Open Blogging
Before I turn it over to you…
Back when I rejoined the church in the early eighties, the spiritual among us bought hand crafted leather covers for our bibles.
I did not do so…I thought they were hideous and reeked of hippiedom and prior weed addictions.
Still, they were considered a sign that you were serious about your bible and were a tribal marker.
I had no idea such a thing existed until a couple of years ago when a friend sent me Schuyler bible out of the blue.
It is lovely in every way and is my primary bible and will be until I pass…then it will undoutedly pass to a family member for many more years.
I’ve been sent other ones since…and they all make bible reading an aesthetic pleasure…at about 250 bucks a pop.
Two questions…where will this trend go…and what is your “go to” bible?
Now, it’s all yours today…
It’s very clear: the Iranian regime controls and will continue to control the Strait of Hormuz, will charge a toll for transit thereof, and will continue to be sole arbiter of who is allowed transit; will not give up its nuclear stockpile; will not be regime changed; will get reparations in one way or another for the damage done by Trump’s war of choice; will have renewed and reinvigorated respect of its proxies and make many new recruits to its cause; and will consider this whole inhumane disaster a victory. The people of Iran and the people of the world, however, have paid and will continue to pay for the malfeasance and villainy of a wicked and foolish American president and his administration. But the wicked fool will call it a victory, and a sizeable number of his zombiefied followers will believe him.
I read the NRSV, like a good mainline Protestant. I have many other translations on hand, but mostly use the NRSV. I wasn’t even aware that “premium” Bibles were having a moment of popularity until I started visiting this site; I don’t believe I own any “premium” Bible.
I think that as long as Christians read the Bible with the expectation that only one voice that never contradicts itself can be discerned therein, it will be misinterpreted and yield unbalanced and spiritually destructive theologies. There are many voices in the Bible, they not infrequently disagree in significant ways, and violence is done to them when they are forced to appear to agree with all the others. To get to the place where Scripture can be allowed to fully speak as an instrument of the Holy Spirit all its voices must be recognized in their disparate uniqueness first, just as the many voices in the church itself must be listened to and not silenced.
Robert F,
Love the RSV and NRSV…but there aren’t many of us left who do.
I just love bibles…
Great point about the multivocality of the bible…
Michael,
The NRSV is still the primary Bible of the mainlines; which in no way contradicts your assertion that there aren’t many of us left, since there are not many mainline Protestants left, and most of those don’t necessarily love the NRSV — in fact, in many parishes and congregations of the mainlines the laity are more influenced by evangelical religious culture and spirituality than by that of their own traditions.
If Hegseth and Vance are good models of what it means to be a Christian man, then I need to convert to another religion, Buddhism maybe.
You can remain a Christian…they need to find a label that suits their reality….
I’ve liked the RSV most of my life and I grew up Assemblies of God. I wasn’t aware it was thought of as a mainline Bible (although in hindsight this explains why one of my uncles seemed aghast that I said I liked the RSV about forty years ago).
I still like the RSV. I like the NAS almost as much. I try to keep the JPS Tanakh and NRSV handy. I’ve also got a Revised English Bible I’ve been enjoying.
My “go to” Bible was always the NIV Student Bible. I marked it up so much that pages and the covers started to detach from the spine.
I am not sure what a premium Bible is, to be honest. I haven’t shopped for a Bible for years.
I’m lazy. NIV. Got it from a blemished Bible rack–had a slight flaw on the faux leather binding. I had a fish stamped on the front with my name in the lower right corner–such vanity! I’ve always figured I had to learn how to do what it says before I got another version that told me more accurately how to do it. In reality I suppose I’m a cheapskate. 😉
My grandmother bought a bible from a traveling salesman in 1911 while she was still single and when it came it easily weighed 25 pounds, measured 16x12x6 and was virtually unusable except as a table decoration. It had the most beautiful artwork in it to depict the various stories with the nearly transparent cover page over each. I left it at a leather binding shop where I asked them to repair the cover coming off (it was a pressed composite material about half an inch thick with leather over the top) and when I returned they’d gone out of business. It still had her name neatly written in the front cover.
Bullinger’s ‘Companion Bible’ (king james version) for me.
I love the lilting Elizabethan prose.
It has extensive appendices of factual scholarship and history.
Bullinger’s Decades are free at Project Gutenberg these days and are really good. I can think of a couple of guys I met in my old church scene who would have benefited from reading a lot more Bullinger than Grudem!
I’ve never bought fancy Bibles because I always seem to “beat them up.” My last Spanish Bible fell underneath my car seat and was badly torn when I pushed the seat back. 😔 I replaced it with a leather-bound ESV/ Nueva Biblia de las Americas translation that I am loving.
