The 1992 Revision of the Good News Bible: The Context for Revision

Abstract

This article surveys the wider context in the 1970s–1980s that compelled Bible publishers to prepare revisions of their translations: the rapid shift in spoken English was making the masculine-heavy English of major Bible translations feel antiquated to readers. The Good News Bible New Testament was first published in 1966 and its Old Testament in 1976, but already by the mid-1980s revision was being contemplated by the American Bible Society. The revision process was thoroughgoing and collaborative, with all English-using Bible Societies participating. More than 6,000 revisions were proposed and reviewed, with about 2,500 meeting consensus. Most were related to gender-exclusion, but a few were exegetical. Although the United Bible Societies’ Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recommendations on almost 6,000 textual cruxes were published in preliminary form by 1979, the Good News Bible revision process could not incorporate those data. An addendum discusses the addition of the deuterocanonical books in 1979.

Keywords

revision Bible translation American Bible Society Good News Bible

In the late 1980s, a little over twenty years after the introduction of the Good News Bible (GNB) New Testament in 1966,¹ and not much over ten years since that of the GNB edition with both New Testament and Old Testament in 1976, and the edition with Deuterocanon/Apocrypha (1979), the American Bible Society’s (ABS) Board of Managers, after due deliberation, gave their approval to undertaking a revision of the GNB text, in response to a mounting perception that its English was quickly becoming passé in some key aspects of language usage. That the GNB text should need revision so soon after its very sensational and successful 1966 introduction, both in the USA and in English-speaking countries abroad, may on the surface seem questionable, but there was a context that made revision mandatory.

(1) The first part of the context that compelled revision is that essential factor that ever affects Bible translations, tending to make them become all too quickly out of date with respect to their scholarly and linguistic underpinnings, that is, the advances constantly being made in the discovery and interpretation of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic (e.g., the Dead Sea Scrolls).

The preface to the recent revision of the New American Bible (NAB²) perhaps best describes this first important aspect of the context for revision of Bible translations:

New translations and revision of existing translations are required from time to time for various reasons. For example, it is important to keep pace with the discovery and publication of new and better ancient manuscripts . . . so that the best possible textual tradition will be followed. . . . There are advances in linguistics of the biblical languages which make possible a better understanding and more accurate translation of the original languages. And, there are changes and developments in vocabulary and the cultural background of the receptor language. (NAB², Preface, 3)

(2) It is this last sentence of the NAB² quotation that points to the second part of the context for revision: the rapidly evolving shifts in the receptor language that were negatively affecting the English text of GNB. Already in the 1970s a major shift was taking place in spoken American English, a shift toward increased usage of locutions that sought to avoid gender-excluding forms of expression (e.g., “he or she,” “his or hers,” “s/he”). This phenomenon was initially seen by many biblical scholars (especially in conservative circles) as a trendy fad that would pass soon enough. But it was not such, and by the 1980s it was apparent to those who managed or published the major Bible translations that this shift in spoken English was making the masculine-heavy language of these Bibles feel antiquated and inappropriate to readers/hearers, and that revisions must be prepared.

Other major Bible translations were also confronting this contextual factor in the 1970s and 1980s, if not earlier, and initiating projects to review and bring their Bible texts up to date with respect to gender-excluding language. Indeed, comparing some of the other major Bible translations in this regard may help significantly to limn this linguistic context.

NJB: The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB, 1985) was published seven years before GNB² as a revision of the Jerusalem Bible (JB), which had first been published in the same year as the GNB NT—1966. JB was widely used in the USA in the late 1960s and 1970s, but was often criticized for being “a translation of a translation,” and for following its French original too closely. Work on NJB thus aimed at making a wholly new translation directly from the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic texts. Regarding the problem of gender-excluding language, the NJB preface states that “considerable efforts” were made to “soften or avoid the inbuilt preference . . . for the masculine [because] the word of the Lord concerns women and men equally” (NJB, Preface, 5).

NRSV: The New Revised Standard Version (1989), also prepared in the 1980s, is a revision of the Revised Standard Version (NT, 1946, 1971; OT, 1952; Apocrypha, 1957). Speaking for the NRSV translation committees, editor Bruce M. Metzger also references the same contextual aspects: discoveries of important manuscripts (especially the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Greek manuscripts), which required adjustments to be made to text-critical or exegetical decisions, and the problem of gender-excluding language, which required an updating of the English. Metzger’s NRSV preface carefully states the problem: “During the almost half-century since the publication of the RSV, many in the churches have become sensitive to the danger of linguistic sexism arising from the inherent bias of the English language toward the masculine gender, a bias that in the case of the Bible has often restricted or obscured the meaning of the original text” (NRSV, Preface, 3). The NRSV mandate for translating thus directed the committees that, wherever the text evidently intends to include both men and women, “masculine-oriented language should be eliminated as far as this can be done without altering passages that reflect the historical situation of ancient patriarchal culture . . . [and] to provide a faithful and acceptable rendering without using contrived English” (NRSV, Preface, 3).

