Talk:Modern English Bible translations

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[edit] Relative merits of translations - sources?

Back when I used to read Christian books (in the 90's) I noticed that more intelligent, scholarly writers tend to quote from the NRSV. From personal use, and what amateur research and comparison I could do with original languages, concordances and so forth, I found the NRSV vastly superior to the KJV and NIV. The NIV, in particular, often gave what I consider misleading translations - where the original text was at all ambiguous, the NIV gave a translation which was consistent with mainstream 20th century Christian teaching.

One case is that "the sharing of your faith" (Philemon 6) is assumed in the NIV to refer to evangelism, rather than some other meaning of fellowship (the same Greek work, koinonia, is used for sharing as for fellowship).

Okay, so my view is subjective. But has a credible study been done on this which could be referenced in this article? I expect that more than one POV will need to be presented (e.g. the claims that the KJV is more reverent, that the KJV & NKJV use better texts and are more literal and thus more reliable... not my views btw), but that's no problem. --Singkong2005 12:19, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

"Reverent" is, of course, a subjective quality. Shakespearian English does not necessarily mean more reverent. By the same token, a more literal translation does not mean that the translation is more semantically accurate.
As someone who has studied the Bible and Biblical languages at the doctoral level, I've come to the conclusion that serious Christians would do well to learn Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek. Failing that, however, one should have at least a few translations on their shelf, and compare passages for deviations. This should twig the reader to areas of ideology or ambiguity in translation, the two biggest pitfalls in the enterprise. I'd suggest the NRSV, NIV, NASB, KJV, REB, and the NJB. In essence, there is no single "best" translation, imo, just as there is no single, best translation philosophy. All have their strengths and weaknesses, although there is such a thing as taking too many liberties with the text (e.g., The Good News Bible or The Message).
For my part, I use the NRSV as my standard reference Bible, being aware that they have anachronistically edited the text for gender neutrality. Fishhead64 23:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Re the NRSV's anachronistic editing of the text for gender neutrality - yes, it's good to be aware of this (and such changes are always footnoted, so an observant reader will be aware). I think it's a good translation method though. The original language uses male pronouns as the default, as did English up until the last few decades. Current English usage is to not do this, but to say something like "he or she." It's also worth noting that pronouns referring to specific individuals - human or other - retain the gender of the original text.
Of course, if it was being translated into a language which doesn't have gender specific pronouns (such as Indonesian or Chinese) there would be little choice in the matter. And it's hard to say that it causes a problem, in my view. --Singkong2005 talk 03:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table form

Table form for the list of translations is hard to edit, and makes it impossible to add other pertinent information. Plus the category of "dynamic" versus "formal" equivalence is not agreed upon by all, nor is it the most useful thing to say about all translations.

Suggestion: Make this plain text with sections and subsections. Some may object that this will make the regular table of contents unwieldly, and that is 100% true. However, there is an easy solution: Create a manuel, easy-to-edit table of contents like the one here. Dovi 10:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I would fully support the clean-up of the table, specifically:

  • I suggest simply that the fe/de column is removed (I would like to see a single page which compares from top to bottom fe and de translations).
  • I suggest that a wikitable structure is used for the table(see for example The Word on the Street)

If you agree to these changes, then I would just go for it.

As some further suggestions, I would like to see, for EACH Bible translation, a template structure (rather like the one used for footballers, e.g. Peter Schmeichel), which contains the following info:

  • Translation Name (e.g. Good News Bible)
  • Abbreviation (e.g. GNB)
  • Date of NT (e.g. 1970), OT (e.g. 1976), full Bible (e.g. 1976)
  • Author(s): "Committee made up of Foreign Bible Society members.."
  • Textual basis: e.g. The Septuagint, KJV
  • Copies printed: 25 million
  • Gen 1:1 example
  • John 3:16 example

I would also like to see, for EACH Bible translation, a template structure to track the history, with a "left" box pointing to previous translation(s), and a "right" box pointing to following translations.

Brusselsshrek 08:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean a template structure to be used within the article on modern versions, or within the individual article on the translation (or both)? I think it is a good idea, but I would strongly lean towards it being individualized, i.e. not just one giant chart for all translations together, but rather a template containing basic information for a single translation. This would, once again, allow for non-standard information being added afterwords in text form, when appropriate.

I would also add to the info you list above to be contained within the template the following:

  • Does it include apocrypha (and if so exactly what books)?
  • Denomination (where appropriate).
  • Available online?
  • License (if there are any public domain or copyleft).

If a lot of serious information is included, there is no reason not to also add the fe/de distinction too, especially for those translations that consciously follow one method or the other. Dovi 10:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I always thought of it as being individualised (i.e. KJV has it's own one on its page all about KJV, RSV has one all about it on its page etc.). All your suggestions are great. Another one I forgot to add in (which will also help to support deleting the column from the general table:

  • Translation type (literal, fe, de, paraphrase, etc.)

Brusselsshrek 14:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

If I get time, I'll make a stab at creating one (and stick it here first). Since about the only thing that is a pain to change afterwards is the name (cf. "BibleHistory" template, now called EnglishTranslations), what would you suggest? Template:BibleTranslation? Brusselsshrek 14:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I think what we need is an Infobox. Gotta do some wiki research on how on earth to do one of these gadgets... Brusselsshrek 14:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, see Infobox#Bible translation, Brusselsshrek 15:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

In fact, see Template:Bible translation infobox for the current raw definition and the talk page Template_talk:Bible translation infobox for examples of usage (beware - they don't always use the latest syntax!!) Brusselsshrek 23:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Bible in Living English

There is The Bible in Living English translated by Steven T. Byington from original texts over the course of 60 years, published in 1972, but I don't know where to put in in the article. Help. Thanks. RJII 04:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for nothing. I stuck it in there. Hopefully it's in the right place. RJII 06:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Miscellaneous

Shouldn't the ESV be listed among the ASV lineage? See English_Standard_Version:"First and foremost, the ESV is an update of the Revised Standard Version (RSV)".

[edit] Open Source modern English translations

Are there any "modern" Bible translations that are copyright free? I heard that the KJV has no copyrights on it but most modern versions cannot have derivative works made of them without paying somone royalties. You might want to discuss this somewhere in the article. Please put your response on this talk page because I don't watch this article's edits. MPS 21:39, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Try out New English Translation - free, modern, electronically-available, (theoretically) unbiased. Brusselsshrek 10:51, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
While the NET is free, it's not in the public domain (so you can't quote from it extensively or sell any part of it without the publisher's consent). The World English Bible is in the public domain; it's a revision of the ASV. It's not quite finished, but you can read one of its many draft stages. --J. J. 18:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does this fit? (UPDV)

I ran across this one the other day

The Updated Bible

It's free (as in beer). It appears they have removed Acts, fiddled with Matthew some and put John at the beginning of the NT. I couldn't find it in a Wikipedia search so thought I would throw it in. I've googled around it a bit too but haven't found any particular controversy about it.

Their reasons[1] for removing Acts seem to be very unscholarly, which leaves the impression that it is hardly worth taking seriously. Another web-page about Christmas leans heavily on an obscure paper by Shlomo Pines. The site looks highly idiosyncratic to me. DFH 20:24, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
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