Which Bible is better??

Question

hello, i'm a new Christian sorta and i was looking to buy a study Bible, i have it narrowed down to 2 but one version costs $20 more than the other, and i dont know why. What is teh cause of the $20 price difference? or is ther no difference at all?
Here are the links:
$89.99
http://zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/ProductDetail.htm?ProdID=com.zondervan.9780310930365&QueryStringSite=Zondervan

$69.99
http://zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/ProductDetail.htm?ProdID=com.zondervan.9780310929574&QueryStringSite=Zondervan

Answer 1

anything but NIV... unless you want watery mess... personally i think the amplified is a great tool... and i use a thompson chain reference for studying.

Answer 2

Whatever Bible you choose, read it!

Now, on the versions, there is a lot of hype. I use NIV, NASB, NKJV and others regularly in my studies. Guess what, they all basically say the same thing.

The best "literal" translation, word for word, is the NASB. The best, most readable is the NIV which is more of a thought for throught translation. The NKJV is much inproved over the KJV, which despite some opinions, is actually a relatively poor translation.

You will hear all kinds of arguments that the KJV is the ONLY acceptable Bible version. This is nonsense. Most take the English translated KJV as "inspired" when in reality only the original Greek/Hebrew was inspired by God. All English versions are then translations from that. The only question, is which source documents do you use (which differ alittle). For all the complaints of the KJV folks, the NIV notes difference is the manuscripts that the KJV only folks complain about. Don't get caught up in that.

Avoid the TNIV, a politically correct version of the NIV. Avoid the RSV, which is bent on reformed theology. I don't use the Amplified, don't like all the words added. And AVOID The Message completely. It is not a translation of the Greek/Hebrew at all! Even though it is listed as such.

Stick with the NIV, NASB, or NKJV. And then commit to actually reading it!

Grow in grace and knowldege of Him!

Answer 3

It looks like the main difference is font size. The larger print means a larger bible and a larger price tag!

There is nothing wrong with buying a nice Bible if you want one. It is hopefully a Book that you will read a lot and have with you for many years. I would recommend finding a binding style you like and then picking a good, mainstream translation that you like. I personally do not care for the NIV, but I think it is an OK translation that is not as bad as some above me have made it sound. I prefer the New King James Version or the New American Standard Version and have found them to be better translations than the NIV. (Focus on the Family includes both the NKJV and the NASB in their list of recommended "literal" translations.) Whatever you do, please beware not to get a false translation or manipulated text like the New World Translation. Translations like that are done by various cults for the furthering of their cause.

Answer 4

The version that you want should be one that goes back to the original texts (Hebrew Aramic or greek). The KJV was written off a Latin translation. I would recommend English Standard Version (ESV) or New American Standard Bible (NASB). Both these transaltion are taken from the original languages. And are extremely accurate. The ESV flows a little better and therefore maybe slightly easier to understand. But read the same chapter ineach and see which one makes more sense. Another thing to consider is a study Bible. This may help you when you read something and it is confusing. Usually they have references to what the culture was or insight in to the passage.

Answer 5

The NIV Study Bible is very good. I had one myself and used it for many years. I recently found a new easier to understand translation called the Contemporary English Version. Its written is more modern english language than the NIV. The NIV is used in Churches so that is probably a good one to buy, But if you get confused and frustrated, go buy a CEV Bible. I paid less than 40 dollars for a soft cover version and it made it a lot easier to understand. It doesn't have the notes that the NIV Study bible has so that is a drawback. Good luck, any Bible that you read is a good bible.

Answer 6

Neither of them. I strongly reccomend a King James Bible. If that's too dificult, try a New King James Bible (less old words). The King James bible is the most accurate book close to the Word of God. The NIV is missing so much from the Word. Just go with a NKJ. You might actually have all the verses or something.

Answer 7

Hi There,
I'm not a big fan of NIV version of the bible. They took out a lot of verses from there. The best one so far is New King James version. But if you're a new christian, it's better to get a study bible, that has a lot of Q&A sections and a lot of foot notes, so you're sure not to take the verses out of context.
Here's so option, MacArthur Study Bible consider the best by a lot of pastors and there's Evidence Bible (you can get at at www.livingwaters.com).

