from Thomas Nelson, copyright holder and publisher of the NKJV:
“When considering the important factors in choosing a Bible translation — accuracy, beauty, and ease of understanding — the choice is clear. Only the New King James Version offers precision and clarity without sacrificing readability. For a Bible that is both beautifully worded and trustworthy, ideal for study, teaching, personal reading, and congregational use, the NKJV has been selected by more than 25 million customers since its release, and is the preferred translation of thousands of today’s most prominent Christian leaders.”
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Gen. 6:8 “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD”
Obsolescing: the expression “find grace (or favor) in the eyes of” someone is used by very few current speakers of English. The meaning of the Hebrew idiom here would be more accurately communicated to most English speakers with wordings such as “the LORD was pleased with Noah” (TEV, CEV, GW), “But Noah pleased” (NCV), and, better than the problem wording, but not so good as the preceding wordings, “Noah found favor with the LORD” (NLT).
Here in red county America, we still use words and phrases that aren’t current in London or New York.
And, with at least a half of the Anglosphere having read The Lord of the Rings in the past couple of years, they will be quite familiar with such terms. Tolkien, being highly literate and a philologist, used them all the time.
I don’t think Tolkien was writing just in current English. And I’m not suggesting that he should have. I am only feeling that passion that has moved Bible translators through the centuries, that the Bible can be put into the language of any group of people, as they currently speak it. Whenever this has been done, throughout the world, including the English-speaking world, something special has happened within the hearts and minds of people. Spiritual change occurs, partly because people feel that “God speaks their language.” And hearing God’s Word in one’s heart language moves people in a way that hearing it in a different language or dialect usually does not. I don’t believe we should use colloquialisms and slang in translations, but I do think that most of us, including those who are highly literate in “high” forms of literature, and those who teach the biblical languages, receive greater benefit from accessing the Bible in the language we use normally, just as so much of the Bible itself was originally written in language of its own time. I love good English, including good turns of phrase, metaphors, idioms, etc. and if English Bibles can include such good English, so much the better. They will impact us in ways similar to how the original biblical idioms and other figurative language affected those who heard that language since they used and understand that figurative language.
Matt. 10:15 “in the day of judgment”
See comment under NASB.
Luke 20:34 “the sons of this age”
This wording does not accurately communicate the meaning of the original Semitic idiom which refers to ‘people who are now living.’
John 17:12 “the son of perdition”
This wording does not accurately communicate to English speakers the meaning of this Semitic idiom, which is that this was a ‘person destined for destruction (or, perdition).’
Luke 24:25 “slow of heart to believe”
See comment under NET.
Does the NKJV maintain the mistranslation in John 1 that the KLV did? I can’t say I have a copy of the NKJV, but we were discussing this problem in my Greek Class the other day.
What is the reference in 1 John and the specific mistranslation you are thinking of?
Ps. 55:1 “Give ear to my prayer”
“Give ear to” is obsolescent English. I have never heard any fluent English speaker in my lifetime (I qualify for AARP discounts) speak or write “give ear to.”
Proper English today is:
“Listen to my prayer”
“3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. ” from the KJV. My understanding is that the punctuation was moved and “that was made” more properly belongs in the next sentence. But it looks like the NIV also has this problem. The NRSV, I can verify, does fix this.
John 1:3
Anonymous said: “My understanding is that the punctuation was moved and “that was made” more properly belongs in the next sentence.”
I think I have heard of this exegetical option. It is difficult to know which way was intended by the author, since no punctuation marks appear in the Greek manuscripts.
Prov. 11:8 “The righteous is delivered from trouble”
This is ungrammatical in English (but not Hebrew) as I understand the syntax of adjectival noun phrases. (See explanation under HCSB.)
Solutions:
“The righteous one is delivered from trouble”
“The righteous person is delivered from trouble”
Eph. 4:15 see under NET
Is grace something we can find, or is grace something that finds us? Even though “finding grace in the eyes of” someone is not the way we usually talk, it still is understandable to me. I wonder if a bible translation must always copy the way we talk today, or if it is OK for a translation to show respect for the way a 400 year old translation uses idioms, as NKJV has done with the KJV. Shouldn’t newer translations reflect the way people talk today, rather than the way people talked in victorian England?
I was surprised to note that the NET bible has the same usage for Genesis 6:8. “But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD.” The footnote in the NET bible says that this is a Hebrew idiom, so presumably the translators of the NET bible also felt that the phrase did not need to be updated. So I am stuck with my first question again; shouldn’t newer translations reflect the way people talk today, rather than the way people talked in victorian England?
