|
|
Different Versions of The Bible
What
are The Different Versions of The Bible The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The very first translation of the Hebrew Bible was into Greek, the Septuagint (LXX), which later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the church and the basis of its canon. The Latin Vulgate by Jerome was based upon the Hebrew for those books of the Bible preserved in the Jewish canon (as reflected in the masoretic text), and on the Greek text for the deuterocanonical books. Other ancient Jewish translations, such as the Aramaic Targums, conform closely to masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, and all medieval and modern Jewish translations are based upon the same. Christian translations also tend to be based upon the Hebrew, though some denominations prefer the Septuagint (or may cite variant readings from both). Bible translations incorporating modern textual criticism usually begin with the masoretic text, but also take into account possible variants from all available ancient versions. The received text of the Christian New Testament is in Koine Greek, and nearly all translations are based upon the Greek text. The Latin Vulgate was dominant in Christianity through the Middle Ages. Since then, the Bible has been translated into many more languages. English Bible translations in particular have a rich and varied history of more than a millennium. Bibles appear at different reading levels. The King James Version is considered the most difficult (12-grade) and at the other end of the spectrum is are the simple English and Children's Bibles. Most translations fall in the 6-8th grade reading level. The NASB is more difficult than that, and the Contemporary English Version (CEV) simpler. There are also different translation methodologies including:
There is a large correspondence between words in the original
language and the translation including attempts to preserve word
order where possible.
Rather than translating words, these translate ideas and whole thoughts.
They tell you what they think the text says (or ought to say) in
their own words. They are not actually translations, but paraphrases. Some think that Formal Equivalence is the proper starting place as Formal Equivalence translations are least likely to skew the text in one direction or another. They will preserve figures of speech. In some places, however, it's difficult to render a thought from one language to another and preserve word equivalences. For this reason, Some believe that there is also a place for Dynamic Equivalence translations. By consulting more than one Dynamic Equivalence translation, one can get a range of interpretations and insights in to what the text means. As far as some are concerned, there is no place for paraphrases.
Strong's Versions
Modern Translations
Early Translations
Old Testament Only
New Testament Only
Translation is the process of communicating a message into a language that is different from the one in which the message was originally written. The message may be a song, a poem, a story, directions, a telephone message, or a sermon. But if a person is not able to understand that message because it is written or told in an unfamiliar language, the message must be translated in order for that person to understand it. Without the process of translation that message will never be effectively communicated to a new audience. The message may be heard, but it will not be understood. This is especially important when the Bible is the message to be communicated. The Bible is made up of several individual books that were written and told long ago in various languages quite unfamiliar to us today. These books came together over a period of more than a thousand years to form what we know as the Bible. None of these books were originally written in English (or Spanish or most other languages used throughout the world today). They were written in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic (for the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament) and in Greek (for the New Testament). Without Bible translation, people today would have to learn these three languages in order to read and understand the words of the Bible! The work of translating the Bible began around 250 B.C. when a group of Jewish scholars translated the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) into Greek because many Jewish people were living in places where Greek was the everyday language. Since that first Bible translation, the words of both the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) and the New Testament have been translated into hundreds of languages. These languages include ancient languages (like Coptic, Arabic, Latin, and Syriac), as well as more recent, modern languages (like Portuguese, Russian, Navajo, Danish, Spanish, and English). The purpose behind all these Bible translations is exactly the same: to put the words of the Bible into a language that people will understand. One of the most important Bible translators was the Englishman William Tyndale (1484-1536), often called "The Father of the English Bible." Tyndale wanted to make the Scriptures understandable to all people. But due to the political and religious tensions that existed throughout Europe during the Reformation (14th-17th centuries), he was unable to get permission to do his translation in England. So he went to Germany, where he published his New Testament in February 1526. Though he experienced a great deal of opposition, he continued his work of translating the Old Testament from Hebrew, and he published the first five books of the Old Testament (Genesis through Deuteronomy) in 1530. Tyndale's work and influence is most readily seen in what is surely the most significant English Bible translation ever done, the King James Version of the Bible, published in 1611. The King James Version (also called the Authorized Version) was prepared at the request of King James I of England at a time when several Church-sponsored versions of the English Bible were in use. Although there was resistance to the King James Version at first (since many people felt a loyalty to their own Church's translation), it eventually won wide acceptance and became the standard English version of the Bible in the English-speaking world for three centuries. It remains one of the most widely-used English translations of the Bible today.
Anyone who has ever gone into a bookstore or shopped online for a new Bible knows that there are lots of possibilities and decisions to make. There are more English Bibles available today than at any time in history. This situation is beneficial to many because it offers various choices about buying an English translation. On the other hand, the numerous choices can seem overwhelming if all you want to do is buy a new Bible! Anyone who has ever gone into a bookstore or shopped online for a new Bible knows that there are lots of possibilities and decisions to make. There are more English Bibles available today than at any time in history. This situation is beneficial to many because it offers various choices about buying an English translation. On the other hand, the numerous choices can seem overwhelming if all you want to do is buy a new Bible! You might be asking yourself:
Making your Choice About a New Bible No one English translation of the Bible is the absolute best. Each one has its strengths, as well as its weaknesses. The most important thing to remember is that one translation may be better than another for a particular situation or purpose. An important factor is the preference of a particular denomination, local church, or Christian group. This preference may influence your choice of a particular version or limit the choice to a certain range of versions. If this situation is not a factor for you, it is important that you take a step back and think about the wide range of choices available. To begin, you might find it helpful to ask yourself the following questions:
Perhaps identifying unreliable translations to avoid is easier than saying which one is best. Translations chosen for this category are those that some believe can lead the reader to misunderstand what the Bible says. The Living Bible The Living Bible is, of course, a paraphrase rather than a translation. It leaves out details from the Greek manuscripts and makes up its own details out of thin air. It "reads nice" but it reads wrong. One example of how the reader can be lead to misunderstand is the description of the relationship of Jesus to his mother in the wedding at Cana that appears in John, chapter 2. A number of editions of the Bible are available now that use the Living Bible translation for their text. It is not always apparent from a casual glance at the cover that it is a Living Bible. The King James Version The King James Version (or Authorized Version) was a great effort for its time and a beautiful example of the English language as it stood some 400 years ago. However, it has its share of problems. 1.) The Greek text underlying the KJV New Testament is not very good. It has, for example, things that exist in no manuscript, not one. In some cases the original languages are mistranslated due to the poor state of Hebrew and Greek language scholarship in the 17th century. Some of the words used in the KJV back in 1611 are either obsolete now, or their meaning has changed. Finally, the KJV is sometimes so muddled that you can't figure out what it means (for example Romans 3:5-9 where more than a few KJV readers mistakenly believe that St. Paul is saying it's ok to lie for a good cause, when in fact he's saying the opposite). The New International Version The NIV makes doctrinal adjustments in the translation to support certain viewpoints. It inserts commentary, pretending that it's original. Examples of problem verses include Genesis 2:17,19, Deuteronomy 1:1 and Jeremiah 7:22. Some of the points are subtle, but are believed that the cumulative effect is significant. The New World Translation The NWT is also a doctrinally adjusted Bible produced by the Jehovah's Witnesses group. It has the word "Jehovah" in it a lot. The Inspired Version This was a revelation from Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith. The text was published in 1867 and a "corrected edition" in 1944. Unless you believe that Joseph Smith was an inspired prophet, then his lack of knowledge of Greek and Hebrew would exclude him as a translator. Natural Equivalent Translation This one is labeled a "natural equivalent translation". It reads somewhere between a dynamic equivalent and a paraphrase. It has some of the same problem verses as in the NIV, but not all. In one case, 1 Peter 4:6 the change in meaning is even worse than the NIV. Another example of how it just muddles with the text is in John 2:4. Jesus addresses his mother in an impersonal way when he says: (John 2:4 NASB) And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come." The KJV and the NRSV read pretty much the same, but look at the NET rendering: Jesus said to her: "Why did you come to me? My time has not yet come." The Greek word for "woman" doesn't get translated at all (and the "edge" to what Jesus said is missing too).
No translation is perfect. If someone is only going to have only one translation, then this would be a list of safe ones:
If you're an Evangelical who appreciates the problems with the King James and wants something trustworthy and readable, the New American Standard Bible (NASB) is idea. It's a literal translation based on solid texts. If you're a mainstream Protestant, the New Revised Standard Version is probably the way to go and it works well for worship. If you're Catholic, try the New American Bible. If you're not a Christian, but might want to become one, get Gaus' Unvarnished New Testament and then an NASB to pick up the Old Testament. If English is not your first language or you have difficulty reading, then the Good News Bible (Today's English Version) might be best for you.
