So I'm reading "Jesus, Interrupted" and am starting to gain a fascination of early Christianity and the development of the Bible and the various Christian scriptures (which gradually got discarded as non-authoritative).

I'm interested in reading purchasing a scholarly translation of the Bible put together by objective scholars who try to make the Bible as faithful to the original writers. I'd also be interested in one which has footnotes and commentaries discussing the different verses providing textual criticism. I'm very much interested in reading the books in the Bible as how they were originally written (original Greek, early manuscripts, etc) and intended to be read and not muddied up and changed by latter translators and scribes.

On a side note, I grew up Mormon with a conspiracy minded father who owned a book called "New Age Bible Versions: An Exhaustive Documentation of the Message, Men & Manuscripts Moving Mankind to the Antichrist's One World Religion" http://www.amazon.com/New-Age-Bible-Versions-Documentation/dp/0963584502. This book supposedly "exposes" how the new translations are "plots" by the evil, Luciferian "new age" scholars who are trying to do away with what God has given us in his "inspired" KJV Bible.

It made me a little leery of the intent of the scholars or possible agenda which they had when they produced the new translations but now that I don't believe in Satan or Christianity I don't take this book too seriously. Have any of you read this book though? And is there any credibility to its claims or is the author just butt sore that the KJV Bible is not as perfect as he was raised to believe (thus undermining the foundation of Christianity)? Is he simply trying to divert people away from learning the truth about the problems of the development of the Bible?

There are many sites for serious students of the Bible. This site is not the best to look for unbiased recommendations

I would go for any translation that tries to be literal. And, there is no need to limit yourself to just one. But, I would steer clear of paraphrastic translations.

You might find that the best translation for the Hebrew Bible may not be the same as for the New Testament.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2014 09:11PM by archytas.

I prefer to use the NET (New English Translation) Bible: https://net.bible.org/#!bible/Matthew+1

It's very, very good and provides a copious amount of notes.

Even though the NET Bible project was created and run by Christians, the contributors have been careful to be as accurate and unbiased as possible for their translations and notes. The occasional apologetic commentary creeps into the footnotes, but these are easy to overlook, even for a firm nonbeliever such as myself.

I recommend The Anchor Bible for erudite commentary, proper translation of the various books. also the Fifth Gospel done by a panel of scholars (Crossan, et al), and you'lll be surprised what was actually said and not necessarily by Jesus. Ehrman is one of my favorite Christianity exponents. The Gospel Truth is another suggestion.

It seems to me the Bible has more problems with content than with clarity or style. No matter how much you massage the semantics or rearrange the grammar, you're left with the most joyless, grim, and bloody violent mythologies of wrath and hate. Jesus dangles salvation and threatens with Hell. You wonder if he's really an improvement. He gave us Hell. True, we nailed his carcass to a pole, but he was a provocateur. Insurance stats show a strong correlation between provocateurs and martyrs. Why didn't He get that?

Ecclesiastes ain't so bad.

archytas Wrote:
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> Ecclesiastes ain't so bad.

I agree.

Further still, the sequence from Job to The Song of Solomon in the King James translation is some of the greatest writing in our language.

I have never read the Bible...on purpose...so whatever translation is correct?....is irrelevant to me....all fantasy drivel.

Ron Burr

I really like the New English Bible. It was a new translation from original texts undertaken by Cambridge and Oxford scholars with the Old Testament being the last published in 1970 (the New Testament came earlier). The language is beautiful and expressive. I will not say that it is the most up to date translation from original texts because additional texts are found on a regular basis. It does include the Apogrypha (sp?) that is uncommon in a Protestant bible.

I still use my mother's NE Bible. It's difficult to find now. English Standard Version is easy to access

You can order copies of the New English Bible at www.christianbook.com. I remember fellow classmates bringing copies of the NEB to the Bible as Literature class in high school. I brought another version -- either KJV or RSV (can't remember).

There is a revised version, the Revised English Bible (REB) (1996) of the New English Bible available in hardback, paperback or pulpit editions on www.christianbook.com.

