Living a hedonistic lifestyle in big liberal city for many years has caused me to stray from the path of God. The events that have unfolded in these last few months brought me here. I want to get my life in order and get back on track to what really matters.
I'm planning to get a bible and start going to church so I'm looking for some newbie advice on where to start? Which version can be trusted? Which type of Church hasn't been compromised? Any green flags or red flags to look out for?
For someone new to the faith I recommend the New Living Translation. You should buy a study Bible because it will have explanatory notes at the bottom of the page and an introduction to each book in the Bible. As far as which churches you can trust, that's very complicated. rather than give you a direct answer I'll say that you should get to know the bible really well, and you should start with a new testament by the way, and then you should compare the teachings of the churches to what you find there.
Literary Translations == Commie Translations.
Do you want to read the Bible, or someone else's interpretation of it?
If you are going to read someone else's interpretation, shouldn't it be from someone you trust? Or an unnamed group of Communist Institutional Graduates?
New translations are mainly a copywrite scam, to keep a for profit hold on printing a 2000 year old text.
A study Bible is still a good suggestion. A good study Bible will explain the passage in clear terms while still letting you read a direct translation. Mine has a limited Strong's in the back too, very handy.
Yeah I totally disagree. Literary translations are readable. They're not communist. They are written at a lower reading level which requires them to be less word-for-word. However, the occasional bad translation is more than made up for by the fact that this new Christian will actually read this version of the bible, compared to the ones that are more literal but unreadable.
They started by replacing gendered words decades ago. There should be a little blurb about that right in the beginning of the NLT.
You're thinking of the NIV 2011. that was the first big gender-neutral translation. While I disagree with it, it doesn't affect the meaning as much as you would think. Basically they try to replace "him" with "they" and "mankind" with "humanity" etc.