How Bible Translations Differ

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To the uninitiated, the Bible is the Bible. To get one, you go to a bookstore and ask for a Bible.

Readers of BAR know better. The English-speaking student of the Bible is blessed with dozens of translations in hundreds of editions. What distinguishes them one from another?

Content

While we regularly speak of the Bible, in reality there are several different, but related, Bibles. The Jewish Bible consists of the 24 books of the Hebrew Scriptures, called the Tanakh, an acronym for its three divisions—Torah (the Law, also called the five books of Moses or the Pentateuch), Nevi’im (the Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings). These books and several others—among them Judith, 1–4 Maccabees and Wisdom of Ben Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus)—were collected in a third-century B.C. Greek translation known as the Septuagint (Seventy), after its legendary 72 translators.^a The text, names and order of the books in the Septuagint differ from the Hebrew version. For example, the Hebrew books of Samuel and of Kings correspond to 1–4 Kings in the Septuagint.

Christian Bibles contain all or most of the books of the Jewish Greek Bible—called the Old Testament (OT) by Christians—plus the New Testament (NT). The Catholic OT, as in the revered Douay Bible or the modern Jerusalem Bible, includes all the books of the Septuagint. The OT of the Eastern Orthodox churches contains the Hebrew Scriptures and some of the additional books of the Septuagint. The Protestant OT is limited to the 24 books of the Hebrew Scriptures, arranged, however, in the same order as in the Septuagint.

Protestant attitudes vary toward the remainder of the Septuagint’s books. The King James Version (KJV), produced in 1611 during an anti-Catholic period in England, omits them. The more ecumenical modern Protestant versions—for example, the Revised English Bible (REB) and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)—include them in a section labeled Apocrypha, originally meaning “hidden” but now implying “of questionable authority.”

Text

Bible translations are based on different versions of the text.

Until recently, the Vulgate—a Latin rendering made in the fourth century by the church father Jerome—was the primary biblical text of Catholicism. The pioneering translation into modern English by Ronald Knox, published in 1949 and given the official approval of the Roman Catholic Church, is based on the Vulgate and is thus a translation of a translation.

Even when the translators work from the Hebrew and Greek, the texts can differ.

The Bible was not composed as a single, bound book. It was written by many authors in a period spanning over one thousand years. Individual books circulated in handwritten copies; often they incorporated the copyists’ explanations, additions and errors. As these copies were in turn copied, text “families” evolved. The Septuagint’s Greek version of the Book of Jeremiah, for example, is about 10 percent shorter than the printed Hebrew text.

The standard text of the Hebrew Bible is called the Masoretic text (MT), from the verb meaning “hand over,” reflecting the belief that it was handed from generation to generation in uncorrupted form. Among the Dead Sea scrolls are Masoretic texts as well as representatives of other text families, including a Book of Jeremiah corresponding to the Septuagint version.^b The New Jewish Publication Society translation (NJPS) claims simply to follow the traditional Masoretic text. The New English Bible (NEB) translates the Masoretic text of Rudolph Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica, third edition, but with so many emendations that a separate booklet was issued, The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament: The Readings Adopted by the Translators of the New English Bible. Most modern translations also draw on the Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls and other early “witnesses” for clarification or alternate readings.

The New Testament was originally written in Greek; papyrus manuscripts survive from the fourth century; some papyrus fragments dating as early as the second century have been found. While variations exist in the more than 6,000 extant NT manuscripts, few make an “appreciable difference to the meaning so far as it could be represented in translation,” in the words of the NEB introduction.^c

Style

Translations vary from literal to paraphrase.^d Literal translation goes beyond the word-for-word technique that gives us Hebraic expressions like “Song of Songs” and “living soul.” It extends also to syntax. Defending the Vulgate against his critics, Jerome declared that in Holy Scripture “et verborum ordo mysterium est” (even the order of words is sacred). This belief dominated biblical translation for 1,500 years. Much of the strange syntax of the KJV mirrors the Hebrew, for example, “And God saw the light, that it was good” (Genesis 1:4)

To the extent that English has a “biblical” style, it is the sound and rhythm of the King James. To countless generations the Bible has meant “thee” and “thou,” “lo” and “doth.” Even when a need was felt to update the KJV in the late 19th century, the watchword was moderation. Words that had fallen out of the language—but not “thee” and “thou,” “lo” and “doth”—were replaced, as were words whose changed usage caused confusion. For example, to maintain the intent of the original, “bosom” was changed to “heart” and “covetous” to “greedy.” But the KJV could still be seen in the Revised Version (1885), American Standard Version (ASV) (1901), Revised Standard Version (RSV) (1952), and New American Standard Bible (NASB) (1971). The preface to the RSV proclaims that it “is not a new translation in the language of today … It is a revision which seeks to preserve all that is best in the English Bible as it has been known and used throughout the years.” Somewhat more freedom is reflected in the New Revised Standard 068Version (NRSV) (1990), a reworking of the 1952 edition; its charge was to be “as literal as possible, as free as necessary.”

In contrast to the literal approach, thought-for-thought translation requires the translator to extract the meaning from the words and syntax of the original and present it in whatever words and syntax seem best. Phrases can replace single words; sentences can be combined and rearranged; transitional words can illuminate logical connections. Thus, John 1:1 in the literal NASB is one sentence, without subordination: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

On the other hand, here is John 1:1 in the NEB: “When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was.”

