So, What is The Voice?

I saw this today in my local Barnes and Noble. I almost considered buying it, because as most of my friends know I spend most of my hard earned money on different Bible versions and translations. But hey, I always say that if you are going to have a Bible blog, you should be knowledgeable of the many different versions. (Well, at least I can convince myself of that!)

So, back to the topic at hand. What is The Voice New Testament? I spotted the website here, but have yet to really investigate it. The edition I looked through at Borders was the cloth/leather edition. It had a decent feel to it and the layout of each page I found to be very welcoming to the eyes. Perhaps I will pick up a copy in the next day or so, maybe first in paperback. Is anyone else familiar with this new translation and its reason for being?

Christians must help world understand Bible, says Orthodox patriarch

By Cindy Wooden

Catholic News ServiceVATICAN CITY (CNS)

-- Sitting below Michelangelo's massive fresco of "The Last Judgment," the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople said divided Christians must be changed by God's word and must work harder to bring the joy of the Resurrection to all creation."We must experience radical 'metanoia' -- a conversion of attitudes, habits and practices -- for ways that we have misused or abused God's word, God's gifts and God's creation," Patriarch Bartholomew told the world Synod of Bishops on the Bible.After the celebration of evening prayer Oct. 18 in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Benedict XVI invited the patriarch, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, to address the synod.

When Patriarch Bartholomew, the first ecumenical patriarch to address a session of the world Synod of Bishops, had finished his 25-minute speech, the pope noted that the church fathers quoted by the patriarch are recognized as great theologians in both the East and the West."If we have fathers in common, how can we not be brothers?" Pope Benedict said. "This was a joyful experience of unity -- perhaps not full, but true and deep."

Patriarch Bartholomew spoke to the synod about hearing and speaking the word of God through the Scriptures, seeing God's word in nature and in icons, and touching and sharing God's word in the sacraments and the communion of saints.The word of God, he said, is addressed to all people at all times of history and, therefore, it must be proclaimed in a way that people can understand, and in a way that touches their lives, meets their needs and challenges them to change.

Obviously, the patriarch said, the Christian proclamation of the word would have been "greatly enhanced and strengthened if all Christians were in a position to perform it with one voice and as a fully united church."Pollution, poverty, injustice, war, racism and sexism are all signs that Christians have not done enough to help the word of God spread throughout the world, penetrate and change it, he said."

When the world does not share the joy of Christ's resurrection," the patriarch said, "this is an indictment of our own integrity and commitment to the living word of God."When God spoke and created the world, God proclaimed it "very good," Patriarch Bartholomew said. "All people and all things are created and called to be good and beautiful."But the destruction of the environment has shown that "we have behaved arrogantly and dismissively toward the natural creation," he said."

We have refused to behold God's word in the oceans of our planet, in the trees of our continents, and in the animals of our earth," the patriarch said. "We have denied our very own nature, which calls us to stoop low enough to hear God's word in creation."The patriarch, who has been a leader in promoting a Christian theology of environmental protection, told the synod that Christ, the Word of God, "receives his full embodiment in creation, above all in the sacrament of the holy Eucharist.""It is there that the Word becomes flesh and allows us not simply to hear or see him, but to touch him with our own hands," he said.And within the body of Christ, which is the church, the divine Word also is reflected in the lives and actions of the saints, he said.Called to be one with the communion of saints, all Christians have an obligation "to touch the world with the mystical force of God's word so that -- as the extended body of Christ -- the world, too, might say: 'Someone touched me,'" he said."

Evil is only eradicated by holiness, not by harshness," Patriarch Bartholomew told the synod.He said holiness is a seed that when planted in a society will bloom, touching and healing others.Even if small, he said, "it is like the tectonic plates of the earth's crust: the deepest layers need only shift a few millimeters to shatter the world's surface."

All Christians are called to holiness, the patriarch said. Striving for holiness is the only sincere response to hearing the word of God and receiving the Word of God made flesh in the Eucharist.The surest sign that a spiritual change has occurred is a willingness to share all things with all people, he said."Sadly, we have ignored the vocation and obligation to share. Social injustice and inequality, global poverty and war, ecological pollution and degradation result from our inability or unwillingness to share," he said.

Before offering the synod members his blessing, Patriarch Bartholomew said all Christians, especially Christian leaders, are called to discern, highlight and strengthen the traces of God's word in a world often marked by evil."As we struggle -- in ourselves and in our world -- to recognize the power of the cross, we begin to appreciate how every act of justice, every spark of beauty, every word of truth can gradually wear away the crust of evil," he said.

Excessive Drinking is Bad for Pumpkins Too!

Thanks to Jeremy for alerting me to this funny pic!

Study Bibles II

So, I have decided to start using a study Bible again. I have also narrowed it down to the versions that include the NRSV translation. Main reason for using the NRSV is obvious in that they contain the Catholic Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament. It seems, to my knowledge, that there are then three main contenders:

1) The New Oxford Annotated Bible

2) The HarperCollins Study Bible

3) The New Interpreters Study Bible

So, before I go out and purchase one of these three, I wanted to read some opinions from those who actually use them. Is there one that you find most helpful when referring to the notes and articles? How is the study Bible put together? Should I get a leather edition or a standard hardback? Feel free to comment on all these questions or any other one that may be important.

