Monday, January 22, 2001

January 22, 2001 1135pm CST Which is the best English translation of the Christian Scriptures? I have no idea. There is no easy answer to that question. The stately language of the Authorized Version of 1611, also called the King James Version, has had a greater effect on the English Language than perhaps any other literary work in history. It is written in a unique ecclesiastical English, the language of our liturgy and prayer. Newer Protestant translations such as the New American Standard Bible and the New International Version make the Scriptures more accessible to contemporary American readers. Other versions are actually paraphrases, and they make the message much more easy to understand, though they can sometimes pick up sectarian biases. The Douay-Rheims translation is a very faithful translation of Jerome's Vulgate and a classic of Roman Catholic scholarship, though it is not based directly on the Greek and Hebrew texts. All of these versions offer something special to the contemporary English reader, but none can be said to be the best for every single use. 11:45:13 PM    comment []