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 So many choices, too little time
— so
confusing!
What are sound guidelines
for finding the right Bible?
In this article, we explore
how the explosion of Bible choices happened,
and
what it all means.
Purchasing a Bible has never been
more complicated. With so many competing
versions — CSB, ESV, GNB, ICB, KJV, NAB, NASB,
NCV, NIV, NKJV, NLT, NRSV, TM, TNIV, and so on —
the alphabet soup of available English Bibles
seems to range all the way from ABC to XYZ.
The experience of shopping for a
Bible these days is a lot like going to the
grocery store for orange juice. Once upon a time
you found a few brand names, and beyond that the
big decision was fresh or frozen. But now,
seemingly infinite variations compete for your
attention (and money). The other day I counted
no fewer than 67 choices of orange juice in our
local supermarket.
But the array of Bibles available
today makes the supermarket juice display look
simple by comparison. One leading religious
bookseller offers no fewer than 3,130 different
Bibles, in over thirty different translations
and paraphrases.
You'll find not only many
versions, but also a myriad of specialty Bibles.
There are devotional Bibles, reference Bibles,
parallel Bibles, and study Bibles (it seems
every popular preacher has one). You’ll find
Bibles for men, Bibles for women, Bibles for
children, Bibles for teens, Bibles for 'tweens,
even Bibles for infants. There are Baptist
Bibles, Charismatic Bibles, Reformed Bibles, and
Roman Catholic Bibles. You’ll find
inclusive-language (gender-neutral) Bibles and multicultural
Bibles. Even “Biblezines” that look like the
fashion magazines at the supermarket checkout
counter. The combinations and variations – the
good, the bad, and the just plain horrible – are
endless.
How Did We Come
to This?
How did we get from relative
simplicity to such complexity? One reason is the
major change in the Bible publishing industry
during the past thirty years. In prior
generations, Bible publishers were mainly small
independent companies, often family-run, whose
primary mission was to disseminate the Word of
God. Today, Bible publishing is big business.
Bible publishing companies that account for over
80% of the U.S. market have passed out of the
hands of their original owners and into the
portfolios of large, diversified media
conglomerates – organizations that have no
commitment to Scripture except to profit
financially from it.1 In the United
States about 25 million Bibles are sold
annually, grossing over $1 billion for
publishers and retailers.
The main motivation for Bible
publishing has changed from sowing the seed of
the Word to reaping the fruits of commercial
success.
Another major factor in the
explosion of Bible choices is the postmodernist
mindset. Postmodernism’s roots are in the
writings of men like Sřren Kierkegaard, who
believed that all truth is subjective, and
Friedrich Nietzsche, who taught that “there are
no facts, only interpretations.” Postmodernism
has been the underlying philosophy of secular
education for the past three generations, and
thus it has become the prevailing outlook of
society.
In postmodernism, there is no
single reality. Everyone has his own “reality.”
The only absolute, certain, and fixed principle
is that there are no absolute, certain,
or fixed principles. Morals and ethics are
relative. Authority relationships are
discouraged; communal, consensus,
non-hierarchical relationships are encouraged.
Since all “truth” is relative, “truth” is
decided upon by the group, and determined not by
facts but by feelings. The moral code of
postmodernism is tolerance and pluralism in all
things. In the postmodernist mindset, the only
intolerable thing is intolerance.
Next: Postmodernism's Influence on Bible
Publishing and Translation
References:
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Thomas Nelson, the largest Bible publisher
in the United States, is owned by InterMedia
Partners, a publishing and cable television
holding company. Zondervan is owned by
the HarperCollins subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which
also owns (among its hundreds of interests)
Fox Television, 20th Century Fox Films,
professional sports teams, and tabloid
newspapers around the world. Avon Books,
another HarperCollins subsidiary, publishes
The Satanic Bible.
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