On the new Biblica (IBS) website, there is an interesting new Bible translation chart:
I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which major contemporary translation is not shown on this chart…
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On the new Biblica (IBS) website, there is an interesting new Bible translation chart:
I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which major contemporary translation is not shown on this chart…
I imagine that you have in mind the ESV not being included in the “Word for Word/Formal” category, but there’s a few other ommissions that I’d expect to see like the CEV & The Message in the “Free/Dynamic” category and the NET in the “Mediating” category.
Yes, the ESV is what I was looking for, though the HCSB ought to be there too. Especially if they’re going to include the Revised Version and the ASV (!)…
Would that be the HCSB in “Mediating”? And Nick, I’m thinking maybe they’re effectively lumping ESV under the RSV heading, since it’s basically a revision.
I can’t believe they left out the Webster Bible! Unforgivable, really.
The ESV was the one I was looking for first, and it wasn’t there.
I also thought it was interesting that they put the formal on the right and the dynamic on the left. I usually see it the other way around. I wonder if they’re trying to send some kind of message by doing that.
Obviously, Gary. Those loosey-goosey dynamic translations are on the liberal left and the strict, formal translations are on the conservative right. Everyone knows that “real” Christians hang out on the right, right? *wink*
The Douay-Rheims?
Clearly the ESV.
Actually, it is a pretty neat chart, which I may have to post about myself!
I see no important contemporary translations missing.
Are there *any* important contemporary translations?
I was surprised that NEB/REB made it in. Otherwise, apart from what’s already been said, HCSB? The original Living Bible? Coverdale?
I was also rather wondering why the TNIV is in blue.
If I’m recalling the older Zondervan chart correctly, they’ve been pretty consistent about including the NEB/REB line, as well as the N/JB. Their prominence here made me look twice though!
The NIV when it first came out was the “conservative answer to the NEB”. That’s going back 3 decades but the NEB / NIV comparisons were an important part of the early NIV marketing.
That’s a great point, CD – it’s always strikes me when I do see some of the NIV in the REB. It must have been at hand when they did the revision.
Yeah I could see something like this:
NEB -> Critique of NEB ->
1) NIV (competition)
2) REB (fixes)
The timeline fits too:
NEB (1961 NT, 1970/72)
NIV (1973 NT, 1978/84)
REB (1989)
I might add NET, too, as a mediating translation, although it doesn’t seem to have as wide a following as the other translations on the chart.
That one didn’t surprise me as much as the absence of the ESV… I had hoped that the publishers might be ready to move on past this last round of Bible wars. Especially given the positive indications that Wayne had given on a possibly renewed effort behind the TNIV.
I had the publishers never move past this. I don’t think Zondervan should ever legitimize the ESV. Zondervan has always been an evangelical publisher but not a fundamentalist one. Its been 70 years since the fundamentalist/modernist wars its time for a unified protestant bible. There is no good reason Zondervan couldn’t become a publisher for the evangelical mainstream and the mainline, sort of the middle 2/3rds of American Christianity. The TNIV might be liberal enough to be a unifying translation, it reads much better than the NRSV and it certainly is the case that most people on the right are OK with it. It is very mediating which I think is the right balance.
With the evangelical market hitting what looks like a bad 2 generations and the mainline stable (see stats) turn the anti-TNIV campaign into a positive and move left.
Here’s one no one thought of yet: NCV! At first glance, I missed ESV.
I first looked for the HCSB to see if it was missing, then the ESV.
ASV is one thing to include, but I don’t even know of an RV in print. Why do these older and now rarely used translations have to be included, but some of the more common ones (today) not be included?
Anyway, I would include literal translations (YLT, ALT, etc.) and paraphrases (MSG, Voice, TLB) as well. And I would probably stack RSV with formal and lean HCSB.
Jake –
They got the literal with the NASB. But I agree that extends the graphic out in both directions in terms of more literal and more of a paraphrase.
I would say that NASB isn’t near as literal as YLT.
Like Robert I was looking for the HCSB and noticed it not in the mediating then noticed that ESV was missing as well.
Personally I still prefer the HCSB even with its occasional quirks (which translation doesn’t have a few) – I guess it reads like we speak and it is not a revision but a totally new translation, there is just something about those who are bold enough to blaze new trails rather than resurface the well worn paths. That may be why I loved the NIV so much when it came out back in high school (but I’m dating myself huh?).
Just my humble and hopefully helpful opinion.