The NRSV is considered the most accurate by scholars. Problematic translations include the NIV and the ESV, and all paraphrases.
I had a chat event back when the TNIV came out with Dr. Youngblood, Wayne Grudem, and someone from the NLT (Can’t remember his name right off hand.)
It was very informative and was interesting to hear the three, who disagreed on most everything in the debate, actually agree that the NASB was the most accurate/literal translation. So I use that when I’m studying the Bible with Strongs numbers turned on. (I use www.biblestudytools.com )
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NRSV translators are some of the most renowned scholars of biblical languages in current practice. Thus, the interpretations do not have an evangelical bent, which is an issue the ESV is infamous for. Fine, perhaps for those who struggle with reading, but not helpful for in depth study
A partial list of NRSV translators includes:
*Phyllis A. Bird
- George Coats
- Demetrios J. Constantelos
- Robert C. Dentan
- Alexander A. DiLella
- J. Cheryl Exum
- Walter Harrelson
- William L. Holladay
- Sherman E. Johnson
- George M. Landes
- Conrad E. L’Heureux
- S. Dean McBride, Jr.
- Bruce M. Metzger
- Paul S. Minear
- Lucetta Mowry
- Roland E. Murphy
- Harry Orlinsk
*Katharine D. Sakenfeldl - Allen Wikgre
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Without a doubt, either Artscoll’s Stone Edition of the Tanakh or https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8165/showrashi/true.
Unfortunately, most translations that the church has gotten their hands on has been adulterated and intentionally mistranslated to open the door for the mythology of worshiping a man.
Very true. For instance, if one turns to Isaiah 7:14, we find the following: “ידלָ֠כֵן יִתֵּ֨ן אֲדֹנָ֥י ה֛וּא לָכֶ֖ם א֑וֹת הִנֵּ֣ה הָֽעַלְמָ֗ה הָרָה֙ וְיֹלֶ֣דֶת בֵּ֔ן וְקָרָ֥את שְׁמ֖וֹ עִמָּ֥נוּ אֵֽל:”
“הָֽעַלְמָ֗ה” is, unfortunately, a piece of the Hebrew text that is often mistranslated by Christian translators. It is pronounced “ha-al-mah”. It means “the young maiden”. The ה prefix means “the,” which, in Hebrew, indicates something that is known. In other words, I would not tell you will pass the dog unless both of us knew which dog; I would use a dog or את (there’s no English translation of this word, it indicates that a direct object follows). The ה that ends the word indicates that it is a feminine noun and makes it the young maiden instead of the young man.
This verse is sometimes mistranslated as a virgin. The verse is a prophecy to King Ahaz and the young maiden who is currently with child is Isaiah’s wife.
Example of a Hebrew text that is one of the pieces of scripture that is most oft mistranslated words of the Hebrew text.
There are no word-for-word translations. If this were so. This is why we sometimes have three or four English words that equal one English word. For instance, prepositions, conjunctions, and direct articles are often prefixes and possive owners is often a suffix.
For instance, this six-word phrase taken from “Shalom Aleichem” means “Messengers of the King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He.”
מִמֶּלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְּלָכִים הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא
In addition, most Christian translations put a spin on the Holy tongue because they need the text to support the Roman Testament that follows.
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By man, you mean Jesus? Please provided documentation for your claims
Which claim?
That there are no word-for-word translations or that some of the church translations put a spin on the Hebrew?
I wasn’t trying to be too harsh, I just didn’t have a better way of stating it. Many have their beliefs based on nothing else besides “my preacher told me so” or “that is what Mom and Dad taught me.” Those individuals do a great disservice to themselves. It is important to me not just to know what to believe, but to know why to believe.
As far as the statement regarding Hebrew goes with there being no word-for-word translation, English and Hebrew are from two very different language families. Thus, some words exist in Classic/Biblical Hebrew that do not have a direct translation to English. Just the same, English has words and concepts that do not exist in Biblical Hebrew. את (pronounced “et”) is an example. There is no direct English translation; it identifies that a direct object follows. Likewise, there is not a term for cellphone in Biblical Hebrew, and some of the words in Modern Hebrew are near phonetic transliterations from the parent language. קברנה סוביניון is Modern Hebrew. It is pronounced “Cavernay Sovinyon,” as in the French wine. In addition, many words that stand alone in English are attached to Hebrew words as suffixes. As such, “the king of kings” is המלכים (ha-m’lachEEm).
