The ESV Church Bible is an affordable, practical choice for churches to use as part of their weekly worship services or outreach, featuring all-new typesetting, a durable cover, woodfree paper, and a sewn binding.
Whether you're a believer, a collector, or just need something heavy to keep the door open.
CamelCamelCamel.
Jesus saves (using Prime) but Moses invests
Proof that Jesus is the prime mover?
The One is a prime number..
In the US religion is via cloud. Don't stick to hardware. Then you can virtualise any religion as the times change or just choose the AI version (Agnost I c ;)
OMG!
Genuine question, does anyone have opinions on the ESV translation? I’m only really familiar with KJV.
ESV is my preferred translation, having read NIV, KJV, NKJV, NASB and NLT. I find it's a formal equivalent translation that's still not too difficult to understand, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for first time readers (probably NIV or NLT).
Some of the translations I believe bring out a richness and depth that is absent from the NIV, which my current and previous churches use.
Thanks, appreciate your answer!
I'm with you rail! see who gets more red!
i like how there's only downvotes instead of any attempt at discourse. biblical/christian studies are real courses provided by australian universities.
@xrailgun: He shared it as his personal opinion/ subjective experience. I don't think your comment is worthwhile basis to 'discourse' over.
@The Wololo Wombat: why do you seem to think people's personal opinions/subjective experiences are above discourse? literal majority of arts studies (including theology) is centered around discourse over them.
@xrailgun: They are for sure, but, when some say why they had a good experience with a brand of mower or style of shoe on this website for bargains, their opinion is not subjected to the same demands for scrutiny as your comment asks for.
Nothing wrong with an interpretation of historic fiction bringing out richness and depth.
I would be very interested to see how accurately the bible is translated from the original Aramaic, Hebrew & Greek all the way to present day English.
I want to see it from Aramaic, Hebrew & Greek, then to Chinese to Russian, and then to English. Might change the whole storyline!
@NigelTufnel: Earlist New Testament manuscript we have is ad130, then theres almost 6,000 greek manuscripts for the NT and around 300 hebrew for the OT. Id say its pretty damn close in terms of translation.
@NigelTufnel: Can you read Aramaic and Greek?
If not then how could you ascertain how accurate the translation process was? There are concordances you can refer to where you can compare the original languages to your preferred modern language if you wanted to. And there are nuances of ANY language that don't translate precisely into a word in another language so in some cases translators just get as close as they can when trying to convey the meaning of the original. Also, there seems to be this idea amongst a lot of people that God dictated the Bible to the various authors and they simply wrote it down verbatim and therefore if they can find any seeming discrepancy in the text then they can dismiss the whole thing. If that's the case here then you've totally missed the point. :)
@EightImmortals: It's unlikely they are going to suddenly become wildly talented classical scholars.
@EightImmortals: I think you'll find it was all just "made up". So the quality of the translation is irrelevant.
@Micsmit: Phew thanks for that revelation, finally after 2000 years someone has had the brilliance to see through it all. I'll call his Popeness and let him know right away.
@EightImmortals: No need. He already knows lol.
And he has all the gold of the Roman empire under his feet, to remind him every day.
In the case of the new testament, it is believed by scholars to have been reasonably well preserved.
The real question is how much the stories changed over decades of being passed down by mouth before they were written. St Paul and the (anonymous) gospel authors never met Jesus.
@bargaino: Yes, that’s fair. I’m not saying it’s incorrect or correct, just curious. I am not religious but am still interested in the bible as a historical text.
@kiriakoz: There are a lot of scholars, a lot of religious types and a large handful of obsessives who have poured over your question for centuries. and a literal translation isnt always the best anyway for example
@bargaino: According to Paul, his experience on the road to Damascus counted as meeting with Jesus. Both Matthew & John were disciples of Jesus thus have met Jesus personally. Luke & Mark were friends / apprentice of Paul & Peter.
Yes there are decades between the actual gospel event and the first discovered manuscript, however the gap is still considered much shorter than many historical books that people take as facts these days. I guess it's up to those doing textual analysis to work out how accurate they are to the original.
@scotty: In terms of historical reliability of the current day Bible being accurately translated from the original writings 2000+ years ago, it’s second to none. We have over 5800 Greek manuscripts from all over the Roman Empire that date within a couple of hundred years of Jesus’ life. There are minimal, grammatical differences in translation between texts, which is remarkable.
Compare that to all other historical people and events of a similar age, there is no doubt that what we read in the Bible today was just as it was written 2000 odd years ago.
The more important question is whether what was written back then is true or not. Did Jesus actually rise from the dead?