Origen on the Gospels

"As once upon a time among the Jewish people many engaged in prophetic discourse, but some were lying prophets (one of them was Ananias the son of Azor) whereas others were truthful prophets, and as among the people there was the gift of grace to distinguish spirits, whereby a section of the prophets was received, but some were rejected as it were by the "expert bankers," so now also in the New Testament have "many taken in hand" to write gospels, but not all have been accepted. That there have been written not only the four Gospels, but a whole series, from which those that we possess have been chosen and handed down to the churches, is, let it be noted, what we may learn from Luke's preface, which runs thus: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to compose a narrative."

The phrase "have taken in hand" implies a tacit accusation of those who rushed hastily to write Gospels without the grace of the Holy Spirit. Matthew and Mark and Luke and John did not "take in hand" to write their Gospels, but wrote them being full of the Holy Spirit . . . The Church has four Gospels, heresies very many, of which one is entitled "according to the Egyptians," another "according to the Twelve Apostles." Basilides also has presumed to write a Gospel and to call it by his own name. Many indeed have taken in hand to write, but four Gospels only are approved. From these the doctrines concerning the person of our Lord and Saviour are to be derived. There is I know a Gospel which is called "according to Thomas," and one "according to Matthias," and there are many others which we read, lest we should seem to be unacquainted with any point for the sake of those who think they possess some valuable knowledge if they are acquainted with them. But in all these we approve nothing else but that which the Church approves, that is, four Gospels only as proper to be received." --From Origen's Homilies on Luke

Currently I am doing a lot of reading about the early Church, primarily for class work. Origen, 185-254 AD, has always been a controversial figure. Unfortunately, much of what we know about him was written either by his admirers or by those who truly disliked him. In any case, he is clearly one of the first great Biblical scholars of the Church. Among his many contributions to the early Church, I have always found his Hexapla to be his most remarkable achievement. The Hexapla contained 6 versions of the Old Testament, including Hebrew, a Hebrew in Greek characters, the LXX, and three other Greek versions. Unfortunately it has been lost to history, but boy would it be fantastic if it were ever discovered! Think of all the new Bible versions! ;) For more about the Hexapla, you can check out the Catholic Encylopedia article.

Ratzinger on Biblical Interpretation

"The exegete must realize that he, does not stand in some neutral area, above or outside history and the Church. Such a presumed immediacy regarding the purely historical can only lead to dead ends. The first presupposition of all exegesis is that it accepts the Bible as a book. In so doing, it has already chosen a place for itself which does not simply follow from the study of literature. It has identified this particular literature as the product of a coherent history, and this history as the proper space for coming to understanding. If it wishes to be theology, it must take a further step. It must recognize that the faith of the Church is that form of "sympathia" without which the Bible remains a closed book. It must come to acknowledge this faith as a hermeneutic, the space for understanding, which does not do dogmatic violence to the Bible, but precisely allows the solitary possibility for the Bible to be itself."

--Lecture delivered on 27th January 1988 at Saint Peter's Church in New York, New York.

This entire talk can be read in HarperOne's The Essential Pope Benedict, which is a really good collection of some of Pope Benedict's (Cardinal Ratzinger's) main theological and scriptural works.

Study Bibles

I have noticed that there seems to be an influx of Study Bibles being produced at the moment, most notably the NLT Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible, and even the NRSV Discipleship Study Bible. Of those three, I have only purchased the NRSV Discipleship Study Bible, mostly because I like the NRSV and it includes the Deuterocanonicals. (Truth be told, I have yet to really spend some time with it.)

I always go back and forth on study Bibles, not so much on which one contains which translation, but rather on their usefulness. As my knowledge of the Scriptures has grown during the past few years, both through graduate work and prayer, I have often found myself disliking the idea of using a study Bible on a daily basis. Usually when I am doing class work or preparing to lead a Bible study, I refer to more in depth commentaries rather than seeing what a particular note has to say in a study Bible. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that there are so many study Bibles out there. It certainly is a wonderful aid for people who are first getting into serious Bible study or for those who like to have either scholarly or application notes available to them. So, I am certainly in no way anti-study Bible.

I am also not one of those who will not use a particular study Bible because a note or two disagree with my theology or that it dates certain books later than I think or that it may question authorship of particular books. I always tell folks who come to Bible study that the text is infallible, not the notes!

Recently, however, I have been considering going back to using a study Bible again. This is probably due to recent publications of so many new study Bibles. Many of them look, on the surface, to be very well put together and include a number of helpful study tools. One thing I have noticed is that many study Bibles are trying to become smaller. While I think that makes them more easy to carry around, I wonder if that limits the amount of space for a reader to take personal notes. I think, particularly in a study Bible, that this is essential. I have an older 1990 Oxford Catholic Study Bible. One of the reasons I liked it was the fact that it had quite a bit of margin space, however all recent "updates" have reduced the margin space considerably.

So, what do you all think? Is there a particular study Bible out there that you rely on? If so, why? Obviously I would like to have one that includes the full Catholic canon, but I am open to reading about others as well.