REB: The Revised English Bible (1989) was also prepared in the 1980s, updating the British-produced New English Bible (NT, 1961; Bible, 1970). REB is noted for reversing a number of NEB’s adventurous textual decisions. Regarding gender bias, the REB revisers say that “the use of male-oriented language, in passages of traditional versions of the Bible which evidently apply to both genders, has become a sensitive issue in recent years; the revisers have preferred more inclusive gender references where that has been possible without compromising scholarly integrity or English style” (REB, Preface, ix).

NJPS: The New JPS Version or TANAKH (1985) is often viewed as a revision of the 1917 Jewish Publication Society (JPS) translation of the Hebrew Bible, but in actuality a decision was taken shortly after World War II to begin work on a “completely new translation” (NJPS, Preface, xxiii) rather than attempt a modest revision as some had preferred. Also the English of the 1917 JPS translation was far too similar to the KJV to merit revision. Prof. Harry M. Orlinsky, who served as editor-in-chief for NJPS and also served on the NRSV OT team, commented in 1991 that “what has come to be called Male Oriented . . . Language was treated already in the Fifties and Sixties in the New Jewish Version as an aspect of its new philosophy of translation. . . . But it became a special problem . . . in the early Seventies in the United States, to the point where it constitutes a major innovation of the [NJPS]” (Orlinsky and Bratcher 1991, xv).

NAB² (2010): The New American Bible² is the most recently published of all the major English Bible revisions. It is a thorough revision of the New American Bible, first published in 1970, the very decade when English colloquial speech patterns were beginning to shift. As noted in the remarks on NAB² at the beginning of this article, the translators placed high value on keeping pace with “the discovery and publication of new and better ancient manuscripts,” advances in biblical linguistics, and changes in the “vocabulary and the cultural background of the receptor language.” And they declare that their “primary concern in this revision is fidelity to what the text says.” Thus,

when the meaning of the Greek is inclusive of both sexes, the translation seeks to reproduce such inclusivity insofar as this is possible in normal English usage. . . . Although the generic sense of man is traditional in English, many today reject it; its use has therefore generally been avoided. . . . [Because] English does not possess a gender-inclusive third personal pronoun in the singular . . . this translation continues to use the masculine resumptive pronoun after everyone or anyone, in the traditional way, where this cannot be avoided without infidelity to the meaning. (NAB², Preface, 1061)

NLT: Even the evangelical Bible publishers had to come to terms with the need for revision. The New Living Translation (NLT, 1996) replaced Kenneth Taylor’s Living Bible Paraphrased (LB, 1971), but in contrast to LB (which was only a reworking of the woodenly literal English of the 1901 ASV), the NLT project was assigned to a team of evangelical biblical scholars with the mandate to translate anew from the original-language texts. In contrast to LB, NLT is a genuine translation, and represents a clever marketing strategy by its publisher, Tyndale, that resolved the main criticism of LB by working from original-language texts, and also getting a leg up on other evangelical publishers by addressing seriously the issue of gender-excluding language. The NLT translation committee declared that their work would “respect the nature of the ancient context, while also trying to make the translation clear to a modern audience that tends to read male-oriented language as applying only to males,” though the use of masculine nouns and pronouns in the original-language texts “clearly intends that the message is applied to both men and women” (NLT, Preface, xviii).

TNIV (2005): The International Bible Society (IBS) long avoided coming to terms with a revision of the New International Version (NIV, 1973), precisely because this issue of gender-excluding language was controversial among many evangelicals. In the spring of 1997, IBS released, in the United Kingdom only, a newly revised, gender-inclusive edition of NIV, initially called NIVI. But very quickly ultra-conservative evangelical groups in the USA got wind of this “stealth Bible” and raised an uproar; they did not want NIV tampered with. Some examples of the harsh criticism of IBS include: “Hands Off My NIV” (LeBlanc 1997), “Bailing Out of the Stealth Bible” (Olasky 1997), and “Don’t Give in to Feminist Pressure to Re-write the Bible” (Dobson 1997). Within a short time IBS yielded to the vocal and vehement pressure, agreeing not to so revise NIV for distribution in the USA. However, that turned out not to be a permanent decision; five years later, despite all the rancor, IBS issued a news release declaring that they would indeed publish a “gender-accurate” edition of NIV, to be called Today’s NIV (TNIV). This news release also stated that TNIV would not replace NIV, but would be an alternative to it (International Bible Society 2002). The TNIV revisers viewed this revision as a necessary update resulting from the NIV mandate to keep pace with biblical scholarship and with changes in English usage, particularly the move away from gender-excluding locutions.

The 1992 revision of the Good News Bible: GNB²

With this brief review of the context for revision in the 1970s–1980s, it becomes clear why the 1976 GNB text needed revision so soon after it was first published. There was, as with the other major Bible translations, a need to address some textual/exegetical issues that had been raised, but by far the larger concern was dealing with the prevalent problem of gender-excluding language.

