Bible translators use two methods to render the sacred text into English: literal equivalence (also called formal or complete equivalence) and dynamic equivalence.
Literal equivalence translations try to give as literal a translation of the original text as possible. Translators using this method try to stick close to the original texts, even preserving much of the original word order. [For defenses of formal or complete equivalence as a translation method, see James Price, Complete Equivalence in Bible Translation (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987) and Robert Martin, Accuracy of Translation and the New International Version (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth Trust, 1989).] Literal translations are an excellent resource for serious Bible study. Sometimes the meaning of a verse depends on subtle cues in the text, cues which are preserved only by literal equivalence.
The disadvantage of literal translations is that they are harder to read because Hebrew and Greek style intrudes into the English text. Compare the following renderings of Leviticus 18:6-10 from the Protestant New American Standard Bible (NAS), a literal translation, and the Catholic New American Bible (NAB), a dynamic translation:
“None of you shall approach any blood relative of his to uncover nakedness; I am the Lord. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, that is, the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother; you are not to uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness. The nakedness of your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether born at home or born outside, their nakedness you shall not uncover. The nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover; for their nakedness is yours” (NAS).
“None of you shall approach a close relative to have sexual intercourse with her. I am the Lord. You shall not disgrace your father by having intercourse with your mother. Besides, since she is your own mother, you shall not have intercourse with her. You shall not have intercourse with your father’s wife, for that would be a disgrace to your father. You shall not have intercourse with your sister, your father’s daugther or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in your own household or born elsewhere. You shall not have intercourse with your son’s daughter or with your daughter’s daughter, for that would be a disgrace to your own family” (NAB).
Since literal translations can be difficult to read, translators have produced more readable Bibles by employing the dynamic equivalence method. According to this method, it does not matter whether the grammar and word order of the original are preserved in English, so long as the meaning of the text is preserved. This frees up the translator to use modern English style and diction.
In the above example, the translators of the NAB replaced the obscure Hebrew idiom “uncover the nakedness of” with the more readable “have sexual intercourse with.”
There is a price to pay for readability, though. Dynamic translations can lack precision because they sometimes omit subtle cues to the meaning of a passage; these clues may be preserved in literal translations. Dynamic translations also run a greater risk of having the translators’ doctrinal views read into the text through the greater liberty of the translating method. For instance, dynamic Protestant translations such as the New International Version (NIV) tend to translate the Greek word ergon and its derivatives as “work” when “work” reinforces Protestant doctrine, but as something else (such as “deeds” or “doing”) when “work” would serve Catholic doctrine.
The NIV renders Romans 4:2, “If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works [ergon], he had something to boast about–but not before God.” This passage is used to support the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith alone. But the NIV translates the erg– derivatives in Romans 2:6-7 differently: “God `will give to each person according to what he has done [erga].’ To those who by persistence in doing [ergou] good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life.”
If the erg– derivatives were translated consistently as “work-” then it would be clear that the passage says God will judge “every person according to his works” and will give eternal life to those who seek immortality “by persistence in working good”–statements which support the Catholic view of salvation.
Even when there is no doctrinal agenda involved, it is difficult to do word studies in dynamic translations because of less consistency in how words are rendered. Consider these NIV renderings: “Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God . . . ” (Rom. 2:17); “You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?” (Rom. 2:23). The Greek word translated “brag” is kauchaomai, but when the same term appears in Romans 5:11 it is rendered differently: “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice [kauchomenoi] in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Because the term is translated in different ways the reader misses an important.aspect of what Paul is saying. It would be better to translate the term as “boast” in both cases (as the New American Bible does). This would make Paul’s thought clear to the reader. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in boasting about God. Both Jews and Christians do it (Rom. 2:17, 5:11a). Understood in this sense, it is not bragging about how good you are, but praising God by proclaiming what he has done for you. While Jews boast of having a relationship to God through the Mosaic Law (Rom. 2:23), Christians boast of the relationship God has given them through Christ (Rom. 5:11b). All this is lost if the word kauchaomai is rendered differently in the two passages, and this illustrates why literal translations are better for serious Bible study.
