Gideons Celebrate 100 Years

Congratulations to the Gideons:

NASHVILLE — Long before cable television, spa treatments and eco-friendly soaps and shampoos became staples in hotel rooms, there was the Bible — the Gideon Bible.

And the book with the familiar two-handled pitcher and torch on its cover that most guests find inside hotel nightstands doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Gideons International is celebrating its 100th anniversary distributing Bibles and has begun efforts to hand out more Scriptures in the U.S. to boost a distribution rate that’s remained relatively flat in recent years.

Nearly 76.9 million Gideon Scriptures were given out in nearly 85 languages in 187 countries last year. Close to 1.5 billion Scriptures have been distributed since 1908, when the Gideons first began to place Bibles in hotel rooms.

Read the entire article

Audio Bible Available in 333 Languages

Faith Comes By Hearing has released eight new recordings.  The ministry now has over 350 versions available representing 333 languages.  The newest recordings are:

The new recordings include:

• Dan, East – Cote d’Ivoire
• Garhwali – India
• Kimochi (Mochi) – Tanzania
• Koma (Konni) – Ghana
• Ndau – Mozambique
• Quechua, North Bolivia – Bolivia
• Mooré - Burkina Faso
• New American Bible – USA

Of the new language groups represented, the Koma language group in Ghana is the smallest with only 3,800 people. And with not a single Koma person believed to be literate, the newly released Audio Bible will finally provide a chance for the group to hear God’s Word in their own “heart language.”

“That’s why Faith Comes By Hearing records and uses audio Bibles to reach the world,” said Morgan Jackson, the ministry’s international director, in a report. “We believe God’s Word is for all people, especially those with the least access.”

Read the full article

$50 Million for Bible Translations

I love that even though we are in difficult times, God will still find men and women to fund his work:

An anonymous donor gave a huge sum of $50 million to Wycliffe Bible Translators this week making it possible to translate Scripture for the last people groups still without the Bible in their native tongue more quickly. Read the full article

There are currently abou 2,400 languages that still fo not have the Bible in their own language. To find out more and how you can help, visit www.wycliffe.org.

The Pope and The Bible

I just finished a great article over at The Catholic Free Press about the upcoming Synod of Bishops in October.  While, sure, as a protestant I have issue with a handful of Catholic doctrines, however, whenever I hear something about Pope Benedict XVI I always get a little excited because of his passion for the scriptures.  My excitement was peaked this morning as I read that the upcoming Synod will focus on the Bible.  I recommend you check out the whole article, but here are some highlights (Bold is mine).

The pope’s concern touches several levels. For one thing, despite an upsurge in biblical interest after the Second Vatican Council, only a minority of Catholics read the Bible regularly. The pope views the lack of scriptural formation as part of a wider crisis of catechetics in the church.

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So in convoking some 250 bishops for the Oct. 5-26 synod, the pope did not intend to host a forum for scriptural analysis. His primary interest is pastoral, and a main challenge is to lead more Catholics to the Bible.

As he told synod planners earlier this year, reading, interpreting and living the words of Scripture are fundamental to the faith life of Christians. Without that, the church’s great works in the modern age — including evangelization and ecumenism — are bound to stall, he said.

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And while specialists are needed, he said, “the real and essential meaning of the Bible is something the simple believer can grasp just as well.”

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One of Pope Benedict’s primary convictions is that the New Testament offers the key to understanding the Old Testament and that, as a whole, the Bible necessarily leads to Christ.

But he believes this traditional Christological approach has been threatened by some modern schools of interpretation that would limit the meaning of any biblical book to the author’s historical context.

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Instead, he said, his method takes the conviction of faith — faith that Jesus truly was God — as a starting point for reading Scripture. This approach allows for a proper theological interpretation of the Bible, yet does not sacrifice the church’s “serious engagement with history,” he said.

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What’s important, he once said, is to “read the Bible regularly, to let it keep us company and guide us.”

Man, there is some seriously good stuff in there.  I truly hope that the our Catholic brothers and sisters will heed the Pope’s words and pick up their Bibles and begin to read!

Reading the Bible for Personal Application

James Grant has posted an interview between Michael Spencer (Internet Monk) and Dr. David Powlison about his contribution to the ESV Study Bible.

The interview is helpful to all readers of the bible.  I appreciate question number 3, “What are the safeguards for insuring good personal application?”  People can often get some crazy things when reading the Bible.  His answer reminds me of Bruce Waltke’s book, “Finding the Will of God. A Pagan Notion?“

China Confiscates Bibles

A group of American Christians had over 300 Bibles seized by Chinese officials when they attempted to bring them into the country.  The group has now refused to leave the airport until their Bibles are returned.

Articles covering the story can be found on:

AP
CNN
LA Times
Guardian
ChristianToday

To Translate or Not to Translate

There is a great article at Christianity Today on the controversy surrounding the translation of the Bible into patois, Jamaica’s Creole language. The debate stems around a couple points.  First, paois is a primairly a spoken language and has no standard writing system.  Along with this, the official language of Jamaica is Standard English.  Some Jamaicans feel that translating the Bible into paois would undercut the country’s efforts to properly teach and learn English.

Full article here.

It is an interesting debate and something worth thinking about.  Any thoughts?

Who Translated Your Bible?

Temper Longman has a helpful article on the NLT Blog (New Living Translation) pointing out why it is important to know who translated your Bible:

So why does the NLT list the names of its ninety translators? It’s not to stroke the egos of the scholars. Indeed, I get embarrassed when people ask me to autograph their NLT because they see my name up front.

The main value of knowing who translated the Bible you are reading is to let you know the theological perspective of the work. (Yes, it is also to tell you that the people who did it are highly trained specialists in the language and literature of the Old and New Testaments). But what difference does the theological perspective of the translator make?

A big difference. (Read the entire article)

Win a FREE ESV Study Bible

There is a lot of buzz around the internet about the October release of the ESV Study Bible.  This Bible looks to be a great resource to all students of the Bible and we’re so excited about it that we’re going to give one away!

If you want to win a FREE ESV Study Bible, here are the rules:

• You will get 1 entry for every review you write on Best-Bible.org (There is no limit, however, please only review Bibles and products you are familiar with… also, leave helpful reviews, not just “I like this Bible.”)
• You get 2 entries if you link to Best-Bible.org from your blog or website (links will be tracked via technorati)
• Contest ends August 30, 2008 at 11:59 EST
• Winner will be selected at random on August 31
• The ESV Study Bible will be pre-ordered for the  winner and delivered after it is officially released in October

Let the games begin!

ESV Study Bible Blog

The ESV has launched a new blog about their upcoming ESV Study Bible. So far the site already has a lot of resources about this upcoming release, including the intro to the Gospel according to Luke, examples of the different types of notes that the study bible will contain, an intro and 2 chapters of Ezekiel, and the entire book of Jonah.

Here, Tullian Tchividjian introduces some of the key features:

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