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Your NAB will only have the Catholic canon, whereas the NRSV will have the slightly fuller Eastern Orthodox canon.I also have an NRSV version that has the Apocrypha / Dueterocanonical books in it (some extras that aren't in the NAB [which does have books such as Tobit, Wisdom, etc.])
Lets see if I understand this thread. All translations have flaws and it takes too much time to compare the various translations to determine the best translation of a particular passage. This is followed by "after my conversion I was unable to grasp God's plan for my life because all of the efforts I made failed to put my life in perspective.
It sounds like you never went through a discipleship program to ground you in the fundamentals of the faith.
Lets talk a little bit about "firmament." Most modern translations use the word "expanse" rather than firmament. But is it any better? Probably not. Dome seems to be a better translation, capturing the idea of a beaten out inverted bowl for the apparent shape of the sky, coming down to the horizon on all sides yet high above as we look up. But do we really need the translators to put what we consider the best word in every case before we pour ourselves into real bible study? I think not.
Lets say there is a word which does not communicate with our understanding such as firmament or expanse. What should we do, toss our bible out because it is flawed?
Or should we use bible study tools to figure out what the author intended by his use of the Hebrew or Greek word translated as firmament or expanse.
Someone above suggested using the Blue Letter Bible. If you go here:
Blue Letter Bible - Lexicon
you will find the idea is a hemisphere above the earth. So dome works well.
And note that every usage of the word is listed and dome works well in every case.
So without tossing either the KJV or the NIV we can get the actual meaning because of the readily available study tools.
Now some verses lend themselves to very different interpretations, and that is why some Christians believe in the doctrines of Calvinism, and others think Calvinism is false doctrine.
But the basics of Christianity can be gleamed from most any Bible (NIV, KJV, ESV, NRSV and my favorite, the NASB.) All have flaws but with study you can gain a good understanding of God's plan for your life. Christ died for you, and you should be willing to "die" for Christ which is to say abandon whatever is inhibiting you from being a faithful servant of Christ. And you cannot teach others "all that Christ commanded" unless you have learned what Christ has commanded of you.
May God Bless
As far as Bible translations, I would agree with this. There is no perfect translation. I like Blue Letter Bible and I have a variety of different translations that I read from at different times. My favorites are The Recovery Version, New American Standard and Revised Standard Version.Someone above suggested using the Blue Letter Bible. If you go here:
Blue Letter Bible - Lexicon
So without tossing either the KJV or the NIV we can get the actual meaning because of the readily available study tools.
But the basics of Christianity can be gleamed from most any Bible
All have flaws
God's plan is to have a group of people who are filled with Him as their life who are built up together in His life, taking Him as their head to express Him and represent Him.God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
I was never able to find that plan.
Hi Mork and Mindy, I see you are making a consider effort to disagree with me. When you say "knowing what to do now would have been enough" that is what I meant by putting your life in perspective. Seeing God's plan for your life.
You say you went through a six month "introduction to Christianity" course but still do not know what the kingdom of heaven is. Sorry but going through a class and failing to learn the fundamentals does not equate with going through a discipleship program that grounds you in the fundamentals of the faith.
Lets take the "kingdom of heaven" for example. This means the same as the kingdom of God. Now because of the fall, you were conceived separated from God, so before folks are saved, they are not "in" the kingdom of God. When a person is saved, they are in the kingdom of God. Is the kingdom a physical place located somewhere in God's physical creation? Nope, it is a spiritual place. Thus the kingdom of God is within the saved person because God indwells spiritually the saved person. That is why we have verses that say repent and be saved for the kingdom of God is at hand.
It is not impossible to reach agreement on the meaning of scripture. If you have folks who hold to doctrines because that is what they were taught, and they cannot accept the fact that they were misled, then no agreement can be reached. I have had discussions with others and changed my mind as to what the passage was saying based on their study of the passage, and on the other hand, others have told me they have come to the conclusion that the view of scripture I had presented seems to make more sense in light of all scripture.
The idea that the NIV team intentionally mistranslated scriptures reflects a worldly view.
I agree with you that your study to date has left you confused. A discipleship program where you work with a more mature Christian is what the Bible says new Christians should go through.
I went through the book of Matthew and attempted to put into my own words every command Christ presented in His teachings. I came up with about 75 different commands (or instructions). The reason I put them in my own words, paraphrases if you will, was to make sure I personally had a understanding of the command. If you just say "preach the kingdom" without knowing what that entails, you do not know the command.
And lastly you say you were not "succeeding" but I was not sure whether you meant you had not presented the pure gospel, or that you had not succeeded in learning God's plan for your life.
May God Bless
As far as Bible translations, I would agree with this. There is no perfect translation. I like Blue Letter Bible and I have a variety of different translations that I read from at different times. My favorites are The Recovery Version, New American Standard and Revised Standard Version.
I also like to look at the Amplified version and Young's literal translation. A good site that has many of these online is BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 100 versions and 50 languages.
and the Recovery Version New Testament is online at The New Testament Recovery Version Online
God's plan is to have a group of people who are filled with Him as their life who are built up together in His life, taking Him as their head to express Him and represent Him.
God's plan for you is that you would be filled with Him as your life and that you would take Him as your head and that you would be built up together with other Christians in His life and share Him and His life and His love with others.
I pray that the Lord will lead you to a group of Christians with whom you can enjoy Him and His life.
I can't help thinking when I read your posts that you were in the wrong church - that in a different style of congregation with more emphasis on living the faith and less on simplistic answers you'd have thrived.
Indeed.That thought keeps crossing my mind too.
PERHAPS
A JW church might have the level of consistency between the scriptures saying to announce the coming of the Kingdom, and actually going out and doing it.
In application of Christian teachings to our everyday lives, the Catholics seem to be very good.
BUT IN REALITY
I started off Episcopal / Anglican, and found little to do as the Churches were really for over 80s. I guess I was unlucky, at the Anglican Church I went to the vicar suggested one practical thing I could do would be to mow the graveyard, which was really the wrong thing to suggest since I had recently read: 'let the dead bury their own dead', frankly the 90% of the church over 80 had plenty of time to mow grass.
NASB is very good for the New Testament while the Jerusalem Bible is among the best for the OT. Just read one which speaks to YOU.
Both the NIV and KJV are accurate Bibles, but people get hung up on 1611 English. I use both personally.
The verses you're listing are poetic in the description of God's creation as well. It helps to not take them over-literally. You do need to take the Bible literally, as in this prophet did exist, really say these things, and really do this miracle, and when it gives you a command, it really is God's command. But over-literal interpretation like the earth being a metal bowl or Solomon's wife's hair being a flock of goats just isn't what anyone needs to do, and it's not what conservative believers mean by "taking the Bible literally."
No offense intended - only humor - I just saw this and it made me think of this thread.
Sometimes things seem that way.
FWIW on the story of Noah, I don't think it corresponds to a particular real flood at all. It almost certainly has some roots in one or more real floods, via other people's flood stories most likely. But fundamentally it's not a piece of history, local or global. Its an answer in narrative form to the question "if God is so powerful, why doesn't he simply wipe out evil?"
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 (two very separate stories) say all sorts of exciting things about God and us that have nothing whatsover to do with the exact mechanics and chronology of creation.Hi ebia,
Thank you for your reply, it has been very interesting.
My problem with it is knowing where to stop, it seems applicable to any part of the Bible, for example:
Gen 1 and Gen 2 are there to contrast with what God really did, to show that although He could have done it in 6 days, how very much more patient God is than anyone could ever have imagined
Gen 1 v7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
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