I remember back when they first came out with the NRSV. Our pastor endorsed it wholeheartedly, saying it was an excellent translation for public reading. I was in the early stages of becoming interested in Bible study and translations, and pretty soon I was asking him to recommend a study Bible. He told me I should get the New Oxford Annotated Study Bible – NRSV with the Apocrypha, and even ordered it for me!
At first I loved it, but I gradually found the study notes to be too liberal for my tastes, and too few and far between to do me much good. I also discovered that the NRSV was commissioned by the very liberal National Council of Churches, and saw what appeared to me to be changes they had made in the text to fit with their own liberal political agenda. At that point I refused to use the NRSV any more and relegated the two copies I had to a bookshelf in my bedroom where they have gathered dust for a number of years.
When we got a new pastor last summer, I was pleased to discover he’s much more evangelical and conservative than most of the pastors I have known in the UMC. But one thing upset me. I quickly discovered that he preached from the NRSV. The previous pastor had begun to use the Good News Bible because of it’s clear, common English, and while I didn’t care for that translation, I couldn’t really argue with his reasoning. But our church has all these NRSV pew Bibles, so when the new pastor came, it was a natural for him to go back to the NRSV.
Well, I wrote the new pastor an e-mail, telling him I was happy with his preaching, but I wish he wouldn’t use that liberal translation. Of course he very graciously informed me that he intended to continue using the NRSV, and that it’s really not such a bad translation. He said he used to be an NIV guy, but when he went to seminary, he had to use the NRSV, and found he really kind of liked it. I told him that while I didn’t care for the NRSV, I wouldn’t raise any stink about it because I like his preaching – he preaches the Gospel of Christ and holds to a high Christology. I can’t argue with that!…
…But I still didn’t like the NRSV.
Since I have been reading and participating on the biblioblogs, I have run into numerous cases where the NRSV is compared with other translations, and a number of people who use the NRSV and recommend it. But I have long felt that it was a dying translation, soon to become an asterisk in the annals of Bible translation history, since it appears to be used only by the mainline denominations, and everybody knows they are shrinking rapidly.
Well, something has moved me over the last few weeks to take another look at the NRSV. Maybe it’s things I have read on the blogs; maybe it’s the fact that when our pastor reads from it, it’s quite clear (and the fact that he, being an evangelical, uses it.) Maybe it’s just the moving of the Holy Spirit in my life. But whatever it is, I have once again picked up my dusty NRSV and begun reading.
And what have I found? It’s almost like coming home! Having grown up all my early life with the old RSV, I have the style and word-pictures of that translation ingrained into my mind, so since the NRSV retains much of that, it’s clear, understandable, and familiar to me…it’s comfortable! And yet it’s so accurate!
But besides that, in recent months I have become very aware of the way our language is used, and how masculine generic pronouns are so often misunderstood by today’s reader, and so when I read the NRSV I notice how the wording has been changed a little bit here and there to reflect that. It’s not a liberal thing, it’s a matter of making it understandable!
I’m almost embarrassed to say, I’m becoming comfortable with the NRSV. I’m even starting to look for a leather-covered version, since the two I have are hardcover. And their print is quite small, so I need to find a large-print version as well.
I have been noticing that the new publisher, Harper San Francisco, has cut way back on the styles they are selling; apparently they are doing a complete overhaul of the NRSV styles, and they so far are very short on leather and large print. But I believe that is changing, as I see hints that they have a number of new styles coming out in the near future. There are also a couple other publishers that still have a few NRSVs available.
At any rate, It appears I have done quite a turn-around regarding the NRSV. I’m not yet sure how it will figure into the scheme of things as far as my teaching is concerned, but I am back…I am using the NRSV again.
The Sundry Times 
As I have always maintained: the Holy Spirit can speak to you through any version of the BIble. Despite Satan’s efforts to water it down and subjugate it, he cannot hold back the Truth within the pages. God is Sovereign. He WILL be heard.
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Ge 1:2 while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
Is 7:14 Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son
Psa. 8:4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Hmm. There is a reason for the NRSV’s reputation.
