Posted on 09/01/2009 12:31:33 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
The top-selling Bible in North America will undergo its first revision in 25 years, modernizing the language in some sections and promising to reopen a contentious debate about changing gender terms in the sacred text.
The New International Version, the Bible of choice for conservative evangelicals, will be revised to reflect changes in English usage and advances in Biblical scholarship, it was announced Tuesday. The revision is scheduled to be completed late next year and published in 2011.
"We want to reach English speakers across the globe with a Bible that is accurate, accessible and that speaks to its readers in a language they can understand," said Keith Danby, global president and CEO of Biblica, a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Christian ministry that holds the NIV copyright.
But past attempts to remake the NIV for contemporary audiences in different editions have been plagued by controversies about gender language that have pitted theological conservatives against each other.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Earlier does not mean better. The texts that the NIV and pretty much every other modern version in English are translated from are gnostically-corrupted, and the most likely reason that these "oldest and best" manuscripts from the 4th century still even exist is because Christians back then didn't use them, hence, they didn't wear out as quickly.
One more reason to keep my NASB handy...
The RSV-Catholic version (which doesn’t have the PC Feminist language. The RSV is, all things considered, still the best rendering from the new (1800s) manuscript base.
The KJV and Douay-Reims-Challoner are roughly equivalent, both good, but from the older manuscript base. And you do have to know what some archaic English language terms mean or you will misunderstand (i.e., “prevent” means to “go before,” not to “block” or “obstruct”).
The Catholic NAB is worthless, totally worthless, worse than worthless.
THe Knox translation is good, wonderfully readable, but it’s the work of one man and I wouldn’t rely on it exclusively. I use the RSV, Douay, Knox, KJV.
The NRSV is worse than worse than worthless. The ASV is not bad—a more literal version of the RSV, new manuscript base.
And then Jesus said, “verily, verily, I say to you...”
becomes
And then Jesus said, “Dude, ...”
You people keep saying that as if merely asserting it somehow makes it true.
I appreciate your questions, but the explanation is fairly involved. There are many families of manuscripts floating around out there, and some were used for the NIV, whereas others (such as the Textus Receptus, or Received Text, brought to us by Desiderius Erasmus in the early 16th century) were used for the KJV. This refers to the Greek texts used for the New Testament.
I would recommend reading “Which Version is the Bible?” and “King James, His Bible, and Its Translators” for more background on this issue. Plus, Googling will afford you hours of reading.
I admit I don’t know enough of the history of either version to actually argue the accuracy of one over the other. It does seem reasonable to me, however, to argue that the closer an account of an event is to that event, the more likely it is to be accurate. Flop them all out sometime side by side; NIV, KJV, and NKJV just to get past the old English. What you thought the NIV was saying is often not what the KJV is saying. What new information changed the meaning? What could have been dug out of the ground to change that meaning in the time since the KJ was written? Does it convince you? It hasn’t convinced me.
Conservative Catholic Christians should be happy with the Jerusalem Bible. I like the way it reads in both the original French and the English translation.
Actually, I just checked and there is an update. The New Jerusalem Bible which is available online: http://www.catholic.org/bible/
I normally go NKJ then NASB -
If what you said is true: “The best Bible version is the one you will faithfully read!”
Then what you said isn’t true: “My background and bias is conservative evangelical.”
They had more than just copyright laws—the king had a total monopoly, censorship, on all printing in the realm. Nothing could be printed without license from the king.
Henry VIII, Elizabeth, Janes I were all tyrants, absolute monarchs. They make Obama look like a piker, but if he stays in office until 2012, he just might catch up to them in tyranncy.
And Jesus said, suppose you had a DVD collection, with a hundred titles, and someone stole one, what would you do?
No it's not. The KJV is just as conceptually and contextually cognizant as any modern version. In many cases (especially in Hebrew), there are particulars of the vernacular which simply do not translate at all into another language, and have to be "paraphrased", and the KJV does that.
Thank you.
The topic of Bible translations is always a volatile one because everyone becomes an “expert” who has ever read the Bible. Many times people hear a pastor they love recommend a certain translation or people are emotionally tied to the version they grew up with.
Thank you, too. I was attached to NIV since that's what I grew up with, but my wife and I recently discovered Today's NIV which was published just a few years ago and really helped clear away some of the static that I'd always "seen" in some of the NIV passages. For whatever reasons, people don't like to admit that language does advance, does evolve, does change drastically over time.
Personally, I think the KJV is practically incomprehensible, and if people try to tout that "you're not a real Christian unless you only read KJV," then they're really excluding a hell of a lot of good folks.
There are numerous arguments about why the KJV is an inferior translation. The NIV relies on far more and usually earlier manuscripts and vastly superior translation scholarship (today we have everything they had 400 years ago plus numerous new developments), so it’s ridiculous to assume the KJV is the best translation simply because it was the first major translation.
good one, but it wouldn’t be a stolen one,
more like, “dropped behind your component system”.
What would you do?
Why, you’d leave the 99 titles that were safely in their cases, and find the 1 lost title, to much rejoicing, verily.
I don’t know about that, but Way of the Master Ministries has a KJV which does replace some of the archaic words, but doesn’t change the text or re-translate at all. It also has some excellent commentary and supplemental texts.
It's equally spurious to assume that because the NIV (really, any translation based on the Critical Text) is based off of "older manuscripts" that it is superior.
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