An overview of the history and development of versions of the English Bible.
Introduction
English
speakers now have access to an unprecedented number of Bible versions in their
own language. Most of these are produced by and marketed to
Christians—primarily Protestants, but also Roman Catholics and adherents of the
Orthodox churches. Fewer versions of English-language Bibles prepared by and
for members of the Jewish community exist. In recent years, an array of
electronic Bible texts have also been made available.
The choice of texts and formats available to today’s
readers is vast and continues to grow. However, this situation has not always
been the case, and is relatively recent. At points in history, governments
regulated English-language versions, and punished—even with the death
penalty—those who dared to oppose official policies regarding biblical
translation. Individuals who disregarded these regulations are now viewed as
heroes or martyrs.
The history of Bible translations in the English
language is not a dry recitation of names and dates. Rather, it is the story of
real human beings who were motivated by their sincere awareness of how the word
of God should be presented in a world where Hebrew and Greek (the original
languages of the Bible) were no longer understood.
Early Translations
Bible
translation into English goes back to the seventh century, when the poet and
cowherd Caedmon retold Bible stories in his Anglo-Saxon verse. Shortly
thereafter, Bishop Aldhelm of Sherborne translated the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon;
England’s first church historian, the Venerable Bede, reportedly began to
translate the Gospel of John, although his work is now lost.
Two centuries later, the English king Alfred the Great
(871–899) included an Old English version of the Ten Commandments in his law
code; at about the same time, extensive interlinear glosses—which explained
Latin terms in Anglo-Saxon—began to appear in biblical manuscripts. In the late
10th century, a monk named Alfred inserted his complete Anglo-Saxon translation
of the Gospels between the lines of text in the Lindisfarne Gospels, an
eighth-century illuminated Gospel book that is now kept in the British Library.
Wycliffe
The
theologian and philosopher John Wycliffe’s translation of much of the Bible
into Middle English appeared in the 1380s. His translation was part of a
reformist project to make the Bible and its teachings available to the general
public. Wycliffe’s translation was based on the Latin text known as the
Vulgate. He died in 1384; however, his bones were dug up decades later and
burned as posthumous punishment for his alleged heresy. His translation was
banned, and Bible translation was subsequently forbidden in England for a
period of time.
Tyndale
The priest
William Tyndale, who was born about a century after Wycliffe’s death, produced
an English-language version that derived directly from Hebrew and Greek, the
original languages (along with a bit of Aramaic) in which the Bible was
composed. Because Bible translation was banned in England, Tyndale worked in
Germany, where he was active in the first part of the 16th century—at precisely
the same time Martin Luther was preparing his German-language translation as
part of his reformation. In 1525, Tyndale produced his New Testament. Over the
next decade, Tyndale revised his initial English version of the New Testament
and published renderings of portions of the Old.
Although Tyndale remained on the continent, copies of
his translation were smuggled into England almost as soon as they came off the
press. Like Wycliffe, Tyndale insisted that the message of Scripture should be
directly accessible to all. In 1535, before Tyndale could complete his Old
Testament, he was imprisoned in Brussels for 16 months, tried by the Catholic
Church, and killed as a heretic. However, Tyndale’s work did not die with him,
as other translators borrowed extensively from his text.
Coverdale
In 1535,
Miles Coverdale produced the first complete English
Bible, called the Coverdale Bible, in which he used Tyndale’s translation
(wherever it was available). This Bible
received the approval of King Henry VIII. In 1537, Matthew’s Bible, a revision of the Tyndale and Coverdale Bibles, appeared in England. The translation was
named for Thomas Matthew; this name was a pseudonym for John Rogers, a Tyndale
disciple. Despite this subterfuge, Rogers was burned at the stake. Soon
thereafter, the Great Bible appeared—named for
its size—which was to be placed on every church lectern in England. It combined
Tyndale, Coverdale, and Matthew’s text, and was itself revised several times.
With all these Bibles
available, the debate quickly changed from
whether or not there should be a vernacular translation to what sort of
vernacular version was best. Tyndale’s translation decisively set the terms for
English-language Bibles
until the present.
Controversial Issues
Tyndale’s
translation also introduced two issues that became increasingly controversial
throughout the remainder of the 16th and the 17th centuries. He used terms like
“congregation” for “church,” and “senior” or “elder” for “priest,” to describe
biblical institutions. His opponents viewed this usage as more than a
linguistic choice; conservative English Catholics viewed these choices as
attacks on established norms of ecclesiastical organization and governance.
Tyndale also frequently used marginal notes to comment
on how the biblical text related to contemporary life. Later translators
adopted this practice, but used the marginal notes to castigate others’ beliefs
and practices. For example, Protestants’ marginal notes could adopt a
stridently anti-Catholic tone; Puritans, who were critical of monarchies, added
marginal notes whenever the biblical text allowed for negative observations
about the royalty. Examples of marginal notes include:
• Tyndale
glossed Num 23:8, which states, “How shall I curse whom God curseth not,” with
this remark: “The pope can tell how.”
• To provide a
contemporary reference to “the hire of an whore” and “the price of a dog” (Deut
23:18), Tyndale offers: “The pope will take tribute of them yet, and bishops
and abbots desire no better tenants.”
• The Geneva
Bible characterizes “the king” of Dan 11:36 as “a tyrant” whose days are
numbered. Like the Pharaoh of the exodus, he is “a tyrant.” The person writing
the note may have had several 16th or 17th century English monarchs in mind.
King James I
These same
kinds of issues characterized the next two major Bible translations into
English:
• The Geneva
Bible for the general populace
• The Bishop’s
Bible, which was used in churches
When King James I assembled the
bishops and church deans at Hampton Court in 1604, he displaced these two
versions. At that time, the Geneva Bible was tremendously popular among lay
folk, although King James described it as “the worst” English translation. He
was especially upset by the tone and substance of many of its antimonarchic
marginal notes.
The production of Bible translations at this period
was a political, as well as theological and literary, enterprise. James I
himself convened these meetings, prepared the guidelines, chose the personnel,
oversaw the process, and gave final approval (ultimately designated
authorization) to the version later named for him. He also determined that
marginal notes would be minimal in number and muted in controversy. He
determined that the King James Version would be primarily a revision of the
Bishop’s Bible (which relied heavily on Tyndale) and would be acceptable to
both Anglicans (high church) and Puritans (low church).
The translators themselves, six committees in all
(three for the Old Testament, two for the New, and one for the Apocrypha), were
left to carry out the translation. Extensive committee notes and biographical
and autobiographical accounts of many of these individuals provide insights
into the procedures these translators followed. These sources also provide
insights into the education, religious leanings, and temperament of many of the
individual translators. Careful textual comparisons reveal that these translators
were indebted to previous or contemporary sources—predominately Tyndale, whose
translation was used 83 percent of the time. Such famous lines as “In the
Beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1), “Let there be light”
(Gen 1:3) and “In the Beginning God created the Word” (John 1:1) are attributed
to Tyndale.
However, the KJV team borrowed from numerous other
sources, including Catholic and Jewish ones. While no Jews served as KJV
translators, many of the Old Testament translators (Lancelot Andrewes, Edward
Lively, John Richardson, John Harding, and John Rainolds) were deeply steeped
in both the Hebrew language and the exegetical traditions of Judaism. The KJV
teams charged with preparing the Old Testament translation adopted “Jewish”
readings already incorporated into earlier English-language versions, and sought
out others on their own. They relied heavily on the writings of the
12th-century Jewish exegete and grammarian David Kimchi, also known as Radak.
An analysis of the first 15 chapters of the book of Isaiah in KJV reveals a
high number of English renderings that reflect Kimchi’s interpretations,
including:
• “the chains”
(Isa 3:19)
• “and their
honourable men are famished” (Isa 5:13)
• “they shall
lay their hands upon Edom and Moab” (Isa 11:14)
• “the golden
city” (Isa 14:4).