The concept of echad is an example of a concept from the Torah that through exogenesis has a different meaning in the Roman Testament (not labeled this way out of disrespect but rather, out of respect for the Tanakh (what the church labels as the OT). Echad is a singular masculine Hebrew word meaning “one.” It means one singular item: one day, one cat, on man, etc. It appears in the most central prayer to Torah: that is often translated in an English OT (as opposed to the Tanakh) as “Hear o Israel. The Lord our God is One.” In Hebrew, we also have the word “yichad,” which is used to indicate a combined one as in one team, one family, one basket of fruit.
Another place where Hebrew is mistranslated (there are many, but this is a common example) is Isaiah 7:14. This is a prophecy concerning Isaiah’s wife who was currently “with child,” or pregnant with their son Emanuel. In context, it tells King Ahaz about this birth that is no more miraculous than any birth so that he knows that he will be successful, in a military sense, against the Assyrians. It’s something that he needed to know now and not need to wait for seven or eight hundred years in the future to see if the prophecy is true. The word in question is ha-al-mah, meaning “the young maiden.” Note that in the other eight occurrences of this word in the Tanakh, it is accurately rendered in the Christian translations (two of these are the masculine form and thus, young man). There are two main thing to note. In Hebrew, “the” indicates a known noun. I could not tell you to pass the ranch if the ranch was unknown to you. I would use “et,” the direct object indicator instead. The other concern is that the Christian translatord often tender this word as virgin. That’s not what this word means.
I hope that your Sunday is as blessed and meaningful to you as my Shabbat was to me.
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This claim ^^. Is Jesus the man being worshipped you refer to?
To worship ANY man goes contrary to what God tells us. This is in reference to Ioses.
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Are you a non trinitarian Christian, or did you convert to Judaism, or are you one a fake (messianic) Jew? I am not trying to belittle you, but clarification is needed.
Non taken. At least we can both agree that the Messianics are Christians and not Jews.
I spent the first 42 years of my life as a Christian. This was primarily in the churches of Christ but also includes various overseas military chaplaincies. After some very antisemitic comments and their attempts to break apart my mixed-faith marriage, I sought clarity. I have spent the past 12 years as a Noachide, which means I practiced Jewish rites and adhered to the parts of the Torah that are pertinent to non-Jews.
I am almost finished with my conversion in a Conservative Shul.
I really appreciate your curiosity.
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I began using the American Standard Version (ASV) in the late 1960s. The ASV was considered to be the most accurate English translation available. I now use the New American Standard Bible 1955 (NASB1995) because it is considered the most accurate English translation. I also use the King James Version. as I like the way it sounds.
The internet has many pictures of Biblical versions and spreads them out from
word for word to thought for thought to paraphrase. That also indicates accuracy.
The biggest problem I have with the Bible is chapter and verse numbers; seldom do we get the full stories of teachings and events.
My present project is a Study Bible using either the ASV or KJV, which are in the public domain. I would like to use NASB1995, but their copyright will not allow that to happen. Isn’t big business wonderful? It will be the New Testament,
I don’t hold to one version. I glance over multiple versions to see how they differ when I am going in depth. And I look at the original language and use a translation program (as I have not learned those languages) to study specific words, phrases, various possible meanings. Along with Biblical studies, articles on the text, context. Anything that is relevant.
It all depends on time restraints, my goals, personal study versus quick use.
The KJV Bible is a flawed translation that is more than 400 years old. It was created to establish King James as God’s chosen leader of the Church of England. In the process he had all negative comments from earlier translations removed so the Bible would glorify him.
I know this isn’t the point of this discussion, and it’s just a tangent. But while I regard KJV-onlyism as obviously false (and patently silly), I think your assessment of the KJV isn’t historically accurate nor particularly fair.
