Which Bible and which prayer book?
As I consider what my Lenten journey will look like in 2024, and as I plan to record my thoughts along the way here on the Bible and Prayer Book blog, the question comes up: which Bible and which prayer book shall I use? I mean, I currently have somewhere around 300 different Bibles in my library, and just upwards of a half-dozen different versions of The Book of Common Prayer. A secondary questions is, do I absolutely have to restrict myself to just one version? Lord know, on this blog, I have often jumped from version to version of both the prayer book and the Bible.
My gut instinct this time around (and this may change by the time Lent begins in a few weeks) is that I’d really like to go with something pretty traditional. But I don’t think I want to go as traditional as the 1662 BCP and the King James Bible. Obviously, those are pretty solidly traditional options. However, I’m looking at a Bible and Prayer Book that interact with the traditional, but that also have a little newness to them.
I think this would be a perfect opportunity to delve into a version of The Book of Common Prayer that was only published recently: the ACNA’s relatively recent publication, Book of Common Prayer: Traditional Language Edition (which, despite the MMXIX on its cover, was only published in 2022). This edition uses traditional language, quite similar to the 1928 BCP favored by many American Anglicans, and the Coverdale Psalter. So, although it is a quite recent publication, its entire goal seems to be to connect to the historic language of the BCP.
As far as the Bible goes, this was a little trickier decision. I have plenty of versions of the Bible that are quite traditional: the King James, of course, but also the Geneva Bible, the Douay-Rheims Challoner Bible (a Roman Catholic version), and the 1952 Revised Standard Version (which seems quite traditional by today’s standards). And I certainly have several modern English editions that are formal equivalence versions: the ESV, the CSB, and others. But I think I’m going to go with one that’s been around for a few years, but that consciously has a connection to a much older version: the King James Easy-Reading Study Bible (KJVER), published in 2007. This version is a handy size, with a decent sized typeface, and some nice features. It is an update of the KJV, with a bit more modernized language, but much of the cadence of the traditional KJV. I added it to my library a few years ago, but I haven’t actually used it much since then, so it will be new to me.
As mentioned above, I may change my mind on all of this by the time Lent begins on February 14. But at the moment, these seem like pretty solid choices. If you will be following the BCP during Lent, which version of the prayer book and the Bible will you be using? I’d love to hear from you!
UPDATE: Upon further consideration, I have decided to go with a different adaptation of the King James Bible, instead of the KJVER, one that I think will more closely match the style of The Book of Common Prayer: Traditional Language Edition. It is a Bible version called the 21st Century King James Version. (Interestingly enough, this version was actually published in 1994, several years before the 21st century actually arrived.) It is a very lightly revised edition of the KJV, which attempts to change archaic words that are confusing or that may be a barrier to understanding the text. So archaic pronouns (such as thee, thou, thy, ye) are not changed, as they are actually quite easy to understand. Words like peradventure, wist, and straitly are replaced by perhaps, know, and strictly. False cognates, such as fetched a compass, are replaced by more familiar phrases (followed a circuitous course). (However, I saw that suffer little children was retained in Matthew 19:14.) We’ll see how it goes…