Theological considerations,
however, could prove more powerful than Kimchi: Isa 7:14 begins: “Behold, a
virgin shall conceive,” and not, “a young woman shall give birth,” as Kimchi
had it.
Max L. Margolis writes: “[KJV] has an inimitable style
and rhythm; the coloring of the original is not obliterated. What imparts to
the English Bible its beauty, aye, its simplicity, comes from the [Hebrew]
original.” It is this beauty and simplicity that has accorded to the KJV a
central place among English-language Bibles and among major works of English
literature in general.
The first publication of the completed KJV in 1611.
However, reprintings and subsequent editions of the KJV frequently introduced
new errors even as they sought to correct old mistakes. For example, the KJV
edition of 1631 earned the nickname “The Wicked Bible” because it omitted the
word “not” in the commandment prohibiting adultery. Accidental mistakes of this
sort resulted from the fact that printers lacked sufficient type to set an
entire volume, so that they constantly needed to reset pages. Because of this,
highly publicized errors were committed.
Moreover, the tentativeness and modesty of the KJV
translators themselves slowly yielded to dogmatic views about the authority of
their text; this process was accelerated when the practice was abandoned of
printing the translators’ own introduction. In the Introduction, for example,
the translators state forthrightly, “Truly we never thought from the beginning
that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a
good one, but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal
good one.” Elsewhere, they note they have “avoid the scrupulosity of the
Puritans [as also] we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists.” Moreover,
they acknowledge their dependence on the work of myriad predecessors.
Derivative Versions
Versions of
the Bible, like groups of humans, can have family trees. The KJV itself has
many descendants. The KJV did not immediately eliminate all of its rivals—the
Geneva Bible, for example, constituted the Scripture for the America-bound
Pilgrims. Yet, after a few decades, it was firmly established as the
“authorized” text for Protestant churches and occupied a prominent spot in
almost all home and institutional libraries where English was the language of
everyday communication. The first major and official revision of the KJV didn’t
appear until the 1880s—the English Revised Version (ERV), which was published
between 1881 and 1885, with the New Testament preceding the Old. Although this
project had strong ecclesiastical and scholarly support, it failed to win over
the majority of those who had been longtime adherents of the KJV. While the ERV
was somewhat easier to understand, it lacked the literary style and grace of
the KJV, and never achieved the success its proponents had anticipated.
While Americans and the British both speak the same
language, their versions of English vary slightly. Thus an Americanized version
of the ERV appeared in 1901, with spelling and grammar conforming to usage in
the United States. The descendants of this American Standard Version (or ASV)
form two branches of the KJV family tree. One branch is the New American
Standard Bible (NASB), which first appeared in the 1960s and has been
continually revised and updated since. This version aims to present a consciously
literal rendering of the ancient languages of the Bible in a style that
reflects the characteristics of biblical Hebrew and Greek. On occasion, this
produces an English text that lacks literary style; successive editions of the
NASB have set out to improve the version’s readability without sacrificing its
intentionally literal style.
The other branch has produced two versions:
• The Revised
Standard Version (RSV: 1946 for the New Testament; 1952, for the Old Testament)
• The New
Revised Standard Version (NRSV: 1990)
Both of these translations seek
to update the language and style of the KJV without introducing colloquial
language or trendy stylistic changes. These versions were sponsored by the
National Council of Churches, which has led to some criticism of these volumes
as too liberal. In the early 1950s, critics set copies of the RSV on fire,
accusing its translators of being Communists. Nonetheless, the RSV and NRSV
have been widely used in academic and seminary settings.
One other member of the KJV family goes directly back
to the KJV itself—the New King James Bible. This version aimed to maintain the
maximum amount of “original” KJV material, while updating when absolutely
necessary.
The KJV and its descendants occupy a central place in
a study of English-language versions of the Bible. However, the 20th century
witnessed an unparalleled expansion in Bible translating, especially in the
period following World War II, and particularly among Protestants.
