Bible text, languages

A. Old Testament

The OT is written mostly in Hebrew, except for the following sections which are written in Aramaic (constituting about one percent of the OT): Gen 31:47 (two words), Jer 10:11, Ezr 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26, and Dan 2:4b-7:28.

1. The languages of the Old Testament

a. Introduction

The Semitic family of languages do not include the oldest known languages — that honor goes to Sumerian, a unique language which is part of no known language family and bears no resemblance to any other known language; it was written with cuneiform characters. The earliest evidence for Semitic tongues are Akkadian texts dating back into the third millennium BC. Semitic is distantly related to the Hamitic family of languages, which includes Egyptian, and so in its earliest roots, the two are combined into what is called Hamito-semitic. At a point in prehistory, they split into what is called proto-Semitic and proto-Hamitic. From these, arise Egyptian in the Hamitic branch, and on the Semitic side, the northwest Semitic languages of Ugaritic, Moabite, Aramaic and Hebrew and the Southeast Semitic languages such as Akkadian (divisible into two dialects, Babylonian and Assyrian). The earlier Semitic languages, such as Akkadian and Ugaritic have a case system which identifies what role a noun is playing in a sentence. That is, a “U” tacked on to the end of the word, as in Shar, the Babylonian word for prince, gives the form Sharu, telling the reader that the word is the subject of the sentence, as in “The Prince hears the Princess”. An “A” tacked on to the end — Shara — makes the word the object, as in “the Princess hears the Prince.” And an “I” tacked on at the end as in Shari makes the word possessive, as in “the Prince of the Princess”.

In later Semitic languages such as Hebrew, the case system has disappeared, so that word order now indicates the job assignments that were previously provided by the case endings. Hebrew is one of the latest of the known Semitic languages. Even Arabic, another Semitic language, appears more ancient in its forms, since it preserves the old Semitic case structure.

The different Semitic languages bear a general similarity with each other, as for instance with the word for “sun”. In Akkadian it is shamash, in Arabic it is shamps and in Hebrew it is shemesh.

b. Hebrew

Hebrew was the language of the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah respectively. It was used by the Jews until the time of the Babylonian captivity, when the language of the court, Aramaic, came more and more to replace it. When the Jewish people returned from the Babylonian captivity around 536 BC the Hebrew language had undergone some significant changes. Aramaic words had been added to the vocabulary, and the alphabet was changed from the Old Hebrew characters to the newer square Aramaic script — which is the form still in use today. After the fall of Jerusalem AD 70 and the subsequent dispersion, Hebrew, already barely more than a liturgical language (used in the Synagogue for reading scripture), ceased to be spoken altogether. Hebrew remained a dead language, known only to scholars until the end of the nineteenth century. With the rise of the Zionist movement in Europe, some Jews started to revive Hebrew as a spoken tongue, so those Jews who moved back into Palestine began speaking to one another in the old Biblical language. Today, the official language of the modern nation of Israel is Hebrew and except for the addition of a few new words to account for technological change — like airplane and automobile and the like — the Modern Hebrew language is virtually identical to that of the Bible.

c. Aramaic

Aramaic, not to be confused with the language spoken by the Arabs today — which is called Arabic — is a Semitic language used by the neo- Babylonians of the time of Nebuchadnezzar II (cp Dan). It became the major language of the ancient Near East and was spoken and written by most nations of the area until the rise of Islam subjugated it and replaced it with Arabic.

The language most commonly spoken in Israel in Jesus’ day was Aramaic and in fact it is the language that Jesus himself spoke. A few snatches are recorded in the NT, but most of what remains are translations of his words into Greek, the language used by the NT writers. They used Greek because it was the language of the Roman Empire and the writers of the NT were concerned that the message of the gospel should get as wide a readership as possible. The translational nature of Christ’s words can be seen, for example, in the wording of the Beatitudes; Luke writes simply “blessed are the poor”, while Matthew writes “blessed are the poor in spirit”. The reason for the slight difference in the wording results from the underlying Aramaic word for “poor”, which has both ideas contained within it; Matthew, therefore, was a bit more precise in his translation, since the Greek word for poor generally — like the English term — refers only to those who lack material benefits.