The American Standard Version (ASV) of the Holy Bible was first published in 1901 by Thomas Nelson & Sons. It has earned the reputation of being the Rock of Biblical Honesty. Although the English used in the ASV is somewhat archaic, it isn't nearly as hard to understand as some passages of the King James Version of nearly 3 centuries earlier. This translation of the Holy Bible is in the public domain, since its copyright has expired and is the predecessor to the New American Standard Bible. The Revised Version, Standard American Edition of the Bible, more commonly known as the American Standard Version (ASV), is a version of the Bible that was released in 1901. It was originally best known by its full name, but soon came to have other names, such as the American Revised Version, the American Standard Revision, the American Standard Revised Bible, and the American Standard Edition. By the time its copyright was renewed in 1929, it had come to be known at last by its present name, the American Standard Version. Because of its prominence in seminaries, however, it was sometimes simply called the "Standard Bible he American Standard Version is rooted in the work that was done with the Revised Version (RV). In 1870, an invitation was extended to American religious leaders for scholars to work on the RV project. A year later, 30 scholars were chosen by Philip Schaff. These scholars began work in 1872. Any suggestion the American team had would be accepted by the British team only if 2/3 of the British team agreed. This principle was backed up by an agreement that if their suggestions were put into the appendix of the RV, the American team would not publish their version for 14 years. The appendix had about 300 suggestions in it. In 1881, the RV New Testament was released. Four years later, the Old Testament appeared. Around this time, the British team disbanded. Also around this time, unauthorized copied editions of the RV appeared with the suggestions of the American team in the main text. In 1898, publishers for Oxford and Cambridge Universities published their own editions of the RV with the American suggestions included. However, these suggestions were reduced in number (but it did incorporate all of those suggestions which were listed in the Appendixes, as can be verified by comparing the Appendixes with the main text of the 1898 edition). Some of Thomas Nelson's editions of the American Standard Version Holy Bible included the Apocrypha of the Revised Version. In 1901, the 14 year agreement between the American and British teams expired, and the Revised Version, Standard American Edition, as the ASV Bible was officially called, was published by Thomas Nelson & Sons that same year. It was copyrighted in North America to ensure the purity of the ASV text. In 1928, the International Council of Religious Education (the body that later merged with the Federal Council of Churches to form the National Council of Churches) acquired the copyright from Nelson and renewed it the following year. The copyright was a reaction to tampering with the text of the Revised Version by some U.S. publishers, as noted above, allegedly in the interest of the American reading public, which was legally possible as there was never a U.S. copyright filed for the RV. By the time the ASV's copyright expired, interest in this translation had largely waned in the light of newer and more recent ones, and textual corruption hence never became the issue with the ASV that it had with the RV. Because the language of the ASV was limited to Elizabethan English, as well as because of what some perceived to be its excessive literalism, it never achieved wide popularity, and the King James Version would remain the primary translation for most American Protestant Christians until the publication of the Revised Standard Version in 1952. However, for many years the ASV was the standard Bible for many seminaries. In fact, this was another nickname it gained, the Standard Bible, and so the translators who produced the RSV called it a revision of the Standard Bible, hence the name, "Revised Standard Version". Like its British counterpart, the RV, and like other versions that have succeeded it, the ASV drew fire from the slowly-growing King-James-Only Movement for an alleged basis on faulty manuscripts. One such critic refused to call it "Standard", since it never gained wide popularity. He preferred to call it the American Revised Version, saying that the KJV had a better right to be called the "Authorized Version" than the version of 1901 had to be called the "American Standard Version" However the name "American Standard Version" appears to simply be a shortened name of "American Standard Edition of the Revised Version" and thus some people relegate the term "American Revised Version" to the edition of 1898 (published by the American branches of Oxford and Cambridge which included the American suggestions) and to those particular earlier unauthorized copied editions of the RV which also included the suggestions of the American team in the main text (or in footnotes to the main text). Reasons for the ASV There were two rationales for the ASV. One reason was to obviate any justification for the unauthorized copied editions of the RV that had been circulating. Another reason was to use more of the suggestions the American team had preferred, since the British team used few of their suggestions in the first place, even in the later version which they had published incorporating some of them. Interestingly, while many of the suggestions of the American scholars were based on the differences between American and British usage, many others were based on differences in scholarship and what the American revisers felt the best translation to be. Consequently, there were several changes to the KJV text in the ASV that were not present in the RV. Features of the ASV The divine name of the Almighty (the Tetragrammaton) is consistently rendered Jehovah in the ASV Old Testament, rather than LORD as it appears in the King James Version. The reason for this change, as the Committee explained in the preface, was that "...the American Revisers...were brought to the unanimous conviction that a Jewish superstition, which regarded the Divine Name as too sacred to be uttered, ought no longer to dominate in the English or any other version of the Old Testament..." Other changes from the RV to the ASV included (but were not limited to) substituting "who" and "that" for "which" when referring to people, and Holy Ghost was dropped in favor of Holy Spirit. Page headings were added and footnotes were improved. Revisions of the ASV The ASV was the basis of four revisions. They were the Revised Standard Version (1946-1952/1971), the Amplified Bible (1965), the New American Standard Bible (1963-1971/1995), and the Recovery Version (1999). A fifth revision is in the making, the World English Bible. The ASV was also the basis for Kenneth N. Taylor's Bible paraphrase, The Living Bible, which was published in 1971. Usage of the ASV By the Jehovah's Witnesses The ASV was used for many years by the Jehovah's Witnesses. They first began publishing the ASV in 1944 and have continued publishing the translation until the present time. The reasons for their choosing of the ASV were twofold: One reason for adoption of the ASV was due to its usage of "Jehovah" as the Divine Name, which was congruent with their doctrine, and they derived their name from Isaiah 43.10, 12, both of which contain the phrase, "Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah" (although the name 'Jehovah' appears nowhere in the New Testament). Also, there was a perception that the ASV had improved the translation of some verses in the King James Version, and in other places it reduced the verses that they found to be erroneously translated in the KJV to mere footnotes, removed from the main text altogether. (For more information see: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 'Why a new translation was commissioned,' which gives the group's explanation of the passages of the KJV that they found to be problematic, and their rationales for concluding thus.) From 1944 to 1963, the Jehovah's Witnesses printed and distributed 884,994 copies of the ASV. The Witnesses' usage of the ASV was supplanted by their current use of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, a translation made by members of their group, and the rights to which are controlled by the Watchtower Society, which is their publishing arm. The ASV, like the New World Translation, is still freely available to nonmembers from Jehovah's Witnesses. The ASV as the Basis of Philippine Bibles Because of its popularity in the American Standard Version in the early years of the 20th Century, this has been the basis of the Philippine Bible Society in translating the first editions of the Bible in the different Philippine Languages. Now a public domain, 'Ang Biblia' (titles for the Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Waray), 'Ti Biblia' (the Ilocano title), and 'Say Biblia' (the Pangasinan title) used the ASV as their basis. This is very evident by the use of the name Jehovah instead of the more commonly accepted Yaweh in the later translations. The ASV Bible Today The American Standard Version has passed into antiquity, and with the expired copyright, it has passed into the public domain. Rare antique editions are extremely hard to find. The Jehovah's Witnesses Watchtower Society continues to make the ASV available, as does a standard Christian publisher, Star Bible It is generally acknowledged to be the most accurate translation available. Its attempt to keep as closely as possible to the original results in rather unnatural English. It suffers also from retaining outdated English where often there is current terminology that is just as accurate. Easier to read: Passages with Old English "thee's" and "thou's" etc. have been updated to modern English. Words and Phrases that could be misunderstood due to changes in their meaning during the past 20 years have been updated to current English. Verses with difficult word order or vocabulary have been retranslated into smoother English. Sentences beginning with "And" have often been retranslated for better English, in recognition of differences in style between the ancient languages and modern English. The original Greek and Hebrew did not have punctuation as is found in English, and in many cases modern English punctuation serves as a substitute for "And" in the original. In some other cases, "and" is translated by a different word such as "then" or "but" as called for by the context, when the word in the original language allows such translation. More accurate than ever: Recent research on the oldest and best Greek manuscripts of the New Testament has been reviewed, and some passages have been updated for even greater fidelity to the original manuscripts. Parallel passages have been compared and reviewed. Verbs that have a wide range of meaning have been retranslated in some passages to better account for their use in the context.
