BLoggins02

Ok here's the background: Zondervan has published a Good News Translation version of the Bible which is going along the now popular billboard God-message theme. It's just a black bible with the text "My Book - God" on the cover. I think these little "... - God" statements are cute even if I don't agree with the message (God existance, religious exclusivity, humans presuming to be able to put words in God's mouth, assuming such a deity exists, etc...). Anyway, I asked him as a Christian (protestant, pretty conservative) what he thought of newer translations such as Good News, Living Bible, etc...

He said "I don't like them because they're not translations, they're interpretations. They narrow the scope of the phrase to within the interpreters' views."

I can agree with this view but only to a certain extent. On the one hand, it is obvious that some translations are less word-for-word than others. On the other hand, you have to interpret some if you want the text to be understandable. Aren't ALL translations interpretations to some extent?

I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with him in that some translations are more biased and non-scholarly than others, but is the KJV the end-all and be-all of accurate translations? I think not, but then again I'm somewhat ignorant about biblical scholarship.

Thoughts?

lpetrich

I've wondered about that question myself -- what is the best modern-English Bible translation in existence?

And I mean modern-English translation in order to distinguish it from the King James translation. My mother, though an atheist, goes ga-ga over what great literature the KJV is, but I prefer to maximize intelligibility.

It is a curious conceit, the conceit that God only speaks Hebrew or Greek or Latin or Old Church Slavic or King James English or Arabic or Sanskrit or ...

CX

This is just my opinion having read much of the Greek text of the NT and various english translations along with, no doubt, some bias handed on to me by instructors, but the KJV is not a good translation. Firstly it is based on rather late Byzantine manuscripts which are generally considered, by scholars, less reliable than other manuscript families. Secondly the KJV was originally conceived with the express purpose of being in "the King's English" so it is somewhat outmoded by translations that use a mroe contemporary language in terms of sheer understanability to a modern lay audience. I personally prefer the NIV. It is based on the Westcott-Hort GNT which is arguably the preeminent Greek New Testament available today. Westcott used primarily early Alexandrian manuscripts with the addition of some 10 "non-western interpolations". Obviously the best thing is to read the WH itself instead of a translation, but the NIV is reasonably good. "Translations" like the Living Bible are essentially kid's stuff and useless for critical study.

BLoggins02

That's exactly what my coworker said. Of course his view was more along the lines of "Well it's great if it gets kids interested in the Bible but to truly discern God's intentions and to seriously study biblical Theology go with KJV." Which is entirely understandable for him to say given his Christianity. I don't think he minds NIV too much, it pretty much sticks with KJV content and makes the english easier to understand.

Polycarp

Ipetrich & BLoggins,

Yes, you are correct to say that “all translations are interpretations to some extent”. The key phrase is “to some extent”. The greater the amount of interpretation, the less “accurate” the translation becomes. Unless you know Greek or Hebrew, you’re at the complete mercy of the translation committee in terms of knowing how “accurate” your version is. If you’ve studied any foreign language, you’ll know there is some amount of “interpretation” involved in moving from one language to another. So how does this relate to Bible versions?

Some translations are more “literal” than others, meaning they have less translating involved. However, you can’t just translate word-for-word from Greek or Hebrew into English. I can only comment on Greek (New Testament) because I know some of it, and I won’t be studying Hebrew until next year. Syntax (word order) is very important in English, but not nearly as important in Greek. I’ll give a simple example to explain. In English you would have to say, “I am eating food.” In Greek you could say this in two words, and they could be in either order: “Food eating” or “Eating food”. You would know it was “I am eating” by the verb form without an actual word for “I am”. You also don’t need to have the subject in a particular position in relationship to the verb like you often do in English. Word order in Greek is mainly used for emphasis. A word would be placed at the beginning of a sentence for emphasis. However, here’s the fun part…

On a trivial note… The earliest Greek manuscripts that are used to translate the Bible were not written in sentence and paragraph form like we use in modern English. They were written in capital letters with no spaces between words or sentences. So it would look like this:

“INTHEBEGINNINGWASTHEWORDANDTHEWORDWASWITHGODANDTH EWORDWASGOD”

This doesn’t pose too much of a problem for translators, but it’s a pain to read.