B. New Testament

The NT is written entirely in Greek, except, as has already been indicated, for a few Aramaic words or phrases: Mat 27:33,46, Mar 5:41; 15:22,34; and Joh 19:17.

Though the native language of the Romans was Latin, the language of the Empire, and especially the eastern half of the empire where the Jews lived, was Greek; the Greeks, though militarily weak, had been culturally powerful, leaving their mark on Roman thinking in everything from their language and theology, to their laws and philosophy. If a person knew Greek, he could get along well in the Roman Empire, just as today, if a person knows English, he’ll do better than a person who doesn’t.

Bible text, manuscripts (NT)

The New Testament manuscripts go back much closer to the originals than do the Old Testament manuscripts. And there is a wider variety of New Testament manuscript evidence to draw upon.

There are something like 5,000 separate manuscripts of the Greek New Testament in the museums and libraries of the world. Some are only fragments, but many are practically complete. Also there are a great many early copies of the New Testament translated into other languages. In addition to this, a very large part of the New Testament exists in the form of quotations in early Christian writings.

A nineteenth-century scholar, Dean Burgon, counted up all these early quotations that he could find. He reported 19,370 quotations from the Gospels, 14,905 from the Epistles, 1,382 from the Acts of the Apostles and 644 from the book of Revelation. A present-day recount would reveal much larger numbers.

You may wonder what use all these manuscripts are if none of them is accurate. The answer is that by comparing them it is possible to sort out most of the errors, and recover a nearly accurate text. This is very tedious work but it can be done. Fortunately for us, thousands of dedicated men over the past four centuries have given the best years of their lives to this work.

There are two kinds of errors: deliberate ones, and accidental ones. The insertion of the second sentence into 1Jo 5:7 is regarded as a deliberate corruption of the text. Some scribe apparently thought he could improve John’s writing. The spurious nature of this sentence, which appears in the Authorised Version, was discovered a very long time ago. It is omitted from all modern versions.

Accidental slips are often harder to locate, but there are tech-niques for finding them. Names are given to the different kinds of mistakes that can occur. Most of these are almost impossible for the ordinary man to remember. One common form of error is called “homoeoteleuton” (from the Greek for “same ending”). If the same word occurs, say, at the end of line 3 and the end of line 4, it is very easy for the copyist to jump from the end of line 3 to the beginning of line 5. If he does, then that is a homoeoteleuton. Fortunately, it is usually easier to spot where a homoeoteleuton has occurred than to remember what it is called.

Another form of error, also easy to detect, has an unforgettable name: dittography. No prizes are offered for guessing that it means accidentally writing the same word twice.

It soon becomes clear to the scholar working in this field that there are good manuscripts and bad manuscripts. He is able to divide them up into families, and say fairly confidently, for example, that manuscripts X, Y and Z are all copies of the same earlier manuscript. Gradually he ends up with a text which he knows to be more than 99 percent perfect. That is to say, he is practically certain of the complete accuracy of most of it.

Just occasionally there is a word or a phrase about which he cannot be sure. If he is a Bible translator he will probably indicate his uncertainty in a footnote. For example, Mark 1:34 tells us that Jesus “suffered not the devils to speak because they knew him”. The Revised Version of 1885 translates these words in exactly the same way as the Authorised Version. But it tells us in a footnote that after the last word, “many ancient authorities [manuscripts] add ‘to be Christ’.”

This is fairly typical of the uncertainties that exist in the text of our Greek New Testament. They are generally few and far between. They are generally small. And they generally have little effect on the meaning of the passages in question.

(GT ch 17).

Bible text, manuscripts (OT)

For the Old Testament, the traditional text is what is known as the Masoretic. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars who worked diligently between the 6th and 10th centuries AD in Babylonia and Palestine to reproduce, as far as possible, the original text of the OT. Their intention was not to interpret the Bible, but to transmit to future generations what they regarded as the authentic text. Therefore, to this end, they gathered manuscripts and whatever oral traditions were available to them.

They were careful to draw attention to any peculiarities they found in the spellings of words or the grammar of sentences in the OT, and since Hebrew in their day was a dying language, they introduced a series of vowel signs to insure the correct pronunciation of the text, since traditionally, the text was written with consonants only. Among the various systems developed to represent the vowel sounds, the system developed in the city of Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, gained the ascendancy.

