Tag Archives: versions

It’s not your father’s Bible…

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There was a time when I basically had one Bible that I used all of the time. It was a New International Version that had been given to me by some friends in California (whose pet dog had chewed up the Bible I received for high school graduation). I would always have the Bible with me and would use it for devotional reading, personal study, class preparation, as well as teaching and preaching.

Those days are gone. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’ve embarrassed myself at times by arriving somewhere to teach class or to preach and discovered that I didn’t bring a Bible with me! I no longer have a trusty, go-with-me-everywhere Bible.

Here are the main ways I read the Bible now:

  • Accordance: I use the Accordance program on my Mac for most of my work in preparing classes and studies. In the basic setup, I have 5 versions open side by side: New International Version, Dios Habla Hoy, King James Version (with Strong’s), English Standard Version, Reina-Valera 1960.
  • Bilingual New International Version-Nueva Versión Internacional: A friend in Stockdale, Texas, gave me this Bible. I use it for preaching on Sundays. There are copies of this same Bible available to those in attendance, and I can refer to passages by page number as well as chapter and verse.
  • BibleGateway.com: I use this site at times for a quick lookup of a passage. I also use it to print out the main text for my sermons. (Larger font works well for my middle-aged eyes)
  • PocketSword: I use this Bible app on the iPod when I’m teaching class at ACU. I often don’t have a convenient way to carry a full text, and this electronic version works well. Plus it’s easier for me to read without glasses. (Funny how that is becoming a recurrent theme in my choice of Bibles)
  • NIV Study Bible: Even though I have the full text of this study Bible within the Accordance program, there are times when it is helpful to look at an actual book

How about you? Has your method of reading the Bible changed over the years? Has your Bible version of choice changed at all? Do you think the next generation will be reading the Bible in traditional book form or some other format?

The quest for the perfect version of the Bible

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bible1Over on the Better Bibles Blog, Rich Rhodes talked about listening to an audio version of the King James Version. He found that the epistles were very difficult to listen to because of the vocabulary employed. He concludes his post by writing:”This is why I’m so passionate about getting a translation that speaks to the heart of English speakers.”

That’s what I find with the versions I use in Spanish. In my radio programs, I use the Spanish equivalent of the GNT, which isn’t my favorite version. I use it because it’s the easiest to understand in a spoken format like that. In our bilingual service, I use the bilingual NIV/NVI Bible because our congregation owns a number of those and most of our Spanish-speakers use them. (I like the NIV in English, but don’t like the Spanish version much at all)

Maybe I’m too picky, but I really haven’t found a Bible that truly fits what I would like to see in a Bible. For now, I settle for “the lesser of evils.”

What about you? Have you found what you’re looking for in a Bible version?

[Edit at 3 p.m. CDT: Matt Dabbs tells about a church burning all non-KJV Bibles. I’m guessing they’ve found the version they like!]

As I mentioned before, I’ve been participating in the Tyndale Blog Network, reviewing products that I receive from Tyndale. This time I’m a part of one of their virtual book tours, the Mosaic Bible blog tour. This Friday, October 16, The Kitchen will be hosting the tour, with Kevin O’Brien doing a Q&A session about the book.

In addition, Tyndale will be giving away a copy of The Mosaic Bible to one of the readers of this blog. On Friday, leave a comment indicating that you would like to be in the drawing for the giveaway.

Today’s stop on the blog tour: Internet Monk

How literal should a translation be?

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bible1As I mentioned before, I’ve been participating in the Tyndale Blog Network, reviewing products that I receive from Tyndale. This time I’m a part of one of their virtual book tours, the Mosaic Bible blog tour. This Friday, October 16, The Kitchen will be hosting the tour, with Kevin O’Brien doing a Q&A session about the book.

In addition, Tyndale will be giving away a copy of The Mosaic Bible to one of the readers of this blog. On Friday, leave a comment indicating that you would like to be in the drawing for the giveaway.

Today’s stop on the blog tour: life. caffeinated.

A few months ago, we spent some time discussing versions of the Bible. I discussed, among other things, the theory of dynamic equivalence. This is the theory behind many of the Bible translations that have come out in the last 40 years or so.

Recently, I’ve been reading some articles by Leland Ryken (yeah, him again) that seek to promote “essentially literal translations” as being superior to those translated using dynamic equivalence. He makes some convincing arguments, some of which can be seen in the following articles:
On Bible Translations, Part 1
On Bible Translations, Part 2
Bible Translation Differences

I’ve had to admit that Ryken touches on some things that have bothered me over the years. Sometimes I find that “dynamic equivalence” translations seek to explain too much, that they try to pin a passage down to one certain interpretation, when the original is ambiguous enough to allow several translations. A prime example is the Greek word sarx, which the NIV translates as “sinful nature.” The word actually means “flesh,” “the soft substance of the living body, which covers the bones and is permeated with blood.” I prefer a literal translation that gives us room to determine the metaphorical sense the author is using.

In many settings, I favor a “simpler” version, especially for the person who is just beginning to read the Bible. But we can’t be overly dependent on such translations. As I said before, we need to use multiple versions in our serious study of the Word. (Does that conflict with yesterday’s post?)

Do some reading on Ryken’s arguments and tell me what you think of what he has to say. (He has an entire book on the subject, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it.) How literal should a translation be?

How do you evaluate a version of the Bible?

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KJVGenesispg1These days I’m reading the New Living Translation, trying to get a feel for it.

So how do you evaluate a translation? What are your priorities? Readability? Literalness? Use of older manuscripts?

There are certain passages that I look at to see how they’ve been translated. Do you have any “test passages” that you look at? Words that you want to see how they’ve been interpreted?

How do you evaluate a version of the Bible?