A New Bible

I had been thinking about it for a long time.  This past week I did it.  I bought myself a new Bible.  It has been a little over 15 years since I made my last purchase.  Back then I purchased two copies of the New Revised Standard Version.  One was black.  One was blue.   In case you have not figured it out, I can fall down on the conservative side very easily.  My intention was to use one as my study/pulpit Bible and then to replace it with the other one when the time came.  I retired the black one a few years ago and am in the process of wearing out the blue one.  Who knows?  Maybe it will outlast this old preacher. 

 

Anyway, last week I saw it, The New Jerusalem Bible, on the shelf and took it home.  Why this one?  A year ago while reading The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle, I was impressed by the richness of the scriptural references she used from the NJB and decided to get one.  And so, I have this new Bible in hand and find myself reading with some reluctance.  As I thought about this reticence in reading, I decided I have become like those old timers I knew as a young man who insisted on reading the King James Version.  After having trusted the New Revised Standard Version for a life time, it is easy to view any other translation as suspect.  I am telling myself to get over it.  I am telling myself to trust the translation.  I am telling myself to trust the Author of the Word.

I do not like that part of me that requires this kind of conversation with myself, but it is there, nonetheless.  Fortunately, I am also aware of a sense of excitement within me about reading the Word from a different translation.  What I am not going to be doing is constantly comparing it the NRSV because I want to hear what God is saying through this new window to His Word that He has brought into my life.