DeclareHim,
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The Contemporary English Version
Barclay M. Newman, ed., Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1995. The New Testament appeared in 1991.
This is a paraphrastic version, designed for children (at a fourth grade reading level). It is similar to the Good News Bible previously published by the American Bible Society, though at a lower reading level, and it is apparently aimed at the same market: the Sunday-schools of the mainline churches. As might be expected, many Biblical distinctions and concepts usually considered very important by conservatives are practically erased in the CEV, even more so than in the Good News Bible. For example, the CEV translators believed that the Bible's way of saying God spoke through the prophets (perfect for teaching the inspiration of the Scriptures) was too difficult for children, and so the very concept is eliminated. (e.g. Hebrews 1:1 "God's prophets spoke his message to our ancestors" instead of "God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets.")
Key theological words, including grace, justification, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, atonement, repentence, and covenant, are avoided in the CEV. In the volume Creating and Crafting the Contemporary English Version Barclay Newman discusses the elimination of these and other familiar terms under the heading, The War on Gobbledygook.
Though it is careless with regard to basic theological ideas and words, the CEV is very careful to steer young readers away from the old "sexist" interpretations found in all Bibles prior to their generation. Besides the regular use of the new gender-neutral language (e.g. avoiding translation of "man" and "he" in thousands of places), it features many dubious renderings that obscure the teachings of the Bible concerning the family. In Genesis 2:18, Eve is called not a "helper" but a "partner" of Adam; in 1 Peter 3:1, Colossians 3:18 and Ephesians 5:22 women are advised somewhat ambiguously to "put their husbands first" (along with the children?) rather than told plainly to "submit" to them (the word is hupotassō, correctly rendered "obey" elsewhere in the CEV); in 1 Corinthians 11:10 the CEV says a woman should wear a head covering not merely as a "sign of authority" (i.e. her husband's authority, nearly all commentators agree) but "as a sign of her authority." The tendency in all this "dynamic equivalence" is clear enough: it serves more to obscure the meaning than to make it plain.
The CEV also makes an attempt to tone down the seeming anti-Judaism of the New Testament by avoiding the word "Jews" wherever it is used in reference to opponents of Jesus. David G. Burke, the director of the ABS translation program, says that the purpose of this was to combat anti-semitism; and so instead of "Jews" they give "the people" or "the religious leaders." This novelty in particular drew much applause from reviewers in the mainline church magazines. Burke ventured further to say:
"The poorly informed modern reader ... is not equipped to be able to sort out that 'the Jews' who seem constantly to be opposing Jesus and the Jesus movement (and are even viewed as seeking evil purposes) are in fact in so many cases just other Jews who happen not to have accepted Jesus' identity as Messiah ... It is very difficult for the modern reader to think this through in terms of the kinds of real-life ambiguities that would have applied then as now; that is, to consider that many of these 'enemies' or 'opponents' may have been acting ... as best they knew how to be responsible and faithful to the tradition as they understood it." *
Burke's apology for those who "happen not to have accepted Jesus' identity as Messiah" is understandable in the context of an inter-faith dialogue (the paragraph above is quoted from a publication of the American Interfaith Institute), but we must object to this tendency to avoid offending non-Christians in a translation of the New Testament. There are, after all, many other things in both the Old and the New Testament which are bound to offend someone or other, and we cannot become expurgators of the Word of God while claiming to be faithful translators of it. If, like Burke, we are concerned to help children to avoid misunderstandings, perhaps the best course would be to present them with such curriculum materials that will achieve this without expurgating the Bible itself. It may even be wondered whether such simplified Bibles as the CEV really serve their educational purpose as well as the old catechisms and Bible Story books did for earlier generations. As Richard John Neuhaus puts it, "In the past, there was no shortage of Bible story books and other Bible-based literature for children, but they were not told that a book written for third-graders was the Bible itself." (First Things, May 1997).
* David G. Burke, "Translating 'the Jews' (hoi Ioudanioi) in the New Testament: Pertinent Passages in Recent Versions," in Removing the Anti-Judaism from the New Testament, edited by Howard Clark Kee and Irvin J. Borowsky. (Philadelphia: American Interfaith Institute, 1998).
Literature
• Barclay M. Newman, ed., Creating and Crafting the Contemporary English Version: A New Approach to Bible Translation (New York: American Bible Society, 1996).
• David G. Burke, "Translating 'the Jews' (hoi Ioudanioi) in the New Testament: Pertinent Passages in Recent Versions," in Removing the Anti-Judaism from the New Testament, edited by Howard Clark Kee and Irvin J. Borowsky. (Philadelphia: American Interfaith Institute, 1998).
• Marvin Olasky, "Good cause, bad method: A WORLD Easter report on Bible translation: Christians have a responsibility to fight anti-Semitism, but changing the Bible is not a legitimate option," in WORLD, Volume 16 Number 14 (April 14, 2001). Olasky reports details of the part played by Irvin J. Borowsky, a Jewish layman, in the editing of the CEV.
Bible Research > English Versions > 20th Century > CEV
