church Bibles
Of the myriad of English Bible versions which have ever been produced, only a few have risen to the level where they would be considered church Bibles. By a church Bible I mean a Bible which is used as the pulpit and/or pew Bible in a relatively high percentage of churches.
The KJV is the first church Bible that many of us who relate to this blog are familiar with. There were, of course, church Bibles before the KJV but only a small percentage of people today are familiar with them. Among them were the Wycliffe Bible, Great Bible, Geneva Bible, Bishops' Bible, and Douay-Rheims (a Catholic version). The Tyndale New Testament was influential; Tyndale was executed before he or his followers could complete the Old Testament. Many of the Tyndale wordings were retained in the KJV.
Since the KJV's publication in 1611, the following have attained to the status of being widely used church Bibles, at least in the U.S.:
The NWT, of course, is the Bible version most widely used in services of Jehovah's Witnesses, although Jehovah's Witnesses often study other Bible versions. The ESV is being adopted by some individual congregations as their church Bible. Perhaps some denominations [one candidate would be the Presbyterian Church (PCA)] will encourage use of the ESV as their church Bible. The HCSB is probably used as a church Bible in some Southern Baptist churches.
I am not so familiar with which versions have been treated as church Bibles in the U.K. Perhaps Peter Kirk or others could comment. I know that candidates for U.K. church Bibles would be the English Revised Version (1881), the NEB, and its successor the REB.
The KJV is the first church Bible that many of us who relate to this blog are familiar with. There were, of course, church Bibles before the KJV but only a small percentage of people today are familiar with them. Among them were the Wycliffe Bible, Great Bible, Geneva Bible, Bishops' Bible, and Douay-Rheims (a Catholic version). The Tyndale New Testament was influential; Tyndale was executed before he or his followers could complete the Old Testament. Many of the Tyndale wordings were retained in the KJV.
Since the KJV's publication in 1611, the following have attained to the status of being widely used church Bibles, at least in the U.S.:
- RSV
- NASB
- NIV
- NRSV
- NAB (a Catholic version)
- The Holy Scriptures (1917 JPS, Jewish translation)
- Tanakh (1985 JPS Jewish translation)
The NWT, of course, is the Bible version most widely used in services of Jehovah's Witnesses, although Jehovah's Witnesses often study other Bible versions. The ESV is being adopted by some individual congregations as their church Bible. Perhaps some denominations [one candidate would be the Presbyterian Church (PCA)] will encourage use of the ESV as their church Bible. The HCSB is probably used as a church Bible in some Southern Baptist churches.
I am not so familiar with which versions have been treated as church Bibles in the U.K. Perhaps Peter Kirk or others could comment. I know that candidates for U.K. church Bibles would be the English Revised Version (1881), the NEB, and its successor the REB.
posted by Wayne Leman at 3:12 PM
6 Comments:
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I wonder if church Bibles will start to become a thing of the past. The last two churches I've been a member of use chairs instead of pews with the desire to use the "sanctuary space" for other activities during the week. With the chairs, there's no rack for hymnals (also having a lesser presence) or church Bibles.
I have noticed that our Sunday School classrooms have extra Bibles. Some of these seem to be Bibles that have been left over the years, and others were for various uses such as Bible drill. These "classroom Bibles" at our church tend to be either KJV or NIV.
I don't have recent experience of a wide range of churches in England, but NIV seems most popular and RSV was some years ago. I think some churches use NRSV, and I have seen NKJV as well. ERV was never popular in churches. NEB was for a time, and it and REB may still be used in some less evangelical churches. My own church has gone for TNIV but I don't know of any others which have - we replaced TEV/GNB which we had chosen perhaps 25 years ago at a time when our congregation was generally not very well educated.
My church has chairs, not pews, and attempts to solve the lack of rack space problem by having the Bibles put out on the chairs every Sunday morning and collected up after the service. The slightly unfortunate consequence is that many of the Bibles end up on the floor, which doesn't do much for their physical state and might well offend some people.
Ian, your description of Jewish practice reminds me that in many Christian traditions lectionaries are in use. This includes parts of my own Anglican tradition, although my own church does not use a lectionary. Christian lectionaries can be rather like your Chumash, except that of course they include readings from the New Testament as well as the Hebrew Bible.
The Anglican 1662 Book of Common Prayer comes with a full set of Gospel and Epistle readings (but none from the Old Testament) for every Sunday of the year and for major feast days. I think this is based on KJV, although the Psalms in the same Prayer Book are from Coverdale's translation. More recent Anglican prayer books follow a similar model, but in at least one of them, the 1980 Alternative Service Book, the readings are from an eclectic mixture of Bible versions, and included Old Testament readings. This book has now been phased out and replaced by Common Worship, in which there is no fixed set of lectionary texts, only list of passages to be read and guidelines on which Bible versions are suitable; there is also an interesting commentary on the lectionary. There is, however, a Common Worship psalter, although use of it is not mandatory - and I know nothing more about it as my church does not use it.
Ian, thanks for your further comments.
I am by no means an expert on the Common Worship lectionary, but, apart from certain festivals, it does in general go through biblical books in order, with separate cycles for gospels, epistles, Old Testament etc - but some parts are omitted. It doesn't hop around in the same way as your readings from the Prophets, while not being as strictly cyclical as your Torah readings.
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