When I started this series of posts, I had no idea it would attract such invective. There has been a lot of criticism and even a fair bit of ridicule for the versions I have included and the ones I have not. Let me reiterate for all the readers – this series is what it is. Some versions people think should be included haven’t been included. Some positions people think should be taken haven’t been taken. It is perfectly fine to disagree with the content of these articles. Your disagreement will be noted.
On to the final post, “Updating the King James Version.”
In the first post of the series, we explored the major revisions of the Authorized Version or King James Version of the Bible (AV or KJV). More than one commenter noted the absence of the New King James Version (NKJV). I intentionally omitted the NKJV from that post because it is part of a different line of thinking than the other revisions (RV, ASV, RSV, NASB, NRSV, ESV). The NKJV is different for a number of reasons:
- The translators attempted to retain as much of the KJV wording as possible.
- For the most part, the translators adhered to the same textual tradition from which the KJV was rendered.
- The translators were overwhelming conservative evangelicals – which was not true of most of the other revisions (except the NASB and ESV).
- The translation itself was not intended to be a standard version – for use in all English-speaking denominations.
Although various of the other revisions might share one or two of these characteristics, the NKJV is the only one which intentionally employed all of them.
A Brief Contextual History
The New King James Version came about because of some conversations that Arthur Farstad (who was later responsible for the Holman Christian Standard Bible) had with prominent conservatives in the late 70’s. These conversations culminated in the publication of the New King James Version in 1982, but the conversation that spawned it came out of a broader context that we need to explore.
You might think that this information is extraneous, but it does have a direct bearing on the reasons the NKJV was developed.
Getting to the King James Version…
The original King James Version was actually an overhaul of William Tyndale’s translations of the previous century. Tyndale had the misfortune of doing his work during the reign of Henry VIII, who hated Protestants, even after he became one in the 1530’s. As a result, Tyndale worked in exile, and his New Testaments were smuggled into England. He was eventually burned at the stake, but his work continued to influence English translation works.
Henry VIII died, followed quickly by his son Edward VI. Then came his slightly mad, Catholic daughter Mary and then his long-lived and intriguing youngest daughter Elizabeth I. She ruled for decades, but eventually also died – leaving no heir. Her cousin once removed, James VI of Scotland, was summoned to take the throne of England.
In 1603, James was on his way to take his throne in London as James I. He made a number of stops along the way, ostensibly to hear from supplicants but actually just to avoid the outbreak of plague in London. At Hampton Court, James heard from a number of Puritans who made a number of requests – all of which he denied except their request for his sponsorship of a new translation of the Scripture. This was nothing new. Both Henry and Elizabeth had authorized Bibles.
This project however was massive, spreading over Oxford and Cambridge’s campuses. James made a few easily followed rules, and the translators were supplied with copies of the Bishop’s Bible as well as permission to draw from several other English Bibles. The work took the better part of seven years and in the end, the result is a masterful work of translation and English composition. It is truthfully, as I have pointed out before, the last translation into English that has forced English to conform to the original texts rather than the other way round.
…and then Stopping?
After the 1611 publication of the KJV, there were several small revisions made to the English text – usually correcting spelling or printer’s errors but also some minor reworking – until 1769. One assumes that these revisions should have gone on but they did not. (To be fair, there were some minor corrections that went on, but nothing ‘official’.)
For some KJVO advocates, this is because the text reached perfection and needed no further work. But if you look closely at the history of the world during the period between 1769 and Arthur Farstad’s suggestion of a revision of the KJV over 200 years later, you see something more was going on in the world.
The Rise of Modernity…
A lot of things happened shortly before and after 1769 which altered the world forever, most of which never get discussed in the Bible version debate. Chief among them, there was a shift in Europe to a new view of the world – what became modernity. This shift had many reasons, but ‘religion’ was becoming something of an anathema in academic circles. Theology became more and more anthropocentric. Textual studies became increasingly concerned with nuance and minutiae. Biological and cultural evolution became all the rage in academic circles.