GNB²: The complete “Protestant edition” of GNB was published in 1976, but few are aware that in the interim between the initial publication of the GNB NT in 1966, the text of the New Testament had already undergone three revisions (not to mention editorial corrections made in new printings over time). The second edition New Testament, introduced in October 1967, incorporated both textual and stylistic adjustments, in light of evolving scholarly advances, review comments, and suggestions, all aimed at enhancing clarity and faithfulness. The third edition New Testament (1971) followed the same basis of increasing textual refinement, as did the fourth edition New Testament (1976), which was the NT text incorporated into the first GNB OT/NT edition of 1976. The fourth edition New Testament represented a significant advance and adjustment. The earlier NT editions had been based on the first (1966) and second (1968) editions of the United Bible Societies (UBS) Greek New Testament, but the fourth edition GNB NT was edited to reflect the scholarly advancements made in the preparation of the UBS Greek New Testament third edition of 1975. And it is this improved NT text that was carried into the 1976 edition.

Significant advances were made in the 1976 edition. One is the introduction of textual notes featured as footnotes on the page. The first two NT editions had no footnotes at all, assuming the receptor audience would tend to avoid them in general. But in the third NT edition, the ABS revisers responded to critiques which rightly claimed that GNB gave no accounting, where textual cruxes are concerned, of how the textual decisions were taken, and no indication of what other options have textual support in the ancient manuscripts. The response was to introduce into the third edition New Testament a four-page appendix listing significant variant readings and possible translation alternatives under the heading, “Other Readings and Renderings” (GNB NT third ed., 643–46). Also, in the third edition GNB NT, passages which lack textual support in the oldest and best ancient Greek manuscripts had been handled by setting them within single brackets within the GNB NT text itself, as a way of indicating their uncertainty. But in the fourth edition New Testament, all such passages were relocated to footnotes with an introduction typically reading, “Some mss. add . . .” (e.g., Mark 7.6; Acts 8.37; John 8.1-11).

There were some important terminological adjustments already made in the third GNB NT edition that carried into the 1976 GNB. An example is the Greek word synagōgē, “synagogue.” In the early editions the GNB NT used “meeting house” to translate this Greek term, assuming that this might best express the functional meaning of the Greek word. But critics indicated that “meeting house” was far too general and opaque for readers. It was replaced with “synagogue” in the third GNB NT edition, but the sense of “meeting house” was not completely lost. The Word List appendix (third ed. NT, 629–42) defines “synagogue” there as “The place where Jews met every Sabbath day for their public worship; it was also used as a social center and as a school . . . during week days” (GNB NT third ed., 640).

Two notable translation advances made to some degree already in the fourth edition GNB NT pointed the way toward how to deal with issues that were becoming critical for all major Bible translations by the 1980s: The first advance was in beginning to address the problem of gender-excluding language, particularly the reality that grammatical gender is already built into the biblical languages. It was helpful that GNB was not a concordant translation, and already in the fourth edition GNB NT (1976), the translation in places used words like “person,” “people,” “human,” or “someone” instead of “man/men.” Luke 18.27 illustrates this well; in the third edition GNB NT it reads: “What is impossible for men is possible for God.” The wording in the fourth edition NT changes very slightly: “What is impossible for man is possible for God.” However, in the fifth edition NT (GNB² 1992) it reads: “What is humanly impossible is possible for God.” But this was just the beginning of such changes before the revision; it would be thoroughly addressed in GNB².

The second advance was that of beginning to address the fraught issue of the potential for modern readers (with little or no knowledge of biblical cultures) wrongly to take anti-Jewish meanings from some NT texts (especially in John and Acts) and then apply them detrimentally to modern-day Jews (as if somehow all Jews of all time were implicated). The NT revisers for NAB² noted this concern in their preface: “An especially sensitive problem today is the question of discrimination in language. In recent years there has been much discussion about allegations of anti-Jewish expressions in the New Testament” (NAB², 1061). Since modern readers tend to know very little about first-century C.E. Judaism, such very harmful misapplications have occurred, and do continue to occur. The repeated use in John and Acts of the phrase hoi Ioudaioi, “the Jews,” a very broad and seemingly all-inclusive categorization, can lead readers to the false conclusion that somehow all Judeans (or even all Jews) conspired en bloc against Jesus (when in fact most Judeans in his day would never even have encountered him).

An instructive example is John 11.8, where Jesus has proposed returning to Judea where Lazarus has died, and his alarmed disciples say, “Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone you, and you are going there again?” (RSV). The GNB third edition NT had: “Teacher . . . just a short time ago the Jews were planning to stone you; and are you planning to go back?” By contrast, the fourth edition NT had revised that to: “Teacher . . . just a short time ago the people there wanted to stone you; and are you going there again?” GNB² retained this last reading. Some of these texts were addressed already in the first edition of the NT; e.g., in John 11.53, where the Greek text has hoi Ioudaioi, “the Jews,” the GNB NT has always read (from the first edition to the fifth), “From that day on the Jewish authorities made plans to kill Jesus.” These examples illustrate what was done on this issue already in the fourth edition NT (1976), but it was dealt with much more thoroughly in the fifth edition NT (GNB² 1992).