The earliest complete copy of the Masoretic text of the OT is located in the St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) Public Library; it was written about 1008 AD.

The Masoretic text is not a single, unbroken thread, but rather a river of manuscripts, with both a western and eastern branch; within the texts labeled “Masoretic” there is a certain amount of variation, and the Masoretes carefully noted the differences in the texts that they used as their sources. Therefore, it must be stressed that the so-called “Textus Receptus” that one may hear of occasionally (especially from those who believe that the King James Version is the only acceptable translation) is mostly a fiction; it is a concept that has little basis in reality beyond wishful thinking.

Remember, too, that English is not the only language into which the Bible has been translated. It has been translated into over 2,000 languages by scholars using the original Greek and Hebrew texts.

The earliest copies of OT books are called the Dead Sea Scrolls, a body of Biblical manuscripts discovered since 1947 inside caves near a place called Qumran, right next to the Dead Sea in Israel. The texts all date prior to 70 AD, the period when the community at Qumran was destroyed by the Romans following the Jewish revolt. Some texts date as far back as 150- 200 BC, based on epigraphic dating and Carbon 14 dating.

Other manuscripts useful for establishing the text of the OT are as follows:

  • The Septuagint — a translation of the OT into Greek, made in Alexandria, Egypt about 250 BC. There are several versions, with minor variations among them. They are: the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates to the fourth century AD, the Codex Alexandrinus, which dates to the fifth century AD, and the Codex Vaticanus, also of the fourth century AD.
  • The Samaritan Pentateuch. A copy of the first five books of Moses kept by the Samaritans in Samaritan characters. It is notorious for some deliberate alterations designed to legitimize the Samaritan place of worship on Mt Gerizim (cf Joh 4:20).
  • Peshitta. The Syriac translation of the OT and the NT. Syriac is an Aramaic dialect. The translation was done sometime between 75 and 200 AD.
  • Vulgate. The Latin translation of the OT and the NT was made by Jerome about 400 AD.

Bible, English translations

The first English translation of the Bible was undertaken by John Wycliffe (1320-1384). By 1380 he had finished the translation of the NT; however, his translation of the OT was incomplete at the time of his death. Friends and students completed the task after his death. His translation was not from the original Greek and Hebrew texts; instead he made use of the Latin Vulgate. Many translations followed:

