Id like to read the Bible but cant help but feel reading any part of it on my own I am missing endless historical context that would be much easier placed alongside, any recommendations? I know many people say there is often denominational bias and you are better off reading a regular copy of the bible (Ive been convinced KJV is the best already) but is there not a study bible that focuses on the histoy? Im almost inclined to believe an atheist with an autistic interest in christianity would be a better source of information on this. The Schofield Reference Bible, although historically noteworthy as it gained much attraction in the US, seems to possess too much protestant bias and is perhaps not the type of biblical commentary Im looking for. Ideally the commentary would be succinct but neither omitting necessary historical information. I dont know where better to ask this
Any study Bible is going to have some kind of bias, it can a liberal Protestant bias (NRSV), Calvinistic Baptist bias (MacArthur), Orthodox, etc.
>>17428522Ruckman reference bible.
>>17428522I am reading the Legacy Standard Bible because it's supposed to be the most literal translation out there and I would rather editorial bias not get in the way of understanding whether this is actually a holy text worthy of devotion or just some iron age schizo babble.The thing that pushed me over the edge to make me want to use this bible is reading that virtually all bibles will use editorial discretion to translate the original Greek/Hebrew words used in the text like "slave" to "servant" to make the message seem less harsh and more amicable to the reader. To me, that could not be more dishonest.I looked up the editors and they seem to be textual fundamentalists and have an autistic obsession with formal translation accuracy, so I trust that in their zealous adherence to the literal 'word of God', they will to the best of their knowledge accurately translate those texts into English.
Norton Critical Bible. It’s KJ and has a shit ton of history annotations and supplemental material like Babylonian and Moabite and Egyptian shit from Biblical times
>>17429017Robert Alter does not do this but it comes from early modern English convention when servant including owned servants were still called servants and slave was more of a slur you would only use to refer to black people or as an insult
>>17429017The LSB fails in my favorite test for supposedly "literal" translations, the translation of the verb "to fear" and the noun "fear" in Ephesians ch. 5-6.https://read.lsbible.org/?q=Ephesians+5>5:21 and being subject to one another in the fear (phobō. n.) of Christ. >5:33 [...] and the wife must see to it that she respects (phobētai, v.) her husband>6:5 Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear (phobou, n.) and trembling [...]The problem here that that the verb and noun is never translated as "to revere, reverence" by any academic Koine Greek dictionary, outside of a few verses in the NT relating to women, and sometimes slaves. It appears to be an post-Antiquity invention by translators horrified at 1st century suggestions of marital inequality between partners. The word is etymologically derived from the verb "to flee", and the mental association a 1st century native reader of Koine would've gotten was "the emotion of wanting to flee the situation", not something like "respectful prostation in awe" that these faulty translations want to imply with the obfuscation. They'll often accurately translate every single "don't be afraid" and "fear of God" in the Bible, but lie in 5:33 because it offends modern sensibilities.If you're curious, the major translations that don't soften 5:33's "fear" into "respect" are ASV, RV, ISV, the Douay-Rheims Bible, and Smith's Literal Translation.https://biblehub.com/ephesians/5-33.htmHere's Strong's concordance for the verb to see other contexts to see that I'm not making this up. Does this sound more like tearful trembling and concern for one's life, or being in awe of someone with rock star status?https://biblehub.com/greek/strongs_5399.htm
>>17428522For exegetical, I have had good experience with Lange's commentary so far.For expositional commentary that is more focused on the significance of the text rather than its precise meaning, I'm not as sure about which one I'd recommend. I've found some good insights in many different commentaries like John Gill's exposition, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Matthew Poole's commentary, Adam Clarke's commentary, or Albert Barnes' Notes on the New Testament. There's also the 1817 edition of the King James Bible that was published by Mant and D'oyly and it contains a ton of footnote commentary from various sources (see: https://archive.org/details/holybibleaccordi010doyl/mode/2up and https://archive.org/details/holybibleaccordi020doyl/mode/2up). I wouldn't fully trust any of these, but they have all provided helpful and seemingly accurate insights at times.You can either find a PDF of the scans of these books on archive.org or you can read most of them (except the 1817 KJV) on BibleHub and probably other free resources elsewhere.
>>17428522>>17429732Oh and if you wanted the third volume of the 1817 KJV edition, I think it's harder to find just because it was officially called "Volume II part 2" and was published in 1818. But here it is, in case you wanted the New Testament part: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Holy_Bible/Ad4-AAAAcAAJ
