully, as if it is the Word of God, I believe you will find that
it seems to be,
clearly claims to be
and ultimately proves to be indeed from God himself, though written by men.
Over the past 3 years or so I have read through the Bible seven times in seven different versions, including the TNIV [updated NIV Bible], a special presentation of the TNIV called "The Books of the Bible", The New Living Translation, 2nd edition and the Good News Bible, Australian edition. Each of these is well worth reading, and better if you read it alongside other Bibles.
I have also read the ESV Reformation Study Bible, the NIV Archaeological Study Bible and the New Jerusalem Study Bible and have found each of them worth reading.
The Reformation Study Bible is useful for coming to grips with Reformed Theology and some Bible background.
Zondervan's Archaeological Study Bible is a great help in digging into the Bible's background [whoops!], but fairly light on theology.
I like the way The New Jerusalem Study Bible uses the Hebrew words for God, such as Yahweh, Shaddai and El Elyon, though mercifully it does not use Elohim, but renders it as "God." It also has many interesting renderings of words that you have become familiar with in the many Bible versions which seek to follow in the Wyclif-Tyndale-KJV tradition. But its study notes are written from a critical position which assumes that the Bible is fallible and not God's inerrant Word, and these notes did not help me to get to know the divine author any better.
The ESV Study Bible has 2 million words, 750,000 of which is the biblical text itself. It has a wealth of useful articles, resources, many terrific maps, introductions to each section of the Bible and each Bible book and extensive study notes on the ESV text.
It has taken me from 3 to 6 months to read through each of the other seven versions, but be warned: if you really want to read this whole Bible through [which I enthusiastically urge you to do AFTER you've read the Bible without study note help], it may take you about three years, based on my experience so far. This would be well worth doing, but you will need to plan it. There are excellent Bible reading plans available from the producers of the Bible on their website, which also contains the complete text of the Study Bible and makes ploughing through the many Bible references in the articles much easier to do.
What are you waiting for?
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Out with the old, in with the new
Today I finished reading the New Jerusalem Study Bible, reading Revelation chapters 7 to 22. This Bible is well worth reading through, though I am not particularly enamoured of the study notes, which often cast doubt on the Bible as coming to us from God, and embrace discredited theories such as the documentary hypothesis concerning the composition of the Pentateuch.
But I do like many things about the translation, including the use of Hebrew names for God and especially the use of Yahweh, instead of the convention of rendering the
tetragrammaton as LORD.
There are many interesting renderings in this translation, which, unlike so many others, is not tied to the Wyclif-Tyndale-King James tradition.
And today I began reading through my Christmas present from Cathy and Philip [my daughter and son-in-law], which is the ESV Study Bible. I would like to read through the whole book, including the 750,000 word biblical text and the 1 and a quarter million word study notes, resources and articles.
Over the past three years, prompted by Ron McCarthy, I've been reading rapidly through these Bible versions, taking three to five months to do so:
The TNIV
The ESV Reformation Study Bible
The NIV Archaeological Study Bible
The New Living Translation, second edition
The Good News Bible, Australian edition
The Books of the Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version
and
The New Jerusalem Study Bible [including the Roman Catholic additions, which are not holy Scripture, but are well worth every Christian reading].
I have read most of the study notes in most of these, with the exception of the NJSB.
But there are so many in the ESV Study Bible, it is going to probably take at least twice as long as the other journeys. I'm looking forward to a more leisurely ride, which I began today using the one year Daily Bible Reading Plan included in this book. I always modify these and today did begin with Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, but then read Hebrews 1, Psalm 104 [referred to in the study notes for Hebrews 1] and Hebrews 13, on which I'm preaching tomorrow.
David Chapman's notes on Hebrews are excellent. I hope to find the rest of the study notes equally as worthwhile.
But I do like many things about the translation, including the use of Hebrew names for God and especially the use of Yahweh, instead of the convention of rendering the
tetragrammaton as LORD.
There are many interesting renderings in this translation, which, unlike so many others, is not tied to the Wyclif-Tyndale-King James tradition.
And today I began reading through my Christmas present from Cathy and Philip [my daughter and son-in-law], which is the ESV Study Bible. I would like to read through the whole book, including the 750,000 word biblical text and the 1 and a quarter million word study notes, resources and articles.
Over the past three years, prompted by Ron McCarthy, I've been reading rapidly through these Bible versions, taking three to five months to do so:
The TNIV
The ESV Reformation Study Bible
The NIV Archaeological Study Bible
The New Living Translation, second edition
The Good News Bible, Australian edition
The Books of the Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version
and
The New Jerusalem Study Bible [including the Roman Catholic additions, which are not holy Scripture, but are well worth every Christian reading].
