Dr. Strangeverse

or: How the Southern Baptists Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Inclusive Language

Every year for the past several years, the best-selling biblical translation has been the New International Version (NIV), first published in 1978 (with a minor revision in 1984). A product of Evangelical scholars, it is a fresh translation from the original languages and not a revision in the King James tradition like its competitors, the RSV or NASB. How does it compare?

Questionable Translation Choices

According to the Preface of the NIV, its translators strove for both accuracy and readability, but also “the translators were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the Bible as God’s Word in written form.” This commitment has sometimes led to some questionable translation choices.

For example, Deut 1:1 in the RSV reads, “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness…” Since we know from the Bible that Moses was not allowed to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land, referring to the wilderness as “beyond the Jordan” or “across the Jordan” means the reference point of the writer was Palestine. This doesn’t pose a problem unless one is committed to the tradition that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, which includes Deuteronomy. Translating the phrase as “in the desert east of the Jordan” eliminates the difficulty and the NIV is the only major translation that makes this choice.

How about an example from the NT? 1 Pet 4:6 in the RSV reads, “For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead…” Is this a callback to 1 Pet 3:19 in which the risen Christ preaches to “the spirits in prison” since the time of Noah? Perhaps. But a key Evangelical belief is that salvation comes from a conversion experience and there is no possibility of that after death. The NIV removes any ambiguity in the passage by translating “the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead.” Most scholars would agree that “the dead” in this verse were alive when the gospel was preached to them and have since died, but that commentary should be placed in a footnote and not embedded into the translation.

I even referenced a dubious NIV translation in Genesis in a previous article. There are so many harmonizing and theologically-motivated translations in the NIV that at least one website is devoted to keeping track of them. The sheer number of examples leads one to suspect the motivations of the translators.

Furor Over Inclusive Language

In 2005 a new version of the NIV was released with inclusive language. Called Today’s New International Version (TNIV), it went over about as well as New Coke. Evangelicals were the target audience for the NIV and the publishers underestimated the attachment that audience had for the NIV and its willingness to accept gender-neutral language. The main complaints were places where the translators had changed 3^rd person singular pronouns to plural (“he” and “his” to “they” and “their”), “brothers” to “brothers and sisters,” “son” to “child.”

After the outcry, the translators recalibrated a bit and released a new version of the NIV in 2011, ending further publication of the 1984 NIV and the TNIV at the same time. Evangelicals were still not pleased. Reaction among the Southern Baptist Convention, for example, was to denounce the updated NIV and request that their LifeWay stores stop selling it, a request that the trustees of LifeWay decided to ignore. But it really didn’t matter because by then the Baptists already had their own translation of the Bible.

The iconic final scene from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964) as Major Kong (Slim Pickens) rides a nuclear bomb down to its intended target. Introducing inclusive language to the NIV had a similar impact.

The Baptist Bible

The Southern Baptists had been thinking about their own translation from the late 1990s. Biblica, the organization holding the copyright on the NIV, provided exclusive publishing rights to Zondervan Publishing House in exchange for covering the costs of the initial translation. Therefore, if the Southern Baptists wanted to use NIV text in their Sunday School material, they would have to pay Zondervan for licensing. Add to this economic issue the rumors of gender-inclusive language in future versions of the NIV and the Baptists sought to develop a translation that would be under their control. The result was completed in 2004 and named the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) after Holman Bible Publishers, the publishing arm of LifeWay Christian Resources.

One feature of the HCSB was to sometimes use “Yahweh” for the divine name YHWH where it appears in the Hebrew. So, for example, Ex 15:3 is rendered, “The Lord is a warrior; Yahweh is His name.” Use of gender-neutral language was conservative in the use of pronouns but more gender-neutral than the 1984 NIV in other places (e.g., in Rom 3:4 where the NIV reads “Let God be true, and every man a liar” the HCSB reads “God must be true, even if everyone is a liar”).

A major revision to the HCSB, simply called the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) was released at the beginning of 2017. One of the main changes – other than the name – was to revert back to the use of “the Lord” instead of “Yahweh” in the 645 instances where it had been used previously in the HCSB. Also, the CSB increased the use of gender-neutral language. While masculine pronouns were still retained, in verses like Rom 8:29 where “brothers” appeared in the HCSB, the CSB translates as “brothers and sisters” thus bringing it a step closer to the 2011 NIV that the Southern Baptists found so objectionable:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (NIV2011) 

For those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. (HCSB) 

For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (CSB)

It’s Not Liberal, It’s Biblical

This grudging acceptance of more gender-inclusive language has not gone unnoticed by the press. When The Atlantic trumpeted in an article that “Southern Baptists Embrace Gender-Inclusive Language in the Bible”, Southern Baptist scholars rose up to explain that the CSB is not really gender-neutral or gender-inclusive. It's like after years of condemning gender inclusivity as liberal and unbiblical, conservative theologians are now defending the changes as a better reflection of what the Bible actually says.

