What version and Bible do you use, Why?

[Hoovie]

Originally Posted by Whole Hearted

Don't use or own anything but the KJV.

I have a few versions, but we primarily use KJV too.

[Sam]

Some thoughts on different versions or translations of
the Bible.

I have quite a few
versions of the Bible. Some of these are Old or New
Testament only. Some are included with others in
volumes like The Contemporary Study Bible, The
Layman’s Parallel New Testament, and The Contemporary
Parallel New Testament. I have all of the following:

1 1599 Geneva Bible
2 King James Version, of course, but I also have a
1611 version in that older style of English than the
current KJV and it even includes the Apocrypha
3 Douay Version (Roman Catholic) which goes back to
1609
4 Septuagint, OT only, from 1851
5 The Bible, A New Translation by James Moffatt 1922
6 Syriac Peshitta from 1933
7 The Emphatic Diaglott, NT only, from 1942
8 Revised Standard Version, NT only, from the 1950’s
9 New Testament in Modern English (Phillips) from 1958
10 New English Bible, NT 1961, OT 1970
11 An Expanded Translation, NT only, from 1961
12 The Amplified Bible, NT in 1958 and OT in 1962
13 Jerusalem Bible from 1966
14 The Living Bible from 1971
15 New American Standard Bible from 1971
16 New International Version from 1978
17 New King James Version from 1979
18 New World Translation (JW) from 1984
19 New Century Version, NT only, from 1987
20 New Revised Standard Version from 1989
21 The Message, NT only, from 1993
22 Contemporary English Version, NT only, from 1995
23 New Living Translation from 1996
24 Complete Jewish Bible from 1998
25 International Standard Version, NT only, from 1999
26 Complete Apostles’ Bible, from 2003
27 The Apostolic Bible Polyglot from 1996

I have been a Christian for over 50 years and over
that time I have done most of my reading and studying
with the King James Version so it is the one with
which I am most familiar. There was a time when I was
one of those who considered any other version as
second class and not quite the real Bible. I no longer
feel that way. Over the past several years I have become
more familiar with different versions and have been
able to read some through completely. I no longer am
KJV only but it is still my favorite. The Bible I
usually read and take with me is called the CJB which
stands for the Complete Jewish Bible. It was published
by David H. Stern, a Messianic Jew. I think it was
available first in the NT only and later the whole
Bible. I also use a NT called the Contemporary
Parallel New Testament which has 8 different versions
arranged four per page so that you can read and
compare all of them as you read.

The following is from an article titled “Confessions
of a New Version Addict” by A.W. Tozer. It appeared
in the October 1961 issue of Alliance Witness. He
wrote this in 1961. He died in 1963. I wonder what he
would think of some of the newer ones we have now like
The Living Bible, the NIV, the Message, etc. I don’t
know just what versions he had at the time but
evidently there were quite a few back then also. I
notice he makes light of the Amplified Bible. I like
the Amplified Bible. I first heard about it many years
ago when a nearby pastor that I had known in Bible
School got one from a book club and could hardly put
it down. I think at that time it was only available
in the New Testament. Some time later I got a paper
back Amplified NT and read and used it so much that it
just fell apart. That was probably some time in the
nineteen sixties. Now I have 2 copies of the NT only
and one copy of both the OT and NT and they are all
included in volumes with other translations. I still
read it some but only for comparison with other
versions.
Here is Dr. Tozer’s article.
----------------------------------------
Since shortly after my conversion to Christ as a
teenager I have been addicted to the habit of
acquiring and being disappointed with new versions of
the Scriptures, both revisions and new translations.

It is a habit I cannot shake off. In spite of a long
record of frustrated hopes and cruel disappointments,
to this day I have but to hear that a new version of
the Scriptures has come out and I am off to the
bookseller to pick up a copy.

So I continue to look for the new version that will
make any other new version unnecessary. But it never
works out that way. After pouring over the new book
for a few days or weeks and finding that it is just
one more version, I put it aside and return to my
first love, the familiar King James Bible.

It has been my experience that the new versions make
at least one mistake for every one they correct, so by
the time the trusting reader has reached the last
chapter of the book of Revelation he is back where he
stared, and just goes out by that same door wherein he
went. And in the meanwhile he has lost the
incalculable benefit of constant and intimate mental
association with the clearest, richest and most
beautiful English to be found anywhere among the
libraries of the world, the Authorized Version.

And this brings us to consider those translators who
think to do God service by packing into the English
text every possible shade of meaning the word will
bear in the original. The synonyms are put in brackets
and the reader, apparently, just takes his choice.

This would never do anywhere else. Imagine reading to
a child,
Twinkle, twinkle (blink, wink, shine intermittently,
sparkle), little (diminutive, small wee, tiny) star
(heavenly body, luminary, orb, sphere),
How I wonder (question, puzzle over, dubitate) what
you are (be, have identity with, belong under the
description of),
Up above (atop, opposite to down, contrary to
direction of gravity) the world (earth, the abode of
humankind) so high (elevated),
Like a diamond (gem, precious stone, crystallized
carbon) in the sky (the heavens, the firmament, the
empyrean).

Yet this is the latest religious word game in
evangelical circles and we are all urged to play at
it. For myself, I cannot keep serious while reading
such a version, so I just pass up these uncertain
translators and turn to one who can make up his mind.
I have a secret love for decisiveness.

