Which Version

Walk into any book store or Christian shop and you will be faced with an inumeral amount of Bibles to choose from. 

Do you choose a “student” edition?  Is that a bible for a school age child?  A college student?  Or even an adult who is just getting into reading the Bible and their Religious journey?

How about a “family” Bible?  Does this mean that this Bible will not be of any use to a single person?  Does this mean you have to have children, or is a married couple considered in this family?

Then there is the Bibles “for men”, “for women”, “for children”?  So is there a different message for different people?

The answer is simple…but a bit complex.  All these Bibles really do is ADD to the original book.  Often times there are inserts that will summarize, give life examples, or just comment on various passages.  Many times these may be helpful to others, but all the time they are not necessary.

What is necessary is to look at the versions.  There are many, but a better way to look at these is using the word translation rather than version.  These all have the message and are only different translations from the original transcripts from different old languages.  Some of the most common are:

The King James Version

The New King James Version

The New International Version

The New American Standard Version

The American Standard Version

 

All of these versions, verse for verse, word for word, have the exact same meaning; however they may be written in a different way.  For example, The King James Version is written in an older dialect that fits the time that it was written. 

The New International Version is found to be somewhat easier to read by students.

My research has told me that the best at this time would be the New American Standard Version.  The reason is that this was a 10 year study from 45 different scholars and, as it is the most recent translation, is written in the most recent and most comment English language known today.

Being a religious couple, we have several Bibles and several different versions.  One of the first gifts my husband-then-boyfriend ever gave me was an Orthodox Study Bible of the New Testament.  I cherish that gift.  It gave me a great introduction into the Eastern Orthodox religion and helped me as I made the transition from Catholisism into Orthodoxy.

I hope throughout this year I will be sharing some of my experiences as well from my Catholic home as a child, to my transition and explorations through college and early adulthood, to my settling in to the Eastern Orthodox religion, to being married and living in an Orthodox home.

I also hope that you will also share some of your experiences as well.

If you were to come to our home, you would find an entire bookcase dedicated to religious books.  ONE of those shelves alone hold many different publications of the Bible.  This is said not to boast of our dedication because, goodness knows, just OWNING the Bible doesn’t make us good people.  This is said to explain to you that I have several options to choose from in starting this journey. 

I spent the day Sunday looking through these versions to determine which of our Bibles I would be using to read in the year 2010.  I have narrowed it down to 3:

The New Jerusalem Bible Reader’s Edition -This Bible is a direct translation of the Hebrew, Armaic, and Greek.  The way it shows the introductions and breaks down the books is helpful and interesting to me.  This will most likely be the one I use for the majority of my readings this year.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible-This Bible looks to have the most notes on the text which may come in handy when looking to understand better the text.  It seems to be closer in original text that some of our other versions.  This will most likely be my third choice of the three I will be using and may only be used just for clarification purposes as I really like The New Jerusalem Bible and find myself drawn more to that one.

The Student Bible New International Version-This Bible is one that I have had since my late college years.  I find it a bit easier to read and look up specific passages.  I plan to use this as my secondary Bible for this year and my “travel” Bible as it is definitely lighter than an of the other Bibles.  It does have some of those extra stories and scenarios added to it, but I rarely read these.  I do find this is my go-to Bible when looking things up.  Although this may just be because I took the time to add permanent tabs to the pages to make it easier to flip through.

So, there you have it, those will be my go-to Bibles in the year 2010.  Which Bibles will you be using?