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In 1975 the Texas-based evangelical scholar Arthur L. Farstad assembled a group of 130 biblical scholars, theologians, and clergy for the task of producing a modern English version of the King James Version. The New Testament was published in 1979, the Psalms a year later, and the complete New King James Version (NKJV) in 1983. The NKJV featured modernized spellings and the replacement of some 17th-century terminology (e.g., “thou” and “thee”) with more-contemporary words and phrases. Yet, because the translators and editors strove to preserve the literary style of the original King James Version, which had been widely regarded as one of the high-water marks of English literature, traditional sentence structure was preserved. The NKJV gained popularity among Bible societies such as Gideons International.

The New Revised Standard Version

By the late 20th century, biblical scholarship had so progressed, particularly given both the mid-century discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the expansion of the study of ancient Semitic languages of the Middle Eastern context in which the biblical texts emerged and developed, that a new translation of the Revised Standard Version was proposed. Under the auspices of the U.S. National Council of Churches, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholic scholars, as well as a contingent of Jewish scholars who participated in the Old Testament translation, strove to produce a Bible that would preserve “all the best” of the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version while acknowledging linguistic and archaeological discoveries since the mid-20th century that had greatly enhanced knowledge of the social, cultural, and theological context of the biblical world.

The finished product gained acclaim for its scholarship and its accuracy as well as for its accessibility and literary quality. Published in American English in 1989 (with an Anglicized version in 1995), the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) gained general acceptance among scholars, clergy, and laypersons from the three main branches of mainstream Christianity. The NRSV also became the standard translation for most university and seminary biblical studies and religious studies courses. However, some traditionalists objected to the NRSV’s use of gender-inclusive language (e.g., printing “brothers and sisters” when it is clear in the base texts that both men and women are being addressed and the use of male-only language may constitute a distortion). Others bristled at the translators’ use of historical method and archaeology when suggesting a reinterpretation of a traditional rendering of the text. In 1990 the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) ultimately decided not to permit either liturgical or study use of the NRSV, because the translators relied on the Hebrew Masoretic text in translating the Old Testament instead of on the Greek-language Septuagint, which is accepted by Eastern Orthodox churches.

Mid-20th-century Roman Catholic versions

With the exception of a version by the Irish American archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick (published in six volumes, 1849–60), all Roman Catholic versions up to the 20th century were merely versions of the Douai-Reims Bible. A celebrated translation was that of Ronald Knox (New Testament, 1945; Old Testament, 1949; complete edition with Old Testament revised, 1955).

The most significant development in modern Catholic translations was initiated by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in 1936. A New Testament version of the Latin Clementine Vulgate (1941), intended as a revision, was in effect a new translation into clear and simple English. The Old Testament revision remained unfinished, the work having been interrupted by a decision inspired by the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1943 to encourage modern vernacular translations from the original languages instead of from the Latin Vulgate. Accordingly, both the Old and New Testaments were respectively retranslated into modern English from the Hebrew and Greek originals. The resultant Confraternity Version (1952–61) was later issued as the New American Bible (1970). Another, more colloquial modern version is the Jerusalem Bible (1966), translated from the French Catholic Bible de Jérusalem (one-volume edition, 1961). An updated translation, The New Jerusalem Bible, was published in 1985. Both Anglicized and American Catholic versions of the New Revised Standard Version were published in 1991. These were approved by the Vatican for personal but not liturgical use.

Special versions

In the late 19th century the American evangelist and publisher Louis Klopsch devised the idea of publishing Bibles featuring the words attributed to Jesus Christ in red text. Klopsch published the first red-letter New Testament in 1899; a complete Bible appeared in 1901. The conceit gained rapid popularity and quickly became commonplace in various subsequent translations, particularly in “study bibles” intended for both personal and group reading and discussion. A similar principle was employed in various special-interest versions of the Bible. For example, 2008 saw the publication of The Green Bible, a version of the New Revised Standard Version with “ecologically sensitive” passages of Scripture, particularly those attributed to God in the Old Testament and specifically to Jesus in the New Testament, indicated in green print.

