Be Not Straitened in Your Bowels

Giving Bible-related talks at my church over the years, I’ve been asked lots of questions about bible translations. In part two of my series The Bible: An Owner’s Manual, I’ll address three of the most frequently-asked questions.

Why are there so many translations?

The Wikipedia article on English Bible translations lists almost 120 different versions. More than twenty on the list pre-date the 20th century but forty different translations (some of them revisions of existing translations) were released in the last 20 years. Some of these are niche translations without widespread use, but it is probably safe to say that you could walk into any well-stocked Christian bookstore today and find bibles in 20 or more different translations.

A selection of just some of the many Bible translations into English currently on the market.

The main reason given for the plethora of translations is that the English language changes over time and words fall out of use or take on new meanings.

The “king” of Bible translations is the King James (KJV). Authorized for use in the Anglican Church by King James in 1611, it has had a tremendous influence on the English language, but its archaic language is sometimes incomprehensible to the modern reader. For example:

Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off:
him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer. (Ps 101:5)

Here is that same verse in the New King James Version (NKJV), a 1982 revision of the KJV that updates the language and grammar while preserving the style of the original:

Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy;
The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart, him I will not endure.

But you don’t have to wait 400 years to see how a language can change. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) came out in 1952 and Psalm 50:9a reads: “I will accept no bull from your house.” This was slightly modified in the NRSV (1989) to eliminate the snigger-factor: “I will not accept a bull from your house.”

I suspect there is also a monetary incentive in cranking out new translations. According to a recent survey from the American Bible Society (ABS), 87% of households own a bible. Most homes have more than one copy and 20% own more than five. Yet even with this sort of saturation, 10% of adults purchased a bible in 2016. Twenty million bibles – from study bibles to family bibles to pocket bibles – are sold every year. The bible business is big business and just as Microsoft keeps cranking out new versions of Excel and Word to encourage sales, publishers need new translations of “the Word” to hawk as the latest and greatest.

What makes one translation different from the others?

In the field of translation, the two philosophies are formal (or verbal) equivalence and dynamic (or functional) equivalence. Verbal equivalence (word-for-word) seeks to reproduce in modern English the words in the original language. If the same word order in the original is retained, this can give a wooden, “Bible English” feel that makes it hard to read. Dynamic equivalence (thought-for-thought) seeks to translate the functional meaning of the original language, expressing the thought in contemporary language.

Let’s take an example from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. In the KJV:

O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompence in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged. (2 Cor 6:11-3)

Huh? An enlarged heart and straitened bowels? Let’s see what the same passage looks like in the NKJV:

O Corinthians! We have spoken openly to you, our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections. Now in return for the same (I speak as to children), you also be open.

This is a bit more understandable. In the ancient world, “bowels” (or “guts”) were the seat of strong emotions (hence, “gut feelings”). The KJV translated literally, but doing so here would make the modern reader think of constipation. To avoid such a misinterpretation, the translator has to use a different word like “affections” to get Paul’s original idea across.

As we see from this example, it’s not a black/white situation. Even a translation that strives for literal accuracy will have to, at times, be less literal in order to preserve understanding. If readability, not literalness, becomes the primary concern, then translators can make the Bible sound more contemporary. Here is the same passage in the Good News translation (GNB):

Dear friends in Corinth! We have spoken frankly to you; we have opened our hearts wide. It is not we who have closed our hearts to you; it is you who have closed your hearts to us. I speak now as though you were my children: show us the same feelings that we have for you. Open your hearts wide!

In my opinion, a free translation such as this avoids the stilted “Bible English” of the NKJV and sounds fresh. Reading this, I can easily hear Paul’s voice pleading with the Corinthians for reconciliation.

Which translation should I use?

Although there are dozens of English translations of the Bible available on the market, according to the same ABS survey mentioned above, 31% of Bible-readers prefer the KJV. The NIV, which is the top-selling translation each year, is second with a 13% preference.

But it would be foolish to purchase a KJV or NIV simply because those are the most-used or the top-seller versions. Some translations are intended for study and use in worship services, while others are intended for reading and devotional use. The translation you use should fit the purpose for which you intend to use it.

If your goal is an in-depth study of the Bible, then you want a more literal translation like the NRSV, the New American Standard Bible (NASB), or the English Standard Version (ESV). When the original Hebrew or Greek is ambiguous, these translations should be as well. You don’t want the translation to “clear it up” because then you will be getting what the translators “think” is the meaning of the passage.

But accuracy is bought at the price of readability. A literal translation could become very tiresome to read over a long stretch, particularly if you are constantly having to consult the footnotes or a bible commentary to make sense of the text. If you want to be able to comfortably read a book or chapter in the Bible and have a general understanding of its meaning, then you want a looser translation like the GNB or the New Living Translation (NLT). The Contemporary English Version (CEV) is written at an elementary reading-level and the Common English Bible (CEB) is written at a middle-school level; both are perfect for readers with limited English skills.

Many translations (NABRE, NIV, NJPS) will be somewhere in-between: literal where possible, but free when necessary.

There’s no perfect translations, so it is best to compare the same verse in different versions to get a sense of the original. Ideally, having separate literal and interpretive translations gives you the best of both worlds. I own a dozen bibles in ten different translations but the ones I turn to the most are the NRSV and the GNB; the NRSV for its accuracy and the GNB for its readability.

In my next article, I’ll dig a little deeper into some of the translations currently on the market.