Monday, April 7, 2008

What Bible To Buy

I see that somebody on one of the other blogs has asked for recommendations as to what Bible translation to buy.

It doesn't surprise me that most of the recommendations are some version of the NRSV. I have 2 different NRSV study editions myself. I wonder though, if we liberal folk limit ourselves because we tend to only go for the NRSV.

So I'm going to make some other recommendations; Bibles that will work in UU settings, but aren't the NRSV.

1. The Jerusalem (or New Jerusalem) Bible.
As somebody who loves the poetry of the King James Bible but likes the historical-critical method, this version works for me.

2. The New International Bible or The Amplified Bible.
If you want to know what our conservative brothers and sisters are reading, pick one of these two.

3. The English Standard Bible.
There's nothing that really screams "You need to read me" from this Bible translation, but I still like it.

4. The New American Bible.
This is the official Catholic Bible, and is really good if you want a basic understanding in what Catholics consider their canon and what we Protestants have as ours.

I hope that others who have recommendations will post them.

Enjoy your Bible reading.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I routinely turn to the NRSV, the New Jerusalem Bible (my edition has the best footnotes), the Revised English Bible (a modern literary translation), and Eugene Peterson's translation "The Message" (my favorite colloquial translation).

Real Anonymous said...

Hey Philo,
Which version of the New Jerusalem do you have? My copy seems to have disappeared and I need to buy a new one.