By

Ira Krizo

http://www.ChristianChefs.org/about/irakrizo.html

Introduction

People often comment how one Bible version is better than another, but rarely ever is a solid explanation given as to why.  The most common comment is that the King James Version is the most accurate of them all, and some people go so far as to say that it is the only English version that’s accurate enough to be used.  The King James Version, along with some older and many more modern English versions, will be examined in order to enable us to come to a conclusion of which Bible truly is the best for a person to use.

 

Throughout all this, remember that no translation of the Bible can be the complete God-inspired text, as only the original texts are sacred and God-inspired.  Even so, the translations we have today are still completely inspired in the message of its truth.  For this reason, translations will never reach perfection and will always be in need of revision.

 

Bible Versions

Wycliffe’s Version (late 1300s)

Wycliffe was the first to translate the entire Bible from Latin (because they were unfamiliar with the original Hebrew and Greek texts) to English to prevail in the struggle with the Catholic Church’s abusive authority telling people they couldn’t study scripture.[1]

Tyndale’s Version (1525,1535)

For the first time in nearly a thousand years, scholars began to read the New Testament in its original language, Greek, which is when both Luther and Tyndale used the same Greek text in making their translations.

The Geneva Bible (1550)

To make a small, moderately priced Bible, Whittingham used Theodore Beza’s Latin translation and consulted the Greek text. The Geneva Bible became the most popular English Bible until it was superseded by the popularity of the King James Version in the mid-1700s.

King James Version (KJV, 1611)

King James I of England, who summoned over 50 scholars to translate the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek texts to make King James Version, took into account all the previous versions of the English Bible and far exceeded them all. "The King James Version has become an enduring monument of English prose because of its gracious style, majestic language, and poetic rhythms.  No other book has had such a tremendous influence on English literature, and no other translation has touched the lives of so many English-speaking people for centuries and centuries, even until the present day"[2]

 

At this time, knowledge of the Hebrew language and vocabulary was inadequate, although they did use the Masoretic Text, which was adequate.  On the other hand, with the New Testament their knowledge of Greek was adequate, but the Greek text they used (Textus Receptus or TR) was inadequate.  Because of this, the New Testament of the King James Version has fifty more verses than do most modern versions.  "The King James translators had done well with the resources that were available to them, but those resources were insufficient."[3]  Since that time, many earlier and better manuscripts have been discovered that help us to come to a closer understanding of what the autographs (original text) truly stated.

 

Many people believe that the King James Version is the ONLY English version that should be used, and there are many books that proclaim the same.  Their fourfold reasoning for their belief of the superiority of the King James Bible is (1) superior texts (Hebrew and Greek); (2) superior translators; (3) superior technique; and (4) superior theology.[4], all of which are obviously incorrect for reasons stated above.  These people believe that this translation is not just as good as the original autographs, but better[5], they believe that the "nuggets" found only in the Greek text (like agape vs. phileo love) only exist in preachers minds rather than reality[6], and even go so far as to say that if you don’t believe their view on the King James Version being the complete inspired text that you believe that "God is a REBELLIOUS HIPPIE!"[7].  Others are a bit milder with the "King James only" view, such as Henry Morris, founder/president emeritus of Institute for Creation Research.  He still believes it’s the most powerful and reliable version, that all modern versions are erroneous, and that the ONLY Bible an English-speaking Christian should use is the King James Version.

 

Although many people do believe the "KJV only" view, "most textual scholars today recognize this as an erroneous view because the early church fathers (second to third century) did not quote a text anything like the TR, and because most of the early manuscripts are vastly different from the TR in significant ways (which suggests that the originals were different from the TR as well)."[8]

English Revised Version (ERV, 1885)

and the American Standard Version (ASV, 1901)

By the end of the 19^th century there was a much better understanding of the Greek and Hebrew vocabularies and there were many more Greek manuscripts available.  Therefore a much more accurate rendering of the original languages was made by a group of 65 British scholars.  After a very popular beginning of this version, people continued to prefer the King James Version to this version with its historic background and its beauty.  Some American scholars helped with this revision after they had agreed to wait 14 years until revising it themselves.  Therefore, in 1901 the American Standard Version was published, and is "an accurate, literal rendering of very trustworthy texts both in the Old Testament and the New."[9]

Revised Standard Version (RSV, 1952)

With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other papyri, older manuscripts coming to light, and the change of the English literary style, half a century after the American Standard Version 22 scholars worked to put together the Revised Standard Version.  There has been a great deal of criticism in this version because of its variation from the traditional text, but "all the criticism notwithstanding, the Revised Standard Version has provided the English-speaking church with an up-to-date revision of the Scripture text based on the ‘critical text.’"[10]

New American Standard Bible (NASB, 1971)

With how unpopular the RSV was with conservative Christians, a group of evangelical scholars went to work on another revision of the American Standard Version.  This is an extremely accurate translation, as these scholars "strove to produce a literal translation of the Bible in the belief that such a translation brings the contemporary reader as close as possible to the actual wording and grammatical structure of the original writers."[11].  Still, even though it’s a very strict literal translation, the translators didn’t fully utilize all available resources, as the Dead Sea Scrolls weren’t used very much amongst many other documents, with much of their text coming from the Textus Receptus rather than more accurate texts.  Also, "some critics applauded its literal accuracy, while others sharply criticized its language for hardly being contemporary or modern."[12]  This is a very good Bible to have for reference of the original wording, but it is very difficult for general Bible reading.