So, the bottom line in terms of Bible versions is that some versions are more “accurate” than others. The New American Standard (NAS) and Revised Standard Version (RSV) are two of the more “literal” translations, and would probably be considered the most “accurate”. There’s a new version called the English Standard Version (ESV) that I really like. It’s literal like the NAS and RSV, but it reads much more smoothly, IMO. You can read the philosophy of the ESV translators at this link: <a href="http://goodnews.gospelcom.net/page/esv_philosophy/?ps=1e6fef6973fd524fb3d0ecee9321dafc" target="_blank">ESV Translation Philosophy</a>
One of my professors was on the translation committee, and he promotes the thing in all of his classes. I checked it out and was impressed.

The NIV reads smoothly, but has a lot of things I’d consider to be poor translations. The KJV used late manuscripts, so it has some wrong readings, etc.

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Polycarp ]</p>

CX

There are some important differences between KJV and NIV. Off the top of my head I'd say GMk 1:2 is a good example. You can see why KJV would be more acceptable to a fundamentalist Xian on the basis of that passage. The passage AMk quotes is from Malachi not Isaiah. The Byzantine Manuscripts on which KJV is based corrected the wording to remove the error.

Polycarp

Quote:

Originally posted by CowboyX: I personally prefer the NIV. It is based on the Westcott-Hort GNT which is arguably the preeminent Greek New Testament available today. Westcott used primarily early Alexandrian manuscripts with the addition of some 10 "non-western interpolations". Obviously the best thing is to read the WH itself instead of a translation, but the NIV is reasonably good. "Translations" like the Living Bible are essentially kid's stuff and useless for critical study.

You should definitely check out the ESV. I think you'd like it, and they're not even paying me to promote it! Check out their website, they have sample passages.

<a href="http://goodnews.gospelcom.net/page/esv_story/?ps=c489e57986e1db2eb5b9230f0436b3b8" target="_blank">ESV Bible</a>

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Polycarp ]

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Polycarp ]</p>

BLoggins02

Ya know, I think I get more of my edumacation here than from college. Thanks guys!

CX

I definitely will. I am pleased to see that they used Nestle & Aland. I am not familiar with the 1993 UBS text, but I'm interested. Plus I note that one member of the translation commitee was Bill Mounce. I got an autographed copy of his terrific reverse interlinear GNT for my father for Xmas and hold him in high regard.

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: CowboyX ]</p>

Nomad

Hello BL, and welcome.

Polycarp and Cowboy have already made most of the important points in this discussion, so I do not have much to add here. I personally use the NIV as well, though I also refer to the New English Bible (NEB) and RSV for confirmation, especially on more difficult passages. Finally, I do own a very large KJV family Bible, complete with NKJV updates. If you want to read the Bible for poetry, it is impossible to top the KJV in my opinion, but outside of that, I do not think that it is a good translation.

Online I have found a couple of good essays from Dr. Daniel Wallace of the Dallas Theological Seminary (very conservative Evangelical school) that you may find interesting. You can look them up here;

<a href="http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/kjv.htm" target="_blank">Why I Do Not Think the King James Bible Is the Best Translation Available Today</a> and

<a href="http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/versions.htm" target="_blank">Why So Many Versions?</a>

Finally, a reasonably short, yet fairly detailed discussion of the value of the Westcott and Hort texts (which stands behind most modern translations) vs. the Textus Receptus (which forms the basis of the KJV) is offered in his essay, <a href="http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/conspire.htm" target="_blank">The Conspiracy Behind the New Bible Translations</a>

I hope this helps,

Nomad