OK, I’m back to my blogging now that Palomar College has started its new semester. Let’s continue our review of translations of the Bible. Take a look at past posts to see the whole history. I’m always amazed at those who stick to the old King James translation. It has beauty in an old-fashioned way, but it is based on few manuscripts and has a 17th-century vocabulary and style that can be confusing to modern readers.

All these alternate translations (see previous posts) were based on the King James tradition, but many other English translations have been made that are entirely independent of this tradition. One example is the New English Bible, which broke away from the word-for-word principle by replacing Greek constructions and idioms with those of contemporary English. In 1963 the New American Standard Bible came out. In addition, the most popular translation, the New International Version, was completed in 1978. Because it is not tied to a literal, word-for-word translation, otherwise obscure expressions frequently are turned into phrases with meaning and appeal. For example, “proselytes” becomes “converts to Judaism,” “all flesh” becomes “all people,” “prayed constantly” becomes “prayed regularly.” The Good News Bible, which came out in 1976, has been a pioneer of translations that employ a simple vocabulary and short sentence structure. Other works such as the Living Bible and The Message are recent paraphrases rather than true translations. A recent success has been the English Standard Version, which appeared in 2001. It’s a revision of the 1971 edition of the Revised Standard Version.