Thursday mornings find us gathered in Marilyn’s family room for our weekly Bible study. We’ve been reading the New Testament together for over two years and are finally reading the book of Revelation. The first hour we discuss our Bible reading for the week. The second hour we turn to the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson, discussing questions and looking at certain passages from the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures more deeply.
We all grew up with the King James Version of the Bible and love it. However, each person in the group chooses the Bible she likes best from which to study our weekly reading. We enjoy comparing how the text is translated in various versions of the Bible. It gives us a fuller understanding of what we’re reading and adds a richness to our study. We’ve enjoyed reading the articles in the Christian Science Sentinel about people’s favorite Bible translations, so we thought we would submit a collaborative article of our own.
Bonnie Jean: I like to read from the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. In the edition I own, Jesus’ spoken words are printed in red. The top half of each page features the Bible text, while the bottom half of the page includes notes about the passages above. The notes describe customs of the time period and explain words and sayings that may be unfamiliar to a contemporary audience.
