Preferred Bible Version

[Rvaughn]

Just as a matter of interest, thought I'd sorta poll respondents for their favorite Bible version or versions. I read and preach from the King James Version. I listen every morning on radio to Max McLean's "Listen to the Bible," in which he reads from the New International Version. The differences I hear catch my attention and make me think on things I might not otherwise. On another board where I post, I'd guess that the NIV, ESV and NKJV are the most popular Bibles (but that's just a guess).

(Since we are primarily English speakers, I'm thinking mainly of English Bible translations, but perhaps you read in another language as well. I've read bits and pieces of the Bible in Spanish.)

What is your preferred Bible version? (Intended more as friendly chat rather than a Bible versions debate.)

[Sandy]

For reading, and devotionals, it's The Voice. For the kind of study to prepare for teaching and preaching, I prefer the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

[David Flick]

[Rvaughn]

Interesting, David. I don't hear as many people mentioning the NASB as much as I did when I was a young preacher. But maybe that's a reflection of who I know. Do you find the NASB to be popular with others you know?

[Tim Bonney]

NRSV is my personal favorite though I also preach a lot now out of the Common English Bible - a new translation sponspored by the UMC, ELCA, UCC, DOC and TEC.

[Shawn Koester]

A list of my favorite Biblical translations include King James Version, New International Version, Common English Bible and the New Living Translation. I have love-hate relationships to the Message and the NRSV.

[David Flick]

[Rvaughn]

Intriguing story, David. Thanks for sharing. I knew that some of the preachers just older than me (now 65-75) preferred the NASB, but I had decided that popularity might not have transferred to the next generation. I guess there are just so many Bibles to choose from now.

I wrote a little about my "Bible journey" here, , so won't take time to write it over again.

I was also interested in your mention of the old 1901 American Standard Bible, whose copyright ran out. I recently learned that the World English Bible is a new translation/revision based on the old American Standard. The WEB also is not copyrighted. It is in the public domain but the title is trademarked, so any revisions or derivatives cannot use that name.

[KeithE]

For devotion reading I like The Good News translation mainly because it is a single column version and I'm used to reading that way.

To see the range of possible translation I like The NET Bible because it has multiple translators notes that talk to variations in texts and word translations - very often there are many possible meanings/translations.

I use the NRSV for adult teaching SS (the Spiritual Formation version for its notes and special articles). Occasionally I use the explanatory additions (in italics) in The Voice also for SS teaching.

[Haruo]

In English, I think my favorites are KJV and Moffatt; I also like the Goodspeed Apocrypha. In Esperanto there's only one complete version, consisting of the 1912 New Testament, the 1926 Old Testament, and the 1997 Deuterocanonicals; the currently available edition (2008, published by KAVA/PECH) incorporates the Deuterocanonicals into the OT in the traditional Roman Catholic order. The previous edition (2003, not sure of the publisher) placed them between the testaments à la KJV-with-Apocrypha.

[David Flick]

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

[Shawn Koester]

For translation of the Greek into English I personally love Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

[Sandy]

[Rvaughn]

[Haruo]

Thanks, that's a pretty good explanation. Most of the folks I've heard describe themselves as KJVO (most actually prefer KJBO) have been under- or at least extremely narrowly- educated, and have at least claimed to be in your category 4.

I was raised on the RSV at church (except for the psalms, some of which at least were KJV, but at home we had at least KJV (including Scofield's Reference Bible, which my dad detested but didn't toss) , ASV, RV, Moffatt, Goodspeed, Montgomery and Berkeley's NTs, etc. Many of the churches I've attended as an adult had NIVs, or less frequently NRSVs, as pew Bibles, but I've never been overly fond of either.

More later...

[John Sneed]

For myself, I had been NKJV for many years. I don't preach very often anymore but when I do, I still use the NKJV. I feel I know it best. I use the ESV for devotional reading, although I like the Holman Bible a lot too. I will sometimes move back and forth between the ESV and the Holman. I own several other versions, but I don't really use them. I think my one remaining KJV is the one my mother gave when I became a Christian in 1965. So, the NKJV, ESV and Holman Bibles, there you go.

John

[Sandy]

I still have the grey hard bound NASB that I bought when I started college. I was just looking through it, and remembered that the Psalms are still rendered in King James English. There are no notes inside explaining why that is. Is that characteristic of all NASB translations, or just the earlier ones?

[Haruo]

My favorite specific copy of the Bible, which alas I appear to have lost along the way, was a Living Bible, bound UPSIDE DOWN, given to me by my sister Peggy while she was in college. She worked a summer job at the Tyndale House bindery, and had access to their cast-off factory seconds. The combination of an upside-down Bible with my favorite Bible footnote, the Living Bible's tortilla note to Genesis, was unsurpassable.

[Joseph Patrick]

From Joseph Patrick...aka Gerry Milligan
When I enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary one of my first courses was Nahum, Habbakkuk and Zephaniah. We were to outline one of these three and submit it to the professor the first week of class. Having a terminal case of lazy I reproduced the outline on Nahum straight out of my Schofield Bible. I was given a zero on that submission and told "Use a real Bible." Since that time it has been the NIV for me.

[Rvaughn]

[Haruo]

[Rvaughn]

Interesting. Do you know the underlying original language texts of the Esperanto Bibles (the ones you mention and the one linked)?

You may remember, but likely not, that I took the Correspondence Course from the Esperanto League of North America several years ago. Unfortunately I have not kept up and lost much of what I learned. I thought I might purchase an Esperanto Bible as a way to practice. I found that most of them on Amazon are Kindle books rather than print, and that the print editions there can be quite expensive. I don't do Kindle, but if I did there is a Parallel Bible with the La Sankta Biblio 1926, New Heart English Bible 2010 (which I had not heard of before) and the King James 1611 that looks appealing.

[Haruo]

Zamenhof translated the Old Testament, purportedly from the Original Hebrew, which presumably subsumes the original Aramaic where the Tanakh is in Aramaic. A number of books were published by Hachette during his lifetime, and the whole testament was revised by the British, probably all Anglicans, prior to its publication in 1926 by the British and Foreign Bible Society and the National Bible Society of Scotland. Those societies remained the publishers of record until KAVA-PECH took over in 2008. There is a very interesting monograph by D. B. Gregor, probably 50 or more years old now, about the evidence for the influence of various national-language translations on Zamenhof's choices where a variety of possible renderings present themselves. I'm not sure how strong his command of Hebrew actually was. He was a non-practicing Jew raised by a modernist father, though his mother may have been somewhat observant. Not sure if he was Bar Mitzvah. But he was a dedicated polyglot, and spent some years as a Zionist while in College, so he may well have had more Hebrew than his upbringing might suggest.

The NT was donfacebook.com, purportedly and I think probably, from the Greek by a committee of Anglicans led by John Cyprian Rust, who also composed the first indigenous Christian Esperanto hymn and hymn tune, DOKSOLOGIO. My impression is that Rust used the Revised Version (1881-85) as his model in resolving points of potential dispute among translations.

The Dutch Protestant (Remonstrantist) clergyman Gerrit Berveling, who did the now standard Deuterocanonicals, has been working on a new NT translation for decades. Portions have been published, but I'm not sure how close he is to finishing it.