Asked:

Why are there different kinds of bibles?

The issue stems from the fact that the original scriptures were penned in Hebrew and Greek, when they were handed to men from the Holy Spirit.

For years, they were transcribed (by hand) in various manuscripts and pieces, often in Latin, as they were passed along. With the advent of movable type in Europe, things spread quickly. Johannes Gutenberg created the Gutenberg Bible (of the Latin Vulgate) on his movable type machine. The first complete modern English translation was compiled by Myles Coverdale in 1535. Around 1611 the official King James Bible was released, and for many years, was the standard, even long after King James’ English was no longer an active language. In the 1900s there have been many attempts at keeping up with the changes of the English language, in modernizing the Bible.

With widespread education, anybody can study the original languages, and undertake the task of translating manuscripts into the language of their choice. When you study a second language, you learn that some words don’t always have a 1:1 mapping between the languages. Often, you can choose from multiple possibilities when translating a word, and sometimes after you translate it, you might not even be able to translate back based on the word choice. This complication makes translating accurately a very difficult undertaking. The stakes increase when you take into account the dire nature of the subject matter, and the stern warning given in the end of Revelation 22:

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: ?if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

All these considered, there are many philosophies of modern translation. Some try to make the Bible as appealing as possible, to the widest audience possible. Others try to stick to accurate translations of the original languages as much as possible, in preserving as much of the original context they can. And everything in between. There are dangers inherent in watering down the Bible for the masses, in which you can lose some biblical truths, such as the TNIV has in recent controversy. Zondervan, in the TNIV, attempted to remove as much gender-specific language from the Bible as they could. This was generally considered by the scholarly community as a bad idea. Zondervan has now announced they will replace the TNIV (and NIV) in the near future with a translation they are working on, in which they will “carefully consider” all the gender-neutral changes they made. Translations such as the NIV are considered interpretations, as they don’t take a word-for-word approach to translating the bible, but take a phrase or verse or passage and rearrange it into English prose. The Message is an extreme example of this.

Modern translations that try to stick to a word-for-word approach to preserving as much of the original language nuances as possible include the NKJV, NASB, ESV, et al.

In the end, no matter the translation, it is the Holy Spirit which generates the understanding of the Word.

Houston asks:

Why doesn’t the Bible mention dinosaurs? Why weren’t they on Noah’s ark? Are they all underwater, which is why we can’t find them today, and could the Loch Ness Monster be one?

I’ll start by pointing back to the previous answer on Aliens, that the purpose of the Bible is not to answer every single mystery of life, as some mysteries will necessarily remain hidden, but to reveal the mystery of God’s plan of redemption for us (Ephesians 3:8-9).

The Bible does actually reference a terrible beast, called Leviathan, in Job 41.

It describes a monster “of mighty strength … around his teeth is terror … his back is made of rows of shields … they clasp each other and cannot be separated … His sneezings flash forth light … out of his mouth go flaming torches … out of his nostrils comes forth smoke … in his neck abides strength and terror dances before him … when he raises himself up the mighty are afraid…” – you get the picture. While the Bible may not describe the appearance of what we figure certain dinosaurs looked like, remember the Bible has a very specific purpose. In fact, this passage of Job serves to illustrate that creation is under God’s authority, not to give us a template picture with which we could apply fossil record. God’s creation is validated plenty by what we can still see, we don’t need to try and validate it against beasts which are not part of recorded history.

Noah only took animals on his ark that were still alive at the time. Ever since creation had been cursed by God at the fall of man (Genesis 3), things have been dying, even to extinction. It is most likely, that anything resembling a dinosaur, except of course the crocodile which still remains to this day, would have been extinct before the flood. Species go extinct constantly, and since that time, that has been the norm.

As for Nessie, an undocumented, as yet unproved (and I’ve watched many hours of science channel footage) creature under a lake could be just about anything, so it’s hard to say.

Houston asks:

Did God create extra terrestrial life?

You’ll notice that you won’t find a mention of extra-terrestrial life in the Bible. The question becomes, why wouldn’t God put information about life on other planets in the Bible? If God didn’t write the Bible to tell us if there is alien life, why did He write it?

The Bible is God’s ultimate story of redemption. From the fall to final glory, it tells the story of Jesus. The Old Testament points to the coming savior, and the New Testament tells of His ministry. Things that don’t fit into that story are not going to be covered in depth, if at all. We can reasonably assume that the existence of alien life will not affect our salvation.

Life, in fact all of creation, is purposed for God’s redemption story. The heavens and the earth will be wiped away when it comes time to judge mankind (Rev 20:11). Do you think God would create life on other planets just to blink them out of existence when its time to judge us?

There is a recorded purpose for the stars in the sky. Genesis 1:16 says the stars provide some light at night. Jeremiah 31:35 says God “fixed the order of the moon and the stars for light by night” which enables us to navigate with them, plan harvest and when to plant based on the calendar the stars provide. The appearance and position of certain stars and constellations in the night sky accurately denotes the time of year.