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Jewish versions

Though Jews in English-speaking lands have generally utilized the King James Version and the Revised Version, such English versions present great difficulties. They contain departures from the traditional Hebrew text, they sometimes embody Christological interpretations, the headings are often doctrinally objectionable, and the renderings in the legal portions of the Pentateuch frequently diverge from traditional Jewish exegesis. In addition, where the meaning of the original is obscure, Jewish readers prefer to consult the well-known medieval Jewish commentators. Finally, the order of the Hebrew canon differs from that of the Christian canons, and the liturgical needs of Jews make inconvenient a version that does not mark the scriptural readings for Sabbaths and festivals.

Until 1917 all Jewish translations were the efforts of individuals. Planned in 1892, the project of the Jewish Publication Society of America was the first translation for which a group representing Jewish learning among English-speaking Jews assumed joint responsibility. This version essentially retained the Elizabethan diction of the King James Version and yet stuck unswervingly to the received Hebrew text, which it interpreted in accordance with Jewish tradition and the best scholarship of the day. For over half a century it remained authoritative, even though it laid no claim to any official ecclesiastical sanction.

In response to an increasingly felt need for modernization, a committee of translators was established, composed of three professional biblical and Semitic scholars and three rabbis. It began its work in 1955 and the Pentateuch was issued in 1962. The Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and Jonah—all in a single volume for the convenience of synagogue use—followed in 1969, and Isaiah and Psalms appeared in 1973. A second committee had been set up in 1955 to work separately on the rest of the Hagiographa (Ketuvim).

Medieval and modern versions: Dutch, French, and German

Dutch versions

Until the Reformation, Dutch Bible translations were largely free adaptations, paraphrases, or rhymed verse renderings of single books or parts thereof. A popular religious revival at the end of the 12th century accelerated the demand for vernacular Scriptures, and one of the earliest extant examples is the Liège manuscript (c. 1270) translation of the Diatessaron (a composite rendering of the four Gospels) by Tatian, a 2nd-century Syrian Christian heretical scholar; it is believed to derive from a lost Old Latin original. Best known of all the rhymed versions is the Rijmbijbel of Jacob van Maerlant (1271), based on Peter Comestar’s Historia scholastica. Despite the poor quality of Johan Schutken’s translation of the New Testament and Psalms (1384), it became the most widely used of medieval Dutch versions.

With the Reformation came a renewed interest in the study of the Scriptures. Martin Luther’s Bible was repeatedly rendered into Dutch, the most important version being that of Jacob van Liesveldt (1526). It was mainly to counter the popularity of this edition that Roman Catholics produced their own Dutch Bible, executed by Nicolaas van Winghe (Leuven, 1548). A revision printed by Jan Moerentorf (Moretus, 1599) became the standard version until it was superseded by that of the Peter Canisius Association (1929–39), now in general use. A fresh translation of the New Testament into modern Dutch appeared in 1961.

French versions

The deep conflicts that characterized the history of Christianity in France made it difficult for one authoritative version to emerge. The first complete French Bible was produced in the 13th century at the University of Paris, and toward the end of that century Guyart des Moulins executed his Bible historiale. Both works served as the basis of future redactions, of which the Bible printed in Paris (date given variously as 1487, 1496, or 1498) by order of King Charles VIII is a good example.

The real history of the French Bible began in Paris in 1523 with the publication of the New Testament, almost certainly the work of the reformer Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (Faber Stapulensis). The Old Testament appeared in Antwerp in 1528 and the two together in 1530 as the Antwerp Bible. The first true Protestant version came out in Serrières, near Neuchâtel, five years later, the work of Pierre Robert, called Olivétan. This version was frequently revised throughout the 16th century, the most-celebrated editions being Calvin’s of 1546 and that of Robert Estienne (Stephanus) of 1553. Roman Catholics produced a new version, the Louvain Bible of 1550, based on both Lefèvre and Olivétan. Modernizations of Olivétan appeared in succeeding centuries. The most important French version of the 20th century is the Jerusalem Bible, prepared by professors at the Dominican École Biblique de Jérusalem (Paris 1949–54, complete 1956).

