No, kidding !

As an Irish Catholic, there never seemed to be any great emphasis placed on the Bible. In my consciousness, the Church seemed to be encouraging it as good stories/fables to learn about Christ and to live by, as opposed to the Protestants who we understood were taking the Bible as the literal truth. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but that's the way I remember it.

from the pulpit, rather than encouraging individual study, at least for a very long time. I'm not sure what its current emphasis is in that regard. Protestantism introduced the idea of individual Bible study and reading, but few churchgoers have really read the entire thing, including both the Old and New Testaments. It's a slog, to be sure.

Most people are familiar only with portions of the Bible, as presented to them from the pulpit, still. Often, that represents only a very small subset of what is included in the Bible, and often differs widely, depending on the denomination or sub-denomination of the church a person attends.

Christianity is generally understood, based on what is heard in church, and may not always represent everything that can be gleaned from its scriptures.

they picked 52 and just repeat them
nothing new

of scripture being used in most churches. It helps keep things simple for the pastors, though. There are plenty of resources out there they can draw on for sermons, etc. And, after a year, most people can't remember what exactly was said the year before.

And so it goes.

with the historical discrepancies being pointed out. Since all the Church scandals in Ireland, mass attendance has plummeted, and those left are quite hardline, and want to get rid of those (like myself) who they dismissively call "A la carte Catholics". I know they have overhauled the various sacraments, for example the process of my son's communion year has expanded significantly, but they still refer to supplied texts rather than the Bible.

The only time we see references to the Bible is the John 3 : 7 guy at sports matches !

Forebears all Irish, also.

And growing up we we never encouraged to read the Bible. You have that right.

Paperback copy, not as well worn as it could be, but at least read....Occasionally

but I refer to others like King James some times.

I also have a complete set of Barclay's Bible Commentary as well as the Old Testament Commentary prepared by the same publisher.

ESV tried to go back to the oldest surviving manuscripts and does note (like NIV) controversial passages like the ending clipped onto Mark.

I enjoy Bart Ehrman's books. I don't always agree with him, but I appreciate the scholarship that goes into them.

I am particularly excited to find out more about the oldest known Gospel commentary which has been recently discovered.

I suppose it's about time for another reading, using a different translation. When I quote a passage, though, I almost always use the KJV.

My goal is to eventually read all of OT and NT Commentary I mentioned previously. Probably a project for when I retire.

One interesting approach I did take was a Video/Audio Bible that is on DVD. I have "read" it while rowing. Didn't get through all of it that time (bogged down in Psalms). I should resurrect the effort. The words are on the screen to read while the audio is played. It helps to reinforce the information (I also watch most shows with captioning as well).

Good answer.

directly into English. Interesting subtle linguistic differences. For example, the Lord's Prayer there's a line that we all learned as "lead us not into temptation". The Aramaic says "Let us not be led into temptation." When you think about it, why would you pray to a god who might or might not lead you (directly) into temptation?

Mostly because I have a copy and don't feel like buying additional translations.

NKJV at times. Avoids the worst impenetrable bits of the KJV but still familiar enough.

JPS version for the Tanakh on occasion. Seems wrong to call it the "OT" when citing JPS. Not up to speed enough to use my reader's version of the Stuttgart Codex for the Hebrew. Yet. No personal predilection for which NT Greek text to use.

Personal favorite for NT was Phillips. I like that he refused to read any translation for years before starting his translation, but it's hard to forget what you're raised with (which was obligatorily the KJV) or what texts must mean to support certain doctrines or views. It's hard enough to read something 200 years old without screwing it up, 2000 years is a long haul.

Russian synodal translation's a bit old fashioned but the one you need to know in Russian. I wander into the Vulgate from time to time because Latin was my summer project, or the Spanish RV translation. Think the traditional Czech translation is cute with all the archaic bits--like the KJV, it tended to the archaic even when new. Like the Russian synodal, it's *the* translation for cultural background and explains why standard Czech is what it is.

Biblehub.com is good for some other translations.

Moffat translation is good for a laugh and probably at neither site. It's like Poldauf's Czech-English dictionary, sometimes you run into the quirkiest Scots translation as an expression of the "author's" national pride in additional other just plain quirky passages.

By A.E.J. Elliot, OBE

...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov%27s_Guide_to_the_Bible

The original 2-volume set. It's very interesting, although I haven't opened either volume for years, now.

...version.

After comparing notes with a few hotel-liberated copies of the Real Bybel™ it got just so tedious and quite frankly, boring, that I haven't opened either in awhile.

I would rather re-attempt to read Tolkien's The Silmarillion then go back to that.

Orthodox Study Bible, OT + NT.
NRSV for a quick verse grab.