Guide to Bible translations

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A humorous reference is sometimes made by using the quote: "If the King James version was good enough for the apostles, it's good enough for me." Unfortunately, there are a few rather dim fundies who actually mean it when they say that.
 
A humorous reference is sometimes made by using the quote: "If the King James version was good enough for the apostles, it's good enough for me." Unfortunately, there are a few rather dim fundies who actually mean it when they say that.
  
The [[King James Only]] movement holds that the 1611 AV{{more}}, both as a ''translation'' and not only in the original text, was newly inspired by God to ensure an error-free version in the English language. This creates an interesting dilemma because Acts 12:4 describes the Jews celebrating <i>Easter</i>.
+
The [[King James Only]] movement holds that the 1611 Authorized Version, both as a ''translation'' and not only in the original text, was newly inspired by God to ensure an error-free version in the English language. This creates an interesting dilemma because Acts 12:4 describes the Jews celebrating <i>Easter</i>.
  
 
===Douay-Rheims Bible and relatives===
 
===Douay-Rheims Bible and relatives===

Revision as of 03:19, 23 July 2009

They say "The Devil is in the Details", and this is no where more apparent than in the study of the English Bible. Is it, "Thou shall not Kill?" or "Thou shall not commit murder". Is a "Sodomite" the same as a "Male Prostitue", and are they both "Homosexual?" And dang it, which one is the correct version of the Bible.

This article exists to provide information about different Bible translations. All of these versions and others can be found at Bible Gateway

Contents

Early translations

The Septuagint

Sometime between the 4th and the 1st century BCE, Jewish scholars, in an attempt to broaden the reach of the Jewish Bible, translated the bible into Greek, producing the Septuagint. Due both to the process of translation as well as the source material, this translation resulted in extra books being added to the canon which are not generally recognized by Orthodox Jews or Protestant Christian Churches. The Septuagint is one of the main sources for the Greek authors of the New Testament.

The Septuagint, not the Hebrew texts used by Judaism and modern Christian Bible translators, is still the official form of the Old Testament as used by most of eastern Christianity.

In Jewish tradition (and in the Talmud) the Rabbis translated the Torah, the five books of Moses, the other books were translated by others This lead to the incorrect translation of Isiah 7:14 עלמה into "virgin". [And even if it said בתולה which is the correct word for virgin, it still would be no proof for the Christians claims regarding Jesus, because this is telling the story of a sign that happened hundreds of years before his supposed birth).

Targum

The term Targum was given to translations of the Jewish Bible into Aramaic, made by the convert Onkelos for the Torah and by Jonathan Ben Uziel for the prophets. It was the vernacular language of Roman-era Judaism, as well as much of the Levantine area overall. It would also the vernacular of Jesus.

Peshitta

Similarly, many early Middle Eastern Christians spoke Syriac as a lingua franca, and their Bible translation (still used by many Eastern Christian rites, particularly those not in communion with the Orthodox Church) is known as the Peshitta (a name which lends itself to many potential immature jokes which will not be elaborated on).

The Vulgate

This 5th century translation of the Christian Canon into Latin by St. Jerome was the first form of the Catholic Bible, and the one on which the modern Catholic canon is based. This was the first time that the Latin versions of the Old Testament were based on the Hebrew Tanakh and not on the Greek Septuagint. While still used as the primary Latin translation by the Vatican, it is no longer the base for modern Catholic Bible translations except among traditionalist Catholics.

English Translations

The medieval Roman Catholic Church maintained that the Bible should remain in Latin only, and actively discouraged any translations into vernacular languages. This rather elitist position was challenged with some dissent in the later middle ages, and some scholars began translating parts of the Bible into English and other languages, including Wyclef Jean's 14th century English version of the New Testament. These unauthorised translations were denounced by the Catholic Church.

Vernacular translations were a major demand of the Protestant Reformation, and the invention of the printing press allowed such translations to be published on a large scale. William Tyndale translated the Bible into English during the 1520s, and was executed for heresy in 1536. However, his translation was highly influential on later versions, particularly the King James, and introduced several words and phrases into English which have since become common.[1] Another translation, 'The Great Bible' was published in 1539 and was the first "official" English translation, under the newly seceded Church of England. These early translations are seldom if ever used now, since the King James Version superceded all previous editions.

