Zondervan

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First off, I don't think I actually would recommend reading the Old Testament (or indeed the Bible) through from start to finish as I did. It wasn't written or compiled to be read in that way, and it doesn't do the text any services to read as if it were a novel, a short story collection, or a book of essays and meditations. I chose this approach because I wanted to feel that I had control of what I was show more reading, and that I was not missing anything, but if you want to get a fair flavour of it, it's probably better to follow one of the many reading guides available online and elsewhere, which are designed both to showcase the good bits and to keep the reader interested.

Second, a lot of it is pretty dull, actually. 2 Chronicles in particular comes close to Mark Twain's description of the Book of Mormon, as "choroform in print". Large chunks of the Pentateuch are lists of laws and, even less exciting, census returns. The historical bits have an awful lot of tediously horrible ethnic cleansing and dynastic struggle, leavened by the occasional good bit (the Saul/David/Solomon succession in particular). The prophets are rather indistinguishable in tone of outrage. I recommend finding some way of skipping the dull bits.

Third, the good bits are indeed good. I've singled out the Book of Job in a previous post; I found the Psalms generally inspiring and uplifting, and I've always been a fan of Ecclesiastes. The narrative histories, which I thought I knew fairly well, still had some surprises for me - in Numbers 12, God smites Moses' sister with leprosy for racism towards Moses' black wife, for instance. There are some fun bits in the prophets - Jonah, and the deuterocanonical addenda to Daniel (Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon). I also rather liked Sirach, aka Ecclesiasticus, which again is deuterocanonical. And 2 Maccabees is a fairly lucid, if brutal, historical note to finish on.

Fourth, there were indeed a few themes running through the entire OT whose importance I hadn't perhaps fully grasped: the importance of God's endowing his people with the land, the importance of the cult of the Temple, and the trauma of the Babylonian exile (which of course shaped most of the text we have very directly). I'm not saying that these are the only or even the main main themes, but that these are the ones whose importance was enhanced for me by reading through the entire thing.

As for the New Testament: it falls rather naturally into three sections. The Gospels and Acts are among the most readable narratives in the Bible; the most striking things are that the three synoptic gospels are so very close to each other, leaving John as the outlier, and that Luke's better Greek prose style comes through in almost any translation of his gospel and Acts. I am also struck every time that the Feeding of the Five Thousand is the only miracle other than the Resurrection reported in all four gospels.

I was much less familiar with the various epistles. They are not as easy to read as the gospels, combining as they do advice on local disputed, personal salutations, declarations about correct practice and belief, and attempts to put words on the ineffable (Hebrews in particular is an attempt at a theological manifesto avant la lettre). I was struck by how hardline Paul is, particularly in the early letters, on the issues that hardliners still stick to today, and also on the question of justification by faith; but there is a significant counterbalance from some of the later letters, especially 1 Peter which seems to be a direct response in some ways. (And the Epistle of Jude seems strangely familiar after 2 Peter ch 2...)

Finally, Revelation is the most Old Testament-y of the New Testament books. (There is nothing like the letters in the Old Testament, and the gospels and Acts are quite different in style from the OT historical books.) Again, Revelation is an attempt to express in words that which cannot be expressed in words; it is clearly not meant to be taken literally, but as one person's attempt to concretise the underlying truths. show less

As far as translated versions go, this is one of the more popular ones, even if in recent years it has lost some footing to the English Standard Version in terms of exactness of translation and conveyance of meaning. So whatever Bible is preferred is up to the reader/scholars who peruse and study it, my rating is not based on the exactness/word choice used in translation, but its content.

As far as a story/chronicle goes, this is all over the map - which is understandable as not one single show more person worte it, and the various books within it were collected over hundreds of years, with a bug difference in the narrative of the Old Testament and New Testament.

There's some good advice in here, but it's advice that can be found elsewhere. I.e. be frugal, be kind, be honest, etc etc. There's a lot of awful stuff in here, much of it enabled if not actually committed by Jehovah/YHVH himself. Hell, the story of Genesis is pretty fucked in itself. Adam and Eve were ignorant, because they'd never known hurt or other bad things while living in Eden, so how could Eve NOT be decieved by the serpent who tempted her to eat the forbidden fruit which sat there in Eden with no barrier?

