Why there is so much difference Between Modern Bible Translations?

Question

We will take the most popular Bibles such as the King James Version (KJV), the Revised Standard Version (RSV), the New International Version (NIV), the Good News Bible (GNB), the Living Bible Version (LBV) as well as the Christian Community Bible (CCB) and contrast the same verses within these Bibles.
Verse Mark 9:44

K.J.V. “Where their warm dies not, and the fire is not quenched”
R.S.V. (not included)
G.N.B. (not included)
N.I.V. (not included)
L.B.V. (not included)
C.C.B. (not included)

Verse Mark 16:9-20

K.J.V. (not omitted)
R.S.V. (omitted in edition 1952 and recently restored with the footnote “not include in the most reliable manuscripts”)
C.C.B (not omitted)

Verse Luke 9:56

K.J.V. “For the son of man is not come to destroy men’s live but to save.
R.S.V. (not included)
N.I.V. (not included)
G.N.B. (not included)
L.B.V. (not included)
C.C.B. (not included)

Verse Luke 17:36

K.J.V. “Two men shall be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other left”
R.S.V. (not included)
N.I.V. (not included)
G.N.B. (not included)
C.C.B. (not included)

Verse John 5:4

K.J.V. “For an Angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled water. Whosoever then after the troubling of the water stepped in was made of whatsoever disease he had”
R.S.V. (not included)
N.I.V. (not included)
G.N.V. (not included)
C.C.B. (included, but in parenthesis)

Verse 1 John 5:7-8

K.J.V. “For there are three that bear witness in Heaven, the Father, and the word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one”
R.S.V. (not included)
N.I.V. “For there are three that testify; the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood and these three are in agreement.”
G.N.B. “There are three witnesses; the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood.
L.B.V. (not included)
C.C.B. “There are then three testimonies: the Spirit, the water and the blood, and these three witnesses agree.”

The word “begotten” is not included in verse; John 3:16

K.J.V. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son”
R.S.V. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son”
N.I.V. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son”
G.N.B. “For God so loved the world so much that he gave his only son”
L.B.V. “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only son”
C.C.B. “Yes, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son

Verse Matthew 7:21

K.J.V: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”
The N.A.B. (1970): “None of those who cry out, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of God but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

Verse Romans 7:17

R.S.V. “I do not understand my own actions”
K.J.V. (not included)

Verse Hebrew 12:8

K.J.V. “Then you are bastards, and not sons.”
R.S.V. “Then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”
G.N.B. “It means you are not real sons, but bastards.”
L.B.V. “It means that you are not God’s son at all”

Verse Job 13:15

K.J.V. “Though he slay me yet I trust him”
R.S.V. “he will slay me, I have no hope”
G.N.B. “I’ve lost all hope so what if God kills me.”
L.B.V. “God may kill me for saying this, in fact I expect him to.”

Verse Ezekiel 16:25

K.J.V. “And had opened your feet to every one that passed by.”
R.S.V. “Offering yourself to any passer by”
N.I.V. “Offering your body with increasing promiscuity to who passed by”
L.B.I. “You offered your beauty to every man who came by”
D.R.V. “And had prostituted thyself to every one that passes by”

Answer 1

You got your answer from the foot note of the RSV when you said

"(omitted in edition 1952 and recently restored with the footnote “not include in the most reliable manuscripts”)"


We have more reliable manuscripts today than they did in 1611.

Another reason is language changes, what the words 'worship', let, shambles, etc meant in 1611, does not means the same today.

Also translation is not a word for word function.

add to the fact that words can have different meanings.

In english, 'fast' can mean

move quickly,
can't move,
haven't eaten.

context provides which meaning is correct.

It can be difficult though if the meaning of the word is not so different as the word fast.

So one translator may choose one difinition over another translator.

Answer 2

A lot has to do with which manuscripts the text was copied from. The KJV copied from different Hebrew and Greek manuscripts than the NIV. Frankly, I would never use the Living Bible or the Good News Bible, they are more like commentaries. Never heard of the CCB.
This little piece may help you understand the way the Bible was translated.

Hasn't the Bible been rewritten so many times that we can't trust it anymore?


This is a common misconception. Some people think that the Bible was written in one language, translated to another language, then translated into yet another and so on until it was finally translated into the English. The complaint is that since it was rewritten so many times in different languages throughout history, it must have become corrupted . The "telephone" analogy is often used as an illustration. It goes like this. One person tells another person a sentence who then tells another person, who tells yet another, and so on and so on until the last person hears a sentence that has little or nothing to do with the original one. The only problem with this analogy is that it doesn't fit the Bible at all.
The fact is that the Bible has not been rewritten. Take the New Testament, for example. The disciples of Jesus wrote the New Testament in Greek and though we do not have the original documents, we do have around 6,000 copies of the Greek manuscripts that were made very close to the time of the originals. These various manuscripts, or copies, agree with each other to almost 100 percent accuracy. Statistically, the New Testament is 99.5% textually pure. That means that there is only 1/2 of 1% of of all the copies that do not agree with each other perfectly. But, if you take that 1/2 of 1% and examine it, you find that the majority of the "problems" are nothing more than spelling errors and very minor word alterations. For example, instead of saying Jesus, a variation might be "Jesus Christ." So the actual amount of textual variation of any concern is extremely low. Therefore, we can say that we have a remarkably accurate compilation of the original documents.
So when that we translate the Bible, we do not translate from a translation of a translation of a translation. We translate from the original language into our language. It is a one step process and not a series of steps that can lead to corruption. It is one translation step from the original to the English or to whatever language a person needs to read it in. So we translate into Spanish from the same Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. Likewise we translate into the German from those same Greek and Hebrew manuscripts as well. This is how it is done for each and every language we translate the Bible into. We do not translate from the original languages to the English, to the Spanish, and then to the German. It is from the original languages to the English, or into the Spanish, or into the German. Therefore, the translations are very accurate and trustworthy in regards to what the Bible originally said.

