Bible Translations: Accuracy and AccessibilityBible Translations: Accuracy and AccessibilityDavid Peel, minister of St Andrew's Monkseaton, reflects on the various versions of the Bible we use
When I was Principal of Northern College, I received a letter from a Church Secretary. His church wanted some advice concerning the best version of the Bible to purchase for congregational use, so I approached one of my more learned biblical colleagues for an opinion. I should have known better to ask such a question of an academic who possesses an impeccable grasp of biblical Hebrew and Greek! The reply went something like this:
The best version of the Bible? I’m not sure, really, because I never usually use versions. As you know, I work from the originals. It’s easier to advise them what not to buy . . . We [the University] insist on students using the NRSV. That’s a good translation – most of the time.
The criterion for an academic deciding upon “the best version” is likely to stress ‘accuracy’, whereas for the lay-person ‘accessibility’ becomes more central. We want a version of the Bible which is easy to read. Given that there are several to choose from we may want some guidance.
An ongoing problem with translations of the Bible is that they have a tendency to reflect the theological opinions or church traditions of the translators. It is interesting, therefore, to compare the mainstream Catholic and Protestant translations on the key texts which undergird the well-known theological differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. But the partisan nature of some Bible translations is more likely these days to come from a different quarter to that marked out by former Catholic/Protestant feuding.
The New International Version is used by many church members. We very often also find it being read in worship. It is the preferred version of evangelical Christians and it certainly reads well. Tom Wright, an acknowledged evangelical, admits that he once warmed to the NIV’s attempt “to translate exactly what was there, and inject no extra paraphrasing or interpretative glosses”; but he eventually discovered when studying Paul that “the translation had had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said”. And, of course, the former Bishop of Durham believes that Paul says something quite different to what the evangelical consensus claims when the Greek text is translated accurately. Such a judgment from one of the world’s foremost New Testament scholars will not have done sales of the NIV much good!
A similar hatchet job can be done on the Authorised Version, the translation with which many of us grew up at a time when it was just about the only translation available. It dates back to 1611 and carries a style of language revered by many, but alas it throws up more inaccuracies of translation then perhaps are good for any of us. And since the AV has been so formative over three hundred years for our understanding of the Christian faith, it sometimes set in motion a lengthy tradition of inaccurate readings of the original texts. Consider the following well-known example of such an error in Psalm 121: 1 where the AV has “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help”. The NRSV, avoiding any resemblance of nature worship, more accurately renders the verse: “I will lift my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come”?
Then, in preparation for a recent service, I came across another startling example: 1 Kings 19:12. The AV has Elijah hearing “a still small voice”, thus providing the background to J. G. Whittier’s line: “ . . . speak through the earthquake, wind and fire, O Still, small voice of calm!” (Rejoice and Sing 492). However, the NRSV translates “a sound of sheer silence” and then moves on to having God address Elijah outside not only the earthquake, wind and fire but also the silence. An incorrect translation has thus led generations of Christians to completely miss the point of 1 Kings 19: It concerns the re-commissioning of a prophet, not the presence or absence of God!
Few of us in the church, of course, have the acumen to resolve completely the tension between the need for ‘accuracy’ and the demand for ‘accessibility’. For some of us there is a far greater concern, viz, to enable an engagement with the Bible to return to the heart of Christians’ everyday lives. Just which version of the Bible we use perhaps then becomes less of an issue that that we should somehow get people reading any version? Or does it, when, if Tom Wright is correct, use of one particular translation, for example, could lead us to misunderstand the thinking of the man who more than anyone else shaped the theology of the Christian church?
David R Peel