Posted on 06/18/2005 8:43:25 PM PDT by sassbox
For the past several weeks, my upstairs neighbor and friend has been having a very rough time. He is suffering from some mental illness, the after effects of drug use, gambling and financial problems - in short, he's quite a mess right now. Mr sassbox and I were sitting out on our porch earlier this evening, when this young man came out. He struck up a conversation with us - the first time in weeks he has spoken to anyone in our house in a friendly manner. Although he has not been religious at all, he talked alot about God and several times expressed a desire for a King James Bible. He wanted us to give him a KJB, but we only have one, and it's quite old. Frankly I'd be a little nervous letting him borrow it, given his recent erratic behavior. Also, he would benefit from owning his own Bible. So I went to the Gideon's website to see if I could order a free King James Bible and have it mailed to his apartment. However, the Gideons do not appear to give free Bibles to individuals; they are focused on providing Bibles for institutions. Does any one here know of an organization online that I can order a free or low-cost KJB from and have it mailed to my friend? Thanks!
Amen to that.
Get either the older NIV or the updated New American Standard.
When you give it to him, make sure he knows how to read it. During my dark years, I tried reading the KJV from page one. I tried several times. I never got past the genealogies.
The geneologies don't get any more palatable in any other version. There's just not too many different ways to say "begat". If they are going to be read you simply have to plow through them. And, off the top of my head, I don't think you run into any significantly big lists until about midway through the Pentatuch. The only ones in the NT are the relatively short lists of Jesus' human ancestors.
It would probably help to remember that for the first readers, the geneology lists would have had much more significance. They would have been their immediate ancestors from not too far back.
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