Over the past couple of articles examining the King James tradition and Catholic versions, we’ve seen how biblical translations have always been controversial. From arguments over what sources to use to arguments over whether translators are attacking Christian theology, every movement towards more accurate and inclusive translations was initially met with resistance and a demand to restore traditional language. But when we see a major conservative denomination like the Southern Baptists relax a bit on the use of gender-neutral language, perhaps the culture wars in this area may be drawing to a close.

Game of Tomes

Last week I was discussing with a co-worker this blog and my on-going struggle to make it as interesting as I can, sometimes re-writing the article to do so. He compared my writing process with that used by George R.R. Martin, the author of the books on which the HBO series Game of Thrones is based. He gave me some advice on spicing up my blog:  “You should kill off some of your characters.”

The Battle Over Vernacular Bibles

To that end, allow me to introduce William Tyndale (1490-1536), the first to translate the Bible into English from the original languages. Prior to Tyndale, English translations were made from the Latin Vulgate (such as Wycliffe’s Bible, 1382) and, being handwritten manuscripts, had a limited audience. A supporter of Martin Luther, Tyndale was suspected of heresy in 1520 and fled to Germany where he continued his translation work. Before he could complete the entire Bible, he was arrested by the imperial authorities, convicted of heresy, strangled, and his body burned at the stake.

Preparations to burn the body of William Tyndale from John Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1563). Reportedly, Tyndale’s last words were “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.”

The idea of a vernacular Bible, a Bible translated in the language that ordinary people read and spoke, was not a popular one at the time. When Martin Luther kicked off the Protestant Reformation in 1517, he encouraged Christians to read the Bible for themselves and did his own translation into German. It was the Reformation which led to an increased demand for a vernacular Bible, but many in positions of power thought it was the other way around.

The Catholic Church opened the Council of Trent in 1545 to confront the challenges of the Reformation. By that time there were already entrenched attitudes among some of the bishops that putting a vernacular Bible in the hands of the common folk would lead to more heresies. Since there was no consensus among the bishops as to whether to support or condemn Bibles in the vernacular, the council limited itself to defining the canon of Scripture and declared the Vulgate as the “authentic edition” for church use. Over the next 400 years, the attitude developed within the Catholic Church that only vernacular translations from the Vulgate were approved.

English Bibles from France

The professors of English College at Douay (in exile in France due to the English Reformation) took up the challenge of producing an English translation of the Vulgate. The NT was released at Rheims in 1582 and the OT at Douay in 1609. The complete bible, called the Douay-Rheims (DR), was revised dozens of times, mostly notably between 1749 and 1752 by Bishop Challoner of London. Although keeping the name Douay-Rheims, it was essentially a new translation but retained Latinisms from the original in passages like Mt 6:11: “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread.”

Interestingly, although the DR was translated from Jerome’s Vulgate, Jerome had access to older Hebrew and Greek texts than were available to the KJV translators. Mt 6:13 in the KJV includes a doxology for the Lord’s Prayer found in the later Greek texts: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” Only the concluding “Amen” is found in the Vulgate and therefore translated in the DR. All modern translations have no doxology at all because it is not present in the oldest Greek manuscripts.

In 1943 Pope Pius XII officially encouraged translations from the original languages. With this green light, Dominican scholars at the École Biblique in Jerusalem began work on a French translation from the original languages published in 1956 as the Bible de Jérusalem. The English translation, a product of British scholars (fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien worked on the book of Jonah), was published in 1966 as The Jerusalem Bible (JB). It was used as the basis for the Lectionary in most English-speaking countries outside of the US and Canada. One unusual feature of the JB was the use of the divine name (“Yahweh”) wherever it appears in the Hebrew text instead of a euphemism such as "the Lord." Thus, Ex 15:3 in JB was translated as “Yahweh is a warrior; Yahweh is his name,” instead of “The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name” (NRSV).