For the Hebrew bible I like the JPS Tanakh. It is pretty easy to find.

For the New Testament I like the NRSV. It is pretty literal.

The King James version is nice and has that elizabethean language that makes mormons think it is holy and has the spirit. But it is not the most accurate translation.

ANY translation is based on the particular manuscripts that the translators have selected. Whether they have selected the most original (most accurate) manuscripts is a question that even the scholars cannot answer with certitude. There are thousands of passages where the manuscripts disagree and where the meaning is unclear. At those places the translators simply have to guess.

Over the years I have acquired over a dozen Bible translations. I cannot say that any one of them is entirely more accurate than the others.

Ron Burr wrote:

>I have never read the Bible...on purpose...so whatever translation is correct?....is irrelevant to me....all fantasy drivel.

That seems extreme. The Bible is the basis for much of our western civilization and is a record of the legends and myths of several influential cultures. To be completely ignorant of the Bible is not the mark of a well-educated person. How can one know that something is "fantasy drivel" without having read it?

With so many inaccuracies across a multitude of translations , I would be very curious about the same level from what the original New Testament manuscripts were , as most likely they should have been written in Aramaic or Hebrew . Next up would be a discovery of the same magnitude of the DSS , only of New Testament writings.

There is already a discovery and realization of a sort of the original New Testament.

The original New Testament was written in Hebrew but copies did not survive probably due to the misconception in later centuries that Hebrew copies were translations of the Greek text and thus were destroyed in error. The early church in their writings mentioned Matthew writing his Gospel in Hebrew before he left for the East to evangelize among the eastern peoples.

The Greek text is a translation and it bears clear marks of it in its saying the original word, and then say that is this meaning (Greek word) and by its translation errors in comparison with the Aramaic Bible.

The Aramaic (Syrian) Bible is a translation c.a. 100 A.D or a little later, from Hebrew, a closely related sister Semitic language, so it is very useful for getting insights in the Semitic languages. The Aramaic Bible is likely the first whole Christian Bible translation in the world with its Old Testament, Apocrypha (and other texts) and the New Testament. It is useful to to show by analysis what the Hebrew Old Testament said back in the day in the first couple centuries A.D..

Check out this free PDF 10 page document called THE PESHITTA ARAMAIC NEW TESTAMENT IS THE ORIGINAL NEW TESTAMENT by Rev. David Bauscher, who has translated the New Testament with editions on www.lulu.com and is working on translating the Aramaic Old Testament.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/rev-david-bauscher/the-peshitta-aramaic-new-testament-is-the-original-new-testament/ebook/product-21738307.html

kak75 aka kak57 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The original New Testament was written in Hebrew
> but copies did not survive probably due to the
> misconception in later centuries that Hebrew
> copies were translations of the Greek text and
> thus were destroyed in error.

While it is generally assumed that some of the NT "originals" were in Hebrew, it IS an assumption. And since no NT "originals" (nor OT "originals" either) exist, it's an assumption that can't be verified. It's also generally assumed that several of the NT books were NOT "originally" written in Hebrew, but in Greek.

> The Greek text is a translation and it bears clear
> marks of it in its saying the original word, and
> then say that is this meaning (Greek word) and by
> its translation errors in comparison with the
> Aramaic Bible.

Any "Aramaic bible" is also, by your own reckoning, a translation, from unknown, non-existing originals. There is no way to determine that any Aramaic version is any more "accurate" than any Greek version, since no originals exist to compare them to.

> The Aramaic (Syrian) Bible is a translation c.a.
> 100 A.D or a little later, from Hebrew, a closely
> related sister Semitic language, so it is very
> useful for getting insights in the Semitic
> languages.

That's not the case at all.
The Diatessaron is the earliest translation of the gospels into Syriac. Syriac is a Greek word for the language spoken by the Syrians. It was an Aramaic dialect spoken in Syria. The earliest translation of any New Testament text from Greek seems to have been the Diatessaron, a harmony of the four canonical gospels (perhaps with a non-extant fifth text) prepared about AD 170 by Tatian in Rome. No text of the Diatessaron survives. And contrary to your claim, it was a translation from Greek, not Hebrew.

