Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jarthur!ucivax!ucla-cs!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Bible versions Message-ID: Date: 13 Jul 90 08:36:54 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Lines: 39 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Thomas Price writes: >If a "study" bible is one which contains "helpful" notes and a general plan >of reading and exegesis built in, I can't recommend it. (Not that you asked, >but you might be interested.) Any bible which contains such canned material >will constrain your or my reading of it more than we might think at first. >It will in fact not be an AV or a NKJV but a "team-of-scholars-who-laced-a- >bible-with-their-own-opiniions"V . I don't agree with this at all. In the first place, *ANY* bible useful for study has textual notes-- otherwise, you have no idea what the textual background of what you are reading is, and you don't know when the translators are guessing. In the second place, the KJV *DOES* have notes-- exegetical notes, to boot. You just can't get a KJV which has them. In the third place, protestant though I am, I reject the notion that you can sit down by yourself with a unannotated bible and do useful studying. One thing I've discovered in watching fringe preachers on one hand and net.atheists on the other: interpretation outside the church is very frequently unguided, leading into old heresies and nonchristian religion at every turn. One would do well to remember that the KJV is a product of the anglican tradition, a compromise between puritan and romanish elements within the church of the day. The kind of study of which you speak is quite foreign to this environment. From my perspective, what you are advocating is the substituting of hidden prejudices in the translation and in your own mind for advice which is obviously such, and which one is free to criticize and even ignore. The peril is obvious, and in my opinion, usually realized. -- C. Wingate + "I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity + by invocation of the same mangoe@cs.umd.edu + the Three in One, and One in Three." mimsy!mangoe +