Rev. A. Hocking
ARE NEW BIBLE VERSIONS ON THE SAME PAGE?
If Rip Van Winkle, the fictional heavy sleeper of Washington Irving’s short
story, had awakened from his long nap in the 21st Century and entered a
Christian bookstore - or his local Barnes & Noble for that matter - what
he’d see in the Bible section might disorient him for a minute or two.
The range of choices available in Bibles today is astonishing. At
bookstores, there are Scriptures for just about every taste and style, in
translations ranging from the King James to the New Century Version and
beyond. ChristianBook.com, a popular retail Web site, offers more than 3,900
products listed under the “Bible” category. If you bought 10 of those
products a day, it would take more than a year to shop through that range.
And the choices don’t end there. Bibles in lunch-box-sized containers,
Bibles packed like water bottles, and Bibles designed and edited in the
style of a teenage girl’s fashion magazine are all on store shelves. Due
this year are more volumes in The Voice, a project of Thomas Nelson that
will add - in sections clearly offset from the scriptural text - commentary
and explanations that help set the scene. Noted contemporary Christian
writers such as Lauren Winner, Leonard Sweet and Chris Seay are lending
their hands to the project, which will also include an audio version.
Twenty years ago, Bible choices were somewhat limited. Much as Henry Ford
once said of the famous Model T, you could have a Bible in just about any
color, so long as it was black. There were a few more choices than that, but
not like anything you’d see today.
Today, in a U.S. market where around 25 million Bibles are sold annually,
the presentation of the text and format seems almost as important as the
words on the pages. What are the effects on Christians of this repurposing
and repackaging? In churches where everyone was once, literally, on the same
page when it came to translations, are we in danger of a Bible “Babel” as
versions compete for readers’ attention and dollars?
“That’s just part of the American consumer society,” says Donald Johns,
professor in Bible and hermeneutics at Central Bible College in Springfield,
Missouri. “We demand variety, and in one way the Bible market has responded
to that by providing that variety. Several translations can be a good
thing.”
Formerly on the staff of the American Bible Society, where he participated
in work on the Contemporary English Version, Johns suggests that
English-speaking Christians are in a blessed position when it comes to
having so many translations from which to select.
There’s been a recent acceleration in new Bible translation releases. The
New International Version, issued in 1978, became a best-seller within a
decade, overtaking the venerable King James Version (first published in
1611) as the top-selling Bible in America. But more recent entries such as
the New Living Translation (a successor to the late Kenneth Taylor’s The
Living Bible paraphrase) and the English Standard Version (a revision and
improvement on the 1946 Revised Standard Version) have both made inroads in
the market - as has Eugene Peterson’s The Message, which may read like a
paraphrase but is actually a translation from the Hebrew and Greek. The
difference, Johns says, is that The Message is a one-man effort, albeit one
closely edited and checked by Peterson’s publisher, NavPress.
While Peterson’s rendering is technically a translation, Johns says a
“formal” translation is one in which a committee of scholars comes together,
reviews translations and manages the process. The English Standard Version,
the New Living Translation and the Holman Christian Standard Bible, first
published in 2004, are among those that have a committee of scholars
overseeing translation.
While some critics contend a plethora of today’s translations are too
simple, Johns says the goal of a new Bible version should be to make the
gospel understandable to contemporary readers.
“It’s not a matter of ‘dumbing down,’ but of expressing it in language that
people actually use,” he says. “We can no longer assume readers grew up in
church, that they are participants in a biblical heritage. Sometimes they
are coming to the text cold.”
A newer translation and more familiar language can help warm up the meaning
of a cold text, he asserts.
As to the new-wave packaging, Kevin O’Brien, director of Bibles and
reference books at Tyndale House in Carol Stream, Illinois, says it’s a way
to reach a modern consumer.
“People live in an Internet-savvy, high-definition world, and they want the
books they carry to reflect that,” O’Brien says. “What they’re looking for
is something beyond simply tradition.” Yet he adds traditional leather
Bibles - in black or burgundy - remain the top draws.
On the variety of translations, Wayne Hastings, senior vice president and
publisher at Thomas Nelson in Nashville, Tennessee, says while multiple
versions can cause confusion at the bookstore, Christians can still find
common ground in the meaning of a particular Bible verse or passage.
Christians should realize that unless it’s in Hebrew or Greek, the Bible
we’re reading, whatever version, is a translation, Johns says.
“No one translation is the best for every purpose,” Johns says. “You might
have a translation the pastor feels is the best for his or her preaching,
but it may not be the best for devotional reading, or for personal detailed
Bible study.”
–Mark A. Kellner, Today’s Pentecostal Evangel
