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Choosing Bible Translations
   
Why so many choices?
Pictured above are just four of
hundreds of variations of the Bible that are
available for purchase through your local book
store. Why so many? If the Bible is "the word of
God" as Christians often refer to it, how can there
be any variations at all? Shouldn't there just be
one perfect Bible, and every copy be all the same?
It would certainly make it easier
for the new student of the Bible if this was so! In
fact, those who have not been exposed in the past to
the topic of Bible translations may be utterly
bewildered when they realize that they can't just
walk into a bookstore, ask for "The Bible," and be
handed what they ask for with no more details
needed. So before a discussion on how to choose a
Bible, it may be helpful for some readers to have a
brief overview of why there is such a huge selection
of Bibles.
Original Languages
The Bible is actually not one book
at all. It is a collection of 66 diverse documents,
bound under one cover, somewhat like an "anthology"
of short stories you may have read back in high
school. These documents were not all written by the
same author, nor during the same period in history.
They were written by a wide variety of authors,
during a span of time from well over 1000 years BC
to almost 100 AD.
There are two main sections to a
Christian Bible. The first, usually referred to as
the Old Testament, is made up of 39 documents.
Although it is impossible to determine exactly when
each was composed, the oldest may have been written
as long as 3,400 years ago, and the most recent
perhaps 2,400 years ago.
The original authors of these
documents (usually called today "books" of the
Bible) wrote in the Hebrew language. On the left is
a sample of a modern version of this language, part
of a handwritten copy of a scroll of one of the
books of the Old Testament.
The second section of Christian
Bibles is usually referred to as the New Testament,
and consists of 27 documents (also usually called
"books," although a number of them were originally
personal letters to individuals or groups) written
by a variety of authors during the period from about
50 AD to 90 AD.
The original authors of these
documents wrote in a version of the Greek language.
On the left is a page from a copy of the Greek
Gospel of John from the New Testament, written
on ancient papyrus in about 200 AD.
Obviously we no longer have the
"original manuscripts" written by the authors of
each of the books. We must rely on the fact that
those who treasured these writings throughout
history diligently made copies of the documents in
their original languages to pass down to later
generations. The oldest complete copy of the Greek
manuscripts making up the New Testament in our
Bibles dates back to the fourth century AD. The
oldest complete copy of the Hebrew manuscripts
making up the Old Testament in our Bible dates back
to only 1008 AD.
But the average person in 2005 AD is
unable to read either ancient Hebrew or Greek. If
they are to find out what the Bible says about the
history of God's interaction with mankind, they must
rely on scholars who do understand those languages
to translate them into the common language of each
country. The material on this website has been
prepared for those who speak the English language,
so in this series of Bible Study Tool Box
articles, discussion will be limited to
consideration of the English translations of the
Bible.
English Translations of the Bible
Up until the 1300s AD, translations
of the Greek and Hebrew portions of the Bible were
not made into the common languages of the various
countries of the western world. They were made into
Latin, the universal language of scholarship of the
time. This made it impossible for the "common man"
to read the Bible for himself, even if he were
educated enough to know how to read his own
language.
The first translation of the whole
Bible into the English language, completed in the
late 1300s, was not made directly from the original
Greek and Hebrew, but from one of the Latin
translations. The first translation of the New
Testament into the English language made directly
from the Greek was completed in the early 1500s,
with the first translation of the Old Testament
directly from the Hebrew following soon after. These
translations, combined with the invention of
moveable type by Gutenburg in the mid-1400s,
eventually made it possible for a greater and
greater percentage of the populations of
English-speaking countries to be able to own and
read their own Bible.
In the early 1600s, King James I of
England decided that it would be valuable for all of
the churches in England to be using one standardized
Bible translation, and thus he commissioned a group
of the finest Hebrew and Greek scholars of the
Church of England to prepare a new version of the
Bible. Using earlier English translations as a base
for their work, along with the limited collection of
ancient Greek and Hebrew manuscripts available at
the time, they created what was to be labeled ever
after as the King James Version of the Bible.
First published in 1611, it is recognized even to
this day as a literary masterpiece of the English
language. It quickly became the standard Bible for
not just England but the whole English-speaking
world, including, eventually, the United States.
Revising the Bible
But English is not a "dead language"
like Latin that never changes. It is alive and
growing. Word meanings, grammar, spelling, and more
aspects of English have changed over time as a
natural process. And Bible scholarship and
archaeology did not remain static after 1611 either.
Many more very early manuscripts of the Bible have
been found since then, as well as non-Biblical
writings in Greek and Hebrew that have helped
clarify what some ancient words and phraseology
meant. Thus by the late 1800s an increasing number
of Bible scholars had concluded that the King
James Version, although it had served well for
over 200 years, needed some revision.
A number of attempts at revision, as
well as a few completely new translations from the
Hebrew and Greek originals, were made by individuals
and small groups of scholars from the early 1700s
on. But the most significant major revision occurred
in the late 1800s, when a collection of British
Biblical scholars, primarily from the Church of
England, convened to agree upon a process of
revision in which the KJV version would be carefully
compared to all the best available Greek and Hebrew
manuscripts and linguistic and archaeological
scholarship of the time, and adjusted accordingly.
The complete Bible in this new version, titled the
Revised English Version (REV), was published in
1885. The British translators cooperated with a
group of American scholars at the same time, and an
adaptation of the REV titled the American
Standard Version (ASV), slightly adjusted to
reflect American English style, was published in
1901. Neither of these versions ever received wide
acceptance as a replacement in general use for the
King James Version.
