The Bible is the collection of sacred writings of the Christian religion. It is comprised of the Old and New Testaments.

The Old Testament is recognized by Jews and as well as Christians. The New Testament consists of books recognized by the Christian Church from the 4th century. The Roman Catholic Bible also includes the Apocrypha.

The first English Translation of the Bible was by Miles Coverdale ( a priest) in 1535. The Authorised or King James Version followed in 1611.

The Authorised Bible was revised in 1959 by The British and Foreign Bible Society. This was named The Revised Standard version and was widely used and very popular because of the more simple written form. The language in The King James version although beautiful and poetic was at times difficult to understand especially for children. Another revision was taking place around the same time. This was to be known as The New English Bible. The New Testament part of The New English Bible first appeared in 1961 and The Old Testament and the Apocrypha was published in 1970.

Since the publication of these translations many others have appeared on the market. Amongst them are The Living Bible, The Good News Bible and The New International Version. The latter first appeared in 1973 and was later revised in 1983. The choice of Bibles today is extensive and is very much a matter of personal choice. There are study Bibles, Children's Bibles, Large Print Bibles, Teenage Bibles, Reference Bibles, Devotional Bibles and many others.

The members of the study group I attend use a great variety of translations. We often share readings and compare the text from them. We feel that by doing this we gain better insight and a richer understanding of the passage under discussion. We have preferences for different translations which works well in our group. My preference at this stage is The New International Version but I use other translations as well.

We study many different materials in our group. Some of our recent studies have been "Forty Days of Purpose" by Rick Warren from the Saddleback Bible Study series. We have studied several of the Disciple Studies. I have been involved with two. "Under the Tree of Life" and "Remember who you are". These studies have been excellent. We have also studied two books by Philip Yancey "Soul Survivor" and "What's so amazing about Grace?" Both of these books have been stimulating and interesting to study. Another worthwhile book to study is "Praying our Goodbyes" by Joyce Rupp. We have also done a series of studies on Intercessory Prayer.

All of these studies plus many others used over the years have produced stimulating conversations, soul searching and a greater degree of knowledge of the scriptures.

Through this I have gained strength which has enabled me to cope better through some difficult situations My faith continues to grow as we share.