As noted, a number of improvements had been made over the editions of the GNB NT text. But for the text of the 1976 GNB OT, its need for revision was clearly signaled (only two years after publication!) by a 1978 review article by H. G. May, who pointed to the example of Ps 37. He noted that the Hebrew word ʾîš, “man,” occurs only three times in Ps 37, whereas the English word “man” occurs seventeen times in the GNB OT translation (May 1978, 190). For May, this illustrated all too clearly how natural it still seemed for Bible translators not only to reflect, but even over-extend the masculine grammatical gender forms in the Hebrew in ways that exaggerate for modern English readers/hearers the maleness of the biblical texts, the world they represent, and the significance of that maleness for the audience the translation seeks to reach.

Like Prof. May, during the decade and a half since the 1976 publication of the entire GNB, many Bible readers had also become sensitive to the negative effects of gender-excluding language, the ways in which the built-in biases of the ancient biblical languages, and English, toward the masculine gender were leading some Bible users to feel excluded from being addressed by its messages. This is the part of the context for revision that was of greatest concern to the ABS Translations Department staff during the 1980s, because it was only a few years from the 1976 publication date that GNB readers, churches, and other UBS member Bible Societies were writing to ABS to share their concerns about this issue. This was the chief subject that led to the planning and organization of a thorough review process.

In December 1986, acting in response to the mounting perception of the need for revision of the GNB text, the ABS Board of Managers approved the undertaking of a revision process that would be restricted to the two areas of concern: (1) passages in which the English wordings had been unnecessarily gender-excluding, and (2) passages in which the translation had been perceived as problematic or insensitive from either an exegetical or stylistic viewpoint.

The GNB² revision process

The revision process for GNB² was thoroughgoing, complicated, and globally collaborative. The ABS Translation staff carefully reviewed every verse in GNB (including the 1979 GNB edition with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha), and then made proposals for revision, by single verses, where deemed to be needed. Other Bible Societies worldwide where GNB was being distributed and used were also invited to do the same with their Bible translation specialists and biblical scholars. GNB had quickly become very popular and widely valued in other countries with English-speaking constituencies, as well as in the USA, and because of the high levels of “ownership” in other Bible Societies, it was important that this revision be a shared project. The primary objective was to locate and list passages in which gender-excluding language needed to be dealt with, and secondly to indicate passages that needed reexamination for exegetical reasons.

The first stage of the overall process involved the collaborative, close review of the GNB text and the gathering of proposals for revision by scholars from ABS and other Bible Societies. A year was allocated for this intensive verse-by-verse review and input process. What made the process complicated and cumbersome was that this was being carried out before there was an internet, which meant that the correspondence and exchange of data had to be done via international mail.

Once the review was done and all proposals had been received, the ABS Translations Department compiled a master list of passages that had been identified and proposed for revision, presenting the current 1976 GNB text in one column and the proposed revision in a second parallel column. The initial master list had two categories: the first part, by far the larger (with 6,000+ verses identified), listed proposals for addressing gender-excluding problems; the second part, very much smaller, concerned exegetical proposals (see below). For the sake of both stylistic concerns and ease of typesetting the revised edition, great care was taken to assure that the replacement wordings remained stylistically coherent with the GNB text and as close as possible in length.

The master list was then sent out to all the participating Bible Societies and translation scholars as the first step in a four-stage sifting and evaluative process. Once the master list was received by all Bible Societies and participating translation specialists, the next task was for all to work through the list and mark each proposal they would support. The list was then shortened by eliminating all proposals that lacked at least 75% support. Reviewers at this stage could also “re-propose” a revision for suggested proposals they thought could be better worded, and those were factored into the next round. The master list was processed through three more such rounds of review and evaluation and indication of support or non-support (all by mail), and finally winnowed down to consensus agreement on approximately 2,500 textual revisions. It should be noted that through this process each proposed revision was crafted with careful attention to minimizing both word count and stylistic diversion from the GNB wording. The final revisions were subsequently adapted as needed for use in British and Australian English. With final approval by the ABS Translations Department and the ABS Board of Managers in September, 1990, the revisions were then passed to the printers to set the text for GNB² (OT, NT, and DC/A).

Revisions dealing with gender-excluding language use

Because the patterns and habits of colloquial English are constantly changing and evolving, it must be recognized that nowadays almost as soon as a Bible translation has been completed and published it is already beginning to become dated. So long as its text remains static, an English Bible translation’s language usage, for example, will tend to become dated quickly because of spoken English’s tendency toward rapid new developments in everyday usage. The linguistic evolution that was occurring in spoken English in the 1970s was a major change, almost a quantum leap, to get away from gender-excluding words and phrasings.

