Which version is the best...

"NRSV for most accurate/academical" is the worst meme. Get RSV, NRSV is a joke.

>but I heard almost all versions of the english version are bad

Pretty much, yeah. Greek and Hebrew are just too weird and subtle for there to be good English translations. That's just a bonafide fact.

The differences between English translations are so small and so subjective that you're basically just splitting hairs. The meaning of the Bible is preserved in almost all of them, even the awful dynamic equivalent texts.

But if you think you're "getting" the Bible as it really is with ANY English translation, you're wrong -- not just on a basis of sources used, but of the language itself.

[citation needed]

Idiot contrarian

Seriously. Half of each page is notes where they explain more than you care to know. It's the most complete imo

Am I a pleb for wanting to skip the Old Testament?

Get a version with section headings (original KJV had them, FYI) and then skip the name sections. Otherwise, the OT has the best stories, and IMHO best overall writing, in the Bible BY FAR.

In any case, skipping Ecclesiastes and Job is full-on retarded.

So when I get to a chapter with a name like “The Family of Adam”, I should skip it? That seems like it'll cut out most of the book.

The OT informs and enriches the NT. Some of it is made explicit, such as Matthew's mention of Isaiah and others, while others are more subtle

>So when I get to a chapter with a name like “The Family of Adam”, I should skip it?

If, at glancing, you can tell that it's repetitive and not important to you, then yeah, you might as well skip it.

>That seems like it'll cut out most of the book.

The Old Testament is filled with much more stuff than just genealogies. Genesis is probably the only book that has a ton of them, and they really only take up a single chapter (so, a page or two) every time they appear.

Skipping might be more relevantly applied to the various laws in the Moses books (especially Leviticus, but the end of Exodus, all of Numbers and Deuteronomy are guilty of it, too). After that, the major source of not-really-important details and repetition is the building of various structures. But otherwise, it's fairly smooth after that.

knox bible