@scotty: While tradition has it that the first gospel, Mark, was written by Mark the Evangelist, the gospel itself contains no claim of authorship. Most scholars believe it was written around 70AD in Syria by non-Jews who did not speak Aramaic. Matthew and Luke gospels came somewhat later, partly derived from Mark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark#Authorship_and_…
@bargaino: Not much, I'm not sure the myth of oral transmission is an accurate description of how the message was passed on. Out of the 4 gospels only Luke was not an eyewitness to the events, he got his information from the other disciples. And Paul of course had his Damascus road event but it was about 12 years or so before he caught up with Peter to see if what he was teaching was in accord with what Jesus taught. Most of the NT (except for Revelation) was probably written before 70AD, well within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses. One huge bit of evidence is the lack of any mention of the destruction of Jerusalem and temple by the Romans in 70AD. If you know anything about Israel back then you;d know that the temple was everything to those guys. And there's no way the gospel writers would miss an opportunity to point out Jesus prediction that the temple would soon be destroyed. So there's that, and a few other reasons which I forget. Last I checked they even had fragments of creeds testifying to the resurrection that are dated to within 6-7 years of the event.
It's all very interesting when you look into the actual details instead of the urban myths or the outright lies spouted by the haters.
@bargaino: There is no actual proof that a human let alone a half god/human named Jesus ever existed.
See how well Amazon translates very simple reviews to get an idea of translation 'accuracy'.
I don't know how you can read the ESV, NIV etc… with all it's missing verses, and something that's copyright
What about NASB
congrats you are so smart and clever
The real importance of these books is not in understanding bronze-age culture in the Levant, but in the influence they have had on the modern world. Also, there are so many cultural references to the bible.
Any educated person in the modern world should have some familiarity with both the bible and Shakespeare. And to a lesser extent early Simpsons or Seinfeld, to understand modern English idioms.
Read Torah and Quran too then
@DrScavenger: Torah is part of the bible. And Quran is certainly relevant if you wish to study Middle Eastern culture.
@bargaino: Torah influenced Bible and Quran. Bible influenced Quran. They all influenced our modern world.
@DrScavenger: If I recall correctly the old testament is just the books of the Torah, rearranged to better support the coming of Jesus. That's why the Jews are still waiting for the messiah.
@us3rnam3tak3n: The Torah is the first five books of the Bible. The OT has 39 books in total.
But yes, the Jews are still waiting for the Messiah (ie Christ / God’s anointed one)
@SirFrankGrimes: Thanks for the clarification.
Edit: are the other books contained within the Tanakh and Talmud?
@us3rnam3tak3n: The Tanakh is the Jewish bible. Equivalent to the Old Testament.
The Talmud is a discussion about the Jewish laws and rituals, which began being written down in the 3rd Century
And to a lesser extent early Simpsons or Seinfeld, to understand modern English idioms.
Its not either Simpsons or Seinfeld, is both.
"Arab" Jews? Seeing as Arabs, as an ethnic group, originating from the Arabian Peninsula, did not reach the Levant and surrounding regions until after the rise of Islam in the 7th century CE during the Islamic conquests, "Arab" Jews is not the correct terminology to use.
https://www.science.org/content/article/jews-and-arabs-share…
More than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men whose DNA was studied inherited their Y chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years.
@ austriabargain
As an indoctrinated catholic who started independent thought after escaping the religious schooling system…. and becoming an atheist… I find it incredibly puzzling how "modern" man looks to this stuff for guidance on how to live a modern life. I mean, it doesn't take much scratching on the veneer of history so readily available from youtube to anywhere else to see how much people and civilisation have changed over the last say one hundred and fifty years, let alone thousands.
Apart from mankind and society values having changed so much since stuff was written, religion has been the cause of so much conflict and suffering through history, rather than the supposed beneficial teachings that the missionary concept highlights when dealing with indigenous societies. Personally I reckon catholicism is tyrannical, and I haven't had the urge to immerse myself much in other religions.
Sometimes conflict between different religious groups is more about external factors having nothing to do with religion…. I'd perhaps naively use the long conflict in northern ireland between catholics and protestants… where the differences were basically between the "native" irish, and the "imported" english and scots as a result of england's conquests. Something like the overlord victors and the vanquished undermensch…. but many times differing religious beliefs are at the heart of the conflict.
With so many people in the world, and so many religious people convinced that theirs is the only true god….. there's a clear logical failure. If there is only one god, but all the believers argue who that god is…. the nonsense can be seen with logical clarity.
