Back in 1952, when the complete Revised Standard Version (RSV) was published, one of the most controversial passages for many readers was its treatment of Isaiah 7:14, the famous Old Testament "virgin birth" quote: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive..."  You know the one.  The RSV translated the passage, "Behold, a young woman shall conceive..." (italics mine)  "HERESY!" went the cry in conservative quarters.  Never mind the fact that the virgin birth was still intact in the telling of the Nativity story in Matthew.  The virgin birth was, for a long while, the litmus test for many conservatives.  Pastors were asked, "Do you believe in the virgin birth?"  Their answer to that question could determine whether they were hired or not.

Nowadays (I already feel old, just typing that word), the litmus test for conservative vs. liberal arguments about new translations is more often about a different issue: gender language.  Conservatives will often refer some new translations as "gender neutral," or even "unisex." Liberals will more often use the term "gender inclusive."  Different translations take different approaches to this admittedly thorny issue.  Some translations, such as the TNIV, succeed or don't succeed, based mostly on their approach to gender language.  (The TNIV was discontinued by its publisher only six years after the complete TNIV was published.)  I'd like to take a look at some of the translations that are well known as "gender inclusive," and give a few of my thoughts on the issue.  In the interest of full disclosure, I am generally in support of gender inclusive language, when it doesn't disfigure the meaning of the text.  The first Bible I really read a lot was the NRSV, which is well known for its use of gender inclusive language, and I was a fan of the TNIV. That being said, I'm not 100% in favor of the indiscriminate use of gender inclusive language in Bible translations.  So now I give you the good...the bad...and the ugly.  (With apologies to Sergio Leone...)

Phrases like "human beings" or "mortals" or "mere mortals" all have a slightly different tone, but for me, they work well in this passage.  Some conservatives will argue that the phrase "son of man" is important for its Messianic overtones, but it's less than clear that such a meaning is intended in this particular psalm.  Still, it's worth considering.  (I'll mention more about that "son of man" phrase in the next section.)  Let's look at a couple renderings that I consider to be "the bad."

Sweet Rufus Xavier Sasparilla! That's seven uses of "the Word" in only four verses! Such strenuous avoidance of pronouns is not really English as we know it.  Going forward, just in the first chapter of John's Gospel alone, we find endless repetition of "the Word," and one phrase that I imagine sets even some liberals' teeth on edge: "It is God the only Child, who is close to the bosom of the Father-Mother..." (John 1:18)  Just what is a Father-Mother, anyway?  This is just bad.  It's not English, and it's not the Bible as we know it.  

The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation is almost as bad.  Much like the reworking of the NRSV mentioned above, this Bible eschews gender pronouns as much as possible.  It's a bit more poetic in style than The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive Version; for example, in John 1:18, the Inclusive Bible reads, "...it is the Only Begotten, ever at Abba's side..."  (Apparently, it's okay to use a gender specific non-English word like "Abba.")  It's a definite improvement on "Father-Mother," but the translators still have to jump through hoops to avoid certain pronouns, leading to endless repetitions of "the Word." 

Some translations aren't necessarily all that bad, but they aren't always great.  Which brings us to...

The Ugly
Some readers may find it a bit disingenuous of me to include here a translation that I've said above that I like: the Common English Bible (CEB).  Here's the problem: in general, I like the CEB; I find its use of contractions refreshing, lot of the traditional religious terminology is translated in more understandable terms, and its approach to gender language is usually quite sensitive.  However, there is one phrase that still grates on me every time I read it: "the Human One."  Ben adam in the Hebrew, and huiou anthropou in the Greek, traditionally translated "son of man," are often translated "human one" in the CEB.  "The Human One" (with the distinctive capitalization) is used in place of "Son of Man" throughout the New Testament as a title for Jesus.  I understand, I really do, what they're trying to emphasize here: "son of man," they believe, is supposed to emphasize the humanity of Jesus, an integral facet of the Incarnation. Much of the research done by the CEB translators indicated that a lot of Christians, when asked what "Son of Man" meant, responded that it affirmed the divinity of Christ! Therefore, in Matthew 3:17 the CEB says, "This is my Son whom I dearly love..." The language of Jesus as Son of God is retained. The thing that bothers me the most about the phrase is that "the Human One" sounds to my ear like dialogue from a 1950s sci-fi film: "Human one, take us to your leader."  Every time I read it I have that same reaction.

