Q&A: What’s the best Bible translation to read and study from?
From the about page comes this important question:
I am currently trying to find a good Bible translation to read and study from. What would you recommend and could you point me to any good articles/books/resources which could help me make this decision? Thanks!
It’s hard to imagine a reply that won’t get someone really angry with me, but I’ll still give it a shot.
My short answer is this: start with the New Revised Standard Version (“NRSV”) or the New American Bible (“NAB”). Both are widely available, and in my opinion generally unsurpassed in accuracy (though each also has its own drawbacks).
The longer answer begins with some background. There are essentially four different kinds of English Bibles available today:
1. Paraphrases. These are like “English books based on the original Hebrew/Greek Bible,” sometimes only coming as close as a movie based on a book. The most common are The Message and The Living Bible. These tend to be written in colloquial, even chatty English, and are easy to read. But even though they are so accessible, I generally don’t recommend them, because they hide much of the original beauty and complexity of the Bible.
2. Word for Word Translations. I could equally call these “partial translations.” They take the words of the original Bible and try to reproduce each one in English. As a matter of translation, this is usually a really bad idea. But as a matter of religion (particularly for Jews) there are some good reasons to do this, so these partial translations of the Bible are more popular than they otherwise would be. The most common word-for-word translation is the English Standard Version (“ESV”). I don’t generally recommend publications that take this approach because they tend to create the wrong impression that the Bible was archaic or even incomprehensible.
3. Full Translations. These are Bibles that try to produce a true English equivalent of the text of the Bible, which is what you probably want. The most common are the New International Version (“NIV”), and the NRSV and NAB that I’ve already mentioned.
4. Outdated Full Translations. These are much older English translations, so they translate the Bible into English we no longer use. There’s no good theoretical reason to read one of these Bibles, but there’s a good practical reason. The King James Version (“KJV”) and the New King James Version (“NKJV”) are examples of this approach, and they are the most widely cited English Bible translations. When most people think of “what the Bible says,” they think of the KJV.
The reason I give all of this background is that at first glance each of (1), (2), and (4) seems to be appealing — for ease of reading, apparent fidelity to the text, and apparent authenticity — but they are each mostly misleading in this regard.
However, which Bible you ultimately want depends on what you want to do with it. If you belong to a religious community that has already chosen a translation, you probably want to stick with what your community has chosen; similarly, most translations reflect not only what the Bible originally meant but also what subsequent religious thinkers said that it meant. If you just want a general sense of what the Bible stories in Genesis or the Gospels are about, a paraphrase is the quickest path. The word-for-word translations frequently “sound like the Bible,” which can be comforting.
Regarding resources for deciding, the Better Bibles Blog has a wealth of helpful information and discussion. And lots of books explain the different Bible versions, but mostly with not enough insight into how translation works. Still, you might want to look at Philip Comfort’s Essential Guide to Bible Versions or Bruce Metzger’s The Bible in Translation.
Finally, I would suggest that more important than a good translation is a good teacher to work with. Even a perfect translation (and none exists) would only be a starting point.
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November 10, 2009 - Posted by Joel H. | Bible versions, Q&A, translation theory | Bible, Bible translation, Bible versions, ESV, KJV, NAB, NIV, NKJV, NLT, NRSV, The Message, translation
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I’d like to point out that there is a significant difference between Living Bible, a paraphrase, and the New Living Translation, which more appropriately falls in category (3). There are a surprising number of people who seem to think the former is just a repackaging of the latter.
Could you please explain what you mean by your concern about the Bible being seen as archaic? If I understand correctly, it seems your concern is that people would think the Bible is archaic as in outdated or no longer relevant. Right?
I mean that the now-archaic language in the KJV makes some people who read it think that the original, too, was archaic. For example, “thee” and “thou” were originally used in the English translation as common singular pronouns, not as overly-formal or archaic forms of address.
Joel,
While this might repeat Keith’s comment somewhat, where do see the NLT fitting in, especially since it has become more literal in 2007 than the 1996 version?
