English Bible Translations

For a while, I’ve been wanting to write an entry about English Bible translations. There are so many to choose from. Actually, if you do not read Hebrew and/or Greek, it is good for you to have a number of good translations from a variety of traditions. Some of the variations between translations might tip you off to what is going on in the Biblical language text.

What is a good translation? My criteria are that the translation represents recent scholarship, that it is indeed a translation and not a paraphrase like the Good News Bible (though these do have a purpose), and that it does not begin each verse as a new paragraph. I dislike the tendency to make each verse a new paragraph because, first, there were no verses in the original Hebrew and Greek text. Those were added to make it easier to find your place. Secondly, making each verse a new paragraph encourages readers to take each verse as a discrete platitude separated from its Biblical context.

My apologies to King James fans. This was the first translation that treated each verse as a new paragraph. Actually, I am a King James fan, just not for exegetical purposes. The King James Version tradition lives on currently in the New King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version, the New International Version, New English Version, and the English Standard Version. Yes, these are all part of the same family. The editors who created them all grew up with KJV or the Revised Standard Version, and those who edited RSV grew up with KJV.

New King James Version represents current scholarship and is conservatively translated. It retains the KJV practice of making each verse a new paragraph. It is the only current translation in the KJV family that does so. I have already expressed my opinion about this. NKJV is an otherwise good translation, though.
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