Customer Reviews

Emphasized Bible-H

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As far as I can tell, this is the best Bible translation I own. A sentence's meaning can change depending on which word is emphasized - and this book makes it clear what the point of the writer or speaker is. (This saves me from making a poor guess and deriving below-average theology from a passage...) By way of example, a sign at a motel in a nearby town with different emphases reads -
TRY restin' at the Creston (I'll bet you can't)
Try RESTIN' at the Creston (as opposed to being tense there)
etc., etc.

The heavy-duty paper used is both a pro and a con. I'd really like to take this Bible to church to reference during sermons, but at 4 pounds and 2 1/4 inches thick it's a bit bulky to lug around discreetly.

Perhaps OCR technology can help out someday with the major shortcoming of this book which is worn-out typsetting. Sometimes a letter doesn't appear in its entirety - for instance, part of the lower curve on an "s" might be missing. A second drawback is having Roman numerals in the page headings for the chapter references.

But for someone like me who hasn't been trained in Hebrew or Greek, it's an unbeatable at-home reference Bible. And the indentations used make it a little easier to read than other literal-type translations (such as NASB), so it could be used as an everyday Bible too.

I bought The Emphasized Bible, by Joseph Rotherham, around 1980 when handling a bill dealing with the teaching of evolution and creationism in the public schools. I could not afford to trust just any source for my information. My political neck was on the line. I have never been caught short when quoting this book.
Mike Fair, Oklahoma State Senator

I ordered this Bible because I wanted a more literal translation without a lot of the bias which exists in most modern translations. However, I returned it.

Undoubtedly, it is a very good translation and I could see a lot of value in it if used as a research tool. However, it was difficult reading due to the use of old English such as "Thee" and "Thou" and due to the textual format. Therefore, I found reading it more work than I wanted to expend at this point in time.

This bible is a WONDERFUL tool and what I read almost exclusively now. It takes some getting used to because as a "literal" translation the sentence structure can be awkward at times. I have found that after reading it now for awhile I don't stumble much at all. The wonderful thing is that if it translates a certain greek word as "angry" it will never translate that same word as "upset" or "riled". It will always say angry, so you won't be as confused about the original intent of the inspired authors.

I also have the young's literal, but I strongly recommend the Rotherham. I find it less confusing, and it has more helps (adding marks for emphasis in original languages etc...). Another nice thing about this bible is that for the price it's very sturdy. Bibles this nice in a Christian bookstore will cost you more. Chances are you won't find very accurate translations in the Christian Bookstores!

I hope that whatever translation you may choose the word of God will richly reward you and change you.

Blessings.

ALSO RECOMMENDED: God's Inescapable Love by Thomas Talbott, The Lord's Prayer by Tim Ludwig (picture book), The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.

This is really a fabulous work. Reading Rotherham's Bible translation is about as close as you can get to reading the scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek, without having to actually learn those languages. For one thing, those languages have devices built into the grammar that place degress of emphasis on certain words and phrases. This gets lost in an English translation. Rotherham uses accent marks, brackets, double brackets, etc. to restore the emphasis. Now you can read in English and see what words and phrases were emphasized by the inspired writers. Rotherham also preserves the sentence structure of the original Hebrew and Greek. This makes the English sentences a little awkward, but I would say that it is still highly readable. Most importantly, Rotherham translates words consistently throughout. Most bibles often translate the same Greek word into several different English words. Often this is done to preserve a certain doctrine. For instance, it can easily be shown that the Greek word "aion" means an age, a long but limited amount of time. Most bibles render this word as eternity, but in places where the context doesn't support such a rendering, a different English word is used, such as world, age, or course.
Rotherham consistently renders aion as age and its adjective form aionios as age-abiding, not eternal. In Matt 25:46 Rotherham's version says the unrighteous go off to "age-abiding correction" and not to "eternal punishment" as other bibles say. Thus, the doctrine of eternal punishment disappears from the pages of scripture. Good riddance. God truly does love his enemies!

This is by far the best translation of both Old and New Testament out there. The Concordant Version and Young's Literal New Testament also rank high. Rotherham had no doctrinal postitions to defend. He is very true to the Hebrew and Greek. His is almost a transliteration instead of translation.

As a Bible College graduate, I have had the privilege of reviewing more than 50 different Bible translations as well as studying the Hebrew and Greek texts. When I study the Bible, I want to make sure that what I am reading is accurate. Mr Rotherham was a good Hebrew and Greek scholar who was very careful in how he interpreted the Sacred Scriptures. Although there are other good Bible translations, there are also several poor translations. From personal experience, I believe that The Emphasized Bible is the most accurate translation that we have available in English today.