Although the Living Bible is a paraphrase as it was basically a rephrasing of the ASV, strictly speaking The Message is not, as it is a translation from the original languages. I prefer to call it a highly-idiomatic translation. In my opinion The Message is a mixed bag, some parts are brilliant, but others are quite bad, replacing metaphors and idioms with entirely different ones for no good reason that I can see. I recommend The Message as a good secondary Bible: if you’re struggling to make sense of a passage in your main Bible have a read of The Message as it will often help.
Another great book is How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss.
It seems like you’re making a distinction between a paraphrase from an English version and a paraphrase of the original Hebrew/Greek, but it seems to me they are both paraphrases.
For example, Genesis 1:1 in the The Message reads, “First this: God created the Heaven and the Earth — all you see, all you don’t see.” In this case, it’s the author’s addition of “all you see, all you don’t see” that makes it a paraphrase. There is no word, phrase, concept, or anything else in the original that corresponds with the English here — at least not that I’m aware of.
While I agree that parts of it are very good, frequently those good parts are the least accurate.
I think what makes The Message so tempting is that, of all the Bible versions I’ve read, its original language rises to the highest level.
Well as I understand it, the technical meaning of paraphrase is that of a rewording in the same language. The OED says: “To express the meaning of (a written or spoken passage, or the words of an author or speaker) using different words, esp. to achieve greater clarity; to render or translate freely” In one way all translation is paraphrasing, as it involves putting the text into different words! I don’t know how or when, but in the Bible Translation scene “paraphrase” has come to mean a Bible version which is not word-for-word (or phrase-for-phrase) like the original texts, regardless of its translation philosophy and process, and I don’t think it’s a helpful change. The NKJV is more of a paraphrase than the Message is! The NIrV is a definite paraphrase too.
Technicalities aside, there is a big difference between using the ASV or the GNT as your source text.
Opinions will differ on The Message. I’ve found it quite engaging in its poetry, where it manages to reinstate a lot of the beauty which other more mechanical translations lose. As to Gen 1:1, well it does depend on your interpretation of the Hebrew. If you think the Hebrew refers to the totally of God’s creative work, both the earth, the heaven(s), the underworld, the physical, the metaphysical, the spiritual, the holy and the demonic, then the Message conveys that quite well. If הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ means more than “heaven and earth” does in English, then it would be a mistake to translate with just those three words.
Oh, I’ve thought of another way of describing translations (which also means that just a single spectrum won’t do Peter), whether they attempt to convey the literary and genre-related features of the original. The Message is not suitable for widespread use because it is too idiomatic (some of which are lost even on fluent-but-non-American English speakers like myself) and will also date very quickly, but also because the author translated it as if it was written directly for its readers. It is written in a low, conversational register, which is great for doing what it was written for, engaging Christians who hadn’t been reading their Bibles. But it is not one for deeper study, as it obscures the differences in genre and register between books and passages.
Anyone want to take a guess as to my choice for a translation?
Surely there is another whole category which you have missed out: dynamic equivalence translations (or maybe you would want to find another name), a group including NLT, TEV/GNT and CEV (not the new CEB), arguably also NEB and REB. These are significantly different from your “translations”, especially from NRSV (which isn’t really very different from ESV except for the gender language and some more liberal theological decisions). But they are also not paraphrases, as you seem to recognise by not listing any of them as such. Of course it might also be good to note that there is a spectrum here rather than completely distinct translation types.
I purposely avoided the terms “dynamic equivalence” (“DE”) and “formal equivalence” (“FE”) for two reasons.
Even though the terms are commonly used within the field of Bible translation, they are rare among translators more generally, and all but unknown among people who just want to read the Bible.
Secondly, as a matter of practice, I think that the philosophies behind the Bible translations end up contributing less to the final translation than do their implementation and other translation decisions.
Dannii, most other English Bible translations are written in a consistently formal and high level register, marked all the more by the presence of obsolescent words and syntax. So, by the same argument, each of them is also “not one for deeper study, as it obscures the differences in genre and register between books and passages.”
What we perhaps need but do not I think have in English is a translation which uses noticeably different styles in different books to reflect the different genres and registers of the original.
