After various children’s bibles, I first read the Good News Bible. Since the Bible turned out to be more interesting than most sermons and choral anthems, I am pretty certain I got through most of it in church services as a boy. Who wouldn’t find the narratives of Genesis both shocking and riveting! I then spent my high school and college years with the NIV. At seminary (Louisville Presbyterian), the NRSV was standard, and I still use the NRSV for classroom study.
I have never spent much time with the King James Bible. I increasingly recognize this lack of familiarity as a great deficiency when it comes to studying the history of Christianity in the United States. When reading the letters, journals, and speeches of early-nineteenth-century Americans, I frequently encounter language that I later realize is from the King James Bible.
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