plug-in "jesus seminar" in amazon.

You can buy a "devotional" bible that actually breaks up the reading into lessons and gives some explanation of the message of each lesson. I was given one for some occasion when I was younger and it has an intro for each book, plus a daily lesson and a reading plan so you get through the entire Bible in a year reading a little each day. If that's way too slow, you could obviously speed it up a bit.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I think what I'm looking for is the exact opposite actually. I don't want anybody explaining to me what Jesus was saying; that is what I meant by not dumbing it down. I want to read his words with as little molestation as possible by the middle-men.

Well, for that you will have to go back to the earliest translation you can find that you can understand. Either that, or learn Hebrew or Aramaic, I guess. No matter what version you read, it has been translated and carries with it the views and point of view of the translator.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Well, unless there is an "Aramaic for Dummies" CD set I can listen to while riding, I doubt I'll have the time to take that route. I realize they have all been translated, but also realize there are versions generally given to children, versions for adults, and others for religious scholars. I was just hoping to find out which is which from those with experience.

The Bible is more of a history book than an opinion piece. It doesn't take much to trnalsate "So-n-So said this", "what'shisname did that".

I agree that translation can occur if great precautions ar enot taken. King James employed a panel of language-culture experts to translate older ducuments. This helped ensure that words with multiple meanings had the mewanings used that were consistent with previous usgae and not open to trnaslator interpretation, etc. Punishment for making a mistake was death. I believe the Bible is fairly accurate description of what people said happened. The debate is whether the people were teling the tuth or imagin things.

For exmaple, Luke is regarded as a great historian. No one argues that what Luke wrote was or wasn't said by those he interviewed. The debate is about what the witnesses saw.

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

I'm not arguing that the Bible is an "opinion piece", I'm saying that any time you translate something from one language to another, the times, lifestyle, education, personality, etc of the translator comes through in the translation. Doesn't really make that much of a difference in the general meaning of things, but sometimes it does. Anyway, if Joe is looking for as close to a direct word for word of what Jesus said, he would be best served by going to a version that has been messed with the least by translators or scholars or whomever. By the way, if the King tells you that not translating something "right" is grounds for death, I'm thinking that might encourage you to translate in a way that would make the king happy.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Joe,

My Church uses the King James version exclusively. We believe the bible to be true "as far as it is translated correctly". Meaning that the more it is translated the more the message gets changed. As for English versions, most of what you'll find is a translation of the Kings James version. In order to translate into more modern words, many versions skip or miss meanings the "translator" was not aware of. I believe that if you want the best English version, the King James is the way to go, even though the older style may make the reading a little slower.



I wish you well on your journey.



KMS

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Kyle

The Standard Version, commonly called the King James Version, is the one most commonly quoted. Translation is, at times, an art rather than a science, because languages are different. The King James Version probably does the best job of conveying in well written English what was in the original languages. Since it was completed early during the reign of King James I of England, around 1610, the major problem with it is that we have discovered earlier original sources than were available in 1610.

As a result, we have the Revised Standard Version (RSV) (about 1900) and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) (about 1980 or so, but I am not sure). Both are more "accurate" than the King James Version in the sense that the Hebrew and Greek being translated is closer to the original versions. A common criticism of the RSV and the NRSV is that the English, well very accurate, is not nearly as uplifting as the better written English in the King James Version.

I think that a common Catholic version is the New Jerusalem Bible. I understand that it was translated into English from a Latin translation of the original Greek and Hebrew. I have not read this version, but I know enough about the differences between Greek and Latin to tell you that Latin does not convey the same meaning as Greek. To put is a little too simply, the Greeks were thinkers; the Romans build roads. Ancient Greek and Latin reflect the differences in the people.

The New International Version (NIV) is supposed to be a fairly literal translation of the Greek and Hebrew. It can suffer from the same problems as the RSV and the NRSV in that it contains accurate, but dull, English.

You are going to get a fairly accurate translation if you read the NIV, RSV or NRSV. The King James is going to be more interesting to read, but you are going to find archaic language and some English words don't mean the same thing as they did in 1610.

You can always get one of those bibles that have multiple translations to see the differences. If you get one with the King James and either the NRSV or the NIV, you are going to get the best of both worlds.

In my humble, sectarian opinion, the bible was written by middle men. The history of the writing of the bible is a fascinating study of political struggle within the church. Most books of the bible were written 50 to 100 years after Jesus' death. I don't think it's possible to fully understand the bible and all of its richness without studying it's history. I like the works of Borg and Funk, though some fundamentalists and literalists call their work blasphemous. They put the writings of Jesus in their historical context, with an explanation about what was going on during the time period.

To further RB's comment, the Bible is a document(s) that has been proven time and time again to be historically accurate.

When you read the bible you are reading history.

It's a fascinating read. Best wishes for your journey.

Most books of the bible were written 50 to 100 years after Jesus' death.

Weren't most books of the Bible (i.e. Old Testament) written before Jesus's life? The Gospels were written anywhere from 15 to 80 years after Jesus's death (depending on who is doing the dating), with the following books being the account of Paul as recorded by Luke.

I find that "aid books" are very helpful with the "original language" as well as conveying the history and culture of the period being discussed. I also use a "Study Bible" which provides a "SAQ" (if you will) regarding confusing passages. It helps to point out when things are to be taken literally and when they are analogies or metaphors.

The study of how it is put together, which books were selected, which books were lieft out, and why is very interesting.

Some Bibles, like the Catholic Bible contains books that the "putter-togethers of other versions" did not feel were fit to include into the Bible. They either felt they were unnnecesasary or inconsistent with the other teaching (notice I did not say inaccurate).

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

Call me jaded and this may be improper to some but..."Word of Jesus"...no, more like "word of what some guy said some guy said"....I read the bible as a work of fiction akin to the Lord of the Rings...I mean think of Zeus, one "God" now a myth...how rude of us mere mortals.

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

The difference is that the surrounding history in the Bible is accurate. Believe or don't believe the religious parts, but the rest has been shown to be fairly accurate. In other words, it's not a complete work of fiction, like the Lord of the Rings.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

"Word of Jesus" really means "Word of Jesus as written down by the men that spent all of their time with him".

The authors of the gospels were disciples or assistants of the disciples. Both groups work closely with Jesus.

If someone followed Abraham Lincoln around and wrote down what Lincoln said, would you believe it to be the words of Lincoln?

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

There are many different accounts of the life of Jesus as written in the gospels by the disciples of Jesus. Each of them are independant accounts of his life written at different times. Each is very similar and accurate. After careful and very detailed scrutiny historians have gone on record to say that these events as written are accurate. The very fact that so many people wrote about these happenings and closely resemble each other go on to prove the point.

In short, historians disagree with you that the Bible is a work of fiction.

The authors of the gospels were not the actual apostles, except for Paul's letters.

A better analogy would be "If the aides of some of Lincoln's aides wrote down what they were told Lincoln said"


edit: replaced disciples with apostles

The authors of the gospels were disciples or assistants of the disciples. Both groups work closely with Jesus.

This is what I said. No wonder the Bible is confusing for you ... you kant reed gud. (<-- joking around)

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

Found a nice reference, if you're interested.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible4.html

I humbly submit that you should consider the Douay-Rheims Bible.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Joe -- I can vouch for this e-Bible (PC based). Very useful for comparing multiple translations plus proviides the underlying Hebrew/Greek along with dictionaries. Also you can download multiple commentaries and I like the fact that you can annotate and link the softcopies with your own personal notes.

http://ww.e-sword.net/

If you go paper based then my $0.02 based on trying several versions is use an NIV for readability and a NASB for word-for-word accuracy.