Bible Versions for Non-Believers

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

Intro to Bible and Its Versions

The Bible, is the sacred book for Judaism and Christianity. Quote from Wikipedia:

The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia “the books”) is any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books (Biblical canon), their contents and their order vary among denominations.

The Bible is also important to Islam, and other Abrahamic religions. Quote:

The Hebrew and Christian Bibles are also important to other Abrahamic religions, including Islam and the Bahá'í Faith, but those religions do not regard them as central religious texts.

The Abrahamic religions are: {Judaism, Christianity, Islam}. They are grouped together as Abrahamic because they have the common origin, tracing to a figure in their scripture named Abraham.

Herbrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is divided into three parts:

Christianity Bible

The Christian Bible is divided into two parts: The Old Testament and The New Testament. The Old Testament is basically the Hebrew Bible. It is set in the context of ancient Israel (~1300 BC to ~53 BC.)

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism. The number of these writings varies markedly between denominations, Protestants accepting only the Rabbinic canon but dividing it into 39 books, while Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, Coptic and Ethiopian churches recognise a considerably larger collection derived from the ancient Septuagint.

The New Testament (Koine Greek: Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, Hē Kainḕ Diathḗkē) is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament.

Unlike the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, of which Christians hold different views, the contents of the New Testament deal explicitly with 1st century Christianity, although both the Old and New Testament are regarded, together, as Sacred Scripture.

The New Testament is an anthology, a collection of Christian works written in the common Greek language of the first century, at different times by various writers, who were early Jewish disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. In almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books.


While working on the song Wandering Stars lyrics page, i had a need to quote from the bible. I went into some research about the different versions.

Here's some wikipedia articles:

In summary, there are tens of versions and translations. Each one suit themselves. It is for the same reason, i'm picky about which version i want to cite from. One day i might create my own version.

The passage i need to excerpt is “Jude 1:13”. See this site for a multi-version comparison:

online parallel bible At http://web.biblebrowser.com/jude/1-13.htm

It turns out, in this very passage, there is whoredom and fucking with animals and massacre, the last of which is committed by God.

More Western-God-Believing-Sect's scripture studies:

from georrg:

The ones i read: