Does it matter which version of the Bible we read?

A discussion starter!

There are probably around a hundred versions of the whole Bible or of parts thereof in print in English and available in big American Bible Stores in 2004.

One could say that this commercial situation is much the same situation as that which occurs when a class of say one hundred seminarians is asked to produce a translation of the Greek text of the Letter to Jude. No two would be alike (unless several present had memorized a given published translation and reproduced it verbatim) and thus one could pick and chose from amongst and within them, for some would be better than others.

Looking at the variety of translations in print, one can divide them generally speaking into two types. Then having the two types one can see degrees of difference within the types. The older type follows the essentially literal translation method, that is "word for word" and preserving as far as possible the original style -- examples are the major versions of the Bible up to the RSV of the 1960s, together with the recent English Standard Version.

Since the late 1960s, the overwhelming number of versions have been produced by translators who hold to the theory of dynamic equivalency and who attempt to give what may be described as a "thought for thought" and "concept for concept" rendering of the original. The clearest example of this across the board is seen by looking at Psalm 1:1, where in these versions one finds as the opening words, "Happy [Blessed] are they", or "Happy [Blessed] is the one".

Now, no-one, with any basic education, seriously challenges the fact that the original Hebrew Text (followed by the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate) has a word that a Hebrew Dictionary informs us means always and only "man/husband". In other words it is a word that is not only in the masculine gender but refers to a male person.

However, the literal meaning is not followed in the new theory of translation because the mind of the translator goes through a series of evaluations which cause "the man" to disappear and a neutral word such as "one" or a third person plural "they" to appear. The translator is persuading himself (or following the trend) that the original was written in a male-dominated society and thus it was natural to speak of "the man"; but, today, we live in a society where women have the same dignity as men and thus the dynamic equivalent of "the man" must communicate this reality, if modern people are ever to understand what really the Psalmist was trying to say.

And, in like manner, other Psalms are so rendered and in the New Testament the Greek word that a Greek Dictionary tells us means "brothers/brethren" is translated "brothers and sisters" or "sisters and brothers".

However, these two examples are merely the tip of the iceberg for once this principle of dynamic equivalency is accepted, then how one evaluates the present cultural, religious and moral scene has a major impact upon how one reads, interprets and renders the original. Thus if one begins -- as many translators now do -- from the position that the Bible in its original languages presents a the people of God as living in and expressing sexist, male-dominated, patriarchal series of societies then the theory of dynamic equivalency allows one to make the Bible read in the present in a way which is completely different from a translation produced by the "word for word" and essentially literal method. This explains why many today claim the Bible in support of doctrines, ways of living, forms of worshipping, and descriptions of godliness which seem erroneous and horrible to those who treated the KJV, the RV, the ASV and the RSV as the Word of God in English and who used such prayer books as The Book of Common Prayer (1662).

And in 2004, Evangelicals especially have to face up to the implications of this availability of many versions of the one Bible. It may be said that they gave their massive support to versions (e.g., The Living Bible, Todays English Version, and The New International Version) which were based partly or wholly on the theory on dynamic equivalency and thus they helped to popularize this method and approach, not realizing then (1960s into the 1970) where this would all go and how horrific would be the results for doctrine and morality. In 2004 it has got out of their and everyone's control for the situation is to wholly out of hand. It is driven wholly by market forces in the secularized supermarket of American religions. No longer can anyone say "this is the translation of the Word of God." All he can say is, "This is one attempt to state for our culture and time what (some reckon to be) the Word of God said centuries ago."

It would seem that radical surgery is required -- To go back to essentially literal, word for word, translations produced by respected teams of scholars, and then to look for help to understand what is found on the printed page of the Bible. After all there is a very long tradition of interpreting the Bible in the Church and further there is no shortage of Bible dictionaries and commentaries on books of the Bible.

Perhaps sales of the KJV will pick up again! Perhaps sales of the recent ESV (Crossways in USA) will increase (but if so then a new edition should be made available where the principle of word for word rendering includes the second person singular pronoun so that "thou/thee/thy/thine" sees a return so that we know when the Lord is speaking to the individual and when to "you-all"!).

One final thought -- what if "the Man" in Psalm 1:1 is prophetically the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Incarnate Son of God, and that his appearance here is the key to the Christian praying of and interpreting of the whole Psalter -- to pray it with Him and in His Body, the Church?

Dynamic equivalency renderings tend to take Jesus Christ out of the very Scriptures he came to fulfill!

(for further reading I suggest Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English. Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation, Crossway, 2002)

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)