In short, Western mankind felt like they were ‘growing’ out of the need for religion. One of the most stunning event that gave credence to this was the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. It struck while thousands were in church, and people were killed in their pews. Those who escaped to the shoreline were drowned by a massive tsunami. Theologians of the time wrote extensively about the event, asking how God could possibly allow this to happen.
Although not necessarily the cause of the rise of modernity, it was things like it that gave credence to the ideas of deism and ultimately humanism. The Age of Modernity was one in which religion and ‘intellectual pursuits’ became distinct. Particularly in Europe, academia questioned everything about faith and turn radically against it.
This happened even as imperial ambitions motivated the European powers to expand ever outward into ‘unknown’ lands. The British Empire in particular expanded immeasurably. Human progress seemed to be moving onward unchecked and often with nothing more than a nod in the general direction of faith.
It is a mistake then to assume that the KJV was not revised after 1769 because it had reached perfection. One has only to sit in a liturgical Anglican church and you realize that the Church of England is frozen in its heyday – frozen in Tudor and Jacobean England. The KJV was reasserted as the English Bible after the English Civil War and the Commonwealth failed miserably, and the English welcomed back their monarchy in the person of Charles II in 1660. Revisions picked up again, but then faltered with the coming of the House of Hanover and particularly with the rule of George III. Modernity made church, even a state church, purely perfunctory. Why revise a Bible which worked perfectly well with a religion that was increasingly pressed to the margins?
(The same was not true in America where once printers were freed from the British Crown’s right to the printing of the KJV, they printed it with typical American gusto. Unfortunately, in their rush, they often misprinted it as well. It wasn’t until the late 19th century and early 20th century that it all got sorted out on this side of the Atlantic.)
And when the task of revision was undertaken in the 1881, it was undertaken by men of Victorian England – men who saw their own society as the pinnacle of humanity’s march toward perfection. They believed their science was superior to anything that had come before it, and the translation they produced (and the texts they used to produce it) were symptomatic of their times. This is neither good nor bad. It simply is.
The turn of the 19th to the 20th century was often heralded as the age of mankind’s greatest accomplishments and advancement. We as a race believed we had overcome all opposition, discovered all there was to know and were all around doing just fine. If there was a God, he would soon show up to pat us on the back for setting up his perfect kingdom for him.
…and the Fall of Modernity
And then, the world descended into war. First it was small local conflicts which grew into greater conflicts. In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Austra declared war on Bosnia. Before the end of the year, virtually the entire known world west of the Urals was at war. Four years later, 15 million people were dead.
The enlightened human race had left 15 million of their own people dead on battlefields, fighting a war which (and I don’t have time to go over all of this) had been fought off and on since the 9th century. What’s more, the victors subjected the losers to a so harshly unjust peace that inevitably war broke out again. This time, it truly was a world war – raging on every continent except Antarctica and ending with another 60 million people dead, including some from mass genocide and others from the only detonation of atomic bombs in warfare.
Clearly, ‘modern’ man was not all that progressive. The only thing he had evolved was better weapons to kill more of his fellow man. The myth of modernity began to fall apart, and in its wake came a movement of trying to make sense of things. This movement, known as postmodernity, has gone many different directions; but perhaps its most fruitful has been the attempt to recover what was good and true prior to the rise of modernity.
Reconnecting with the pre-Modern KJV
This brings us to Arthur Farstad and the NKJV. Frustrated with the numerous modern revisions of the KJV, Farstad and company proposed that a translation committee skip over the work of the previous revisions and go back to the KJV. The translation would be a minimal update utilizing what they called complete equivalence – a form of formal equivalence that permitted dynamic translation only when absolutely impossible to avoid.
The NKJV Preface contains a very telling statement, linking their own postmodern world with the academic pursuits of 17th century England:
Although the Elizabethan period and our own era share in zeal for technical advance, the former period was more aggressively devoted to classical learning.
Notice the connection, perhaps unconscious, to a period that the translators acknowledge to be superior to their own. The modernists would never have made such a concession, but the translators do so freely.
