In our previous posts, we have been looking at the two methods of Bible translation: Essentially Literal Equivalence and Dynamic Equivalence. There is another way to look at Bible translations. Two groups that divide the world of English Bibles: Revised and Fresh.
All new translations of the Bible fit in one of these two groups. It is either a revision of earlier translation work or a new innovative work of translation.
A revised work is a new translation that is based on or a revision of an early translation of the Bible. A revision of an existing translation by the same group who is responsible for the earlier transition is not the “revised” we mean here, that is more of an upgrade. An example would be the English Standard Bible which was a revision of the 1972 Revised Standard Version. The ESV itself has been revised or upgraded 5 times since 2001 yet each is still considered the ESV. You can see that “revision” is used in two separate ways. One a true revision and the other more of an upgrade. As these are the terms used I have chosen to say with them.
A fresh work is a new translation. It is not a revision of any earlier translation. It would still be influenced by previous works, but does not seek to carry on the essence of an earlier work. The NIV is an example of a fresh work of translation. It should be pointed out that the NIV has been revised or upgraded 4 times but as with the ESV it has always been considered the NIV. Each revision is on counted as a new translation.
Since Tyndale did his original translation of the New Testament in 1526, just about all subsequent works have been revisions of his translation. They even revised the work he did on the OT when complete Bibles were produced in English. While there are always independent works of translation being done, none of the major English translations before the Good News NT in 1966 were fresh translations. From Tyndale’s work came the Coverdale Bible (1535), then the Matthews Bible of 1537, the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible of 1560, and the Bishop Bible of 1568.
The next, and the greatest English Bible of all time was the King James Bible of 1611 which was also a revision of earlier works. In the “Translators to the Reader”—an interesting and lengthy preface to the KJV not printed in most editions for many years—it states “Truly, good Christian Reader, we never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make a bad one a good one; … but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal good one.”
The KJV itself had minor revisions with the last one being in 1769. This is the version you would buy today unless you pick up one specially marked as a 1611 version. Then the revisions stopped for almost 200 years. I’m convinced that if the KJV had been revised every 25 to 50 years, we would have less then a hand full of versions in use today. The KJV should have been kept up to date with the changing of the English language, the advances in Textual Criticism (the knowledge of the original language text of the Bible), and the advances in our understanding of the original languages.
As the KJV became stuck in the 17th century, so too did the proponents of the KJV entrench themselves to the point that any change in the KJV at all would not be accepted. Unfortunately, the early attempts to revise the KJV were not well done. In 1885, the Revised Version was the first major revision of the Tyndale – KJV line. It used the most modern Greek text of the day which was a good thing, but it was put in stiff and poor English. The great English preacher, Charles Hadden Spurgeon said of the translations “it was strong in Greek, weak in English.” In fact, the English is extremely poor. The American revision—American Standard Version—which was built on the Revised Version (1901) was better but not enough to gain a meaningful following.
Major new translation work again stopped until the production of the 1952 Revised Standard Version (RSV). This revision of the earlier work was more widely accepted with the more theological liberal section of the Church. Some of the translation choices were not acceptable to conservative Christians, especially in America.
Those who controlled the RSV copyright would not allow conservative groups to produce their own revisions of the RSV. The effect of this was to open the door for the need for a modern English translation to be met through fresh works of translation. The history of translation up to this point is almost completely from the Formal Equivalence approach for major translation works. With the coming of fresh work came the influence of the Dynamic Equivalence method in the work of most of the new translations from the New English Bible (NT) of 1961 and the Good New (NT of 1966 to the NIV (NT) of 1973, NLT of 1996 and the HCBS (now the CBS) of 2003.
The NASB of 1971 and the Amplified Bible (in three parts 1958-1964) were works of revision in the Formal Equivalence method. They bypassed the RSV by going back to revise the ASV. Finally, the ESV was given permission to do a conservative revision of the RSV in 2001. The most recent revision translation is the Legacy Standard Bible of 2021which is a revision of the NASB.
The positive of a revision of a previous translation is that it builds on what has been done in the past. As the translators of the KJV said, “make a good one better.” The language and phrasing of revisions change slowly thus allowing for wider acceptance. It also gives the Body of Christ a common Scripture and biblical language to speak from.
The negative of a revision of a previous translation is that changes come slowly. Sections that need to be updated may stay stagnate because of a too conservative approach to updating the translation. One means of mitigating this issue is to do regular revisions, every 25 years or so, never waiting more then 50 years.
The positive of a fresh work of translation is it can be just that: fresh. It is not caught in what has been done in the past. It is free to use wording and phrasing that is felt to fit best without the deference to past expressions. It can go where the text requires not held back by the past understanding.
The negative of a fresh work of translation is there is nothing to hold it from going on tangents such as the Message. Most, if not all, of these fresh translations use the Dynamic Equivalent approach further distancing them from a base to hold them from going astray. As we have seen, there is no end of translations when any group can create their own translation with no accountability except for what has become an increasingly biblically illiterate buying public.
Clearly I put my hat in the ring with the revised translations. But as with the Dynamic Equivalent translation in general, the fresh translation work can be insightful as a secondary—or as I like to call them “commentary Bibles”—used with your main Bible as an aid in understanding a passage.
No matter our preference, Revised or Fresh, they remain the Word of God thus are profitable for us (2 Tim 3:16). While there are heretical translations such as the New Word Translation or the Passion Translation and just bad ones like the Messages, for the most part the translations we have are good. The important thing is not to neglect them but to be in the Word daily, growing in our faith.
Until the next time we see you here at CultivatingFaith.org, God Bless! #CultivatingFaithOrg