Indeed, the changing character of English as a living language today can be illustrated strikingly by looking at how use of the words “man/men” has shifted since the mid-twentieth century. This reality can be clearly seen in the movements of all the major Bible translations to address this issue in the 1970s–1980s, when spoken English in the USA quickly made adjustments to avoid overly masculine usage, especially with referent or resumptive pronouns (Copperud 1980). After experiments with cumbersome locutions like “his or her” or “s/he,” spoken English quickly moved toward the use of the “singular they,” as in, e.g., “if anyone wants to consult me, they will need to be here before 12 noon,” “whoever killed Hazel covered their tracks well,” or the like. A sure indication of how firmly this has developed in American English usage is the 2015 declaration by grammarians that “singular they” was “word of the year” for 2015 (globalnews.ca/news/2446364/singular-they-named-word-of-the-year).

A look at what was done with Matt 16.24 may be helpful. In this text the Greek uses a third-person style that is natural for its time and appropriate for its audience. RSV (second edition NT, 1971) still has the highly literal “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” To be clear that this invitation by Jesus is not directed only to males, the early GNB NT editions had made a partial advance, translating Greek tis, “anyone, someone,” not as “man,” but as “anyone”: “If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me.” That was a partial advance, but GNB² resolved the issue by a shift to second-person style, which, for contemporary spoken and heard English is the more natural style: “If any of you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me.” It may be noted by comparison that NRSV revised RSV by a shift from singular to plural (even though there is risk in this method of losing something of the sense of personal address to the hearer): “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (NRSV).

Another look at Ps 37 may be instructive from the viewpoint of reduction of masculine forms in general and especially in relation to the divine being. Not only does the word “man” no longer occur within its forty verses in the revised GNB² text, the use of masculine resumptive pronouns (“his,” “him,” “he”) used of God (a use difficult to avoid) are slightly reduced. These masculine pronouns appear altogether fifteen times in the 1976 GNB edition, but thirteen times in GNB².

There are ways to reduce masculine resumptive pronouns, as can be seen in how NJPS has handled Amos 5.8 by using “Who” as the resumptive referent to “the LORD”: “Who made the Pleiades and Orion, / Who turns deep darkness into dawn / And darkens day into night, / Who summons the waters of the sea. . . .” By contrast, GNB² has in each case “He” as referent for “the LORD.” In Isa 40.13b, both NJPS and GNB² more prosaically use “him/his” for “the LORD,” and many other such examples could be cited. So, if reduction of masculine resumptive pronouns for the deity is going to be a future desideratum for Bible translation revisers, this issue will need careful review toward any future GNB² revision, but that will also be true for other Bible translations.

The preface of the 1992 GNB² thus notes that readers of the earlier GNB editions had been communicating to the ABS their frustration with the linguistic bias toward the masculine gender and requesting that this be a priority in considering any revision of the GNB text. “In practical terms” for preparing a revision, the 1992 GNB² preface states that “where references in particular passages are to both men and women, the revision aims at language that is not exclusively masculine-oriented. At the same time, however, great care was taken not to distort the historical situation of the ancient patriarchal culture of Bible times” (GNB², Preface, iv).

Exegetical and stylistic revisions

The second, less extensive, category for revision was that of passages which had been questioned from an exegetical, or in some cases, stylistic perspective. There were only around thirty of these in all. A few examples may be illustrative of this category.

One NT example is Phil 2.6, a well-known textual conundrum. In the earlier GNB NT editions, this verse says of Paul’s preexistent Christ: “but he did not think that by force he should try to become equal with God” (with the alternative in a footnote: “become, or remain”). GNB² instead reverses text and footnote: “but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God” (relegating the earlier reading to a footnote: “remain, or become”). Trinitarian theologians especially were not content with the original GNB reading here. The first part of this poetic couplet had already declared of Christ that “he was in the form of God,” so the second part should lead in the next verse (2.7) into the kenōsis or “self-emptying” of that divine “form” to take instead “the form of a servant.” From the trinitarian viewpoint the original GNB wording appeared to contradict Paul’s preexistent Christology, which asserted in the first phrase of the couplet that Christ was existent ab initio in a state of equality with God.

A second example is the case of Dan 8.14, which is translated in NRSV as: “For two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.” The traditional understanding of the 2,300 evenings and mornings is that it denotes the time span when evening and morning sacrifices will be offered up; that is, a period of 1,150 days during which no sacrifices could be offered up, from the desecration of the Jerusalem Temple until it was rededicated. For reader clarity, the 1976 GNB OT text had rendered this, concisely and without loss of content, as “1,150 days.” That rendering was, however, critiqued as confusing and requests for revision of this were received. The 1992 revised GNB² text now has: “It will continue for 2,300 evenings and mornings, during which sacrifices will not be offered. Then the Temple will be restored.” No footnote was deemed necessary.