  • William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible again relied heavily on the Vulgate; however, he was a good Greek scholar and thus he did make use of Erasmus’ Greek text and some other helps that had been unavailable to Wycliffe. The NT was completed in 1525 and the Pentateuch in 1530. He was martyred before he could complete the OT.
  • Miles Coverdale, a friend of Tyndale, prepared and published a Bible dedicated to Henry VIII in 1535. The NT is based largely on Tyndale’s version.
  • Matthew’s Bible appeared in 1537. Its authorship is somewhat unclear; it is probable that it was produced by John Rogers, a friend of Tyndale. Apparently Rogers came into possession of Tyndale’s unpublished translations of the historical books of the OT and so included these in this version, which again rests heavily on the work of Tyndale, as well as Coverdale.
  • The Great Bible of 1539 was based on the Tyndale, Coverdale and Matthew’s Bibles. It was a large volume, chained to the reading desk in churches, and from this fact derives its name.
  • The Geneva Bible of 1560 was produced by scholars who fled to Geneva, Switzerland, from England during the persecution instigated by Queen Mary. It was a revision of the Great Bible.
  • The Bishops’ Bible of 1568 was produced under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Elizabeth I. It is to a large extent simply a revision of the Great Bible, with some influence of the Geneva Bible. It was used chiefly by the clergy and was unpopular with the average person.
  • The Douay Bible was a Roman Catholic version translated from the Latin Vulgate. The NT was published at Rheims in 1582 and the OT at Douay in 1609-1610. It contains controversial notes and until recently was the generally accepted English version for the Catholic Church.
  • The King James (or Authorized) Version was published in 1611. It was produced by 47 scholars under the authorization of King James I of England. The Bishops’ Bible served as the basis for this version, though the translators did study the Greek and Hebrew texts and consulted other English translations. It was the most popular translation in English for well over three hundred years, undergoing at least three revisions before 1800. The New King James Version appeared in 1982. The NT had been published in 1979. One hundred nineteen scholars worked on the project, sponsored by the International Trust for Bible Studies and Thomas Nelson Publishers. They sought to preserve and improve the 1611 version.
  • The Revised Version was published between 1881 and 1885. It was made by a group of English and American scholars. It was to a large extent a revision of the King James translation, though the scholars involved did check the most ancient copies of the original scriptures, using manuscripts that were unavailable at the time the King James Version was produced.
  • The American Standard Version of 1900-1901 is the American version of the Revised Version, with those renderings preferred by the American members of the Revision Committee of 1881-1885.
  • The Revised Standard Version was published in 1952. In 1928 the copyright of the American Standard Version was acquired by the International Council of Religious Education, which authorized a revision by a committee of 32 scholars. The NT was issued in 1946, the complete Bible in 1952. The copyright is currently owned by the Division of Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. The Revised Standard Version Bible Committee is a continuing body, which is both ecumenical and international, with active Protestant and Catholic members from Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Additional revisions were made in the NT in 1971 and in 1990 the New Revised Standard Version was issued.
  • The Berkeley Version was published in 1959. The NT was originally translated into modern English by a single individual, Gerrit Verkuyl in 1945. With a staff of 20 translators, including professors from various Christian colleges and seminaries, all under his direction, a translation of the OT was rendered.
  • The Amplified Bible appeared in 1965. It was commissioned by the Lockman Foundation and is unusual — even idiosyncratic — in that it has bracketed explanatory words to try to explain somewhat difficult passages.
  • The Jerusalem Bible was published in 1966. It is a Roman Catholic work originally done in French at the Dominican Biblical School in Jerusalem in 1956. The French title was La Bible de Jerusalem. The English version was translated from the original Hebrew and Greek texts, but it follows the French version on most matters of interpretation. It is the only major English translation that makes use of the divine name “Yahweh” in the OT. The translation includes the Apocrypha. A revision called The New Jerusalem Bible came out in 1989.
  • The New English Bible was published in 1970. It was produced by a joint committee of Bible scholars from leading denominations in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, assisted by the university presses of Oxford and Cambridge. Twenty-two years were spent in the work of translation, with the NT arriving in 1961. The full Bible includes the Apocrypha. It is printed in paragraphed, single-column format, with verse numbers along the outside margin of the pages. A revision of this translation, called the Revised English Bible, appeared in 1989.
  • The New American Standard Bible was published in 1971. It is a revision of the American Standard Version and was commissioned by the Lockman Foundation. A group of Bible scholars worked for 10 years, translating from the original texts and attempting to render the grammar and terminology of the American Standard Version into more contemporary English, except when God is addressed. Then it reverts to King James style language. The NT appeared in 1963.
  • The Living Bible appeared in 1971. It is a paraphrase by Kenneth N. Taylor; he sought to express what the writers of scripture meant in the simplest modern English possible. It scarcely needs to be said that sometimes he got it terribly wrong! It is a paraphrase of the American Standard Version; it is not a translation from the original languages.
  • Today’s English Version (Good News Bible) was published in 1976. The NT, entitled Good News For Modern Man, was published in 1966 by the American Bible Society. A translation committee of Bible scholars was appointed to work with the United Bible Societies to make a similar translation of the OT. Their objective was to provide a faithful translation into natural, clear, and simple contemporary English. American and British editions of the complete Bible appeared in 1976. In 1995 an updated version was produced, called the Contemporary English Version, which is notable for removing anything that might be misunderstood as anti-semitic from its translation of the NT.
  • The New International Version was published in 1978. The Committee enlisted Bible scholars from a broad range of denominations and countries and has become the most widely used of the modern translations.

Bible, King James Version

As the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) was coming to a close, we find a draft for an act of Parliament for a new version of the Bible: “An act for the reducing of diversities of Bibles now extant in the English tongue to one settled vulgar [common] translated from the original.” The Bishop’s Bible of 1568, although it may have eclipsed the Great Bible, was still rivaled by the Geneva Bible. Nothing ever became of this draft during the reign of Elizabeth, who died in 1603, and was succeeded by James I, as the throne passed from the Tudors to the Stuarts. James was at that time James VI of Scotland, and had been for thirty-seven years. He was born during the period between the Geneva and the Bishop’s Bible.

