Bible Translation Poll - 2020 Edition

Which is your primary Bible translation?

  • ASV

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • CSB

    Votes: 3 2.4%
  • EHV

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • ESV

    Votes: 40 31.7%
  • Geneva

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • HCSB

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • KJV

    Votes: 41 32.5%
  • Lexham

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • NASB

    Votes: 12 9.5%
  • NET

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • NIV

    Votes: 6 4.8%
  • NKJV

    Votes: 18 14.3%
  • RSV

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • YLT

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other (specify)

    Votes: 4 3.2%

  • Total voters
    126
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I just looked these passages up out of curiosity. Interestingly, the KJV translators offer alternate translations in the margins in both instances. For Ps 122:1, the marginal note reads, "Or, Shall I lift up mine eyes to the hills? Whence should my help come?"

For Prov 29:18, they offer "is made naked" in the place of "perish."
In neither case to which I pointed here is the text uncertain. The question is one of what the proper translation is.

The first part of Psalm 122:1 is unlikely to be a question (though like many languages, including English, Hebrew can have unmarked questions), but the second part must be a question, based on the usage of me'ayin everywhere else in Scripture. It's not an adequate answer simply to say "Well, the KJV translators were godly men, with a unique knowledge of Hebrew, so they alone got this right, even though no modern scholar can explain why this is the right translation."

Likewise, with Proverbs 29:18 "made naked" is no better than "perish". What does it even mean for a people to be "made naked"?

Both examples illustrate my point: there are things that I can do easily (look up all the other uses of me'ayin and the niphal of pr' in the Old Testament), as well as parallel forms in cognate languages, that they couldn't possibly have imagined doing. As a result, they ended up leaning on the Vulgate to aid their translation, and going in the wrong direction.

Again, I'm not arguing that the KJV is a bad translation and that no one should read it. There are responsible arguments in favor of it that have been advanced in this thread. But the suggestion that the KJV is perfect and we must therefore accept that it is entirely without flaw as a translation - and that we should correct our Hebrew lexicons to match it! - is frankly untenable.
 
My understanding, Tyler and others, is that the variant readings in the KJV margins (or later incorporated into the body of the text) all came from within the manuscripts recognized as the received text. Would that be an accurate way of putting it?

That's not an easy question to answer, because what are the "received texts" in this case?

Here's an example: James 2:18 the KJV translators rendered as "without thy works", instead of what the printed texts (received text) in their day had: "by thy works".

Scrivener believes the translators chose the correct reading, found in five out of the seven uncials.

However, Scrivener collated a Greek edition in 1894 that used all the Greek readings underlying the KJV. And since this is probably the most commonly used "TR", this reading is NOW included in the TR...even though it wasn't when it was translated into the KJV.

Scrivener additionally said:

https://books.google.com/books?id=MAE-AAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA199#v=onepage&q&f=false
What then the need of a marginal note? The fact is that our translators were doing what they seldom liked to venture on:---they were changing the Received Greek text which they usually accepted without question, to follow Beza's Greek Testaments of 1582, 1589, 1598 and the Vulgate. They knew that "by," however ill it suited the context, had appeared in every preceding English version, as well as in the edition of the Complutensians, of Erasmus, of Stephens (1550), and of Beza himself in 1565, and so they drew attention in the margin to their weighty and much-needed correction.

According to Scrivener, the KJV translators did not always follow the received texts. But now, by this odd quirk of a circular process, what ended up in the KJV is now part of the received text...

Now, some will say that the Beza editions are part of the "received text". But that's part of the difficulty of what exactly is meant by the "received text". Clearly Scrivener didn't include them.

The KJV translators didn't strictly follow one text, or even what some consider the family of "received texts". They apparently sometimes followed readings from the Vulgate and other ancient language versions. By all appearances, they consulted all the polyglotts, manuscripts, and printed texts they had available to them at the time. I have found no concept of a "received family" of texts which were considered more pure than all others.
 
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Again, I'm not arguing that the KJV is a bad translation and that no one should read it. There are responsible arguments in favor of it that have been advanced in this thread. But the suggestion that the KJV is perfect and we must therefore accept that it is entirely without flaw as a translation - and that we should correct our Hebrew lexicons to match it! - is frankly untenable.
No argument here. :)
 
My understanding, Tyler and others, is that the variant readings in the KJV margins (or later incorporated into the body of the text) all came from within the manuscripts recognized as the received text. Would that be an accurate way of putting it?
Jeri, Logan's answer to this in post 122 is accurate. The KJV translators examined all the evidence they had. Their theology of the text, and thus their philosophy and method, was different from what underlies post-Wescott/Hort textual-critical efforts, but the KJV translators wouldn't have discounted a reading based on any concept of textual families.

If a reading was obscure, and only found in a couple of manuscripts, or something like that, they generally would have discounted it as a very unlikely reading. In that sense, they paid attention to what had been "received" by the Church as part of their deliberations.
 
In neither case to which I pointed here is the text uncertain. The question is one of what the proper translation is.

The first part of Psalm 122:1 is unlikely to be a question (though like many languages, including English, Hebrew can have unmarked questions), but the second part must be a question, based on the usage of me'ayin everywhere else in Scripture. It's not an adequate answer simply to say "Well, the KJV translators were godly men, with a unique knowledge of Hebrew, so they alone got this right, even though no modern scholar can explain why this is the right translation."

Likewise, with Proverbs 29:18 "made naked" is no better than "perish". What does it even mean for a people to be "made naked"?