A third example concerns the eleven so-called NT “blood” texts (Acts 20.28; Rom 3.25; 5.9; Eph 1.7; 2.13; Col 1.20; Heb 10.19; 13.20; 1 Pet 1.19; Rev 1.5; 5.9), which became the subject of vehement criticism in conservative Christian circles. In several NT passages the Greek word haima, “blood,” is used metonymically in the expression “by the blood of Christ,” to signify (via a kind of metonymic shorthand) “by the death of Christ” (“sacrificial death” in the fourth ed.). The latter wording is how this phrase was usually translated in the first edition GNB NT, and that held through the third edition. By the principle of metonymy a smaller aspect of something is used to represent the larger reality, and so it is in these NT texts that references to the effectiveness of the “blood” of Jesus are used by the NT writers metonymically for the death or sacrificial self-offering of Jesus on the cross.

Robert Bratcher, the translator of the GNB NT, has noted that the harshest and most publicized attacks on the GNB NT in its early editions centered on its use of “death” or “sacrificial death” to translate the Greek haima in those eleven metonymic texts. Copies of the GNB NT were burned, virulent tracts assailed it, and ad hominem attacks were levied against the translator (Orlinsky and Bratcher 1991, 198). Bratcher also said that the GNB NT “was intended to be a translation that could be read and understood by anyone who has a fourth-grade level of education,” whether or not that person’s English is native or acquired. Further, he added, “Like any translation, it intends to be faithful, taking for granted that faithfulness is to be measured by the degree to which the reader’s understanding of the translated text matches that of the readers of the original text” (199). Toward the goal of reader clarity and comprehension of meaning, the GNB translation of these metonymic “blood” texts was both innovative and effective, but in certain circles it was seen as “taking the blood out” of the Bible.

ABS and other Bible Societies globally had received concerns and critiques regarding these texts; one was that persons or churches inclined to use the GNB NT were being told by conservative critics that it was not a reliable Bible translation because “they had taken the blood out of it.” Use of the principle of metonymy by the biblical writers was not understood or acceptable in literalist circles. In the revision process the wording in some of these texts was adjusted to “blood,” but with the earlier GNB reading always in a footnote on the page to signal with an equally viable translation what this metonymic use of “blood” means in the text.

An example is Rom 5.9. Where the early GNB NT editions had “By his [sacrificial, fourth ed.] death we are now put right with God,” the GNB² revised text has “By his blood we are now put right with God” (with footnote: or, “By his sacrificial death. . . .”). Similarly, in Eph 1.7, where earlier GNB NT editions had “by the death of Christ we are set free,” GNB² now has “by the blood of Christ we are set free” (with footnote: or “by the sacrificial death [of Christ]”). In others of these “blood” texts the GNB² revision made no changes, thereby signaling that translating the metonymic use of the word haima as “the sacrificial death (of Christ)” is an equally viable alternative, because it makes absolutely clear what the biblical writers’ metonymic use of “blood” stands for—the (sacrificial) death of Christ on the cross. Thus, for example, in Rev 5.9, where the earlier GNB NT editions had “and by your death you bought men for God from every tribe, language, nation and race,” GNB² holds that, “and by your sacrificial death you bought for God people from every tribe, language, nation and race.” In 1 Pet 1.19 GNB² also holds the earlier metonymic translation, “it was the costly sacrifice of Christ” (Greek, timeō haimati . . . Christou). The reading of the early editions in 1 John 1.7, “and the blood of Jesus,” was retained in GNB². In Heb 10.19 GNB² holds the earlier metonymic wording, “by means of the death of Jesus.”

GNB² and the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project

In the late 1960s UBS, under the leadership of its Translations Secretary, Eugene A. Nida, recruited and appointed a scholarly committee to work on what was to be called its Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (HOTTP). This project entailed a thoroughgoing review and analysis of the thousands of textual cruxes in the Hebrew Bible that confront Bible translators all too often with the challenge of a variety of variant readings to be sorted through and weighed prior to translation. In 1967 Nida began to form the HOTTP committee, each appointee a mature textual scholar of the Hebrew Bible, and each an expert in text criticism and familiar with the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Rüger 1977).

The HOTTP committee first convened in 1969 to plan and organize their work, and then proceeded to meet each summer for four consecutive weeks over a span of eleven years. Their scientifically based approach to the text-critical evaluation of the problem texts is articulated in both English and French in the “front matter” of each volume in their five-volume Preliminary Report (detail below).

This decade of work by the UBS-appointed team of Hebrew Bible scholars proceeded under the very effective leadership of the Swiss scholar Dominique Barthélemy. The other HOTTP colleagues were A. R. Hulst (Netherlands), Norbert Lohfink (Germany), W. D. McHardy (Scotland), H. P. Rüger (Germany), James A. Sanders (USA), with Adrian Schenker (Switzerland) and John A. Thompson (USA) serving the committee as secretaries. Their work involved analyzing well over 5,000 textual cruxes in the Hebrew Bible and making recommendations regarding translation of these texts. When their groundwork was close to completion, they published in 1979–1980 a Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project in five volumes (Barthélemy 1973–1980) so that scholars might have quick access to their findings, even though their findings were later to be carefully edited and revised in the final HOTTP report publication.