I believe that some eastern beliefs help people to become less imperfect through meditation and the like….. stilling random thoughts and being more at peace… but I'm certainly not talking about the the head snapping self hypnosis of some of the more "out there" wailing, self flagellation etc. I reckon there's a lot of nutters out there working hard to be crazier!
Curiously, the higher level "facilitators" of organised religion seem to be driven by the desire for power or money…. or both. How can the incredible wealth of the catholic church, for example, be seen as consistent with kind benevolent values and care for fellow man. Sadly there is long history of some of the lower level faciliators of organised religion being driven by various perversions that cause immense harm…. whether you consider the spanish inquisition, or rampant pedophilia that has been recently exposed, but probably has existed far back in history.
Some folks can and obviously will defend the benefit of old texts to modern man…. but I'll just refer to Ezekiel 23:20, which curiously I recently discovered in an ozbargain post. How can any sane person read that and say….yeah, we need that to understand how we should behave in our modern society.
So your puzzled how modern man looks to this stuff for guidance? There's probably more scientific evidence for God than there ever has been. We literally have billions of lines of code in every cell of our body with incredible communication / backup and restore systems. And mathematically there just isn't enough time for that simply to 'evolve' into being. That strongly suggests an intelligence behind the design. And Jesus was real…there's enough historical evidence for that. The only question you need to answer for yourself is if He is who He said He was. Do your own research and don't let the failings of 'structural' religion get you down…why should that stop you from seeking the truth.
@nutella9: So you do a bit of the ole ezeckiel do you? In between stonings and all the begatting?
You seem to have mixed up….there is no scientific evidence of a higher being…. to there being lots of it.
It's all about faith… believing something that there's no proof for.
Scientists form hypothesis based on observations and deductions… the real scientists that is. Do you know some faith scientists?
There's probably more scientific evidence for God than there ever has been.
Keen for at least one, that passes the actual bar of 'scientific evidence '
And mathematically there just isn't enough time for that simply to 'evolve' into being
Based on what time scale?
All well and good to have faith, but if you have to make up 'facts' to justify or prove it, then perhaps you need to work a bit more on the faith part.
@SBOB: https://youtu.be/rXexaVsvhCM?si=hJxEUwB6NdVGTuRj
How about an Oxford Mathematics Professor to clear things up a bit?
How about an Oxford Mathematics Professor to clear things up a bit?
No, not really.
While their propositions are raised well, they are debating a theory that is unfalsifiable.
They use the current edge of what's known and therefore apply the 'must have been God' to fill in the gaps. The same kind of 'proof' that has been used for centuries, just the goal posts keep moving as our scientific understanding of the universe continues to grow.
Again, it's called faith. Stick to the faith part, as if you need made up facts to justify it then it's not faith.
There's probably more scientific evidence for God than there ever has been.
Oh really? I watch the 6o'clock news every night and haven't heard anything about it.
@nutella9: I was just taking a crap (where I do a lot of good thinking)…. and have to ask you to clarify your thinking for me on a couple of questions
This creationist concept…. the one with all the scientific evidence to back it up, and prove evolution is a devilish deception… How do your faith scientists wrap into the narrative that fossils… real tangible evidence of lifeforms… cover a span of time slightly longer than 7 days?
Ole noah (the crazy fella down the valley who built that ark)…. did he have any assistance with animal control folks…. to travel the world to find all those species, to transport them to his valley, to hold them securely (how many million species of insects are there? Think of all the tupperware or glass sample jars to hold them! And how big was his ark again?…. to hold all those animals, and sufficient sacrificial animals to feed all the carnivores, and vegetable matter to feed the herbivores…
And when ole noah finally parked the ark, and let all those critters off two by two…. what did the carnivores eat?
I'm not big on bible lore… just as the penguins and men in dresses that indoctrinated me a a young'un… is there anything in the bible about the dangers of inbreeding from doing your begatting to close to home? You'd think noah, if his role was so important in the grand plan, would be aware of critical population levels in species…. how if numbers fall too low, then the close begatting pool starts to begat unicorns with two heads and horns, and all manners of non viable offspring that fall out of the gene pool. I think the scientists (the real ones) call it MVP….minimum viable population that can survive the dilemnas of inbreeding.
I'm really interested if you can wrap science and religion together here. If you can, you'd be highly sought after by those deep southern regions of the US that are trying hard to restrict their schools to creationist teachings and bash evolution right back into the devil's bin where it belongs.
They'd probably pay you incredibly well, as well as guaranteed extra privileges in the afterlife.
Although thinking about it…. if they failed to deliver on the afterlife benefits… I don't think there'd be any grounds for recourse. ahem.
