Reddit mentions of HarperCollins Study Bible - Student Edition: Fully Revised & Updated

No translation can be perfect, and scholarly works dealing with biblical texts will often adapt their chosen translation as needed, if not translate everything afresh. That said, most experts consider the New Revised Standard Version to be the most accurate translation overall. The New Oxford Annotated Bible and the HarperCollins Study Bible augment this translation with excellent notes and introductions based on the latest scholarship.

Another translation of similar high quality, though often overlooked, is the New American Bible, Revised Edition. All editions of this translation include the same notes (which the copyright holder will not allow to be omitted), including online versions.

If the meaning of a particular verse is in question, it may be helpful to consult the New English Translation (NET) Bible, which features extensive, detailed notes explaining the translators' choices, with references to relevant scholarly literature.

A word of caution about one highly popular translation: the New International Version contains numerous highly questionable translation choices with no basis in the text in order to smooth over difficulties for Evangelical doctrine. My favourite example, until it was taken out in a recent revision, was the verse where Jesus calls the mustard grain "the smallest of all seeds," which the NIV rendered "the smallest of all your seeds" to make Jesus imply that he knows better due to divine knowledge of botany. Others would include the softening of a comparison between man and other animals in Ecclesiastes 3:18, presumably to exorcise the spectre of Darwinism; 2 Samuel 21:19 and 1 Kings 4:26 are quietly made to match up with other parts of the Bible; and the terrible prospect of salvation after death is eliminated from 1 Peter 4:6 with language that makes clear that when the author wrote that the gospel was preached "even to the dead," he really meant that even some people who are now dead heard the gospel while they were alive. There's a lot of subtle monkey business with the vocabulary to preempt non-Evangelical interpretations. The same Greek word is correctly translated "tradition" wherever it appears in a negative context, but "teaching" wherever it appears in a positive context. Similarly, the doctrine of justification by faith alone is shored up by translating the same word "works" wherever it appears in a negative context and "deeds" wherever it appears in a positive context. Many more examples could be cited.

Harper Collins Study Bible. NRSV translation with lots of explanatory notes. It's the Bible many college students buy for classes on the Bible as literature, or for gen ed courses on the Bible.

http://www.amazon.com/HarperCollins-Study-Bible-Student-Edition/dp/0060786841

Welcome! We’re glad you’re here as well. It’s a great community, and I’ve grown so much from it. And I’m so glad folks in your new church are so friendly!

In terms of resources, I’d definitely encourage you to check out the Resources page over in /r/OpenChristian. Reading the Bible is tough, but there are ways to make it a little easier. I’d recommend an academic study Bible, like the Harper Collins Study Bible or the Oxford Annotated Study Bible, which have notes to contextualize and explain confusing concepts. (Be wary of some study bibles, because lots of them just promote fundamentalism under the guise of scholarship.) My suggestion on where is start is the Gospel of Mark, which is the oldest story of Jesus that we have in the Bible, and it is short, just about the length of a short story. If you try to read from front to back, it’s easy to get bored or lose track. Most Bible reading plans actually recommend jumping around!

I’ll highlight a couple resources from that list that you might like. If you’re interested in queer readings of the Bible, QueerTheology.com has a weekly podcast that’s just like 7 minutes long, which is a good place to get introduced to some techniques for reading the Bible as an LGBTQ person.

Two books that might interest you are Jennifer Knapp’s Facing the Music and Vicky Beeching’s Undivided, which are memoirs from lesbian Christians who were in the Christian music scene and subsequently came out.

If you have any more questions or want any more recommendations, feel free to ask or PM me! Peace!

I'd recommend a good study Bible, something like http://www.amazon.com/HarperCollins-Study-Bible-Student-Revised/dp/0060786841/ or http://www.amazon.com/NIV-Study-Bible-Zondervan/dp/0310437334
The notes, introductions and explanations will go a long way towards helping you understand what you're reading, especially the Old Testament, which can be quite daunting!

I like John as the first gospel to read. It's the most theological of the gospels, but gives a good overview Christianity. Each of the gospels tell the story of Jesus from a different perspective and with a difference emphasis.

Don't feel overwhelmed or like you have to absorb it all at once. It's a long journey and the joys are often found on the way rather than in reaching an end.

I love alternate translations. I think many provide really nice insights that give a different feeling/meaning than the KJV. The only place I really use my KJV is at church.

My NRSV Study Bible is my english Bible of choice.

There are some great Hebrew OT translations that I love as well. And for the NT, I love reading my Greek NT.

Ultimately, I think alternate translations can end up helping us understand and gain new perspectives on scripture. While the KJV was a great translation at the time, newer translations are certainly easier to understand, and they are also based on better, and more, primary manuscripts which help boost accuracy to the original text.

That depends on what you are academically studying.

If you are studying the text, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) holds close to the original Greek New Testament.

The standard English translation used for academic study is the NRSV, in particular, the Oxford Annotated Bible and Harper Collins is widely used in major universities. It has the great advantage of being ecumenical, translated by people with a wide variety of theological viewpoints, rather than sectarian translations like the New World or NIV Bibles; and of being modern and thus based on a pretty up-to-date set of manuscript traditions, where the KJV (for example) suffers simply because the translators had less to go on.