The final HOTTP report, with extensive discussion of each decision in contrast to the abbreviated preliminary report, was scheduled for future publication under Barthélemy’s editorship, and the first three volumes of the final report were completed and published in French between 1982 and 1992, but Barthélemy’s death unfortunately intervened and further work was delayed until Adrian Schenker was able to take up the responsibility and carry the editing further. The fourth volume appeared in 2005, and the fifth in 2016 (Barthélemy 1982–2016). When or whether the Pentateuch volume of the final report will appear is still unclear.

The preliminary report volumes were accessible in the 1980s when GNB² was being planned, but the revision mandate did not include the sort of detailed, labor-intensive review of all these textual cruxes that would have been needed, nor was there time for what that would have required of ABS translations staff. Nonetheless, such a review of the GNB text in light of the HOTTP recommendations was a desideratum for the ABS Translations Department at the time, and that remains a possible (and fruitful) project for the future and for a possible third GNB edition. This is especially so since by 2016 all but one of the final HOTTP report volumes have been published.²

Addendum: GNB Deuterocanon 1979

In the wake of the new ecumenical openness emanating from the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), and enthusiastic renewal of interest in the Bible, biblical scholarship, Bible translation, and Bible study by the laity in parishes, the GNB editions (NT 1966 and Bible 1976) came into widespread use in Roman Catholic churches in the USA in the late 1960s and into the 1970s and 1980s. It was only to be expected, then, that US Roman Catholics would want to have GNB editions that included the deuterocanonical books in addition to the Protocanon of the Old Testament.

UBS and the European Bible Societies, as they sensed the new directions encouraged by Vatican II, moved quickly to address this issue of Bibles which included the deuterocanonical books. Already in 1964, before Vatican II had officially ended, UBS leaders and representatives from a variety of world churches at a meeting in Driebergen, Netherlands, discussed a proposal recommending the publication and distribution of Bible editions with Deuterocanon for use especially in Roman Catholic churches. The Driebergen recommendation was that “where the churches desire and specifically request it, the Bible Societies should consider the translation and publication of the books commonly called the Apocrypha” (Holmgren 1970, 6). This was not without controversy because Bible Societies whose heritage was from the Reformed tradition generally disvalued the deuterocanonical books and were skeptical of cooperation with Roman Catholics. The Westminster Confession of 1647 had declared that the books called Apocrypha had no more authority than any other human writing (ned aliter quam alia humana scripta), which ended all debate in the Reformed tradition about their place either in the Bible or their use in public worship (Neuser 1991, 107).

Nevertheless, many of the Bible Societies in Europe and elsewhere did not share that view, and were keen to be able to serve Roman Catholic audiences with Bible editions they could accept, and the recommendation was approved. UBS General Secretary Ulrich Fick noted in 1977 that the Anglo-Saxon Bible Societies and their supporters/donors (notably BFBS and ABS) were substantively influenced by the Reformed stance on the deuterocanonical books, whereas other Bible Societies (e.g., those in countries with Lutheran state churches) had no problem with the inclusion of these books in interconfessional Bible editions (Fick 1977, 32).

This matter remained controversial, but a pivotal moment occurred with the creation of the 1968 document, “Guiding Principles for Interconfessional Cooperation in Translating the Bible,” jointly prepared and agreed to by UBS and the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. The key compromise here (made to mollify Bible Societies opposed to inclusion of the deuterocanonical books in traditional Catholic interspersed order) was the agreement that “in Bible editions published by a Bible Society and bearing the imprimatur of Roman Catholic authorities, the deuterocanonical texts are included as a separate section before the New Testament” (Fick 1977, 32). This was a watershed for UBS, affirming its intent to be integrally interconfessional in its work of Bible translation, publication, and distribution. Following this agreement, several hundred interconfessional Bible translation projects got underway globally, each involving both Roman Catholic and Protestant translators, and in some cases Orthodox translation specialists as well. By 1987, a total of 161 interconfessional Bibles and New Testaments had been published as a direct result of the 1968 UBS–Vatican agreement, with a further 160 such projects in progress globally (UBS and Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity 1988, 1–14).

The UBS General Committee continued to discuss this innovative agreement with the Vatican at its Edinburgh meeting in 1969. They took note of the reservations among the Anglo-Saxon Bible Societies and their donors, noting particularly the fact that a substantial portion of the UBS financial support came from these Bible Societies, and they took the decision (known thereafter as the “Edinburgh Formula”) to require that those churches requesting interconfessional Bible editions would need to pay the translation and publishing costs for Bibles that included the deuterocanonical corpus (Fick 1977, 33). This too was a controversial compromise. Roman Catholics were not pleased since they were by far the most frequent requesters, but this decision enabled those Bible Societies that worried about donors who were opposed to Bibles with the Deuterocanon to say to their donors that none of their donated funds were used to enable production of Bibles with the Deuterocanon (Fea 2016, 284). At a subsequent meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1972 the UBS executive committee acted to approve engagement in Bible translation projects according to the Orthodox canons where requested and supported by Orthodox authorities (Fick 1977, 34).

