The first NT Bible translation based solely on Greek manuscripts was the Latin Vulgate. The translations were done by the scholar Jerome, who was commissioned to do so in 382 by Pope Damasus I. This happened shortly after the Council of Trent in 382, which affirmed the specific books that made up the canon. Jerome’s translations included the OT canonical books from Hebrew, the OT apocryphal books from Hebrew, and the NT books from Greek. Jerome had only a handful of Greek manuscripts available when making his NT translation. The Latin Vulgate was translated into English one thousand years later by John Wycliffe in 1382.
The first scholarly Greek rendition of the NT based on multiple manuscripts was undertaken by Erasmus. It was called Novum Instrumentum Omne (later called Novum Testamentum Omne) and also included an update to the Latin Vulgate. Five editions were published between 1516 and 1536. These editions were based on eight Greek manuscripts. This means that the Latin Vulgate was effectively the only Bible in use for about 1200 years.
Erasmus’s Bible and those based on it are referred to as textus receptus, which is Latin for “received text”. All textus receptus translations are therefore based on the same eight Greek manuscript used by Erasmus. Examples of textus receptus translations include the Tyndale Bible (1525), Coverdale Bible (1537), Great Bible (1539), Geneva Bible (1560), King James Version (KJV, 1611), and New King James Version (NKJV, 1982).
As compared to the eight Greek manuscripts available for Erasmus in creating his NT Bible, there are currently more than five thousand. Translations based on all of the available manuscripts and that use critical scholarly techniques to infer what the original manuscripts most likely said (none of the original manuscripts exist) are referred to as critical text. Textus receptus translations have a small number of additional verses when compared to critical text translations.[i] This is presumably due to scribes adding these verses during the transcription process. Examples of popular critical text translations include the New American Bible (NAB), New American Standard Bible (NASB), English Standard Version (ESV), Revised Standard Version (RSV), New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), New International Version (NIV), and New Living Translation (NLT). A simplified chart showing the primary relationships of various Bible translations is shown in the following figure.
In addition to textus receptus versus critical text, Bible translations can also be classified based on the extent to which they try to be a word-for-word translation or a thought-for-thought translation. At the extreme end of word-for-word is an interlinear Bible. An interlinear Bible has the untranslated Greek paired with the translation, which can be one word for one word, several Greek words for one translated word, or one Greek word for several translated words. Greek sentence structure is significantly different from English, and so the translated words in an interlinear Bible are not intended to be read. The readable translation that is generally considered the most word-for-word is the NASB. This is followed by the ESV, KJV, NKJV, and the NRSV. A popular thought-for-thought translation is the NLT. The NIV strikes a balance between word-for-word and thought for thought.
The best Bible translation for you is the one that you read. This said, there are advantages to using a word-for-word translation when undertaking serious biblical and theological studies. This is because Greek words do not always have perfect English translations. For example, there are four commonly used Greek words for different kinds of love: storge for affection, philia for friendship, eros for attraction, and agapé for charity. These will all typically be translated into “love,” losing information about the particular kind of love that is indicated. A word-for-word translation allows the corresponding Greek word to be easily identified so that the original Greek meaning can be better understood. As such, all of the Bible quotations used in this book are from the NASB unless otherwise noted.[ii] This will hopefully be helpful to the reader when Hebrew and Greek words are examined, as is often necessary for rigorous theology.
[i] An example of something included in textus receptus translations but not in critical text translations is the ending of Mark (Mk 16:9-20). Critical text translations end with the discovery of Christ’s empty tomb. Textus receptus translations continue with several appearances of Christ including His command to his disciples to go into the world and preach the Gospel. Another example is the story of Jesus and the prostitute where Jesus instructs the crowd, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (Jn 8:1-11). This appears in textus receptus translations but not in critical text translations.
[ii] A fantastic old-school tool for becoming familiar with key Hebrew and Greek words in Scripture is the Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, published by AMG Publishers. This is the 1977 NASB translation with key words underlined and tagged with their corresponding Strong’s reference number. The Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary of the Old Testament and the Strong’s Greek Dictionary of the New Testament are included.
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