Bible Books

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Revised English Bible

(New York: Oxford Univ. Press and Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989) 1,294 pp. (with Apocrypha), $21.95 (cloth), $49.95 (leather)

New Revised Standard Version

(New York: Cambridge Univ. Press and Oxford Univ. Press; Nashville, TN: Holman and Thomas Nelson; World Bible; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan; all 1990) page count and price vary

Apart from religious considerations, Bible translations differ because of contrasting decisions about how to capture an ancient time and foreign culture in more familiar terms. New translations into English face the additional question of how to deal with the King James Version (KJV), which has acquired an authority and sanctity of its own.

Two new revisions of well-received translations, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and the Revised English Bible (REB), have much in common and some significant differences. Both have adopted you instead of thou and thee, and both claim to employ gender-neutral constructions when possible. Still, where the NRSV has “One does not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4), the REB has “Man is not to live on bread alone.”

More far-reaching is the fact that the NRSV traces its heritage directly to the KJV of 1611. This “authorized version” for English churches was revised in England in 1885 and in America in 1901. A Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the New Testament appeared in 1946 and of the entire Bible in 1952. All these revisions followed a mandate to retain the text of the KJV except where changes “are warranted on the basis of accuracy, clarity, euphony and current English,” in the words of the NRSV. A reader looking for “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5) or “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1) will find these traditional phrases in the NRSV, with the minor change of “shall” to “will.”

In contrast, the New English Bible (NEB), introduced in 1961 and completed in 1970, was consciously—even self-consciously—innovative. As explained in the prefaces and in a short volume entitled About the New English Bible, the goal was to attract new readers not at home with the KJV and to offer fresh insights to readers for whom phrases from the KJV “slide over their minds almost without stirring a ripple.” The new translation, therefore, was not expected to preserve “hallowed associations” or to replace Authorized Versions in religious services.

These guiding principles are everywhere evident. The well-known opening of the KJV is: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1–2). The NEB, on the other hand, has: “In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth, the earth was without form and void, with darkness over the face of the abyss, and a mighty wind that swept over the surface of the waters.” Similarly, for Matthew 5:5, we no longer hear of the meek inheriting the earth in the NEB; instead we read: “How blest are those of a gentle spirit; they shall have the earth for their possession.” And John 1:1 has: “When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was.”

Even the printed page reflected the purpose of the NEB. Verses were grouped into paragraphs, verse numbers were relegated to the margin, topic headings were added to the text and the traditional double-column format was replaced by modern full-width lines.

Because it was manifestly more comprehensible than the KJV and its revisions, the NEB sold two million copies in its first two years. But it was also attacked. Some scholars took issue with specific interpretations and idiosyncratic renderings. Many detractors, however, were merely stodgy defenders of the status quo; for them, apparently, nothing could improve on the lofty cadences of the KJV.

The REB, which is the revision of the NEB, has surrendered to some of the worst of these attacks and has set itself a new goal as well.

Given its popularity with general readers, the NEB was used for public readings—contrary to its stated purpose—and was naturally found lacking. The REB, therefore, has put back the double columns, as later editions of the NEB had already done, and verse numbers and has tried to ensure “appropriate dignity for liturgical use” by tampering with the modern idiom that made it popular in the first place.

Time and again the REB resurrects hallowed associations by retreating from its original scholarship and diction. Genesis 1:1–2, for example, is now the traditional “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was a vast waste, darkness covered the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water.” And despite the goal of producing a text “that reads as if it had been written in modern English by its original authors,” there is a lot of unidiomatic—but presumably dignified—dialogue, as in Luke 12:17, where the rich man of the parable says, “What am I to do? I have not the space to store my produce.”

