Bible translation suggestions for baptist dad

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Shaolen

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My dad is Baptist and has always used just the KJV. But now he’s wanting a modern bible that’s easier to understand. He seems to have heard of the NIV from his fellow church goers and he thinks its great because they supposedly went back to the originally Greek and Hebrew to translate from rather than being a revision of something else. However I know that there are some issues with the NIV, particularly anti catholic things that are built in, and it being more of an interpretive translation where they’ve gone ahead and added their interpretation into the wording of it. For this reason I want to get your guys’ take on what bible translation I can give him. He of course wont accept a catholic edition bible so what would be best? Of course ill try to get him one with the “Apocrypha”. What would be best RSV, NRSV, ESV, new Jerusalem, NASB, NLT etc.
 
Does he want readability? Try the New King James version, it modernizes the thees and thous. I know Baptists who like that one and the NIV.
 
I bought and loved my NIV Zondervan Study Bible. And, in part, it is what led me to Catholicism- the reality is that any Bible actually faithful to the scriptures can bring a discerning person to the Church. I saw over and over, for example, passages telling me that what I do matters. Jesus said it in Mathew 25 (among other places). Paul says it repeatedly. It’s in the book of James. And I started thinking- “Why is it that the Catholics are the only ones that really put much emphasis on this? Why do some protestants seem to think “once saved, always saved” and that what you do doesn’t actually matter?” I don’t recall seeing anything in it that was anti-Catholic, and the translation was much easier for me to read and understand than KJV. I now have two Catholic translation study Bibles and an Orthodox one, but I still love my NIV.
 
To be honest, as a former baptist, I’d recommend the RSV. Very solid translation.
 
The NIV, like the NAB and NAB/RE is a very simplified English translation. But, some of the majesty of the subject matter was “lost in the translation” so to speak.

The Revised Standard Version is a great bible. Having said that, I rather like the (Oxford/Cambridge) Revised English Bible (with “Apocrypha”). It is essentially a true ecumenical bible that is deemed acceptable to all English-speaking denominations in the UK. The version with the “Apocrypha” contains the Catholic Deuterocanonical books, placed between the OT and NT - rather appropriate considering that the Deuterocanonical books are anticipatory of Christ.

They can be found in great condition on eBay and Amazon for $4-$8.
 
My preference is the Revised Douay Rheims kindle edition on Amazon. The language has been updated in accordance with Divino Afflante Spiritu, but it still sounds dignified and holy
 
The RSV was intended as a successor to the KJV, wasn’t it? It’s a solid, mostly literal English translation. A few protestantisms, but good. I’d recommend it. You can probably find a “with Apocrypha” version that isn’t a Catholic Edition.
 
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