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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 0:12:34 GMT -6
I'm kind of curious to know how people here study the Bible, which translations they use, whether they use devotionals, etc. Most of my learning about God (aside from sermons and Bible studies at church) comes from reading Scripture directly, and also some Reformed theological books. (Lately I've been using a modern English version of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, which has been pretty neat.) I would say that my favorite translation is Geneva (because it's really cool!), but I also have a KJV and ESV Bible. All three of them are study Bibles with commentary written from a Reformed perspective. I would say that ESV is my favorite modern English translation. So the Geneva Bible predates the KJV, in fact the KJV was basically derived from it. It was translated by the reformers in Geneva while they were there to avoid persecution by Catholics. It was the first English translation to translate all of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew, and it was originally finished in 1560. That was before English spelling had been standardized, and you can find that text online but it's hard to read due to the weird spelling. I bought a version where the translation itself was not changed but all of the spelling was updated to match modern standards (this doesn't mean changing "hath" to "has" though, or "thou" to "you"; the early modern English is still there). It's been really neat to read and I think it's a very beautiful and accurate translation. The thing that's really cool is it includes all of the study notes written by the reformers, which are pretty substantial. KJV is a nice translation too, but I appreciate Geneva more. KJV is basically the Anglican, government-censored version of the Geneva Bible, but it's still a good and historically significant translation. So anyway, what do you guys use?
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Post by _ on Nov 7, 2018 0:42:15 GMT -6
ESV primarily. Used to use NASB occasionally; even less I used KJV. But those would be the top three regarding physical Bibles I use. If I'm looking up Scripture on the web, I usually go with ESV, NASB, NIV, or NLT -- pretty much whatever comes first and isn't obviously awful.
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Post by jazzhead on Nov 7, 2018 9:59:36 GMT -6
I use a NASB study bible, ESV on my kindle, and NIV on my phone. None of them get used as often as they should
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Post by Thomas Eversole on Nov 7, 2018 10:05:43 GMT -6
NLT or NLV. I find these often contain "today's vernacular" and are easiest for me to understand.
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Post by anfauglith on Nov 7, 2018 10:48:10 GMT -6
Mostly I use the NGÜ (Neue Genfer Übersetzung - New Geneva Translation?) for my daily reading in the New Testament. I've got in in my bible app as well as as a normal book. For the Old Testament (and when I want it more verbatim) the Einheitsübersetzung ("unified", it's the standard bible used by german speaking catholics. But I like it without beeing a catholic. ). Sometimes Luther for the psalms.
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Post by nocturnaliridescence on Nov 7, 2018 11:39:55 GMT -6
I don't remember what translation my Bible at home is in. It's not a common one that I find on websites, anyway. But I do most of my research / learning online, and I like to use BibleHub which has a bunch of different translations. I try to compare different translations (including "comparative" modern vs Hebrew, and modern vs Greek) to get the full meaning out of verses. I think this is important to do -- I can't give examples at this very moment, but there have been a couple instances where my Bible said something radically different than other translations.
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Post by Borndead on Nov 7, 2018 16:50:40 GMT -6
I have a croatian one translated from the Catholic Vulgate, I don´t really read it because there´s much added/removed in it. Also, the notes added to it are very misleading. So, when I read..it´s mostly online and the KJV although I always compare to other translations. If I ever manage to find a KJV translated into croatian I´d take it ^_^
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Post by Bartimaeus on Nov 7, 2018 17:14:33 GMT -6
ESV for study, though I'll look at NASB and Christian Standard for different readings. I'll also use the Amplified Bible on my tablet for difficult passages (It's a little annoying for reading.) I read The Message with my kids. As a family we memorize scripture using ESV, though (not as much as we should...)
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Post by avjr on Nov 7, 2018 17:34:51 GMT -6
I used to have the NASB version. I lost it. I miss it. It was my favorite translation to use. The words look so artsy! Hehe. I have the NLT (Metal Bible edition), and it has the New Testament. A Pocket Gideon’s Bible; New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs. Which I only use it once in awhile. NKJV with Greg Laurie’s commentaries. I haven’t use it in awhile too. Also, the NIV that has the whole book. Do you guys think the KJV is the only translation Christians should read? Sometimes I think it is very elitist to say it is the only version we need to read.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 18:01:46 GMT -6
Do you guys think the KJV is the only translation Christians should read? No. I understand that there are a number of people (particularly among Baptist circles, it seems) that think this way, but I don't think there's a justified reason. There are other translations equally accurate if not more so than the KJV, and the antiquated language certainly isn't for everyone. It's a translation that I appreciate but it's definitely not the only one we should use...in fact I'd say most people are simply better off with something else. ESV and NASB are what I would generally recommend to most English speakers.