They state their reverence for the work of their predecessors, while subtly denying the quality of the works that lie between them and the present day:
The real character of the Authorized Version does not reside in its archaic pronouns or verbs or other grammatical forms of the seventeenth century, but rather in the care taken by its scholars to impart the letter and spirit of the original text in a majestic and reverent style.
While KJVO advocates often criticize the NKJV for not maintaining their standard of a Bible translation (namely, replicating the KJV exactly), the NKJV translators were doing their best to strike a middle ground between the knowledge that English had changed since the 17th century and a desire to return to the pre-modern faith which the KJV reflects.
(Author’s Note) Some People Don’t Like the KJV…
And that’s ok. The NKJV is not a perfect redux of the KJV. You can’t capture lightning in a bottle. For me personally, the NKJV feels like a fuzzy KJV. It is hard to explain, but because I grew up with the KJV, I actually struggle with the NKJV. The English Standard Bible feels, to me, more like a formal translation than the New King James does. But that’s a preference and it has more to do with my style of thinking/preaching/worshiping than it does with the quality of the work.
The NKJV is definitely a step backward in the right direction, in my opinion. I would love to see the work continue on the KJV, reworking and taking into consideration our growing knowledge of koine Greek without having to completely retranslate it.
Other KJV Updates
There are a number of alternative KJV’s in circulation – the 21st century KJV, the Modern KJV (1963) – but they are generally one-man or small group updates of the KJV. the Modern KJV is available in e-sword, but I am not sure if it is still available in print.
These are not translations but edits of the KJV – just as there were a number of edits made by various publishers in America during the 19th century, and they don’t even approach the NKJV in scope or in sales.
King James Only? 
I think you have confused the English Civil War, in which Charles I was overthrown and Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector, with the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which William of Orange and his wife Mary overthrow her Catholic father, James II.
Update made. Good catch, Chris.
I have similar sentiments. Although part of my reluctance for the NKJV was my recent abandonment of TR Onlyism, still the NKJV seems an odd form of the KJV. Whereas the ESV seems like a formal newer translation that is similar in flavor to the KJV of old.
I hope that the following points will not merely be noted but be engaged.
(1) It is misleading, in the initial post and in your statement here, to call the Revised Version NT and all iterations of it “revisions of the Authorized Version.” Their Greek base-text is so different from the base-text of the KJV that calling the Revised Version a “revision of the KJV” is like replacing the engine and transmission of a car and saying that it has had a tune-up. The name “Revised Version” and the list of the expressed purposes of the revision do not obscure our view of its base-text, and cannot prevent us from noticing that its producers exceeded their mandate and did not produce a revision as much as they produced a replacement. The premise, reflected in this post-series, that the RV, the ASV, the RSV, and the NRSV, etc., are somehow revisions of the KJV is simply a repetition of unsustainable propaganda which originally was enunciated by people in the late 1800’s who were aware that the KJV was popular, and that their work was controversial (especially since a Unitarian, Vance Smith, was among the RV’s translators, and some of the others, including Westcott, had insisted on his participation). That is not a good reason, however, for us to continue to swallow and spread their propaganda.
(2) The theme of the “The Rise of Modernity” seems to be that the small changes in new editions of the KJV – more like refinements than what we think of as revisions – stopped being made after 1769 because of a loss of interest in Christianity. That is not the case. The official refinements stopped because their sponsors considered the task sufficiently completed. (Scrivener takes his readers on a tour of this in his book on the English Bible and Its Subsequent Reprints (which has a longer title, but that should be enough to Google) so there’s no need to replow plowed ground here.)
