TNIV Gate Keeper Profiles, Part 2
09/26/2008 15:14 Filed in: Faith & Reason
This post is the 2nd part of a series in which I profile the winners of Zondervan’s Renaissance Fine Leather TNIV Reference Bible (see a preview of this Bible here).
Dan Masshardt, Pastor
New Cumberland, Pennsylvania
I had been a fairly consistent NIV user since High School, although I have always utilized other translations. Then two years ago my seminary gave a hardcover copy of the TNIV to students from the publisher. I was quickly hooked and it has been my translation of choice ever since.
I pastor a medium sized church and now use the TNIV for all of my public teaching and preaching as well as my primary Bible for study. I listen to the TNIV in my car and at home on CD as well. There are both practical and intellectual reasons for liking the TNIV so much.
Practically, it is similar enough to the NIV that so many people still using that translation don’t feel lost when I read and teach from the TNIV. Also the “gender accurate” language means that I do not constantly have to explain that “this applies to women too.” The translation is easy to read and understand what is being communicated. The challenge is now in interpretation and understanding the content of the message, not working through wooden or outdated language.
While some may not notice, it is helpful to look into many of the updates made to the NIV translation and see that now we have even more accuracy than before. Enhanced accuracy in a package that is highly readable is tough to beat.
For these reasons and others, I enthusiastically recommend the TNIV to friends and members of our congregation. I love the Reference Bible personally, but will recommend the TNIV Study Bible as well as the audio format for a long time to come. Thanks to the translators and publishers for all their hard work to serve the Church!
Greg Cohoon, Sunday School Teacher
Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church
Greensboro, North Carolina
I have been teaching an adult Sunday School class at my church for the past 4 or 5 years. It's a class that I "inherited" when the previous teacher moved. The class was formed about 15 years ago out of a desire for adults to have a class for in-depth Bible Study and developed along the lines of simply going through the Bible verse by verse, starting in Genesis. We typically cover about a chapter per week. The structure of the class is a hybrid lecture/discussion, where I encourage class participants to share insights they have about the particular passage being studied. In addition to encouraging and guiding discussion, I provide lecture on various aspects related to the passage: historical information, literary form of the passage, simple word studies, etc. The resulting mix is a somewhat scholarly treatment of the material, with discussion of how the truths revealed in each passage are applicable in our daily lives. When I started teaching, the class was near the end of 2 Chronicles. We are currently in the middle of Isaiah. I like to joke that we are working through a 75-year reading plan.
I don't precisely remember how I discovered the TNIV. I suspect that I discovered it as a module in my Accordance Bible Software. I rely on that software heavily to prepare my Sunday School lessons, as it allows me to easily compare different translations as well as have a huge wealth of study tools available for preparing my lessons. I'm a firm believer that all Bible translations are imperfect, so I greatly appreciate the ability to compare a variety of translations when studying and teaching. The most popular translation in my class is the NIV, so using the TNIV when teaching was a natural choice that would sound familiar to my students as well as being different enough to remind us that we are studying from a translation. I currently use several translations in class, with the TNIV and ESV being the two I use most often. It's always exciting and interesting when translation differences help spark a deeper study of the particular passage being examined. I like that by exposing the class to various translations, it gives us an opportunity to discuss translation philosophies and engage in simple word studies on a regular basis. I especially like that by using the TNIV, I am able to present a translation that is very familiar to my class, while introducing a fresh take.
I mentioned my use of Accordance Bible Software in my preparation. While it is very convenient to have a powerful computer program to assist in preparation, I've still found that nothing beats actually holding a book and turning the pages for studying God's word. In class, I always read the text from a Bible, not from a computer. I'm really looking forward to being able to incorporate this nice Bible into my teaching routine.
Feel free to interact with Dan and Greg in the comments.
Other Posts:
Part 1
Part 3
Dan Masshardt, Pastor
New Cumberland, Pennsylvania
I had been a fairly consistent NIV user since High School, although I have always utilized other translations. Then two years ago my seminary gave a hardcover copy of the TNIV to students from the publisher. I was quickly hooked and it has been my translation of choice ever since.
I pastor a medium sized church and now use the TNIV for all of my public teaching and preaching as well as my primary Bible for study. I listen to the TNIV in my car and at home on CD as well. There are both practical and intellectual reasons for liking the TNIV so much.
Practically, it is similar enough to the NIV that so many people still using that translation don’t feel lost when I read and teach from the TNIV. Also the “gender accurate” language means that I do not constantly have to explain that “this applies to women too.” The translation is easy to read and understand what is being communicated. The challenge is now in interpretation and understanding the content of the message, not working through wooden or outdated language.
While some may not notice, it is helpful to look into many of the updates made to the NIV translation and see that now we have even more accuracy than before. Enhanced accuracy in a package that is highly readable is tough to beat.
For these reasons and others, I enthusiastically recommend the TNIV to friends and members of our congregation. I love the Reference Bible personally, but will recommend the TNIV Study Bible as well as the audio format for a long time to come. Thanks to the translators and publishers for all their hard work to serve the Church!
Greg Cohoon, Sunday School Teacher
Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church
Greensboro, North Carolina
I have been teaching an adult Sunday School class at my church for the past 4 or 5 years. It's a class that I "inherited" when the previous teacher moved. The class was formed about 15 years ago out of a desire for adults to have a class for in-depth Bible Study and developed along the lines of simply going through the Bible verse by verse, starting in Genesis. We typically cover about a chapter per week. The structure of the class is a hybrid lecture/discussion, where I encourage class participants to share insights they have about the particular passage being studied. In addition to encouraging and guiding discussion, I provide lecture on various aspects related to the passage: historical information, literary form of the passage, simple word studies, etc. The resulting mix is a somewhat scholarly treatment of the material, with discussion of how the truths revealed in each passage are applicable in our daily lives. When I started teaching, the class was near the end of 2 Chronicles. We are currently in the middle of Isaiah. I like to joke that we are working through a 75-year reading plan.
I don't precisely remember how I discovered the TNIV. I suspect that I discovered it as a module in my Accordance Bible Software. I rely on that software heavily to prepare my Sunday School lessons, as it allows me to easily compare different translations as well as have a huge wealth of study tools available for preparing my lessons. I'm a firm believer that all Bible translations are imperfect, so I greatly appreciate the ability to compare a variety of translations when studying and teaching. The most popular translation in my class is the NIV, so using the TNIV when teaching was a natural choice that would sound familiar to my students as well as being different enough to remind us that we are studying from a translation. I currently use several translations in class, with the TNIV and ESV being the two I use most often. It's always exciting and interesting when translation differences help spark a deeper study of the particular passage being examined. I like that by exposing the class to various translations, it gives us an opportunity to discuss translation philosophies and engage in simple word studies on a regular basis. I especially like that by using the TNIV, I am able to present a translation that is very familiar to my class, while introducing a fresh take.
I mentioned my use of Accordance Bible Software in my preparation. While it is very convenient to have a powerful computer program to assist in preparation, I've still found that nothing beats actually holding a book and turning the pages for studying God's word. In class, I always read the text from a Bible, not from a computer. I'm really looking forward to being able to incorporate this nice Bible into my teaching routine.
Feel free to interact with Dan and Greg in the comments.
Other Posts:
Part 1
Part 3