The History of the English Bible-The Era of the Modern Translations
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday October 16, 2014
The History of the English Bible: The Era of the Modern Translations
Lesson # 7
Next, we come to the period of 1970-1998 which is called by Wallace the “era of readability” or “functional equivalence.”
There were two new productions made by Protestants which proved to be entirely new works since these translations demonstrated a new approach to translation of the Bible.
They are the NEB and the NIV.
They are not literal or formal equivalent translations but rather are the product of a new and different school of translation, namely dynamic equivalence.
The formal equivalence school which all previous English translations followed were of the conviction that all translation needs to be as literal as possible or we could say word-for-word.
However, this is of course not always possible to accomplish since idioms in one language do not always transfer over into another language like English.
The goal of the translator is not only to produce the message of the original but also to reproduce the emotional impact of the original.
This functional equivalence method fails in this area.
The dynamic equivalence method is more of a phrase-for-phrase translation and more interpretative.
The New English Bible (NEB) was conceived in 1946 but was not published until 1970 and was done by British scholars.
C.H. Dodd was the project director and was a first class scholar.
In fact, he memorized the entire Greek New Testament and knew many languages both ancient and modern.
He was modern equivalent to Tyndale in terms of knowledge and skill in translating.
He produced an excellent translation with his team of translators.
Wallace believes it to be “the most beautiful translation of the twentieth century and in many places has moving and powerful passages.”
Now the NEB did not serve as a good study Bible in that it was so free in its wording and sometimes did not convey the meaning of the Greek.
Then, there was the New International Version (NIV) which was also like the NASB a response to the RSV.
This production was mainly an American effort even though it had over 100 scholars from many denominations and three countries working on the project.
It has the distinction of being the first American translation that is not in the King James tradition.
It was very readable and by 1995 had outsold the KJV as the number one book in the world.
In fact, over 100 million were sold.
Like any translation, it has problems, readability was the top priority with the NIV translators and 100 scholars worked on the project which is much too many.
In fact, not all were qualified.
The problem with this many individuals working on a translation is that there are two many opinions to weigh.
If it was done by democratic process as Wallace states, “the translation would often have the least undesirable reading rather than the most desirable to some. Democracy is a great leveler of elegance, exchanging great literature for mundane clarity.”
Also because of its great readability the NIV lacks in memorable expressions.
In 1979 and 1983 we had the production of the New King James Version (NKJV) which significantly updated the KJV however the beauty of the latter was sacrificed and secondly it was astonishingly based upon the same text as the KJV!
Amazingly, the translators believed the Textus Receptus of the KJV was wrong in nearly 2000 places and yet they still used it as their textual base.
In 1989, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) was published and was an excellent translation whose only real flaw is its emphasis upon gender-inclusive language which not only changed the meaning of the text in many places but also produced bad English.
The English Standard Version came out in 2001 and is an formal equivalence approach even though it does not always follow this method and well it should not.
It is consciously an attempt to be in line with the KJV.
The publisher was Crossway Books.
The team of scholars involved with this project attempted to update the NRSV without making it gender-inclusive.
In 1998 and 2001, the New English Translation (NET) was published and is unique in many ways.
It combines the formal and dynamic equivalence approach.
It has the distinction of being the first translation that was beta-tested meaning that the process of translating was open to the entire public.
It also is the first Bible that is available free on the internet (www.netbible.org).
It also is the first evangelic translation to translate Isaiah 7:14 as “young woman.”
It is the first modern conservative translation to include the Apocrypha.
Also the translators were picked because they had studied and taught these books in the original Greek and Hebrew.
Furthermore, the NET Bible has more notes than any other Bible in history, with it having over 60,000 notes which help to educate both the scholar and layperson with regards to various issues in translation.
Now we must keep in mind that except for the NKJV nearly all modern translations are following the most ancient MSS.
Thus the textual basis is largely the same for all these new modern translations.
However, we also must keep in mind and this is very important, no cardinal or fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith is at stake in any of these textual differences.
God has preserved His Word in such a manner that a sinner can get saved by reading the KJV as well as by all these new modern English translations.
With regards to choosing a translation which best fits one’s needs, I would greatly suggest having more than one translation in your library.
The Christian should have an accurate translation as well as one that is readable and if possible elegant.
In regards to an accurate translation, this author would recommend the ESV or NASB.
For readability, one should acquire the NIV or TNIV.
If one is looking for an elegant translation, the REB would be the one to choose.
My favorite Bible is the NET Bible because it comes closest to capturing what all these Bibles do individually.
Dr. Wallace has this final excellent closing comment, he writes “For the first 1500 years of the church’s existence, we had only handwritten MSS. But the church was able to survive with that. And those MSS differed more than the modern translations do today! It is only with the invention of the printing press that we have been able to embrace the myth of certainty about all the particulars of the wording of the Bible. Even though there are significant differences in the wording and style of these new Bibles, they all proclaim the same message. Final conclusion: Even with the proliferation of Bibles today, Christians are reading their Bibles less and less. I believe the evangelical church has only 50 years of life left. 50 years left of evangelicalism because of marginalization of the Word of God. We need another Reformation! The enemy of the gospel now is not religious hierarchy but moral anarchy, not tradition but entertainment. The enemy of the gospel is Protestantism run amock; it is an anti-intellectual, anti-knowledge, feel-good faith that has no content and no convictions. Part of the communal repentance that is needed is a repentance about the text. And even more importantly, there must be a repentance with regard to Christ our Lord. Just as the Bible has been marginalized, Jesus Christ has been ‘buddy-ized.’ His transcendence and majesty are only winked at, as we turn him into the genie in the bottle, beseeching God for more conveniences, more luxury, less hassle, and a life without worries or lack of comfort. He no longer wears the face that the apostles recognized. Or, as Erasmus remarked, ‘When you read the Greek New Testament, you can see the face of Jesus more clearly than if you were one of his disciples’! A bit of hyperbole, but the point is worth underscoring: The God we worship today no longer resembles the God of the Bible. Unless we return to him through a reading and digesting of the scriptures—through a commitment to the text, the evangelical church will become irrelevant, useless, dead.”