(3) Who is this Arthur Falstad fellow? It’s *Farstad.*
(4) I challenge this statement: “The NKJV translators were doing their best to strike a middle ground between the knowledge that English had changed since the 17th century and a desire to return to the pre-modern faith which the KJV reflects.” The NKJV Preface describes the translators’ reasons for making a new formal-equivalence translation of the texts used by the KJV-translators; nowhere in the NKJV Preface is there anything about striking a blow against modernity. In the NT, the NKJV’s reliance upon the Textus Receptus was not an effect of some philosophical agenda; it emanated, as far as Farstad was concerned, from a conviction that the TR, as a branch of the Byzantine/Majority Text, was more reliable and more stable than the Alexandrian Text. (I’m confident that market-forces were also at work, as well as some reluctance by conservative scholars to put all their eggs in the critical-text basket, so to speak.)
(5) This was not much of a profile of the NKJV; it was philosophical musings illustrated by references to the NKJV. Can we just have a profile of the NKJV to complete the series?
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
James, thanks for your thoughts. I want to preface my response by saying that nothing here is written in a confrontational way, since sometimes people read things that way. Here are my responses, Item by item:
(1) Your protest is duly noted, but they remain officially ‘revisions.’ I discussed the changes that were made in the first post, and that post provides sufficient background to the situation that I do not think it warrants reiteration here.
(2) As a student of history, I have to say that I disagree with you and, to be perfectly honest, with Scrivener. The rise of modernity and the nationalism of the late 18th century had much more of an impact on the way people thought, lived and acted than we tend to think. Scrivener himself was a Victorian, and while that doesn’t make him ‘inferior’, it does mean that his work was a product of his age. I think looking at the development of the monarchy side-by-side with the work, you can’t help but note the connections. But that’s my opinion – and much of history is opinion – so I wouldn’t necessarily be dogmatic about it.
(3) Duly noted and revised.
(4) Again, the broader history plays out different from your perspective. Did the NKJV translators think they were ‘striking a blow against modernity’? No. They believed that the revisions they had before them were inadequate and relied on poor scholarship. Where did that inadequacy and poor scholarship come from? They were the product of modernity. The thesis remains.
(5) Actually, I did as much profiling of the NKJV in this article as I have of other translations in previous posts. I have added more historical (and not necessarily philosophical, though the two are difficult to separate) background because I think the NKJV is a harbinger of good things to come. As recommended previously, if you feel you need a more straightforward profile of the NKJV, you are free to write one and post a link.
If we are going to look at the side-effects of English monarchs rising and falling and switching sides re: the Catholic/Protestant/Puritan spectrum, then we should at least also look at a few other huge trends, movements and scandals.
I can think of not the rise of “modernism” per se, but rather its more complex tree: Enlightenment, the advance of mathematics and science, and most importantly in religious and academic circles, the rise of Unitarianism predating the deism and agnosticism that followed.
At the same time as the large social revolution spurred mostly by Unitarians, (temperance unions, marches against poverty, workhouses, child-labour, slavery), and the English public leaving the traditional Catholic and Protestant churches by droves, inside the church clergy there was the counter-revolution of the “Oxford Movement” (the real one, i.e., Neumann and thousands of clergy deserting the Church of England and joining ROME!).
The 1800s, saw a revolutionary change in academia, whereby in the 1840s someone like Samuel Davidson could be tried, fired and expelled for heresy, to the 1860s whereby a real Ehrdmanian like Hort could rise to chairing the Revision Committee!
In the end, what saved the Church of England and British Christianity temporarily was the stubborn inertia of the laity, and the fact that the Unitarians finally ran out of gas, as hundreds deserted their own cause for the more attractive apostacy of agnosticism and atheism.
The whole “Revision” movement from the 1830s to the 1960s was the frothy head of the corrupted beerstein of Unitarianism, which days were numbered from its inception.
Those fads came and went, and the remaining core Protestants of the fading British Empire carried on clinging to their AV, hiding out in Baptist congregations and fundamentalist community churches.
What also swept the English-speaking world in the 19th and early 20th century was the dozen or so large-scale cults that sprung up overnight as people’s faith in traditional religion was shaken and crushed by the relentless bashing of the German know-it-alls, and their traitorous allies hiding within the Commonwealth.