The NRSV and REB each advertises itself as the most accurate and readable Bible available 010in English. The claim cannot be true for both the NRSV and the REB, and no doubt the scholars who produced these translations are guiltless of this typical hyperbole that marketers create in pursuit of sales. The REB translators’ preface, in fact, notes the impossibility of the goal and the “limitations and imperfections” of the result. This despair reflects the knowledge that no single translation of the Bible can accommodate the varied liturgical, educational and private needs.

Both of these translations are accurate and readable, and both will serve the general audience well. But readers of BR may be less satisfied. To the extent that previous versions had distinct personalities, they filled different niches. The RSV, for example, satisfied those who want liturgical language that differs from everyday speech. The NEB stirred the reader’s mind with new and provocative ways of looking at familiar texts. The choice of meek or gentle spirit, of in the beginning or when, of Spirit of God or mighty wind, makes us think about the nuances of the Bible. In the attempt to do too much, these new revisions have moved toward the homogenized center, thus reducing the resources available to the serious student of the Bible.

Tyndale’s New Testament

Edited by David Daniell
(New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1989) 480 pp., $29.95

Anyone who has studied English literature knows that the King James Version of the Bible gave our language such phrases as “salt of the earth,” “signs of the times,” “the powers that be,” and “the patience of Job,” as well as proverbial expressions like “Seek, and ye shall find,” “Fight the good fight” and “Eat, drink, and be merry.” Yet, while the KJV can be credited with popularizing these turns of phrase, their true author was William Tyndale. As David Daniell points out in his informative introduction to this edition of Tyndale’s New Testament, the KJV of 1611 incorporated without acknowledgment entire sections of Tyndale’s 1534 work. Daniell thus sees this modern-spelling edition as “a contribution to the work of understanding the history of the New Testament in English.”

Making an important document accessible is a laudable undertaking, and modernizing the spelling makes it accessible to a wider audience. But a word of caution is in order. Daniell says that “the wayward spelling of the 1530s has simply been brought into the conventions of twentieth-century England” and admits to “adding a clarifying comma” on occasion. Yet editing is seldom that clearcut. While it is true, as Daniell notes, that “Tyndale’s time allowed much greater freedom,” we don’t know that every variation was necessarily insignificant. In our own day, for example, some people use have proven and have proved interchangeably while others consider one or the other more formal.

And a comma can distinguish a nonlimiting modifier from a limiting one: “I thought it my of duty to arm thee against false prophets, whose perpetual study is to leaven the scripture with glosses” means that he hopes to protect the reader from all false prophets, and, by the way, these people try to distort scripture with their commentaries; without the comma, however, “I thought it my duty to arm thee against false prophets whose perpetual study is to leaven the scripture with glosses” means that false prophets are defined as those who try to distort scripture with their commentaries. Since the comma may be either Tyndale’s or the editor’s, even with the minimal emending that Daniell describes, readers can never be sure when the editor’s understanding of the text has been substituted for their own—which is, ironically, Tyndale’s very complaint. This caveat aside, however, the work is a welcome contribution to historical scholarship.

Daniell’s additional goal is less sure. He believes that “Tyndale’s ravishing solo should be heard across the world” because “in some special ways, this earliest translation … is still the best.” In what way, we might ask, is Tyndale’s translation “still the best” and how will the general reader gain by using it? Much of Daniell’s introduction decries the unfair treatment Tyndale has received: He was martyred for his work, which was then appropriated by others, while he was continually condemned as a Lutheran, Calvinist or some other form of heretic. All of this may be true, but the religious and political excesses of Europe’s past cannot be undone. Politics turned the King James Version into the Authorized Version. But few people would argue that the 1611 translation is still superior to later revisions based on better Bible manuscripts, improved knowledge of Hebrew and Greek and less archaic language. Tyndale may deserve all or much of the praise given to the KJV, but his work remains of historical, not contemporary, importance. Scholars will welcome this book, but it is not likely to attract a larger audience.

Revised English Bible
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press and Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989) 1,294 pp. (with Apocrypha), $21.95 (cloth), $49.95 (leather)

New Revised Standard Version