THE QUESTIONS:

Why are there so many Bible translations in English on the market? Should there be?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The Evangelical Textual Criticism blog (click here) is an international forum where conservative Protestant experts chew over what’s stirring with ancient manuscripts and translations of the Bible. It’s esoteric stuff for the most part, but some items carry broad interest.

This week’s top posting, worth pondering by everybody, begins with this biblical bang: “It’s time for someone to stand athwart American Christianity and yell ‘STOP.’” The piece pleads with publishers and scholars to no longer turn out ever more new Bible translations because this “rising tide sinks all boats,” causing confusion that undermines trust in the Scriptures. The writer is Mark Ward, academic editor of Lexham Press, which publishes Bible study materials that include its own Lexham English Bible (LEB) translation, with textual detail for “specialized study,” not everyday use.

The article takes direct aim at the newly announced Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) that is being translated by an influential California pastor Ward greatly respects, John MacArthur, and colleagues at The Master’s University and Seminary.

MacArthur has long favored the very literal (and thus rather wooden) New American Standard Bible, issued in 1971 and now available in a 1995 update. Another NASB update is due within a year but the pubisher will keep the 1995 rendition in print also. Ward says MacArthur’s Bible is in the same tradition, so soon we’ll have three variants of one Bible on the market.

He is not pleased about that. And he “simply cannot bear” MacArthur’s “marketing slogan” that his Bible will be “absolutely accurate.”

Legitimate views on what that means with a particular passage will never agree, he says, and “there is no possibility — none” that the new Bible is more accurate than the major translations already available.

This debate deals with only the actual text of the Bible translated into English, not the host of study editions that add explanatory footnotes, sidebars, maps, charts and articles, some pitched to particular audiences such as  women, youth, or recovery groups. Those variants are one answer to the “why” question above. Another is that Protestants and Catholics have different Bibles because their Old Testament has a slightly different list of books. And — let’s be honest — there’s money to be made from the novelty of a new translation, especially if it catches on.

Instead of those editions, Ward is talking about “centrist” translations designed for wide use by churches and individuals. These range on a spectrum from literal or word-for-word “formal equivalence” as found in the NASB over to thought-for-thought “functional equivalence” rendered in English as it is in actual everyday use today.

The market also offers technical editions like his own company’s LEB, or loose paraphrases like “The Message” that he thinks can be useful “tools,” or those aimed at helping  people with limited facility in English. He sees value in pondering the recent “single-scholar” translations of the Old Testament by Robert Alter (published by Norton) and John Goldingay (InterVarsity), and of the New Testament by David Bentley Hart (Yale) and N.T. Wright (HarperOne).

Time was that virtually all Protestants of whatever denominations and leanings united in using Britain’s King James Version of 1611.

Continue reading “Why do we have so many different Bibles?”, by Richard Ostling.