Thats the real history of the KJV and NKJV.
peace
Nazaroo
Sorry, Nazaroo. You lost me.
Well, the production of the ‘critical texts’ and ‘modern versions’ for the 150 years between 1830 and 1980 has been essentially the result of the activities of the Unitarians, which have been a major force, especially in America.
The conservative rejection of modern versions, and the stubborn clinging to the TR and KJV, and now also the NKJV, has been primarily the activity of the Trinitarians.
Anyone who doubts this basic dichotomy can simply check the list of names of prestigious supporters and promoters of the W/H type text and the modern versions, for instance here:
http://adultera.awardspace.com/AA/Unitarians.html
For the complimentary point about Trinitarians, one need only note that the only Bible society promoting the TR for the last 100 years has been the Trinitarian Bible Society, formed in the 1830s when it became obvious that the Unitarians had taken over the UBS and BFBS.
peace
Nazaroo
Unitarianism was definitely a fadish movement in the 19th century and influenced the work of the RV. I’m curious though. Here is a list of the translation committee of the ESV. Are any of these people Unitarians?
Here also is a list of the translators of the New King James Version, and the New American Standard Bible. Are any of these people Unitarians?
I have not checked them yet, but I will do so. I think you will find that if there are Unitarians involved in translations, they are involved in the more dynamic translations – like NIV/TNIV, NLT (sorry Joel, but I’m pretty sure there were a couple at least on the original committee) or the CEV.
Excellent blog.
Question: Why does the myth persist that the NKJV uses a “critical text” as the basis for its NT? I’ve encountered this myth several times now, and it is a quite persistent piece of misinformation, that some people just can’t seem to give up. I’ve even had a fundamentalist preacher literally scream at me “That’s a LIE! That’s a LIE!” when I made the factual, incontrovertible statement that the NKJV NT was based on the TR.
Simple logic.
Thesis: The KJV derives from the received text.
Antithesis: The NKJV is not exactly the same as the KJV.
Primary Synthesis: The NKJV does not derive from the received text.
Secondary Synthesis: The NKJV must derive from the critical text.
Of course, the argument is faulty logic, but to a KJVO person, it is incomprehensible that a translation could derive from the same textual basis as the KJV and not be the KJV. It is deductive logic. It is the same logic that argues that another translation must be wrong because it does not read the same as the KJV. It argues from the wrong place.
As an example, I have yet to discover an adequate explanation for the KJV’s translation of Proverbs 18:24. The KJV has:
The verb translated as “shew himself friendly” is רָעַע which means ‘to hurt’ or ‘to do evil.’ This is obvious throughout the Scriptures and yet the translators chose to render it completely different. There’s absolutely no textual reason to render it as the KJV translators did; but I know people who look at that verse to check a translation. If it doesn’t say something like “shew himself friendly”, it is a corrupt translation. It’s silliness.
My understanding is that the NKJV is based on a majority text, though I’d have to admit that the NKJV NT is almost identical textually to the KJB. The issue is the NKJV’s translation.
Since there is no final perfect Textus Receptus in Greek, it follows that either the King James Bible is the exemplar Received Text, or there is no known perfect NT text in one extant form.
I’ve heard of a few TROs trying to say that Scrivener’s TR was perfect, but when they realised that Scrivener’s TR differed slightly from the KJB, they turned out to favour the KJB. Otherwise their position would merely be KJBP, and that is not KJBO.
It is not a big step from KJBP to using the NKJV. I suppose many have crossed the Rubicon since the early 1980s.
Bible projector
Well, it’s not quite right to say that the NKJV uses a “Majority Text.” The NKJV distinguishes between a “Majority Text” in the Byzantine tradition (which they call the “MT”) and the TR, which, as you know, is “reverse engineered” from the KJV. I see your point, though–if it is the case that Scrivner’s actually deviates somewhat from the KJV. But, as a matter of precision, I think it’s better to distinguish the TR from the MT, as the NKJV committee does.
