People often ask me what Bible I use, and so I thought I’d spend a few minutes on the subject, especially since I just treated myself to the just-released New Living Translation Study Bible, which, so far, seems to be a real improvement over many evangelical-oriented study Bibles — it’s academic, comprehensive, and actually appears to have been put together with a reverence for the Word, not just how I “apply” it or “interact” with it. Kudos to Tyndale House.
I have most of the major English translations, and I use the Nueva Version Internacional in Spanish — a much more accessible translation than the Spanish stalwart, the Reina-Valera. I love the TNIV (Today’s New International Version), but until they print something with a reasonable type size, I won’t use it much. I’m very fond of the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) and the New American Bible, a Catholic translation whose large print study edition is the best Bible I’ve ever owned. I grew up Catholic and detect no Roman Catholic bent in the notes, which are conveniently located at the end of each book. My genuine leather, indexed, Smyth-sewn volume cost me about fifty bucks, and it’s my go-to Bible for study. Like all of the Bibles I use, it endeavors to relay gender accuracy when the original language allows for it, although it’s not as gender-accurate as, say, the TNIV or NLT.
My everyday reading Bible is the new NET translation, another gender-accurate translation that I find eminently readable, avoiding the simplicity of the NLT and the God’s Word translation while maintaining clarity, a problem that I find with the NASB (New American Standard Bible). “The most literal,” as is claimed for the NASB, isn’t the most accurate, and while I appreciate the NLT and God’s Word greatly — they’re wonderful for less-educated readers or new believers — the NET Bible speaks with a frankness and clarity that God has used to grow my faith and mature my understanding of his Word. It’s a very high-quality Bible, too: Smyth-sewn, genuine leather, and the reader’s edition has an 11-pt. typeface that I’m coming to appreciate more and more these days, again for about fifty bucks. It’s original format included — gasp! — 69,000 translators’ notes; the readers’ version, while not quite a comprehensive study Bible, has just enough study helps to aid in everyday reading.
None of the Bibles I’ve mentioned are “feminist” translations; the ones I recommend merely use, and use correctly, gender-accurate, gender-inclusive terms for the Body that the original languages allow for. No “Heavenly Parent,” “Sophia-as-Holy Spirit” translations, just honest scholarship that endeavors to do what the original writers did: include women and men in the addressing of the saints. Revolutionary, and shouldn’t still be thought so.
I treasure my Bibles, and, as I’ve mentioned before, I always have a few to give away. Please contact me if you need one. But check out the new NLT Study, the NET, and the NAB Study — the three I’d grab in a fire, while hollering for Jeff to reach for the Spanish NVI. And my Birkenstocks.