The New Testament was first published in 1963. The NASB was published in the following stages
The translators and consultants who have contributed to the NASB update are conservative Bible scholars who have doctorates in Biblical languages, theology, or other advanced degrees. They represent a variety of denominational backgrounds. Original NASB translators
The 1995 revision In 1992 the Lockman Foundation commissioned a limited revision of the NASB which was intended to improve its English style by allowing a somewhat less literal approach. The revision was published as the "NASB Updated Edition" in 1995. The revisers were:
And still the NASB: The NASB update is not a change-for-the-sake-of-change translation. The original NASB stands the test of time, and change has been kept to a minimum in recognition of the standard that has been set by the New American Standard Bible. The NASB update continues the NASB's tradition of literal translation of the original Greek and Hebrew without compromise. Changes in the text have been kept within the strict parameters set forth by the Lockman Foundation's Fourfold Aim. Continuing a tradition: The original NASB has earned the reputation of being the most accurate English Bible translation. The NASB update carries on the NASB tradition of being a true Bible translation, revealing what the original manuscripts actually say--not merely what the translator believes they mean. Although the Updated Edition is slightly less literal than the original, The NASB continues to be most literal version commonly used in churches today, and the publisher continues to advertise it as such. The following statement found on the publisher's website, (3) expresses the view (shared by many conservatives) that a proper respect for the Word of God should include a respect for and an interest in the smallest verbal details of the text, and a careful awareness of the difference between a translation and an interpretation of the Bible. "...Ultimately, what separates the New American Standard Bible from the various available versions is that the NASB is a literal word-for-word translation from the original languages. In contrast, the others stress either a loose, personalized paraphrase, or a free-style, thought-for-thought translation known as a dynamic equivalent. Both of these place the highest priority on ease of reading and a lower priority on word-for-word preciseness. While such versions may produce smooth English, the literalness of the Word of God is sacrificed. This has never been an option for the New American Standard Bible." This is essentially an accurate translation, though not as literal as the NASB. Its English however is more natural and contemporary. It is perhaps better than the NASB for new believers children or those for whom English is a second language. It is good also as a second version to consult. The New International Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible. Published by Zondervan, it became one of the most popular modern translations made in the twentieth century. The NIV is an explicitly Protestant translation. The deuterocanonical books are not included in the translation. It preserved traditional Evangelical theology on many contested points for which the Revised Standard Version has been criticized. Apart from these theological issues, the manuscript base of the NIV is similar to the RSV, using older Greek New Testament texts rather than the later Textus Receptus.
The goal of any Bible translation is to convey
the meaning of the ancient Hebrew
and Greek texts as accurately as possible to the modern reader. The
New Living Translation is based on the most recent
scholarship in the theory of translation. The challenge for the
translators was to create a text that would make the same impact in
the life of modern readers that the original text had for the
original readers. In the New Living Translation, this is accomplished
by translating entire thoughts (rather than just words) into natural,
everyday English. The end result is a translation that is easy to
read and understand and that accurately communicates the meaning of
the original text. The Contemporary English Version or CEV (also known as Bible for Today's Family) is a new translation of the Bible into English, published by the American Bible Society. An anglicized version was produced by the British and Foreign Bible Society, which includes metric measurements for the Commonwealth market. Uncompromising simplicity marked the American Bible Society's translation of the Contemporary English Version Bible that was first published in 1995. The text is easily read by grade schoolers, second language readers, and those who prefer the more contemporized form. The CEV is not a paraphrase. It is an accurate and faithful translation of the original manuscripts.
While the CEV is sometimes mischaracterized as a
revision of the Good News Bible, it is in fact a
fresh translation, and designed for a lower reading level than the
GNB. The American Bible Society continues to promote both translations. The Good News Bible (GNB) as it is known, or sometimes in the United States as the Good News Translation (GNT), is an English language translation of the Bible by the American Bible Society, first published as the New Testament under the name Good News for Modern Man in 1966. It was anglicized into British English by the British and Foreign Bible Society with the use of metric measurements for the Commonwealth market. It was formerly known as Today's English Version (TEV), but in 2001 was renamed the Good News Translation because of misconceptions that it was merely a paraphrase and not a genuine translation . In fact, despite the official terminology, it was and is often referred to as the Good News Bible in America as well as elsewhere.
Why was The Message written? "While I was teaching a class on Galatians, I began to realize that the adults in my class weren't feeling the vitality and directness that I sensed as I read and studied the New Testament in its original Greek. Writing straight from the original text, I began to attempt to bring into English the rhythms and idioms of the original language. I knew that the early readers of the New Testament were captured and engaged by these writings and I wanted my congregation to be impacted in the same way. I hoped to bring the New Testament to life for two different types of people: those who hadn't read the Bible because it seemed too distant and irrelevant and those who had read the Bible so much that it had become 'old hat.'" Peterson's parishioners simply weren't connecting with the real meaning of the words and the relevance of the New Testament for their own lives. So he began to bring into English the rhythms and idioms of the original ancient Greek—writing straight out of the Greek text without looking at other English translations. As he shared his version of Galatians with them, they quit stirring their coffee and started catching Paul's passion and excitement as he wrote to a group of Christians whom he was guiding in the ways of Jesus Christ. For more than two years, Peterson devoted all his efforts to The Message New Testament. His primary goal was to capture the tone of the text and the original conversational feel of the Greek, in contemporary English. Language changes. New words are formed. Old words take on new meaning. There is a need in every generation to keep the language of the gospel message current, fresh, and understandable—the way it was for its very first readers. That is what The Message seeks to accomplish for contemporary readers. It is a version for our time—designed to be read by contemporary people in the same way as the original koin? Greek and Hebrew manuscripts were savored by people thousands of years ago. That's why NavPress felt the time was right for a new version. When we hear something over and over again in the same way, we can become so familiar with it that the text loses its impact. The Message strives to help readers hear the living Word of God—the Bible—in a way that engages and intrigues us right where we are. Some people like to read the Bible in Elizabethan English. Others want to read a version that gives a close word-for-word correspondence between the original languages and English. Eugene Peterson recognized that the original sentence structure is very different from that of contemporary English. He decided to strive for the spirit of the original manuscripts—to express the rhythm of the voices, the flavor of the idiomatic expressions, the subtle connotations of meaning that are often lost in English translations. The goal of The Message is to engage people in the reading process and help them understand what they read. This is not a study Bible, but rather "a reading Bible." The verse numbers, which are not in the original documents, have been left out of the print version to facilitate easy and enjoyable reading. The original books of the Bible were not written in formal language. The Message tries to recapture the Word in the words we use today. Sample verses (Psalm 23:1-4)
The Message Bible
The Authorised or King James Version has some points in its favour. It follows the Greek and Hebrew more closely than many modern translations. This has the advantage of not adding to or changing the meaning; but the disadvantage of at times producing unnatural or obscure English. Many of its translators were accomplished linguistic scholars and godly men and without doubt they made a vast contribution to later translations. They were a mixed group of Anglican clergymen, who at times showed denominational bias. Inevitably they lacked knowledge of large amounts of archaeological and linguistic discoveries made since their time. Unlike nearly all modern translations the KJV is based on the less accurate Eastern text. Its English, needless to say, is now archaic even if it was current at the time of writing. Like most other translations they followed the tradition of translating aiwnioV (aionios) as eternal rather than age-lasting and eiV aiwnaV aiwnwn (eis aionas aioonoon), and similar phrases, as 'for ever and ever' rather than 'for ages of ages.' King James Version The Authorized King James Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible begun in 1604 and first published in 1611 by the Church of England. The Great Bible was the first "authorized version" issued by the Church of England in the reign of King Henry VIII. In January 1604, King James I of England convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans, a faction within the Church of England. The king gave the translators instructions designed to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its beliefs about an ordained clergy. The translation was by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from the Textus Receptus (Received Text) series of the Greek texts. The Old Testament was translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, while the Apocrypha were translated from the Greek Septuagint (LXX), except for 2 Esdras, which was translated from The Latin Vulgate. While the Authorized Version was meant to replace the Bishops' Bible as the official version for readings in the Church of England, it was apparently (unlike the Great Bible) never specifically "authorized", although it is commonly known as the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom. However, the King's Printer issued no further editions of the Bishops' Bible; so necessarily the Authorized Version supplanted it as the standard lectern Bible in parish church use in England. In the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible - the Epistle and Gospel readings - and as such was "authorized" by Act of Parliament. In the United States, the Authorized Version is known as the King James Version. The earliest appearance in print of the phrase "authorized version", to mean this particular version of the bible, was published in 1824. The phrase 'King James version' first appeared in print in 1884. By the first half of the 18th Century, the Authorized Version was effectively unchallenged as the sole English translation in current use in Protestant churches. Over the course of the 18th Century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English speaking scholars. In most of the world, the Authorized Version has passed out of copyright and is freely reproduced. In the United Kingdom, the British Crown holds perpetual Crown copyright to the Authorized Version. Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, HarperCollins and the Queen's Printers have the right to produce the Authorized Version. The Living Bible (TLB) is an English version of the Bible created by Kenneth N. Taylor. It was first published in 1971. Unlike most English Bibles, The Living Bible is a paraphrase. Mr. Taylor used the American Standard Version of 1901 as his base text. Taylor never intended for his paraphrase to be used as the reader's sole source of Biblical knowledge, or as an aid to scholarly study. Rather, his goal was to put the basic message of the Bible into modern language that could readily be understood by the typical reader without a theological or linguistic background. He never represented his work as a translation. Rather, the word "Paraphrased" was used on the front cover to show very clearly that this was a paraphrase. According to "Ken Taylor, God's Voice In The Vernacular" by Harold Myra in a 1979 issue of Christianity Today, Taylor explained the inspiration for preparing The Living Bible: "The children were one of the chief inspirations for producing the Living Bible. Our family devotions were tough going because of the difficulty we had understanding the King James Version, which we were then using, or the Revised Standard Version, which we used later. All too often I would ask questions to be sure the children understood, and they would shrug their shoulders-they didn't know what the passage was talking about. So I would explain it. I would paraphrase it for them and give them the thought. It suddenly occurred to me one afternoon that I should write out the reading for that evening thought by thought, rather than doing it on the spot during our devotional time. So I did, and read the chapter to the family that evening with exciting results-they knew the answers to all the questions I asked!" The Living Bible was well received in many Evangelical circles. Youth-oriented Protestant groups such as Youth for Christ and Young Life accepted it readily. In 1962 Billy Graham received a copy of Living Letters - a paraphrase of the New Testament epistles and the first portion of what later became The Living Bible- while recuperating in a hospital in Hawaii. He was impressed with its easy readability, and he asked for permission to print 50,000 paperback copies of Living Letters for use in his evangelistic crusades. Over the next year he distributed 600,000 copies of Living Letters. The Living Bible was a best-seller in the early 1970s, largely due to the accessibility of its modern language, which made passages understandable to those with little or no previous background in Bible study. In 1972 and 1973, The Living Bible was the best-selling book in America. By 1997, 40 million copies of The Living Bible had been sold. From the very beginning of its publication, Taylor had assigned the copyright to Tyndale House Foundation, so all of the royalties from sales of The Living Bible were given to charity. In the late 1980s, Taylor and his colleagues at Tyndale House Publishers invited a team of 90 Greek and Hebrew scholars to participate in a project of revising the text of The Living Bible. After many years of work, the result was an entirely new translation of the Bible. It was published in 1996 as the Holy Bible: New Living Translation (NLT). The NLT retained the readability of of its predecessor, but it had the advantage of having been translated from the original Greek and Hebrew source texts. This translation also needs mentioning because of its popularity. It has no right to call itself a Bible. It is full of the translator's own thoughts and interpretations. You have only to compare it with a literal translation to find significant differences of meaning on every page. One small example out of hundreds is Hebrews 10:25. 'Let us not leave off the assembling of ourselves together' becomes 'Let us not neglect our church meetings'. Many people these days, with complete scriptural backing, assemble to worship God in their own homes. According to this paraphrase they are wrong. "God speaks to me through the TEV and the Living Bible", people say. "Can they really be that wrong?" Of course God can and does speak through these versions. They contain a lot of Scripture! In the communist days in Russia the believers happily accepted anti-Christian literature, so that they could read all the Bible verses in it! The troubles come when you start to ask controversial questions. Is the baptism of the Holy Spirit for today? Is Roman Catholic teaching compatible with Scripture? How should we run our fellowship? Does God heal everybody? You will not get accurate answers to these questions if you use an inaccurate Bible. In addition, if you want to move on into further realms with God and deeper truth you will frequently find that paraphrase translations of this kind have destroyed the deeper meanings of Scripture and replaced them with ideas more acceptable and comprehensible to the carnal man.
Commissioned in 1975, The New King James Version (NKJV)
is a modern translation of the Bible published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. The NKJV was published in three stages:
Update to King James Version According to the preface of the New King James Version (p. v-vi), the NKJV uses the 1967/1977 Stuttgart edition of the Biblia Hebraica for the Old Testament, with frequent comparisons made to the Ben Hayyim edition of the Mikraot Gedolot published by Bomberg in 1524-25, which was used for the King James Version. Both the Old Testament text of the NKJV and that of the KJV come from the ben Asher text (known as the Masoretic Text). However, the 1967/1977 Stuttgart edition of the Biblia Hebraica used by the NKJV uses an earlier manuscript (the Leningrad Manuscript B19a) than that of the KJV. The New King James Version also uses the Textus Receptus ("Received Text") for the New Testament, just as the King James Version had used. The translators have also sought to follow the principles of translation used in the original King James Version, which the NKJV revisers call "complete equivalence" in contrast to "dynamic equivalence" used by many other modern translations. The task of updating the English of the KJV involved significant changes in word order, grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. One of the most significant features of the NKJV was its abandonment of the second person pronouns “thou,” "thee," “ye,” “thy,” and “thine.” Verb forms were also modernized in the NKJV (for example, "speaks" rather than "speaketh"). The Third Millennium Bible (TMB), also known as the New Authorized Version, is a 1998 minor update of the King James Version of the Bible. Unlike the New King James Version, it does not alter the language significantly from the 1611 version, retaining Jacobean grammar (including "thees" and "thous"), but it does attempt to replace some of the vocabulary which no longer would make sense to a modern reader. An example from Ezra 9:3
The TMB also, like the original KJV in 1611, contains the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament in between the Old and New Testaments. This has helped win it some support among traditionalist Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox Christians. A version without the Apocrypha (and with fomatting changes) is known as the 21st Century King James Version. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in the mid-20th century. It traces its history all the way back to William Tyndale's New Testament translation of 1525 and the King James Version of 1611. The RSV is a comprehensive revision of the King James Version (KJV), the Revised Version (RV) of 1881-85, and the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901, with the ASV being the primary basis for the revision. The RSV posed the first serious challenge to the popularity of the KJV, aiming to be a readable and literally accurate modern English translation of the Bible. The intention was not only to create a clearer version of the Bible for the English-speaking church, but also to "preserve all that is best in the English Bible as it has been known and used through the centuries" and "to put the message of the Bible in simple, enduring words that are worthy to stand in the great Tyndale-King James tradition." The RSV was published in the following stages:
A major reason for rev Thus, the King James Version uses the word "let" in the sense of "hinder," "prevent" to mean "precede," "allow" in the sense of "approve," "communicate" for "share," "conversation" for "conduct," "comprehend" for "overcome," "ghost" for "spirit," "wealth" for "well-being," "allege" for "prove," "demand" for "ask," "take no thought" for "be not anxious," etc. The Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (also known as the RSV-CE) is an adaptation of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible for use by Catholics. It is widely used by conservative Catholic scholars and theologians, and is accepted as one of the most accurate and literary Bible translations suitable for Catholic use. The RSV-CE, sometimes called the Ignatius Bible, was published in the following stages:
The Jerusalem Bible (JB or TJB) is a Roman Catholic translation of the Bible which first was introduced to the English-speaking public in 1966 and published by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Roman Catholic Bible, it includes the deuterocanonical books along with the sixty-six others included in Protestant Bibles, as well as copious footnotes and introductions. In the pursuit to comply with modernity and evidence, the Jerusalem Bible returns to the historical name Yahweh as the name of god in the Old Testament. The move has been welcomed, however, it has not been popular among groups who would prefer the name of god be left unpronounced, or substituted with Lord or another title. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985 and edited by The Reverend Henry Wansbrough, O.S.B., monk of Ampleforth Abbey in North Yorkshire and former Master of St Benet's Hall, Oxford. It is an update to the Jerusalem Bible, an English version of the French Bible de Jérusalem. However, the Jerusalem Bible was not a translation from the French; rather, it is an original translation heavily influenced by the French. When the French version was updated in 1973, the changes were used to revise the Jerusalem Bible, creating the New Jerusalem Bible. The revisions were substantial. The revised version is said to be less literary but, for the most part, more literal. The introductions and footnotes, translated almost entirely from the French, have also been thoroughly revised and expanded, making it one of the most scholarly editions of the Bible. In 1970, the New American Bible (NAB) was first published. It is an English Bible translation that was produced by members of the Catholic biblical scholars in cooperation with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The original languages were translated into English by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine according to the principles of Vatican II for use in the liturgy. Second version In 1986 some traditionally familiar phraseology was restored to the New Testament. This included some inclusive language. Third version In 1991 it was again amended to create more inclusive language in the Psalms. Some controversy ensued because of its alleged use of vertical inclusive language (God and Christ) and some uses of horizontal inclusive language (human beings instead of men). "Fourth version" There has been no 4th Edition published as a Bible, however, in 2000 the text of the 1991 New American Bible with revised New Testament and Psalms was modified by a committee of the Holy See and the Bishops for use in the Latin-Rite Catholic liturgy. This is the current text of the Lectionaries of the United States Roman Catholic Church. The Holy See accepted some use of inclusive language, such as where the speaker intended to address a mixed audience (such as "brothers and sisters"), but rejected any changes relating to God or Christ. This version will soon be found in the new English Lectionary. The revision of the NAB Old Testament, excluding the Psalms which were revised in 1991, is yet to be published. Criticism The New American Bible of 1991 has been lauded by many liberal Catholics. However, it has been derided by more tradionalist Catholics for a number of reasons. For one, it uses gender-neutral language in many places. Pope John Paul II and other Vatican officials were not happy with the 1991 revision, mainly because of the inclusive language. The revised Psalter of 1991 was rejected for liturgical use by the Holy See in 1994. The revised text (New Testament and Psalms) was specifically disallowed by the provisional norms for translation of biblical texts sent by Vatican officials to American Bishops in June 1997, and also disallowed by the translation guidelines formally promulgated in an Instruction published by the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in March 2001 "Liturgiam authenticam ", hence the issuing of an amended text for liturgical use. Nonetheless, the New American Bible is one of the most widely used translations by American Catholics. The notes especially have been criticized by some Catholics because of their perceived liberal and higher critical interpretation of passages, such as those which are believed to prophesy the coming of Christ. Traditional authorship of many books is also questioned (e.g. the Pentateuch, Book of Daniel, and some of Paul's letters).