One of the first things done by the new king was the calling of the Hampton Court Conference in January of 1604 “for the hearing, and for the determining, things pretended to be amiss in the church.” Here were assembled bishops, clergymen, and professors, along with four Puritan divines, to consider the complaints of the Puritans. Although Bible revision was not on the agenda, the Puritan president of Corpus Christi College, John Reynolds, “moved his Majesty, that there might be a new translation of the Bible, because those which were allowed in the reigns of Henry the eighth, and Edward the sixth, were corrupt and not answerable to the truth of the Original.”

The king rejoined that he “could never yet see a Bible well translated in English; but I think that, of all, that of Geneva is the worst. I wish some special pains were taken for an uniform translation, which should be done by the best learned men in both Universities [Oxford and Cambridge], then reviewed by the Bishops, presented to the Privy Council, lastly ratified by the Royal authority, to be read in the whole Church, and none other.”

Accordingly, a resolution came forth: “That a translation be made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek; and this to be set out and printed, without any marginal notes, and only to be used in all churches of England in time of divine service.”

The next step was the actual selection of the men who were to perform the work. In July of 1604, James wrote to Bishop Bancroft that he had “appointed certain learned men, to the number of four and fifty, for the translating of the Bible.” These men were the best Biblical scholars and linguists of their day. In the preface to their completed work it is further stated that “there were many chosen, that were greater in other men’s eyes than in their own, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise. Again, they came or were thought to come to the work, learned, not to learn.” Other men were sought out, according to James, “so that our said intended translation may have the help and furtherance of all our principal learned men within this our kingdom.”

Although fifty-four men were nominated, only forty-seven were known to have taken part in the work of translation. The translators were organized into six groups, and met respectively at Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford. Ten at Westminster were assigned Genesis through 2Ki; seven had Romans through Jude. At Cambridge, eight worked on 1Ch through Ecclesiastes, while seven others handled the Apocrypha. Oxford employed seven to translate Isaiah through Malachi; eight occupied themselves with the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation.

Fifteen general rules were advanced for the guidance of the translators:

  1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishops Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit.
  2. The names of the Prophets, and the Holy Writers, with the other Names of the Text, to be retained, as nigh as may be, accordingly as they were vulgarly used.
  3. The Old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept, viz. the Word Church not to be translated Congregation &c.
  4. When a Word hath divers Significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith.
  5. The Division of the Chapters to be altered, either not at all, or as little as may be, if Necessity so require.
  6. No Marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek Words, which cannot without some circumlocution [ie, further explanation], so briefly and fitly be expressed in the Text.
  7. Such Quotations of Places to be marginally set down as shall serve for the fit Reference of one Scripture to another.
  8. Every particular Man of each Company, to take the same Chapter or Chapters, and having translated or amended them severally by himself, where he thinketh good, all to meet together, confer what they have done, and agree for their Parts what shall stand.
  9. As any one Company hath dispatched any one Book in this Manner they shall send it to the rest, to be considered of seriously and judiciously, for His Majesty is very careful in this Point.
  10. If any Company, upon the Review of the Book so sent, doubt or differ upon any Place, to send them Word thereof; note the Place, and withal send the Reasons, to which if they consent not, the Difference to be compounded at the general Meeting, which is to be of the chief Persons of each Company, at the end of the Work.
  11. When any Place of special Obscurity is doubted of, Letters to be directed by Authority, to send to any Learned Man in the Land, for his Judgement of such a Place.
  12. Letters to be sent from every Bishop to the rest of his Clergy, admonishing them of this Translation in hand; and to move and charge as many skilful in the Tongues; and having taken pains in that kind, to send his particular Observations to the Company, either at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford.
  13. The Directors in each Company, to be the Deans of Westminster, and Chester for that Place; and the King’s Professors in the Hebrew or Greek in either University.
  14. These translations to be used when they agree better with the Text than the Bishops Bible: Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s, Geneva.
  15. Besides the said Directors before mentioned, three or four of the most Ancient and Grave Divines, in either of the Universities, not employed in Translating, to be assigned by the vice-Chancellor, upon Conference with the rest of the Heads, to be Overseers of the Translations as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better observation of the 4th Rule above specified.

