Let's see, there's the Revised Standard Version Bible I got when I started Sunday School back in the Dark Ages, there's a Bhagavad Gita somewhere, a couple of Books of Mormon given by hopeful in-laws, I've got the Bible bookmarked so I can compare translations--Hubby might have a Koran somewhere, but I don't know. Oh, and various Catholic texts that I've picked up because catechism and how it changes fascinates me.

As I recall from someone's tipsy attempt to read the story, married, but knew her not until after the baby Jeebus went out the hoo-haw shoot.

So is that a translation issue? Because Tim's Bible is the NIV, and it was clear that they were unmarried at the time he took her to Bethlehem. Maybe the translation in the NIV is dodgy. I bet the NASB is online. Lemme look.

Dang, I can't believe I can still geek out about this shit.

NIV says "pledged to be married to him." NASB says "engaged." KJV says "espoused wife."

The freak-ass church held that the NIV and NASB were the most accurate translations, but then a lot of what they taught was full of shit, so I no longer know if that's true.

I think Linus in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special said they were betrothed, IIRC. But that's all I remember.

I love that you people geek out about this stuff.

Shameful book confession: I've never read the bible. Mom wasn't religious, and Dad was pretty rigorously agnostic after growing up Very Catholic. I went to church a couple of times in my childhood, with friends' families, but that was a purely social thing. And now the onlyreason I'm even vaguely interested in reading the Bible is for ritual magic/occult research.

Linus recites from the book of Luke, but I don't know what version. Probably the King James.

I used to have an NIV/NASB concordance, to compare the differences in the translations, and I loved the shit out of that thing, from a purely geeky standpoint. I think I was supposed to say something like "it revealed the power of THE LORD more purely," or something like that, but I just totally got down with the little fiddly translate-y bits from the Greek.

t edit I really wasn't a very good freak-ass Christian.

Probably the King James.

Pretty sure: [link]

King James bible has some of best poetry in English language. As a Jewish Atheist I own one for that reason. Part of me thinks a KJB is a very Goth thing to own, but as a non-Goth my opinion on that is not well informed.

I had a very academically annotated Bible I bought for a Bible as Lit course in grad school, which was a fantastic course, and I'd read it several times before then.

But I sold it at Half Price Books during one of my broke phases for gas or food. There are just SO many resources for the Bible on-line, I don't feel compelled to have a hard copy for reference.

Style guides and the Writer's Market are another matter...