King James Version

Originally commissioned in the 1600s by England's King James and published in 1611, the KJV is the most famous translation into English and the favorite of many fundamentalist Protestants. It is a correction of the previous Tyndale Bible, and is considered by non-fundamentalists to be of limited use, due to the outdated pre-Jacobean English and the reliance on manuscripts that are now believed to be less accurate than those currently used. The KJV has nevertheless been a major influence both on subsequent Biblical study and on the English language itself, being (along with the works of William Shakespeare) one of the major early touchstones of modern English literature. It is also the source of a great many code words that give evangelical English its unusual cant. (And, gosh darnit, it just sounds more Biblical than these modern-language translations. But, would it be so popular with them if they knew that King James was a homosexual or bisexual?)

The King James Version has been updated a number of times, the most notable being the 1980s New King James Version, which uses the same original texts as the KJV but substitutes more modern English.[2] The text is in the public domain in all countries except for the United Kingdom, where rights to it are held by the Crown under a special copyright easement.

A humorous reference is sometimes made by using the quote: "If the King James version was good enough for the apostles, it's good enough for me." Unfortunately, there are a few rather dim fundies who actually mean it when they say that.

The King James Only movement holds that the 1611 Authorized Version, both as a translation and not only in the original text, was newly inspired by God to ensure an error-free version in the English language. This creates an interesting dilemma because Acts 12:4 describes the Jews celebrating Easter.

Douay-Rheims Bible and relatives

Translated in France (the town of Douai for the Old Testament, Rheims for the New) for the English-speaking world, the Douay-Rheims Bible was the major competitor to the Anglican KJV. Unlike the KJV, which referenced the original Greek and Hebrew extensively, the Douay-Rheims Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate, and was liberally salted with Latinisms (Eliseus for Elisha, Josue for Joshua, Abdias for Obadiah being three randomly chosen examples) as well as untranslated borrowings ("azyme" for matzo or unleavened bread, from the Greek αζυμος, "unleavened"), many of which left little trace outside the then-limited circles of Anglophone Catholic practice.

The Douay-Rheims was revised in the 19th century by Bishop Challoner, then heavily modified into the Confraternity Version in the 20th, later to be replaced by the New American Bible and the Jerusalem Bible. A small contingent of traditionalist Catholics maintain a Douay-only belief similar to the KJV believers in Protestantism, going so far as to keep the translation in print (through print-on-demand and other services) when mainstream distributors ignore it, and sometimes holding the Vulgate text above the original Greek and Hebrew as sources.

New International Version

The standard in many evangelical churches, the NIV is the most popular [3] English-language translation in the world, and was sponsored by the International Bible Society in the 1960s. While quite readily available in low-cost editions, the NIV suffers from several perceived faults that hamper its use by non-evangelicals:

  1. It is seen as overly biased towards an evangelical view.
  2. It lacks any Apocrypha in any edition, limiting its use to Protestant churches.
  3. It is thought of as somewhat dry in tone.

Much study and apologetics material is based on the NIV text. The NIV has been revised several times since its release, including an inclusive language version and a newer retranslation known as "Today's New International Version". It also has a rather highly acclaimed NIV Study Bible edition, with extensive footnotes and sidebars explaining its translators' and maintainers' perspectives on the text.

The NIV (or, in Romance languages, NVI) trademark is used on numerous translations into languages other than English as well.

New American Bible

One of the most common English language translations in the Roman Catholic Church, the first edition of the New American Bible was translated by the Confraternity for Christian Doctrine and published in 1970. It includes the full Catholic canon, though in a slightly different order from the Vulgate, and is the primary source for Bible readings in Catholic services. [4]

New Revised Standard Version

Descended, in a roundabout way, from the KJV by way of the somewhat forgotten American Standard Version, the NRSV is considered one of the most ecumenical of translations, having been produced and reviewed by a committee of scholars of multiple religious backgrounds, including Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and even Jewish members. While not universally accepted for all purposes (except in Canada, the Catholic Church uses it only in study and instructional material, preferring an older version of the NAB for its lectionary purposes; the Orthodox churches, as well, sometimes find it a bit evangelical for their tastes), the NRSV is the only widely available English translation that includes both Catholic and Orthodox canons as well as the Protestant canon. [5]

The NRSV is the standard translation for the Oxford Annotated Bible,

New American Standard Bible

Not to be confused with the Catholic NAB, the NASB is generally considered to be one of the most literal translations available, though it has been criticized for excessive use of inclusive language and perceived introduction of liberal theology.