The 2011 version of the NIV, translating the same verse (Psalm 8:4) gives us another rendering that I find ugly: it's awkward, poorly written English. And it's simply one of the many examples in the NIV2011 of such poorly rendered gender language.  Here it is:

• "...what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" (NIV 2011)

Pairing "mankind" with "them" is a big mistake.  Apparently using "mankind" instead of "humankind" (as the TNIV had done) was an attempt at appeasing both sides of the argument: "See, it's got the word 'man' in it, but it's a generic term for all of humanity!"  That's what I imagine them saying.   It doesn't make any sense to me to create a good solid translation like the TNIV, and then make a less solid version of it, that becomes the new NIV, replacing the older NIV.  It's a big marketing mess, and an even bigger translation mess.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly... it barely scratches the surface, when it comes to the debate about gender inclusive language.  One thing I'd like to point out, though: I really am bothered when I read references to gender inclusive translations as "politically correct." From what I know of the committees that have produced these versions, for better or worse, I really believe that the agenda is less political than it is a genuine attempt to grapple with the meaning of Scripture, as well as the differences between English and the original languages.  I'm not naive enough to believe that committees don't have agendas, but I find the suggestion that "liberalism" is causing whole groups of conscientious translators to somehow forsake the Word of God is one that I find offensive in the extreme.  I, for one, am glad that translators have grappled with the issue, even if the results aren't always to my personal tastes.  Thanks for reading, brothers and sisters...

I believe I may have blogged about this...um, interesting Bible translation on my old Bible Bookshelf blog, but I thought it deserved another look.  The Holy Bible in Modern English, translated by Ferrar Fenton, is a pretty unique piece of work.  And that's not necessarily a good thing, in this case.  Fenton was a London businessman who, in 1853, took it upon himself to translate the Bible anew, from the original languages.  He apparently believed that the King James Version had some negative points (which is certainly true), and resolved to make his own translation the most accurate ever attempted in the English language.  A small excerpt from the Introduction to his completed Bible, published in 1903, will give us a glimpse into the man's frame of mind:

Let's look a bit at that claim, shall we?  One of the more interesting renderings I've come across in Fenton's translation is his handling of the story of the prophet Jonah.  Jonah 1:17-2:1 reads as follows: "But the Ever-Living had appointed 'The Great Fish'1 to pick up Jonah. And Jonah was three days and nights in the hold of the "Fish," and Jonah prayed to his Ever-Living God from the hold of 'The Fish,' and said..." Why is "The Great Fish" enclosed in quotation marks, you may ask?  The footnote explains Fenton's theory: 

I just do not get this.  So...we've got Moses leading the Children of Israel through the desert, guided by a pillar of fire; we've got Jesus feeding the multitudes with loaves and fishes, not to mention walking on water. And Ferrar Fenton is "perplexed" by the idea of a man surviving being swallowed by a giant fish? That's where he draws the line?  And without the slightest scrap of textual support, declares "The Great Fish" to be a ship in whose hold the prophet is confined for three days.  CRAZY.

Another passage that sticks out like a sore thumb for me in this version is Matthew 6: 9-13, known to believers everywhere as The Lord's Prayer.  Here's the Fenton version:

Once again, we get a helpful footnote that explains that the translation is a "literal" translation of the Greek tenses.  The problem as I see it is that his version is called The Holy Bible in Modern English; the prayer quoted above is not English as we know it.  No one in English ever says, "Your Name must be being Hallowed."  That's simply not English syntax, and never has been.

Back in the Hebrew Scriptures, Fenton attempts something equally bizarre with the Psalms.  In order to present the idea of the psalms as poetry, he attempts to render them as English-style poems.  So in Psalm 23, for example, we get a cute little poem, complete with iambic tetrameter:

Some readers may actually find this charming or meaningful.  Read it out loud, though, and I think you may find the rhythm of the text gets a little monotonous.  I won't even go into his random capitalizations...

The examples I've given above are just a smattering of the odd choices Mr. Fenton made in his translation. I will say I do like his practice of presenting the books of the Bible in a different order than that praditionally found in Protestant English Bibles.  I found my print copy of the Ferrar Fenton Bible at a used bookstore, in excellent shape, and for a low price. Original hardback editions on Amazon get just a bit pricy, but there is a paperback reprint available that is pretty reasonably priced.  Meanwhile, you can read some PDF scans of The Bible in Modern English at this site.  If you are interested in unique versions of the Bible, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.