Both literal and dynamic equivalence methods can be carried to extremes. One translation that takes literalism to a ludicrous extreme is the Concordant Version, translated by A. E. Knoch, who had studied Greek and Hebrew for only a short time. He made a one-to-one rendering in which each word in the originals was translated into one (and only one) word in English. This led to absurdities. Compare the NIV rendering of Genesis 1:20 with the Concordant Version: “And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky'” (NIV). “And saying is God, ‘Roaming is the water with the roaming, living soul, and the flyer is flying over the earth on the face of the atmosphere of the heavens'” (CV).
At the other extreme are absurdly dynamic translations, such as the Cotton-Patch Version (CPV). This was translated from the Greek by Clarence Jordan, who decided not only to replace ancient ways of speaking with modern ones, but to replace items of ancient culture with items familiar to modern men. Palestine was transformed into the modern American South, Jerusalem turned into Atlanta, Matthew the tax collector worked for the Internal Revenue Service, and Jesus became a rough-shod inhabitant of Valdosta, Georgia.
Compare the NIV rendering of Matthew 9:16-17 with what is found in the CPV:
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (NIV).
“Nobody ever uses new, unshrunk material to patch a dress that’s been washed. For in shrinking, it will pull the old material and make a tear. Nor do people put new tubes in old, bald tires. If they do, the tires will blow out, and the tubes will be ruined and the tires will be torn up. But they put new tubes in new tires and both give good mileage” (CPV).
Between the extremes of the Concordant and the Cotton-Patch versions lies a spectrum of respectable translations which strike different balances between literal and dynamic equivalence.
Toward the literal end of the spectrum are translations such as the King James Version (KJV), the New King James Version (NKJV), the New American Standard (NAS)–all Protestant versions–and the Catholic Douay-Rheims Version. Next come less literal translations, such as the Protestant Revised Standard Version (RSV) and the Catholic Confraternity Version, the precursor to the NAB.
Then there are dynamic translations, such as the NIV and the NAB. Toward the very dynamic end of the spectrum are translations such as the Jerusalem Bible (JB), the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB), the New English Bible (NEB), the Revised English Bible (REB), the Contemporary English Version (CEV), and the “Good News Bible,” the text of which is called Today’s English Version (TEV).
A translation that is hard to place on the spectrum is the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). The basic text of the NRSV is rendered literally, following the RSV, but the NRSV uses “gender inclusive language,” which puts the original text into a modern “gender neutral” cultural equivalent. When you read the NRSV you encounter in the text the terms “friends,” “beloved,” and “brothers and sisters” and are referred to a footnote stating “Gk [Greek] brothers.”
Sometimes this “inclusiveness” significantly affects the meaning of a passage. The NRSV renders 2 Thessalonians 3:16 as “Do not regard them as enemies, but warn them as believers.” A footnote reveals that the text literally reads, “Do not regard them as enemies, but warn them as a brother.” Everyone knows what warning people “as a brother” means (that is, correct them with solicitude, as though you were their brother), but what does it mean to warn someone “as a believer”? The NRSV also shows a preference for using “God” and “Christ” when the original text says “he.”
Also on store shelves are minor translations, most of which use the dynamic equivalence method. These include well-known ones, such as the Protestant Moffat and Catholic Knox Bibles, and specialty versions, such as the Jewish New Testament (JNT, translated by David Stern), which renders New Testament names and expressions with the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Yiddish equivalents. Jesus becomes Yeshua, Paul is Sha’ul, the Mosaic Law is the Torah, the Feast of Dedication is Chanukka, and the Holy Spirit is Ruach-Ha Kodesh.
Then there are the paraphrases, which are not translations based on the original languages, but loose reworkings of English translations. These are at the extreme dynamic end of the spectrum. The best known is The Living Bible (TLB), also called “The Book.”