The ASV became the forerunner of an
even more elaborate attempt at revision, which
yielded the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of
the whole Bible, first published in 1952. Its
authors hoped it would be welcomed widely as a
replacement for the KJV, but it also ended up with a
narrow set of supporters over the years. Finally, a
much more extensive revision titled the New
American Standard Bible was published in 1971.
Over the past 30+ years it has gained a wider
acceptance as an alternative translation to the KJV
than its predecessors, especially since the time, in
1995, that it was revised to change the archaic
wording such as "thou," "thee," "thy," and "thine"
and all the words ending in -eth and -est that had
been maintained from the KJV in the earlier
revisions, and substitute modern terms.
New Translations
At the same time that these
revisions to the KJV were being made, there have
been a number of totally new translations from the
ancient Greek and Hebrew manuscripts . Some have
been made by just one individual scholar, such as
the Moffatt translation, first published in a
full Bible version in 1926. Greek and Hebrew scholar
and Bible professor James Moffatt created a highly
idiosyncratic translation, attempting to make it
sound as "modern" as possible. In the process, he
often inserted his own opinions and doctrinal
interpretations into passages in ways that had
absolutely no connection to the ancient texts. In
fact, at times he would even change around the order
of whole sections of Bible books to line up with
what he speculated might have been a more, at least
to his taste, logical order of the content.
Moffatt's translation never became very popular, but
for many years it was one of the few truly
"modern-sounding" renditions of the Bible, and thus
was often quoted by some commentators if the wording
of some Bible passage in the KJV they wished to use
was so obscure that it was nearly impossible for
modern readers to comprehend.
It has been particularly common in
the past century for Greek scholars to offer brand
new translations of just the New Testament. However,
since the purpose of this article is to assist the
reader in choosing a complete Bible for basic Bible
study, these partial Bibles will not be covered
further.
In addition to actual scholarly
translations from the original languages, there
have been a number of attempts in the 20th century
to provide "modern paraphrases" of the Bible, in
which the author considers the content of a Bible
passage and decides how to express the same
general ideas with more contemporary examples
and wording. The most widely-accepted of these
paraphrases has been the Living Bible.
Although such versions may be pleasant to read, they
should not be considered as the Bible of choice for
any serious Bible student, for they can easily
distort the intended meaning of a passage and
mislead the reader. Most have been written by a
single author, and thus it is very easy for his own
personal interpretations to creep into the text,
rather than the kind of objectivity that can result
when a whole staff of writers collaborate on a
translation, and keep one another from allowing any
one passage to reflect one person's doctrinal
agenda.
The most popular translation made by
the efforts of a large staff of translators in the
last fifty years has been the New International
Version (NIV). First published in a version
containing both Old and New Testaments in 1977, it
has since that time become the best-selling Bible
translation on the market today.
Conclusion
It is not the purpose of this
article to give a detailed overview of every Bible
translation and paraphrase on the market. That would
be a massive project. The comments above are offered
only as a very general introduction to the issue of
choosing one or more translations for home use by
the beginning Bible student. The bottom line of this
issue is this: no one translation is going to meet
the needs of every person, whether for reading for
general understanding of the plan of God,
inspiration for daily living, or careful examination
of the details of the doctrines of the Christian
faith. Each English translation has its own
strengths and its own shortcomings, for all of the
three needs mentioned.
Thus the wisest course for the
beginner may be to start out with at least two
translations of the Bible. Because a significant
proportion of the "Bible study helps" books
available, such as concordances and lexicons, are
based on the text of the King James Version,
it is practically indispensable for every serious
Bible student to have at least one copy of the KJV
on hand. But because it is also important for the
new Bible student to be able to get a broad overview
of the basic content of the Bible, to get his
bearings before delving into the details of any
matter, it is also very sensible to have a "modern
language" version for general reading and daily
inspiration. The staff of this website suggests
starting with the New International Version
of the Bible as that modern version. This should not
in any way be taken as a complete endorsement of
that version as being somehow superior in all ways
to any of the other versions available, nor a claim
that it has no errors. Bible commentators have
concerns about some details of every translation,
and a request for a recommendation of "the best"
translation, either classic or modern, from ten
commentators might well yield ten different choices!
But Bible study can't begin until a
choice is made of a Bible! So we offer the
suggestion that the NIV would be a good modern
version to use to start your studies. Most
quotations from the Bible on this website are from
the NIV version, unless otherwise noted right at the
end of the quotation. When discussing precise
details about the finer points of translation of
certain passages, reference will also often be made
to the rendering in the King James Version.
Thus having a copy of the KJV and a copy of the NIV
will be of most use when using the study materials
on this website, including the
Basics of
Bible Literacy course, the
Each One
Teach One Discipleship Course, and some of the
other sections of this
Bible
Study Toolbox.
Picking out Bibles at the
Bookstore
Unfortunately, just knowing the name
of the versions you want to purchase is not going to
make your trip to the bookstore quick and easy! For
if you walk into the store and ask a clerk to get
you a copy of the New International Version
of the Bible, she will ask you first, "Which edition
of the NIV do you want?" And she may then show you a
shelf with two dozen or more totally different
"styles" of the NIV, not including different choices
of color for the cover on those editions which are
bound in leather. To find out more on how to sort
through this stage of your choice of Bibles, see the
next installment of the Toolbox:
Do
You Need a "Specialty Bible?"
Resources for Further Information
If you would like to know more about
the history of Bible translation, or about the
differences among the various translations, the
following weblinks will be of help.
More complete details on the
history of the English versions of the Bible can be
seen at:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/versions.html
The International Bible Society
has a page which very briefly compares some of the
features of the 16 most popular versions of the
Bible.
http://www.ibs.org/bibles/translations/index.php
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