Do you think it is okay to have more than one version of the Bible?
Why or why not?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
And My answer is: YES! Absolutley it\u2019s okay. As a matter of fact, I myself havt quite a collection<\/p>\n
Like\u2026Probably Too Many<\/p>\n Of course not all of those are different Bibles, but about a third of them are depending on what counts. I want to give you a \u201cTour\u201d Of some of my favorites <\/p>\n This first one is my \u201cMain\u201d Bible. It\u2019s the one I always carry, the one I brought with me to Florida when I met you<\/p>\n I really like The translation, the NRSV which is a very precice and accurate translation of the Greek and Hebrew. I also like that it fits in my pocket even though it has the whole Bible included New and Old Testaments. A lot of pocket Bibles are just the New with maybe Psalms and Proverbs from the Old. This has it all. Which is good, because the OT is about 2\/3 of scripture, and if someone needs me to read something from Genesis, I can be ready if I have this trusty long skinny guy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you zoom in on that text you can see that both bibles communicate the same basic ideas, but the one with the duct tape on it says it a lot more simply and conversationally. That makes it easier to read. By the way, speaking of duct tape, some people think it\u2019s sacreligious to have a damaged Bible. I couldn\u2019t disagree more! I want to see Bibles get used. A Bible that has had notes written in it, with torn pages and drinks spilled on it is a bible that\u2019s done it\u2019s job. Someone with a Bible like that loves the Bible. If you never hurt it because you never open it it does you no good at all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The downside is that people don\u2019t talk the way they did in 1611 anymore, so that makes it hard to understand when you are reading a large portion of the text. And Jesus didn\u2019t speak Shakespearian english either (he didn\u2019t speak english at all) so there is no reason to insist you have to read it this harder way. <\/p>\n You might also notice those citations in the margin there. Those are Chain References. Which help you look up related verses. I\u2019ll talk about those kinds of extra goodies in a bit <\/p>\n See those little squiggles? That;s what the apostles actually wrote down about Jesus. And if you wanted to, you could learn Greek and know how to read them.<\/p>\n There is only one version of the Greek New Testament because it\u2019s not a translation. So different copies are just about formatting and footnotes and stuff.<\/p>\n Sometimes for my quiet time in the morning I will open this Greek Bible and begin to make my own personal Pastor Gaffney translation of a few verses. It takes me a long time though because I\u2019m not a Greek expert. I have to have paper and a dictionary out and go word by word. <\/p>\n Same story goes for the Hebrew Old Testament. I have some of those too!<\/p>\n It\u2019s Awesome! It\u2019s got a standard English Translation on the side, with the Greek words, and the literal english meaning for each word underneath it. Those little numpers on the top are Strongs numbers witch coorespond to an ever bigger doorstop of a book with more information about each word. <\/p>\n This one, ::Ahem:: Does not fit in my pocket. <\/p>\n Of course we can have Bibles in other languages too, besides Greek and English. And this parallel idea comes in really handy for that. Here is People should always chose a version of the Bible that they are confortable with. That way they will actually read it!<\/p>\n You will notice that the english text of both of these is exactly the same. They both use the NIV, which is the most popular English translation, and a darn good one too!<\/p>\n I have just a couple more that I think are cool.<\/p>\n I Know! It\u2019s a really touchy subject and it annoys a lot of people that this was done. Maybe it annoys you a little.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s an interesting example of how a Bible\u2019s presentation can affect how it is read. This has exactly the same words and verses as my Red letter NRSV. It\u2019s just\u2026Green. <\/p>\n Also, the hemp cover is really cool and cheaper than leather.<\/p>\n Next we have the big heavy Bible they recommened for my Seminary. You can go overboard though. How many comments is too many? If you get enough you might end up with something like this:<\/p>\n Believe it or not, that\u2019s a Bible\u2026 In 13 Volumes. It\u2019s got every single verse of scripture there in the right order, but it also has pages and pages of notes and comments and historical background info. 90% of every page is notes. Which is great, but obviously not what anyone would pick as the Bible they bring to Church for instance.<\/p>\n I could literally do this all day, showing off advantages and disadvantages of my favorite Bibles. Eventually I just have to say \u201cYes\u201d I think it\u2019s totally awesome to have more than one version of the Bible. I also think it\u2019s okay to stick to just one, like my wife. Who likes to write in her Bible and wants to be able to find it again.