Your Bible Version Probably Isn't That Good

The BDAG Lexicon (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature 2001) is considered among the most highly respected dictionaries of Biblical Greek. It is the gold standard in Greek/English lexicons. So I was interested in what English Bible versions they referenced, and I came up with the following list:

CCD = Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, sponsors of The NT Translated from the Latin Vulgate 1941

C. C. Torrey, The Four Gospels [1933]

Goodsp. = Edgar Goodspeed. With no title specified this abbr. refers to The NT: An American Translation 1923 (republished in the Goodspeed Parallel NT 1943)

JB = Jerusalem Bible, ed. AJones 1966

KJV = King James version, originally 1611; text generally cited is the one standardized since BBlayney 1769

Mft. = James Moffatt, The Bible: A New Translation 1926

NAB = New American Bible 1970 (includes textual notes, not included in later editions, on OT readings)

NABRev = New American Bible with Revised New Testament 1986

NEB = New English Bible 1970

New Life = The New Life Testament, tr. by Gleason Ledyard 1969

NRSV = New Revised Standard Version of the NT 1990

REB = The Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha 1989

RSV = The Revised Standard Version of the NT

Twentieth Century NT = Twentieth Century New Testament 1900

I can't help but notice the Bibles that are not listed. For instance, the New American Standard Bible, considered the most literal and the most accurate by many Protestants and Evangelicals was not used. Other Evangelical mainstays, such as the New International Version (NIV), including its offshoots (TNIV, NIrV), the New King James Version (NKJV), the New Living Translation, etc., are also not used. In fact, they BDAG list reflects many of my favorite Bibles I have listed on my board on Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/ncbartender/my-favorite-bible-versions/

I was reading a debate at http://heavennet.net/debates/trinity-debate-john-1_1/ where one of the pro-Trinity debaters listed the greatest Bibles (according to him) as:

"...let’s bear in mind that these English versions were translated by teams of the world’s expert New Testament Greek scholars-
New International Version Bible – translation committee of 115 scholars.
King James Version – translation committee of 54 scholars.
New King James Version – 119 scholars.
New American Standard Bible – 54 scholars
Contemporary English Version – 100+ scholars
English Standard Version – 100+ scholars"

Reply: If the above English versions are indeed "translated by teams of the world’s expert New Testament Greek scholars" then why are they snubbed by the world's expert New Testament Greek scholars when it comes to lexicography? (The KJV is excepted by my arguments as it predates modern conservative Christianity)

The debator added: "...The checks and balances used in the translation process is designed to eliminate the possibility of a radical influence dictating the mishandling of a particular verse (i.e. making it say something other than the original Greek annotated)."

Reply: But what if the committee translations are made by translators who all hold the same theological conclusions. Committee translations of this type are known to compromise, and they are also expected to fulfill certain expectations that the public demands, especially if they want to sell those Bibles and pay the members of those committees. Perhaps this is why the BDAG lexicon has often made use of translations made by individuals.

Going back to these conservative committee translations, I remember reading the Dallas Theological Seminary Doctrinal Statement posted at https://www.dts.edu/about/doctrinalstatement/:

"While our faculty and board annually affirm their agreement with the full doctrinal statement (below), students need only agree with these seven essentials:
1. the Trinity
2. the full deity and humanity of Christ the spiritual lostness of the human race the substitutionary atonement and bodily resurrection of Christ salvation by faith alone in Christ alone the physical return of Christ the authority and inerrancy of Scripture."

The Dallas Theological Seminary also adds: "Our professors and alumni have been involved in numerous English Bible versions including the New International Version (NIV), the New King James Version (NKJV), the New Living Translation (NLT), The Message (TM), the New American Standard Bible update (NASB), the English Standard Version (ESV), the International Children’s Version (ICV), the New Century Version (NCV), the Holman Christian Study Bible (HCSB), and the NET Bible."
https://voice.dts.edu/article/truth-that-translates-dallas-theological-seminary/

The students and the translators the DTS produces must adhere to several articles of faith, and this bias then tends to tarnish the Bibles it produces. As Conservative Sola Scriptura Christians, these translators need the Bible to reflect their beliefs and theology. As a consequence, their beliefs are translated back into the Bible. Hence, Evangelical Bibles are viewed as biased.

Catholics on the other hand don't derive their beliefs from the Bible. As Robert M. Price stated in the review of Jason Beduhn's book: "Catholics can be freer with the details of the text because they don’t have to pretend to find their theology in it in full-blown form." http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/reviews/beduhn_truth.htm

Consider also N.T. Wright's comments on the NIV Bible: "When the New International Version was published in 1980, I was one of those who hailed it with delight. I believed its own claim about itself, that it was determined to translate exactly what was there, and inject no extra paraphrasing or interpretative glosses…. Disillusionment set in over the next two years, as I lectured verse by verse through several of Paul’s letters, not least Galatians and Romans. Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators 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…. [I]f a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about." [Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, 2009, pp. 51-52]

Laurence Vance, writes of the NASB in his book Double Jeopardy, "...Zane Hodges, writing in Bibliotheca Sacra, declared that the NASB was unfaithful to the Greek text and concluded that 'though more accurate in many places than other versions, there are probably just as many new faults introduced as old ones removed'...F. F. Bruce...in his book on English Bible history, perceptively said about the NASB: 'If the R.S.V. had never appeared, this revision of the A.S.V. would be a more valuable work than it is. As things are, there are few things done well by the N.A.S.B. which are not done better by the R.S.V.'"

The greatest modern and even skeptical scholars of the Bible (what Fundagelicals would call "Liberal Scholars"), like John D. Crossan, John Shelby Spong, Tom Harpur, Bart Ehrman, Marcus Borg mainly use the New Revised Standard Version. Check out the list of endorsements at https://www.nrsv.net/about/endorsements/. A generation ago these types of scholars would have hailed the Revised Standard Version, the New English Bible or Goodspeed in a similar way.

So don't depend on Lifeway stores to supply your Bible translations for you. Expand your Bible library to include those by groups you may have found troublesome in the past, and check out Amazon and Ebay for some great deals on the Bibles listed on my pinterest page or the ones list within the BDAG Lexicon.

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