Bible Translations

I’ve just posted a comment on a friend’s blog. (If anyone is interested, here’s original post). He asks which Bible translation to use for serious study in English.

There’s no shortage of good articles tackling this subject, but I thought I’d post my response here too, just in case it helps anyone else.

First off, my one English Bible that I use every day is the English Standard version, or ESV. You can get it from Amazon or any Christian bookshop.

Second off, I agree with Hannah. Use more than one. Even three or four. When you translate French or German into English, no one translation is “the right one”. So you need several that have all sought to be accurate to capture the nuance of the original. Greek and Hebrew are no different. In particular, noticing where they differ gives you a good way in.

Third, I agree with Hannah about the need to be aware which type of translation you are looking at. There is a scale.

(i) At one end are the “word-for-word” ones. They are great for capturing the precise sense of the original, but often practically unreadable for the bargain. My favourite in this category would be the New American Standard Bible (NASB).

(ii) In the middle you have “dynamic equivalent” versions. They are not “word for word” but “thought for thought”. The NIV would be a good example here, as would the Good News Bible. The key thing to know is what criteria the translators used when working out how to put the thoughts into English. With the Good News Bible the aim was to make it understandable by someone with a reading age of 7.

(iii) At the other end are the paraphrases – like the Living Bible, New Living Translation, The Message. Great for reading large blocks of narrative. Not much use for serious study as they are almost “paragraph for paragraph” – or, as Hannah puts it, “focus more on getting the morals / messages across to readers”. The trouble with this is that you are, in fact, reading an interpretation not a translation. It would be naively romantic of me to assume you can ever have a translation with no component of interpretation about it. But with a paraphrase, the interpretive element has taken over.

So I would aim to have two or three different translations, down the dynamic equivalent – word-for-word end of that scale.

Fourth, the ESV comes between dynamic equivalent and word-for-word. It is definitely a word-for-word, not thought-for-thought translation. It thus avoids one major weakness of the NIV, which is the tendency to translate the same original word with different English words to make for good style. But, it also avoids the problems of the NASB, which is the woodenness.

Fifth, what do I think of the NRSV. Don’t like it. One of the principles of translation was to use inclusive language. I was recently in a talk where a feminist theologian, who would want inclusive language at every available point, criticised the NRSV on this issue. She was discussing Romans 8:12-17. Paul deliberately uses two different words in verse 14 (sons – the male word) and 17 (children). The NRSV went for “children” both times. See also the mess it makes of the quotation of Psalm 8:4 in Hebrews 2:6. You’d miss the “son of man” illusions totally when you read their “translation”. That said, I would (of course) use the NRSV alongside others.

Sixth, should you learn Greek or Hebrew? Maybe. It does pay dividends. Learn Greek first – I could recommend a good text book. But also remember that a little Greek is a dangerous thing!

This comment’s too long already, so I’ll stop now.

James