J842P

What English translation of the Christian holy texts should I read? Should I start with the Pentateuch? If so, is there a translation that I should read that is geared to the descendants of Abraham? I am approaching this as a study of Western mythology...

spin

This is a frequent question and everyone seems to have a response. I tend to recommend the RSV translation. It's been revised to the NRSV (N for new), which has some benefits and deficits. The translation tends to be rigorous and literal-accurate, though the NRSV has taken to changing certain things eg "brothers" under specific circumstances becomes "brother and sisters" to hide the sexism of the age. Nevertheless, it is generally a good and robust translation that would be suitable for scholars to cite.

The KJV and things based on it have a number of problems. The KJV for a start is written in an English which now has become obscure to most of its readers, ie there are phrases that one cannot understand even though they are written in a form of English -- just old English. The KJV also suffers from being a translation of a very poor manuscript tradition, though you'll find fundamentalists who will find whatever ways they can to make it look just fine. Most variants based on the KJV suffer from the same ailment, paying too much heed to a poor source text.

Other translations in trying to be more easily readable in modern English sometimes make it harder to understand the original ideas.

It depends what you really want to do. If you're interested in christianity, you should start with --say-- the gospel of Matthew.

Much of the Pentateuch can safely be avoided in starting out. Genesis contains much of the Jewish mythos. The first half of Exodus will prepare you for all you'll need too understand about Moses, though if you're interested in legal aspects, you should finish that book. Dip into Joshua to get the idea and make sure you read the "conquest". Judges, you should read about Gideon, Deborah and Samson. And that should do for a start.

An excellent translation of the Hebrew bible is the New JPS (Jewish Publishing Society) translation. If you are interested in working with the Hebrew bible, having the NJPS and the RSV would be a good way of getting to many of the ideas of the original.


spin

semiopen

http://biblos.com/

This site is pretty good and it's free.

It doesn't seem to have Jewish translations (which Spin correctly suggests are probably superior) but this is a minor issue compared to the excellent tools the site has.

J842P

Thank you for the responses.