Hope this answered your questions. God Bless

Answer 8

The King James Bible is the one for english speaking people.
The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver
tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou
shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve
them from this generation for ever. (Psalm 12:6-7)
Your decision:
You must decide whether or not you believe God has kept this promise.
Did He preserve His Word throughout the generations? Or did He not?
That decision will lead you to one of two Bible texts.
Here's why:

You believe God preserved His Word
If God kept His promise, then what we need to do is simple. Have archaeologists find all the copies and pieces of copies they can find that have survived from ancient times. If God kept his promise, copying errors will not have polluted the text. Instead, when we compare the copies from churches all over the ancient world, we will find that they agree, that they all had basically the same text. If we occasionally find a copy that does not match the others, we will throw it out, knowing that it was made by a sloppy copyist.

This has, in fact been done. The Old Testament Hebrew text was preserved by the Levites. The apostles quoted it, and we can trust it. For the New Testament, of all the copies in existence today, 95% agree in an incredible way. God did keep His promise! Only 5%, a tiny minority, are "messed up." All we have to do is put together a Hebrew and Greek text made up from our overwhelming majority of ancient texts, and we will have a text that we can be confident is exactly the same as the one held by the early church. Today, this text is called by several names, the most common being the "Received Text" or "Textus Receptus."

This was the text used by devout translators like William Tyndale, Martin Luther, John Calvin and others, some of whom died to preserve the Scriptures. If they were going to have to die for it, they were determined to die for the right text! This is also the text used to make the most famous and durable of all English Bibles, the King James Bible.

No modern English Bible translation uses this text! But that's another story.

You do not believe God preserved His Word
If you believe that God did not keep His promise, then you have to expect that as people copied the Scriptures, mistakes constantly crept in. The next copyist would copy those mistakes, and add some of his own. As time went on, the Scriptures held by the church would deteriorate, becoming worse and worse, until nobody would really know what the originals said.

If you believed that, you would want archaeologists to search for the oldest copies of the Scriptures they could find. The idea is that the older it is, the closer it is to the original. You could never be sure you had an accurate copy, but the oldest manuscript would give you the best possible copy, with whatever errors it may contain. This is the method being used by all modern Bible translators today.

They have had archaeologists search the world over, and have found two very ancient copies. One was in the library at the Vatican. It's logical to call this one the "Vaticanus." The other one was deposited in a waste basket at Saint Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula, and is thus called the "Sinaiticus." These two copies of the Scriptures, given to us by the Roman Catholic Church, originally came from Alexandria, Egypt, the fountainhead of great heresies of the early church. These two manuscripts disagree with 95% of the broad historical evidence, and they also disagree with each other.

But if they disagree, how do you base a Bible on them? That's simple... find a scholar you consider an expert. Whenever these two copies disagree, have your expert pick the one he likes. We will consider that to be the correct version of that particular verse. Thus, in reality, you are placing your faith in the opinions of this great scholar, instead of the broad evidence of history, left for us by the God of history.

It's kind of hard to have faith in a Bible made from that, isn't it? But if you don't believe God kept His promise, that's the best you can do. This is, in fact, the view held by the majority of Bible translators today. Since they don't believe they can possibly have a reliable, accurate copy anyway, they feel great liberty to add their own private ideas, or interpretation, to the Scriptures. Thus, we get a multitude of Bibles, that very clearly do not say the same thing! What's a person to do?

Well, you could try believing that God kept His promise.

Answer 9

The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures is the best of all the bibles out there today. I don't know that you can buy one though, because their publishers give them away just for the asking. They are put out by The Watch Tower bible and tract society of Pennsylvania....Their version puts back Gods name, Jehovah, which most publications took out for no logical reason. The translation is from the original Greek and Hebrew scriptures, thus it contains little or no errors at best. It might sound contradictory to some, but once you learn the truth the truth itself will set you free, hence, expect some of the doctrines put into many of today's bibles by ordinary writers to be corrected by the truth in this version...God bless....KECK

Answer 10

the link for the first bible is a large-print bible. other than that, they are almost identical. the zondervan niv study bible is a great bible but i prefer the kjv version. i would recommend zondervan's niv/kjv parallel bible.

http://www.amazon.com/NIV-KJV-Parallel-Bible-Zondervan/dp/0310906628/ref=ed_oe_o/103-2229008-3321406
congratulations on your new christian life!

Answer 11

I only trust the King James Version , you can use the Living or NIV, but back it up with the KJV.