I knew that the early readers of the New Testament were captured and engaged by these writings and I wanted my congregation to be impacted in the same way. Writing straight from the original text, I began to attempt to bring into English the rhythms and idioms of the original language. Why was The Message written? The best answer to that question comes from Eugene Peterson himself: “While I was teaching a class on Galatians, I began to realize that the adults in my class weren’t feeling the vitality and directness that I sensed as I read and studied the New Testament in its original Greek. It can purchased through Amazon, in either a full Bible translation, or just New Testament. 115 biblical scholars from 22 faith traditions worked as translators to create a Bible both by and for the Church. It is one of the newest translations on the market, whose tag line is: ‘a fresh translation to touch the heart and mind’. Publisher: Common English Bible (October 1, 2010) Some of the more popular Bible translations used by various denominations: The point is to find a contemporary translation that you find speaks to you and touches your heart and thought in a way that awakens them to the spiritual meaning within. NLT: Then David died and was buried in the City of David.Īs in many other specific verses, the NLT (functional equivalence) more accurately conveys the meaning in English than does either the KJV or the NIV (both of them formal equivalence). NIV: Then David rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. KJV: So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David. Here are three examples of Bible translations: Also referred to as “dynamic equivalence.” The goal here is to produce in the reader’s language (i.e., English) the closest equivalent in both meaning and style of the original Hebrew and Greek (and Aramaic). “Functional equivalence” - more of a “thought for thought” rendering of the original text.Every effort is made to retain both the word order and sentence structure of the original Hebrew or Greek. “Formal equivalence” - a word-for-word rendering of the original language into whatever language the reader needs, i.e., English.In this case, not only did the King James Version come out on top, it did so by a wide margin.There are two types of Bible translations: In a 2014 study comissioned by the American Bible Society, they found the same overall rankings for the top four versions based on survey responses. Bible websites and apps like YouVersion would have data on readership but would still be limited to tech-friendly demographics.Ī better source would be the Barna Group, an organization which conducts scientific studies of religious interest. It says nothing about what people actually buy or read on a regular basis. This only accounts for internet users at large who express some interest in each version through a page click or search term. ![]() Other differences are likely accounted for in the methods used to track statistics and the time frame differences (90-day Wikipedia views vs. The ESV continues climbing slowly and steadily. While the NIV beats the KJV on a decade-long average, they have switched places since 2012 and the KJV continues to gain steam. Overall, the rankings match reasonably well with Wikipedia page views, with some interesting exceptions. The chart below examines search rankings for the five most popular versions. One widely accessible source is Google Trends. It’s also important to explore how well this holds up compared to other data sources. We should expect that modern readers would gravitate to a version like the NIV with more familiar language, yet the KJV stays high up the charts while its language is from a bygone era. Therefore, it remains a prominent interest when studying the history of the Bible. The King James Version stands out not only for its history and literary achievement but also for its continued popularity. John Wycliffe is famous for bringing the Bible to laypeople, an action which paved the way for the Protestant Reformation. The English Standard Version also deserves mention due to its rapid climb in popularity since its first publication in 2001. With each new version comes increased difficulty for one to stand out in the crowd. Those that have risen above the rest are the Wycliffe Bible, the King James Version (or Authorized Version), and the New International Version. The rise in the number of translations each decade since the 1950s is interesting.
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