Reddit reviews The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version

This bone is called the baculum. Interestingly, some people use it as an argument about translations of one of the sources of the Bible (The j source. wrote most of genesis, exodus, and numbers).

The argument is that Eve wasn't made from a rib. When most translations say "rib", some people argue that this is a mistranslation of "baculum."

To see their evidence, look at your scrotum (If you don't have one, I'm sure someone will be eager to help). For most men, the scrotum has a line that runs down the center from the base of the penis to the perineum. This is a product of sexual differentiation of the fetus. In males, the proto-labia fuse together and the generic gonads descend into it, forming the scrotum and testicles.

The argument is that God took the baculum out of Adam to make Eve. Hence the "scar", and why humans don't have a baculum when most placental mammals do.

tl;dr: scrotums have lines from where god removed man's penis bone to make eve.

EDIT: I should probably say that I'm not an expert about this. My knowledge is not really from a religious perspective. What I know about the bible is primarily from 2 classes I took 2 years ago in freshman year out of personal interest, which were more about secular biblical scholarship (i.e., study about the book itself. sources, authorship, its history, dynamic vs static translations, etc) than religious study. You can't truly separate studying a religious text from studying its meanings and interpretations, but the class as a whole was from a secular and objective perspective.

Needless to say I'm not an expert about this type of stuff. This theory wasn't mentioned in the class; I saw it somewhere online (wikipedia maybe) and thought it was interesting. I don't think that it's a very well known argument, but it does explain some things that a direct, literal interpretation can't. For example, if you have a finger, ribs, a willing member of the opposite sex, and the ability to count, you may notice that men and women have the same number of ribs.

Ultimately, interpretations of the bible are probably as numerous as the people who read it (and those who clearly haven't). The earliest source (the J source), was written somewhere around the 10th century bce. That's 3000 years ago, twice as distant from the modern day as from the last of the mammoths. The whole thing was written over a span of centuries. It's full of contradictions, unclear references, and obvious falsehoods. The oldest version we have is the septuagint, which is in ancient greek. What few sources we have in biblical hebrew are, as one might expect, in biblical hebrew, which is dead and massively distant from modern hebrew, so translations are entirely subject to interpretation.

There's a lot we don't (and much we probably can't) know about the bible. There are tons of theories and interpretations to explain things that don't make sense. I thought the one about the baculum was interesting.

If you want to know more about this kind of stuff, read a bible designed for scholarship. For the old testament/hebrew bible, I recommend the JPS translation and the NRSV translation for the new testament (nrsv is good for both, but jps is better for the hebrew bible b/c it's from a jewish perspective). The links are for the versions I have, which are really good.

No translation can be perfect, and scholarly works dealing with biblical texts will often adapt their chosen translation as needed, if not translate everything afresh. That said, most experts consider the New Revised Standard Version to be the most accurate translation overall. The New Oxford Annotated Bible and the HarperCollins Study Bible augment this translation with excellent notes and introductions based on the latest scholarship.

Another translation of similar high quality, though often overlooked, is the New American Bible, Revised Edition. All editions of this translation include the same notes (which the copyright holder will not allow to be omitted), including online versions.

If the meaning of a particular verse is in question, it may be helpful to consult the New English Translation (NET) Bible, which features extensive, detailed notes explaining the translators' choices, with references to relevant scholarly literature.

A word of caution about one highly popular translation: the New International Version contains numerous highly questionable translation choices with no basis in the text in order to smooth over difficulties for Evangelical doctrine. My favourite example, until it was taken out in a recent revision, was the verse where Jesus calls the mustard grain "the smallest of all seeds," which the NIV rendered "the smallest of all your seeds" to make Jesus imply that he knows better due to divine knowledge of botany. Others would include the softening of a comparison between man and other animals in Ecclesiastes 3:18, presumably to exorcise the spectre of Darwinism; 2 Samuel 21:19 and 1 Kings 4:26 are quietly made to match up with other parts of the Bible; and the terrible prospect of salvation after death is eliminated from 1 Peter 4:6 with language that makes clear that when the author wrote that the gospel was preached "even to the dead," he really meant that even some people who are now dead heard the gospel while they were alive. There's a lot of subtle monkey business with the vocabulary to preempt non-Evangelical interpretations. The same Greek word is correctly translated "tradition" wherever it appears in a negative context, but "teaching" wherever it appears in a positive context. Similarly, the doctrine of justification by faith alone is shored up by translating the same word "works" wherever it appears in a negative context and "deeds" wherever it appears in a positive context. Many more examples could be cited.

Book of Common Prayer, New Oxford Annotated Bible (the standard academic bible), New Revised Standard Version, The Episcopal Church (the Anglicans in the USA) aka ECUSA, Roman Catholic Church Royal Crown Cola, Roman Catholic

I would thoroughly and enthusiastically recommend the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation of the Bible; specifically The New Oxford Annotated Bible. It is a bible with excellent study notes and important and interesting contextual information included alongside the actual text of the Bible. I did a good amount of research when I wanted to buy a new Bible and I am confident that this is the best Bible that exists in English today. (I mean, Oxford University is a pretty well respected university, right?) If you get this Bible, you'll be sorted for any kind of Bible study. 10/10.

