The Bible Museum

Here is another Bible Museum to put on your list to visit. This one is in St. Arnaud, Australia. Take a look at their website. They have a virtual tour showing many of their wonderful displays. It sounds like they have rotating displays so there is even more than meets the eye. Wonderful to hear from them - hope I get to go there some day!

KJV 400th Anniversary

Here is another web site dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the Authorised or King James Bible. It even has a count down show the days, hours, minutes and seconds till the exact day 400 years from the first publication of the KJV.

Little Mouse Bible Stories

Ever had a mouse narrate Bible stories? Check out the book dummy for "Little Mouse Bible Stories: The Creation, Genesis 1-2." This is another one I read about first at the Bible Illustration Blog.

Illustrated ICB Bible

The Illustrated ICB New Testament came out in 2006. According to the Bible Illustration Blog the full Bible is coming soon. The text is a derivative or variant of the text found in the Easy to Read Version. The text also has been edited and published as the New Century Version and the Reader Friendly Edition.

The Illustrated ICB combines the entire Biblical text with a bright, comic style presentation. You can see a preview of actual pages at Thomas Nelson.

New Generation Bible

I'm not sure yet what this one is all about, just found it today. It is the New Generation Bible. The website says it "is the outcome of several kinds of Bible versions rolled into one version." There are couple sample pages on the site as well.

Special Sales

I have added a small new section to my website. It is for the sale of items from the Bible Reader's Museum that are being removed. All are one-of-a-kind items and are in stock ready to ship. Visit Special Sales to view the current inventory.

Old English Bibles

I was privileged to receive a copy a while back of Old English Bibles: From the Fourteenth Century Wycliffite Bibles to the Seventeenth Century King James Bible by James A. Fowler. This excellent book gives history and facsimiles of the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Joye, Coverdale, Matthew, Taverner, Great, Geneva, Bishops, Douay-Rheims and King James Bibles. Each section gives several facsimile pages from these historical Bibles. General and New Testament titles are included as well as Biblical text. Many pages are illustrated or have elaborate initial lettering. One can read the first chapter of the Gospels in each version.

I occasionally give talks about the history of the English Bible as well as running a small museum at our church. This book will be an invaluable tool that allows me to show people pages from these old English Bibles. Instead of carrying a trunk full of facsimiles, I can bring one 8.5 x 11 inch paperback. This is a must-have for anyone interested in the history of our English Bible.

If you have balked at the high cost of full facsimiles of these Bibles, here is an affordable alternative. For just $20 USD (plus shipping) you can now read pages from 11 historical Bibles. (If you can read the middle English of the Wycliffe Bible.) Order your copy directly from Rev. Fowler on his Lulu.com store in paperback or in hardback.

I give this work a high rating and definitely recommend it!

The Chronicle Project

This, according to the website, is not a new translation. "Rather it is the application of the newly discovered Self Defining Hebrew or SDH system which was built into the ancient Hebrew language by its creator(s)." They do have samples of the resulting English version, so you can read their ongoing work.

Mom's Bible

A while back I received a complimentary copy of The Mom's Bible: God's Wisdom for Mothers from www.booksneeze.com. I look for good Bibles to give to my parishoners so I was interested in this one for the women of my church.
The translation in this Bible is the New Century Version. There are introductions to each book as well as introductions to some sections within the book. There are frequent devotional sections included in boxes on the page such as "walking in authority," "walking in worship." There are also "insights" and "passing it on" included throughout the Bible.
The layout of the Bible is simple - not cluttered. I prefer a simple layout as this makes for easier and smoother reading. It has a tasteful gray decorative border around the edges. There is not a lot of room for notes so those who like to write in the margins will be disappointed. It is a sturdy hardback, touted as a “companion to the Dad’s Bible.”
The New Century Version was designed to be easier to read and has been used and revised for children's Bibles. It does use gender neutral renderings for many passages especially those referring to people. This version has been revised (in 1991) and does not necessarily match up with versions that are part of the same family (such as the International Children’s Bible and the English Version for the Deaf).
My final test for this Bible was to see if my wife liked it. She wasn't ready to give up her current study Bibles in favor of this one. She didn't want the NCV text as her main Bible. So, while she felt this was a decent Bible, it wasn't one she would choose.
I might recommend this Bible to others in the church. The text can be very helpful for those struggling to read other Bible versions. The “insights” that I read appeared Biblical and encouraging. As with any Bible that adds extra material the quality of that material varies.

HCSB Study Bible

The HCSB Study Bible is online here in a beta format.

Bible Visualizations

There is some interesting work going on with Bible Visualizations - presenting the words or data of the Bible in unique ways. These are not new versions of the Bible, but interesting, artistic presentations. If that sounds interesting, visit Bible Visualization Blog to see some cool artwork.

Meta Version

This isn't technically a new version of the Bible - it is the King James Version (Authorised Version). But it is a new presentation of the text. Many or all machine readable copies present one verse at a time. But this researcher has created a file that presents the text word by word. This allows for noting whether a word is in italics, if it is the beginning or end of a parenthetical phrase, what punctuation follows the word, if it is the beginning of a new paragraph and if it is an introductory phrase before the first verse.

This probably won't be useful unless you are interested in doing word analysis, need a good text for programming or are a researcher. Then it is a great resource. While reading the blog I already came up with some things I'd like to try.

The creator of this database intends to add further information such as Strong's numbers, location, speaker and more.

Read about it and download the database at Bibliographic.

Numerical Bible

The Numerical Bible by F. W. Grant has been reprinted by Believer's Book Shelf (Canada). The seven volume hardback set costs $249. This is offered by Believer's Bookshelf Canada so that price may be in Canadian dollars.