The fruit was knowledge of good and evil - which means that before Eve ate the fruit, she literally did not know what good or evil was. So how could she have performed a misdeed, not knowing what a misdeed was? This was a game that Adam and Eve were set up to fail, especially because if Jehovah created everything, that means he also created the serpent.

And ever since then, man has continued to fail all these tests that have been thrown at him by a god who seems determined to see people fail and suffer.

Christians like to harp on about how loving their god is, but really, would someone who was loving and sane treat people that way? This book has done so much harm through the ages, from different Christian factions fighting one another (i.e. Catholics vs Protestants) to religious folks shoving Christianity down the throats of foreigners and indigenous folk, through force and brutality. A truly loving god wouldn't be allowing this kind of shit to be committed under his name, but the excuse is that he has a "plan".

Yeah, no.

I only gave this book an extra star because of its historical context, particularly the Old Testament. It should not be used for anything else. show less

In an attempt to be all things to all people, this version does nothing well. Highly lamentable.

This is no critique of the Bible as such: the Word of God is great and powerful.

The Amplified Bible would attempt to be a generally formally equivalent, word-for-word translation, with many expansions of meanings and explanations written within the text itself.

There are a few times when this process genuinely works: the expansion/explanation works well within the text and provides some more show more clarity and extra dimensions where a straight formal translation might lead to vagary.

But for the most part the expansiveness creates complications. It is not always immediately apparent when the text is expanding and where it is not. It makes for a very hard to read translation: there is no flow or symmetry in the translation because of the expansions.

Most of the translation is defensible and the expansions and explanations within the text at least understandable. There are a few times when the translator makes highly questionable choices: preferring strange variants or choosing definitions more by preference than lexical likelihood. It is apparent that this was a New Testament version that later decided to append an Old Testament; the OT has far fewer expansions in many of its books, even in places where it might have been more helpful to have some. Certain Dead Sea Scroll notes are made; others are not; it is possible this is due to the fact that a lot of the information about the DSS was coming out around the same time as the translation itself.

If the translation itself is questionable, its notes, at least in this particular edition, are even more so. Most of the OT notes provide very little background to the text but seem to project a certain kind of mid-20th century anxiety about whether the reader is going to be able to really accept the inspiration of the text or not. To this end most of the notes are really quotes from various 19th and early 20th century expositors seeking to commend the historicity and inspiration of the text. The notes are very much a creature of that time and place. Some of them, as on the Kushites in Amos, are clearly prejudiced and of that time and place. The NT notes tend to reference the various lexical and exegetical sources the translator is using, and they very much are of that time and place, overly reliant on pre-20th century resources.

Perhaps this version had its time and place before the age of computing and easy access to multiple translations and other resources. It does fulfill one purpose: it demonstrates that a Bible translation/version cannot, and should not, try to be all things to all people. A Bible translation/version should not try to provide every or even many nuances of translation for any given verse or passage; it should give a straightforward reading, make notes about important variants, critical explanations, or certain idiomatic tendencies, and then leave the craft of nuance and providing greater depth and definition to the text to exposition. Consider, in contrast, the NET Bible with full notes: it is Mishnaic/Talmudic in perspective, with the notes well exceeding the text itself, in its attempt to provide that depth and definition.

This version should not be one's primary study Bible. This version might be a reference work to consider at times, but whatever one would gain from it can be seen by consulting a multiplicity of other versions. Not quite sure where the Amplified has value in our present context. show less

This was my first read-through of the NIV since I was in junior high school (I'm in my mid-30s now) and it was so nostalgic to come back to it! The Bible version used at my school from 1st through 8th grades was an NIV and all of my early memorization was done with it, so reading through this version again felt like coming home and opening up boxes of treasures that were hidden in my heart. It has been updated from the earlier versions of the NIV and I found that I did like the changes.

I show more still have a few more versions to read through before declaring a solid favorite English translation but this one is definitely in the running. At present, I would say that it is at the top of the list as a whole version but that I really do love Romans and Hebrews in the NRSV.

This edition (the premium single-column reference Bible printed by Zondervan) is so beautiful. The cover is supple and soft and the size is perfect. It feels so good in the hands whilst reading and I love that it has three bookmark ribbons. Single-column Bibles are my preference these days. They feel so much more readable and I find that my mind is able to focus better when reading in this format. show less