Have you actually met these “today’s readers” who don’t understand masculine pronouns?
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Mike, that’s exactly what I have been thinking about. What kills me about this, is that the NRSV was supposed to be the liberals own Bible, to advance their theological and political agenda. But what they ended up with was a Bible that advances the true Gospel much more than their own ideas. God will not be thwarted.
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Hi Orthodox,
You’re right, there is a reason for the NRSV’s reputation.
As for the readers who don’t understand generic masculine pronouns, I can’t say I’ve ever asked anyone if they understand them. It’s not a common topic of conversation on the street, or even in the church for that matter.
Rick Mansfield of This Lamp blog has met some of them though. You might want to check out his experiences along that line.
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Interesting, Gary. The NRSV is one translation that I’ve almost always immediately dismissed, but it’s probably the most accessible translation that doesn’t always “jump to Jesus” in the OT, e.g. Is 7:14 that orthodox quoted. I always get a chuckle that “liberal” in the church world means that you’re not as willing to change the original text to fit a specific agenda, when we typically think of “liberals” as those who challenge the establishment and want to change the order of things.
I had a teacher a few years back who refused to use anything other than his RSV because he hated that most modern translations read Jesus into the original OT texts – he wanted to teach from the original context and couldn’t do that with an evangelical revision like the ESV. Unless I were to settle on the RSV/NRSV as my primary Bible, I’ll probably end up using something like the Jewish Study Bible as my “original context” resource.
And I’m not saying that there are not messianic connotations in the OT, just that most of those were originally in the context of the kings, the annointed “messiahs” (little m).
As for orthodox’s other complaints… I assume he’s objecting to “mortals” instead of “the son of man” in Psalm 8 and “a wind” instead of “the Spirit of God” in Genesis 1.
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Hi ElShaddai!
I have also quickly dismissed the NRSV, and to be honest, much of the reason is that it’s from the NCC and it’s the darling of the unbelieving liberals.
It’s also interesting that the liberals are all over the place when it comes to the Bible. They tell us that it’s a dusty, old, irrelevant book of myths written by unsophisticated people thousands of years ago and has no authority for us today.
OTOH, they turn around and get upset that we find messianic connotations in the OT. If it’s the dusty old book of myths they claim, why should it make any difference to them what we find in it?
They don’t want any changes in the OT, yet they deny the central tenets of the Christian faith found in the NT, and pick and choose what “laws” they will obey in the whole thing, depending on their own liberal sensibilities.
I don’t know much about our friend Orthodox, but as a conservative evangelical I sense that I would tend to agree with him on a lot of things, unlike the disagreements I have had with him in the past.
The fact is that no translation is perfect, as we always say. I have found a number of places where I think the NRSV translators could have made better choices; at least two of those he mentioned are among them. But I have also discovered, as I suppose you have as well, that these choices can all be easily defended from the original texts.
So as for me, unless I find clear doctrinal miscues in a translation, I would tend to accept it for what it is as long as I can get good explanation for any problem areas.
As for the NRSV, whaddya gonna do? those three examples are easily explained and are quite minor. I think the pluses far outweigh the minuses. The liberals accidentally made a pretty good Bible.
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Great post. I linked to it here. If you want a super large print NRSV, you can try the largest print Bible I’ve ever seen: the Cambridge 18pt (with 24pt spacing) “Giant Print” NRSV. Well, maybe that is too big. Harper San Francisco has a large print edition coming out in the Fall. (My contacts tell me Harper San Francisco is not cutting back but expanding the NRSV line — but the leather and large print editions are not yet released.)
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>I always get a chuckle that “liberal” in the church
>world means that you’re not as willing to change the
>original text to fit a specific agenda
Uh, you mean the agenda of the apostles? Riiighhttt…..
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>As for the NRSV, whaddya gonna do? those three
>examples are easily explained and are quite minor. I
>think the pluses far outweigh the minuses.
Sure, the pluses outweigh the minuses. But that’s not the ringing endorsement I want to hear about a version before I advise people it might be good for your primary version.