The work began to take shape in 1604 and progressed steadily. The translators expressed their early thoughts in their preface as:

“Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one,.. but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against, that hath been our endeavor.”

They had at their disposal all the previous English translations to which they did not disdain:

“We are so far off from condemning any of their labors that travailed before us in this kind, either in this land or beyond sea, either in King Henry’s time, or King Edward’s…or Queen Elizabeth’s of ever renowned memory, that we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God, for the building and furnishing of his Church, and that they deserve to be had of us and of posterity in everlasting remembrance.”

And, as the translators themselves also acknowledged, they had a multitude of sources from which to draw from: “Neither did we think much to consult the Translators or Commentators, CHaldee, Hebrew, Syrian, Greek, or Latin, no nor the Spanish, French, Italian, or Dutch.”

The Greek editions of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza were all accessible, as were the Complutensian and Antwerp Polyglots, and the Latin translations of Pagninus, Termellius, and Beza.

Four years were spent on the preliminary translation by the six groups. The translators were exacting and particular in their work, as related in their preface:

“Neither did we disdain to revise that which we had done, and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered: but having and using as great helps as were needful, and fearing no reproach for slowness, nor coveting praise for expedition, we have at the length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the work to that pass that you see.”

The conferences of each of the six being ended, nine months were spent at Stationers’ Hall in London for review and revision of the work by two men each from the Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford companies. The final revision was then completed by Myles Smith and Thomas Bilson, with a preface supplied by Smith.

The completed work was issued in 1611, the complete title page reading:

“THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties Special Commandment. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611.”

The New Testament had a separate title page, the whole of it reading:

“THE NEWE Testament of our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST. Newly Translated out of the Originall Greeke: and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties speciall Commandment. IMPRINTED at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611. Cum Privilegio.”

The King James Bible was, in its first editions, even larger than the Great Bible. It was printed in black letter with small italicized Roman type to represent those words not in the original languages.

A dedicatory epistle to King James, which also enhanced the completed work, recalled the King’s desire that “there should be one more exact Translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English tongue.” The translators expressed that they were “poor instruments to make GOD’S holy Truth to be yet more and more known” while at the same time recognizing that “Popish persons” sought to keep the people “in ignorance and darkness.”

The Authorized Version, as it came to be called, went through several editions and revisions. Two notable editions were that of 1629, the first ever printed at Cambridge, and that of 1638, also at Cambridge, which was assisted by John Bois and Samuel Ward, two of the original translators. In 1657, the Parliament considered another revision, but it came to naught. The most important editions were those of the 1762 Cambridge revision by Thomas Paris, and the 1769 Oxford revision by Benjamin Blayney. One of the earliest concordances was “A Concordance to the Bible of the Last Translation”, by John Downham, affixed to a printing of 1632.

The Authorized Version eclipsed all previous versions of the Bible. The Geneva Bible was last printed in 1644, but the notes continued to be published with the King James text. Subsequent versions of the Bible were likewise eclipsed, for the Authorized Version was the Bible until the advent of the Revised Version and ensuing modern translations. It is still accepted as such by its defenders, and recognized as so by its detractors. Alexander Geddes (d. 1802), a Roman Catholic priest, who in 1792 issued the first column of his own translation of the Bible, accordingly paid tribute to the Bible of his time:

“The highest eulogiums have been made on the translation of James the First, both by our own writers and by foreigners. And, indeed, if accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text, be supposed to constitute the qualities of an excellent version, this of all versions, must, in general, be accounted the most excellent. Every sentence, every work, every syllable, every letter and point, seem to have been weighed with the nicest exactitude; and expressed, either in the text, or margin, with the greatest precision.”

As to whether the Authorized Version was ever officially “authorized”, Brooke Westcott, one of the members of the committee that produced the Revised Version, and the editor, with Fenton Hort, of an edition of the Greek New Testament, stated that:

“From the middle of the seventeenth century, the King’s Bible has been the acknowledged Bible of the English-speaking nations throughout the world simply because it is the best. A revision which embodied the ripe fruits of nearly a century of labor, and appealed to the religious instinct of a great Christian people, gained by its own internal character a vital authority which could never have been secured by any edict of sovereign rulers.”