As I've been going throughn my Bible collection recently, trying to weed out a few that I don't need or use, I got thinking, what is my favorite Bible?  Not necessarily my favorite translation...currently, that tends to be the HCSB.  No, I was thinking more in terms of which Bible in my collection have I used the most, marked in the most.  Which Bible has been my "go-to" Bible for the longest time? Which one shows the most "wear and tear"?  I think for that, there's no contest: a paperback HarperCollins Study Bible (NRSV) that I purchased from a used bookstore in Normal, IL, probably about fourteen years ago. The picture above shows a couple pages from the Psalms in that particular Bible.  (Don't ask me exactly what all the different colors of highlighting mean; I once has some sort of system, but it's long forgotten.) Funny thing is, I have a nice hardcover edition of the same Bible, into which I meant to transfer some of the markings, but never got around to it.  This old paperback has been marked in, taped up, carried around in a couple different sturdy carrying cases.  It's tattered and torn, battered and bruise; in that regard, I think it's kind of a metaphor for my faith.  Like my faith, it's taken some knocks in the past, it's been hidden away, and yet, I always seem to come back to it.

On a different page of the Psalms from the one pictured above, you can find some colored pencil underlining of Psalm 139:7-10, a passage which reads:

I suppose I could add something like, "If I try to hide your Word away, it keeps coming back to me."  Does this old Bible keep finding me, or do I keep finding it?  I'm not sure the distinction is that important. Pursued or pursuer, the result is still the same.  The Word speaks, and eventually...I listen.

One interesting Bible in my collection that probably deserves more attention than I've given it is the translation by George Lamsa from the Aramaic Peshitta, entitled The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts (or The Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text, as it is titled in the more recent paperback, pictured to the right).  The Peshitta is the traditional translation for churches in the Syriac tradition. Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, the language most likely spoken by Jesus himself.  Some scholars (not a lot, apparently) theorize that the Syriac text of the New Testament could be considerably closer to the "original" text than the Greek text (which is, of course, a bit of a fluid concept). However, most Syriac scholars believe that the Syriac text of the NT is actually a translation of the Greek.

With all that background, it is actually a bit surprising to me that so much of Lamsa's translation reads like the RSV.  However, there are some interesting readings in Lamsa's version that deserve mention.  For example, look at the first verse of Psalm 22 in the Lamsa version: "My God, my God, why hast thou let me to live? and yet thou hast delayed my salvation from me, because of the words of my folly." If we skip to the New Testament and Jesus' quote of Psalm 22 on the cross, the Lamsa version reads: "My God, my God, for this I was spared!" (with a footnote reading "This was my destiny"). These two quotes are quite different from most other English versions.  I don't know why there is such a disparity in the OT and NT quotes; that would certainly be something to research further.  But moving along...


In Matthew 19:24, the familiar quote about a camel going through the eye of a needle, we read: "Again I say to you, It is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." A footnote on this verse explains that "The Aramaic word gamla means rope and camel."  Of course, if we go with the "rope" reading, as Lamsa has done, the hyperbole Jesus uses is not quite as extreme as the traditional reading.  Does it make a difference to the ultimate meaning, though?  I doubt it.


Just skimming a couple other famous texts, I notice that the familiar "name in vain" verse from Exodus 20 becomes "you shall not take a false oath in the name of the LORD your God."  I think this is rather interesting, as it clarifies a bit what "taking the Lord's name in vain" is, something that I think is pretty misunderstood in our modern Christian culture.  The Prologue to the Gospel of John is just a bit different: "The Word was in the beginning, and that very Word was with God, and God was that Word."  


As I said above, even though I've had a copy of Lamsa's translation of the Peshitta, I haven't really read it much.  Just browsing through it to write this post, I think I should give it some more attention in the near future. Connecting to an ancient Eastern tradition can be a useful exercise, especially for modern American Christians, who often tend to think of Christianity as a Western religion. It's worth keeping in mind that the Syriac Church goes back much further than any European church.  Incidentally, you can read the Lamsa version online here.  

Just for fun, I've recently begun re-reading the novel Left Behind.  Now I imagine some of my readers love this book (and the entire series), while others loath it.  There may be some who absolutely dismiss it on theological grounds, while others might have objections that are purely literary.  At the risk of inciting the wrath of Pre-Trib folks, I will say that I think the books are pretty awful, as far as the writing, but I'm more concerned about the theology of the books, which I find highly suspect.  That being said, I don't intend to get in an argument here about dispensationalist theology, or even the merits or dangers End Times "experts" (LaHaye, Lindsey, Hagee, et al).  Rather, I would simply like to examine one of the central texts of the "Rapture," and how it's handled by different translations: I'm speaking, of course, of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, the very passage from whence comes the word "rapture."  