[citation needed] Some more traditional Catholics therefore reject its use and call on Catholics to use more traditional translations, such as those in the Douai-Rheims Bible and the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible series.[citation needed] It should be noted, however, that many Church authorities find nothing wrong with the scholarly questioning of traditional authorship, especially since in many cases (in the Old Testament and even the Gospels) there is no authorial identification in the text. New Revised Standard Version The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, released in 1989, is a thorough revision of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) There are three editions of the NRSV:
There are also anglicized editions of the NRSV, which modify the text slightly to be consistent with British spelling and grammar. The NRSV was translated by the Division of Christian Education (now Bible Translation and Utilization) of the National Council of Churches, an ecumenical Christian group. There has also been Jewish representation in the group responsible for the Old Testament. This translation is meant to replace the Revised Standard Version, and to identify it in context with the many other English language translations available today. It is called the New Revised Standard Version because it is a revision of the Revised Standard Version,(1952) which was a revision of the American Standard Version,(sometimes called the "Standard Bible"),(1901), which was an American English revision of The Revised Version (or English Revised Version),(1885), which is itself a revision of the King James Version of 1611. The Old Testament translation of the RSV was completed before the Dead Sea Scrolls were generally available to scholars. The NRSV was intended to take advantage of this and other manuscript discoveries, and to reflect advances in scholarship since the RSV had been released In contrast with the TEV and Living Bible the New English Bible is much more accurate. It is the work of a team of scholars from the main denominations. It suffers from the fact that many of these men had liberal or modernist views which are bound to affect their work. I would not therefore recommend it. Though it certainly has merits, the New International Version appears to me better in every way. The New English Bible (NEB) was a fresh translation of the Bible into modern English directly from the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts (with some Latin in the Apocrypha); with the New Testament being published in 1961, and the Old Testament, along with the Apocrypha, being published in 1970. It was significantly revised and re-published in 1989 as the Revised English Bible. The translators of the New English Bible chose to render their translation using a principle of translation called dynamic equivalence (also referred to as functional equivalence or thought-for-thought translation). C. H. Dodd, Vice-Chairman and Director of the Joint Committee, commented that the translators "...conceived our task to be that of understanding the original as precisely as we could... and then saying again in our own native idiom what we believed the author to be saying in his." This method of translation is in contrast to the traditional translations of the Authorized Version (King James Version), English Revised Version, American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, and others, which place an emphasis on word-for-word correspondence between the source and target language. C. H. Dodd goes on to summarize the translation of the New English Bible as "...free, it may be, rather than literal, but a faithful translation nevertheless, so far as we could compass it." Due to these translation principles the New English Bible is necessarily more periphrastic at times in order to render the thoughts of the original author into modern English. The Revised English Bible (REB) is a 1989 update of the New English Bible of 1970. Like its predecessor, it is published by the University publishing houses of Oxford and Cambridge The REB is the result of both advances in scholarship and translation made since the 1960s and also a desire to correct what have been seen as some of the NEB's more egregious errors. The changes remove many of the most idiosyncratic renderings of the New English Bible, moving the REB more in the direction of standard translations such as NRSV or NIV. The translation is intended to be gender-inclusive, to the extent that this is justified by the original language, though it does not take this to the same extent as the NRSV or TNIV. The gender-inclusive approach has also been widely praised by others as a needful corrective to centuries of church-inspired paternalism. Nevertheless, it can be criticized by those who think this approach to be a bow to political correctness and feminist theology. The style has been described by several people as more "literary" than NRSV or NIV. It tends slightly further in the direction of "dynamic equivalence" than those translations, but still translates Hebrew poetry as poetry and reflects at least some of the characteristics of that poetry. The Revised English Bible's general accuracy and literary flavour has led Stephen Mitchell and others[1] to compliment it as one of the best English renderings. These days there are few differences between evangelical and non-evangelical translations. The best-known difference is probably Isaiah 7:14, where evangelical translators often have "virgin" instead of "young woman". The REB is a non-evangelical translation. Like the NEB, it is primarily presented to the British and British-educated public, although it has some American users and admirers. The Douay Version is the foundation on which nearly all English Catholic versions are still based. It was translated by Gregory Martin, an Oxford-trained scholar, working in the circle of English Catholic exiles on the Continent, under the sponsorship of William (later Cardinal) Allen. The NT appeared at Rheims in 1582; the OT at Douay in 1609. The translation, although competent, exhibited a taste for Latinisms that was not uncommon in English writing of the time but has seemed excessive in the eyes of later generations. The NT influenced the Authorized Version. The Douay-Rheims Bible, also known as the Rheims-Douai Bible or Douai Bible and abbreviated as D-R, is a translation of the Bible from The Latin Vulgate into English. The New Testament was published in one volume with extensive commentary and notes in 1582. The Old Testament followed in 1609-10 in two volumes, also extensively annotated. The notes took up the bulk of the volumes and had a strong polemical and patristic character. They also offered insights on issues of translation, and on the Hebrew and Greek source texts of the Vulgate. The purpose of the version, both the text and notes, was to uphold Catholic tradition in the face of the Protestant Reformation which was heavily influencing England. As such it was an impressive effort by English Catholics to support the Counter-Reformation. Although the Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible (in the United States), the Revised Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version and the New Jerusalem Bible are the most commonly used in English-speaking Catholic churches, the Challoner revision of the Douay-Rheims is still often the Bible of choice of English-speaking Traditionalist Catholics. The Douay Old Testament was reprinted once in the course of a century, and the Rheims New Testament a few times in the next century. In England, the Douay-Rheims Bible was ironically popularized by the action of a vehement adversary, William Fulke, who, in order to expose its perceived errors, in 1589 (Herbert #202) printed the Rheims New Testament in parallel columns with the Protestant Bishops' version of 1572, and the Rheims annotations with his own refutations of them; and this work had a considerable vogue among Protestant Reformers. Further editions of Fulke's work continued until 1633 (Herbert #480). It deserves mention in the history of the English Bible because the Rheims New Testament was one of the versions consulted by the translators of the King James Version (the Authorized Version) as a minor influence (vide infra). Though the Authorized Version is indeed distinguished by the strongly English (as distinct from Latin) character of its prose, some of the Latin vocabulary it used (for example: emulation Romans 11:14) was derived from the Rheims-Douay. The Holy Bible: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV) is an English translation of the Bible done by the World Bible Translation Center. It was originally published as the English Version for the Deaf (EVD) by BakerBooks. Deaf readers sometimes struggle with reading English because sign language is their first language.[2] The World Bible Translation Center (WBTC) decided to do a translation that would make reading the Bible easier for them. The EVD uses simpler vocabulary and shorter sentences to make it simpler to understand. Ervin Bishop did most of the translating for the WBTC. He used a thought-for-thought or functional equivalence method of translation. The ERV uses the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1984) as its Old Testament text with some readings from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also, it follows the Septuagint when its readings are considered more accurate. (The Septuagint is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures.) For the New Testament, the ERV uses the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (fourth revised edition, 1993) and Nestle-Aland Novum Testament Graece (twenty-seventh edition, 1993). The ERV caused controversy in the Churches of Christ. (The WBTC is an outreach of the Churches of Christ.) Goebel Music wrote a book critiquing this translation titled Easy-to-Read Version: Easy to Read or Easy to Mislead? It criticized the ERV's method of translation, textual basis, and wording of certain passages. In 2004, a major revision of the ERV was finished. It used broader vocabulary and greater use of gender-inclusive language. The EVD was left unchanged, so it and the ERV now have different texts. Both Bibles are available online from the WBTC's website.
