TO CHRISTIANS THE BIBLE is a divine revelation, written by holy men of old, who wrote as they were moved by the Spirit of God. (II Pet. 1:21) However, it was not originally given in the convenient form in which it is now possessed by millions throughout all parts of the earth. Neither were the original copies of the Bible written in the English language.
The ancient Hebrew language, in which the Old Testament portion of the Bible was written, is now the official language of Israel, while the language used in Greece today somewhat compares with that which was used in the original writings of the New Testament.
All modern versions of the Bible are translations. Today, it seems, a new translation of the Bible appears every few years. Ever since the Revised Version published in 1881-1885 appeared with corrections of many of the mistakes of the authorized King James Version, which is so widely used in the Christian world even today, many new versions have come upon the scene. About the same time, Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible was published (1872, 1st edition; 1902, 3rd edition), with considerable refinement of accuracy, though the reading is not smooth and easy. Seven diaglotts (Greek, with English translation between the lines) have appeared from 1864 to 1990, of which five merit fair praise for accuracy: Marshall (1958), Concordant (1975), Kingdom Interlinear (1969), Douglas (1990), and Wilson (1864). Richard Weymouth both compiled his own Greek text from the ancient manuscript evidence and translated it into English in 1902 (now in its 5th edition).
The original Revised Version (RV) was revised by the American committee in 1901, and became known as the American Revised Version (ARV), or the American Standard Version (ASV, copyrighted). The copyright to this 1901 ASV Bible was procured by the National Council of Churches of Christ in the 1920’s, and they began a revision to the ASV in 1946, publishing the Revised Standard Version (RSV) in 1952, using twentieth-century language. This work, conducted by a committee of many scholars, received wide publicity because it was sponsored by the Federal Council of Churches of the USA. Dissatisfaction with compromises of accuracy and precision in the RSV led the Lockman Foundation to independently revise the ASV, publishing the New American Standard Bible (NASB, or NAS) in 1971, with a few, sometimes biased, revisions up through the NAS95 edition. More recently, Revised Version Improved and Corrected (RVIC, 2020) makes some corrections to the ASV and adds footnotes showing diverse readings of the better ancient manuscripts.¹ The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)in 1989 may have taken a slight step backwards in accuracy, though the English Standard Version (ESV) in 2001 is a better revision of the RSV and is comparable to the NASB for accuracy.
C.H. Dodd spearheaded a modern-English committee translation starting from scratch, with scholars from Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland, publishing the New English Bible (NEB) in 1961-1970. It was further revised in 1989 as the Revised English Bible (REB), perhaps to some benefit. The New International Version (NIV, 1973, with minor revisions thereafter) strives for readability, though at substantial compromise of fidelity to the original language.² Somewhat better is the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB, 1999). Progressively less accurate are the modern-English New Century Version (NCV, 1987); New King James Version (NKJV, 1979), which boasts of rejecting the most ancient manuscripts; and Contemporary English Version (CEV, 1995).
Among Roman Catholic translations, the New American Bible (NAB, 1970) represents the first Roman Catholic departure from the Latin Vulgate text, in favor of translating from the Hebrew and Greek texts; it is perhaps comparable to the REB and NEB for accuracy. Somewhat less accurate Roman Catholic translations are the Jerusalem Bible (1966), Douay-Rheims/Confraternity Bible (1609/1950), and Knox (1950); and in the New Testament only, Lattey/Westminster (1913-1935) and Kleist-Lilly (1954). From the Syrian Orthodox Church, Lamsa translates from the Aramaic (1957), with mixed results.
Other notable English Bibles, in approximate order of decreasing faithfulness to the original languages, include: Sacred Name Restoration Bible (Traina, 1963), which is simply a modification of the Rotherham, with some compromise of accuracy in the New Testament; New World Translation (NWT, 1960) of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (overall better than many would have supposed, but not as good in the New Testament as their Kingdom Interlinear); David Stern, Complete Jewish Bible (CJB, 1998), from a Hebrew Christian perspective, having significant merit for the scholarly; Amplified Bible (1965) which adds words to elucidate the meaning, much more accurate in the Old Testament, while bending to theological biases in the New; Anchor Bible (1964-date, still not complete); Verkuyl’s Berkeley Bible (1959); Darby (Plymouth Brethren; French translation is said to be better); Smith-Goodspeed, An American Translation (1923, 1927); New Living Translation (NLT, 1996, 2004), which is a substantial improvement over the Living Bible (1971); Today’s English Version (TEV, also called Good News Bible), the best of the simplified English translations; Ferrar Fenton (1903); and Young’s Literal (1862). More recently, the Christadelphians’ New European Version 2013 merits praise for accuracy. The NET Bible (www.bible.org/ netbible) is above average.
Among translations of the Old Testament only, Jewish Publication Society’s Margolis translation of 1917 (JPS) is overall more accurate than the 1985 revision, or Isaac Leeser (1854), and much better than Harkavy (1916), and than the Brenton (1851) or Thomson (1808) translations of the Greek Septuagint.
In decreasing accuracy of New Testaments only, John Bowes (1870, hard to find); Wuest (1961), an expanded translation truer than the Amplified; Weymouth (1902); Schonfield (1985), from a non-Christian Jewish perspective; Moffatt (1913); C.B. Williams, The New Testament in the Language of the People (1937). Still less faithful to the original languages include: Simple English Bible (SEB, 1983), a simplified translation; Bar- clay (1976), with many good footnotes; Twentieth Century New Testament (1901), shows awareness of many Hebrew idioms expressed in Greek (as do Lamsa and Ferrar Fenton); God’s Word (Lutheran, 1995); Phillips (1958), which endeavors to pre- serve the style of the original (more than the strict accuracy); and Peterson’s The Message (1993).
In addition, there are many study Bibles available, containing footnotes which may or may not be helpful to a sincere reader. Notable among them are the Companion Bible, which contains many footnotes concerning corrections of translation or due to better manuscript evidence; and the Thompson Chain Reference Bible; both based on the Authorized Version (AV) commonly known as the King James Version (KJV).
When the highly publicized Revised Standard Version was published in 1952, many Protestant Fundamentalists or Evangelicals were opposed to it. The opposition on the part of some was very bitter, manifesting itself in public burnings of the new translation. In many quarters it was condemned as a work of the Devil. Such opposition continues to many of the succeeding translations that have appeared.
It is well to realize that no translation of the Bible is perfect. Our own observation is that where vital doctrines of the divine plan are not involved, these new translations frequently state the thought more clearly than does the King James Version. However, the new translations are not always entirely trustworthy either. This can be ascertained by consulting reliable Greek and Hebrew concordances and lexicons of the Bible.
- RVIC (2000 edn.) is accessible free at: https://herald-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/rvic18-b.pdf
- E.g., In the Epistles the Greek word sarks (σάρξ), “flesh,” is often translated “sinful nature,” except when it is applied to Jesus Christ. The NIV claim of “safeguard… from sectarian bias” must be evaluated accordingly.