In the past few decades some translators have tried to achieve what Eugene Nida calls “dynamic equivalence”—having the translation produce the same effect on its audience as the original text did on its audience. On the assumption that John was written in the normal, everyday language of its time—rather than in a literary style—The Good News Bible: Today’s English Version renders the previous verse: “Before the world was created, the Word already existed; he was with God, and he was the same as God.”

Even freer than thought-for-thought translation is paraphrase, which frequently incorporates interpretation. Thus, in The Living Bible (also marketed as The Book), John 1:1 reads: “Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God.”

Religious Orientation

Translators have been burned at the stake. People have killed and died over the difference between “congregation” and “church,” “elder” and “priest.” It should be no surprise, therefore, that translations embody religious interpretations.

Psalm 2:12 provides one example:

KJV: Kiss the Son, lest he be angry

NRSV: Kiss his feet, or he will be angry

NEB: Kiss the king, lest the Lord be angry

NJPS: Pay homage in good faith, lest He be angered

Among Protestant Bibles, the King James Version has long been the Authorized Version, and, along with its many revisions, still appeals to traditionalists and lovers of literature. Other translations, somewhat more conservative are the J. B. Phillips Version (1947–1963), Good News Bible: Today’s English Version (1966–1978), New American Standard Bible (1971), and New International Version (NIV) (1978). On the liberal side is the New English Bible (1961–1970), though its revision, the Revised English Bible (1989), is closer to the mainstream. The Living Bible is evangelical and, according to reviewer Eldon Epp, a “freewheeling paraphrase.”^e

The Catholic counterpart to the KJV in age and status is the Rheims-Douay Version (1582, 1609–1610), revised by Bishop Challoner (1750). A revision based on the Vulgate as well as on Hebrew and Greek texts appeared as the Confraternity Version (1963). The New American Bible (1970) translates the Hebrew and Greek versions rather than the Vulgate. The widely praised Jerusalem Bible (1966) incorporates French research in Hebrew and Greek contained in La Bible de Jerusalem. The revised New Jerusalem Bible appeared in 1986.

The Jewish Publication Society, a cultural and educational organization with no denominational affiliation, has published two translations: The Holy Scriptures (1917), a revision of the Revised Version of 1885; and Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures (1963–1982), also called the New JPS (NJPS) version, a scholarly translation into contemporary English. A traditional rabbinic translation is published by Mesorah Publications as the Artscroll Tanach.

Study Aids

Some Bibles are made to be read; others, to be studied. The difference is significant.

When ancient prophets stood in a royal hall or public square and proclaimed their message, the audience understood. Translators who believe they can convey that same immediacy avoid notes, commentaries and cross-references. They try to create a text as accessible as a newspaper. One mandate of the KJV was that it contain no notes. The Bible in Basic English (1950) is limited to a 1,000-word vocabulary.

The NJPS has brief footnotes giving alternative readings and some cross-references, especially between Kings and Chronicles. The Jerusalem Bible notes are longer and often include interpretation or doctrine. The Good News Bible avoids footnotes, but introduces headings and cross-references; an appendix identifies names and technical terms. The NRSV makes its explanatory titles less intrusive by putting them at the bottom of the page. Special study editions are also available, for example, the Oxford Annotated Bible for the RSV and the NRSV, and the Cambridge Bible Commentary and Oxford Study Bible for the NEB. Study aids may include maps, charts and illustrations as well as background essays and commentary.

Several multi-volume sets offer line-by-line commentaries, for example the nondenominational Anchor Bible series and Hermeneia, and the Jewish Soncino Books of the Bible, Artscroll Tanach and JPS Torah Commentary. Several of these present facing bilingual texts and grammatical notes.

Word-by-word study is possible with NIV Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament by John Kohlenberger and The New Greek-English Interlinear New Testament by Robert Brown and Philip Comfort.

Valuable adjuncts to Bible study include Bible atlases, with maps related to specific events, times and places in the Bible; Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias, each with definitions and explanations of specific words or subjects from the Bible; and concordances listing almost all the words contained in the Bible with their occurences by chapter and verse, usually with context.

Personal Preference

Bibles come in many sizes, bindings and prices, from paperback pocketbooks to leather-bound pulpit editions. Paper quality, typeface, workmanship and beauty vary.

Individuals must decide whether they need familiar language to absorb in silence or lofty rhetoric to intone in public, whether they want a book to write notes in or a masterpiece to display reverently. Most students of the Bible own several.

Additional Reading

Bailey, Lloyd R. “What a Concordance Can Do for You,” BAR 10:06.

Bailey, Lloyd R, ed. The Word of God: A Guide to English Versions of the Bible. Atlanta: John Knox, 1982.

Beegle, Dewey M. “What Does the Bible Say?” BAR 08:06.

Comfort, Philip W. The Complete Guide to Bible Versions. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1991.

Fleming, James. “Putting the Bible on the Map,” BAR 09:06.

Harrelson, Walter. “What is a Good Bible Dictionary?” BAR 12:06.

Kubo, Sakae and Walter F. Specht. So Many Versions? Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983.

La Sor, William Sanford. “Learning Biblical Languages,” BAR 13:06.

Minkoff, Harvey. “Problems of Translations–Concern for the Text Versus Concern for the Reader,” BR 04:04.

To the uninitiated, the Bible is the Bible. To get one, you go to a bookstore and ask for a Bible.

Readers of BAR know better. The English-speaking student of the Bible is blessed with dozens of translations in hundreds of editions. What distinguishes them one from another?