@rooster7777: Haha, well I discern 2 serious questions in your text:) One the fact that evolution works isn't in dispute. However there are gaps. It doesn't explain the existence of 'systems' where you have multiple disparate pieces that need each other to work. Slow incremental change cannot invent a whole new way of operating. And the fossil record doesn't show the necessary 'precursor' species to explain the sheer variety of different life forms in the cambrian explosion. There just isn't enough time for that to be mathematically possible through evolution.
And Noah, yeah he built a boat, there was a flood, quite likely a great flood. And no I don't believe he literally had every single species on board. There were fish who were quite happy in a flood:). There's a difference between poetry and science. Poetry can have deeper truths even when telling a story that isn't literally true.
@nutella9: Ahh… so the religious nutters of the deep south trying to ban teaching evolution are…. "not entirely credible" in your eyes?
And noah existed, built a boat, sailed around in a flood, had lots of species onboard but no fish because he knew fish could swim in a flood. The lots of species being every species in existence on the world, except critters that could swim and survive in floodwaters for a longggg time.
Are you saying the religious teachings are poetry? Deeper truths when telling a story that isn't true?
So are you saying the old religious stuffs are actually a collection of parables… just fictional stories to get across some message? The water and wine and loaves and fishes and parting the waters aren't true, but telling us to be generous, and help people in danger? That would be an interpretation of the old written stuff I could agree with.
It's strange how that stuff I just plucked out came back in my memory from long ago penguin teachings. It's funny, but they never talked about stoning and run of the mill crucifiction stuff that I recall… it was all very reverent glowing examples about miracles demonstrating power to help people. Does that mean moses never actually parted the red sea, but just knew where the local version of dogger bank was located?
@nutella9: When there are gaps in scientific knowledge it does not mean you are free to fill them with whatever nonsense you can twist to fit your strange narrative. Those gaps are surrounded by sturdy knowledge and evidence, does what you fill them with meet the same criteria?
@nutella9: The logic here seems to be 'this thing is complex and can't fully be explained, therefore this is the only possible explanation for it'. I'm not sure which logical fallacy that is, but it's one of them.
@nutella9: Your explanation for how such complex beings can come into existence is that an even more complex being created them.
That is not solving the problem of complexity, it's making it worse.
Also, why do you only need to ask questions about the God of the culture that you happened to have been born into, and your parents/schooling told you was true? What about the thousands of other Gods that humans have written about?
Your explanation for how such complex beings can come into existence is that an even more complex being created them.
Its turtles all the way down….
@SBOB: It's actually 4 elephants standing on the back of a celestial turtle, and our flat world rests atop it.
@nutella9: You are wrong about everything here.
The world is billions of years old not 10,000. Plenty of time for evolution.
If Jesus was real he wasnt very original seeing he ripped off his main traits from Mithras https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSm7YPMQOSo
Womp Womp
@Cliffy93: Care to elaborate? I think of a large chap on the infamous blokesworld running about trying to scare the natives, but I suspect you meant something else.
As an indoctrinated catholic who started independent thought after escaping the religious schooling system….
Is this a real “I went to Catholic school” in the wild? Surely you’re just having us on?
@CommuterPolluter: Que? I'm not sure what you mean, but I'm not having you on, and I mean
"indoctrinated" - exposed to deeply controversial beliefs at a very young and naive age, not encourage or permitted to discuss the possibility that the belief system was wrong.
"escaping the religious schooling system" being permitted by my parents to no longer attend a catholic school, and to finish off my education at a state school, run as a system not teaching or indoctrinating any religious beliefs, but teaching about tangible or theoretical sciences like physics, chemistry, biology etc.
"started independent thought" being the opposite of indoctrination… thinking rationally about matters rather than blindly accepting concepts without rational assessment of their validity.
I'm puzzled how you come to ask the question "surely you're having us on". Are you surprised that someone being exposed to catholic beliefs from infancy could fall from the path to heaven? ahem.
@CommuterPolluter: I think I wasted my explanation on you, didn't I. Sometimes it can be hard to spot the difference between a credible comment, and a passer bye playing shove the stick in the lion's/bulls/donkey's arse.
At least with a keyboard I didn't waste any ink.
It's a very literal translation, as in it tends to translate word for word from Greek or Hebrew to English, where other translations will do the same but put more weight on how best to express the original authors message and intent using contemporary English. Personally I prefer the NIV, but the ESV is very well regarded.