Although there are many so-called manuscript witnesses to the Diatessaron, they all differ, and, ultimately only witness to the enduring popularity of such harmonies.

The Old Syriac version of the four Gospels is preserved today in only two manuscripts, both with a large number of gaps. The Curetonian Gospels consist of fragments of the four Gospels. The text was brought in 1842 from the Nitrian Desert in Egypt, and is now held in the British Library. These fragments were examined by William Cureton and edited by him in 1858. The manuscript is dated paleographically to the 5th century.

> The Aramaic Bible is likely the first
> whole Christian Bible translation in the world
> with its Old Testament, Apocrypha (and other
> texts) and the New Testament. It is useful to to
> show by analysis what the Hebrew Old Testament
> said back in the day in the first couple centuries
> A.D..

Again, that's not at all accurate. The earliest "Aramaic bible" dates to the 6th century CE, the oldest surviving mostly complete version dates to the 10th century CE. The 4th century CE Codex Sinaiticus is considerably older than either. And the accepted origin language (from manuscript copies, not originals) of the Aramaic NT versions is Greek, not Hebrew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshitta

Start there, follow the references, and check them out.

I could not agree more.

Another good reason to read it is: so that you don't get caught off guard during informal debates or discussions.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2014 01:07AM by archytas.

"The Bible is the basis for much of our western civilization and is a record of the legends and myths of several influential cultures. To be completely ignorant of the Bible is not the mark of a well-educated person. How can one know that something is "fantasy drivel" without having read it?"

What RPackham wrote is spot on. Ron Burr has the intellectual capacity of a box of corn flakes. Why our country is in big trouble is lack of cultural literacy.


I view it this way, it's part a literary work and part historical. How much doesn't really matter when looking at its historical impact on history and the role it played in Western Civilization. People who are nonthinking imbeciles cannot separate the stupid religion of their childhood and what is written in the Bible, and the role it played. The Bible itself is not bad, its just a book. The idiots who create "belief tribes" around it are the fools just as much as the people who discount the role it has played into the creation of our culture.

If religion didn't exist idiot humans who create something else stupid to be tribal about. Oh, they already do: nationalism, politics, sports etc. The problem humans have is of intellectual depth. Look at our current state in the US, it should be clear religion isn't the problem, people not thinking is the problem.

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -Isaac Asimov

My brother used the Luther bible on his mission in Germany (all members actually use it there), and found it to be easier to understand, and a better translation overall.

I was going to write this, too.

As other's have mentioned, a good agenda-less Bible translation is the New Revised Standard Version; Bart Ehrman always recommends the Oxford Study Bible. Personally I love the language and feel of The Voice translation, and frequently use both in my studies.

I was hunting around for the exact same thing and found a website from a college and the professor said the only Bible he recommended wholeheartedly for class/study purposes was the NRSV. He said it was in his opinion the most accurate. Interestingly...I went to a Christian bookstore looking for bibles and the NRSV was about the ONLY translation they did not carry...I am not sure why but this was a mainline evangelical bookstore. For some reason the more conservative churches don't trust it... So I am thinking maybe this really is a good translation lol.

You may also be interested in The Bible Geek podcast, just Google it, and also The Human Bible podcast that the center for inquiry (CFI) produce.

I believe there are several Bibles on the market which contain several side-by-side translations. I've seen one that had four translations, including the KJV. So funny how many Mormons are blown away by the idea of studying multiple translations in order to better understand what's written.

Oh my heck, I haven't heard anyone use the phrase butt-sore since my BYU days. Thanks for the chuckle.

I have found the footnotes and the methodology used in the New American Bible (Catholic) far superior to other versions and especially superior to the NIV. BTW, some "literal" translations err in using the same meaning for wherever the word is found when, like English, meanings vary depending on the context, etc.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2014 06:13AM by rhgc.

I am in the process of reading through the New American Bible now. This is the first time I've ever read a Catholic Bible. My copy has lots of great footnotes which help immensely to clarify understandings. I'm really enjoying the read much more than I ever did King James.