The purpose of what we call the KJV was to create a standardized translation for the Church of England, there were several competing English translations at the time, Puritans preferred their Geneva Bible, while the Bishop’s Bible was used officially in the Church of England. King James wanted to reconcile the factions within the English Church and so called scholars from diverse backgrounds to produce a new translation for liturgical use. The committee had the goal of not so much as producing a brand new translation, but rather to improve upon older translations using the best scholarship available to them at the time.
Did they succeed? While of course it is debateable, but for their time and the limits of what they had access to, they did a fantastic job of pulling from the best and most recent insights of biblical scholarship. They did not ignore previous biblical translations, but relied on the work of Tyndale, they looked to the Vulgate and the Septuagint as well as primarily working from the Masoretic Text. As a result the KJV was a masterpiece of translation for its time, sure we could nitpick–after all there some odd choices they made, they chose to simply borrow (for example) the Vulgate’s Latin translation of Hebrew in Isaiah’s condemnation of the king of Babylon, as such generations of English-speaking Christians still often think “Lucifer” is the devil’s name, where “lucifer” is just the Latin translation of the Hebrew word for the morning star which Isaiah uses as a mocking epithet against the king of Babylon.
The KJV is still a legacy of 17th century biblical scholarship, which has been a deeply and abiding literary influence on the whole English language, and for its time very good. Definitely not perfect, far from perfect, and we have a host of translations today which are far superior to the KJV. But we needn’t insult the the historic importance of the KJV in order to properly recognize that it is in many ways a flawed translation when we compare it to the best of modern scholarship has to offer. The explosion of biblical manuscripts which we have discovered in the centuries since the KJV was first translated would, of course, mean we have a far deeper pool to wade through; we have access to information nobody who worked on the KJV did; but given the restraints of time and place, the limited resources available to them, and even if we can nitpick certain choices they made or methods they used, they still produced a massive achievement in biblical translation.
KJV-onlyism is an obviously wrong and silly idea; but the KJV itself is still a beautiful translation.
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I agree with everything that you say. There is no debate that the King James translation is one of the best works in the history of the English language and is the best-selling book in English literary history. But…
It is not THE Word of God, as some people claim. It is a translation, commissioned by a king who also happened to be the head of the Church of England. One of the things he ordered was the removal of the footnotes from the Geneva Bible translation because they criticized secular royalty.
Additionally, modern translations are based on more and better manuscript sources (think the Dead Sea scrolls and the Coptic church texts) as well as far better Biblical criticism and knowledge of the meaning of the source languages.
KJVO folks like to think of themselves as the keepers of TRUE scripture, which is nonsense. I would guess that many of them don’t fully understand 17th Century Englyshe. I don’t know how many times I have heard people say (regarding the KJV), “now what this means is…”, REtranslating “on the fly” into modern English.
There are many excellent modern Bible translations which a) are based on more and better sources than the KJV, b) are based on better Biblical criticism, and c) are carefully crafted to be clearly understood by modern readers (in our native language).
We should worship God and regard the Bible (not a single translation) as His word to humanity.
Finally, my preferred translations are the NET Bible, the Christian Standard Bible, the NIV and (for historical translation reference), the Geneva Bible ( the same translation that the Puritans used when they fled from the despotic King James).
Thanks for your post!
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This is a very interesting and informative article, balanced and well-written. Did you write it or get it from somewhere?
I have personally encountered KJVO people many, many times, including on this forum. Their reasoning is invariably absurd. IMHO they worship a book (or more accurately a collection of ancient writings by various authors).
That said, there remains the political factor of the KJV. He had the (excellent) Geneva Bible’s explanatory notes removed from the new translation because their were multiple places where they were critical of secular royalty. It was definitely a political move. (Sound familiar?) It caused many people to flee from the king’s tyranny.
Comparing the Geneva Bible and the KJV, I prefer the former, primarily for that reason. They give great insight into the political thinking of the time vis-a-vis the church.
