So most annotated Bibles pretty much agree with one another when it comes to what passages in the Bible mean?
I assume not. Though my Oxford edition is fairly ecumenical, I seem to recall reading some complaints at Amazon from the fundamentalist crowd. Regardless, I find annotations helpful with a variety of works be they of ancient languages, Shakespearean English, or manga.
So we are back to the same question regarding annotated Bibles as we are with the unannotated Bibles, then. Which one is the most accurate?
Wikipedia has an article on Study Bibles as well as a list of a couple dozen of them. One of the first study bibles was the Geneva Bible, typically published with commentary and annotations. The Church of England disputed some of their statements and subsequently the King James translation was born, the only notable work of art ever produced by a committee.
The third edition of The Oxford Annotated Bible is disliked by fundamentalists: “They object to the assertion that passages in the Old Testament traditionally seen as referring to Jesus do not do so, and to the claim that 1 Corinthians 6 does not refer to Homosexuals. Another objection is raised to the OAB because the editors adhere to contemporary views of Biblical criticism, and thus call into question the authorship of some books.”
It would seem the translations of the translations are debateable?
The Spirit-Filled Life Bible. Period.
(Actually, it IS my favorite, but I’m not going to actually claim it’s the most accurate.)
Although kanicbird does usually seem to have an unorthodox view, this post was not only very understandable, but fairly mainstream considering.
There are many spirits, but one God. these other spirits may lie to you. Which is why we have to test them against scripture.
I don’t think I even have to explain this one.
non-divine interpretation: God doesn’t use a megaphone to shout into our conscience; it’s a still, small voice. And we are still free to ignore it, or shout it down with our own desires, etc. That’s where testing it comes in. If that step isn’t done, you end up with people claiming God told them something that’s just their own desire. That’s one place the many different versions of contradictory revelation come from.
See, you already said something similar.
That still small voice could well be your own mind telling you what you want to hear. No proof that it is any divine being, or spirit. My little voice says use your own brain, not what someone else says is the voice of a god. A dog has a still small voice that lets it know it shouldn’t go do do on the carpet. That doesn’t mean it is a god telling him!
As a post script; Maybe the bad spirit is what some listen to and think it is God? It all boils down to what one wants to believe, or what person they choose to believe, not proof that God wants one to follow a certain person, or some author.
Like flipping a coin, then thinking God directed the coin in one’s favor! What one believes is peraonal, if it helps and doesn’t harm others so be it, that is their right,but it is just a belief, not fact, and many good people have contradictory meanings and beliefs. So God tells some people one thing and others another.
I think that’s my voice you’re hearing there…
My little voice says to use your own brain too. But if there is nothing to test it against, you’re still just working with your own desires.
(that is the voice of its god. A dog doesn’t doesn’t have a voice telling it not to go on the carpet unless a human trains it.)
(Or your own voice may lie to you, if that’s what you meant.) you’re still channeling me. I thought you were supposed to be listening to your own voice. 
But, really, take good ideas where you can get them.
Just listening to your own voice is where we get the thoughts, “hmmm, I can kill these non-believers, take their stuff, and it will be for the glory of my ‘god’ and not about my own power and wealth at all. (mmmm, more stuff… I mean ‘for the glory of god.’)” And non-believers will promote religion for their own wealth and power, too. That isn’t about belief at all; it’s about human desire.
You made my point…it is all in one’s own mind. Some like to think it is a voice of a god, others their own thoughts. No proof that it is a god telling them anything. Of course if God tells one person this is the truth, and another a contradictory thing and says that is the truth, then this God likes to confuse people so he can reward or punish them according to His own whims! Then people can blame it on a Demon that God is said to have created to torment people, that would make such a god a sadist!
One’s culture they grew up with, what they were taught ,read or learned by themselves,or experienced, has a lot to do with their thinking.The fanatical suicide bombers learned that from their culture or teachings.