I can only agree with you!
Wow, thanks! I found your recommendation of the NIV interesting because most people I know and talk to think that translation is absolutley horrible.
And here’s the rub: I was using the NIV translation for a long time. But then I encountered people who either supported the NASB (now it seems like many are turning to the ESV) or the NRSV. They all hate the NIV. That’s when the doubt started creeping in. But then I began to realize after reading the prophets in a more dynamic translation (like the NLT) that I really wasn’t fully understanding what the prophets were saying and also that many younger people found the NLT much easier to understand. So then I had these two forces working on me, half wanting a really formal translation the other half wanting a more dynmaic translation and everyone hating the NIV in the middle!
So I am going crazy. But thanks for the advice and maybe reading the NIV isn’t so bad afterall.
You might ask them why they hate the NIV. I don’t know of any Bible translation that is so good that it leaves nothing open to criticism, but I don’t think the NIV is different enough from, say, the NRSV for anyone to “love” one and “hate” the other.
I’ve yet to find any translation that I love, but, equally, all of mainstream translations are good enough that I don’t hate any of them.
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As I understand it (and I understand that your Hebrew, Joel, is a lot better than mine) the Bible itself is written in high register and archaic Hebrew. This is of course a troublesome point Genesis may perhaps have seemed conversational to mid-second millenium BC readers, but not to, for example, Jesus. But as I understand it (same qualification applies) Isaiah was written in a deliberately high, non-conversational register that the RSV et al are prepared to sacrifice for the sake of literal accuracy. This is an either of translation. “The boat this chick was in was like one of those thrones monarchs sit in, except it was POLISHED, and it was alight on the river…” is of course an accurate rendering of “The barge she sat in like a burnished throne etc” but utterly fails to take into account the idea of impressing its reader with the archaism and poetic diction. Robert Alter, in my opinion does a fairly, good job at reconciling these two aspects of writing, but mainly because he has same-page notes on the original Hebrew. If you want proper scholarship and don’t want to learn Biblical Hebrew yourself that may be the only way of reconciling accuracy with register.
Almost for sure it wasn’t written in archaic Hebrew, and even by the turn of the era, I think the Hebrew of the OT would have been more familiar than the English of the KJV currently is to modern English speakers. But beyond that, register in general is very hard to detect.
First of all, it should be acknowledged that the term “Bible translation” is fraudulent, as it implies that there is a “Bible” somewhere that is being translated. In reality, every “Bible” is an original work. It should be discussed as “Bible creation.” If I am mistaken on this point, then please show me where the original “Bible” exists?
The creation of a Bible involves first selecting the various sources that will be added “eye of newt” style to the cauldron. Everyone does this a bit differently. Personally, for NT study, my “perfect Bible” would be LXX based, since that is clearly the standard OT of the NT writers. And it would include the “Apocrypha.”
I would despair of attempting to establish a pre-Catholic canon and adopt the current list of NT books that the Catholics originally adopted (minus the Letter of Paul to the Laodiceans).
As to the NT manuscripts, I would have to settle for Westcott-Hort’s eclectic mish-mash.
Now, with my manuscripts settled (all in Greek) I would get to work on my new work of translating.
My point is that the translation job only begins AFTER you have created your Bible, and it will not be “THE Bible” – only YOUR “Bible.”
Then I would proceed largely as the NET Bible does, and take my best shot at it and supply a wealth of footnotes. Any words I added would be bracketed.
So my favorites are thus:
* KJV – because what I have memorized, I have memorized in the KJV
* NET Bible, because it has documented the decisions that they have made
* the Anchor Bible, because each book is translated by a top scholar of that book exegetically, rather than in service to Catholic or Protestant prejudice
But ultimately, none of the existing “translations” are terribly useful to me, since they are based on the Massoretic text, following Jerome.
If, on the other hand, I wanted a translation of “the Bible” and accepted the historic definition of “the Bible” then I would have to go with the Douay Rhiems version, since “the Bible” is the invention of the Catholic Church and it is by Papal decree that the Latin text, the Vulgate, is the only authoritative text, or “Bible.”