I plan to get into Christian Theological Studying as a hobby, but i am unsure about the pre-requisites needed for reading the Bible, and a good scholarly version of the Bible itself.
I have no problem with any Translation (so long as its not Extremely Doctrinating and must be in ENGLISH)
You might want to try a lay but scholarly introduction to the history of the Bible. Such as from Amazon.
In The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction, renowned biblical scholar and New York Times Bestselling author Bart D. Ehrman presents his long-awaited survey of the Bible. Comprehensive yet succinct, current in scholarship, rich in pedagogical tools, and easily accessible to students of all backgrounds, this is an ideal textbook for one-semester courses on the Bible. Ehrman covers every book in the canon, including the Apocrypha, explaining the historical and literary problems posed by the biblical texts and showing students how to analyze scholarly evidence and conclusions.
Also a good history about the multiple authors, multiple times, multiple languages and translations as well the history of how it was decided which texts would become canonical and which would become apocryphal and which texts were to be destroyed and declared heretical. The Old testament largely written in Hebrew (some Aramaic) and the New Testament largely written in Greek and later translated to Latin. All useful background and perspective when reading any modern translation. You know even Cliff Notes are available and provide a good summary and information often not available in the text itself. Anyway good luck, if you are just beginning to indulge a religious inclination or interest, I would not confine myself to just Christianity. Anyway good luck on your journey.
biblegateway.com has different translations online.
biblehub.com has different translations plus commentary, lexicon, and linking passages
The ones in the nightstands at hotels are free if no one knows you took them, but theft of a Bible seems too impossibly ironic to actually occur.
If looking for a study bible with commentary included, look for one that satisfies your needs, as in whether you’re looking for an academic, secular approach or whether you’re looking for one with a religious orientation. There’s a pretty big distance between what you might learn in a Sunday school class at church as opposed to what might be taught in a critical religious studies class at a university.
I have heard that the ESV (study) is all encompassing, but also that it is Evangelical(i am looking for neutral, academic perspective)
the complete gospels is a good start. its all the gospels and explains the setting and set of texts in question all of which are there. a good read on the topic of the founder of christianity is the goddess from the ice age to the bible
Since you’re still around I’ll share a few thoughts:
The ESV Study Bible had a pretty hard evangelical/Reformed leaning. I found some of its essays to be downright disingenuous (e.g., on the formation of the Jewish canon and status of the Deuterocanonical books it presents all evidence for their exclusion, none for their inclusion, and seems to simply misrepresent facts, like Josephus’ number of books matching neither Canon). IIRC a note calls the reading of I Peter 4 re the “Harrowing of Hell” as the work of deranged minds and alien to the text, despite it being a very common interpretation among early Greek authors.
Anyhow, as far as ecumenical study Bibles, the Oxford version is normally the standard English recommendation. It is pretty light in terms of notes though. You get 3 and 4 Maccabees as a bonus for some reason though too. That uses the NRSV. As far as recent translations I think that one is pretty good. NASB I like too.
It really depends on what you’re interested in though. The Ancient Faith Bible has all its notes pulled from early Patristics. It’s quite good. It doesn’t include the DC though and its citations show a pretty strong Evangelical bias on controversial subjects (so, you’ll get plenty of Saint Ireneus of Lyon and Saint Ignatius of Antioch as Apostolic Fathers who had contact with Saint John the Apostle, but none of their quotes about the real body and blood when Saint Paul discussed the Eucharist in I Corinthians). I still think it’s a great resource though. It used the CSB, which I thought read pretty well.
Or if you’re interested in going deep into the Hebrew and want a more secular commentary and a good translation, Robert Alter’s translation of the Hebrew Scriptures is excellent, but also a bit pricey. Alter gives you a good idea of how Hebrew narrative and poetry work (he had two excellent books on the topic) and on the textual transmission. Unlike many translations, he is very up front about when he is switching between the Masoretic Hebrew, DSS, Septuagint, and Peshitta due to what seem to be obvious transcription errors, or other issues.
David Bentley Hart has an interesting translation of the New Testament that tries to be “doctrine neutral.” I’m not quite sure if it achieves this, it seems more that he just goes for very literal translations at controversial points, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It doesn’t read great in English, but it is good as a study text.
Then, in terms of aesthetics, I really like the The Psalter According to the Seventy translation of the Septuagint Psalms. It’s kind of a shame that the English language Septuagint translations are not very readable.