Bible versions

Because Nancy and I are both academics, we have more books in our house than some of the smaller branches of the Hamilton Public Library. Among these we have myriad copies of the Bible in different translations in English and other languages. Already when I was in high school, I used my allowance to purchase a partial Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. I was learning modern Greek at the time and thought I would branch into the more ancient varieties as well. I cannot say I ever became fluent, but it did provide me with the linguistic tools I would use later.

Having grown up with the King James Bible, I was briefly enamoured of the paraphrases of the Bible, including J. B. Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English, from which my mother read to us. Ken Taylor’s complete Living Bible was published when I was 15. (My parents knew him slightly, as we lived in the same town.) I received a copy for Christmas. Over the next months I eagerly devoured it from cover to cover. As easy as it was to read, I was put off to read that “your words are a flashlight to light the path ahead of me” (Psalm 119:105) and repeated references to Asia Minor as “Turkey.” Such obvious anachronisms ruined the paraphrases for me.

For a time, I enjoyed reading the Jerusalem Bible (1966), a Catholic version originating with the French Bible de Jérusalem (1956). However, that version, while boasting an impressive series of scholarly footnotes, played fast and loose with certain passages (“work for your salvation in fear and trembling,” Philippians 2:12) and reordered entire texts within books according to speculative criteria. Commendably, in its later editions, the JB’s editors have pulled back from some of the more questionable renderings.

I never really warmed up to the New International Version, which improperly harmonizes across texts to eliminate potential tensions among them. And the New Revised Standard Version, in its use of inclusive language, tends to mask the messianic implications of certain texts (e.g., Hebrews 2:5-9, citing Psalm 8:5-7).

Ultimately, of course, there are no perfect translations of the Bible. For nearly a quarter of a century I have been reading at morning and evening prayer from the New Oxford Annotated Bible in the Revised Standard Version and from an English Standard Version Psalter published by Concordia. This doesn’t mean I’ve given up on the other versions, which I keep handy in case I need to refer to them.

As a native English speaker, I am grateful that we have so many translations of God’s word available to us when so many other Christians around the world lack similar riches. These help us hugely in understanding God’s will for our lives.