Welcome to Old Testament Study!

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Welcome to our 2026 study of the Old Testament! Please follow this link to my previously posted lesson supplement: 

The Amazing King James Translation

Although the King James Translation is the official Bible version used in the English language scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the first time, the Church has issued a statement recommending using additional translations for better understanding. Here are those recommendations for using alternate English translations.

Examples of Other Translations (by Reading Level)

9th–11th Grade:

• English Standard Version (ESV)

• New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

6th–8th Grade:

• New International Version (NIV)

• New Living Translation (NLT)

• New King James Version (NKJV)

3rd Grade:

• New International Reader’s Version (NIrV)

[End of quote]

So should you run out and buy other editions? Maybe you will want to do that, but almost all of them are accessible for free online. The links provided in the Church's list above will take you to the YouVersion Bible app offered by Life.Church which is easy to use but requires a sign in.

Here are two other helpful apps for Bible study:

With Bible Hub, you can access the NIV, NLT, and ESV versions along with a dozen other translations and even study them in parallel, verse by verse. The number of things this app can do is almost overwhelming!

Blue Letter Bible or BLB offers NKJV and NIV on their app and even more translations on their website to study side-by-side with KJV. This app is simple to use.

Whichever way you choose to study, keep an open mind. The people of the Old Testament lived so long ago, it's almost like they are aliens from another planet. Their traditions and their views of God can be very foreign to us. Their culture has not undergone thousands of years of divinely-directed evolution as ours has, so they can be brutal, harsh, and warlike, even when talking about God. They did not use the term "Heavenly Father," and they did not even say the Old Testament name for Jesus Christ, "Jehovah," out loud. Their relationship to God was perhaps more removed, more distant than ours. And if God teaches His children, "line upon line, precept upon precept," as we Latter-day Saints believe, these people were millions of lines and precepts away from our understanding today. Extend them your charity. And don't believe everything they say about God.