Some non-Dynamic Equivalence translations available today

Some non-Dynamic Equivalency translations worthy of mention available today in book form and/or in software form

I want to list a some non-Dynamic Equivalent English translations available today in either of the above format. For whosoever may be interested in versions. I will not list any DE versions because DE is an entirely wrong philosophy of translating God's holy word, the Bible. I have attempted at grouping them, as you will see. I will not give my personal opinion as to which one is the best translation of them all, I just list them, and give the translator if known to me. In some instances I state the denominational affiliation of the translator(s). While I am no friend of Alexandrian Greek texts I also list Alexandrian versions. The same goes for Majority Text versions. If I were pressed to recommend some plain versions from among these I would name LITV, ALT, WEB, with certain reservations which I will not now go into. Some of the listed translations I am acquainted with to some degree, others I am barely acquainted with, yet so as to be able to say they have some merit in them so that I feel it warranted to list them. None of these are free from errors, perfect, so as to be on par with the Received Text type of Greek NT editions (speaking of the New Testament), which myself holds to be the superior type of Greek NT today. They are all comparatively accurate and faithful, some of them more, some less so. I also list Wuest's Expanded translation of the NT, as I have found it profitable at times. It is not a Formal Equivalent version, nor would I say it is a Dynamic Equivalent version. Gary Zeolla, the translator of the ALT, classified Wuest's as "Expanded" in his book on Bible versions. He used five classifications; Literal (YLT, ALT, LITV), Formal Equivalent (Geneva, KJV, NKJV, NASB et.al.), Dynamic E. (NIV, NET Bible et.al.), Paraphrase (The Message et.al.), and Expanded (Wuest, Amplified). I think Zeolla's classification is not bad. Myself usually only class versions as FE or DE. In some instances, especially in case of rarer translations, I will give links to sites where they can be freely viewed/downloaded.

Plain whole Bibles, translated from the Bomberg MT & the Received Text

1. Geneva Bible, main translator William Whittingham of Chester (Anglican). Available online via e-Sword, http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
2. King James Bible (KJB/KJV/AV 1611), by Anglican translation committee
3. Young's Literal Translation (YLT), translator Robert Young
4. Modern King James Version (MKJV), translator Jay P Green Sr. ("Reformed" Baptist)
5.New King James Version (NKJV), by translation committee
6. LITV , translator Jay P Green Sr.
7. VW-Bible 2003, translator's name not known to me, http://www.a-voice.org/bible-vw/bible.htm


Plain whole New Testaments, translated from the Received Text

1. William Tyndale's New Testament. Available online via The Sword Project, http://www.crosswire.org./sword/index.jsp
2. Alexander Campbell's Living Oracles NT. http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/oracles1st/oracles1st.html
3. David Lawrie's NT. http://www.angelfire.com/mp/david/index.html

Plain whole New Testaments, translated from the Majority Text

1. Analytical Literal Translation (ALT), translator Gary F Zeolla ("Reformed" Baptist). Available online via e-Sword and The Sword Project.
2. English Majority Text Version (EMTV) , translator Phil W Esposito. Available online via e-Sword and The Sword Project.
3. World English Bible (WEB). Translator(s) not known to me. Available online via the above two, and otherwise as well.

Plain whole Bibles, translated from the Bomberg MT and Westcott-Hort type eclectic text

1. Darby Bible, translator John Nelson Darby (Plymouth Brethren)
2. Revised Version (RV), by Anglican translation committee
3. American Standard Version (ASV), by translation committee

Plain whole Bibles, translated from the Biblia Hebraica and Westcott-Hort type eclectic text

1. New American Standard Bible (NASB), by translation committee ("Evangelical")

Whole New Testaments, expanded, translated from Eclectic text

1. Wuest's Expanded Translation, by Kenneth S Wuest ("Evangelical")

Whole interlinear Bibles, with Bomberg MT and Received Text

1. Jay P Green Sr's Hebrew-Greek-English Interlinear Bible ("Reformed" Baptist)

Whole interlinear New Testaments, with Received Text

1. Jay P Green Sr's Interlinear NT ("Reformed" Baptist)
2. George Ricker Berry's Interlinear NT (Baptist)
3. David L Townsley's KJV Interlinear Bible

Whole interlinear New Testaments, with Majority Text

1. NKJV Greek-English Interlinear New Testament, by Arthur L Farstad, Zane C Hodges, Wilbur N Pickering et.al.


Whole interlinear New Testaments, with Eclectic Text

1. Alfred Marshall's Interlinear Greek English NT (Anglican ?)
2. The New Greek English Interlinear NT, by Philip Wesley Comfort and Robert K Brown ("Evangelical")
3. Paul R McReynolds's Word Study Greek English NT ("Evangelical")

Whole interlinear Old Testaments, with Biblia Hebraica

1. John R Kohlenberger's Interlinear NIV Hebrew English OT ("Evangelical")


Furthermore, I thought it might be interesting to some, so I therefore mention certain non-DE versions available today, whatever languages, which are one man projects, and such which are other kinds of projects, some of which do not appear on the above list...

