Translation

To translate is to restate the meaning of words in one language with words of another. Translation of Scripture is part of the work of interpreting and communicating it.

Regarding Don Quixote

Don Quixote, “The first modern novel”, was written in 1605; Original language was Spanish. First Translated into English in 1612. So many English translations have been made it is hard to put a number on them. New Translations have been published as recently as 2012. Now, if one of your high school teachers had told you: “Your assignment is to read Don Quixote in the original Spanish Version, and then give me an extensive report on it. If you don;t know any Spanish, this would be difficult. But even if you knew modern Spanish, it would still be difficult. How many changes have happened to the Spanish Language in the over 400 years since Don Quixote was first published? But let’s pretend a bit further that you were one of those clever students who pointed this out to your teacher and your teacher said, “Fine, you don’t need to read it in Spanish, just read it in the original English Translation from 1612.” Well, this may be somewhat better, but still, you would need one of those Barnes & Noble versions that has all the explanations on the side. So you further argue with your teacher, and your answer is that you may choose one of the English translations. How would you know which to choose? Some Questions:

1) Which translation is most reliable, or faithful to the original Spanish version?

2) What would be better, to translate the Old Spanish into New Spanish and then into modern English, or would it be better to translate directly into Modern English? Or should it be translated only into the English in use in 1605 and left alone?

3) Which translation would you rather read, the first translation into English from 1612, or one of the newer translations?

4) Which translation would best convey to a modern person what the author was really writing?

The original manuscripts of the Bible were written in ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Hebrew and Greek have changed much since the original writings. Aramaic is a so-called “dead” language. So how can we as modern readers have any chance to understand it? Because of translations. Which translation is best? That is not so easy to answer.

For centuries, translators have been doing their best to accurately translate the Bible into the native language of people around the world so that they can access it and read it for themselves. Some people have perverted the translation process, bringing into their translations politics, or manipulating the Bible to say something they want it to say. But the major translations that are most common in churches today have been carefully been put together by teams of language experts who meticulously work to translate the bible as best they can. In the translating process, which usually takes many years, these teams work together, challenging each other, refining, and finally putting out a translation that is peer reviewed. No translation is perfect, because imperfect people worked on them. While it is good to learn how to do our own checking into how these translations were made, we can generally trust the most common translations.

Next week, we will talk about interpretation, which is the attempt to help readers and hearers of Scripture understand and apply the biblical text. That is the primary job I have. It’s something I take very seriously, getting it right, and applying it properly. And preparing a sermon is the work of interpretation, but so is private study.

Tonight I want to take a look at some of the heroes who had a mark on the translation of scripture into English. I can’t cover everyone, but will highlight some of the main players in this story of how we have the Bibles we have today.

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bible, English Versions of The)

BIBLE, ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE An overview of the history and development of versions of the English Bible.IntroductionEnglish 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 TranslationsBible 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.WycliffeThe 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.TyndaleThe 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.CoverdaleIn 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 IssuesTyndale’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 IThese 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 churchesWhen 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 VersionsVersions 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 CenturyTwo 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. GoodspeedThese 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 VersionAdditional 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 VersionsFor 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 VersionsFor 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 TranslationsWhile 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.

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bible, Texts and Versions Of)

BIBLE, TEXTS AND VERSIONS OF Ancient manuscripts and translations of the Bible which exist as important witnesses to the text of the Old and New Testaments. Ancient translations into other languages provide important evidence in establishing the text of the Bible.ImportanceThe books of the Old Testament were originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic and then copied and transmitted from generation to generation. Similarly, the New Testament was written in Greek and then copied as it began to spread throughout the Church. The vast majority of our English versions of the Bible today are based upon texts that resulted from this transmission in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.Faith communities going back to 250 BC were also translating the Bible into their own languages so that they could read and understand it:• Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria, Egypt translated the Old Testament into Greek.• Christian converts in Edessa, Syria translated the entire Bible into Syriac.• The New Testament was translated into Latin, Gothic, and Armenian.These ancient translations of the Bible in different languages are very important in two essential ways:1. They provide additional witnesses to the text of the Bible.2. The ancient versions provide examples of ancient exegesis and interpretation of the Bible.The available Hebrew and Greek manuscripts are late and come from the latter part of the transmission process. Although the copying of texts was done very carefully, scribes would often commit some errors, including:• misreading handwritten letters• smudging the ink• accidentally omitting a word• repeating a word they had already writtenOnce an error was introduced into a text, the copies of that text would also repeat the error. The ancient versions present a “snapshot” of the biblical text at an earlier time. In the process of textual criticism, Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible are compared to the ancient versions in an attempt to determine which readings most accurately reflect the original documents.Additionally, translation is essentially a form of interpretation; translators come to an understanding of the source text and then convert it into a different language system. The ancient translator was required to interpret the Bible in order to communicate it to his audience. Therefore, in addition to explicit interpretive texts demonstrating how faith communities understood the Bible, translations provide insights into Jewish and Christian opinions of biblical interpretation and passages of significance. Some ancient versions, such as the Aramaic Targumim (plural), intentionally expanded and interpreted the text. Other versions, such as the Greek Septuagint, attempted to give a more literal rendering of the text; the translator still interpreted, but in a less obvious manner. The versions are also helpful in interpreting the minutia of the biblical text. When translation of a particular Hebrew or Greek word or idiom is difficult, the versions demonstrate how ancient exegetes understood it. Many of these exegetes were near-native speakers of Hebrew and Greek and who lived closer in culture and time to the original authors of the Bible.Old TestamentHebrew TextsThe biblical texts found at Qumran, near the Dead Sea, in 1947 are extremely important. Dating from the middle of the second century BC to the middle or late first century AD, they were likely created by a Jewish religious sect called the Essenes (Vanderkam, Dead Sea Scrolls Today, 97ff). These “Dead Sea Scrolls” are significant early texts in Hebrew. They provide direct evidence from the turn of the era—almost 1,000 years earlier than the oldest complete Hebrew manuscript possessed before their discovery.A number of additional Hebrew texts with fragments of biblical material have also been discovered. The oldest known fragments are the “Silver Scrolls,” which date to the seventh century BC and contain part of the priestly blessing in Num 6:22–27. Other texts include:• Nash Papyrus—first century AD: a damaged copy of the Decalogue or “Ten Commandments”• Manuscripts from Masada—first century AD: fragments of Psalms, Leviticus, and Ezekiel• Nahal Hever manuscripts—first century BC—first century AD: fragments of the Pentateuch• Biblical manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza—AD 1000–1400 (Wegner, Textual Criticism, 148–55)The absence of vowels or punctuation in Hebrew texts until about AD 500 resulted in certain ambiguity in some readings. Between AD 500 and 1000, Masoretes—Jewish scribes—in Palestine and Babylon began updating the text of the Old Testament so that it contained accents, vowels, and other annotations designed to remove uncertainty and preserve a vocalization tradition. The Aleppo Codex was completed about AD 930, but 1/4 of it was destroyed in a later fire during persecutions of Jews in Syria. The Leningrad Codex, completed about 50 years later, is the best complete surviving manuscript of the Old Testament in Hebrew. It is the main source for most recent critical editions of the Hebrew Old Testament and the basis for most English translations.