I have an interesting literary translation of part of the New Testament by novelist Reynolds Price. It includes Mark, John, and his own synthesis of various sources titled “An Honest Account of a Memorable Life”. Just an old fashioned hardcover with jacket. Price himself experienced a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ during a period of time he underwent cancer treatment.
@Wenatchee The Hatchet,
Grudem is first and formost an ideologue, Bullinger was not.
Big difference.
The easiest demonstration of that contrast between Grudem and Bullinger is through the Apostle’s Creed. Grudem became somewhat infamous for rejecting the descent clause from the Apostle’s Creed cuz reasons, whereas Bullinger preached a whole sermon wherein he mentioned that just because we don’t understand what the formers of the Apostle’s Creed meant by the descent doesn’t mean we reject it.
There have been a couple of books by scholars who took Grudem to the woodshed for rejecting the descent clause, but the titles and authors escape me at the moment.
My Bibles:
A nice leather New King James Bible (1982)
A hardbound NIV Study Bible (1983)
Paperback NRSV with Aprocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books (1989) My newest purchase at $7!
Greek/English Interlinear New Testament (1993)
An leather ESV Bible (purchased in the early 2000s)
A hardbound NKJV Chronological Study Bible (2008)
The Kingdom New Testament – NT Translation by N.T. Wright (2011)
The First Testament – OT Translation by John Goldingay (2018)
I use all these Bibles.
But… I spend a lot of time on Bible Gateway with the NIV, making it my go-to Bible.
Mine is an old NIV held together with tape.
I looked at what they sell bibles for these days and was pleasantly surprised at the availability of cheap ones. Also not surprised at the huge variety of premium ones, some with 3-figure prices, and I guess that might subsidise the cheaper ones.
In high school mom gave me a Living Bible but I didn’t read it all.
First year I got saved I read the RSV cover to cover at least five times.
Then I got baptized by a pastor who bad mouthed it so instead I wore out three KJV bibles when I was writing songs.
Started at a new church that used the NASB and my wife got me a nice leather one which became my Sunday go to meeting favorite for many years, even when the next church of that time used NKJV which I never liked.
For the years my daughter was growing up we had a kid’s NIV that we wore out teaching her and Sunday school classes for more years.
Recently the church nearby switched from NKJV to the NLT and I don’t like it at all.
I really don’t like it when someone puts their own name on a bible just because they want to sell them. Like when their notes take up half the page and it’s called a “study bible”.
Let’s see: I have the New English Bible, the Revised New English Bible, the Jerusalem Bible, The Saint Joseph Children’s Edition New American Bible, the regular edition NAB, the RSV, several NRSVs, the NIV, the ESV, Today’s English Version Bible, the Living Bible, several King James/Authorized Versions, a couple NKJVs, a NASB, the Amplified New Testament, and a couple others I can’t recall.
Trump is once again threatening to kill all Iranian people indiscriminately. How many times has he done this now? However many, if it were a non-actor making the threat we would all know what to call it: terrorism. Here’s my prediction: once again, Iran will not budge and will not open the Strait. What’s the definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time.
Terry,
I also spend a lot of time on Bible Gateway (English and Spanish) and my two Bible apps (Spanish and ESV).
Linn, what version of the Spanish Bible do you read? I would like to keep my Spanish skills more up to date and thought I’d enjoy reading a Spanish Bible that is more up to date Spanish but I don’t know how to choose a version
Thanks in advance!
That same pastor that poo pooed the RSV had a tizzy fit when I told him that someone could find gospel salvation reading the Catholic Bible which I also read at the time (Douay Version) which contains the Apocrypha. I believe he truly hated me after that.
Many of the editions of the King James Bible (beginning with the first edition) had the Apocrypha. Something I love to point out to fundie KJV-onlyists if only to see their heads explode from the cognitive dissonance.
I hold to the tenets of The Apostle’s Creed as non-negotiable parameters up-front and on the table.
The rest of the stuff?
I pick and choose as I see fit.
For example, I reject the doctrine of PSA (penal substitutionary atonement).
The very thought of punishing an innocent man for the misdeeds of another is morally repugnant to me.
It’s monstrous.
Muff,
There are many theories and methods of atonement that one can draw from Scriptures, PSA is but one (though PSA is based upon the types and shadows of the OT, the sacrificial lamb, the scapegoat, etc.).
Speaking of scapegoats, I always found this Geico commercial funny:
I have every imaginable translation in my Bible software…but the older I get, the more I think the Scriptures were meant to be physically held and read…but that’s just me…
Linn,
I’ll add another humble request, if you could share a little about your use of Nueva Biblia de las Americas, and how it is different than NVI (Nueva Version Internacional).