Reading the Bible

Impatient, just wanting to get started? Go to the Gospel of John.

Curious about the creation account?

If you read both of the above chapters you will note that John had read the creation account and had it in mind when he wrote.

If you are in a less than desperate hurry, here are some clues to …

Translations

Thanks to the Internet, innumerable Bible translations are readily available to us today. (Please refer to Bible Facts 2 to know more about the original biblical languages.) This post was originally written for Swedes using Swedish. Even though Swedish is a minor language, almost a dozen translations can be found.

As for English, the number of translations is utterly overwhelming. We will not even pretend to present an overview. With that disclaimer, here are two all-round translations suitable for everyday reading.

Translation	Abbr.	Year
New International Version	NIV	2011	Gospel of John	Creation account
English Standard Version	ESV	2016	Gospel of John	Creation account

Of these, NIV tends towards fluent English language. ESV is slightly more inclined towards letting quirks in the original languages be reflected into English. Both are available in anglicised editions. Both are available from several Bible sites, each one offering its particular formatting, etc.

For simplicity, all links above point to bible.com where you may find an extensive list of languages and translations. There are several similar Bible sites offering Bible translations, dictionaries, commentaries, and other Bible study tools, including access to the original Hebrew and Greek.

Mentioning a specific Bible site and specific Bible translations here is only done for the purpose of helping readers find a starting point, not to the exclusion of other similar services. We encourage readers to survey Bible sites and translations to find their personal favorites.

Bible Text References

The Bible is divided into books. Books are divided into chapters which are divided into verses. The divisions are not part of the original text. They are later additions to make it possible to refer to the text with some precision.

There are generally accepted abbreviations of Bible books. Here are a few examples of Bible references.

Abbreviated	Full
Gen 2:3	Genesis, chapter 2, verse 3
Matt 1:2	The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 1, verse 2
1 Cor 2:3	The first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 2 verse 3

John wrote letters in addition to a Gospel. The abbreviation “1 John” refers to the first letter of John.