The Book of Isaiah was found in there. It is nearly 100% the same as in the KJV.

My point is that, I do trust our Bible 100%, but it is absolutely full of stories that start and we never hear the end, passages that have no meaning, etc. Only way you can find those answers is to look into the other texts wtih prayer asking the Holy Spirit to guide you.

I absolutely believe that God loved man enough to gamble Christ's death on them.

If you don't believe that, I don't even know how you can say you believe in Christ.

Honest questions. Some that I have asked myself. Suffice it to say that I am satisfied that the 66 books that we accept are indeed attested to through history by many knowledge men and women cross-referencing all available texts and copies of texts to be the true and accurate Word of God.

That is not to say that that the many apocryphal texts cannot shed and insight or further knowledge but that they are related but outside of the text of the Bible.

One of the keys used by the church fathers was whether these accepted books supported and referenced each other.

It's a rational and logical argument. Theoretically, Christ could have died in vain if left to man's free will. God didn't gamble his sons life on that.

Broad is the way that leads to destruction and most are going that route. That's what the Bible tells us. It's a fixed number, the text tells us that. It's already determined.

So the criminal on the cross who spent his entire life sinning and never repented for anything went to Heaven because he was "Chosen"? And not because Jesus has mercy?

Uh-oh

Calvinism and TULIP. Now there's a can of worms for you even though I do consider myself in Calvin's camp I can't explain the how's and why other than I know my God knows all before during and after so it stands to reason He knows who will and who won't. I also know that there is absolutely nothing that a totally depraved man or woman could ever do to effect salvation unless God moves first. There will be no gate crashers in heaven. So God must call to salvation and when God calls you can't say no.

I struggle with the concept of those who will not. Did God not call them? Or did they have the free will to refuse?

If you think about it, Arminian theology appeals to those who won't trust God with their salvation. They feel they need to add their own effort to it. The bottom line is, they don't trust God. Trust is exactly what God wants, nothing more.

This usually goes to motive for me. Whenever a thread like this comes up, there's an underlying current that intends to cast doubt on scripture. It's a way to validate and excuse unbelief. That's why I chime in the way I typically do. The sinner is not in the driver's seat.

IMO, our Bible is the Cliff's note version of what happened in the OT. Its enough to give the history and get the the understanding, but that is it. If one want's to follow those trails the OT alludes to, then one must go to other texts. The NT not so much. We all agree that Jesus Christ is the son of God, came down to save us from our sins, and He is our Savior. That's really all that matters, but I like the history of it all.

But the counter to that is the calvinist who sits in a pew for fifty years with a fatalistic attitude of I'll found out when I get there.

I wouldn't be a Calvinist but for what scripture teaches and my own experience. Pastors preach the gospel because they know the elect are out there. Some plant, some water but God gives the increase.

If you’re not going to learn Hebrew and Greek (and a little Aramaic too), then you’ll be reading a translation. All translations have their issues but are generally pretty good. If you want to really understand the text a little better, read more than one translation and use a concordance. When multiple translations don’t line up in certain passages, it’s usually a sign of some interpretive ambiguity, and that’s when the concordance is handy. You can also get an interlinear Bible. Those are a great tool if you’re getting really serious about the “original” versions. If your question is about the Apocrypha, you can pick them up in a separate volume if your own Bible doesn’t have them. Also, all of this is available for free online in multiple places. I like having print copies on hand, but I use BibleHub.com a lot too.

P.S. I’m going to make a correction that I make on most of these threads again: the story of the Bible is NOT about getting to Heaven when you die. That idea is foreign. It’s just not there. The Bible also doesn’t create a clear systematic theology for itself, so I don’t find boxing oneself into the various theological -isms to be that helpful. Currently, I think I’d say the Bible lays out a Covenantal theology centered almost entirely on the Exodus.

I'm late to the party. Rabbi Daniel Lapin recommends the Korean Jerusalem Bible. I have the compact edition if I did it over again I would buy the large print version. I mostly read the king James version but it's not the easiest to understand because of using obsolete English. I'm not trying to start an argument just my worthless 2 cents.

I have a simple Bible to read and understand ,you can called it a Bible for dummys!.

Just curious Guss ? What is the same version you speak of.

I disagree with your first statement but agree on the latter part. I circled this verse thirty-three years ago within just a few days of the Lord bringing me out of the bondage of Egypt. Egypt representing sin and Pharoah representing Satan. I didn't free myself from that, God did. God doing for man what man can't do for himself runs through the Bible from start to finish.

Between the Douay-Rheims Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers, you can stay occupied for a bit.

Where do you get that idea? Actually the Geneva Bible was the choice of many of the first settlers.

It's don't use the king James words that people have problems with simple.

I still have the fond memory of entertaining a couple of Vegans at our kitchen table. One of them noticed a K-bar in my window sill and referred to it as a weapon, to which I quickly replied it was for skinning deer. That set the entrance stage for them to bring in the forgotten languages of which I knew little of. They quickly introduced me to the long lost Essenes and how that they dressed in white and did not eat the flesh of God's creatures. I asked them where that was in the bible, it was then I realized it must all be part of a big secret of history that even Josephus didn't understand the fullness of.
I told them, well now that you have took me way back, lets just fast forward to Peter down at the tanners house and since it was in the bible, maybe God sanctioned that and that was good enough for my parents and its good enough for me. At which time I escorted them out the door and asked that they didn't come back. My wife said I was rude and grinned, lol.
As they went to their car our old yeller Tom cat jumped out of an unrolled window. I guess in their forgotten language they probably remarked they had been marked by the Devil, lol. That old cat had caused me to invent some colorful language over the years, but that was one time I was glad to call him mine, lol.