ONE MAN translations:

Latin Vulgate (Jerome), Wycliffe, Tyndale, John Wesley's NT, Alexander Campbell's Living Oracles NT, Darby Bible, Young's Literal Tr., MKJV (Green Sr.), Exegeses Bible (Herb Jahn), ALT (G Zeolla), EMTV (Phil Esposito), LITV (Green Sr.), Wuest's Expanded, Theodore Beza's Latin NT (translated from the TR), Murdock's English translation of the Peshitta, VW-Bible 2003 (?), Luther's German Bible, David Lawrie's translation of the NT, Italian Diodati version (Giovanni Diodati), Spanish Reina Valera (Cassiodoro Reina, Cypriano Valera, they did not work on it simultaneously)

COMMITTEE translations:

Septuagint (LXX), Douay-Rheims, KJV, RV, ASV, NASB, NKJV, ESV, HCSB,


SMALL GROUP translation:

Geneva Bible (William Whittingham, Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson)


Finally, as a person who am much interested in "versionology" and things related to translating the Bible I want to name a few books which have profited me, some more than others, and which I recommend to anyone interested in these things with the hope they might be of profit. All of them are such who promote formal equivalency and translations in that vein. I will state some things (in parenthesis) in them which I consider mentionworthy weaknesses.

Leland Ryken: The Word of God in English - Criteria for excellence in Bible translation (weak on Greek texts, favours Alexandrian editions, but does not devote much space to textual issues)
Gary Zeolla: Differences between Bible versions (favours the Majority Text over the TR)
Gary Zeolla: Companion volume to the ALT Bible (see above)
Robert L Thomas: How to choose a Bible version (favours Alexandrian text and versions, but thankfully is clearly pro-FE. A bit too soft in assessing DE versions and paraphrases, perhaps due to wanting to be mainly objective and informative)
Jay P Green Sr.: Unholy Hands on the Bible, volume II - A Comparison between six major Bible versions
Robert P Martin: Accuracy of translation
Jakob van Bruggen: Future of the Bible
David W Cloud: Dynamic Equivalency - Death Knell of pure Scripture (somewhat KJV Onlyistic)


Harald

[ May 19, 2003, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: Harald ]

 

Mesly. I was glad for your interest. And thank you for giving the name of the translator of VW-Bible.

I tried the link myself and it got me to the page of The Sword Project. I do not know what denominational affiliation the people running this site are of. If they are Catholic I do of course not endorse that. But whatever they be I have found this free Bible study program worthwhile, not all add-ons though, but many, including Tyndale's. Try again.


http://www.crosswire.org/sword/index.jsp

or

http://www.crosswire.org/sword/modules/index.jsp


These should work. If not then try the following search wording via Yahoo.com


"The Sword Project"


Harald

 

As for Mr. Cloud I would classify him as KJVO, but as he is not among the most extreme, IMO, I said "somewhat...". I have read quite much of Cloud's on the Bible versions issue, and have learnt quite much by doing that. Yet I trust I have been given wisdom to spit out the bad and mediocre in his works, and to retain what good there be. As I may have said sometime I was KJVO, sort of, at one time in the past. I remember it came upon me mainly via reading some Chick comics, and some versionology books published by Chick. It happens that a certain man in my country distributes Chick's materials. I do not endorse Chick's publications anymore. Thankfully I was not KJVO for more than about one and a half years. But one of the things I did was that I burnt a NIV which I'd purchased from a store in town, and was about to burn my NASB as well, but then I came to my senses. Not that I regret much the burning of the NIV, yet sometimes it could be handy when it is discussed. The NASB I have come to see is not such a bad version, it has many good renderings of the Greek. I still check things from it by and by.

Harald

 

mesly. I came to think that if you are interested in Tyndale's NT in hardcopy format. Then you might search for it through ABEbooks. I found my own copy of it through this service, and at a fair price. The edition I have is one with the spelling updated by David Daniell. You might also find some edition with the original spelling. Daniell has also written a thorough biography on Tyndale; William Tyndale - A Biography. If you go to ABEbooks I suggest you put the name David Daniell in the "Author" box, and in the "Keyword" box you could put "New Testament", or you might try putting "Tyndale's New Testament" in the "Title" box. Then just hit the Search button. You should be able to find some good copy of Tyndale's NT through this system.


Harald

 

Michael. You are so welcome. And I must thank you for opening my eyes to my error in my initial post. How uncareful of me. I have now edited it so the link goes to the right site.

Harald