1. Choosing a new Bible Translations for Parkside

Introduction

The elders and I have noticed that about half of the 1984 NIV pew Bibles in church are looking dog-eared and worn. They may last another couple of years, but sooner or later they will need to be replaced and replacing them with other 1984 NIVs is no longer an option as they are no longer printed. The most obvious choice would be to simply replace the 1984 NIVs with the new NIV that was revised in 2011. However the changes in the 2011 are so significant that it almost qualifies as a new translation, and it was met with a lot of controversy by people who loved and trusted the old 1984 NIVs. A common and viable alternative used by many Evangelical churches like Parkside is the English Standard Version (ESV), which is a little more literal than the NIV, but is still more readable than other ‘word-for-word’ translations. Another possibility is the Holman Standard Christian Bible (HSCB).

I am recommending to the elders and the church that we adopt the ESV or the HSCB and not the 2011 NIV for the reasons I’ve outline below, but the decision has not been made yet. The HSCB is another good translation which we are considering too. The whole point of bringing it to the church at the meeting in June is to give people a chance to look at the issues for themselves and to get familiar with the ESV to see if it would work for the church. Although the matter has not been settled yet, it will have to be eventually. We will be open to discussion and suggestions. Of course, no matter what translation we eventually choose, nothing will ever prevent people buying a translation of their own preference and using it in church.

 

Why are there so many Bible translations in English to choose from?

The Bible was not written in English. It was written in Hebrew and Greek (as well as a few bits of Aramaic). Scholars since William Tyndale in the early 1500s have been translating the Bible directly into English from the original languages. The King James version of 1611 remained virtually the only Bible translation until the early 20th Century, but the English language had changed so much that more and more people were finding it difficult to understand its archaic language. The earliest translators, from Tyndale to the KJV committee, tried to do an essentially word for word translation. In other words, they tried to find a single English word for every Hebrew or Greek word, and when they came across a phrase that was difficult to understand or a word that was ambiguous in original, they tried to leave that ambiguity in the English.

The Chart above reminds us that in the last 50 years there have been numerous translations.

Paraphrases

Some, like the Good New Bible, or the New Century Version, or the New Living Translation, on the right hand of the chart are called "paraphrases." These versions are focused much more on making the Bible immediately understandable than they are on being accurate. The translators will normally read the whole verse in Greek or Hebrew, then ask, "how would I write this if I was trying to say the same sort of thing in modern English?" As a result, they do an excellent job of making most of the Bible much easier to understand, but the problem is that a thoughtful reader must always ask the question, "Is this what God actually inspired the writer to say, or is it what the translator thinks God was trying to say?" The most extreme example of this is Eugene Peterson's The Message, which is more of a Bible commentary on what Eugene Peterson thinks the Bible says, rather than what the Bible actually says. That uncertainty for some people can be like the serpent's whisper in the garden of Eden, “Did God really say..." (Gen 3:1).

Formal Equivalence

That's the fancy term for word-for-word translations like the KJV. The 1982 New King James version sought to be a new translation strongly based on the KJV and deeply influenced by its style. For example, although they avoided archaic terms like "thee, thou and leadeth" it retained the word "brethren" from the KJV instead of "brothers." It also translates from the "Received Text" which represents the vast majority of hand-written Greek texts but ignores a small number of older texts which differ.

The Revised Standard Version from the mid-20th Century was a good translation but strongly criticised by Evangelicals who were concerned by the influence of liberalism in some of its translation choices. For example, Isaiah 7:14 was translated as "the young woman shall conceive and bear a son." The Hebrew word "alma" could be translated this way, (depending on context), but when Matthew translated this verse into Greek, he clarified the meaning as "virgin." However in the 1950s and '60 the virgin birth was being publically rejected by many prominent theologians and bishops. The RSV was subsequently revised in 1989 as the NRSV, but the influence of liberalism continued to taint an otherwise fairly readable and literal translation. It remains popular among liberal, ecumenical, and Anglo-Catholic churches, is used by some Catholics, but has been largely rejected by Evangelicals.

