Bible Versions: What is the Best Bible Translation? by David Malcolm Bennett
Pneuma Review Spring 2013
So which is the best Bible translation? Well, we may never know in this life, though we will all have our preferences. But we are fortunate in having some very good ones. Make sure you regularly read at least one of them and encourage others to do so.
My Journey with the Bible
Like most of my generation (I was born in 1942), I was brought up on the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. Its language, I thought, was old fashioned and at times difficult to understand. However, it was dealing with ancient times, so this did not seem inappropriate.
I began to take the Bible seriously in my late-teens and the archaic language became more of a problem. I was not yet a Christian, but I had a very strong suspicion that the Bible was, indeed, the word of God, and I desperately wanted to understand it. However, much of it I found impossible to understand. The Gospels I could generally grasp, and some of the historical parts of the Old Testament, but the OT prophets and the New Testament letters were for the most part a mystery to me. While this was, no doubt, because I lacked at that time the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the main reason was that I just did not understand King James English.
Early in 1961 I went to work for a Christian publisher in London that also ran a small Christian bookshop. That March the New Testament of the New English Bible (NEB) was published and we sold more than a thousand copies in a day. The NEB was the first completely new English translation by a committee since the KJV1 and it was not without its flaws. Yet it was in good, modern English.
I bought one of the thousand and began to read it from the beginning of Matthew. It proved a blessing to me in that I understood the language, but at another level I still did not understand its message. It was when I launched out into Paul’s Letter to the Romans that things changed (I was converted at about this time, but the precise order of events I cannot remember). Suddenly, in that most difficult of books, the words seemed to leap from that page and I understood very well what they meant about sin, salvation and the Lord of that salvation. Suddenly, I found the Bible exciting and challenging.
It is, perhaps, ironic that as time progressed I became dissatisfied with the NEB. I became aware that it showed signs of liberal bias in its translation, which was a bit disturbing. Perhaps the most unfortunate example of this was in 2 Tim. 3:16, the first part of which read, “Every inspired scripture has its use for teaching the truth …” Thus this translation implied that some scriptures were not inspired, or at least might not be. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) by contrast, says, “All scripture is inspired by God”, which, all other translations I have consulted, though the precise wording may vary, make the same point: all Scripture is God-inspired, not just some of it.
First off, I would like to praise this author for giving such a balanced view of the majority of Bible translations. It is refreshing to see someone come at it from a fairly neutral angle.
However, I also have to voice some disappointment with it. First off, among the Translation and Interpreting Studies community (and amongst professionals), it is very rare to speak of any kinds of "equivalence". In fact, while Nida's work is foundational to most modern Western thought on translation, no analyst in a research or even professional settings would start looking for "dynamic" or "formal equivalence", mostly for the reasons the author gives. (I would like to congratulate the author on their handling of these terms). They simply do not make any scientific sense as terms. Language is much more complicated than can be covered by these terms – a point I go into in detail in my earlier Pneuma Review article here: https://www.academia.edu/1317676/Using_the_Right_Bible_Translation. (I would welcome it being republished alongside its companion piece.)
For this reason, even the term "paraphrase" is out of place, since, by definition, all translations are paraphrases. I therefore have to disagree with calling The Message a "paraphrase" that "must be used with caution". Actually, to a large extent the way Eugene Peterson describes his approach to translation is much closer to the way that most trained professionals would handle their work – deciding on strategies and choices based on translation purpose and intended audience. In this light, The Message has more right to the title of a "translation" than say, the NKJV, since the latter was a review of the KJV where the reviewers do not explicitly mention going back to the original manuscripts. The Living Bible is a very different case altogether.
In sum, therefore, this is a very good article but one with a few technical flaws. Please send my congratulations to the author. I would also suggest that he would find Exploring Translation Theories by Anthony Pym and Translation as a Purposeful Activity by Christiane Nord. I am sure they will aid his reflection on Bible translation even more.
First off, I would like to praise this author for giving such a balanced view of the majority of Bible translations. It is refreshing to see someone come at it from a fairly neutral angle.
However, I also have to voice some disappointment with it. First off, among the Translation and Interpreting Studies community (and amongst professionals), it is very rare to speak of any kinds of “equivalence”. In fact, while Nida’s work is foundational to most modern Western thought on translation, no analyst in a research or even professional settings would start looking for “dynamic” or “formal equivalence”, mostly for the reasons the author gives. (I would like to congratulate the author on their handling of these terms). They simply do not make any scientific sense as terms. Language is much more complicated than can be covered by these terms – a point I go into in detail in my earlier Pneuma Review article here: https://www.academia.edu/1317676/Using_the_Right_Bible_Translation. (I would welcome it being republished alongside its companion piece.)
For this reason, even the term “paraphrase” is out of place, since, by definition, all translations are paraphrases. I therefore have to disagree with calling The Message a “paraphrase” that “must be used with caution”. Actually, to a large extent the way Eugene Peterson describes his approach to translation is much closer to the way that most trained professionals would handle their work – deciding on strategies and choices based on translation purpose and intended audience. In this light, The Message has more right to the title of a “translation” than say, the NKJV, since the latter was a review of the KJV where the reviewers do not explicitly mention going back to the original manuscripts. The Living Bible is a very different case altogether.
In sum, therefore, this is a very good article but one with a few technical flaws. Please send my congratulations to the author. I would also suggest that he would find Exploring Translation Theories by Anthony Pym and Translation as a Purposeful Activity by Christiane Nord. I am sure they will aid his reflection on Bible translation even more.