Amplified Bible

The Amplified Bible is a Bible translation from 1965 based mostly on the 1901 American Standard Version. The Amplified Bible is noteworthy for incorporating different marks and types of typography ("arbitrary punctuation") which clarify the text or highlight problems in the translation. This allows for a more comprehensive analysis of the text than is possible by using only footnotes. See wikipedia for further details.

The Living Bible

Story is pretty much the same as the Amplified Bible, only it was written in 1971, and started out as a father rewriting parts of the bible so his kids could understand it more easily, and later some people decided to publish it.

Jewish Publication Society

As Jews came to North America and started to use English as their common tongue, Jewish leaders realized they needed their own English translation because the common English translations (e.g. the KJV) either relied on texts not accepted as authentic by Jews or were written in such a way as to imply Jesus' forthcoming. The most widely circulated version of the Bible intended for Jews is the one printed by the Jewish Publication Society (JPS). The 1917 edition is the first edition and perhaps as a way of giving it legitimacy amongst their gentile neighbors it uses Jacobean English. JPS completed a more modern version in 1985 (although they started the project in the late 1950s) and will substitute Biblical idioms for ones that make sense to modern readers. Several different versions exist intended for use in Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox synagogues, although some Orthodox groups have their own versions as well. Some versions actually give you the original Hebrew if you're interested but the books open "backwards" (forwards in Hebrew).

New World Translation

Pretty much the exclusive property of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the NWT was created to replace the ASV as the standard translation for JW worship. The NWT is highly controversial -- while some experts consider it a rather good translation, many other experts consider it highly suspect and it's become something of a byword for textual corruption, especially as the translation was done based on Watchtower theology.


Footnotes

  1. See Wikipedia: William Tyndale #Legacy for some examples.
  2. The NKJV is somewhat controversial. It is disliked by Christian fundamentalists for taking out their favorite code words, and by non-fundamentalists for using outdated source texts. The Gideons happen to like it, though; most of the Gideon Bibles currently being placed are NKJV Bibles.
  3. Of course popularity is usually a bad sign in religious circles. It's sort of like indie rock except everyone's already heard Jimmy Stuart's greatest hit already.
  4. Text of the NAB at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops site
  5. The Coptic and Ethiopian canon would be nice too, but no one's done that one yet. At any rate, it's enough to make one user feel that if you need a print Bible on hand, the NRSV + Apocrypha is the one to get.
Guide to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures
Torah: Genesis - Exodus - Leviticus - Numbers - Deuteronomy Old Testament History: Book of Joshua - Book of Judges - Ruth - Samuel (1 & 2) - Kings (1 and 2 Kings) - Chronicles - Ezra and Nehemiah - Book of Esther Old Testament Wisdom: Book of Job - Psalms - Book of Proverbs - Ecclesiastes - Song of Solomon Major Prophets: Isaiah - Book of Jeremiah - Lamentations - Book of Ezekiel - Book of Daniel Minor Prophets: Minor Prophets

Deuterocanon (Catholic and Orthodox): - Tobit - Judith - 1 Maccabees - 2 Maccabees - Book of Wisdom - Sirach - Baruch - Letter of Jeremiah Deuterocanon (Orthodox): 1 Esdras - 3 Maccabees - Prayer of Manasseh - Psalm 151 Deuterocanon (Georgian Orthodox): 4 Maccabees - 2 Esdras Ethiopian Orthodox ("narrow" canon): Jubilees - Enoch - Rest of the Words of Baruch - 1-3 Meqabyan Syriac Peshitta: 2 Baruch Psalms 152-155


The Gospels: Gospel of Matthew - Gospel of Mark - Gospel of Luke - Gospel of John Acts: Acts of the Apostles Pauline Epistles: Romans - 1 & 2 Corinthians - Galatians - Ephesians - Philippians - Colossians - First Thessalonians - Second Thessalonians - First Timothy - Second Timothy - Titus - Epistle to Philemon General Epistles: Epistle to the Hebrews - Epistle of James - First Peter - Second Peter - 1 John - 2 John - 3 John - Epistle of Jude Revelation: Book of Revelation


Selected pseudepigrapha: Gospel of Judas - Infancy Gospel of James - Gospel of Mary - Gospel of Philip - Gospel of Thomas - Nag Hammadi texts


Rational Wiki's Guide to the Protestant Bible

Guide to Bible translations

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