German versions

The early Old Testament in Gothic has already been described. The New Testament remains are far more extensive and are preserved mainly in the Codex Argenteus (c. 525) and Codex Gissensis. The translation, essentially based on a Byzantine text, is exceedingly literal and not homogeneous. It is difficult to determine the degree of contamination that the original Gospels translation of Ulfilas had undergone by the time it appeared in these codices.

Nothing is known of the vernacular Scriptures in Germany prior to the 8th century, when an idiomatic translation of Matthew from Latin into the Bavarian dialect was made. From Fulda (in Germany) circa 830 came a more literal East Franconian German translation of the Gospel story. In the same period was produced the Heliand (“Savior”), a versified version of the Gospels. Such poetic renderings cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as translations. There is evidence, however, for the existence of German Psalters from the 9th century on. By the 13th century the different sects and movements that characterized the religious situation in Germany had stimulated a demand for popular Bible reading. Since all the early printed Bibles derived from a single family of late 14th-century manuscripts, German translations must have gained wide popularity. Another impetus toward the use of the German Scriptures in this period can be traced to mystics of the upper Rhine. A complete New Testament, the Augsburg Bible, can be dated to 1350, and another from Bohemia, Codex Teplensis (c. 1400), has also survived.

The Wenzel Bible, an Old Testament made between 1389 and 1400, is said to have been ordered by King Wenceslas, and large numbers of 15th-century manuscripts have been preserved.

The first printed German Bible (the Mentel Bible) appeared at Strassburg no later than 1466 and ran through 18 editions before 1522. Despite some evidence that ecclesiastical authority did not entirely look with favor upon this vernacular development, the printed Bible appeared in Germany earlier, in more editions, and in greater quantity than anywhere else.

A new era opened up with the work of Martin Luther, for whom a translation from the original languages was a necessary and logical conclusion of his doctrine of justification by faith, to which the Scriptures provided the only true key. His New Testament (Wittenberg, 1522) was made from the second edition of Erasmus’s Greek Testament. The Old Testament followed in successive parts, based on the Brescia Hebrew Bible (1494). Luther’s knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic was limited, but his rendering shows much influence of Rashi, the great 11th–12th-century French rabbinic scholar and commentator, through the use of the notes of Nicholas of Lyra. The complete Lutheran Bible emerged from the press in 1534. Luther was constantly revising his work with the assistance of other scholars. Between 1534 and his death in 1546, 10 editions were printed, and another edition was printed posthumously. Luther’s Bible truly fulfilled his objective of serving the needs of the common people, and it in turn formed the basis of the first translations in those lands to which Lutheranism spread. It proved to be a landmark in German prose literature and contributed greatly to the development of the modern language.

The phenomenal success of Luther’s Bible and the failure of attempts to repress it led to the creation of Roman Catholic versions in German, largely adaptations of Luther’s. Hieronymus Emser’s edition simply brought the latter into line with the Vulgate. Johann Dietenberger issued a revision of Emser (Mainz, 1534) and used Luther’s Old Testament in conjunction with an Anabaptist (radical Protestant group) version and the Zürich version of 1529. It became the standard Catholic version. Of the 20th-century translations, the Grünewald Bible, which reached a seventh edition in 1956, is one of the most noteworthy.

German glosses in Hebrew script attached to Hebrew Bibles in the 12th and 13th centuries constitute the earliest Jewish attempts to render the Scriptures into that German dialect current among the Jews of middle Europe, the dialect that developed into Judeo-German, or Yiddish. The first translation proper has been partially preserved in a manuscript from Mantua dated 1421. The earliest printed translation is that of the scriptural dictionaries prepared by a baptized Jew, Michael Adam (Constance, 1543–44; Basel, 1583, 1607). The version of Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi of Janów, known as the Tzʾenah u-Reʾna (Lublin, 1616), became one of the most popular and widely diffused works of its kind.

The first Jewish translation into pure High German, though in Hebrew characters (1780–83), made by Moses Mendelssohn, opened a new epoch in German Jewish life. The first Jewish rendering of the entire Hebrew Bible in German characters was made by Gotthold Salomon (Altona, 1837). An attempt to preserve the quality of the Hebrew style in German garb was the joint translation of two Jewish religious philosophers, Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig (15 vol., Berlin, 1925–37; revised in 4 vol., Cologne, 1954–62).