When selecting a Bible version, you need to know your goal. If you want a Bible for ordinary reading, a moderate or dynamic version would suffice. Such a version enables you to read the text quickly and comprehend its basic meaning, but it does not give you details of meaning, and you have to watch out more for the translators’ doctrinal views coloring the text. If you intend to engage in serious Bible study, a literal translation is what you want. It will enable you to catch the detailed implications of the text, but at the price of readability. You will have to worry less about the translators’ views coloring the text–but even very literal translations are not free from this entirely. [For example, the New King James Version, my personal favorite for doing Bible study, has a few unfortunate Protestant renderings. It translates the Greek word logidzetai (“reckon”) as “impute”–a term carrying more of the forensic implications that characterize the Protestant doctrine of salvation. It tends to translate erga as “works” when it suits the Protestant cause but as “deeds” when it would support Catholic doctrine, as in Romans 2:6-7.]
A second question you will need to ask yourself is whether you want an old or a modern translation. Old versions, such as the King James and the Douay-Rheims, sound more dignified, authoritative, and inspiring, but they are much harder to understand because English has changed in the almost four hundred years since they were made. [One of my favorite examples of such change is the King James’s rendering of Ex. 23:19b: “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.” This enigmatic phrase is rendered into modern English by the New King James as, “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”]
One down side to certain modern translations is that they do not use traditional renderings of certain phrases, and you may find this annoying. Most people have heard the verse from Isaiah that is given this way in the Douay-Rheims: “For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:6). Here is how the New American Bible renders it: “For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:5).
The replacement of traditional Christological titles such as “Wonderful, Counsellor,” “God the Mighty,” and “Father of the world to come” can be grating on the ears of someone used to the traditional phrases. It is also questionable whether the new renderings are actually better translations. [For example, the rendering of “Mighty God” as “God-Hero” rests on taking the Hebrew word for “mighty” as a noun, meaning “mighty one,” and then paraphrasing it to “hero.” Some have found the description of Christ as a hero theologically objectionable since traditionally heroes are mere mortals who overcome adversity by courage and cunning.]
The “Good News Bible” or TEV is known especially for non-traditional renderings. “The abomination of desolation” referred to in Daniel and the Gospels is called “the awful horror” in the TEV, and the ark of the covenant is called “the covenant box.” The latter is actually a better modern English rendering of the original since it avoids the obscure word “ark,” the meaning of which, “box,” most people do not know.
The decision whether to use an old or a modern translation is complicated by attitudes held by conservative Christians. Some Protestants will tell you that the only acceptable version of the Bible is the King James. This position is known as “King James-onlyism.” Its advocates often make jokes such as, “If the King James Version was good enough for the Paul, it’s good enough for me” or “My King James Version corrects your Greek text.”
They claim that the King James is based on the only perfect set of manuscripts we have (a false claim; there are no perfect manuscripts, and the ones used for the KJV were compiled by a Catholic, Erasmus), that it is the only translation that avoids liberal renderings, and that its translators were saintly and scholarly men. Since the King James is also known as “the Authorized Version” (AV), its advocates sometimes argue that it is the only version to ever have been “authorized.” [To this one may point out that it was authorized only in the Anglican Church, which now uses other translations, and that the man who authorized it, King James I, was scarcely the well-spring of moral authority King James-onlyites paint him as (in fact, he was a notorious homosexual). For a critique of King James-onlyism, see D. A. Carson, The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979).]
As amusing as King James-onlyism may sound, many Protestants take it seriously. There is even a Catholic equivalent, which we might call “Douay-Rheims-onlyism.” The Douay-Rheims version, which predates the King James (the complete KJV was published in 1611, the complete Douay-Rheims in 1609) was the standard Bible for English-speaking Catholics until the twentieth century.
