So two or three weeks ago I speculated about a new project that might be on the horizon. In Read the Bible I proposed that reading one chapter of the Bible per day would let you get through the entire Bible in a little over three years. I considered posting a series of audio files in which I would read one chapter and offer brief commentary and post those at a rate of one per day. It would be ambitious for sure but if I had started one chapter a day when I started blogging in 2008 I would have been through the Bible five times already.

Here is the problem, and it has nothing to do with how long it would take or the number of posts it would mean putting up. You can quote up to 1,000 verses of ESV text in a print publication without special permission from the publisher provided that 1) the verses do not amount to a whole book of the Bible nor 2) do not account for more than 50% of your total work. That’s for printed works, in something not for profit. Audio quotes are limited to 500 verses. After several posts over a number of weeks we would complete a whole book of the Bible, with the eventual goal of finishing the Bible itself. Other translations have similar, sometimes stricter, regulations on using their copyrighted material.

So what about Bible translations in the public domain? The King James Version was published long before any copyright laws were on the books. The American Standard Version is over 120 years old and has become public domain, we well as a few others. Legally, reading such a translation from the public domain is the best way to avoid issues. I would hate to get six months or even a year or two into this project then be shut down by a legal action. On the other hand… I don’t want to be on the internet reading the KJV out loud. I don’t have anything against the KJV other than the fact Elizabethan English is not anyone’s native language that is alive today.

I have been comparing translations and thinking about the nature of biblical translation for a few weeks now. While varying translations use different combination of words, some of which have become archaic over time, they say essentially the same thing. The firmament to divide the waters the KJV speaks of in Genesis 1 is called the expanse in ESV and Holman and the “vault” in the NIV. In ESV God called the expanse Heaven (Gen. 1:8) while in Holman he called the expanse sky, with a footnote that says “or heavens.” In the NIV he called the vault “sky.” Vault seems like an awkward word to use in this case but the skies or heavens above us separate the earthly realm from the heavenly realm no matter what English synonyms we use to describe them. Sometimes a translation choice renders a different meaning but the vast majority of the time translation choices use different words to say the same thing. The Bible says what it says regardless of the words used or the language it is translated into.

I do not have such an inflated ego to believe that the world needs a complete commentary of the Bible written by Clark Bunch. Nor do I think my own personal paraphrase of the Bible would be more worthwhile than reading a good modern translation. Having said that, I believe the Read the Bible series of posts would involve me reading a public domain translation, such as the KJV or ASV, and simply paraphrasing the archaic words into something more comfortable. Thee and thou would become you and your, for instance. The best translation is the one you will actually read; I would encourage you, the reader/listener, to open your Bible or Bible app to the chapter being read and follow along. I would offer some thoughts – not a sermon or exhaustive commentary – and you would be welcome to make comments or ask questions. We could engage in discussion and as always not be required to agree in order to have a fruitful and meaningful conversation.

What do you think? Would you be interested in spending the next three plus years looking at the Bible, very slowly, one chapter at a time? I’m thinking after the first couple of Old Testament books we would jump into the New Testament. The Old Testament makes up over 60% of the Bible by volume and I don’t want it to be two years from now before we read about Jesus in the Gospels. We would change it up and as time goes by we could create an index page so the individual posts could be used as reference material. Even if this turns into something I do by myself now, maybe years down the road others would find the complete work useful; maybe my grand kids will learn something about Grandpa other than he moves slowly and eats chocolate pudding.

Share your thoughts in the comments below. If this moves forward, March 1st seems like a good arbitrary date to begin. If God is not in it then it will quickly come to nothing. If God is in it then nothing will be able to stop it. I say we find out. Nothing great ever came from someone saying “That sounds like too much, let’s not even try.”