It is quite natural for us humans to ignore the high
moral intent of the Holy Scriptures and get lost in
verbiage. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven,” says the old version and
multitudes over the centuries have knelt in penitence
and tearfully sought to know true poverty of spirit;
lately the fad seems to be to try to find shades of
meaning for the words and to express them in more
colloquial language. I wonder if anyone benefits by
having the same thing said several different ways for
him.

All this is not to cry down true scholarship nor to
discourage honest attempts to put the Bible into
modern speech. It is rather to confess that I have not
become a holier man nor a better preacher by my
incurable addiction to new versions of the Scriptures.
I find that if I am failing to live in accordance with
the will of God I get no relief by reading about that
will in a new translation.

As I write I can see fifteen versions before me
without turning my head and there are many more
stashed about here and there. And they all say the
same thing to me; namely, that I must trust Christ
Jesus the Lord as my Saviour, love God with all my
heart, soul, and mind, and my neighbor as myself. They
all say that I must be holy, humble, obedient,
prayerful, pure, kindly, courageous and faithful. They
all say that God is my Father and the Holy Spirit the
inhabitant of my nature through the mystery of the new
birth. And they all end with the cry for Christ’s
returning.

I really don’t need any more new versions, but I’ll
probably buy the next one that comes out. Maybe
someday I’ll find something sufficiently different to
justify the expense. But I haven’t up to now.

[shag]

Amplified study, because IMO it gives deeper understanding because it gives some words in parinthesis that gives the greek or hebrew meaning (saves a "strong's conc. chasedown) And also gives multiple words to describe the meaning in words we can comprehend in 2008. Though it does give "bracketed opinion" of the translater that I have found disagreement with. I ignore those generally.

AMP Ex. John 3:16 reads for defining"believe"= (to trust in, rely on, and adhere to)(wipes out the "easy believism"). A lot of up to date words in parinthesis to explain in words we've heard before.

I also use NKJV. I can read it and understand it easy.

Also KJV, primarily so everyone doesn't stone me for using something else. I also use it because many believe it to be the most accurate.

NIV is a strong zero in my book.

[ReformedDave]

From C. S. Lewis: “We must sometimes get away from the Authorized [King James] Version, if for no other reason, simply because it is so beautiful and so solemn. Beauty exalts, but beauty also lulls. Early associations endear, but they also confuse. Through that beautiful solemnity, the transporting or horrifying realities of which the Book tells may come to us blunted and disarmed, and we may only sigh with tranquil veneration when we ought to be burning with shame, or struck dumb with terror, or carried out of ourselves by ravishing hopes and adorations.” –C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

[Praxeas]

I have Zodhaites for my e-sword. It's by no means the best greek Lexicon but it's better than nothing. Probably better than Thayers lexicon purely by the fact that it's more upto date

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by shag

Amplified study, because IMO it gives deeper understanding because it gives some words in parinthesis that gives the greek or hebrew meaning (saves a "strong's conc. chasedown) And also gives multiple words to describe the meaning in words we can comprehend in 2008. Though it does give "bracketed opinion" of the translater that I have found disagreement with. I ignore those generally.

AMP Ex. John 3:16 reads for defining"believe"= (to trust in, rely on, and adhere to)(wipes out the "easy believism"). A lot of up to date words in parinthesis to explain in words we've heard before.

I also use NKJV. I can read it and understand it easy.

Also KJV, primarily so everyone doesn't stone me for using something else. I also use it because many believe it to be the most accurate.

The problem with this is that Strongs does not deal with tense and mood and number etc etc...In fact in my first strongs all nouns were under one catagory.

eg, I look up the word one and Strongs says "Heis", but that is the masculine. In many places it is hen the neuter or mia the feminine

It's good to know greek in that case but if not a good lexicon helps

[Sam]

Reminds me of a quote:

"Some like to read the Bible in Hebrew,
some like to read the Bible in Greek.
I like to read it in the Holy Ghost."
Smith Wigglesworth

[Timmy]

Why do some dislike the NIV so much? I like it, myself.

I used to have it in a travel size. Called it my "portable Bible" . But I lost it. It was too portable.

[ReformedDave]

For me my concern is the translation philosophy it uses.

[Timmy]

Originally Posted by Sam

1 1599 Geneva Bible
2 King James Version, of course, but I also have a
1611 version in that older style of English than the
current KJV and it even includes the Apocrypha
3 Douay Version (Roman Catholic) which goes back to
1609
4 Septuagint, OT only, from 1851
5 The Bible, A New Translation by James Moffatt 1922
6 Syriac Peshitta from 1933
7 The Emphatic Diaglott, NT only, from 1942
8 Revised Standard Version, NT only, from the 1950’s
9 New Testament in Modern English (Phillips) from 1958
10 New English Bible, NT 1961, OT 1970
11 An Expanded Translation, NT only, from 1961
12 The Amplified Bible, NT in 1958 and OT in 1962
13 Jerusalem Bible from 1966
14 The Living Bible from 1971
15 New American Standard Bible from 1971
16 New International Version from 1978
17 New King James Version from 1979
18 New World Translation (JW) from 1984
19 New Century Version, NT only, from 1987
20 New Revised Standard Version from 1989
21 The Message, NT only, from 1993
22 Contemporary English Version, NT only, from 1995
23 New Living Translation from 1996
24 Complete Jewish Bible from 1998
25 International Standard Version, NT only, from 1999
26 Complete Apostles’ Bible, from 2003
27 The Apostolic Bible Polyglot from 1996

You know how they say there are no original manuscripts left? I bet if you looked hard, you could find a few in your library, Sam!