One challenging question in translation is whether or not any nuance is being lost by adapting fully to the target language. Phrases such as “the LORD was pleased with Noah” (TEV, CEV, GW), “But Noah pleased” (NCV) are excellent choices for idiomatic English, but they seem more abstract and less emotive than the text in Hebrew. There is also the challenge of how to maintain the relationship to similar idioms used in other parts of the Bible such as Numbers 6:26. Given that the idiom “finding favor in the eyes of” is not at all difficult to understand, I would be inclined to keep it here.
As my wife was previewing a devotional book for young children, she came across the second half of Psalm 87:7, “All my springs are in you.” Can you imagine what a child would think that means?
1 Timothy 1:10, 1 Cor 6:9
Why is the greek word “arsenokoites” translated “sodomites”? The greek word does not use the proper name “sodom”, nor is this passage referring to sodom. I think it is rightly translated “homosexual” This mistranslation alone sent me looking for a better english translation. I am wavering between nasb and esv. I comment on this and more here and here.
James White, in his book The Same Sex Controversy, says this:
Now of course the key term used by Paul here is so clear that great effort has been put out by revisionist writers to attempt to blunt its testimony and cause people to be confused as to its meaning. Paul draws here two terms from the Greek Septuagint that are found in Leviticus 20:13 in the combination of ‘homosexual’: arsinos, meaning male, and koitos, the term from which we get the word coitus, sexual intercourse. It refers to men laying with men as a man lays with a woman, i.e. homosexuality. Given the Old Testament background of Leviticus 20:13, and the use of those terms, there can surely be no question about this meaning, and interestingly enough, in many of the books that have been written, many of which are right over there on the table, there is no even discussion of the Greek Septuagint background of Paul’s coining of this particular term.
Revisionist attempts by Boswell, Scroggs, Scanzoni, Mollenkott all fail miserably to take into consideration all of the relevant factors and some of the most important writings, such as Boswell, have been shown to be so highly selective in their use of the data as to be simply dishonest. The meaning is clear; the term refers to what men do with men in bed.
The meaning of arsenokoitai is clear, and I think we can all see that Paul didn’t all of a sudden take a massive detour between verses 25 and 28 of Romans chapter 1 to address Jewish purity issues. The condemnation of the New Testament is clear. The condemnation of the Old Testament is clear.
What other “technical” words does the NKJV retain, as opposed to translating into modern usage?
For example, the use of “bond servant,” as opposed to slave or servant?
For those of you who once used the NKJV, but have since switched to a different version, what version are you using now instead, and why that version?
I have been using the NKJV for about four years and have valued it highly. I also have experience in using the KJV, NIV and recently added an ESV Bible to my collection. Though all have their pluses and minuses, I find that the NKJV is the most easily read, beautiful and church-worthy translation among those that I have used. I am looking into experimenting with the NASB though. Any thoughts?
Are they ever going to attempt to update the NKJV or is that going to remain frozen? A 2011 KJV which smooths out the English while keeping the cadance/rhythm (like the ESV was somewhat successful in doing) would be a step in a better direction.
Editor: as mentioned in my previous note I switched the ESV, because I found it easier to ready while retaining the Tyndale flavor (which both translations taste like). The NKJV tastes a little more stale than the ESV, and will likely never be updated.
Now, just imagine if the RSV had it been ORIGINALLY translated like the ESV. I think translations like the Amplified, NIV, NASB, NKJV never have come into existence. The RSV was off to a good start with the New Testament, but the stuff they changed in the OT doomed it, and ensured we’d never have a single dominant translation again.
The ESV would be wise to put in the same textual footnotes as the NKJV. It would easily replace the NKJV at that point. In any event, I painstakingly penned these in myself from various KJVO and Majority Text lists – so I got an early edition one could say
Now if only they’d do a parallel version of HCSB and ESV. That would be awesome!
Jon, I wonder if the Bible you are looking for might be the WEB – World English Bible. This is a modern language version in the Tyndale tradition and based on the Majority Text (in the NT). It is not yet complete, and may never be printed, but it is available freely online, in the public domain.
I heard of the WEB, but I can’t see it catching on because it’s not a big production. If a big publisher takes it on (or includes it as part of a parallel bible) I might consider using it as a primary translation.
BTW has anyone seen this tool yet on studylight.org?
http://studylight.org/par/view.cgi?query=ro+1%3A12&l1=en&t1=nkj§ion=0&l2=en&t2=esv&new=1&sv=1&oq=ro%25201%3A12&submit=Search&nb=ro&ng=1&ncc=1
Here I compared Romans 1:12 between the NKJV and ESV
You can compare text of the translations to see the differences. I noticed that some searches do not work, and that they still need to work out more bugs in the software (the highlighting variations feature), but it’s a great tool.
Wayne, you might want to post about this feature and it’s usefulness on your main page, and possibly your links page.