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, generally known as Strong's Concordance, is a concordance of the King James Version (KJV) that was constructed under the direction of Dr. James Strong (1822–1894) and first published in 1890. Dr. Strong was Professor of exegetical theology at Drew Theological Seminary at the time. It is an exhaustive cross-reference of every word in the KJV back to the word in the original text. Unlike other Biblical reference books, the purpose of Strong's Concordance is not to provide content or commentary about the Bible, but to provide an index to the Bible. This allows the reader to find words where they appear in the Bible. This index allows a student of the Bible to re-find a phrase or passage previously studied or to compare how the same topic is discussed in different parts of the Bible. Strong's Concordance includes:
James Strong did not construct Strong's Concordance by himself; it was constructed with the effort of more than a hundred colleagues. It has become the most widely used concordance for the King James Bible. Each original-language word is given an entry number in the dictionary of those original language words listed in the back of the concordance. These have become known as the "Strong's numbers". The main concordance lists each word that appears in the KJV Bible in alphabetical order with each verse in which it appears listed in order of its appearance in the Bible, with a snippet of the surrounding text (including the word in italics). Appearing to the right of scripture reference is the Strong's number. This allows the user of the concordance to look up the meaning of the original language word in the associated dictionary in the back, thereby showing how the original language word was translated into the English word in the KJV Bible. New editions of Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible are still in print (in 2007). Additionally, other authors have used Strong's numbers in concordances of other Bible translations, such as the New International Version and American Standard Version. These are often also referred to as Strong's Concordances. Although the Greek words in Strong's Concordance are numbered 1–5624, the numbers 2717 and 3203–3302 are unassigned due to "changes in the enumeration while in progress". Not every distinct word is assigned a number, but only the root words. Strong's Concordance is not a translation of the Bible nor is it intended as a translation tool. The use of Strong's numbers is not a substitute for professional translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into English by those with formal training in ancient languages and the literature of the cultures in which the Bible was written. Since Strong's Concordance identifies the original words in Hebrew and Greek, Strong's Numbers are sometimes misinterpreted by those without adequate training to change the Bible from its accurate meaning simply by taking the words out of cultural context. The use of Strong's numbers does not consider figures of speech, metaphors, idioms, common phrases, cultural references, references to historical events, or alternate meanings used by those of the time period to express their thoughts in their own language at the time. As such, professionals and amateurs alike must consult a number of contextual tools to reconstruct these cultural backgrounds. Many scholarly Greek and Hebrew Lexicons (e.g., Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, Thayer's Greek Dictionary, and Vine's Bible Dictionary) also use Strong's numbers for cross-referencing, encouraging hermeneutical approaches to study. Rotherham's Emphasized Bible (abbreviated EBR to avoid confusion with the REB) is a translation of the Bible that uses various methods, such as "emphatic idiom" and special diacritical marks, to bring out nuances of the underlying Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts. It was produced by Joseph Bryant Rotherham, a bible scholar and minister of the Churches of Christ, who described his goal as "placing the reader of the present time in as good a position as that occupied by the reader of the first century for understanding the Apostolic Writings." The New Testament Critically Emphasised was first published in 1872. However, great advances occurred in textual criticism during the last half of the 19th century culminating in Brooke Foss Westcott's and Fenton John Anthony Hort's Greek text of the New Testament. This led Rotherham to revise his New Testament twice, in 1878 and 1897, to stay abreast of scholarly developments. The entire Bible with the Old Testament appeared in 1902. Rotherham based his Old Testament translation on Dr. C. D Ginsburg's comprehensive Masoretico-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible that anticipated readings now widely accepted. Rotherham's translation has stayed in print over the years because of the wealth of information it presents. John R Kohlenberger III says in his preface to the 1994 printing, "The Emphasized Bible is one of the most innovative and thoroughly researched translations ever done by a single individual. Its presentation of emphases and grammatical features of the original languages still reward careful study." GOD'S WORD Translation (GW) is an English translation of the Bible translated by the God's Word to the Nations Society. The GOD'S WORD Translation (GW) of the bible was produced by the God's Word to the Nations Bible Society (www.godsword.org) in Cleveland, Ohio (although since April 2005 the Society has relocated to the Jacksonville, FL metro area). Although may of its members were affiliated with the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS), the Society, however, has no official ties to this specific Christian denomination. GW had its beginnings with a New Testament translation titled "The New Testament in the Language of Today: An American Translation", published in 1963 by LCMS pastor and seminary professor William F. Beck (1904-1966). According to Rev. Michael Hackbardt, Executive Director of God's Word to the Nations since June 1992, Beck had not completed the Old Testament portion of his Bible prior to his death in 1966--Bfree2 (talk) 01:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC), but was awaiting textual suggestions from two colleagues, Elmer Smick, Professor of Old Testament at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and Erich Kiehl of Concordia Seminary. Smick and Kiehl ensured it was published posthumously in 1976 as An American Translation (AAT). In 1978 it was decided that Beck's translation would be revised. Phillip B. Giessler, a pastor from Cleveland, Ohio then formed a committee and revision work began in 1982. The work of Giessler's committee (although it was -- much like Dr. Beck's earlier work -- essentially a "one-man" translation team with a single English reviewer yielded another translation of the New Testament that was released in 1988 titled New Testament: God's Word to the Nations (GWN) This work was later renamed the New Evangelical Translation (NET) in 1990. (Important note: Beck's AAT, according to Rev. Hackbardt, only served as a basis for "English style." In early 1992, according to Hackbardt, all the earlier New Testament work was abandoned by the Society and an entirely new Bible translation based on the best Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek texts and using the translation principle "closet natural equivalence -- beginning with the Old Testament -- was completely retranslated by the Society's five scholars, 17 technical reviewers, and four English reviewers. In early 1994 the translation was renamed GOD'S WORD prior to being turned over to World Bible Publishers in October 1994 for publication in March 1995. The GOD'S WORD Translation was released by World Publishing of Iowa Falls, Iowa in March 1995. The publishing rights were later acquired in June, 2003, by Green Key Books of Holiday, Florida, and in 2008 rights to GOD'S WORD were acquired by Baker Publishing Group. Donald Burdick of the Cincinnati Bible College and Seminary states that there are three general approaches to Bible translations:
Within the latter method of closest equivalence, William L. Wonderly proposes a "dynamic equivalence,".[4] and according to Burdick, this approach has been used for GOD'S WORD Translation, along with Today's English Version and the New English Bible. However, according to Rev. Michael Hackbardt, the Society's executive director who oversaw the complete translation of the Old and New Testaments comprising GOD'S WORD from June 1992 until October 1994, the translation team and English reviewers did not create a "function/or dynamic equivalent" translation, but a "closet natural equivalent" translation of the Scriptures. Reading GOD'S WORD and comparing it to your current favorite translation will convince you of the unique readability and accuracy of this translation approach. GW's publishers believe that communicating the original meaning of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts that comprise the Scriptures so that everyone (whether younger or older, educated or less-educated, or churched or un-churched) can understand what the Bible means for all of God's people today, requires taking a completely new look at the original languages. Many modern translations, they argue, have chosen simply to follow the traditions of older accepted translations, though the traditional words and grammar may no longer mean what they once did, or are not understood. The theory followed by the Bible Society's translators is "closest natural equivalent" translation. The first consideration for the translators of GOD'S WORD was to find equivalent English ways of expressing the meaning of the original text. This procedure ensures that the translation is faithful to the meaning intended by the original writer. The next consideration was readability. The meaning is expressed in clear, natural English by using common English punctuation, capitalization, nearly perfect English grammar (in other words, you can teach English grammar from the biblical text of GOD'S WORD, and word choice. The third consideration was to choose the most "natural equivalent" that most closely reflected the style of the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek text. This translation theory is designed to avoid the awkwardness and inaccuracy associated with form-equivalent translation, and it avoids the loss of meaning and oversimplification associated with function-equivalent translation. It's also important to note that GOD'S WORD is "gender accurate," rather than "gender neutral" as are most "function equivalent" translations and paraphrases--Bfree2 (talk) 00:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC). About their translation, GW translators claim: Traditionally, the Scriptures have been translated into English by teams of scholars serving part-time. This translation project employed full-time biblical scholars and full-time English editorial reviewers. GOD'S WORD is the first English Bible in which English reviewers were actively involved with scholars at every stage of the translation process. Because of the involvement of English experts, GOD'S WORD looks and reads like contemporary American literature. It uses clear, natural English; follows standard punctuation and capitalization rules; and is printed in an open, single column format that enhances readability. And, the poetry is extraordinary. All of this makes GOD'S WORD an exceptional literary work The Bible In Basic English (also known as BBE) is a translation of the Bible into Basic English. The BBE was translated by Professor S. H. Hooke using the standard 850 Basic English words. 