When I was a seminarian I had the privilege of living wiTh the priest who masterminded the first Gaelige (Irish) translation of the Holy Bible
I use many translations KJV, NKJV, ESV, NIV, and a friend recently gave me an extra copy of her NLT. While I enjoy using the different translations during my personal Bible study and devotional time I prefer the KJV for use during worship services as I guess I am a traditionalist, so to speak.
That is interesting. I love listening to music in traditional Irish Gaelic as well as Latin. These ancient languages are so beautiful when you hear them sung.
We have a Dollar Tree here. and I know exactly what you're talking about. Despite the cheap cardboard bindings, newspaper pages, and horribly small print, I picked up one of the full-length ones as well as a pocket New Testament simply to revel in the fact that someone can have the bible for a mere dollar. In many countries, that's impossible, and I wanted to partake of this blessing, because it may not always be possible to have the bible for a buck.
That is interesting. I love listening to music in traditional Irish Gaelic as well as Latin. These ancient languages are so beautiful when you hear them sung.
We have a few shops around here that collects people’s old bibles and places them on a lectern by their door, with a sign “take one for yourself or another.” It’s really a nice idea because often times you find leather bound volumes for free, and it gives those who cannot afford a copy of the scriptures, an opportunity to own a luxury Bible.
Our Salvation Army stores let you occassionaly take home a bible for free at their store. You don't find 'outdated' translations like the Douay-Rheims, or the American Standard Version in the wild very often, and those are always a pleasure to discover. I may have seen Douay at least once, which if I recall, left me puzzled, because at the time, I had never heard of it. I was fortunate enough to get a free hardbound copy of the Knox translation from a local bookstore that was closing and left some of their inventory out in front, free for the taking. That one is special, because it had been out of print for years and secondhand copies were becoming pricey. It was reprinted recently by Baronius press, but in an expensive $60 leatherbound volume.
I found a first printing (1971) of the complete NASB at a thrift store for 50 cents a couple of years ago. It is a large Bible with genuine leather covers and on the blank pages at the back were some sermon outlines and Bible class notes from a previous owner -a dispensationalist of some stripe.
I got my Douai-Rheims from TAN publications. I was given a sum of money as a bonus one time and decided to give in a buy a nice DR bible. It was worth the money. I also got a Wycliffe translation with the sum, and I love both of them.
The NASB is a good translation as well - I've only ever received a copy of it from the Gideon's that used to go school-to-school. When I was younger, they visited my classroom and gave me a NT, whereas I wanted the full thing, fussy as I was. They gave me the NASB.
I thought Catholics hated Wycliffe. My dad loved the NASB and owns most of the beat-up, paperback copies we have around the house, but I have yet to get a full-sized hardbound copy to go with the rest of my bible collection on my personal shelf.
I am very happy you are teaching your nephew to love and appreciate God's Word at such a young age. May he continue studying and memorizing the Scriptures throughout his life.
I have the Archaeology Study Bible and it is excellent. Lot's of pictures and maps of actual sites in the Holy Land it really helps me visualize the locations of the places I am reading and how they look or must have looked in Biblical times.
I borrowed one from my parish library a few weeks ago. It's very nice, but I'll have to remember to open it up to the same passage as a few other translations to find my preference. Not many footnotes, I noticed- but those get in the way sometimes, anyway. The ones I've seen are very useful, though.
This is an old thread but a worthy topic. I prefer the Authorized King James Verizon of the Bible for many reasons but the most important being the nature of the old Greek Text and translation philosophy. I am not a KJV onlyist by any stretch and often use many translations but I do prefer the AV. Confessional Protestant Position I hold to the same position the 17th century Reformers confessed, and is stated in Westminster and Second London Baptist Confessions. According to these confessions, the scriptures are: “immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentic; so as in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal to them.” (article 1:8) Dr. Edward Hills explains how Erasmus, in his first printing of his Greek New Testament, was guided by a common faith held by all concerning, the text they had. And that, “Luther, Melanchton, Stephanus, Calvin, Beza, and the other scholars of the Reformation Period who labored on the New Testament text were similarly guided by God’s special providence. These scholars had received humanistic training in their youth, and in their notes and comments they sometimes reveal traces of this early education. But in their actual dealings with the biblical text these humanistic tendencies were restrained by the common faith in the providential preservation of Scripture, a faith which they themselves professed along with their followers. Hence in the Reformation Period the textual criticism of the New Testament was different from the textual criticism of any other book. The humanistic methods used on other books were not applied to the New Testament. In their editions of the New Testament Erasmus and his successors were providentially guided by the common faith to adopt the current text, primarily the current Greek text and secondarily the current Latin text. … thus the logic of faith led true believers of that day, just as it leads true believers today, to the Textus Receptus as the God-guided New Testament text” The Greek text edition circulated by Theodore Beza was in common use and considered authoritative. There was little or no further textual criticism done to his Greek edition, hence, it was received. In history we find a clear witness of the Protestant church to the Received Text. The church is the witness, the pillar and ground of truth. (1 Timothy 3:15) J. H. Gosden of the Gospel Standard Baptist observes in his commentary on the Gospel Standard Baptist Articles of Faith, "By inspiration of God gave the Holy Oracles, and power – perennial miracle – He preserves them intact. They are inerrant, unchangeable, unlosable. Could they err or change or be lost, their divine origin would be disapproved and dependence upon them would be misplaced. In such a case there would exist no foundation upon which to build for eternity, no final court of appeal respecting truth and error, no standard of doctrine, no rule of practice, no touchstone of experience." Those who prefer other translations often do so without realizing the translators are using a rational approach in defining the New Testament text which is selected by the text critic. In the office of a scholar many manuscripts are studied. The assumption