Go to av-cambridge.pdf I am printing out the whole thing to use as a reference



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2014 08:02PM by thedesertrat1.

The KJV Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE) PDF mentioned above is the Cambridge KJV edition restored to its original pure text/translation of 1611 done by someone who researched all the KJV editions, translation notes and manuscripts to arrive at the text as intended by the translators with typos corrected, too. It was completed in 1900 and published in 1901.

Some links that explains further:

http://www.bibleprotector.com/purecambridgeedition.htm
http://soulwinning.info/bible/kjb/pce.htm
https://www.purecambridgetext.com/

The Holman Bible Publishers adopted the KJV Pure Cambridge Edition text in its KJV Bibles starting with the 2013 first printings.

Everett Fox has produced some interesting translations of the
Books of Moses. He has tried to remain faithful to some of the
literary aspects of the original Hebrew--cadence, alliterations,
aural allusions and even puns.

Anytime anyone goes on about how superior the KJV is to any other translation, my eyes just start to roll back into my head.

There is no such thing as an accurate "translation" of the Bible. All are translatedNOT to offend the masses of Christianity that "buy" Bibles. There are however some that are better than others. For the New Testament, "the Concordant Literal" is quite good, much better than most. For the Hebrew Bible, The Concordant literal, or use "The Scriptures," "The Scripturers" is not very good for translating the Greek NT. Always compare, use the original Hebrew or Greek if possible. Some times the Jerusalem Bible s also quite good (appears to be honest anyway. Use the KJV, for numbering of words, since it is a standard, but never use vowel pointed words, always use the root meanings, in context.

I am Baptist, and I prefer the KJV.

A few years back a group of over 100 scholars worked on trying to do a more exact and precise translation of the Bible.

That work resulted in the Holman Bible.

I have a copy of that as well. If I were to suggest someone who wanted the most accurate translation of the Bible in English currently out there, I'd probably point them to the Holman Bible.

However, for a more full picture, I'd also say, pick up several bible for comparison (easy to do today, as they have such locations on the internet).

Be aware that what some call the apocryphal portions of the bible are included in some Catholic Bibles, and what some consider canon are not by others, and vice versa. It can be illuminating to read ALL the books of the bible, including what some may not consider canon works.

Regarding the Holman Bible, I assume you are referring to the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), which is published by the Holman Bible Publishers.

Everywhere I've read on the HCBS where pastors and other people with knowledge in Hebrew and Greek comment on Bible versions, they all say that it is very accurate.

There is a new update of this Bible which will now be called the Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

New editions of this version of the Bible are going on sale March 31, 2017. The last revision was in 2009. You can get the CSB app of this version on iTunes NOW and there is an Android app for this, too.

Yes Kak75, that is the Bible I referred to (HCSB). I did not know they were coming out with a new update known as the CSB. Thank you for letting me know about it.

There are a variety of bibles out there with multiple translations side by side.

I have one that is 4 columns wide showing 4 different translations including the KJV.

I think they are called comparison bibles.

I remember being told in SS or Pm that the "correct" translation of the bible would be revealed when the LARD thought it was time. Anybody else heard that one?.....

Well! It certainly appears that there is a Bible to suit every taste. How convenient. I have often wondered about the Mormons using the KJV as the most correct and inspired when it turns out that King James was quite openly homosexual. I think a Paul Lynde Bible would be an excellent addition to the vast collection in existence.

I read the Bible once. It is long. That is about all I remember after all these years. I could have used Paul Lynde reading it to me.

Is there a Cliff's Notes version yet?

I like the Zondervan NIV Study Bible.

In the latest version, they use the earliest transcripts as possible, some only a few decades after Christ.

They use the dead sea scrolls as well. There was a lot of effort put into this version to make it as accurate as possible. You can read all about it on their website.

Also, in the Bible itself, they have notes to exactly where they got the translation from.

It is extremely easy to use, and most of it is gender neutral.

Just search Amazon for "Zondervan NIV Study Bible" to get it.

I have one with 4 different translations in double columns so you can compare.

Agree with Everett Fox, also Robert Alter.