Bible versions can differ significantly, for a bunch of reasons. This youtube video from ReligionForBreakfast gives a great background on some of the differences and reasons why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApTF7nwae24
Personally I prefer RSV. It’s also good to have the full Bible, this is probably only 66/73 of the books. Ultimately, though, the best Bible translation is the one that you read. For $10 why not just give it a shot?
I'll go for whichever version gets the translation of the word for young woman correct (ie. not 'virgin'.)
Well spotted, but that's only present in the Masoretic text Hebrew that was written hundreds of years after Jesus, likely by Jewish scribes that were not fond of Christianity.
The oldest copy of the Old Testament available, where the prophecy regarding a virgin birth is written, is the Septuagint, written in Greek around 200-300 years before Jesus, translated from Paleo-Hebrew by unbiased Jewish scribes that had no reason yet for tempering verses.
ESV was the favourite among modern reformed crew, but I think is slowly changing to the CSB.
https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/why-ive-mostly-…
https://www.christianitytoday.com/2023/08/christian-standard…
Unless you believe KJV is written by a prophet as some do, it's one of the worst editions available today. Really great for its time, but the ESV benefits from more scholarship. I think NIV might be the better one to keep around as a religious item for the occasional read - it's more readable.
I wouldn't worry too much about translation.
There are a bunch of sites that will load up the same passage across versions and you can read the whole thing that way if you want.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/matthew/10-38-compare.html
You can get the same in app form, and have that open as you read (just scroll through the catch up at the end of a page).
Firstly there's several manuscripts to translate from. KJV was done from Latin to English, which means there's extra translation "steps". The book of Malachi, for example, would go from Aramaic, possibly to ancient Greek, then to Latin, then to English. The KJV is known for having very poetic, beautiful language, but suffers from multi-translation in some areas (if you want an example of how that's an issue, change a sentence in English to Chinese, then Ghanian, then Hindi, then back to English).
As we have discovered more manuscripts, and been able to compare different ones, we have improved our confidence in what manuscripts are most accurate. For example, John 7:53-8:11 is agreed upon by scholars to not be in the original book of John.
The ESV, along with other well circulated modern translations such as the NIV, NASB and CSB, use the most accurate manuscripts possible. The ESV is different from the others in that it serves to make a meaning-for-meaning translation, and follow the syntax of the original language, even if it makes the sentences clunky or some similes or metaphors don't work without context. This means the ESV is very accurate (about as close a layman can get to reading Ancient Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek) at the expense of making it easy to understand.
Masoretic + Critic text… I wouldn't call it accurate, in my collection of Bibles those are in the "better than nothing" category. If you want accuracy you will read the Septuagint as did Jesus and His disciples for the OT, and textus receptus for the New Testament.
Well you know unfortunately I don't know ancient Greek or Latin
@Papa Huggies: there are great Septuagint > English translations, like the Lexham or the NETS. As for the NT, the NKJV is a great textus receptus source.
find it odd premium bibles use goat leather
Goat skin is for sacrafying.
is sacrafying a religious rite or a spelling wrong?
typo
If true that’s sinister
There's a story behind that. When the two Corinthians came to the town of Bethany on their donkeys, they where unexpectedly greeted by a local troll called Goldmann. While trying to cross the bridge the Jewish troll intially demanded money as the toll to cross the bridge. The two Corinthians said they had no means of paying and they desperately needed to cross to eat from the famous fig tree. The troll then negotiated them down to just one Billy Goat Gruff. They agreed to the terms and found him a huge goat. Then, on Tuesday the troll was caught unawares, and was mowed down by the massive goat. As Goldmann plunging 50 cubits into the sea of Galilee he shook his fist as hard as he could in an act of disapproval. The two Corinthians then found Goldmann's Sacks, where inside each sack was countless money. They sought guidance from their lord and he inspired them to use the money in the Sacks to print many bibles and to bind them in the skin of a goat in memory of Billy Goat Gruff's heroics actions in Bethany.
Edit: for those negging because they know that the Sea of Galilee is no where near the town of Bethany, yes this this true. But it just shows the strength of the Goat. Let's explore this further. "He fell 50 cubits", this is referring to the vertical distance he fell, not the horizontal translation towards the sea.
I'm impressed! I thought it was just the freemasons that had a thing about goats.
That's the start of chapter 7 of the Goblet of Fire.
i thought you can always go to a church and ask for a bible for free…
That's even cheaper.
The real deal is always on the comments!
Every motel I've stayed in seems to give them away with the towels and shampoo.
Giddeons' biblical publications
Shampoo yes, towels and bible no.
Try the church of scientology, wild times.
Jesus, that's cheap!