In any event, one thing that frustrates me is that it’s not just KJVO types who perpetuate the “NKJV uses an ‘eclectic/critical’ text” myth, in my experience. Perhaps some people think that they have arrived at a sophisticated understanding by perusing the footnotes, when, in fact, they have not taken the time to read the introduction to the NKJV or to understand what the footnotes mean. The NKJV *ALWAYS AND WITHOUT EXCEPTION* bases its translation upon the TR in the body of the text. The footnotes, however, note differences b/t the TR and the MT and modern “critical” texts (which they abbreviate as “NU”). I think that some people see “MT” and “NU” in the footnotes and think, “Oh, I see! The NKJV is following something other than the TR here!” When, in fact, precisely the opposite is the case.
I believe the NKJV follows an 1815 Oxford edition of the TR or soemthing like that. That, edition, I believe, is based more on Stephanus 1550 than the 1598 Beza edition the KJV favored. Still the two (S & B) differ less than 200 times in the NT. So essentially, the NKJV is following the same text as the KJV followed.
Thanks for pointing that out, Jim. And for finding our little blog….
Erik:
This is way off topic, but really needs to be addressed. Your claim that the “more dynamic” translations are more likely to have unitarians on the committee is extremely problematic. I think that you need to be more careful here. Translation philosophy is not directly related to the faith committment assumed by a translation. The TNIV, NIV, and NLT are all evangelical translations, translated by evangelical scholars. There aren’t going to be unitarians on these committees.
Where you are going to find committees open to having unitarians are the more ecumenical Bible translations–i.e., the RSV and NRSV. And these both happen to be self avowed “literal” translations (although, admittedly, in the case of the NRSV the “essentially literal” philosophy has been so qualified and modified that the NRSV only barely qualifies as a “literal” translation).
You really need to be more careful here.
True.
That is why I said “if there are Unitarians involved in translations, they are involved in the more dynamic translations.” I was thinking translations that are still being worked on. As far as I know, the RSV is not being reworked but the the NIV and NLT still have working committees.
I had originally listed the NRSV in that list but then deleted it because it is not technically a ‘dynamic’ translation.
Oh, and one more thing:
Nazaroo: The idea that there is a “simple dichotomy” wherein trinitarians support the TR and unitarians support critical texts is patently absurd. Don’t waste our time with such fringe nonsense, so we don’t have to waste our time “returning the fool for his folly.”
Jim,
I do think that Nazaroo has a point – because Unitarianism was definitely influential in the 1881 revisions and the pre-WWII modern translations. Increasingly, it lost its appeal in the 20th century. Unitarianism was very much born out of modernity.
Is there a definite distinction between Unitarian and Trinitarian texts/translations? No, think such an abstract dichotomy is unsupportable.
It is not a “simple” dichotomy, but it is a very visible one.
It is very obvious that Unitarians *did* prefer the critical texts, because they leave out things like “God was manifest in the flesh” and the Johannine Comma. To them, these were the ‘smoking gun’ which proved in their minds that the traditional Christian text had been corrupted by ecclesiastic editing. From this they repeatedly inferred that the *OTHER* Trinitarian readings were also suspect.
It is also true that this controversy has essentially died down, as it was realised that Textual Criticism as a way of attacking Trinitarianism had a limited utility. In the last 100 years, critics have moved on to attacking the NT on literary grounds far more sophisticated than waving 4th cent. MSS around and pointing to omissions.
Its not “fringe nonsense” to document carefully the history behind the Revisionism of the Bible in the last century. There were clear religious (protectionism etc.), doctrinal (Unit.vs Trinit., Bapt. etc.) and political motives (Denominations, cults) behind all the proposed changes to the NT text in both its content (TC) and its translation (philos.of transl.)
To avoid discussing this, and pretend that all the people involved were “good honest mainstream Christians” is a historical absurdity and a distortion of truth of monumental proportions.
The NT text has never been handled in a truly scientific, disinterested, honest, and unbiased manner. It has always been heavily clouded by the vested interests of large and powerful religious groups.
This isn’t ‘conspiracy theory’, this is just historical fact.