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Uh, you mean the agenda of the apostles? Riiighhttt…..
Everyone has an agenda. One of mine is that I’m trying to understand the Hebrew texts in their original context and form to the original audience. And modern Christian translations of the OT/NT that overlay evangelical interpretation into the OT aren’t desirable to that purpose. Such translations might be desirable when understanding how the OT was viewed/interpreted by the NT authors (and presumably Jesus Christ), but that’s a different goal than what I’m looking at.
Threadjack: have you ever read “the greatest song” by Calvin Seerveld? Fascinating critique and re-translation of The Song of Songs that blows the cobwebs off the wretched Christ/Church symbolism.
Sure, the pluses outweigh the minuses. But that’s not the ringing endorsement I want to hear about a version before I advise people it might be good for your primary version.
So what are you recommending as a primary version of the entire Christian Bible? From your handle and blog description, I assume that most Western translations are insufficient due to the non-inclusion of the deutero-canonical books. Right now I have a NEB and REB with “Apocrypha” books and have used a NJB in the past, which I enjoyed more due to the textual integration. As I commented earlier, I’ve dismissed the NRSV perhaps unduly, but recognize that it’s probably the most ecumenical translation available.
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IYOV, thanks, but I think I’ll pass on that giant-print NRSV, at least until my eyes get worse! 😉
“(My contacts tell me Harper San Francisco is not cutting back but expanding the NRSV line — but the leather and large print editions are not yet released.)”
Thanks, you put it much better than I did. That’s what I was trying to say.
(I hate waiting!)
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Orthodox wrote:
“Sure, the pluses outweigh the minuses. But that’s not the ringing endorsement I want to hear about a version before I advise people it might be good for your primary version.”
Yes, that’s a good point. I’m not totally ready to make my endorsement ring yet.
I am finding I frequently run into translation choices they have made that I think could have been better. But overall I think it’s very good.
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An example from our scripture reading today, from Galatians 3:24-26
24Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
The highlighted word bothered me. I came home and took a look at it in the NET Bible, which puts it this way:
3:24 Thus the law had become our guardian until Christ, so that we could be declared righteous by faith. 3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. 3:26 For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.
The NRSV’s “disciplinarian”, while it is listed as a possible translation, in my opinion, is too difficult a concept for most typical readers to comprehend quickly.
“Guardian” on the other hand, while it doesn’t convey every nuance of the original Greek word, is a better choice for most people to pick up on more quickly. And in my opinion it may be a closer equivalent to the original meaning.
I am still a bit unsettled by what appears to be the consistent choice of less-desirable translational equivalents by the NRSV translators. (Or as I used to say, they always make the wrong choice!)
I am beginning to do some study of the way they translate certain terms compared to the more evangelical-type translators.
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>One of mine is that I’m trying to understand the
>Hebrew texts in their original context and form to
>the original audience.
What you ignore is that the reason Is 7:14 is the way it is in “evangelical” translations, is because this is the way JEWS understood it and translated it hundreds of years before Christ in the LXX.
>And modern Christian translations of the OT/NT
>that overlay evangelical interpretation into the OT
>aren’t desirable to that purpose.
The apostle Matthew is a “modern evangelical interpretation”?? The LXX is a “modern evangelical interpretation”??
>So what are you recommending as a primary
>version of the entire Christian Bible?
I think the NET, ESV, NASB, NKJV are fairly good. There may be others.
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We evangelicals often too quickly dismiss the NRSV as a liberal translation and I didn’t get into reading it until seminary. Slowly, I have come to trust it more and more. It’s not as bad as most think. As evangelicals, deep inside, we often have some reservations about it. Bible-reading involves trusting in the words as God’s words. If one cannot trust a translation as God’s word, it is difficult to get into the reading of the word as God’s word. In the end, it comes down to which version do we trust the most. The issue of trust or mistrust is the very reason evangelicals started the NIV. If the NRSV becomes more popular in the future, who knows where it will stand in the minds and hearts of evangelicals 20 years from now?
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