The French version was heavily revised in 1973 and the changes were considered important enough to warrant a new English edition, published in 1985 as the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB). The original JB was criticized for following the French translation more closely than the original Hebrew and Greek and for frequently resorting to paraphrase. These defects were corrected in the NJB. A revised NJB based on the 1998 edition of the French version will be published in late spring 2018.  

A Reading from the Letter of John Paul to the Americans

The New American Bible (NAB) is the best-known translation to Catholics inside the US because of its use in the Lectionary. The first edition of the NAB was published in 1970. The NT was revised in 1986 and the Psalms were revised in 1991. The rest of the OT was completed in 2002, but encountered problems within the US Conference of Catholics Bishops (USCCB) during the approval process.

A translation for study or devotional reading is one thing, but a separate set of rules apply if the translation is intended to be used in the liturgy (such as lectionary readings). The use of gender-neutral language in the 1991 version of the Psalms was deemed unacceptable. The Psalms were re-revised and the fourth edition of the NAB, called the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) was published in 2011.

But despite all the sound and fury, the NABRE was still not approved for liturgical use and lectionaries continue to use a modified version of the 1970 NAB translation. In 2012, the USCCB announced plans to revise the NABRE yet again so there will be one version that can be used for private reading, study, and liturgy. Such a revised NABRE is not expected until 2025.

Psalms Not Inclusive

What was the problem the bishops had with the Psalms? Here’s an example:

The 1970 NAB translated Ps 8:5 as “What is man (Hb: ‘enosh) that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man (Hb: ben ‘adam) that you should care for him?” The 1991 Psalms translated this as “What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them?” The Hebrew ‘enosh can be translated “man” in the sense of “mankind,” but it does not have the sense of a male person like the word ‘ish. The Hebrew expression ben ‘adam (literally “son of Adam”) is a parallel expression referring to an individual human. God frequently address Ezekiel as ben ‘adam, for instance.

The 1991 translation is justifiable from a technical point of view since the psalmist is contrasting human insignificance with God’s grandeur. But the NT applies this psalm to Jesus (e.g., Heb 2:5-9) and Jesus frequently refers to himself in the gospels as “the son of man” (note the definite article). The term “son of man” thus – rightly or wrongly – takes on Christological overtones and the relationship between the OT and NT is lost when the term is translated differently.

NABRE returned to the 1970 NAB (but note the change from the definite article): “What is man that you are mindful of him, and a son of man that you care for him?” (For comparison, the NJB reads: “What are human beings that you spare a thought for them, or the child of Adam that you care for him?”)

As this brief survey shows, translators of the Bible can run afoul of everything from accusations of heresy to charges of political correctness. Fortunately, the worst that can happen today is that the bibles will be burned and not the translators.

All in the King James Family

The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible was not the first English translation from the original Hebrew and Greek (that honor goes to the work of William Tyndale), but it has become the best-known. It was translated by a commission appointed by James I of England and authorized for use in the Church of England in 1611, replacing the Bishops’ Bible (1568) and the Geneva Bible (1560). Also called the Authorized Version (AV), it had an immense influence on English literature and the wording of its verses have become immortalized in our culture. Among some, however, the KJV has become so sacrosanct that it is akin to blasphemy to either change it or question its inadequacies.

The Early Revisions

But the inadequacies of the KJV are legion. It wasn’t an entirely new translation; much of the English phrasings can be traced to earlier editions (for example, 1/3 of the NT is worded exactly like Tyndale’s). The Greek basis for the KJV was the Textus Receptus (TR), a compilation of a half-dozen inferior Byzantine manuscripts collected by Erasmus in 1516 and slightly corrected by others.

By the late 19th century, the evolution of the English language and discoveries of more ancient texts demanded a revision to the KJV. Published in 1885, the Revised Version (RV) was a product of mostly British Protestant scholars. It used a Greek text based on older Alexandrian manuscripts instead of the later Byzantine manuscripts reflected in the Textus Receptus. The RV also retained archaic terms from the KJV like aforetime, howbeit, must needs, etc.

A separate version of the RV with readings preferred by the American translators on the team, the American Standard Version (ASV), was released in 1901. One of decisions of the Americans was to translate the name of God (YHWH) in the OT as “Jehovah”. Judged too literal, the ASV never seriously challenged the KJV in popularity.