Answer 3

Some of it is the selection of source documents. Some translations (such as King James) use the Textus Receptus, a 16th Century compilation of several 10th Century Greek texts. Others use the Mazoretic Text, a Hebrew compilation of the 10th Century. Still others use the Kittle or Stuttgartensia Hebrew with a 19th Century compilation of two Greek Bibles from the 4th and 5th Century. Each party has reasons for its choices but their sources do not completely agree. There are simply no surviving "originals". The Dead Sea Scrolls are the closest you get and they have no Christian scriptures nor any way to determine if THEY were copied perfectly.

Older copies are often regarded as more accurate, but sloppy copying can happen at any time. Newer copies may have embellishments or clarifications in the margins that ended up incorporated into the text by even later copyists. Any quality control documents or inspection reports have disappeared and the evaluation of a text's authenticity is a careful but arbitrary consideration of a text's age, location, style, predominance and consistency.

Another issue is the nature of translation itself. Different languages have different syntax and sentence structure. Some words and idioms have no equivalent in the other language. There are even some words that are so obscure, we can only guess at their true meaning.

Take the Ezekiel verse. "Feet" is a euphemism for a delicate part of the anatomy. It has no equivalent idiom in English. Does the translator translate the idiom directly and lose the meaning, or does he translate the meaning and risk offending the reader with an unpleasant mental image? One translation method tries to follow the original as closely as possible, producing accurate but confusing and very un-English sounding phrases. Another goes for feel and meaning, but risks the sin of "interpreting" scripture. Most try for a balance between the extremes, accurate when practical, equivalent when necessary.

Hebrew poetry is very different from English poetry. How does one arrange the couplets? How far do we go to preserve the forms, the alliterations or similes? There is more than one kind of "feel" to be considered here. Greek doesn't have an indefinite article, so it's up to the translater to decide whether to add an "a' or not.

Unless you plan to learn ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek, and are prepared to compare numerous texts, you'll have to settle for a compromise, because the definitive edition doesn't exist.

Answer 4

Oh man, why isn't this the most obvious thing in the world. Religion=power, therefore it is advantageous for the regime be it the Vatican or the government to have the bible read the way that benefits them most. The printing press was put into use over 1200 years after the first official "bible" was approved at the council of Bishops at Nicaea. If a book is handwritten and that is the means by which it circulates, certainly there will be dozend if not hundreds of indiviual versions. Never mind that certain books have been added and ommitted over the ages. Take the Gnostic gospels for example. Enough said.

Answer 5

Actually, the questioner's own examples show that there is remarkably LITTLE difference between modern translations of the bible. The King James Version is certainly *NOT* a "modern translation".

KJV is nearly four hundred years old and was based on the manuscripts available to translators before 1611; many of those manuscripts have been proven to include spurious phrases.

The translations published SINCE the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been consistent in rejecting (or at least noting) these spurious phrases.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/t13/article_01.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/20020915/article_01.htm

Answer 6

Actually God wrote the Bible and many people tried to preserve it's original meaning, because they feared what God might do to them if they changed it's meaning. God used prophets to write the different stories, many men toke great care in trying to preserve it. But in the end, God knew what we would end up with today. God has a few people on the earth he wanted to get this message to and they will not be fooled because they know the voice or words of the Father, which is his will and what is not and the Bible teaches us this; John 10:16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
Not the many religions and Bibles you see today. John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
So a sheep hears God through God's spoken words from any Bible. But the rest of the world is confused and confounded by all of this and try and blame God; Psalm 71:1 In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.1 Corinthians 14:33
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.James 3:16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

Answer 7

Not to mention all the translations it went through up until the King James Version.

As mentioned earlier, a lot of it is linguistics. Some of the versions you mentioned try to use modern english, which leads to all sorts of issues because modern english words don't always convey the same meaning as old english (such as the formal second person no longer being used).

Why some of the ommisions? I have no idea.

Answer 8

Because they are being translated and interpreted by men and not God. That is why as LDS (mormon) we believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. Which basically means we believe the KJV is the most correct of all the translations, through revelation, and there are some verses that have been expounded upon - by Joseph Smith through direct revelation and instruction of God.

Answer 9

The Catholic version of the NT was first, then after Martin Luther started his stuff, the resultant Protestant faiths rewrote the book to suit their needs.
Any book with such an obscure origin and frequent rewritings can hardly be trusted as an authority on anything.

Answer 10

the bible wasn't written in english. ancient languages had words for things that we do not, we have words for things that they do not, and then you have the problem of interpreting phrases that were essentially ancient linguistic slang. Add to that the fact that each translator had differing religious viewpoints and biases, so things get worded to match the contemporary beliefs of that time. In fact it's a wonder that they agree as much as they do. I am also of the belief that there were additions and omissions from the bible that are vitally important, as the Bible as we know it was designed to be a foundation of the catholic church, and religious writings that did not fit the dogma were removed (see the Nag Hammadi library and others) and others were added.