Does it matter which version of the Bible we read?

The Prayer Book Society of the USA ^ | August 5, 2004 | The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon

[ladyinred]

No longer can anyone say "this is the translation of the Word of God." All he can say is, "This is one attempt to state for our culture and time what (some reckon to be) the Word of God said centuries ago."

This pretty much says it all.

[applemac_g4]

The New King James Bible (NKJV) is the translation that does the best job of balancing accurate literal translation with modern grammar and language.

Then come a series of translations that trade accuracy for simpler language: the NASB, the NIV, the New Living, the Good News. Certain liberal philosophical biases manifest themselves in these translations on occasion as well. For instance, the NLT refuses to say that Jesus was crucified by "the Jews" - substituting "the people" - due to complaints by liberal jewish groups. The NIV footnotes the story of Moses parting the Red Sea as having occurred at a marsh called the Sea of Reeds (a form of disbelief peculiar to skeptics and liberal scholars who don't believe that the miracle actually happened).

Finally, there are a series of blatantly mistranslated bibles which exist as a result of an effort to shore up a particular political or theological viewpoint...the Dhouay Rheems (an older Conservative Catholic translation), the New Jerusalem Bible (a newer Liberal Catholic translation), the NIrV (New International Readers Version - the NIV with gender neutral language), and the Good as New (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39114) translation.

If you stick to the KJV, NKJV, or even the NASB, you can't really go too far afield.

[P-Marlowe]

.

[Congressman Billybob]

It is wise to have a Concordium to give the backgrounds of ambiguous or arcane words and phrases. However, from a literary standpoint, the finest Bible is the King James Version.

Easily half of the text of the KJV was written in heroic measure -- the line with five stressed syllables used by Homer and many of the Roman writers, also used by contemporaries of the KJV compilers, Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. Touches of that also appear in Cervantes.

The influence of those classical sources on the compilers of the KJV caused them to render the Bible in more lyrical language than any version before, or since.

Congressman Billybob

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[Jaysun]

I like the NIV

[Talking_Mouse]

The Amplified Bible, to get the full meaning of each word. This is what I use for study. When I am reading for straight understanding -- read the chapter before studying it verse by verse - I use the NIV.

I use the NAB for studying the Apocrypha.

[alpha-8-25-02]

i suggest you read and study through the NKJV.
the "geneva study bible" is very good as well as" the light of the reformation" study bible.
GODSPEED!

[B Knotts]

How is Douay-Rheims deficient? It's very similar to KJV, which you cite as a good translation (which, generally speaking, it is). Its chief weakness is one it shares with KJV, which is the archaic English it uses.

Maybe you just don't like Catholics?

[Logophile]

The older type follows the essentially literal translation method, that is "word for word" and preserving as far as possible the original style -- examples are the major versions of the Bible up to the RSV of the 1960s, together with the recent English Standard Version.

My personal preference is for the King James Version, archaic English and all. It simply sounds better to me.

However, I doubt that there can really be such a thing as a "word for word" translation from Hebrew or Greek to English—or at least one that makes sense. I am not talking here about the kind of politically correct nonsense that the author so rightly disdains. What I mean is that the grammars and vocabularies of the languages are too different to allow a simple swap of one word for another.

Translation always involves a degree of interpretation. That is why a hundred seminarians would produce a hundred different translations of any text. (And that is why computer translations of news stories always sound so stilted.)

[hiho hiho]

ping

[freedumb2003]

However, I doubt that there can really be such a thing as a "word for word" translation from Hebrew or Greek to English—or at least one that makes sense

Anyone else remember "God News For Modern Man"? KIt was supposed to be a modern English translation from the original Aramaic.

I don't think it is still around -- some of the translations were too weird.

Let's face it -- we like our Thees and Thous.

[Logophile]

Let's face it -- we like our Thees and Thous.

You and I may like them, but apparently we are in the minority.

[freedumb2003]

Thee are probably right.

[hiho hiho]

"Let's face it -- we like our Thees and Thous."

In my case it is less a like of Thee and Thou than a distrust of scholarship since 1960. The King James translators had less source material but they did not think that God must speak to every generation differently.

Recently I have been using e-sword (free with a small donation). It is incredible, you can switch from multiple translations or use a dictionary or commentary on the fly. Can't recommend it enough.

www.e-sword.net

[applemac_g4]

>How is Douay-Rheims deficient? It's very similar to KJV,
>which you cite as a good translation (which, generally
>speaking, it is). Its chief weakness is one it shares with
>KJV, which is the archaic English it uses.
>Maybe you just don't like Catholics?

That's not it at all. In fact, other than an older grammatical style, it shares very little with the KJV. I included it with the list of "bibles with an agenda" for a reason - it inserts Catholic theology into the translation (for instance by substituting the sacrament of reconciliation for normal repentence before God).

The New Jerusalem, while avoiding the insertion of distinctly Catholic doctrine to the extent the D-R does includes a whole host of liberal doctrine.

[B Knotts]

Hmmm...not quite sure what you mean specifically.

2 Corinthians 5:18 (KJV): And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

2 Corinthians 5:18 (D-R): But all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Christ; and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

[ahadams2]

*sigh* the Rev. Dr. Peter Toon (yeah, that *is* his real name) goes off again about how awful it is that we haven't maintained 'thee', 'thou' and so on in modern translations of the Bible Ping.

[ahadams2]

*sigh* Dr. Toon and I have gone around and around on this one over the years. The bottom line is that if he wasn't Anglican he'd belong to the 'KJV only' club. As it is, it took a number of us several years simply to get him to understand that his arguments failed to convince us. Don't know if it means all that much, but at least now he's willing to admit that we do need truly vernacular translations of Holy Scripture and the Book of Common Prayer...though of course then we get into the whole debate concerning what the vernacular might actually be....