Now, perhaps you've just moused over the Bible reference above, or you've looked in your own Bible (in print or on your phone or computer), and you're saying, "Um, I don't see the word 'rapture' anywhere in that verse." Well, let's look at the passage in the Latin Vulgate, and you'll start to see it take shape:
"deinde nos qui vivimus qui relinquimur simul rapiemur cum illis in nubibus obviam Domino in aera et sic semper cum Domino erimus." The word I've put in bold is from the Latin verb raptio, which means "to take away, to catch up." Filter that through some medieval French, and bingo! you've got our modern English word "rapture."Comm
OK, now that we've got the etymology out of the way, let's take a look at how this key verse in Rapture theory is translated in some popular versions (with a little of my commentary)...

CEB

• "Then, we who are living and still around will be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet with the Lord in the air. That way we will always be with the Lord."

HCSB

• "Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will always be with the Lord."

No real surprises here. The two versions are pretty close to each other, and use more or less traditional language.

The Message

• "Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master. Oh, we’ll be walking on air! And then there will be one huge family reunion with the Master."

As usual, The Message takes things in a different direction.  "Oh, we'll be walking on air!" Not exactly the same image as people actually being caught up in the air, is it?

The Voice

• "Then we who are alive and left behind will be snatched up together with them into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. This is how we, the resurrected and the living, will be with Him forever."

The Voice adds the phrase, "the resurrected and the living" (the italics are the publisher's), I'm not absolutely sure why.  Perhaps to make it clear that this is a separate event from believers simply being reunited in heaven?  Hm.


NIrV

• "After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them. We will be taken up in the clouds. We will meet the Lord in the air. And we will be with him forever."

It just occurred to me, is it the mention of "the clouds" that makes so many Rapture fans interpret this verse as believers literally flying into space to meet Jesus?  I suppose the phrase "meet the Lord in the air" has something to do with it, too.  See the comic book picture paste above (from the Spire Comics edition of Hal Lindsey's There's a New World Coming), for a fun representation of the passage.  Or enjoy this clip from the graphic novel of Left Behind for a glimpse of the supposed aftermath:

So that's just a little taste of the passage as it appears in several popular English Bibles.  For those who would simply say that the word "rapture" doesn't appear in the Bible, I would point out that all the versions above talk about being "caught up in the air" or a similar phrase, which is what "rapture" means.  So that objection to Rapture theology won't stand.  (There are plenty of other objections that are more to the point.)

I apologize if I appear flippant about this doctrine. I realize some readers may be more literal minded than myself when it comes to passages that are supposed to be about the "End Times."  I happen to believe that Christian faith is traditionally more concerned about how we live in the here and now than it is about decoding what is going to happen at the end of the world. Much of the premillenial dispensationalist theology out there reads like an attempt to "decode Scripture," and has little application to everyday life.  I know there are many folks who disagree vehemently with me on that.  As I said above, my intention is not to get into a discussion about eschatology.  What is interesting to me, for the purposes of this blog, is how similar most of the versions are in their handling of this passage.  Other than The Message, they are all pretty much the same.  The same could be said of hundreds of other core doctrinal passages. The complaint one hears from time to time that "modern versions" are missing central theology doesn't hold much water.  More on that, though, in future posts, perhaps.

If you do want to comment on my handling of this admittedly controversial subject, you may feel free to do so.  Just understand, I have a threshold for long comment threads, and I reserve the right to delete any comments that I consider inflammatory.  As always, thanks for reading.

P.S. If you are interested in seeing a truly bizarre "Christian comic book" about the End Times, you can read the entire Hal Lindsey comic book There's a New World Coming here.  Trippy!

I saw a post from my brother Toby on the new Bible Bookshelf Forum (and by the way, I'm not using Christian lingo here, Toby really is my brother) in which he expressed his interest in The Action Bible, a comic book-style Bible published in 2010.  I have The Action Bible in my collection, and I do think it's pretty well done.  The art is substantially more exciting than the art in the older Picture Bible, published in 1978.  But I think, much as in the case with Bible-zines, there are pros and cons to the idea of the Bible in comic book form.  So here's a list of pros and cons, off the top of my head:

I will say this in favor of The Action Bible: unlike the Bible-zines (about which I've blogged quite a bit in the past), it is published in a sturdy hardcover, so it doesn't come off as a disposable product.  That has always been one of my biggest problems with the Bible-zines: you pay $15 or so for a New Testament in magazine form, and you have to throw it away and get the new one a year or so later.  The Bible becomes a disposable product.  The Action Bible seems to be designed as something to keep, perhaps on the same shelf as your other Bibles.  Still, I have a problem with this popular notion that the Bible is so intimidating, so complex. Yes, it's a big book, and it does take some concentration to study it.  But there's a stereotype that's being fostered, even by Bible publishers, that the Bible has always sounded like Shakespeare..."so buy our Bible, it's in modern language!"  Bibles in easy-to-read, everyday language have been around for several decades now. (In fact, there's even a Bible version called the Easy to Read Version.) I am uncomfortable with the notion that the Bible needs to be "dumbed down" in order to be understood by the average person.  Do comic book Bibles and Bible-zines continue to feed that idea?  I think so. So the question I leave you with is this: how do we, as parents and church leaders, encourage young people to engage with Scripture? Not an easy question to answer.

