Comparing Translations Resource Pages

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Which Translation Is Best?

Comparing Translations Resource Pages
Which Translation Is Best?
Why So Many Translations?
Noticing Translation Differences
Accounting for Translation Differences
Judging Translation Differences
Review
Review Quiz

Browse through your local Christian bookstore and you are likely to find an overwhelming array of biblical texts. Children's Bibles, Young Adult Bibles, Men's Bibles, Bibles that promise an application to everyday life, or resources for spiritual direction, or questions for small group study: the list goes on and on.

On top of all these different editions of the Bible, readers of English have at least half a dozen widely used translations to choose from. Would the New King James Bible be better to buy than the New Revised Standard Version? What is the difference between the New American Standard Bible and the New International Version? The questions multiply as you scan the bookshelves.

In this unit of Into the New Testament, we will be paying attention to questions that come up when we begin to compare translations, questions like:

  • Why do we have so many translations?
  • How do we decide that one translation is better than another for a given passage of scripture?
  • What is the relationship between the authority of the Bible and the authority of a particular translation?

From Papyri to King James: The Transmission of the English Bible, an exhibit of manuscripts at the University of Michigan, has been adapted for the web. Click here to check it out.

Desired Results

Each Into the New Testament unit has been designed to foster enduring understandings as well as key knowledge and key skills. Here are the learning goals for Comparing Translations.

Enduring Understandings

At the end of this unit, I hope these ideas have become part of what might be called your mental furniture:

  1. The question, "Which translation is best?" calls for an accompanying question, "Best for what?"
  2. Translations, like language itself, are shaped by and for particular times, circumstances and people.
  3. Reading multiple translations offers insight into the text, as well as insight into problems with the text tradition, that reading just one translation does not offer.

Key Knowledge

At the end of this unit, I hope you will know:

  1. The Three T's of comparing translations (text questions, translators' perspectives, and type of translation).
  2. Background on the field of textual criticism of the New Testament (that is, the study of New Testament click for glossarymanuscripts and their differences from each other).

Key Skills

At the end of this unit, I hope you will be able to:

  1. Recognize each of the Three T's at work in translation differences.
  2. Evaluate translations with (a) your knowledge of Greek and/or (b) reference helps such as a study Bible.
  3. Decide which translations are most helpful for your uses of the New Testament.

Resource Pages

To introduce you to Comparing Translations, Into the New Testament includes the web pages listed here.  You can click the "next" button at the bottom of this and succeeding pages and eventually read them all, or you can choose the ones that interest you most and link to them from this list.

Which Translation Is Best? | This is the introductory page you are reading now. I hope that the unit as a whole will give you tools for answering the question in a variety of contexts.

Why Are There So Many Translations? | Discover here the two broad categories of problems and needs that have led to so many translations of the New Testament.

Noticing Translation Differences | How do you find textual problems and other differences between translations? Learn what to look for here.

Accounting for Translation Differences | Here are tools to help you figure out which of the Three T's explains a difference.

Judging Translation Differences | Not all translation differences are equally important. Here we talk about figuring out which translation differences matter. We also explore how the way we plan to use a text (for preaching, teaching, study, etc.) helps determine what translation is best.

Review | This is an executive summary of the Comparing Translations resource pages. You can use it either as a review after you have read pages 1-5, or you can start here and go to the previous pages to fill in detail.

Review Quiz | This self-test will help you measure how well your work through the resource pages has gone.

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