A Tool to Help Readers Choose a Bible Translation

The Bible is the world's most widely translated book. Contemporary English speakers can choose from among dozens of modern Bible translations, but this great diversity leaves many people feeling confused about the nature of the differences. Which Good Book? An Impartial Guide to Choosing a Bible Translation, by Karen A. Bellenir, provides readers with an interactive experience that enables them to identify which translations of the Bible are best suited to their needs.

Unlike other guides that lead readers to predetermined outcomes, Bellenir crafted Which Good Book? to offer impartial information and a broad spectrum of choices. Explanatory sections use clear, everyday language to describe the various ways translators have handled challenges such as these:

·       Selecting source documents that best represent the original writings

·       Identifying the specific roster of books deemed authoritative

·       Balancing word-for-word versus thought-for-thought translational philosophies

·       Handling gender-related expressions

·       Including notes, commentary, and other supplementary material

·       Achieving a desired literary style or reading level

Questions and interactive links allow readers to take their own path through the text by focusing on the issues they feel are most important.  Their choices lead to specific suggestions drawn from a list of thirty-one of the most commonly available Bible translations in English. In addition, facts are included about twenty other historically important and specialty Bibles. A concluding section of references and resources provides a starting point for people who want to dig more deeply into the history of Bible translation.

Ultimately, the best Bible translation is the one someone actually uses. Which Good Book? is designed to help match readers with the translations they are most likely to read and appreciate.

Which Good Book? An Impartial Guide to Choosing a Bible Translation is available online at WhichGoodBook.com and from the Pier Press® bookstore.

Signs of Spring

by Karen A. Bellenir

Early last month, I had a conversation with a winter-weary soul about signs of spring. She had noticed an abundance of robins and wondered if new arrivals were augmenting the population that lives here year round. I thought perhaps the juncos had departed for points north because I hadn’t seen any for a few days. She sighed. No. Juncos were still plentiful in her yard.

Local plant life offered more promise. We compared notes about sightings of daffodil sprouts, dogwood buds, and tentative forsythia blossoms. All unmistakable signs of spring’s imminent arrival. Yet, the thermometer and weather forecast refused to cooperate.

Despite the evidence of people wrapped in winter coats and regular announcements of school closings due to inclement weather, I held on to hope. Spring was coming. I could see it in the sky.

First, the days were getting longer. On March 10, we had eleven hours and forty-four minutes of daylight. On March 11, despite the fact that the switch to daylight saving time plunged my morning alarm back into darkness, we had three minutes more daylight: eleven hours and forty-seven minutes. The spring equinox, March 20, marked the time when daylight hours equaled nighttime hours, and the allotment of daylight minutes will keep increasing until the summer solstice on June 21. That will be our longest day. We’ll get about fourteen and three-quarters hours of daylight.

More easily visible indicators of spring’s impending arrival appear in the night sky—at least when it isn’t too cloudy to see. During early April evenings, Taurus the Bull and the Seven Sisters riding on his back are beginning to sink toward the horizon. In just a couple weeks, they’ll be gone. Orion will follow them. Currently, he is sliding steadily toward the west and will step out of the nighttime picture around the end of the month. His faithful canine companion will chase after him and disappear from our skies in mid-May.

The position of the Big Dipper also announces the coming of spring. In the early evening, you can find it rising in the north east, standing nearly upright on its handle. According to one native American account, the dipper’s bowl represents a bear, and its handle represents three pursing hunters. The bear comes out of its den and rises in the spring. Then, it crosses overhead during the summer. In the fall, the bear tires and the pursuers are able to shoot it with their bows and arrows. The bear dips to the horizon, and its blood seeps into tree leaves turning them red. The bear’s body rests in the ground, and a new bear rises in the spring so that the hunt can begin again.

Although the Big Dipper circles around the northern sky all year long, most constellations rise and set as the earth turns and change their positions slowly as Earth orbits the sun. Evening constellations of spring include the zodiacal constellations of Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo along with a host of others of lesser fame, such as Crater, Corvus, and Coma Berenices.

I invite you to wander outside on a clear night a look up.

[April 6, 2018; excerpted from the author’s newspaper column, which appears monthly in the Farmville Herald.]

An Open Letter to Skeptics

Dear Skeptic,

Many people insist on evidence before they believe something. They want to know what data exist, what verifications have been done, and how reliably a phenomenon can be repeated. They want to know that B always follows A. Such dependable results help define reality.

When religious people insist that they know something, skeptics ask for evidence. Real, hard and fast, physical evidence. Experimental data. Statistics. And, that's when the communication breakdown begins, because by the very definition of the terms used, spiritual matters are not physical. But that doesn't mean that there isn't any evidence. It just means that to examine the evidence you have to change your search parameters or use different tools. Consider the state of medicine when germs were first proposed as an agent of disease. Many doctors disbelieved the existence of these tiny organisms until new tools, microscopes, helped render them visible.

Much of the evidence for the spiritual component of reality exists in a nonmaterial domain. But because humans employ physical sensory experiences for communication, the language used to discuss spiritual topics includes metaphor, story, and paradox—linguistic tools that help the mind transcend its corporeal limits. Spiritual influences also affect the physical realm in ways that can be directly observed. Count the number of independent cultures that developed religious notions. Look at the numbers—historically and currently—of people who claim spiritual experiences. Examine artifacts from every human civilization, in every age, and in every type of medium. Do you find abundant attempts to express spiritual themes? Does this evidence suggest the possibility of a spiritual realm with religious meaning?

The word religion may stir up strong feelings. Bad things have been done in the name of religion. Bad things have also been done in the name of science. Bad things have been done in the name of politics, economics, and anthropology. Bad things have probably been done in every endeavor involving human beings. The very concept of bad, however, is a religious one. And, among religious people—just as among scientists—there are often disagreements about the best ways to interpret matters. These disagreements don't negate the phenomena about which they are centered; they merely underscore the fact that human knowledge is incomplete.

So, what do you believe? Are you willing to conduct your own experiments rather than rely on the second-hand reports of others?

New tools, new knowledge, and a new attitude toward experimentation can help build bridges that reach across the current physical-spiritual divide. Pier Press® wants to help. We're developing Bible study tools that let readers approach this sacred text in a way that preserves each individual's quest for experimentation and personal discovery. We're advocating for an arena where all people can discuss their observations and ask questions. Please join us. We think it will be mutually enlightening.

Respectfully yours,

Pier Press®