Both examples illustrate my point: there are things that I can do easily (look up all the other uses of me'ayin and the niphal of pr' in the Old Testament), as well as parallel forms in cognate languages, that they couldn't possibly have imagined doing. As a result, they ended up leaning on the Vulgate to aid their translation, and going in the wrong direction.

Again, I'm not arguing that the KJV is a bad translation and that no one should read it. There are responsible arguments in favor of it that have been advanced in this thread. But the suggestion that the KJV is perfect and we must therefore accept that it is entirely without flaw as a translation - and that we should correct our Hebrew lexicons to match it! - is frankly untenable.
the KJV is the greatest English translation that has ever been produced, and yet was not a perfect translation, as there has never been one of those yet.
I think that some might be concerned with there being errors and mistakes in any translation, but those by themselves do not make our versions wrong, as still are infallible witness to God.
 
That's not an easy question to answer, because what are the "received texts" in this case?

Here's an example: James 2:18 the KJV translators rendered as "without thy works", instead of what the printed texts (received text) in their day had: "by thy works".

Scrivener believes the translators chose the correct reading, found in five out of the seven uncials.

However, Scrivener collated a Greek edition in 1894 that used all the Greek readings underlying the KJV. And since this is probably the most commonly used "TR", this reading is NOW included in the TR...even though it wasn't when it was translated into the KJV.

This sounds like a good example of how the Lord preserved His Word pure throughout all ages.
 
Ok, so why does the NRSV have a reputation for being liberal other than gender language?

Because it was translated by liberals, some of whom were not even professing Christians. Plus, take a look at which Study Bibles are produced using it. With only a very few exceptions in its 30 year existence, they have been liberal. (The only two exceptions that come to mind are the Cultural Backgrounds Bible and the Harper Study Bible edited by Harold Lindsell, which quickly went out of print.)

It is alleged that certain renderings, mostly in the OT, are evidence of an anti-supernatural bias, for example. I'd be surprised if anyone who was involved affirmed the inerrancy of the autographs. Perhaps without exception, they think that the book of Daniel was produced after the exile, they believe in something like the framework hypothesis regarding the authorship of the Pentateuch, believe there are 2 or 3 Isaiahs and 2 Zechariahs, etc. This was an issue with conservative rejection of the RSV as well, although from that perspective the NRSV was worse given the declension in the mainline churches by the late 80s.

But as has been noted, many evangelical versions, including the soon to be released NASB revision, have adopted gender-neutral renderings to varying degrees. If they were to translate Isaiah 7:14 the way the RSV and NRSV do, they'd have to apologize for spending so much money on most of these translations which were in reaction to the RSV, to some degree to that verse in particular. Maybe Dallas Seminary, which denounced the RSV in the 50s, should do it since their NET has "young woman" instead of "virgin." Perhaps the same could be said for those who caused such an uproar over the gender-neutral NIV only to eventually produce or endorse the CSB, which appears to be almost as gender-neutral. It looks like the NASB had gone considerably in that direction too.

When I first started reading the Bible regularly, I consulted the NRSV fairly often even though my views by that time were very conservative if not fundamentalist. (My background was UMC originally, and I had one laying around at a time when I was very strapped for funds and couldn't just go out and buy every Bible I was interested in.) But with rare exceptions when I'm really trying to drill down and attempt to find out why a particular verse is translated differently in different versions, I haven't consulted the NRSV in about 20 years. But I'm sure some parts of it are well done, just as much of the NIV11 is well done. It is the objectionable parts that come into play when deciding on a few translations that one is going to use on a regular basis and which version one is going to recommend to fellow believers, some of whom may not have a firm grasp on some things. I'm not a big fan of the ESV, but many of the changes they made from the RSV had to do with theological problems, particularly in the OT. Piper has said something like "It is the RSV with the theological problems fixed."

I've come across a few mainline pastors who think the ESV is a better revision of the RSV than the NRSV is, and they aren't complementarian.
 
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For most of the past 20 years, the NKJV has been my regular version. I had to abandon it for much of the past decade because red letters cause me too much eye strain and, other than Study Bibles, black letter NKJV Bibles were practically nonexistent. Happily, that's not the case anymore, and there are even cheap NKJV Bibles in black letter with good paper.

Before I got some black letter NKJVs, I was considering the CSB although I still lean toward the Byzantine text. I figured that it would be easier to understand in family worship with small children. I would probably keep using it for that purpose, but I've misplaced my copy after a move and have been using the NKJV instead. I like using a hard copy because when I open it up, my 3 year old often says something like "That's the Bible!" and sometimes gives the reading some attention, which he would be less inclined to do if I were using an electronic device.

I have read through the KJV. I'd like to do it again, but it has been so long that I still have to look up a good many of the older words. I got a Westminster Reference, but I just can't get into the format. Maybe the large print would help. I do like the Reformation Heritage KJV Study Bible, but I prefer to avoid Study Bibles when doing regular reading.
 
Hmm. I see it's tied now 40 - 40. Time to go change my vote from the NKJV to the KJV to register a come from behind victory!
The KJVO will come out of the woodwork now to sign up for PB and inflate the stats.
 
The KJVO will come out of the woodwork now to sign up for PB and inflate the stats.

Lol. If so, then just consider it one of the small ways the KJV has been providentially preserved throughout the ages.

It's only fitting that it score numero uno on the PB...I mean it is the confessional text after all, right? :p
 
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