What Is The Best Bible Translation?

 What Is The Best Bible Translation?

Brett A. Todd

What is the best Bible translation?  To put my bias out on the table for everyone to see, I have to tell you that I am very excited for the new edition of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible to be published in 2022.  The plan is to have a printed version sometime this summer, one that you can smell the ink on its pages.  By far, in my mind, this is the best Bible translation on the market.

Is there a best Bible translation?  You will get different answers from different Bible scholars simply because so much of translating ancient languages like Hebrew or Greek has first to do with “interpretation”.  Anyone who has skills in translating ancient languages knows exactly what I’m talking about.  Translating is not an exact science, rather, it is what I call “Getting a feel for it”.  A translator has to get a sense or a feel for what the ancient writers were trying to say thousands of years ago.  So, one could say, translating the Bible requires a lot of interpretation before the translation is put on paper.

As one might guess, this can be a problem.  Rather than getting a translation of what an ancient author might have said, what you get is a modern Bible translation of interpretations.  Let me give you an example from the Bible.

In Romans 7:18 we read these words in the New International Version of the Bible, “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature…”  The two words I want you to note are “sinful nature”.  These two words are the translators’ modern theological interpretation of what they think the Greek word “sarx” (σάρξ) means in English.  Rather than translating this Greek word literally and correctly “flesh”, they have given it a little twist and translated this word to agree with their conservative Evangelical doctrine that we all have this part (sinful nature) in us that makes us sin and rebel against God.  Whether you believe in this type of doctrine or not, this is not what the Apostle Paul intended by Romans 7:18.

You might ask, how does the New Revised Standard Version translate this verse?  Let’s take a look, “For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh….”

There are many other examples from Bible translation that are more interpretations than translation, but this gives you a little sample of the problem faced in translating the Bible or any other ancient writing.

So, what is the best Bible translation? There are a lot of good Bible translations, and honestly, none of them are perfect.  Personally, as you know, I think the New Revised Version of the Bible is a great place to start.

In the next four articles, we will discuss what many consider a hot-button, topic—homosexuality and the Bible.  Specifically, we will discuss “Homosexuality and Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9”.