Early Twentieth Century
Two editions
are noteworthy from the period prior to the 1940s:
• The British
version by James Moffatt, which appeared over the period of a decade
(1913–1924)
• The American
translation (1923–1927), which was produced under the editorial leadership of
J. M. Powis Smith and Edgar J. Goodspeed
These two editions differ in some
respects; however, they are among the best examples of early modern-speech
translations. Both texts aim to make use of contemporary language and style to
convey the translators’ understanding of the ancient texts. Both of these
versions mark a decisive and intentional change from the tradition embodied by
the KJV and its descendants.
This new approach met both criticism and acclaim. The
American Bible Society adopted the approach with their Good News Bible (GNB:
1976) and Contemporary English Version (CEV: 1995). The editors of the CEV
describe its language as “contemporary” and its style as “lucid and lyrical.”
As with the GNB, the translators of the CEV don’t assume that readers of the
CEV are comfortable with the technical terminology that is found in more
literal renderings of the Bible. Such versions may also be shaped specifically
for those who have limited vocabularies and people for whom English is a second
language.
When a translation is very free, it is generally
characterized as a paraphrase. In such works, the style and vocabulary of the
original languages are essentially jettisoned in favor of modern-sounding
language and allusions. While academic commentators on the Bible often
disparage paraphrases, they may serve a useful role as a “first step” for
individuals who are reluctant or unable to read and appreciate the Bible in
more traditional formats. Well-known paraphrases include:
• The Living
Bible (LB: 1971), which was largely superseded by the more scholarly New Living
Translation (1996).
• The Message
(2002), which continues to be heavily promoted and widely sold. The translator
of The Message, Eugene Peterson, did not intend for this version “to replace
the excellent study Bibles that are available.” Rather his “intent is simply to
get people reading who don’t know that the Bible is readable at all, at least
by them.”
Looked at solely on the basis of
sales, the most popular and influential English-language version is the New
International Version (NIV), which has spawned two related editions:
• The New
International Reader’s Version (NIrV: 1998), which seeks to make the NIV
accessible to a wider audience.
• Today’s New
International Version (TNIV: 2005), which is marked by increased sensitivity to
issues such as gender.
All NIV-related products reflect
the conservative theological presuppositions of more than 100 scholars who
worked on this translation. The following statement expresses the goals that
motivated these translators: “that it [the NIV] be an accurate translation and
one that would have clarity and literary quality and so prove suitable for
public and private reading, teaching, preaching, memorization, and liturgical
use.” The NIV was revised in 2011, and the previous (1984) version was
discontinued.
English Standard Version
Additional
Protestant or Protestant-sponsored versions that are commonly available
include:
• The English
Standard Version (ESV: 2001), which is “essentially literal.”
• The Revised
English Bible (REB: 1989), a British translation that is non-literal but seeks
to maintain high standards of style and vocabulary.
• The Holman
Christian Standard Bible (2003), which promotes its “accessible, reliable and
dignified text.”
The New Century Version (NCV:
1991), God’s Word (GW: 1995), and the New Life Version (NLV: 1969) are all
nonliteral versions which seek to present easy-to-understand texts for people
with little or no previous exposure to the Bible in translation (or to middle-
or upper-brow literature in general). The translators of God’s Word affirm
that, “Many Bible translations contain theological terms that have little, if
any, meaning for most non-theologically trained readers. God’s Word avoids using these terms and substitutes words that
carry the same meaning in common English.”
Catholic Versions
For
English-speaking Roman Catholics, there were no English-language translations
made directly from the Hebrew or Greek available until after World War II.
Prior to that time, Catholic translations into English (as well as into other
modern languages) were made from the Latin Vulgate. In particular, there was
the Rheims-Douai Bible (1582–1610), which was painstakingly revised by Richard
Challoner (1749–1750). Today, most North American Roman Catholics make use of
the New American Bible (NAB: 1991), which is regularly revised or updated; they
may also read the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB: 1985).
