There’s a lot of context to scripture that helps understanding what is going on. The pastor at my last church was really good at explaining the historical and cultural context behind what was just read.

Correct. The Bible is not a short or easy book to read. But it is remarkably compact nonetheless. The sheer amount of material packed into just the first 10 chapters of Genesis, for instance, is astonishing. The destruction of all life through the Flood happens in the space of barely four pages. Without the context, it is difficult to understand why the Bible says what it does – like I explained the other day with respect to the story of how the Lord slew Onan, and why.

I’ve found some bible study groups to be nearly useless, since they lack the deep knowledge and often take passages out of context.

Oh it gets a lot worse than that..

In a nutshell, he said of course these religions work. The demons enable you to do enough stuff until you’re hooked and renounce God. Which was what they wanted in the first place. The other concept was that demons could, and often do, quote the bible. They know it inside and out, having been around for most of it.

Exactly. The daemonic influence in those religions is absolutely pervasive and deep-rooted. Demons love to mislead people. They can twist and change the meaning of Scripture extremely easily – which is why there are so many false “Christian” preachers out there in the world today.

As far as I can tell, the only thing more dangerous than a false “Christian” preacher, is a New Age type. Those people actually have a compelling message that provides all of the validation and elevation of the Christian message – without any of the moral responsibilities, the acknowledgement of sin, the need for contrition and repentance, and the acceptance of one’s own broken nature. It’s downright lethal to a man’s (or, more likely, woman’s) soul to believe in that crap. I can think of almost no faster way to allow daemons into one’s life than to engage in New Age practices, short of outright inviting in those creatures.

ESV is fine if you can only have one, but it’s like a modern American house in the suburbs today. No significant drawbacks, nothing notable to make it memorable, and you might just be here because everyone else is doing it.

I find the ESV to be significantly “cleaner” and better than the NIV, and much less colloquial. It has, in my view, the right balance between readability and linguistic accuracy – though it does not do the Scriptures full justice. No translation can.

Is NASB not a common text outside of my bible belt texas evangelical background? I’m surprised its not on this list, it used to be MacArthurs bible.

I did mention it.

One translation I’ve been using for personal study daily for 3 years: The Hebrew Bible by Robert Altar.

Interesting. That is not one that I have heard of, but that is not in the least surprising, since I have a very poor understanding of the various translations. But it looks like that is a rather good one to use.

There’s a lot of context to scripture that helps understanding what is going on. The pastor at my last church was really good at explaining the historical and cultural context behind what was just read.

I’ve found some bible study groups to be nearly useless, since they lack the deep knowledge and often take passages out of context. Had a great argument with a Jehovah witness about the kingdom of God, and that if you read the passage before the one she was relying on, the context changed. Gotta read the whole chapter, not just one or two passages.

I’ve been reading some Seraphim Rose orthodox books, which I find fascinating. He ties a lot of concepts really well into scripture.

The one one new age/false religions was amazing. In a nutshell, he said of course these religions work. The demons enable you to do enough stuff until you’re hooked and renounce God. Which was what they wanted in the first place. The other concept was that demons could, and often do, quote the bible. They know it inside and out, having been around for most of it.

Reading that book you can absolutely see where demons would be foisting Islam on the world.

NET Bible is an incredible resource, the translator notes are pithy and useful in many places while reading. Good modern English too. The wisdom literature suffers gravely from a lack of poetry and meter in it though.

The Passion and the Message…I guess interesting commentary but not reliable.

Is NASB not a common text outside of my bible belt texas evangelical background? I’m surprised its not on this list, it used to be MacArthurs bible.

One translation I’ve been using for personal study daily for 3 years: The Hebrew Bible by Robert Altar.
I got to Altar through the Bible Project (add these guys, podcasts and youtube videos alike, to that list of serious scholars to learn alongside). He wrote a book in the 80’s call The Art of Biblical Narrative. As a high-level literary professor, he approached the Old Testament looking for the narrative threads that tie together disparate stories within the writings. An example is trying to integrate the tragedy of Judah and Tamar in Genesis with the rest of the patriarchal narrative. It’s completely out of place and a jarring and disturbing story to the western mind…but to the audience, it was written in, it signals a conclusion to many storylines and flags what to highlight through the rest of the book in the Joseph story…culminating as Judah moves out of deadbeat creep-hole mode and grows into the leader of men and self submitting servant before Joseph in Egypt, to then mark the final prophecy of Jacob/Israel in the conclusion.

Take this same with the high-level literary criticism skills, also add in his university char level Hebrew linguistic skills, and have him translate the Masoretic text, informed by the Septuagint, into English prose. But not the English of the Victorians nor the schlock of the moderns, but the English that sounds and meters and patterns as close as possible to the oral rendering of the Hebrew text. It is masterful. Then add in brief translation notes to highlight patterns, clarify ambiguity, and indicate gaps in the source text.

My introduction to his work was in the book of Psalms. I was reading the psalms in a month (5 per day x 30 days) for the year. I’d worked through ESV twice, NET once, NASB once, and I was starting on the NLT when I wanted something different. I found Altar had a book of the Psalms and subsequently spent the rest of the year in his work, shifting gears to one psalm per day through the rest of the year because I moved my study from thin soup to meaty ribs.

In a very real sense, his translation work is the apex comparison of one man’s translation work vs translation by committee that all other moderns do. The passion and the heat and the ache come through more strongly with Altar then any other text I’ve spent time with.