UBS General Secretary Fick summarized the present UBS position on this matter in his 1977 report to the Bible Projects Consultation, a regular joint meeting of representatives of UBS and the World Catholic Federation for the Biblical Apostolate (WCFBA), stating that

the Bible Societies still follow the rule under which they began their work. They are not churches wanting to establish doctrinal opinions about the Bible. They serve the churches in their area with the Bible which these churches want and need. . . . To sum up, it is clear that it is the churches which set the canon of Holy Scripture, and not the Bible Societies, whose attitude was and still is pragmatic, not doctrinal. (Fick 1977, 35)

The “Guiding Principles” were once again reaffirmed at the 1978 UBS executive meeting in Hong Kong, and from then on the door was open for Roman Catholic editions with the deuterocanonical books interspersed in traditional Catholic fashion because now the national Bible Societies were deemed to know best how to serve the Scripture needs of the churches in their region (Fick 1977, 36).

It took ABS a little longer to arrive at coherence with the position already worked out jointly between UBS and the Vatican due to the reluctance of some ABS Board members and supporters who were skeptical of the deuterocanonical books and of cooperation with Roman Catholics. But change did come, and a key factor in bringing about ABS openness to interconfessional Bible translation work was an address presented by ABS General Secretary Laton Holmgren to the ABS Senior Leadership Council in May, 1970, in which he demonstrated definitively how these Roman Catholic partnerships are fully consonant with the historic principles and values of the Bible Society movement. Holmgren noted that all the churches—whether Evangelical, Protestant, or Catholic—seek to enable people everywhere to hear the word of God, and that the work of the Bible Society movement from its beginning has been interdenominational (“serving the whole church in the world”) and impartial with respect to denominational and creedal distinctions (Holmgren 1970, 6).

The ABS decision came in 1974 to approve translation of the deuterocanonical books for interconfessional editions of GNB. A translation committee was organized from those who had translated the GNB OT, and its work got underway shortly after the 1976 publication of the GNB OT/NT edition. The translators for the DC/A books included Heber F. Peacock (chair), Roger A. Bullard, and Barclay M. Newman (Orlinsky and Bratcher 1991, 202). The translation team proceeded apace, and, after a careful review process, the GNB text for the DC/A books was ready for publication in 1979. Imprimaturs were secured, after careful review, from the Most Rev. John F. Whealon, Archbishop of Hartford, Connecticut, for the 1979 edition, and from the Most Rev. William H. Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland, for the 1992 GNB revised edition (with DC/A), both instrumental in the positive reception and widespread use of GNB in Roman Catholic parishes throughout the USA (Fea 2016, 283). Another earlier sign of the strong Catholic interest in GNB was the imprimatur granted to the GNB second edition NT by Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston in 1969, without requesting a single text adjustment (Orlinsky and Bratcher 1991, 198).

As determined by the terms of the agreement reached by UBS and the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, the DC/A books were located in GNB as two separate sections between the Old and New Testaments. The first section comprises the deuterocanonical books as canonized by the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Also, as the guidelines required, the entire text of Greek Esther is translated here, with the six additions not found in the Hebrew text of Esther interspersed as chapters A–F. The second section, titled “Some Additional Books,” includes 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh.

Footnotes

1

“Good News Bible” was not used as a title until the publication of the Old and New Testaments together in 1976. I use the abbreviation retroactively to refer also to the earlier NT editions.

2

This article is a revised form of a paper presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, in a session organized by the ABS Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship to celebrate the first fifty years of GNB.

Abbreviations

ABS American Bible Society

ASV American Standard Version (1901)

BFBS British and Foreign Bible Society

DC/A Deuterocanon/Apocrypha

GNB² Good News Bible (1992)

HOTTP Hebrew Old Testament Text Project

LB Living Bible (1971)

NAB² New American Bible (2010)

NJB The New Jerusalem Bible (1985)

NJPS The New Jewish Publication Society Translation (Tanakh, 1985)

NLT The New Living Translation (1996)

NRSV New Revised Standard Version (1989)

REB The Revised English Bible (1989)

TNIV Today’s New International Version (2005)

UBS United Bible Societies

WCFBA World Catholic Federation for the Biblical Apostolate

References

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, ed. 1973–1980. Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project. Vol. 1, Pentateuch (1973, 1979); Vol. 2, Historical Books (1979); Vol. 3, Poetical Books (1979); Vol. 4, Prophetical Books I (1979); Vol. 5, Prophetical Books II (1980). New York: UBS.

Barthélemy

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