100 words that were helpful to understand poetry were added along with 50 "Bible" words. The New Testament was released in 1941 and the Old Testament was released in 1949. In this undertaking, the latest ideas and discoveries in connection with the work of putting the Bible into other languages were taken into account, and when the Basic form was complete it was gone over in detail by a Committee formed by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. The Basic Bible, which in this way was watched over by two separate groups of experts through its different stages, is designed to be used wherever the English language has taken root. Frequently, the narrow limits of the word-list make it hard to keep the Basic completely parallel with the Hebrew and the Greek; but great trouble has been taken with every verse and every line to make certain that there are no errors of sense and no loose wording. It is only natural that, from time to time, some of the more delicate shades of sense have not been covered; on the other hand, it is well to keep in mind that in the Authorised Version the power and music of the language sometimes take so much of the reader's attention that these more delicate shades are overlooked. In fact, the Basic expert is forced, because of the limited material with which he is working, to give special care to the sense of the words before him. There is no question of the Basic work taking the place of the Authorised Version or coming into competition with it; but it may be said of this New English Bible that it is in a marked degree straightforward and simple and that these qualities give it an independent value. The Darby Bible (DBY, formal title The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby) refers to the Bible as translated from Hebrew and Greek by John Nelson Darby. The English version was first published in 1890. Darby also published translations of the Bible in French and German. J N Darby's purpose was, as he states in the preface to his English NT, to make a modern translation for the unlearned who have neither access to manuscript texts or training and knowledge of ancient languages of the Scriptures. He was the principal scholar for a number of translations - and not the sole translator of any one of the various translations that bear his name. He worked with various brethren who had academic and spiritual qualifications. He also acknowledges dependence on the critical work of Samuel Prideaux Tregelles and various other scholars. Darby's translation work was not intended to be read aloud. His work was for study and private use. In his own oral ministry he generally used the English KJV. When Mr. Darby first issued his New Translation into English he wrote in the preface to the Revelation 'if the reader find my translation exceedingly similar to Mr. William Kelly's, I can only rejoice in it, as mine was made a year or two before his came out, and he has never seen mine up to the time of my writing this ...' (Darby went on to write that his New Testament translation had been lying by him for some years then). In his introduction to the 1890, German version, he wrote, "In the issue of this translation, the purpose is not to offer to the man of letters a learned work, but rather to provide the simple and unlearned reader with as exact a translation as possible." In the Old Testament Darby translates the covenant name of God as "Jehovah" instead of rendering it "LORD" or "GOD" (in all capital letters) as most English translations do. Among other widely-used translations only the American Standard Version (1901) and the Jehovah's Witnesses New World Translation (1950) have followed this practice (the latter introducing the Name in their New Testament over 200 times, though not occurring in the koine Greek text). For some verses the Darby New Testament has detailed footnotes which make reference to his scholarly textual criticism comparisons. Critics of the Darby Bible include Charles Spurgeon. The Hebrew Names Version of the World English Bible is a Modern English update of the American Standard Version. The World English Bible (also known as WEB) is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997. The New Testament is considered complete and is available in print. The World English Bible project was started to produce a modern English Bible version that is not copyrighted, does not use archaic English (such as the KJV), or is not translated in Basic English (such as the The Bible in Basic English). The World English Bible follows the American Standard Version's decision to transliterate the Tetragrammaton, but updates "Jehovah" to be "Yahweh". It is based on the 1901 American Standard Version, the Greek Majority Text, and the Hebrew Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. There are seven passes of editing and proofreading for each book. An initial automated pass updated approximately 1,000 archaic words, phrases and grammatical constructs. The first manual pass was to add quotation marks (the ASV had none) and other punctuation, and to check the translation against the Greek and Hebrew texts where there are significant textual variants or the meaning is unclear. Containing the Old and New Testaments, in the Common Version, with Ammendments of the Language by Noah Webster, LL. D. The English version of the sacred scriptures, now in general use, was first published in the year 1611, in the reign of James I. Although the translators made many alterations in the language of former versions, yet no small part of the language is the same, as that of the versions made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In the present version, the language is, in general, correct and perspicuous; the genuine popular English of Saxon origin; peculiarly adapted to the subjects; and in many passages, uniting sublimity with beautiful simplicity. In my view, the general style of the version ought not to be altered. But in the lapse of two or three centuries, changes have taken place, which, in particular passages, impair the beauty; in others, obscure the sense, of the original languages. Some words have fallen into disuse; and the signification of others, in current popular use, is not the same now as it was when they were introduced into the version. The effect of these changes, is, that some words are not understood by common readers, who have no access to commentaries, and who will always compose a great proportion of readers; while other words, being now used in a sense different from that which they had when the translation was made, present a wrong signification or false ideas. Whenever words are understood in a sense different from that which they had when introduced, and different from that of the original languages, they do not present to the reader the 'Word of God'. This circumstance is very important, even in things not the most essential; and in essential points, mistakes may be very injurious. The Bible text designated YLT is from the 1898 Young's Literal Translation by Robert Young who also compiled Young's Analytical Concordance. This is an extremely literal translation that attempts to preserve the tense and word usage as found in the original Greek and Hebrew writings. The text was scanned from a reprint of the 1898 edition as published by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids Michigan. The book is still in print and may be ordered from Baker Book House. Obvious errors in spelling or inconsistent spellings of the same word were corrected in the computer edition of the text. The Geneva Bible was a Protestant translation of the Bible into English. This was the Bible read by William Shakespeare, by John Knox, by John Donne, and by John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress. It was the Bible that was brought to America on the Mayflower and used by Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War. Because the language of the Geneva Bible was more forceful and vigorous, most readers preferred this version strongly over the Bishops' Bible, the translation authorised by the Church of England under Elizabeth I. The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale. Tyndale’s Bible is credited with being the first English translation to come directly from Hebrew and Greek texts. Furthermore it was the first English biblical translation that was mass produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing. The term Tyndale's Bible is not strictly correct, because Tyndale never published a complete Bible. Prior to his death Tyndale had only finished translating the entire New Testament and roughly half of the Old Testament. Of the latter, the Pentateuch, Jonah and a revised version of the book of Genesis were published during his lifetime. His other Old Testament works were first used in the creation of the Matthew Bible and also heavily influenced every major English translation of the Bible that followed. The chain of events that led to the creation of Tyndale’s New Testament started in 1522. It was in this year that Tyndale illegally acquired a copy of Martin Luther’s German New Testament. Tyndale was inspired by Luther’s work and immediately set out to imitate Luther’s work but in English. He made his purpose known to the Bishop of London at the time Cuthbert Tunstall. However Tunstall rejected Tyndale’s offer of creating an up-to-date modern English Bible. After this rejection Tyndale moved to the continent and ended up in Hamburg where he completed his New Testament in 1524. During this time period Tyndale frequented Wittenberg where he consulted with Martin Luther and his associate Melanchthon. The first version of Tyndale’s New Testament was put into print in 1525 in Cologne however the process was not finished. From there Tyndale moved the publishing process to Worms where the first recorded complete edition of his New Testament was published in 1526. Two revised versions were latter published in 1534 and 1536, both personally revised by Tyndale himself. After his death in 1536 Tyndale’s works have been revised and reprinted numerous times. Furthermore much of his work can be seen in other modern versions of the Bible, especially that of the King James Version. Tyndale's Pentateuch was published at Antwerp by Johann Hoochstraten in 1530. His English version of the book of Jonah was published the following year. This was followed by his revised version of the book of Genesis in 1534. Tyndale translated many other Old Testament books including Joshua, Judges, first and second Samuel, first and second Kings and first and second Chronicles. Unfortunately these unpublished works haven’t survived to today in their original forms. When Tyndale was martyred these works came to be in the possession of one his associates John Rodgers. These translations would be influential in the creation of the Matthew Bible which was published in 1537. Tyndale used a number of sources when carrying out his translations of both the New and Old Testaments. When translating the New Testament, Tyndale used Erasmus’s Greek and Latin New Testament, as well as Luther’s German version and The Vulgate. Scholars believe that Tyndale stayed away from using Wyclif’s Bible as a source because he didn’t want his English to reflect that which was used prior to the Renaissance. The sources Tyndale used for his translation of the Pentateuch however are not known for sure. Scholars believe that Tyndale used either the Hebrew Pentateuch or the Polyglot Bible. It is suspected that his other Old Testament works were translated directly from a copy of the Hebrew Bible. Wyclif's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wycliffe. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395. These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and chief cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. In the early Middle Ages, most Christian people encountered the Bible only in the form of oral versions of scriptures, verses and homilies in Latin. At that time, only the educated (and those wealthy enough to become educated) could read and understand Latin. Wycliffe's idea was to translate the Bible into the language of the common people, giving them the chance to read the Bible and develop their own interpretation of it, rather than the Church's condensed and biased version. "[&ldots;] it helpeth Christian men to study the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best Christ's sentence." Long thought to be the work of Wycliffe himself, it is now generally believed that the Wycliffite translations were the work of several hands. Nicholas of Hereford is known to have translated a part of the text; John Purvey and perhaps John Trevisa are names that have been mentioned as possible authors. The translators worked from The Vulgate, the Latin Bible that was the standard Biblical text of Western Christianity. They included in the testaments those works which would later be called deuterocanonical along with 3 Esdras which is now called 2 Esdras and Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans. Although unauthorized, the work was popular. Wycliffite Bible texts are the most common manuscript literature in Middle English. Over 250 manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible survive; its nearest competitor is the essay on the "Prick of Conscience" that survives in 117 copies. Surviving copies of the Wycliffite Bible fall into two broad textual families, an "early" version and a later version. Both versions are flawed by a slavish regard to the word order and syntax of the Latin originals; the later versions give some indication of being revised in the direction of idiomatic English. A wide variety of Middle English dialects are represented. The second, revised group of texts is much larger than the first. Some manuscripts contain parts of the Bible in the earlier version, and other parts in the later version; this suggests that the early version may have been meant as a rough draft that was to be recast into the somewhat better English of the second version. The second version, though somewhat improved, still retained a number of infelicities of style, as in its version of Genesis 1:3
The familiar verse of John 3:16 is rendered in the later Wyclif version as: For God louede so the world that he yaf his oon bigetun sone, that ech man that beliueth in him perische not, but haue euerlastynge lijf. The Wycliffite Bible, and its popularity, caused the kingdom of England and the established Roman Catholic Church to undertake a drastic campaign to suppress it. In the early years of the 15th century, Henry IV (De haeretico comburendo), Archbishop Thomas Arundel, and Henry Knighton (to name a few) published criticism and enacted some of the severest religious censorship laws in Europe at that time. Even twenty years after Wycliffe's death, at the Oxford Convocation of 1408, it was solemnly voted that no translation of the Bible should be made without prior approval. The Vulgate is an early Fifth Century version of the Bible in Latin, and largely the result of the labours of Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of old Latin translations. It became the definitive and officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. In the 13th century it came to be called versio vulgata, which means "common translation". There are 76 books in the Clementine edition of the Vulgate Bible: 46 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament, and three in the Apocrypha.