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The King James Version (KJV) of The Bible was published in 1611 and was based upon analysing multiple previous copies of Bibles and manuscripts available at the time. As we have been led to believe.
Fifty-four (although only 47 finished) of the most highly respected theologians, linguists and academics were given this task of publishing the most accurate and comprehensive version of the Bible.
Each member of the “taskforce” was arranged in six groups. Each group individually and collectively analysed every available manuscript (of which there are currently about 5,200 separate documents in the world) and created what is accepted as the most comprehensive Biblical document available. Therefore, since 1611, the King James Version has been the benchmark.
Update - February 2024: I have some information that will astound you and change your view and understanding of faith forever. Just wait until you get to the bottom of this page…Proof of God!
Johann.
I spent 14 years selling bibles in a Christian book store. I would tell people to grab a number of different translations and sit and compare the same verses in all of them. The one to buy is the one that makes the most sense to you. Personally, I use the Zondervan NASB study bible or Nelson’s original NKJV study bible.
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There’s a saying I’ve heard a few times, and I think it’s a good general rule of thumb: The Bible you should use is the one that you read.
There can be endless debates and discussions about which translations are better, getting into the nitty gritty of manuscript scholarship and translation philosophies and methodologies–but none of that really matters that much if, at the end of the day, we aren’t actually hearing and reading Scripture. A sub-par translation is better than no Bible at all.
For example, I personally wouldn’t recommend either KJV or NIV to others, I think both translations are lacking in different ways compared to other translations. But if what you read is the KJV or the NIV, then that’s fine–are you hearing God’s word when you gather with the rest of the Faithful? Are you reading God’s word because you live in a time and place where we are blessed to have easy access to the written word and with high literacy rates? Great!
Now, are there translations I would, absolutely, reject outright? Yes. There are certain hyper-sectarian translations which I’d say to stay away from. The most obvious example would be the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ NWT, it’s a “translation” done purely for sectarian reasons to promote their own heretical teachings. But that’s an exception rather than the rule; in general most translations out there will be useful in getting us connected to God’s word. The KJV, the NIV, the NKJV, the ASV, NASB, the ESV, the NRSV, etc. I have my preferences, and I have my views on manuscript history and translation philosophies–but at the end of the day: hear it, read it, believe it.
No translation is perfect. There is an Italian saying, “traduttore, traditore”, literally “translator, traitor”. More than just a clever play on words, it points out that every act of translation inevitably is a betrayal of the source–translation always is interpretation, and so every act of translation (not just of Scripture, but of anything) involves filtering the source through the translator and the translator must make choices–choices which will always result in the loss or change in careful nuances in the language. There’s nothing we can do about that. There is almost never a 1:1 between languages, because language doesn’t exist in a vacuum but is deeply rooted in the community, people, and experiences of the speakers of that language and even a “perfect” 1:1 translation will lose something in the translation. Idiomatic forms of speech, word play, the subtle nuances of language don’t get translated, which is why it’s always important that we do more than just read our translations, but that we are involved in faithful believing Christian communities that do more than just repeat the words of Scripture in a kind of robotic fashion. But rather that use good exegetical and hermeneutical principles and practices, to bring the depth of Scripture to the surface. And that’s not something we can get if all we do is pick up a translation and take it home and read it entirely on our own–that isn’t to say that isn’t still good to do, because again it is still God’s word. But Christianity has always been meant to be lived in together, the Scriptures read and heard in community, in an historically grounded community of believers, with godly and educated shepherds and teachers; with a wealth of material to aid us in our hearing, reading, and study.
This is why Christianity is never “me and my Bible” and that’s it. It’s always a robust living community of believing faithful who are gathered together around Christ, meditating upon God’s word, receiving the gifts of God’s Word and Sacraments, confessing our common Christian faith and steeped in our Christian history–a history that is intimately rooted in the history of God’s People throughout all generations. Because our story today is the ongoing story of God’s People, going all the way back to Abraham, it’s the story of Israel and the Prophets, it’s the story of the Apostles, it’s the story of God’s People that’s been going on for thousands of years–and it’s our story today too.
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