E
ethereality
Guest
I’m spending time with Japanese and Chinese people, and I’m writing this email for the sake of one Japanese person: He’s interested in attending Sunday events (e.g. Mass and Biblical discussion afterward) for English practice. I have recommended to him both this incomplete English Bible and this incomplete Japanese Bible after browsing this forum briefly, but I’m looking for complete Bibles to share with him; Protestant Bibles are not ideal for an introduction to Christianity.
Would you recommend an easy to read Bible, one that contains all of the Old Testament? Ideally it’d be freely available online. Only other one coming to mind is the New American Bible from the USCCB, but it has dangerous or false footnotes (e.g. teaching that because Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Temple, that it must have been written after the destruction of the Temple), and really isn’t always an easy read.
Rephrasing the question, d’you know of children’s Bibles? His English is rudimentary, so by “easy to read” I do mean on the order of a native speaker in elementary or middle school. He carries an electronic dictionary and must translate many words.
He may not be willing to purchase anything – he might, I’d have to ask him, but he’s typical in “not being religious”: He practices the Shinto/Buddhism cultural mixture (a parallel strikes me in the USA, about how we buy Easter Bunny candy and decorate Christmas trees and Santa Claus, often without connecting it to God; similarly they visit shrines on the New Year’s, etc), and Japan has much religious themes, but many are not religious “in the forefront of the mind” (e.g. they had a humanitarian campaign, “Pray for Japan” after the tsunami+Fukushima nuclear disaster, but they understand it in a human solidarity kind of way, not in an explicit ask-God-for-help kind of way); most have no interest or only a passing interest in religion, e.g. in Christianity – so free is better. Thanks!
Would you recommend an easy to read Bible, one that contains all of the Old Testament? Ideally it’d be freely available online. Only other one coming to mind is the New American Bible from the USCCB, but it has dangerous or false footnotes (e.g. teaching that because Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Temple, that it must have been written after the destruction of the Temple), and really isn’t always an easy read.
Rephrasing the question, d’you know of children’s Bibles? His English is rudimentary, so by “easy to read” I do mean on the order of a native speaker in elementary or middle school. He carries an electronic dictionary and must translate many words.
He may not be willing to purchase anything – he might, I’d have to ask him, but he’s typical in “not being religious”: He practices the Shinto/Buddhism cultural mixture (a parallel strikes me in the USA, about how we buy Easter Bunny candy and decorate Christmas trees and Santa Claus, often without connecting it to God; similarly they visit shrines on the New Year’s, etc), and Japan has much religious themes, but many are not religious “in the forefront of the mind” (e.g. they had a humanitarian campaign, “Pray for Japan” after the tsunami+Fukushima nuclear disaster, but they understand it in a human solidarity kind of way, not in an explicit ask-God-for-help kind of way); most have no interest or only a passing interest in religion, e.g. in Christianity – so free is better. Thanks!
