The NET Bible

I like to use several different translations of the Bible, depending on my purpose. I like the New American Standard Bible (NASB, Update 1995) and the English Standard Version (ESV) for study, although I sometimes use others. I like the New English Translation (NET) for personal reading, and sometimes for study. Some translations are more word-for-word ("literal", such as NASB, ESV, NKJV, NRSV), and some are more thought-for-thought ("dynamic equivalent", such as NET, CET, NIV).

The difficulty with translating is that a strict word-for-word translation often comes out very difficult to understand in English. For example, a very literal translation of Romans 5:8 is "But demonstrates his own love into us God that yet sinners being we, Christ for us died"! We get the point, but you wouldn't want to read an entire Bible like that! Every translation makes it more readable in English than this, but some go further than others to smooth out the language. But, the further one goes to smooth out the language, the further from the original it gets.

There are several websites that have many translations available for reading, comparison, and study. I particularly like Logos, YouVersion, and Biblos. They allow you to compare translations, make personal notes, even share your notes with others, and investigate the original language versions (Greek and Hebrew). There are many others: The Unbound Bible, StudyLight, BibleGateway, and so on. Many versions have their own on-line versions, like the ESV.

One of my hands-down favorites is the website for the NET. The NET is a translation that's meant to be a little easier to read (it's more of a dynamic equivalent than a literal), but it stock-full of thousands and thousands of footnotes. But the footnotes in the NET are different than in most Bibles, giving you the best of both worlds in translation.

Most footnotes are commentary about the text or something about the ancient copies of Scripture. The footnotes in the NET, however, are mostly about the translation choices made by the translators. In other words, most of the extra comments are about why the translator translated the passage as he or she did, what other options were available, and so on. If the NET chooses a phrase that is more clear in English, there's often a footnote telling you what the Greek or Hebrew phrase is literally. So you get the best of both words - a very readable translation, but also information about what the original language says quite literally.

The NET website also has tons of other study tools: You can get to the Greek and Hebrew easily. There are commentaries, lists of hymns and artwork that go with the passage you're reading, and a way to compare several translations at once. And of course, you can search for just about anything - and it will find what you're looking for in not just the NET translation, but in any of the 10 translations it supports.

Give the NET a spin. Just click here. And if you want to really have fun, the main website that hosts the NET Bible is called Bible.org, which has online articles, audio, video, self-study courses in theology, and so on. (And for super Bible nerds, my newest favorite website is BibleArc.com, which is a great tool for analyzing the structure of a passage - watch the helpful instructional videos to watch how it's done.)