This article was taken from the book “A Brief History of English Bible Translations”, by Dr. Laurence M. Vance.

Bible, NIV

More than 100 scholars from six English-speaking countries, as well as editors and English stylists, worked on the New International Version. The scholars represent more than 20 denominations.

In the 17th century, King James’s translators worked from the Erasmus Greek text of the New Testament. Erasmus had six Greek manuscripts from which to work. NIV translators work from more than 5,000 complete or partial manuscripts and papyri.

It took ten years to complete the NIV translation. The process started in 1968 and finished in 1978. This does not include more than 10 years of planning before 1968.

The system for editing each book is one of the distinctive features of the NIV. The procedure was as follows:

  • Initial Translation Team
  • Intermediate Editorial Committee
  • General Editorial Committee
  • Stylist and Critics
  • Executive Committee (or Committee on Bible Translation)
  • Final Stylistic Review
  • Executive’s Committee’s Final Reading

The NIV was created and is maintained with the mandate to translate, accurately and faithfully, the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic Biblical texts into clearly understandable English.

The NIV is the most widely accepted contemporary Bible translation today. More people today buy the NIV Bible than any other English-language translation.

Caveat: In the New Testament, the NIV does have some unfortunate choices, from more obscure ancient manuscripts, that reflect a “trinitarian” bias on the part of the translators. These erroneous translations should be noted and replaced, in most cases, with the alternative renderings from the margin.

This naturally raises the question: “If there is such a problem with the NIV, why use it in the first place?” The answer is: these “problem” passages are easily identified, and can be remedied (as above). On the other hand, the NIV provides what many other versions (especially the KJV) do not, that is: (1) scholarly work of the highest standard, which takes into account all the linguistic discoveries and advances of the past 400 years; and (2) modern renderings that avoid all the archaic words and expressions of older versions (see Lesson, AV difficult words — for examples of this).

(Also see Lesson, NIV, background.)

Bible, selecting a

For the serious Bible student (or anyone who wants to become a serious Bible student), there are only a few Bible versions that deserve consideration:

1. The King James Version (also known as the Authorized Version) is still much used, and even revered, in Christadelphian circles — although its inadequacies (due primarily to its age) are known and understood. Much of the best Bible study material is based on the KJV, as are the good analytical concordances and lexicons. Many believers, not quite able to tear themselves away from it for more modern (and possibly more accurate) versions, nevertheless supplement their KJV reading and study with occasional reference to good modern versions.

A good study Bible still available within the Brotherhood is the “Interlinear” (KJV and English Revised Version line by line, one under the other), but beware! It requires some practice to read it smoothly.

2. The Revised Standard Version (RSV, 1952) is the earliest of the modern translations still being used in significant numbers. It was intended as a further revision of the KJV and English RV, and is generally respected for its scholarship.

3. The New International Version (NIV, 1978) is perhaps the best translation in American English today. It is close to the Hebrew and Greek text while at the same time reproducing our language as it is spoken today. As an advertisement for the NIV says, “If King James were alive today, he’d be reading the NIV!” (In the New Testament, the NIV does have some unfortunate choices, from more obscure ancient manuscripts, that reflect a “trinitarian” bias on the part of the translators. These erroneous translations should be noted and replaced, in most cases, with the alternative renderings from the margin.)

4. The New American Standard Bible (NASB, 1960) is the most literal, word-for-word translation on the market today — which is not to say it is necessarily the best. Many feel its extreme literalness makes it a poor translation, because its English is consequently choppy and decidedly poor. As a study Bible, however, if not as a reading Bible, it has some appeal among Christadelphians.

And there, probably, the list of recommended versions should end. Other possible versions range from the mediocre at best (New English Bible, Good News Bible, or Today’s English Version) to the very poor (Living Bible, and the various “special sect” translations — like the JWs’ “New World Translation”).

Many of the versions are available in expensive “study editions”, with extensive marginal notes. These notes, while sometimes containing valuable material, can often be very biased and misleading. It would be far better to get a good wide-margin Bible with marginal references, but no notes. These types of Bibles, seen commonly among Christadelphians, are available from various sources in all four recommended translations. Make up your mind to produce your own marginal notes as you study, a practice infinitely better for personal development than relying on the notes of “orthodox” commentators.