Best Bible Translation
Posted on: February 4, 2010 - 1:38pm
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Best Bible Translation
I tried searching, since it must have come up, but did not find anything.
I am wondering if there is a standard recommendation for a Bible to do a read-through? During my school years most of what we read was NIV and KJV. KJV is too much of a pain to read, but I see a lot of theist whining on the web about the NIV. Do you need two, one for literal and one for thought-for-thought?
Try doing a search on "Best Bible Translation" sometime, yikes. Third hit was a guy ranting about how you would go to hell if you didn't read the KJV, lol.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
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As an ex-baptist seminary student I can tell you that we were usually told that the New American Standard is the most accurate translation for the New Testament and the New Revised Standard is the most accurate Old Testament translation. Of course it varies according to who you talk to, but this came from people who could read the original Greek and Hebrew very well. I took Greek for four years and a year of Hebrew and I tend to agree, but I'm far from an expert.
(The bullshit content never changes from one version to another, though)
http://csmith1974.wordpress.com/
How about the ESV study Bible?
I was sort of thinking about using two, one a word for word and another one a thought for thought. Maybe ESV and NLT.
I've never read it cover to cover on my own as an adult. I would like to now, but it is sort of depressing to read through as an atheist.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Go to biblos.com and they have multiple versions of that hunk of shit book.
i think either the RSV or NRSV is the best all-around bible for those who only want one. we used the NRSV as the standard text in my religion major. i highly recommend the new oxford annotated bible with the apocrypha. it's an ecumenical bible which has academically sound footnotes, introductions, and essays. its tone is definitely nonsectarian and it explains controversies in dating and interpretation objectively. it's a valuable tool for both the casual and serious student. i'll give the benefit of the doubt to any study bible that takes the four-source theory for granted.
the only real difference between the RSV and NRSV is the NRSV uses rather bullshit gender neutral terms which of course are not in the original manuscripts, but they explain this rather well.
my area has always been jewish studies, so i'm not too concerned with the new testament. as far as the hebrew bible goes, i definitely recommend the NJPS tanakh. it's been the standard among judaism scholars for at least the last 30 years. my judaism prof always used it.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Same shit, Different Version (SSDV)
See someone else has already pointed to http://biblos.com/ I really like that website.
When I was getting my major in Theology (SDA) and taking Koine Greek, the NIV was considered the best version and I found myself in agreement. That was the late 70's so who knows. The best version is probably the ones that don't exist. The NT was most likely written in Aramaic if you believe the original apostles wrote anything. The oldest manuscripts are from the 4th century so god only knows what the originals might have looked like. My mind has some entertaining ideas though. I do think Paul letters were written first and their is a major absence of any details about the life of Jesus except that he was crucified and resurrected. That is an incredible omission. I look at the Gospels as a pre-quel where they made up stuff to scare people and build a wild tale around the "real" Jesus. It was a lot of picking and choosing. Like most gods or men who were deified suddenly had a virgin birth.
Also, speaking strictly about the NT (didn't study Hebrew) the jump from Greek to English isn't a huge leap in contrast to the translation of the Quran. Even comparing English translations of the Bible it is not so different. I think it is a lot of opinionated Christians trying to bend the translation to their own personal views. Conservapedia being case in point.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
don't know why, but the language in the NIV always just seemed clumsy to me, the few times i referred to it. given the fact that it was always the translation used for "teen study bibles" and stuff like that made me suspicious. i always considered it just a few notches above pop translations like the NLT and "the book."
my freshman year of college (a secular college) i went through a brief but hardcore fundy phase, thanks mostly to a senior who i really looked up to, and the crowd i ran with positively hated the NIV, for some nitpicky little wording in one or two verses that i can't even remember. he kept an "evil box" in his room that had things like the quran and the book of mormon in it, and he also kept an NIV bible there. i believe he also had a new world translation (the JW bible) and a catholic bible in there.
i don't read the bible much anymore, and when i do it's invariably the hebrew bible, in conjunction with whatever judaic scholarship i'm reading. even when i was still an evangelical i had to force myself to read the bible after a few years. i just never understood how a person can read the same book over and over.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Great info all, thanks!
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.