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Post by nocturnaliridescence on Nov 7, 2018 21:37:25 GMT -6
Do you guys think the KJV is the only translation Christians should read? No. The KJV contains most, if not all of the English mistranslations of the Old Testament that tend to confuse people. For example, there's a verse in the Old Testament that "implies" insects have 4 legs, instead of 6. (Edit: ...Apparently there are actually a few verses!) This is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word "שֶׁרֶץ" / "sherets" which doesn't have an equivalent in English. The closest phrase English has is "on all fours", hence, "insects that walk around on all fours". Also, there's an issue with insect anatomy, where clearly the Hebrews knew that certain insects had six legs, but two of the legs didn't function in certain ways. I can't remember details about that right now, but this page talks about it in better terms. In short, these "errors" are clearly linguistic, not a lack of scientific knowledge (etc) as skeptics say. I mean of course, the basic points of these verses are still clear, in spite of these small errors. But even so, I still can't agree that Christians should "only" read a translation that implies insects have four legs.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 21:46:05 GMT -6
Huh, I never knew about that insect mistranslation. That's interesting.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 21:56:35 GMT -6
I have a croatian one translated from the Catholic Vulgate, I don´t really read it because there´s much added/removed in it. Also, the notes added to it are very misleading. So, when I read..it´s mostly online and the KJV although I always compare to other translations. If I ever manage to find a KJV translated into croatian I´d take it ^_^ It looks like biblegateway.com has a couple Croatian translations, which could be worth checking out. I don't know if they're any good though (so I would recommend doing a bit of research on them first). I hope that at least one of them is translated directly from the original Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek because that tends to be better than translating it from another translation.
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Post by barabbas on Nov 8, 2018 10:40:39 GMT -6
Do you guys think the KJV is the only translation Christians should read? No. No. The NT portion of the KJV was translated from the Textus Receptus, which was believed at the time to be the best Greek text available. For many reasons (including additional manuscript discoveries), that is no longer generally believed to be the case. (Except perhaps by KJV-only advocates.) One verse that illustrates the potential problems very well is the famous Comma Johanneum: I John 5:7-8. The KJV is a beautiful translation and great in many respects, but it has its flaws, too. ESV is my go-to (though I use plenty of others). Most of my reading has been in NIV lately.
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Post by Thomas Eversole on Nov 8, 2018 17:38:40 GMT -6
Do you guys think the KJV is the only translation Christians should read? If it ain't KJV, it ain't the Bible. ...was what I saw on a bumper sticker one time. I literally laughed out loud, and not because the driver was an old man wearing a fedora. these "errors" are clearly linguistic My favorite example is Song of Solomon 2:12. In the KJV, it states, The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; I remember encountering this verse as a kid and I asked my mom, "Turtles.... were loud thousands of years ago?!?!?? What happened!?" My mom shrugged. Come to find out, a long time ago, turtledoves were called "turtles" (latin noun, turtur) and that descriptor arrived from how those birds fold their wings and it looks like a "turtle shell". ...but the confusion plot thickens when the Hebrew word for turtle (tsav/tzav/צב) translated to KJV also makes an appearance in Leviticus 11:29 as part of a list of creepy crawly things. (mice, weasels and tortoise) I myself would conclude that one verse or the other is actually mistranslated, but words becoming naturally archaic or having multiple definitions makes it an easy mistake to make. ie: the word "uncle" current and archaic definitions both: - a cry of surrender - your father's brother - a pawnbroker Just because there's a discrepancy in the linguistics (people are human) doesn't mean its all false and we gotta throw the baby out with the bathwater. (haters gonna hate tho) That being said, interpreting some scripture LITERALLY can be as dangerous as taking verses out of context, if its content is not properly researched from the original text or other translations.
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Post by Deepfriar on Nov 24, 2018 22:00:11 GMT -6
No translation is perfect, but KJV is the one I am most familiar with and most aware of where the errors are so I definitely prefer KJV (though I am not a KJV-only person). I do, however, lean toward Majority Text philosophy so that factors into my Bible reading habits. I do enjoy how the text of the ESV flows and just the general wording, but don't agree with every single decision by the translators.
I also very much like Young's Literal Translation for a word-by-word literal translation. Sometimes it helps to get a fresh look at some passages without translator's opinions interjected.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2018 0:19:51 GMT -6
I also very much like Young's Literal Translation for a word-by-word literal translation. Sometimes it helps to get a fresh look at some passages without translator's opinions interjected. I've never really taken a look at YLT but that's something that I should probably do.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2019 21:45:59 GMT -6
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Post by Deepfriar on Jan 2, 2019 7:31:34 GMT -6
I have not actually, but it sounds interesting! I'd like to see how they made it easier to read without messing with sentence structure. I'll check it out, thanks!!
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