The Holman Christian Standard Bible is an English translation of the Bible, published by Holman Bible Publishers. The first full edition was completed in March 2004, with the New Testament alone having been previously published in 1999. The roots of the HCSB can be traced back as early as 1984, when Arthur Farstad, general editor of the New King James Versionof the Bible, began a new independent translation project. In 1998, Farstad and LifeWay Christian Resources (the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention) came to an agreement that would allow LifeWay to fund and publish the completed work. Farstad died shortly thereafter, and leadership of the editorial team was turned over to Dr. Edwin Blum, who had been an integral part of the team. Interestingly, the death of Farstad resulted in a change in the Greek New Testament text underlying the HCSB; although Farstad had envisioned basing the new translation on the same texts used for the original King James Version and New King James Version, after Farstad's death, the editorial team replaced this text with the Greek New Testament as established by modern scholars (Dewey 2004). This is based on the Alexandrian text-type and best represented by the editions of the United Bible Societies and of Nestle-Aland. Holman Bible Publishers assembled an international, interdenominational team of 100 scholars and proofreaders, all of whom were committed to biblical inerrancy. The translation committee sought to strike a balance between the two prevailing philosophies of Bible translation: formal equivalence (literal, "word-for-word", etc), found in translations like the New American Standard Bible and the English Standard Version, and dynamic or functional equivalence ("thought-for-thought"), found in translations like the New International Version and the New Living Translation. The translators call this balance Optimal Equivalence. According to the translators, the primary goal of optimal equivalence translations is "to convey a sense of the original text with as much clarity as possible". To that end, the ancient source texts were exhaustively scrutinized at every level (word, phrase, clause, sentence, discourse) to determine its original meaning and intention. Afterwards, using the best language tools available, the semantic and linguistic equivalents were translated into as readable a text as possible. Making use of the most recent scholarly traditions, the translators worked from the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th edition, and the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, 4th corrected edition (for the New Testament), and the 5th edition of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (for the Old Testament). In the case of significant differences among Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts of the OT or among Greek manuscripts of the NT, the translators followed what they believed was the original reading and indicated the main alternative(s) in footnotes. There are a few places in the NT that the translation team and most biblical scholars today believe were not part of the original text. However, these texts were retained (and indicated in large square brackets) because of their undeniable antiquity and their value for tradition and the history of NT interpretation in the church. The International Standard Version is a new English translation of the Bible for which the New Testament has been published and the Old Testament is being translated. The ISV New Testament was released on April 10, 1998. As of July 13, 2008 12:32:32, 4,400 verses of the ISV Old Testament contained in Genesis, Leviticus, Isaiah, and Ezekiel remain to be translated. A partial text of Genesis is available. The translation aims to be central between a literal translation and an idiomatic translation, a philosophy the ISV translation team call "literal-idiomatic" (p. xliii of the ISV Introduction). The Holy Bible: International Standard Version (ISV) is being produced with identifying version numbers and build sequence identifiers so as to provide tracking of improvements and additions to the text. Current as of 9 May 2008, the ISV's current version and build was v1.4.6.
In late 2007, the ISV Foundation of Paramount,
California, announced commencement of a collaborative effort with Dr.
Peter Flint, Canada Research Chair in Dead Sea Scrolls Studies of
Trinity Western University (Langley, BC Canada) to produce a
comprehensive set of footnotes for the International Standard Version
documenting the variants between the biblical manuscripts of the Dead
Sea Scrolls and that of the Massoretic Text of the Hebrew
Scriptures. In early May 2008, the ISV Foundation reached a
preliminary agreement by which scholars associated with Dr. Flint and
his colleague Dr. Eugene Ulrich (Notre Dame University) would produce
footnotes for the ISV concerning approximately 90 variants between
the DSS and the MT contained in the Psalms and Proverbs. The ISV
Bible intends to release an edition of the Psalms and Proverbs
containing the variants in mid-2008. The Weymouth New Testament ("WNT"), otherwise known as The New Testament in Modern Speech or The Modern Speech New Testament, is a translation into "modern" English as used in the nineteenth century from the text of The Resultant Greek Testament by Richard Francis Weymouth from the Greek idioms used in it. It was later edited and partly revised by Reverend Ernest Hampden-Cook in London, England. Publishers: Baker and Taylor Company (New York) in 1903 and James Clarke & Co (London) in 1903. This edition is incorrectly referred to as the second edition of Weymouth's version, but it is really the first edition. Ernest Hampden-Cook, then Weymouth's secretary, edited Weymouth's manuscript in the following year of Weymouth's death in 1902 to produced this first edition in 1903. Weymouth produced the version as a literal translation of his own text in Greek (a.k.a. The Resultant Greek Testament). The Preface to the original by Weymouth (dated 1902) states that the version was chiefly designed to furnish a succint and compressed running commentary (not doctrinal) to be used side by side with its elder compeers. Weymouth produced the version as a literal translation of his own text in Greek (a.k.a. The Resultant Greek Testament). A second edition appeared in 1904; a third in 1909; a fourth, newly revised by several well-known New Testament scholars, in 1924; a fifth, newly revised by James Alexander Robertson in 1929, and then again reprinted in 1936. Richard Francis Weymouth's popular translation of the New Testament into English was first published in 1903 and has been in print through numerous editions ever since with millions of copies sold. Weyland's aim has been to discover how the inspired writers themselves would have expressed and described the events of the New Testament and Gospels, had they been actually writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In doing so, he has succeeded in rendering it into a dignified modern English edition without ecclesiastical nor doctrinal bias making it desirable to Christian readers of all denominations. The Resultant Greek Testament was prepared for final publication by Reverend Ernest Hampden-Cook (Weymouth's assistant associate) in 1903. The Resultant Greek Testament, by Richard Francis Weymouth, exhibited the text in which the majority of modern editors agreed, and contained readings of Stephens (1550), Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf, Lightfoot, Ellicott, Alford, Weiss, The Bâle Edition (1880), Westcott and Hort, and the Revision Committee of London.
DISCLAIMER: PLEASE READ I make no claim to be an expert pertaining to the knowledge and information of God and religion and all that which relates to God and religion. I make no claims, promises or guarantees about the completeness or adequacy of the information contained in or linked to this website and its associated sites. Nothing on this site constitutes legal or medical advice. This website is an unofficial source of news and information continually updated from thousands of sources around the net. This website is the composition of many hours of research. Information contained within this site has come from numerous sources such as websites, newspapers, books, and magazines. By printing, downloading, or using any info from this site, you agree to our full terms. Review the full terms by clicking here. Below is a summary of some of the terms. If you do not agree to the full terms, do not use the information. All information on this web site is provided as a free service. Under no conditions does it constitute professional advice. No representations are made as to the completeness, accuracy, comprehensiveness or otherwise of the information provided. This site is considered publishers of this material, not authors. Information may have errors or be outdated. Some information is from historical sources or represents opinions of the author. It is for research purposes only. The information is "AS IS", "WITH ALL FAULTS". User assumes all risk of use, damage, or injury. You agree that we have no liability for any damages. We are not liable for any consequential, incidental, indirect, or special damages. You indemnify us for claims caused by you.
This site is maintained for research
purposes only.
.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
