Bible Question:
In a recent question I began to question just what do Christians really know about the version of the Bible they are reading? For example the newest NIV (after 1985 version) is a mixture of the Todays NIV and the NIV making it a gender neutral, version which is a very liberal version of the Bible. The ESV is really a tweaking of RSV Bible. Bothe of these Bible fit well into the more liberal Denominations, and pastors. All to often I have encountered believers who are unaware of what the words "liberal", "gender natural", "Formal Equivalence", "Dynamic or Functional Equivalence", and the newest description "Optimal Equivalence" and finally what a "Paraphrased" The Message is one such paraphrased Bible. All to often people have no idea what kind of Bible they want. I have been friends with a Christian Book store owner. He has said many came into his store and really having no idea what translation of the Bible they wanted, if they wanted a Study Bible, or were surprised at the cost of Bibles. By far the most popular Bible was the NIV, even when he tried to show how much better the NASB, and some other translations were. Sadly the Bible that gets the most advertisement in Christian magazines is the NIV. ( as a side note I have seen the NASB more recently). I wondered and asked him what profit he made form his bookstore annually and he said he made less than 2 percent profit. the reason is people buy from Amazon, which sells more pornography than all other stores combined. He told me that such places buy huge amounts of Bible they can sell them cheaper than he bought them for. Will the Local Christian Book store be able to survive in the next ten years? By the way my friend lost almost seventy-five thousand dollars in ten years and went out of business last year. What as Christians should we do? Buy from a national branded book store like Life Way, Family Book stores, Lemstone, or other local book store that has Bibles. Unless Christians begin to support especially local Christian Bookstores they may well go the way of so many stores that once were but no more. The Bible I highly and completely recommend with no hesitation is the NASb and close to that is the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Why? they are Developed and translated by all Christian people who saw the Bible as God's inspired Word, Inerrant in the original manuscripts. Because they started with the right foundation the Bible translation the finished with is solidly dependable and trustworthy. my last word is be careful when selecting your next Bible. justme |
Bible Answer: Let me add that many people have an agenda in this area and that tends to distort the truth. A few years ago the King James Only people put on a big push to eliminate any translation no KJV. Thankful this failed! However the fallout is still occurring. Many people know more about what is wrong with a particular bible than they do about what is right! I think any major translation is fine as long as you stay from the New World Translation which is Jehovah Witness based, and personally I avoid the New International Version and The Living Bible. You can't go wrong with The New American Standard Version. |