I have read most of the study notes in most of these, with the exception of the NJSB.
But there are so many in the ESV Study Bible, it is going to probably take at least twice as long as the other journeys. I'm looking forward to a more leisurely ride, which I began today using the one year Daily Bible Reading Plan included in this book. I always modify these and today did begin with Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, but then read Hebrews 1, Psalm 104 [referred to in the study notes for Hebrews 1] and Hebrews 13, on which I'm preaching tomorrow.
David Chapman's notes on Hebrews are excellent. I hope to find the rest of the study notes equally as worthwhile.
Monday, July 14, 2008
My Bible journey, over 50 years
I was brought up on the King James Version, and quite a few verses and many passages are permanently in my head from that version.
In 1965, when I turned 13, my mother gave me a copy of Living Letters, which was the first instalment of The Living Bible. It had a profound effect on me, because I began to understand things I had not grapsed in the 17th Century English of the KJV. I was pretty angry after reading Romans 9, and it took many years before I embraced God's sovereignty, so clearly taught there.
In 1972 my brother Malcolm gave me a copy of the full Living Bible, with which I had a love/hate relationship. It seemed very loose in places, but it also made the Bible clearer and put it into the language we speak.
In 1973, we were given a white, unadorned wedding edition of the Revised Standard Version.
Over the years I have enjoyed many Bibles, and had the opportunity to study biblical languages for four years while training for the Christian ministry [in which I lasted a whole two and a half years].
In 2005, a member of our church encouraged us to read through the New Testament, which I did using my new TNIV. This spurred me on to also read the Old Testament in that version, and then to read through the Bible in a variety of translations.
Over the past four years I have read the whole Bible through using
The TNIV
The NIV Archaeological Study Bible
The ESV Reformation Study Bible
The New Living Translation, second edition [which is a significant improvement over the first edition, which was a great upgrade of The Living Bible]
The Good News Bible, Australian Edition
I'm now reading through The Books of the Bible, a presentation of Today's New International Version, which gets rid of verses, chapters, headings and footnotes [they have been converted into endnotes, which I'm not bothering to consult], but does use spacing to enhance readability. It also rearranges the books into a more logical and chronological order.
Reading each of these Bibles has been a great blessing and I have learnt much more reading the Bible through than I've ever learnt from commentaries and Bible dictionaries, helpful as they are.
I have found Michael Coley's chart for reading through the Bible very helpful, though I always adapt it to my own needs.
I have the TNIV as my base Bible, but also have the KJV, the NLT [both editions] and the ESV on my Palm Zire 22 and find each of them helpful
In 1965, when I turned 13, my mother gave me a copy of Living Letters, which was the first instalment of The Living Bible. It had a profound effect on me, because I began to understand things I had not grapsed in the 17th Century English of the KJV. I was pretty angry after reading Romans 9, and it took many years before I embraced God's sovereignty, so clearly taught there.
In 1972 my brother Malcolm gave me a copy of the full Living Bible, with which I had a love/hate relationship. It seemed very loose in places, but it also made the Bible clearer and put it into the language we speak.
In 1973, we were given a white, unadorned wedding edition of the Revised Standard Version.
Over the years I have enjoyed many Bibles, and had the opportunity to study biblical languages for four years while training for the Christian ministry [in which I lasted a whole two and a half years].
In 2005, a member of our church encouraged us to read through the New Testament, which I did using my new TNIV. This spurred me on to also read the Old Testament in that version, and then to read through the Bible in a variety of translations.
Over the past four years I have read the whole Bible through using
The TNIV
The NIV Archaeological Study Bible
The ESV Reformation Study Bible
The New Living Translation, second edition [which is a significant improvement over the first edition, which was a great upgrade of The Living Bible]
The Good News Bible, Australian Edition
I'm now reading through The Books of the Bible, a presentation of Today's New International Version, which gets rid of verses, chapters, headings and footnotes [they have been converted into endnotes, which I'm not bothering to consult], but does use spacing to enhance readability. It also rearranges the books into a more logical and chronological order.
Reading each of these Bibles has been a great blessing and I have learnt much more reading the Bible through than I've ever learnt from commentaries and Bible dictionaries, helpful as they are.
I have found Michael Coley's chart for reading through the Bible very helpful, though I always adapt it to my own needs.
I have the TNIV as my base Bible, but also have the KJV, the NLT [both editions] and the ESV on my Palm Zire 22 and find each of them helpful
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