As we continue our study on the doctrine of the Bible, we resume our discussion of the history of the Bible in the English language. Last month, we left this topic with a very important question, “Why was it necessary to produce more English translations of the Bible after the King James Version?” The answer to this question can be found in some of the weaknesses of the KJV. First, though the King James Version is based on high quality manuscripts, the manuscript evidence that Bible scholars had four hundred years ago is not as good as it is today. The King James Version was translated from a group of manuscripts called the Textus Receptus. These manuscripts were based on the Byzantine text-type, which includes revisions of copies from the fourth century onward. These texts are not as accurate as the earliest manuscripts, the Alexandrian text, that we now possess and are widely recognized as superior in comparison. The scholars who produced the 1611 King James Version used the best textual evidence that they had available to them. But since they had just come out of what historians call the Middle Ages, a time when learning was rare and communication was scarce, many of these Alexandrian manuscripts and even more accurate Byzantine manuscripts were hidden. Since that time, archaeology and other Biblical scholarship have produced manuscripts that are considered to be of greater quality, which means they are probably closer to the actual content from the original manuscripts, the manuscripts that the Biblical authors wrote.
Second, the King James Version has “archaic” language in it. This means that it possesses language and words that are not used in the same manner as we use them today. I had a Greek professor in seminary who would often state, “in the King James Version, ‘quick’ don’t mean ‘fast’ and ‘fast’ don’t mean ‘quick.’” In fact, as the scholar J.B. Lightfoot asserts, “In the seventeenth century ‘allege’ was used for ‘prove,’ ‘communicate’ for ‘share,’ ‘suffer’ for ‘allow,’ ‘allow’ for ‘approve,’ ‘let’ for ‘hinder,’ ‘prevent’ for ‘precede,’ ‘conversation’ for ‘conduct,’ and so forth. These expressions are grossly misleading since they are still in use today but carry different associations.”
Third, the King James Version fails to preserve some major distinctions from the original Greek. For example, its rendering of “hell” is used for both the present temporal place where those under God’s judgment go after death, “hades,” and the future place of eternal residence for the judged, “Gehenna.”
Around the end of the nineteenth century, a major push for a more accurate translation was made, and in 1885, the English Revised Version was produced. As could be imagined, it faced the difficulty of being the first real alternate option to the popular King James Version, but it helped make it possible for other translations to follow. Some American scholars who worked on the English Revised Version came together to produce a revision of the KJV more suited for folks in the U.S., and in 1901 the American Standard Version was published. Unfortunately, this version did not carry the beautiful poetic language of the KJV, though it was more accurate as relates to the original languages. Charles Spurgeon critiqued this version, claiming “strong in Greek, weak in English.” In 1952, the Revised Standard Version was published to help with the readability of the ASV. Unfortunately, it was heavily critiqued for its changing the theological implications of central passages like Isaiah 7:14, in which it removed the term “virgin” and replaced it with “young woman” regarding the prophecy of the Immanuel’s birth.
Over the next twenty years, versions of the Bible like the New English Bible, the Good News Bible, and the Living Bible were published to help with the readability of the text. These translations focused more on communicating the Scriptures from a “sense for sense” or even a “paraphrase” perspective rather than that of a “word for word” translation. The publisher’s intent of the New Living Translation was for even a child to be able to understand its message. The criticism of these translations was that though they may made the Scriptures more readable, they took too much liberty. This brings us to the last fifty years in which we now have a lot of decisions about what translation of the Bible we will use. The most famous versions of today were produced in this period such as the NASB, the NIV, the NKJV, and the ESV. How are we as Christians supposed to discern between these translations to know the right one to use? This will be the topic of the next newsletter article. So, until then, this is Pastor Daniel writing, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”