is often stated that “only the originals are inspired.” The scholar must conduct examinations of the many manuscripts to determine which verse is more likely to be inspired and therefore authentic. But what kind of method does he use? What is his rule to determine what is, might be or is not scripture? The Bible critic or critics, whatever the case maybe, must choose and whatever kind of rule chosen, becomes their guiding principle. It is not driven by the logic of faith the Reformers used but a secular naturalistic presupposition. This presupposition denies the God who acts in history and intervenes in our daily lives. It denies what scriptures reveals about itself. As the peoples historian D’Aubigne declared, “Christianity is neither an abstract doctrine nor an external organization. It is a life from God communicated to mankind…” The textual critic has no biblical text, not really. Bart Ehrman states, “there is always a degree of doubt, an element of subjectivity.” Kurt Aland declares that the latest Text of the United Bible Societies is “not a static entity” and “every change in it is open to challenge.” G. Zuntz admits that “the optimism of the earlier editors has given way to that scepticism which inclines towards regarding ‘the original text’ as an unattainable mirage.” Douglas Wilson: "This witness is not offered by the Church as “something to think about” or as a mere “suggestion.” The testimony of the Church on this point is submissive to Scripture, but authoritative for the saints. For example, if an elder in a Christian church took it upon himself to add a book to the canon of Scripture, or sought to take away a book, the duty of his church would be to try him for heresy and remove him immediately. This disciplinary action is authoritative, taken in defense of an authoritative canonical settlement. This does not mean the Church is defending the Word of God; the Church is defending her witness to the Word. As the necessity of discipline makes plain, this witness is dogmatic and authoritative. It is not open for discussion. God does not intend for us to debate the canon of Scripture afresh every generation. We have already given our testimony; our duty now is to remain faithful to it." Dr. Daniel Wallace is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and is considered an expert in ancient biblical Greek and New Testament criticism. In a blog post about the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature he wrote, "As remarkable as it may sound, most biblical scholars are not Christians. I don’t know the exact numbers, but my guess is that between 60% and 80% of the members of SBL do not believe that Jesus’ death paid for our sins, or that he was bodily raised from the dead." We cannot declare the originals to be scripture only, exchanging “King James Onlyism” for “Original Text Onlyism,” our very idea of sola scriptura does not allow for it. Without a foundational set of manuscripts Protestantism is reduced to just one of many traditions with sola scriptura a late development and no less of a tradition then that found in Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism. This tradition is reduced to a Magisterium of scholars instead of Popes, Cardinals and Bishops. We have replaced the Roman Magisterium with a Magisterium of Textual Critics. Rome acts like a final authority, and the scholar tells us what the final authority might be. The Old Testament Some will argue that the Septuagint (LXX) is a better, more trusted manuscript translation, and that we should be using it for our Old Testament text instead of the Masoretic Text found in the AV. I would reply, "which version of the LXX?" We have differing versions of the Septuagint and the oldest is in fragment form...not to mentioned they differ from one to another! We have "1st century BCE fragments of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets" and "2nd century BCE fragments of Leviticus and Deuteronomy." The oldest nearly complete copies of the LXX are the "Codex Vaticanus from the 4th century CE and the Codex Alexandrinus of the 5th century..." The old line use to be, "older is better," and that the Masoretic Text was of a late tradition and should be rejected as a main source for our Old Testament translations. With new technology it was recently reported that, "a fragment identical to the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible and, at nearly 2,000 years old, is the earliest instance of the text." With this new information we can say, using the logic of common faith, the Protestant Old Testament is just as old or older than the LXX. In the online article we read: "The scroll’s content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonants — early Hebrew texts didn’t specify vowels — that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible and the one often used as the basis for translations of the Old Testament in Protestant Bibles." Source This ties into what I wrote at the beginning of this post, we have allowed the unfaithful to reason with the scriptures and treat them like any other ancient manuscript. This is something the church has never done. Before the Reformation Textus Receptus type manuscripts and versions have existed as the majority of texts for almost 2000 years. All of the Apostolic Churches used the Textus Receptus Peshitta (150 A.D.) was based on the Textus Receptus Papyrus 66 used the Textus Receptus The Italic Church in the Northern Italy (157 A.D.) used the Textus Receptus The Gallic Church of Southern France (177 A.D.) used the Textus Receptus The Celtic Church used the Textus Receptus The Waldensians used the Textus Receptus The Gothic Version of the 4th or 5th century used the Textus Receptus Curetonian Syriac is basically the Textus Receptus Vetus Itala is from Textus Receptus Codex Washingtonianus of Matthew used the Textus Receptus Codex Alexandrinus in the Gospels used the Textus Receptus The vast majority of extant New Testament manuscripts all used the Textus Receptus (99% of them) The Greek Orthodox Church used the Textus Receptus. Greek manuscript evidences point to a Byzantine/Textus Receptus majority. 85% of papyri used Textus Receptus, only 13 represent text of Westcott-Hort 97% of uncial manuscripts used Textus Receptus, only 9 manuscripts used text of WH 99% of minuscule manuscripts used Textus Receptus, only 23 used text WH 100% of lectionaries used Textus Receptus. Source: http://textus-receptus.com/wiki/Textus_Receptus#Theodore_Beza What I am NOT saying I am not telling you the King James translation is divine. I am not saying you should throw out your other translations. I am not saying the Gospel is not found in modern translations. I am not saying we shouldn't have another translation of the TR done in modern English. I do in fact use The Orthodox Study Bible and have benefited greatly from the freshness of the translation. I use the New Living Translation when I need a different perspective. I just don't believe we should abandon the ecclesiastical text for a text based on shifting sand. I hope you will consider what I've posted and at the very least understand that one may have legitimate reasons for using the Authorized King James Version. Gotta run... Yours in the Lord, jay