From “Got Questions,org”:

What are the different English Bible versions?

📷📷Depending on how one distinguishes a different Bible version from a revision of an existing Bible version, there are as many as 50 different English versions of the Bible. The question then arises: Is there really a need for so many different English versions of the Bible? The answer is, of course, no, there is no need for 50 different English versions of the Bible. This is especially true considering that there are hundreds of languages into which the entire Bible has not yet been translated. At the same time, there is nothing wrong with there being multiple versions of the Bible in a language. In fact, multiple versions of the Bible can actually be an aid in understanding the message of the Bible. There are two primary reasons for the different English Bible versions. (1) Over time, the English language changes/develops, making updates to an English version necessary. If a modern reader were to pick up a 1611 King James Version of the Bible, he would find it to be virtually unreadable. Everything from the spelling, to syntax, to grammar, to phraseology is very different. Linguists state that the English language has changed more in the past 400 years than the Greek language has changed in the past 2,000 years. Several times in church history, believers have gotten “used” to a particular Bible version and become fiercely loyal to it, resisting any attempts to update/revise it. This occurred with the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and more recently, the King James Version. Fierce loyalty to a particular version of the Bible is illogical and counterproductive. When the Bible was written, it was written in the common language of the people at that time. When the Bible is translated, it should be translated into how a people/language group speaks/reads at that time, not how it spoke hundreds of years ago. (2) There are different translation methodologies for how to best render the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into English. Some Bible versions translate as literally (word-for-word) as possible, commonly known as formal equivalence. Some Bible versions translate less literally, in more of a thought-for-thought method, commonly known as dynamic equivalence. All of the different English Bible versions are at different points of the formal equivalence vs. dynamic equivalence spectrum. The New American Standard Bible and the King James Version would be to the far end of the formal equivalence side, while paraphrases such as The Living Bible and The Message would be to the far end of the dynamic equivalence side. The advantage of formal equivalence is that it minimizes the translator inserting his/her own interpretations into the passages. The disadvantage of formal equivalence is that it often produces a translation so woodenly literal that it is not easily readable/understandable. The advantage of dynamic equivalence is that it usually produces a more readable/understandable Bible version. The disadvantage of dynamic equivalence is that it sometimes results in “this is what I think it means” instead of “this is what it says.” Neither method is right or wrong. The best Bible version is likely produced through a balance of the two methodologies. ANSWER

No one is really using the ORIGINAL KJV (1611) A Sample of the Original: Luke 2:1-20

1 And it came to passe in those dayes, that there went out a decree from Cesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.

2 (And this taxing was first made whē Cyrenius was gouernor of Syria)

3 And all went to bee taxed, euery one into his owne citie.

4 And Ioseph also wēt vp frō Galilee, out of the citie of Nazareth, into Iudea, vnto the citie of Dauid, which is called Bethlehem, (because he was of the house and linage of Dauid,)

5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

6 And so it was, that while they were there, the dayes were accomplished that she should be deliuered.

7 And she brought foorth her first borne sonne, and wrapped him in swadling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no roome for them in the Inne.

8 And there were in the same countrey shepheards abiding in þe field, keeping watch ouer their flocke by night.

9 And loe, the Angel of the Lord came vpon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.

10 And the Angel said vnto them, Feare not: For behold, I bring you good tidings of great ioy, which shall be to all people.

11 For vnto you is borne this day, in the citie of Dauid, a Sauiour, which is Christ the Lord.

12 And this shall be a signe vnto you; yee shall find the babe wrapped in swadling clothes lying in a manger.

13 And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heauenly hoste praising God, and saying,

14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good wil towards men.

15 And it came to passe, as the Angels were gone away from them into heauen, the shepheards said one to another, Let vs now goe euen vnto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to passe, which the Lord hath made knowen vnto vs.

16 And they came with haste, and found Mary and Ioseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

17 And when they had seene it, they made knowen abroad the saying, which was told them, concerning this child.

18 And all they that heard it, wondered at those things, which were tolde them by the shepheards.

19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

20 And the shepheards returned, glorifying & praising God for all the things that they had heard and seene, as it was told vnto them.

The KJV most of our older folks grew up with was not the original (1611), but the last revision from 1769. Those that argue that the KJV is the only true translation, then, ought to really go back to the original if they truly believe that.

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