Comment: Buying a Bible in Melbourne
I needed a bible or, to be more precise, a Christian Bible. I haven’t opened one for years nor have one at home, so I think the ‘ignorance’ criticism of theists provides some room for attack against critics like me. So this is part of my self-education on Christianity today. Even with the revisionism of the Christian progressives, the Bible’s two libraries of books - Hebrew or Old Testament and Christian or New Testament - are still the cornerstone of Christian belief so I started there.
Why not visit Christian bookshops to get my bible? Traditionally I avoided these places and treated them like adult bookshops - too embarrassing to be seen entering or leaving. I went to The Word (two branches), the Central Catholic Bookshop and The Uniting Church bookshop. Here are my observations on choosing a bible was well as the styles of these Christian bookshops.
I never appreciated the variety of bible versions. I expected one correct English translation of the inerrant Word of God and it used to be the King James Version (KJV). Now you have word by word translations from Greek or Hebrew or, perhaps, Aramaic. There are thematic thought by thought approaches to translation as well as “hip new age” street language translations. Most versions now have gender inclusive updates with person, mortal and the like replacing man, such as the New Language Version (NLV) to Today’s New Language Version (TNLV). There’s mixed support for this with some expressing disquiet about destroying the lyrical appeal of the bible. By the way the latest version of the venerable KJV is NKJV (N for new). Now within each range of bibles you can buy anything from compact travel editions to large-print editions as well as study and student versions with extra explanatory notes. Your next choice is paperback, hard cover, budget edition, fake leather and real leather covers. Then believing becomes really expensive. I liked the idea of specialist versions dedicated to different members of the family - grandmother or grandfather - presumably their access methods to God are different. As you can imagine all explanatory bible commentary assumes its literal truth, so don’t expect any secular criticism here.
The bookshops are interesting too. All staff were very helpful, especially when I mentioned my non-believing status. The Word bookshop had a more evangelical feel with gospel music playing and peachers on video display. There was little or no space given to progressive Christian literature by Borg, Boernhoffer, Holloway or Jesus Seminar. The Catholic Bookshop in Lonsdale Street had materials that strongly supported the Roman Catholic version of Christianity not surprisingly. So, for example, I found The Jeruselum Bible, the original version, here but not elsewhere. Finally, the Uniting Church bookshop felt the most liberal with dissenting texts in the theology section. Here for the first time I found the more controversial Christian authors. Like the others, though, they have a wide range of bibles, prayer books, children’s books as well as other devotional books, brochures and music.
Just for the record I bought a couple of bibles -Â New Revised Standard study bible and NKJV travel bible.
Alex McCullie