The New American Standard Bible (NASB) set out to be the most literal translation into English. It is an excellent, scholarly translation but it never became popular as it stuck so closely to the original word order of the Greek and Hebrew that it became unnecessarily difficult to read.

Dynamic equivalence

In the middle of the chart came the NIV, first published in 1984. The goal of the NIV, was neither a word-for-word, nor paraphrase. They used what they called 'dynamic equivalence.' Where possible they used a word-for-word style of translation, but when the Greek or Hebrew became unclear or difficult, they would use two or three words. For example, where Paul talks about our battle with "the flesh" the NIV translated this with the phrase, "the sinful nature." The translators also didn't feel that it was necessary to follow the original word order or give a strong feel for the differing styles of poetry or prose of the original Greek or Hebrew. Instead, they rearranged the sentence into a more regular, smooth English style. It was broadly received as a good compromise and unsurprisingly became the most popular Bible among English-speaking Evangelicals throughout the world.

The new, revised, New International Version of 2011.

In 2011 Biblica (the new name for the International Bible Society who produced the 1984 NIV) launched a new version fo the NIV, and withdrew from the market the 1984 version.

The preface to the new version 2011 version of the NIV affirms that the translators still believe that the Bible is the perfectly trustworthy Word of God and states that their aim was: "to recreate as far as possible the experience of the original audience—blending transparency to the original text with accessibility for the millions of English speakers around the world." In other words, their commitments and goal remain the same as the original 1984 NIV, but it is not a minor revision with only the occasional phrase or word being changed.

The preface continues to say that these “updates are needed in order to reflect the latest developments in our understanding of the biblical world and its languages and to keep pace with changes in English usage.”

They also continue their translation philosophy of dynamic equivalence, saying, "The first concern of the translators has continued to be the accuracy of the translation and its faithfulness to the intended meaning of the biblical writers. This has moved the translators to go beyond a formal word-for-word rendering of the original texts. Because thought patterns and syntax differ from language to language, accurate communication of the meaning of the biblical authors demands constant regard for varied contextual uses of words and idioms and for frequent modifications in sentence structures."

These alterations pushed the 2011 NIV to the right of the centre in the chart above, as the gender-inclusive language required the translator to give less literal translations than the 1984 NIV did.

The Holman Standard Christian Bible

The HCSB (not to be confused with the bank, HSBC!) was translated to be an alternative to the 2011NIV. Increasingly large numbers of Christians were concerned by the trend the NIV’s publishers were taking towards using "gender-inclusive language", but most admired the fact that the NIV had an easier style than the ESV. The HCSB uses a similar translation philosophy to the NIV, but continues to translate ‘he’ as ‘he’ and not ‘they’, ‘son of man’ as ‘son of man’ and not ‘a human being’, etc. It also uses inclusive language where the original language permits it, but not as consistently as the ESV. It has a number of interesting features, such as sometimes using ‘Yahweh’ instead of LORD in the OT, or occasionally using ‘Messiah’ instead of ‘Christ’ in the NT, and often accurately translating the more familiar term “servant” (e.g., “servant of the Lord”) as “slave” (e.g., “slave of the Lord.”).  Its two main disadvantages are that it is not well known in the UK and it there is only an American spelling version available, as used here.

The English Standard Version

The ESV is a revision of the 1971 edition of the Revised Standard Version by Evangelical scholars who admired the strengths of the RSV, but were reluctant to recommend it because of its liberal bias. It is an "essentially literal" translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer, but avoid the clumsy language of the even more literal NASB. As such, its emphasis is on "word-for-word" correspondence, at the same time taking into account differences of grammar, syntax, and idiom between current literary English and the original languages. Thus it seeks to be transparent to the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the structure and meaning of the original. It is readily available with in a British spellings version.

The ESV is not on the chart above, but if it was it would be to the left of the NIV, probably around where the RSV is. The HSCB would be half way between the ESV and the NIV.