My Bible’s drowning in Alphabet Soup

The other week the office wing of our church tragically caught fire and most of the pastoral offices, including mine, were lost. One of the saddest losses was a NIV Study Bible given to me by my aunt and uncle when I first came to faith. I had used that Bible all through college and often used it to preach or teach from. It didn’t completely burn up, just some charred edges, but I won’t ever be able to use it again. So I began looking for a new Bible to replace the one I lost. I realized a couple of things...

First, there are a multitude of Bibles to choose from. The alphabet soup of over 50 English translations is bewildering – NIV, TNIV, NLT, NASB, NASV, ASV, NCV, NKJV, KJV, CEV, ESB, ESPN, NBC, HIV, XYZ. Ok, maybe not the last few, but you get the idea. Entire books are written on deciphering these Bibles and the translation philosophies behind them. Let’s not forget that for every Bible translation there is a children’s version, a teen version, a woman’s devotional version, a man’s devotional version, life application versions, and on and on, customizable to the nth degree.

The second observation is that Bibles are expensive. If you want a nice leather bound study Bible it will cost you around $60. Even a generic run of the mill NIV pew Bible is around $10. Apparently, God’s word comes with a price tag (unless it’s from the Gideons).

Recently, I read a comment about this that got me thinking…Why are there hundreds of variations of the English Bible, with more on their way, when some people don’t have a single version of the Bible in their language? (In defense, translating the Bible into a new language is a tediously long process.) One could also ask why do languages with one translation not have study Bibles, devotional Bibles, life application Bibles, etc in their language?

Could it be because of money?

Printing Bibles is a business. Bibles make publishers money. It’s profitable to create a new version of the Bible because publishers can copyright it and sell it, and then sell the many variations that follow the release of a new version. Even the Word of God isn’t beyond the reach of American consumerism. Are you bored with the Bible you have? Why not upgrade? I think I’ll get the one bound in leather, with my name in gold print on the cover. Then in a few years I can upgrade to a newer better version of the Bible.

Maybe we Americans don’t need to buy a new Bible…maybe we should actually read the three we already have. (Unless it has charred edges and reeks of smoke, then a new one might be worth the money).