<\/p>\n If you want to look thorugh any of these in person just let me know when I get there in a little under 2 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I know I said I was done with FearOfWhales, but two young confirmants asked me a question while I\u2019m still in Texas, and this is the best way to reliably send answers to them with all the pictures I want to. (If you click on the pictures they should get bigger) Their question was: Do…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Bookshelf\"](\"http:\/\/www.ryangaffney.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Bookshelf.jpg\" "\\"Bookshelf\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>When I was your age I didn\u2019t read the NRSV, because it uses a lot of hard english words, and can be difficult reading. my Olb Bible is an NLT. It\u2019s a bit bigger, and hardback (which is good because that makes it durable) <\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>The Last one I held up in the video is one of my KJV Bibles. This is one of the oldest english translations, and by far the most popular. It\u2019s really beautifully written and phrased, and a lot of people (myself included) memorized verses out of this translation. You will notice the text of the Lord\u2019s prayer is familiar \u201cWho art<\/em> in heaven, hallowed be thy<\/em> name\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>But wait a sec! If Jesus didn\u2019t speak english, and there are all these different translations, Does that mean every Bible is just somebody\u2019s interpretation?!? Of course not. Every English<\/strong> Bible has had to be translated, and translation is not an exact science, but we have people who do it very carefully and have lots of people checking their work. But you don\u2019t have to use an English Bible. Here\u2019s one of my Greek Bibles<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>If I want to go easier on myself and have a way to look up Qreek quickly ans easily during a Bible Study or something, when someone might ask me a question I\u2019m not expecting, I pull out my Cheater Bible. The Greek English Parallel New Testament. <\/p>\n<\/a>my English\/Spanish Parallel Bible. I <\/a>know just enough spanish to try to read the spanish side, and if I get lost or confused I just look over to the English side. Sometimes the Spanish language does a better job of communicating a particular idea. Sometimes English is better.<\/p>\n<\/a>When I worked at a Korean Church, I used my Korean\/English Parallel Bible. I don\u2019t speak Korean (I can sound it out sorta) but It was handy to be able to open to a page to <\/a>read a verse, and show someone who speaks Korean better than English that same verse in the language they are more confortable with.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>This one is called \u201cThe Green Bible\u201d. Do you notice how some Bibles have the words of Christ in bed? Well this one has words that deal with Creation and the Enviornment in green. <\/p>\n<\/a>You can see I didn\u2019t use <\/a>it much, but it\u2019s a good reference. Besides the scriptures it\u2019s got a bunch of footnotes that reference theologians talking about that verse. <\/p>\n<\/a>It also has the Apocrapha. Which is a set of books that were written in between the time of the Old and New Testaments. We don\u2019t think they are a part of God\u2019s Word, but some Christians do, and they are good Historical documents to have handy if you are a big Bible geek like me.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>Speaking of footnotes, this Life Application Bible is nice. It\u2019s not as schooley as the Seminary Bible and has footnotes that deal less with what Theologians think, and more with questions that a regular everyday Christian might wonder about. It also has some great charts and maps. You can see the Bonus content is more than half the page!<\/p>\n<\/a>You have to be careful with these though, because in the same book, printed in the same kind of ink, you have the words of Holy Scripture that are inspired by God, right next to something that\u2019s just somebody\u2019s oponion and comments. You don\u2019t want to get confused about which is which. The comments that come with these tend to be very useful, but also very biased theologically. So I use a couple different ones when I am writing a sermon of something, and I pay attention to the author of the particular suplements I\u2019m reading. The Lutheran one at right for instance, is of course going to have footnotes written from a Lutheran perspective, even though the Verses are exactly the same as in my Pocket NRSV<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>Like the SuperCheater Amplified Bible at Left, or the Begining of the Old Testament translated by Jewish people at Right, but then where would it ever end? <\/p>\n