It just occurred to me this morning that, even though there's plenty of discussion (in "Bible circles") lately about the English Bible versions that have recently been released (CEB, The Voice, NIV 2011, etc.), we don't see a whole lot of discussion about some of the Bibles that have enjoyed immense popularity in the past. Here are a few that I think are worth looking at (along with a verse from that version):
Today's New International Version (TNIV): the TNIV ended up being a bit of a "flash in the pan," first released in 2002 (NT only), and discontinued in 2011, this update of the popular NIV never really got a chance to shine.  I don't think I've ever seen, in my experience of Bible publishing, a version that has ever received that kind of treatment from its publisher.  And I liked the TNIV....

• "...what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" (Psalm 8:4)
  

Good News for Modern Man (GNT): the GNT (which used to be called the TEV [Today's English Version]) is still commonly available, but I don't actually know of many people who read it! Interestingly enough, it's the pew Bible at the church where I direct music, but I'm fairly certain almost no one touches it. It was very popular in the 1970s and into the early 80s, but seems to have mostly fallen off in popularity. And that's too bad, because I think the GNT is a fine dynamic equivalent translation.  

• "In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water." (Genesis 1:1)
  

The Living Bible (LB): the LB, Kenneth Taylor's paraphrase of the ASV, was probably the single most popular paraphrase of the 1970s.  When I was a kid, you used to see it all over the place.  I had a Children's Living Bible that my grandma gave me, and The Book, a version of the LB formatted to read more like a regular book, was immensely popular in its day.  Sure, I had all kinds of problems with some of Kenneth Taylor's choices, and his evident theological bias, but you can't deny the impact this version had a few decades ago.  Now it's been pretty much completely supplanted by its descendant, the New Living Translation (which incidentally is not a paraphrase).

• Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God." (John 1:1)
  

Revised Standard Version (RSV): it's hard to believe that, when the RSV was first published in 1952, it was excoriated in some more conservative quarters as a communist plot to undermine the Christian faith!  This version has mostly been supplanted by a couple of its descendants: the NRSV on the liberal side, and the ESV on the conservative side.  I'm not sure that either the NRSV or the ESV is a worthy successor to the RSV.  It was the Bible we used when I was a teenager in confirmation class (Lutheran church), and I still enjoy it to this day.

• "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)

Geneva Bible (1599): if you ask most people which Bible version the Pilgrims must have used when they came to America, they will guess the King James Version.  But it was really the Geneva Bible, a version that for quite some time was more popular than the King James Version, which it preceded.  In fact, the King James Version translators were obviously indebted to the Geneva Bible, since they quoted from it in the Preface to their own translation! The verse below (from the Geneva) is quoted word-for-word in "The Translators to the Reader" (an essay often missing from modern King James Bibles):

• "What is it that hath been? that that shall be: and what is it that hath been done? that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
  

I would be interested in hearing from readers if they have favorite versions from the past that don't get enough recognition today.  The versions above are just a few of the Bibles that have arisen in decades (or centuries) past, only to wane in popularity due to a newer version's success.  

Anyone who has read my old Bible Bookshelf blogs (on Tumblr and WordPress) knows that I love to keep up with the CBA Bible Bestseller Lists.  I realize, of course, that those lists don't show a completely accurate picture of how different translations are really selling across the board.  Nonetheless, I find it interesting to see a slice of the Bible "consumer public," so to speak.  Still, there is something funny about Bible readers (like myself) following translations, as a sports enthusiast would follow a favorite team.  And that's exactly what the article linked below is about:
On the peculiarity of CBA Bible best-seller lists

The author makes the point, which I have often made in the past, that the CBA lists only include "Christian retailers," which means that they completely ignore Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, etc.  As I mentioned above, though, I still think that seeing a cross-section of the Bible market is valuable, even if that cross-section probably is skewed towards the conservative end of the demographic.  For example, if a "liberal" translation like the CEB ends up in the top ten on the CBA list, that seems significant to me.  Of course, that may also explain why the KJV always ends up so high on the list, considering its continuing popularity with ultra-conservative sects.  Anyway, I found the article to be an interesting read, as well as a reminder to keep bestseller lists in perspective.

Oh, and just for fun, here's the February 2014 Bible BSL from CBA: