Learning How to Read #6- Alphabet Soup
Buying a Bible used to be pretty simple. Got to store and decide between leather bound or hard back and put down a few dollars. Reading it used to be pretty simple as well. Pick up a Bible and read it and anyone hearing you with their own Bibles would be able to follow along easily. Of course it's never been quite that simple, but there has been a regular explosion of new translations hitting the bookstores in recent years making the whole idea of buying a Bible an intimidating task. Look at the shelf or the Christian Book Distributor catalog and you can be lost in the veritable alphabet soup of translations available now. There's the NASB, NIV and TNIV, the ESV, the RSV and NRSV, the NLT, the JB and NJB, KJV and NKJV, CEV, CEB, HCSB, NEB and REB, the Living Bible, the Message, Good News for Modern Man, and the list goes on. (In case you're wondering, my own bookshelf only has seven of these.)
What I'd like to do now is to at least try to clarify and simplify this if I can. First, some of these are specifically authorized by the Roman Catholic Church. These include the Jerusalem Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, and New American Bible. This isn't to say that a Protestant shouldn't read them, but it simply means that these are translations specifically for the Catholic Church.
In considering this overwhelming variety of Bibles out there I should mention first that they differ in part in their translation philosophy. Some try to remain as literal as possible with the understanding that it is impossible to do a word for word translation because of differences in the languages. Others use English phrases that are the equivalent of the original Hebrew or Greek. In general these "dynamic equivalent" translations are easier to read, but aren't as useful for careful study. Additionally, some Bibles aren't even translations at all, but are simply paraphrases of existing English Bibles- the Living Bible is one of these.
The American translation that is probably the closest to being a word for word translation is the New American Standard Bible (NASB). If that's the far end of the spectrum for a word for word translation the old reliable King James is close to it. Among the Bibles of the last half century the Revised Standard Version and the similar English Standard Version, are somewhat more readable than the NASB, but still follow that basic translation philosophy. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) was a significant revision and update of the RSV. Primarily it used inclusive language in reference to people throughout. In some instances this made no differences in meaning, in others it did alter the meaning somewhat. Many readers may not even recognize a lot of these changes until they get to the Psalms. In my opinion the poetry of the Psalms suffers greatly in this translation.
The Bible that has made the biggest splash in our churches in the last thirty years is the New International Version. This was a significant departure in that it did not follow the literal correspondence philosophy and opted for a dynamic equivalent model in which the editors/translators use the phrasing that they think captures what the original meant. This is probably the best selling Bible currently, and is popular because it is more easily readable than the versions mentioned above. In my opinion, this translation is fine for personal devotional use, but is a very poor choice for careful study.
Another very popular translation today is The Message. This is a very "loose" translation by Eugene Peterson. It's interesting to read in places to get a totally different perspective, but is so different from any other Bible out there that it's of limited usefulness for preaching and teaching.
Allow me a couple of more editorial comments in addition to the few I've inserted above. My own personal favorite right now is the ESV, but I do venture away from time to time. I also have a healthy respect for the old KJV even though I don't read from it or preach from it often. The poetic portions are much better I think. A subtle but very important difference is in the pronouns. Modern English simply has "you," without distinguishing between singular or plural. The original languages had that distinction, and "thou and ye" from the old English make the same distinction. Thou is singular, but "ye" as in ye are the salt of the earth is plural. In reading a modern translation it's impossible to tell whether the "you" is singular or plural- (you or y'all to put it in southernese.) I'd like to make one more comment that I almost hesitate to make, but here goes. I can't help but wonder if some of the tremendous explosion in translations of the last thirty years is driven as much by marketing and economics as it is by a real need for yet another English version.
Happy reading my friends in cyberland!
What I'd like to do now is to at least try to clarify and simplify this if I can. First, some of these are specifically authorized by the Roman Catholic Church. These include the Jerusalem Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, and New American Bible. This isn't to say that a Protestant shouldn't read them, but it simply means that these are translations specifically for the Catholic Church.
In considering this overwhelming variety of Bibles out there I should mention first that they differ in part in their translation philosophy. Some try to remain as literal as possible with the understanding that it is impossible to do a word for word translation because of differences in the languages. Others use English phrases that are the equivalent of the original Hebrew or Greek. In general these "dynamic equivalent" translations are easier to read, but aren't as useful for careful study. Additionally, some Bibles aren't even translations at all, but are simply paraphrases of existing English Bibles- the Living Bible is one of these.
The American translation that is probably the closest to being a word for word translation is the New American Standard Bible (NASB). If that's the far end of the spectrum for a word for word translation the old reliable King James is close to it. Among the Bibles of the last half century the Revised Standard Version and the similar English Standard Version, are somewhat more readable than the NASB, but still follow that basic translation philosophy. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) was a significant revision and update of the RSV. Primarily it used inclusive language in reference to people throughout. In some instances this made no differences in meaning, in others it did alter the meaning somewhat. Many readers may not even recognize a lot of these changes until they get to the Psalms. In my opinion the poetry of the Psalms suffers greatly in this translation.
The Bible that has made the biggest splash in our churches in the last thirty years is the New International Version. This was a significant departure in that it did not follow the literal correspondence philosophy and opted for a dynamic equivalent model in which the editors/translators use the phrasing that they think captures what the original meant. This is probably the best selling Bible currently, and is popular because it is more easily readable than the versions mentioned above. In my opinion, this translation is fine for personal devotional use, but is a very poor choice for careful study.
Another very popular translation today is The Message. This is a very "loose" translation by Eugene Peterson. It's interesting to read in places to get a totally different perspective, but is so different from any other Bible out there that it's of limited usefulness for preaching and teaching.
Allow me a couple of more editorial comments in addition to the few I've inserted above. My own personal favorite right now is the ESV, but I do venture away from time to time. I also have a healthy respect for the old KJV even though I don't read from it or preach from it often. The poetic portions are much better I think. A subtle but very important difference is in the pronouns. Modern English simply has "you," without distinguishing between singular or plural. The original languages had that distinction, and "thou and ye" from the old English make the same distinction. Thou is singular, but "ye" as in ye are the salt of the earth is plural. In reading a modern translation it's impossible to tell whether the "you" is singular or plural- (you or y'all to put it in southernese.) I'd like to make one more comment that I almost hesitate to make, but here goes. I can't help but wonder if some of the tremendous explosion in translations of the last thirty years is driven as much by marketing and economics as it is by a real need for yet another English version.
Happy reading my friends in cyberland!
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