Jewish Versions
For their
translation of the Bible, most English-speaking Jews utilize The Jewish
Publication Society’s Tanakh, which, in its most recent edition (1999),
displays the Hebrew and English texts on facing pages. Its editors emphasize
that this version “was made directly from the traditional Hebrew text into the
idiom of modern English” and that “it represents the collaboration of academic
scholars with rabbis from the three largest branches of organized Jewish
religious life in America.” Two other Jewish versions, both quite literal, have
also appeared in recent years:
• The
ArtScroll Tanach (1996)
• The Schocken
Bible (1995)
Jewish versions of the Bible do
not contain the New Testament or the Apocrypha.
Available Translations
While modern
Bible readers have an incredibly wide array of choices, the richness of these
selections can cause considerable confusion. One issue is that similar sounding
titles are often found on the cover of very different translations. For
example, the NASB (New American Standard Bible) and the NAB (New American
Bible) are easily confused, though the NASB is a conservative Protestant
edition, while the NAB was specifically produced by and for Roman Catholics.
When choosing a biblical version, readers should read
through the introduction to a Bible before settling on a choice. They should
also examine the makeup of the translation committee (or the affiliation[s] of
the translator, if the version is prepared by a single individual) and the
identity of the group (or groups) that are sponsoring a given translation. For
some people, the format (large print, etc.) or the number and nature of notes
will be decisive.
Biblical readers should also determine whether a
particular translation is literal or free. All translations will appear
somewhere on this “literal-to-free continuum.” Versions that are more literal
can also be called formal equivalence translations, in that those responsible
for these versions seek to reproduce in English as many features as possible of
the Hebrew or Greek. The more literal translations tend to sound somewhat
foreign, in keeping with the fact that the Hebrew and Greek texts being rendered
are from antiquity. Such versions also require the reader to go to the text,
meaning users of more literal translations need to make more of an effort to
understand the language and the grammar of the English they are reading.
Freer translations are often said to follow the
approach of functional equivalence. In such versions, more attention is given
to how a particular phrase functioned in ancient Hebrew or Greek than to the
form in which that phrase was set. Colloquial, or at least modern, English
expressions predominate in these versions, and the grammar is usually easy to
follow. In contrast to more literal versions, freer translations bring the text
to the reader—they are easier to read or listen to than more literal texts.
Bibliography
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P.R., G.W.H. Lampe, and S.L. Greenslade, eds. The Cambridge History of the Bible. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1963–1970.
Bailey,
Lloyd R., ed. The Word of God: A Guide to
English Versions of the Bible. Atlanta: John Knox, 1982.
Bobrick,
Benson. Wide as the Waters: The Story of
the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired. New York: Simon &
Shuster, 2001.
Greenspoon,
Leonard J. “Jewish Translations of the Bible.” Pages 2005–20 in The Jewish Study Bible. Edited by Adele
Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler. New York: Oxford, 2003.
———. “The
Bible: A Buyer’s Guide.” Bible Review
(Fall 2005): 37–44.
———. “The
King James Bible and Jewish Bible Translations.” Pages 123–38 in The Translation That Openeth the Window:
Reflections on the History and Legacy of the King James Version. Edited by
David G. Burke. New York: American Bible Society, 2009.
Hargreaves,
Cecil. A Translator’s Freedom: Modern
English Bibles and Their Language. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993.
Kee, Howard
Clark, ed. The Bible in the Twenty-First
Century. New York: American Bible Society, 1993.
Kraus,
Donald. Choosing a Bible for Worship,
Teaching, Study, Preaching, and Prayer. New York: Seabury Books, 2007.
Kubo, Sakae,
and Walter E. Specht. So Many Versions?:
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P. The English Bible from KJV to NIV: A
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Alister. In the Beginning: The Story of
the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture.
Garden City: Doubleday, 2001.
Metzger,
Bruce M. The Bible in Translation:
Ancient and English Versions. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2001.
Nicolson,
Adam. God’s Secretaries: The Making of
the King James Bible. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
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Harry M. A History of Bible Translation
and the North American Contribution. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991.
Sheeley,
Steven M., and Robert N. Nash, Jr. The
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[1] Greenspoon,
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