I’m not “wasting our time” as Jim would like to imply, or else he wouldn’t be posting responses. Obviously he and many others are deeply interested in the political details.
I am not a ‘fool’ either, and this personal innuendo is very bad manners. Lets keep the discussion academic please.
peace
Nazaraoo
Aye, it seems this particular post is a bit too cranky and less than irenic. I humbly request that it be removed, if possible.
Gee Jim: Your unilateral request to have my post removed, but not your own, which started it, reminds me of a true story that happened to me.
I had a good friend, whose family was largely Jehovah’s Witnesses. At some point we were at his cottage, and his brother showed up, and some lively debate got going on various doctrinal differences between JWs and other Christians.
In the end, I felt quite warmed to the fellow, and when it came time for him to leave, I offered my hand in friendship, and said, “Well, if I don’t see you again down here, I’ll see you in heaven.”
There was a pause: then this response. “I don’t think so.”
I too paused. I was taken aback. I could see no good reason for the sudden shut down in communications.
I said, thoughtfully:
“Well, thats interesting: I invited you into my heaven, but you didn’t invite into yours.”
Other observers noted the discrepancy. There were no hard feelings on my part. But I felt pretty embarrassed for this fellow. It wasn’t sincerity that was lacking. I think it was humility, coupled with just a bit too much self-righteousness.
Thats why I think your two posts (may I call you Maestro?) reminded me of this story.
In any case, peace to you.
I hope no one deletes this message before you get to read the story, because I think it could benefit a lot of people.
peace
Nazaroo
I believe there is a misunderstanding here – caused by the limitations of our reply structure. Jim had actually written this about his own comment, if I’m not mistaken.
Jim, I’m wondering if you are Jim West who sits atop the BiblioBlog Rankings, or just another Jim. Just curious….
And to be clear, any old Jim is welcome here, by the way…
..or *should* be welcome, provided he can exercise self-restraint and refrain from personal attacks.
Peace
Nazaroo
I agree, Nazaroo. During this series, we’ve all had enough attacks to last a lifetime. It is fine to disagree, but let’s do so as gentlemen (and ladies, if there are any female participants).
By the way Erik, I agree with on your final point also:
Real modern translations (i.e., 1960 and newer) don’t really show any Unitarian bias in the translation itself. They only appear to, because the critical text they base their translation on already has a few Trinitarian passages removed.
Modern translators appear to have moved away from the Unitarian causes that motivated earlier textual critics and editors.
And the last 50 years of ecumenicalism has done a lot to de-fuse the early Protestant/Catholic emnity that perpetuated bias and false accusations from both sides in the past.
Nowadays, Protestants for the most part are less “fundamentalist” in outlook, and R-Catholics are less hostile to historical-critical approaches to the Bible.
Both of these trends however, are probably negative in their impact on authentic enthusiastic and primitive Christian belief.
peace
Nazaroo
Just found this from the Common English Bible:
http://www.commonenglishbible.com/Explore/CompareTranslations/ComparisonChart/tabid/301/Default.aspx
I’ve never seen the ESV rated as more dynamic than the NIV before. Very strange!
I do like the idea of an intentional trans-denominational translation that is supported by multiple denominational publishing arms. The idea has promise. It’d be great to see something with a more conservative bent done similarly. SBC, PCA, etc…
Bob,
Over at the CARM KJV-Only Forum I recently examined a selection from the CEB; you might find that interesting — as well as a few profiles, in the same forum, of some of the CEB translators.
Regarding this tangent about Unitarianism: I invite Jim to name one living Unitarian scholar who affirms that the TR represents the original text better than the critical text.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
What a comprehensive post on the NKJV! Now I see why it gets its own post. As someone who specializes in Greek more than Modern History, I sure can’t debate particulars, but I will say that everything presented here makes sense.
Thank you for this overview of the NKJV’s genesis.
Thanks, Gary.
It is not quite as comprehensive as I would have liked it to be, but I am glad it made sense. 😉