The Living Bible (TLB, 1966, 1971)

The first popular Bible that was written in a paraphrase was The Living Bible, written by Kenneth Taylor using the American Standard Version.  He put years of work into making a Bible in modern speech so that anyone (even a child) could understand the message.  As with all paraphrastic Bibles, and especially since this was the first very popular one, there were many people criticizing it for being overly interpretive.  Much of the popularity of this book is due to the endorsement of it by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

 

Since a paraphrase is a complete rewording of the original text into modern speech, one should be cautious since it is possible for the translator to make an error and communicate something the original author did not intend.

New American Bible (NAB, 1970)

The most popular American edition of a Catholic Bible is the New American Bible (completely different from the New American Standard Bible).  This was also the first American Catholic Bible translated from the original languages, which is fairly literal in its nature.

New International Version (NIV, 1973, 1978)

A new rendering from the original languages which took many years by a group of more than a hundred scholars is called the New International Version. It is a fairly accurate thought-for-thought translation of the Bible in contemporary English.  It’s called "International" because scholars from various English-speaking countries all worked together to use an English vocabulary common between those countries.

New King James Version (NKJV, 1982)

A new version similar to the King James Version came out (called the New King James Version), replacing the Elizabethan English of the original with contemporary American English.  Although the language of it has been modernized, generally the sentence structure is still dated.  This new translation of the original text is distinctive through the same original texts - the Majority Text and the Textus Receptus.  However, variations between them and other texts are documented in footnotes.

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV, 1990)

The need for a revision of the Revised Standard Version came about because of "the acquisition of still older biblical manuscripts, further investigation of linguistic features of the text, and changes in preferred English usage,"[13] which led to the making of the New Revised Standard Version.  The most notable feature of this translation is its focus to use gender-inclusive language by avoiding unnecessarily masculine renderings wherever it was possible; however they were very careful to keep it where it was necessary (they still call God "our father" rather than "our parent").

Contemporary English Version (CEV, 1991, 1994)

Another translation of the Bible, the Contemporary English Version, came out trying to make a functionally equivalent version for youth.  This Bible focused on finding the most accurate and natural way to express the true meaning of the text in contemporary English.  Therefore, instead of using the term "salvation" and "grace", they use instead "God saves you" and "God is kind to you."

New Living Translation (NLT, 1996)

As there was a great deal of criticism to Kenneth Taylor’s paraphrase (The Living Bible), he went to work to produce a more functionally equivalent Bible, the New Living Translation.  He put so much work into this version that to make it, he used more than ninety evangelical scholars from various theological backgrounds and denominations who worked on it for seven years.  The scholars used all the oldest and most reliable texts of both the Hebrew and Greek texts to make this version.

 

Conclusion

Although it’s all very interesting how each of all these Bibles came about, how does all this information help a person decide which Bible they should use?  As mentioned, all these Bibles have their good points and they all have their bad points.  Therefore, as mentioned in the introduction, the only way you could read the best text would be to read straight from the Hebrew and Greek.  And even if you could do that, there’s no way of reading the completely inspired original texts, as there are no autographs (the original writings) left.  And as many "King James only" fanatics would argue on the subject, "Adherents to such a shallow persuasion can rest safely in the fact that they will never be proven wrong since the evidence needed to prove them wrong (the "originals") is lost."[14]  But that is not true, as through textural criticism we have 99.9% of the original text through thousands of copies found, the meaning still being 100% inspired because of this, and not just in the King James Version.

 

To get the most out of the Bible, it’s generally best to have a few different types of Bible versions.  There are the literal ones, consisting of the King James Version, American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, New King James Version, and the New American Standard Version.  A couple of these are good for reading and studying what the original autographs truly did say.  Other than that there are thought-for-thought versions, such as the New International Version.  This method of translation tries to literally translate each thought into modern English.  Slightly differing is a functionally equivalent version, such as the New Living Translation, which tries to translate the closest natural equivalent of the message from the original texts to the translated language, both in meaning and in style.  And there are paraphrases, such as The Living Bible.  As stated in the introduction of The Living Bible, "Since a paraphrase is a complete rewording of the original text into modern speech, one should be cautious that it is possible for the translator to make an error and communicate something the original author did not intend."[15]  Therefore, although it’s preferable to use several versions, the decision about which Bible to use primarily comes down to personal preference.

 

Personal Application

I found this research very beneficial to my life, as I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people saying how bad this or that version is and how much better another version is from it, but have those people done the research or did they just hear it somewhere?  Now, through the extensive studies done on this subject, I know a great deal more about how to choose a version of the Bible for my own personal studies, and know many of the positive and negative points of each of the Bible versions that I can find at a bookstore.  Through this study, I also have achieved a better understanding of the inspiration of God’s Word and how our Bible today is completely inspired in its meaning even though it has translation errors and even though it is not a direct translation from the original autographs.