Bible Translations

Passing on two posts by Charles Huff:

For a more technical discussion, there are two important distinctions in Bible translations: the texts which the translation uses and the translation philosophy they employ.

For the NT, there are three textual options: the Textus Receptus or Received Text, which is the collection of Greek New Testament manuscripts edited by Erasmus, the Majority Text and a Critical Text. Both MT and CT use textual criticism on all known manuscripts to determine which variant is correct, but whereas CT uses critical methodology (e.g. what's oldest, what's most likely to be original based on text critical criteria), the MT asks what variant has the most manuscript support. Since most NT manuscripts are medieval and thus similar to Erasmus' collection, the Majority Text is nearly identical to the Textus Receptus.

The KJV and NKJV are based on the TR; no translation I know of is based on the Majority, and all the rest are based on a Critical Text (usually Nestle-Aland's). All modern versions use the Hebrew Masoretic Text for the Old Testament.

There are two major translation philosophies: literary/literal and dynamic equivalent. The distinction between the two is more complicated than "literal" and "non-literal." No translation is word-for-word; all must adapt Hebrew/Greek words and sentence structures to English words and sentence structures. Dynamic equivalence uses linguistic methodology of "deep structure" to replicate the parent language in the receptor language, and so is less concerned about replicating sentence structures and retaining idioms. This does not mean they translate "loosely" or "according to sense;" it's far more rigorous than that.

A translation like the ESV is concerned with allowing as much of the Bible's own idiom to transform English as possible. It still must wreak havoc in some ways, but it's far more willing to accept something awkward in English for the sake of the Hebrew trope. The ESV also accepts the heritage of the KJV in the English language, and seeks to keep as much of the rhythm and style of the KJV as possible - that's an explicit part of their translation philosophy. They're not only hoping to retain the Hebrew/Greek literary sense, but the KJV literary sense.

For a more rigorous literary/literal approach than any English translation of the entire Bible, check out Everett Fox's translation of the Pentateuch and Robert Alter's translation of the Pentateuch and the Psalter.

I should add a third: English register. In language, register is how formal the language is. One expects a different type of language in the State of the Union than in the latest episode of the Office. Translations explicitly choose different registers.

NIV uses a literary register, but is as clear as possible. It's the New York Times of Bible translations (not the New Yorker).

The Message uses a folksy, homey register with lots of down to earth idioms (or cliches). It's the Rush Limbaugh of Bible Translations.

The ESV uses modern English with a high register. This is part of their keeping the style of the KJV without the thees and thous, since the King James Bible helped create the high English register as we know it. It's the New Yorker, or John Updike, of Bible Translations.

The KJV of course is the definition of high register, but it is also archaic. No one speaks this way anymore, no matter how formal the occasion, unless they're quoting the King James. It thus lends a super-formal and traditionist atmosphere to the reading of Scripture. It's the Vulgate of English Bible translations.

My advice about this is that if after reading the KJV all your life you feel sort of sacrilegious reading a text with a lower register - don't! One of the main points of translating the Bible into English rather than keeping it in Latin was to rid it of its exclusivity. Some sections of the Bible are formal, literary Hebrew and Greek and some are not, so why should our translation keep this special, formal, high-register quality in the main? That in itself obscures parts of the Bible and is thus not "literal" at all, which is a main reason people claim to read the KJV. While I appreciate the literary value of the KJV, the ESV and other translations are also literary in quality without making the Bible overly formal and archaic in style.

I don't care if anyone reads the KJV, but don't feel guilty for not doing so. Stand in your Reformation heritage and pick up an NIV.

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