[Linux4christians] Re: NIV Bible for Linux (off list topic)

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Lincoln Fessenden <l4c at thelinuxlink.net> writes:
> Like I said, I personally use the KJV mainly myself, however, I do
> have a copy of almost every other translation I can get my hands on
> and read and compare them all.
      ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^

I think that's where really responsible study comes in.  Be
suspicious, in a certain sense; you needn't trust any one version.

My normal study mode these days is 5 simultaneous translations:
NET, NASB, NIV, ESV, and KJV2006.  (Oh, the wonders of GnomeSword's
tabbed display.)

There is the benefit of "recent" English; I get each version's
translator-specific choices of footnotes and xrefs; I get KJV's
Strong's references, plus morph tags.  Next I add in commentaries for
each (NETnotes, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, John Gill's Expositor, Matthew
Henry Commentary, Adam Clarke's Commentary), then add dictionaries
(Webster's, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Easton's Bible
Dictionary, Nave's Topical).

If you can't achieve valuable study results out of a mass of resources
like that, you're not trying.

One thing I find more valuable than I would have expected is xrefs.
People who use bound-paper Bibles don't often chase xrefs; it takes
too much out of one's train of thought to mark one's place, find the
new place, read, and then decide whether to chase another level of
xref deeper, then eventually come back to the mainline study point;
how many bookmarks can you insert, so as to get back to where you
started?  But it's easy with software, and I use them _constantly_ --
it gives insight into what the translators thought were important
related matters.  You can read those, then consider how important you
find them yourself.  Many times, I have found myself going down
interesting and useful paths of thought just by chasing a string of
xrefs.

--karl