"One of the most important hermeneutical constraints one should adopt in order to avoid such reductionism is this: Permit the various attributes and characteristics of God to function in your theology only in the ways in which they function in Scripture; never permit them to function in your theology in such a way that the primary data, the data of Scripture, are contradicted. Thus one must not infer fatalism from the sweeping biblical data about God's sovereignty; one must not infer that God is finite from the constant biblical portrayal of God personally interacting with finite persons. From God's knowledge and sovereignty we must not justify prayerlessness; from the exhortations to pray and not give up, we must not suppose God is coerced by our much speaking (compare Matt. 6:7-8 and Luke 18:1). Precisely because God is so gloriously rich and complex a being, we must draw out the lessons the biblical writers draw out, and no others."
- D.A. Carson
Friday, February 22, 2013
I can truly say that reading and studying the Bible is my favorite activity. Sure, I don't always act like it. Sometimes I'm content to fritter away my time reading endless Wikipedia articles, or looking at grainy sasquatch videos, or playing pointless games, etc. But the reality is, when I'm on my recliner in the morning with an open Bible, it's the most joyous time of my day. I love it. To quote C.S. Lewis, at those times my "heart sings unbidden."
With that said, here are some of my favorite Bible related things:
- E-Sword. It's free. It's deep. It's easy to use.
- The ESV Study Bible. The best study Bible I've ever used, and I own quite a few. It leans Reformed, but, heck, so did Paul. ;-)
- The New King James Bible. As far as I'm concerned the best translation in the history of the English language. It's literal, highly poetic, and not the least bit archaic. It supposedly uses less popular manuscripts than its peers (a debatable assertion), but the variations are noted in the margins (and its peers don't return the favor). The only unfortunate thing about this translation is its name.
- Genuine leather. Stay away from bonded leather. Genuine leather will ensure your Bible will be around to give to your grandchildren. Bonded leather will eventually crumble at your fingertips, so if you're into that sort of thing, go for it.
- Parallel Bibles. There is sometimes a lot of interpretation that goes into Bible translation. Generally, the more wooden a translation (e.g., NASB) the more literal it is; and the more readable a translation (e.g., NIV), the more, well, um, problematic it can be. Parallel Bibles help solve the wooden-or-readable conundrum by offering several translations on the same page.
Those are my top "Bible things." I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's favorite Bible resources.
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Comments on "Bible Things":
2. Flyaway
- 02/22/2013 4:33 pm CST
I enjoy studying the Bible with a group. First you do your own study. Then you hear what others have discovered. After that you hear a lecture. So far I've studied with Bible Study Fellowship, Community Bible Study, and now I'm studying with Precepts Bible study. Also I've prayed Bible verses with Moms in Prayer groups. Now when I study a passage I will pick out verses to pray for my prayer list. I'm outdated on the study Bible though as all I have is a NIV study Bible. Precepts uses New Inductive Study Bible. I'll have to check out one of those. I also use Blue Letter Bible on the internet. Sometimes I just do a search on the internet for different verses.
4. Neo
- 02/22/2013 8:16 pm CST
Good advice on the Bibles, particularly about the leather, which was something I wasn't aware of.
As for Wikipedia, they need to have a giant slant-o-meter at the top of each article that indicates how far leftist the particular writer was and how much bias they've injected into the article.
5. Quaid
- 02/23/2013 8:42 am CST
I really enjoy the NET Bible, chiefly because of their text notes that go into detail about why they chose a particular translation or to discuss any source material "controversy" in a given text. I've found that I prefer the NET Bible mostly in the New Testament. Their Old Testament translation, I can do without.
I preach primarily from the ESV, although it will cause me troubles from time to time (such as this weekend when the ESV takes the passage I'm preaching as a continuation of an earlier verse instead of a new sentence, as does every other translation. So, it looks like I'm beginning to preach in the middle of a thought.)
Although I only agree with him about 90% of the time, I really like Constable's Bible Notes. It's more than a group of collected thoughts, but it's not quite full-blown commentary. You can find those notes at www.soniclight.org/constable/notes.htm. (Head's up: he's a dispy. But, then again, so is Paul ;) Wait, what?
Lastly, I've been using Accordance for my Bible study E-Tool. From what I've been told, Accordance is far more powerful than the somewhat basic tasks I ask of it, but it does what I want it to do. It's available only on a Mac, but it was that way even before Macs were cool. It's not as strong to build a complete Bible E-library (a la Logos), in my opinion, but for studying the languages, doing word/phrase searches, etc. I find it quite handy. If E-Sword does everything you want it to do, don't spring for Accordance.
7. Quaid
- 02/23/2013 6:03 pm CST
Bird,
I'm not sure how the two relate, but from what I understand, MacSword is the Mac equivalent to E-Sword. When I spoke of E-Sword in comment 5, I was really referring to the MacSword I had on my computer until I purchased Accordance.
All to say - check out MacSword for free first, before jumping into the wide wide world of Accordance.
8. salguod
- 02/24/2013 3:14 pm CST
I love YouVersion on my Android phone. I always have a Bible, and any version I want (as long as I have a data connection) and access to reading plans.
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Good article. I think with the NKJV it is not so much "less popular" texts than newer texts. Most modern translations rely upon older and therefore presumptively more accurate texts to form their corpus.