Wednesday, February 20, 2008

On Bible Versions/Translations

So I have been a die-hard fan of the NRSV for as long as I can remember. (For those who might read this that don't know what NRSV stands for, it is the "New Revised Standard Version" translation of the Bible.) I think this is probably reflective of the fact that I have been a "mainliner" my whole life--the NRSV is by far the preferred translation among clergy, publications, scholars, and other resources in most mainline Protestant denominations. It's one of the few recent English translations whose translation committee was not dominated by evangelicals. (Other notable exceptions would be the New Jerusalem Bible, which is Roman Catholic, and the Revised English Bible, which is British--and these are both translations I appreciate as well, especially the REB.)

In the last year or so, though, as I've been doing a lot more work with high school youth and 8th-grade confirmation students, I've been finding that the reading level of the NRSV is simply too complicated for many of my youth. Now, it is the case that some of my high schoolers struggle some with reading, but I think the NRSV may be a bit challenging for most high schoolers, particularly the 8th, 9th, and 10th grade levels.

So, I've been exploring the idea of finding an easier-to-read translation and getting a new set of Bibles for our youth room and confirmation classroom. This has been perplexing, as there aren't great options. Do I forsake much of biblical language and poetry and go with an overly-simplistic translation like the CEV? Do I go with one of the evangelical translations that clearly has theological biases--some even come right out and state their theological biases in their forwards, like the "Holman Christian Standard Bible"? I definitely don't want to go with a complete paraphrase like The Message, or even the almost-complete paraphrased New Living Translation. What to do, what to do...

Well, in the midst of all this, I came across this brand new audio Bible called "Inspired by... The Bible Experience". Check out the website: http://www.zondervan.com/tbe This audio Bible is a really high quality production, and its reading is really engaging. I thought, 'hey, maybe this is an answer, to utilize something like this so as to not challenge their reading abilities so much, but also to add the really engaging presentation it offers.

So, this new audio Bible uses the text of the TNIV, the Today's New International Version. For those who don't know, this is a recent revision of the practically-ubiquitous NIV translation that was released in 1979. In part because of the marketing power of Zondervan, the NIV has become the most widely-available and most-purchased English translation out there. I've kinda had a bias against the NIV for a long time. Part of this is because I preferred the language of the NRSV, and I resented how dominant the NIV has become while the NRSV has to practically fight its way to get one or two copies onto a bookseller's shelf. The NRSV is probably a more 'accurate' translation than the NIV. And, the NRSV was a more inclusive-language translation.

This new revision, though, the TNIV has addressed much of the inclusive language issue that you find with the NIV. There are some places where they've fixed some things to be more 'accurate'. And, given that this TNIV seems to be quite a bit easier of a reading level than the NRSV in many places, it's actually fairly amazing how much of a 'traditional' biblical-language sound it still manages to maintain. Now, I am still conscious of the fact that this is primarily an evangelical translation, although the committee at least is truly interdenominational, spanning all of the different denominational/theological traditions. I will still probably find myself 'watching' things in comparison to the NRSV, but I think I'm actually coming to like this TNIV.

So, Monday I went ahead and purchased this audio bible I'm talking about, along with a print TNIV that goes along with it (it has references at the top of each page to which CD and Track numbers to go to). Having surveyed everything for the past couple of days, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go ahead and get some of these TNIVs for our youth room and confirmation classroom. It was time for new Bibles there anyway, as we had some paper-back NRSVs that are practically falling apart, and the rest were old RSVs!

2 comments:

United Methodist 4 Life said...

I agree, I also use and love the nrsv. When I first started going to church, I thought everyone had to have a king james so I bought one. It was about 1 year later, and I was recommended to purchase a nrsv, and I haven't looked back.

Nate Dawson said...

I've used the TNIV for a while now (we've used it at Mars Hill for a while) but since I've gotten into the more scholarly realm of things, and tend to be Anglican in my thinking, I've moved to the NRSV.