Welcome to Plaid Eggnog!

Welcome to Plaid Eggnog!

Feb 22, 2011

Where ... all the Verbs....?

In our 2 small churches, we have 27 people who committed to God and one another that we would read the daily lectionary in 2011. We're very excited, and hope people are finding it both a challenge and a joy.

We are using the "daily office" readings from the Canadian 1962 edition of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It gives 2 morning and 2 evening readings. Jumps around a bit, but by Advent 2011 we'll have covered 90% or so of the Bible. Quite a challenge!

Most are using The Message version.

I (Steve) am using the New American Standard Bible. The NASB uses italics "to indicate words which are not found in the original [languages] but implied by it." Knowing this, imagine my surprise on reading Revelation 4 on Sunday!

If you don't know Rev. 4, it's this awesome scene of worship in the heavenly throne room. Go read it now!

What struck me is that, from verses 3 thru 7, very few verbs are NOT in italics in NASB. It's all descriptive, and words like "there was" and "there were" appear in italics 8 times!

So I went back and re-read those verses, skipping the italics. Wow, did it ever change the feel of the verses! What before was slow, prosaic description (the 1st creature was like a lion, ho hum) became filled with breathless amazement (the 1st like a lion! The 2nd like a calf!)

I like that in my Bibile reading, breathless excitement.