In part one, "So Many Bible Versions," we looked at the theological beliefs of the inspiration and preservation of God's Word. We really do have access to the inspired Word of God today. But while God did promise to preserve His Word, there is no biblical explanation of how. So, we still have to look at these practical realities: the transmission of biblical manuscripts and the challenges of translation.
Textual Transmission
Transmission is the copying and passing down of the manuscripts of the Bible before the invention of the printing press. For the Old Testament (OT), or the Hebrew Scriptures, the Masoretic Text is very reliable and well supported to be accurate. This Hebrew text was copied by Jewish scribes and it dates to between the 7th and 10th centuries A.D. Now that's a little late, but we know that the care they employed in copying letter-for-letter, and the comparison to the biblical texts found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are from 1,000 years earlier, confirms their accuracy. The bottom line is that in the world of old biblical manuscripts, virtually everyone is comfortable to rely on the Masoretic Text of the OT.
(Congratulations! You made it to the part you really wanted in the first place.)
For the New Testament (NT), the Greek manuscripts of biblical texts don't agree quite as much as those of the OT. Where they differ (in what we call textual variants), they tend to fall into two major text types: the Majority Text-type or the Byzantine Text, and the Critical Text-type or the Alexandrian Text.
The Majority Text enjoys the honor of being supported by, you guessed it, the vast majority of Greek NT manuscripts available to us today. Furthermore, there is very good agreement between these manuscripts. Some have made statistical analyses to support why the majority of manuscripts would better represent the original text. But this honor is not complete, since we currently do not have early (oldest) support for this text. It really begins to appear after the fourth century A.D., with most manuscripts dating as late as the ninth century. The KJV and NKJV Bibles rely on a subset of the Majority Text called the Received Text which was published in the early 16th century and represents the Greek manuscripts available at that time.
The Critical Text, while supported by a minority of manuscripts, comes to us from a much earlier date, as early as the second century A.D. This is important because it means these copies come from a time much closer to when the original NT texts were written. Even though the Critical Text comes from a minority of manuscripts available to us today, there are other factors that do give us confidence. Early Bible translations into other languages like Latin seem to agree with the Critical Text. And biblical quotations from the early church fathers (church leaders who followed the Apostles of the New Testament) also agree with the Critical Text. Some have even suggested that what we know about the habits of the scribes who copied the NT can explain why the Majority Text would have risen from the Critical Text, but not the other way around. The NIV, ESV, NASB, NLT and CSB Bibles rely on the Critical Text.
So, we have very good arguments, suggested by reasonable people, for why either the Majority or the Critical Texts should better represent the original text of the NT. That is one of the reasons why many Bible versions give a margin note "shout out" to the other text-type where there are differences, or variants. It shows respect for the differences.
But the MOST AMAZING fact we should consider in all this discussion of textual transmission is that between the different text-types and more than 5,000 manuscripts (an astounding number for ancient writings), there is still greater that 95% agreement between them, maybe more than 97%. And there is no biblical doctrine that is changed by either when taken on the whole. Remember from part one, the inspiration of the words means that an accurate copy of the words is just as inspired as the original because it was not the medium like stone tablets or parchment that was authoritative but the words themselves.
The fact is, God has preserved His Word for us! And, this brings us to the issue of Bible translation.
Textual Translation
(or, maybe this is the part you really wanted in the first place)
As I said in part one, a Bible translation converts God's Word from its original languages to another. The translator wants to do this with accuracy, clarity and naturalness. That is, the translation should be faithful to the meaning of the original; it should be clear not confusing; and it should be a natural representation of the receptor language. But there are many challenges to accomplishing this and those who try to do it will disagree about how to do it. Therefore, we have many versions which represent the different ways people have tried to overcome these challenges.
In many ways, the always-changing nature of language presents one translation difficulty. Both the donor language and the receptor language have changed over time. Even if we had all the historical information available to us about how to understand an ancient language (in fact we don't; we keep learning more) we would still have to deal with the fact that modern languages continue to change. Idioms, figures of speech, and even the definitions of the words themselves will change over time, meaning that there will always be room for updates in translations to modern languages.
Then there is the matter of the equivalence continuum. On one end of the continuum there is formal equivalence of translation and on the other end there is functional equivalence of translation. Formal equivalence seeks to represent the form of the original, the words and word order, grammar and parts of speech. Functional equivalence, on the other hand, seeks to represent the meaning of the original, with less regard for its grammar and syntax, to arrive at the same function. All translations include both formal and functional equivalence to some degree but tend to fall a little closer to one end or the other of the continuum. For example, this is how just a few English translations would sit in the continuum. Beginning on the formal equivalence end is the NASB, then the ESV, KJV and NKJV. Then arriving at the middle of the continuum and moving toward the functional equivalence end is the NIV, then the NLT and then Bible paraphrases.
So, we have to understand that Bible translators first choose a NT text-type on which to rely, Majority Text or Critical Text. Then they choose a translation philosophy, whether to be more formally equivalent, functionally equivalent, or where to fall in between.
These are the major issues of why there are so many Bible versions. For certain there are many more issues, but these are the main ones.
Which English Bible is best for you? That is for you to answer but there are too many academically and spiritually respectable people involved in these processes for us to instantly dismiss serious attempts at translation. In this modern world where a multitude of versions is just a mouse click away, any refusal to become familiar with several versions amounts to willful ignorance. And one-version-only-ism is just bad theology. It makes sense to become acquainted with more than one English Bible. And that is exactly what I suggest you do.
Which versions do you like and why? I like all the ones I mentioned here but I wouldn’t recommend the KVJ unless the reader has already been reading it a long time, or basically grew up with it.
What didn’t I talk about that you really wanted me to? Let me know in the comments.