This is just my opinion, but if you are looking for the most “accurate” English translation of the Bible, that would be the NRSV followed by the NIV. This does not mean it is the best translation for you, but I do believe it is the closest to the words of the original authors. And here’s why….
OK, I already upset some of you. Before we jump in, let me take a sec to unpack this a bit. There are lots of opinions on this topic and, as with all opinions, each one is valid! It’s not the intention of this article to critique various translations or to speculate why people felt the need to create new versions. Each translation serves a different purpose. And, obviously, they all have value to somebody!
But speaking as someone who always wondered why the heck there are so many translations and which one she should use, I thought some history might be interesting to you too. (Note: I’m not planning to wade too far into the debate between Catholics & Protestants about which books should be included the Bible.) Rather, this article is about something more fundamental that no one ever taught me; “How do I know which Bible translation is the best for me?”
Are we good?
Awesome! Let’s go….
Who wrote the Bible?
When we look at our Bibles, we see that they are books. Written words on a page. Then, we think about how the written words came to be on the page in the first place. Well, of course the author wrote them down, right?! And then someone discovered their writings and compiled things into a kind of anthology… and here it is sitting on my desk. Seems logical. Except this not even close to how the Bible came to be!
First, we have to recognize that some of the content in the Bible pre-dates writing. Yes, it’s really THAT old! And the newer parts came from a time when only a few people in society knew how to read and write, let alone had access to enough papyrus to capture their words! When I learned this, it blew my mind to realize that Matthew, Mark, Luke & John may not have written down the words that have been attributed to them. Say whaaat?!
Where did the Bible come from?
So how did we get this book? And how do we know what actually was said? Well, we largely have our Jewish brothers & sisters to thank for that. They had a rich, oral tradition where people literally memorized the exact words to thousands of stories. Without going too deeply into this, they took tremendous pride in preserving their heritage and even tested themselves to be sure their memorization was juuuuuust right. Eventually, papyrus came along and the older stories got written down; scribes started capturing the teachings of contemporary teachers and leaders; and some teachers and leaders eventually had access to their own scribes, so they could dictate their words directly.
Wait! Before you dismiss the Bible as unreliable hearsay, know that multiple manuscripts have been found from different times and in many different places across the globe. Rest assured, they are remarkably identical! In fact, we keep finding more copies and they all confirm that what we have today is a pretty darn accurate reading. The small discrepancies we see are mostly transposed letters or flip-flopped words here and there. Truly, it is just incredible, dare I say miraculous?, how well these words have been protected, preserved and passed down to us!
OK, now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about how the Bible came to be pulled together into one book. Regarding the Old Testament, writings were compiled into the Tanakh. Then, from 500 AD – 1000 AD, the Masoretes, Jewish scribes and scholars, created what we call the Masoretic Text. They checked every letter and every word in the Tanakh to reproduce the original text of the Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic as it had originally been passed down. “Their intention was not to interpret the meaning of the Scriptures but to transmit to future generations the authentic Word of G-d” [1].
Fast forward to Christianity, which was growing quite rapidly at the time the Masoretes were at work. If you were a leader in the early church, and you saw the need to share your sacred texts with people outside the Jewish tradition, what would you do? Well, you’d need to get the “Old Testament” out of Hebrew/Aramaic and into the local languages AND you’d need to capture Jesus’s teachings and those of His followers, who spoke Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and put those into the local languages too!
So maybe you would collect a bunch of Tanakh scrolls; organize them in the order they had been taught to you as a child; you’d feverishly pull together all of the “New Testament” teachings and then you’d count on multi-lingual people to communicate them to new people groups. We need look no further than the epistles of the Bible to know that this is exactly what happened!
As the church grew and had access to more resources, there was an effort to translate the entirety of these Sacred writings into a written form that more and more people would be able to understand.
In Jesus’s time, pre-dating even the church, the Old Testament writings had been translated into Greek. This was called the Septuagint. Later, as the teachings of Jesus and other New Testament leaders were captured, there was a need to get those collected, compiled, translated and put onto papyrus as well. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to gloss over 1,000 years of church meetings and list only the “official” outcome – it was called The Vulgate. Then, as Protestant reformers came to question the contents of The Vulgate, the church was in some ways, back to square one – how do we translate from the oldest, most reliable manuscripts, into a new version which did not include the issues perceived in The Vulgate?
So which version is right?
Regardless of whether you prefer a Catholic or Protestant theology, it’s important to know that when it comes to the Old Testament, both sides went back to the old scrolls (the Hebrew Tanakh). Presumably, that means both versions would be “right” if “right” means an accurate reflection of what had been written of old.
So why did the Protestants reject The Vulgate? One reason was because St. Jerome was ordered to insert into The Vulgate additional text that wasn’t in the Tanakh. For example, in the book of Esther, The Vulgate added 107 verses. [2] Since no one had access to a reliably “clean copy” of the Tanakh in modern language, the Protestant reformers had to go back to the Tanakh and re-produce one.
No one can claim to tell us all the reasons why the Roman Catholic Church wanted additional writings to be included. Or all the reasons why Protestant reformers insisted on starting over with the translation. But obviously, they had reasons. Good reasons that Roman Catholic church leaders determined additions were critical to modern believers and good reasons that Protestant reformers preferred to go back to what our Jewish brothers and sisters had accepted in their holy Scriptures. (and to leave out what had not been included).
No one can claim to tell us who is “right” and, most importantly, no one can tell us what G-d would prefer for each individual. It all comes down to our personal opinions and values. Which is one reason why I personally feel we should respect the reasoning of both sides for why they prefer one version over the other.
Which translation is right for me?
There are over 450 English translations to choose from! [2] And if you use the YouVersion Bible app, you need to pick from among 67 [3] of them.
Since there are so many, I wouldn’t dream of trying to opine on each of them. But for those who are new to Scripture and/or who seek to read a translation that is closest to their original languages, it is my opinion that the NRSV approach was like the Masorete’s. (Their goal was to stick as close as possible to the original text in order to produce the most accurate representation of the Word of G-d”) [4]
If you are more interested in a meaning-for meaning English translation, then the NIV is an excellent choice!
Or perhaps you are looking for a more poetic interpretation or for an amplified version that incorporates more of the words and phrases you hear in everyday life?
As I said at the outset, there is no “right” answer. But it is critically important to understand the objectives of each version and how it was created, before you can assume it is the best resource for you.
But you don’t have to take my word for it! Alan Bennet complied an excellent group of essays [5] that help us to wrestle with all the questions that go into our translation choice. These essays were directly aimed and whether the NRSV is the “best” translation. But the questions themselves can be used to consider any translation and whether it is the right fit for you.
Sources:
[1] Encyclopedia Britannica, “Masoretic Text: Jewish Bible,” n.d., accessed January 23, 2025, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Masoretic-text.
[2] Encyclopedia.com “Esther, Additions to the Book of,” n.d., accessed January 23, 2025, https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/esther-additions-book#
[3] Mulhern, Kathleen, “How Many Versions of the Bible are There?,” Patheos.com, October 25, 2023, https://www.patheos.com/answers/how-many-versions-of-the-bible
[4] Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé, and Jacobus A. Naudé. 2022. “The Revised Standard Version (1952) and Its Revisions as a Linear Emergence of the Tyndale-King James Version Tradition.” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 78 (1): e1–e9. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v78i1.7647.
[5] Bennett, Alan D. 1990. “The NRSV: A Teaching Guide.” Religious Education 85 (2): 255–78.
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