Which Bible?

Translations and Paraphrases-

We looked at this in lectures the other morning, it made me think of my own bible reading over the last number of years. GNB, KJV, NKJV, NIV, Messages, NRSV and the Amplified. Maybe this explains my difficulty in making direct quotes from the Bible without double checking. I'll give you an example some of the memory verses at Sunday school were in KJV, some were in GNB, I have read the GNB from cover to cover several times times but I have also read it through in the NIV and NRSV. All of my academic work on the Bible has been the NRSV and all my preaching has been on the NIV (this is the pew bible or Bible of choice in the last few churches I have been in). It's the same when we change to BCP for morning prayer, tripping over words which are so familiar in Common Worship like the Lord's prayer for example.

I think in reality no one version has it all sown up and even the paraphrases are helpful in enlightening text. I suppose this is why knowing some Greek is helpful. I have had to stop for now as work and assignments are just piling up, especially with placement stuff too, now I have my Greek Interlinear I can cheat by finding the Greek and looking it up. But better still some software is available:
http://www.bibleworks.com/, http://www.e-sword.net/features.html,

I am glad that there are on line concordances my brain has stopped working so I will sign off on this one...