Matthew 24:3-35 clearly states all the signs of his coming would happen before the end of the generation. bit of a difference.
vs 4-14 give the signs. and ends with “and then the end will come.” end of thought.
vs 15-25 gives details on the end time.
vs 26-31 warns them not to believe if anyone says he is already come. because it will be visible. We will already know if he has come.
vs 35 says all the signs will happen before the generation is out.
And whoever told you this was a problem convientently left out vs 36, (and 37-39)
So, he told them they would see all these signs, but no one knows when he’s coming back. Possibly, he didn’t even know at the time, (some manuscripts don’t have “nor the Son…”) Or possibly, he wanted every Christian to think it could come in their lifetime, not to be complacent. As it says in the rest of the chapter. (only quoting vs 37-39…)
Another possibility- Christ was talking about His Presence (the Greek word Parousia usually translated as “Coming”) in the coming Judgment which did fall on Jerusalem within that generation in the Roman siege. Rev. David Chilton and Dr. Ken Gentry have written how the “End Time” prophecies really match events from 30-70 A.D.
My Bible that I have read chapter 24 verse 3 says: And as he was sitting on the Mount of Olives; the disciples came to him privately ,saying,“Tell us,when are these things to happen;and when will be the sign of your coming and the end of the world?” Then in verse 34 it continues Amen I say to you,this generation will not pass away till all these things have been accomplished. Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pas away.
I know some translate that not to mean that generation but another time. All people die during their generation, so if one just lives a day or 110 years it is their generation. If heaven and earth pass away, what happens to those who are said to be there?
We could take the answer to be,
These are the signs of the end time. These are some things that will happen at the end time, including my return. But I won’t tell you when that is; only my father knows that. All the signs will happen in your lifetime though, don’t be complacent.
That’s what I was trying to say earlier. Now, John was probably the last surviving apostle and one of the last of his generation, and he didn’t claim he was going to live to see this. So, he, living at the time and understanding how they used language at the time, didn’t think it meant what you, reading it 2000 years later, think it must mean. And that was my point with both this, and your earlier passage, too. Even though for many years they may have thought it indicated that, eventually they said, ok, he didn’t actually say that, we sort of assumed that because we wanted it to be true.
FriarTed (et al): Is there a site on the web or elsewhere that shows a couple of English translations alongside the original Greek, so that the reader can work out where the controversies lie? As an example, I have in mind your descriptions of hell in the other thread, where the issue turns on “Eon” vs. “Eternity” and “kolasin”, sometimes "used by the Greeks to denote “CORRECTIVE punishment” ".
One fundamentalist website recommends that the believer read from a number of translations. They seemed to like KJV and New KJV.
A more mainline website compares a number of different translations: the New American Standard Bible (NASB) is “very literal in vocabulary and word order, although the resulting English is quite wooden.” The English Standard Version (ESV) “…was developed by a translation team of more than 100 scholars, with the goal of being very accurate (word for word), and yet very readable.”
That is interesting. My experience with fundamentalists who preferred the KJV absolutely hated the NKJV. The differences they did notice were all ones they thought were bad. They even used the old logo and showed how it could be seen as three 6s.
But, then again, it seems like every translation (for a while) was assumed to be of the devil by someone.
Mine says the “The End Of The World”
Of course I do not believe the Bible is inspired by a higher being or that some higher being wrote it. It to me is just the word of some human trying to control people hoping to have people be more civil so they could get along. If those standing there were to witness Jesus coming in glory before their death, then perhaps John in his olden years was just having hallucinations. It seems contrary to a Good and Just God who knew all things even before they happened,created people who he knew would be bad then punish them, and seemed to like a cruel joke.
We have to depend on the human that wrote it, and realize that human’s have their own agenda, just like the politicians do now. There are no originals so we have to go by what someone wrote later on.
Poking around the internet, I see that such a tome is called an interlinear Bible. Website here (requires special Greek and Hebrew fonts). Paper version here. Neither example has annotations though.