The arguments for Douay-Rheims-onlyism mirror the arguments for King James-onlyism. Just as the King James is said to be superior because of the manuscripts on which it is based, so the Douay-Rheims is said to be superior because it is based on the Vulgate, Jerome’s ancient Latin translation of the Bible. Appeals are made to how saintly and scholarly Jerome and the translators of the Douay-Rheims were, and to the fact that the Douay-Rheims, like the King James, avoids modern, liberal renderings. Finally, stress is laid on the fact that the Douay-Rheims, being based on the Vulgate, is based on the official or “authorized” Bible of the Latin Church.
In support of Douay-Rheims-onlyism, the Council of Trent’s decree authorizing the use of the Vulgate and Pope Pius XII’s explanation of this decree are taken out of context. In his 1943 encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, Pius XII states that the Vulgate, having been used for so many centuries by the Catholic Church, has been shown to be free from doctrinal and moral error. This is not the same, he stresses, as saying that the Vulgate supersedes or is more important than the early Greek and Hebrew manuscripts for telling us what the authors of the Bible wrote. [Many Church Fathers and some editions of the Vulgate (but not the original) have Genesis 3:15 stating, “she [the woman] shall crush thy [the serpent’s] head.” While this does not contradict any doctrine of faith or morals (for it is through her Son, Jesus, that Mary crushes the serpent’s head), it is not what the Hebrew original or Jerome’s original Vulgate say, which is, “he [the woman’s seed] shall crush your head.” This shows how a Bible translation can be not-contrary-to-faith-and-morals and yet not what was said in the original. For more information, see A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture [New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1953], 186.]
The Pope’s point is that if something is said in the Vulgate, then it does not contradict any doctrine of faith or morals. He is not saying that we should ignore earlier manuscripts to determine what had been written by the inspired authors of Scripture. He explicitly commends the making of modern translations from the original manuscripts.
Pius XII informs us that Trent’s authorization of the Vulgate applied only to the Western rite of the Church (not to Eastern-rite Catholics) and then only to the public reading of Scripture. He states that the comparison Trent was making was not between the Vulgate and early Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, but between the Vulgate and other Latin translations then in circulation, and that Trent’s authorization of the Vulgate does not diminish the authority of the early texts.
The Council’s decree, he tells us, had juridical rather than critical force, meaning that it made the Vulgate the official version for Church use, but did not intend to put a stop to critical work done with early manuscripts to determine the original reading of Scripture. (See the sidebar for the Pope’s words.)
What advocates of King James-onlyism and Douay-Rheims-onlyism may not know is that neither Bible is the original issued in the 1600s. Over the last three centuries numerous changes (for example, of spelling and grammar) have been made in the King James, with the result that most editions of the KJV currently on the market are significantly different from the original. This has led one publisher to reissue the 1611 King James Version Bible.
Most of the Douay-Rheims copies now on the market are also not from the 1609 version. What is often found in stores is the “Douay-Challoner” version, so called because it is a revision of the Douay-Rheims done in the eighteenth century by Bishop Richard Challoner. He updated the Douay-Rheims by removing archaic spellings (for example, “bloud” became “blood”), and he consulted Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, meaning that the Douay-Rheims Bible found in most book stores is not a straight translation of the Vulgate–something many of its advocates do not realize.
For most the question of whether to use an old or a modern translation is not so pointed, and once a decision has been reached on this question it is possible to select a Bible version with relative ease. I prefer to stay away from translations with unconventional renderings, such as the TEV. Since I usually engage in Bible study rather than in simple Bible reading, I prefer using literal translations.
My preference is for the NKJV, but, since this is not available in an edition with the deuterocanonicals, I use the RSV Catholic Edition. This is a Church-approved version of the RSV which has a few, minor changes in the New Testament. Until recently the RSV-CE has been hard to find in America and had to be ordered from the Catholic Truth Society in London. Now it is reissued by Ignatius Press as The Ignatius Bible.
In the end, there is no good reason to select only one translation of the Bible. A Catholic should collect several versions, remaining aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each. Often it is possible to get a better sense of what is being said in a passage by comparing several different translations.
The bottom line: Which is the best version for you? A possibly apocryphal anecdote about Billy Graham has the answer. When asked which Bible version is the best, he replied, “The one you will read.”