If you don't wish to get this one, i'd definitely still recommend the NRSV as the best English translation, unless you are under about 15 years of age, in which case you might benefit from the New Living Translation (NLT) or The Message: Remix, which is a paraphrase of the whole Bible by a guy called Eugene Peterson.

Do not trust anyone who recommends you to use the King James Version. The King James Version was created in 1611! It is over 400 years old and therefore does not benefit from the advances in scholarship over the past 4 centuries that modern translations do. On top of that, it is written in very hard to understand English comparable to Shakespearean English. Even if it were a trustworthy translation (which it most definitely is not) it would not be worth bothering with simply because of how hard it is to read.
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Concerning which church to join, I can't really help you there by directing you to a specific place, but make sure that wherever you go does not prioritise adherence to specific doctrines over the value of community. Make sure it is always a place that allows you to ask whatever questions you like and find your own faith- not be forced to conform to someone else's conception of what it should be. Also, every Christian church needs to be active in their local community helping with the physical and emotional needs of people, not just 'preaching the gospel' as if that were all Christians are meant to. A faithful church should be making sure to provide for the needs of the poorest in its community and offer protection and acceptance for the outcasts in it's society. If a church is more focussed on telling you what you shouldn't do rather than what you should do, it probably isn't a great church.

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If you are just new to Christianity (or even if you're not) please feel free to private message me and we can chat about any questions or whatever you might have and I can share with you whatever wisdom I might have. :D

Peace :)

I like NRSV (NOAB), NJPS (JSB), and NABRE. I recommend getting all three. In addition to being good translations, they contain lots of scholarly notes.

\ I just saw there's a new fifth edition of NOAB.

I prefer the NRSV, but I also have an ESV study bible and and ESV pocket bible and KJV. I thought about getting this one for a study bible, but I held off.

Without question The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version.

The NRSV doesn't try to "harmonize" the passages like most evangelical bible translation, they just translate what the words say.

The book intros and study notes are scholarly, and give a good background on who we think wrote the book and why.

It's been one of the most common bibles used in non-fundy seminaries for quite some time.

It doesn't bend over backwards and torture the texts to support inerrancy, which is why it is not more popular among evangelicals. Also part of why I like it. ;-)

When I read casually, I prefer the HCSB for fluidity of language. When I study, it's Accordance with the original languages as well as a bunch of english versions. The NRSV is a good middle ground for normal use.

The New Oxford NRSV would be my choice if I had to narrow my Bible collection down to one.

Then I suppose I'd recommend something like the Oxford Study Bible. It's got basically everything you'd want, and includes the entirety of the Roman, Slavic, and Greek Canons

Two translations that seem popular at /r/academicbiblical and that are also used by the Open Yale Bible courses, are NRSV (as NOAB) and NJPS (as the Jewish Study Bible). I use them as my primary two English translations. Before I got them I did some research about what translations were probably the most accurate and those were the winners.

FYI: This is probably the best scholarly Bible for your average educated person.

I would go for an NRSV with a good notes.

Two options:

http://www.amazon.com/HarperCollins-Study-Bible-Student-Revised/dp/0060786841/ref=pd_sim_b_6

http://www.amazon.com/New-Oxford-Annotated-Bible-Apocrypha/dp/0195289552/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323661132&sr=1-2

I recommend the Oxford Annotated Bible, if you can get your hands on it. I'd send it to you, but I don't have one myself at the moment.

Pick up an annotated scholarly copy of the bible, try to avoid 'christian' ones if you are trying to learn from an objectively neutral point of view.

This is a good start: https://www.amazon.com/New-Oxford-Annotated-Bible-Apocrypha/dp/0195289552/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8&me=

I'd definitely go with the New Oxford Annotated Bible. It's fantastic. Apparently there's a new edition out.

Also worth checking out for more detail is the Oxford Bible Commentary.

I got the name slightly wrong. It's the The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
Amazon link

Advantages:

• Modern-language, up-to-date translation (the NRSV)
  
  
• Explanatory notes and commentary aimed at scholarly readers without theological or denominational bias
  
  
• Deuterocanon included.
  
  Here's a good, if brief, review.

It seems pretty good. The ones mentioned in the top review (Harper Collins Study Bible and New Oxford Annotated Bible) are also really good.

HCSB and NOAB

I would probably recommend the NAOB, but the HCSB and the one you saw also look good.

If you're academically inclined (e.g., footnotes are right up your alley), try the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV with a lot of explanatory text/background): http://www.amazon.com/New-Oxford-Annotated-Bible-Apocrypha/dp/0195289552/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8&me=

I'm a big fan of the New Oxford Annotated NRSV Study Bible. It's the Bible I had to get when doing my Bachelor's in Religion, and now I use it for personal study. Here's a link to the one I have (sorry it's the U.K. Amazon link, but that's where I am) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0195289552/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_Eyy6ybK8GNMGR