King James I of England and VI of Scotland, after John De Critz the Elder (died 1647)

No Longer a Virgin

Recognizing the deficiencies in the ASV, in the mid-20th century the National Council of Churches authorized work on another revision of the KJV. Called the Revised Standard Version (RSV), it was released in 1952. It reverted to the practice followed in the KJV of translating YHWH as “the Lord” but retained the antiquated second-person pronouns (“thou, thee, thy”) and verbs (“art, hast, didst”) in conversations directed towards God.

The RSV was mostly well-received among mainline Protestant churches, but it was also attacked vigorously by more conservative denominations. While some of the complaints related to the RSV not using the TR as the Greek base for the translation of the NT – something that would also apply to the RV and ASV – the main charge was that the RSV denied the virgin birth with its translation of Is 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (KJV) 

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman′u-el. (RSV)

I have previously discussed the differences in the Hebrew and Greek translation of this verse. “Young woman” reflects the Hebrew but it doesn’t square with Matthew’s prophetic citation of Isaiah in Mt 1:23. The RSV translation of Is 7:14 does not cast doubt on the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus because that is still clear in both Matthew and Luke.

A Conservative Reaction

Conservative denominations wanted an alternative to the RSV and got it in a revision to the ASV called the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Released in 1971 and updated in 1995, in addition to restoring “virgin” to Is 7:14, it also restored some theological terms like justification, sanctification and propitiation that had been downplayed in the RSV. Here’s an example of Rom 3:25:

whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; (ASV) 

whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; (RSV) 

whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; (NASB)

You can see how the word “propitiation” in the ASV was changed by the RSV to “expiation” and then restored to “propitiation” by the NASB. The NASB also followed the reverential tradition of capitalizing deity pronouns even though that was lacking in earlier translations.

Return of the Textus Receptus

While conservative in some ways, the NT of the NASB – like the RSV – was not based on the TR but on a critical Greek text giving preference to the oldest Greek manuscripts. In practice, this meant that certain verses and sometimes entire passages were relegated to footnotes because they were not found in the oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts. Compare 1 John 5:7-8 in the KJV and the NASB:

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. (KJV) 

For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. (NASB)

To devotees of the KJV removing the words in bold from the passage was part of a satanic plot to eliminate vital Christian doctrines such as the Trinity. Since modernizing the Elizabethan English of the KJV was a laudable goal in and of itself, a new modern-English translation using the same Hebrew and Greek source of the KJV was published in 1982. This translation eventually came to be known as the New King James Version (NKJV). In the passage above, the only noticeable difference in the NKJV from the KJV is replacing “Holy Ghost” with “Holy Spirit”.

A "family tree" of the KJV showing its various revisions through the years. The Living Bible was a paraphrase of the ASV, but the NLT was a true translation in the style of The Living Bible. The NIV is an example of a translation created outside the KJV tradition.

All-Inclusive

As mentioned above, the RSV retained the “thou” pronouns and verbs when referring to God, so one goal for its revision was to eliminate them. Another goal was the elimination of masculine-oriented language when the source language was gender-neutral. For instance, in 1 Cor 6:18, the RSV (and all the other translations mentioned so far) reads “Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body.” The Greek word behind the bolded word is anthropos, which is Greek for human.

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), published in 1989, attempted to correct these defects. 1 Cor 6:18 in the NRSV reads “Every sin that a person commits is outside the body”. Sometimes it gets awkward. The RSV renders Gal 4:7 as “So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.” The NRSV translates it: “So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” While it is laudable to be inclusive, Paul had just written in 4:1 that “heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves.” In modern English, the word child conjures up the image of an underage minor more than it does a mature adult. So it’s a work in progress.

Not surprisingly, just as the release of the RSV prompted the conservative NASB as an alternative, publication of the NRSV prompted a conservative alternative called the English Standard Version (ESV), released in 2001. The ESV – as the NASB before it – has as one of its goals retaining theological terminology like redemption, regeneration and reconciliation. Another goal was to be more constrained in the use of inclusive language. The ESV rendering of 1 Cor 6:18 is almost exactly like that of the NRSV, whereas Gal 4:7 is almost like the RSV. Is 7:14 is translated with “virgin” and 1 John 5:7-8 follows the RSV and NASB.

This brief tour through several of the biblical translations in the Tyndale-KJV tradition illustrates how some revisions are driven by changes in languages and discoveries in ancient manuscripts. Others are in reaction to real or perceived attacks on biblical doctrines or preferred readings.

In my next article, I will discuss translations outside the Tyndale-KJV family, especially Catholic translations.

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.