17 - The New English Bible

Summary

AIMS

Whatever differences there may be between the faiths of the Reformation and the present, as far as the history of the Bible is concerned the two periods are alike in that an old standard has ceased to command allegiance from a large range of sects, but has yet to be replaced by a new standard. The Vulgate was archaic to the point of being arcane, and Christianity was a mystery religion. Moreover, the Vulgate was thought by its defenders to be truer than the Greek and Hebrew originals, and by its opponents to be inferior to them. The parallels with the KJB are obvious. The main difference, that the KJB is in a form of the still current language, is a matter of degree. In relation to contemporary Bibles, the KJB stands as the Vulgate stood in relation to the vernacular translations of the sixteenth century.

From Tyndale onwards (with minor exceptions) the Protestants translated from the Hebrew and the Greek, and they tended to avoid language that sounded too much like the Vulgate. The Catholics translated from the Vulgate and did their best to preserve its vocabulary. All the modern versions pretend to represent some form of the Hebrew and Greek originals, but they divide into two groups according to whether or not they show an allegiance to the modern equivalent of the Vulgate, that is, to the KJB. The majority make a deliberate effort to avoid the language of the KJB and to translate or paraphrase into some form of contemporary English.

The most interesting of these anti-KJB translations for the purposes of this study is The New English Bible (NEB; NT 1961, OT 1970).