Also, check out:

The Jewish Study Bible

Jewish Annotated New Testament

I would recommend, however, that if you want to academically study the Bible, you need a Greek New Testament and a Hebrew Old Testament, a Greek Lexicon and Grammar, a Hebrew Lexicon and Grammar, and several years of study.

subreddit posts on Bible versions/ translations:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/b0d0ac/probably_ask_before_but_what_is_the_best_version/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/3vtige/which_translation_should_i_read_for_cultural_and/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/8ovjr7/which_translations_of_the_bible_are_considered_to/

List of essential commentaries for each book of the Hebrew Bible:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/9p7ois/what_are_some_of_the_more_academic_bible/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/8myk8y/the_most_essential_commentary_for_each_book_of/

approachable resources for lay people on biblical scholarship and reading Recommendations for newbies:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/d21gz4/is_there_an_academic_bible_equivalent_of_the_book/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/c1c4ll/reading_recommendations_for_newbies_to_gospel/

Definitely NRSV. You might want a Study Bible, which has annotations that explain most passages, as well as intros that explain each book/group of books. I'd go with the New Oxford Annotated Bible or the HarperCollins Study Bible (the non-Student one has a concordance, but you have to get it through one of those Amazon third parties).

I would go for an NRSV with a good notes.

Two options:

http://www.amazon.com/HarperCollins-Study-Bible-Student-Revised/dp/0060786841/ref=pd_sim_b_6

http://www.amazon.com/New-Oxford-Annotated-Bible-Apocrypha/dp/0195289552/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323661132&sr=1-2

Get yourself a study bible, like the HarperCollins Study Bible or a Bible commentary like Eerdmans and find the Isaiah chapters in those. Isaiah makes a lot more sense when you put him in his proper context and stop trying to read prophesies of our day into it. Also, be sure to familiarize yourself with the Deutero-Isaiah therory.

You might also be interested in reading through the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), as well. While the King James (KJ) has merit as a milestone in English literature, the NRSV will give you many more notes on translation, original meaning, and the history of interpretation from scholars at the top of the field of Biblical Criticism.

If you can, find someone else's copy of this to borrow, and see how you feel about it.

https://www.amazon.com/HarperCollins-Study-Bible-Student-Revised/dp/0060786841

Get yourself one of these.

That's an interesting point. I shouldn't have said he was always in heaven. But he was always welcome there, for he was a divine being among God's council. Also, you have to be careful when trying to read translations written recently/written by believers (by which I mean a lot of scribes, over the years, have "cleaned" stuff up or altered stuff slightly to suit their needs (a good example is when they changed "sons of El [Canaanite God]" to "sons of Israel" in order to erase the memory of Israelites' polytheistic/henotheistic origins. I can't remember which passage they specifically changed.) They can often stray from the source text. I just googled the passage you mentioned to quickly see and was surprised to see it straight up call him Satan. In my translations, which are for scholarly purposes, he is called ha'Satan.

Check these out if you're curious.

Tanakh as translated by the Jewish Publication Society. Quite good. I believe translated directly from the oldest manuscripts available of each text.

Harper Collins Study Bible. This is a great one. Not a typical "study bible" that you may be used to seeing. This is for academic studies. It also has some great essays and explanations of stuff. Very, very nice text.

I have gotten a lot out of this kind of information from the HarperCollins Study Bible. If you follow its footnotes throughout Esther, for example, the editors constantly point out to you why the story probably isn't an actual historical account. The footnotes in Genesis explain all the different text sources (Priestly, Yahwist, Elohist). I haven't perused Exodus yet, but I'd put my money on a good honest historical contextualization.

This is the book I'm talking about. I can't recommend it highly enough.

>I stated verses from a translation you approved of

You're right! I suggested that one because it's the academic translation. And for the academic study Bible there's two: New Oxford Annotated Bible and The HarperCollins Study Bible. They both contain excellent articles describing the contexts of each book and footnotes to show variable readings or other relevant information (like in the book of Revelation for Nero and such). They're both around $30ish dollars, so not too expensive for scholary books. If you have any questions about the bible or anything related, I suggest /r/academicbiblical. They're a great source!

>Can you see how that would be frustrating?

I can! I just suggested a translation that most of academia uses. There's a few things to remember: that when a committee translates a Bible (like NRSV) they all have to come to a baseline agreement about how to translate a given text. Secondly, there's two "schools" of thought in translation. Thirdly, English translations should only be used as guidelines and not the end-all-be-all. That's why papers reference the original Greek or Hebrew and usually offer up own translations.

>The interaction I've had with Christians... lead me to believe .... Christians believe in Hell.

They should, at least all orthodox believers. They claim it in the creeds "He descended to the dead." I'm trying to not "true Scotsman" - it's just literally in the creeds all Christians profess.

>Thank you for a civil conversation/debate thus far...

No problem! I enjoy it. And thank you too. You're an awesome person :)

Hmmm, there aren't many non devotional bible study books. I don't know if you know who Bart Ehrman is but he's one of the leading Biblical scholars so I'd check out some of his books. He also recommends reading the Gospels "horizantally" ie reading the same story in each gospel (the Crucifixion, the Nativity story) to compare the differences and similarities. I would also recommend getting a study Bible. I have the Harpercollins NRSV (http://www.amazon.com/HarperCollins-Study-Bible-Student-Edition/dp/0060786841/ref=pd_sim_b_1) which is about half biblical text and half notes (historical context, translation notes, etc). I love it.

Good luck and I hope you are able to find a good study plan.