Dave tagged me with
this Bible meme, and he asked for it, because I think I have about 50, and that's
after giving about 10 away recently (and I'm intending to find more good homes for a bunch more of them in the near future).
1. How many bibles are in your home?
At least 60, including at least 2 of my wife's and 49-50 of mine that I've accounted for, plus a few I no doubt haven't accounted for, as well as a few copies of the Town Church's NIV pew Bibles a a few copies of the Contemporary English Version that are in my office here in the parsonage, but really belong to the church.
2. What rooms are they in?
Mostly in my office, but a few in various rooms of the house, and a few in the garage, where last summer I unpacked many boxes of books that hadn't seen the light of day since we escaped from Indiana in 1998.
3. What translations do you have?
Here's a numerical breakdown of how many of each version I've accounted for - wish I could tell a few more stories about a few of them, but I'll give you a few highlights. Ones with an * have at least one copy with some or all of the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals.
WHOLE BIBLE IN ENGLISH:
New American Standard Bible 4
NIV 2
English Standard Version 1
Amplified Bible 1
NKJV 2
KJV 3
* Douay-Rheims 1
Revised Berkeley 1 (a sadly neglected, underrated version)
American Standard Version 1
Revised English Bible 1
* New American Bible 1
NRSV 1
* RSV 4
Living Bible 1
"The Message" 1 (the lady who bought it for me later felt a little apologetic when she actually read it & found it a bit lacking, an interesting bit of discernment considering she's a Christian scientist)
* "An American Translation" (Smith-Goodspeed) 1
New World Translation (Jehovah's Witnesses) 1 (in spite of the deliberate heretical mistranslations here & there, I'd have to say that overall it's still a better version than "The Message")
WHOLE BIBLE IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE:
* German Bible, Martin Luther's translation 1
Norwegian 1
* French "La Bible De Jerusalem" 1
* Spanish 1
GREEK NEW TESTAMENT:
UBS 4th edition - 1
Nestle-Aland 26th edition - 1
Hodges-Farstad "Majority Text" - 1
Textus Receptus (underlying KJV & NKJV - 1
Westcott-Hort 1
Greek-English interlinear published by the Watchtower in 1942 - 1
(a real find, it's probably the single best book the JWs ever published - and that's probably why they let it go out of print & into obscurity, because it's a little too easily used against them. Also a find because the Greek text, rather than being eclectic, is based squarely upon the 4th Century "B" manuscript, one of the chief witnesses for the "Alexandrian tradition")
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE & ANCIENT VERSION OLD TESTAMENTS:
Hebrew Bible, published in Great Britain 1
* Septuagint, Brenton's Greek-English edition 1
NEW TESTAMENTS OF VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS:
Malagasy New Testament 1
Japanese-English NT1
Wuest's Expanded Translation 1
KJV at least 1
4 Translation Parallel NT 1
Orthodox Study Bible NT (NKJV) 1
Latin NT (not the Vulgate, I think it was done by Beza or some other Calvinist) 1
"Today's English Version" NT - at least 2
A few Gideon NTs, mostly NKJV
4. Do you have a preference?
Hard to say - I might do a separate post on that question. I tend to use the NIV, ESV, NKJV, NASB, & Amplified the most, which for most people wouldn't be narrowing it down much.
5. Nominate an interesting verse:
"In that day the LORD will whistle for flies from the distant streams of Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria." Isaiah 7:18, NIV
Tagging
Lars & Phil again - you've graciously cooperated before, I promise you I won't hit you with another for awhile, at least. And an open tag for anyone else who wants to make a go at it.
As mentioned above, I'm trying to find good homes for many of these.
