by Rebecca Barnes 16 Apr 2004

A small group of Bible translators huddled around a table stacked with Old Testament Scriptures, Hebrew texts of the book of Jonah, lexicons, reference works.

"We were wrestling with how to communicate ‘hurled,’" recalled Dr. E. Ray Clendenen, the associate general editor/translator for the new Holman Christian Standard Bible, "when somebody opened a door to the room and said there was a tornado coming."

The group clamored to a window in time to see a funnel cloud blustering into downtown Nashville, Tenn. and they retreated to the belly of the building.

The scholars stuck with "hurled," an apt word for the violent wind present in both the story of Jonah and in Nashville that day. The new translation published by Broadman & Holman may also be fresh wind. It is the first major full translation of the Bible to be released in more than 30 years.

At first glance the new Bible may appear to be just one more version in an alphabet soup of translations from the American Standard Bible to Zondervan’s NIV. But the Holman CSB is distinctive because of what it is not.

It is not a paraphrase and it is not an old translation packaged in a new revision. Those types of Bibles, such as The Message, the New King James Version and the New Living Bible, have been widely published. They have creatively renewed the Bible market in an evangelistic, sometimes seeker-sensitive way with paraphrases and revisions intent on making the Scripture more easily accessible to a 21st century audience.

The Holman CSB project began decades before the current Bible publishing blitz. Its impetus did not lie in marketing or access. The Holman scholars wanted to translate the most accurate English Bible to date.

The Holman CSB editor is Dr. Ed Blum, a professor of historical theology at Dallas Theological Seminary and former minister. Blum said new translations are essential because of the fluid nature of language.

"If you really believe the last command of our Lord was to go into all the world and preach the good news, and to teach people," Blum said, "you want a translation that is as accurate and readable as possible. That’s part of making disciples, to have translations that are as clear as possible."

Clendenen offered the translating recipe for the new version: "We just start with the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts," he said.

Clendenen said that technique makes the new translation less encumbered by earlier traditions and translations, although the 100 scholars who worked on the Holman Bible did consult other translations in their work.

In fact new scholarly work on the Scriptures including new translations, newly discovered historical texts and the latest lexicons also made the Holman project worth doing, according to Blum and Clendenen.

The large group of scholars from across the United States and the world used Internet technology to share new work with one another daily.

Blum said new Accordance computer software allowed the translators to do word studies and comparisons and instant searches, he said. "This project used far more computerization than anyone else has ever been able to do," Blum said.

"Everyone assumes that their Bible is accurate," Blum said. That may not necessarily be the case. "The average person is not in a good position to make a judgment whether the NIV is more accurate than the King James. They rely on their pastors, or articles in magazines," he said.

Even then, people pick a Bible most often based on reasons other than a good translation.

The 36 Christian denominations affiliated with the National Council of Churches, align themselves with the favored New Revised Standard Version.

Others continue to savor the Shakespearean language of the 1611 King James.

According to Phoenix-based Ellison Research, Bible translation preferences correlate not only to denominational ties, but to politics. In a nationwide study released in 2002, 34 percent of more than 500 Protestant pastors identified the NIV as the version they personally rely on for most of their work.

For those with an evangelical theology the number rose to 47 percent using the NIV. Pastors with a mainline theology favored the NRSV (51 percent). Pentecostal or charismatic pastors chose the KJV (45 percent).

Political conservatives also liked the KJV, but only as much as they liked the NIV (35 percent.) Moderates preferred the NIV (43 percent) and liberals, the NRSV (71 percent).

Gender-neutral translation

The correlation of Bible translations to politics may be related to gender-neutral translation. The move toward translating the people and pronouns of the Bible to avoid a specific gender and be more inclusive can be traced back to the early 1980s. Some conservative Christian leaders criticize the technique as a result of the influence of Feminism.

The Holman CSB editors cited an interest in safeguarding the Scriptures from what they termed, "trends toward cultural pluralism, political correctness and drifting ideology."

The Holman project was heating up in the late 1990s just as the evangelical world was rocked by the news that their favorite translation, the NIV, was preparing to revise with gender-neutral language.

While other versions such as the NRSV are gender-neutral in their translation of Hebrew and Greek words meant to convey "people" rather than "men," for example, the notion of revising the Bible to also downplay the patriarchal society portrayed in both Testaments sent many Christian ministers scrambling to stop the presses in 1995 on a revised NIV. They succeeded in keeping the NIV revision contained to England, but not in staying eventual gender-neutral translations.

A revision of the NIV, called Today’s New International Version, is expected next year. The new version updates the NIV with gender neutral language, "where the Biblical writers clearly referred to both men and women," according to Zondervan.

The new Holman CSB translates gender that way. "A lot of people avoid the word ‘man’ in the Bible," Blum said. But that isn’t easy, especially in works such as the Psalms. "The way most translations are getting around this is by making [pronouns] plural." Blum said that is not really accurate.

Romans 12:6, for example, in the Contemporary English Version reads: "God has also given each of us different gifts to use. If we can prophesy, we should do it according to the amount of faith we have."

The NIV translates the same passage more accurately as: "We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith."

The Holman CSB’s translation of the verse removes the gender that is non-existent in the Greek text anyway: "According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the standard of faith;"

The NRSV also translates similarly to the Holman. The Romans passage in NRSV is: "We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith;"

The Holman CSB is more like the NRSV than it is different in some senses, but it is very different as it stands as a completely new translation rather than a revision. It is also viewed as more conservative. The introduction to the Bible makes known the scholars’ conservative views about the inerrancy of Scripture.

Blum said he hopes both readability and accuracy will broaden the appeal of the Holman CSB for the entire spectrum of Christians and churches. "You never know until the reviews come in," he said.

Already several noted Christian leaders have endorsed the Holman CSB. The Southern Baptist Convention has added the new translation to the other three in which it publishes teaching materials (KJV, NAS and NIV.)

Blum and Clendenen described some of its more obvious distinctions as a study Bible:

Coloring in the invisible line between translator and reader with these methods may encourage readers to see the Bible the way the editors view it during translation.

"It was an exciting process of discovering things and noticing things," Clendenen said. "Nothing I enjoy doing more than studying the Scriptures, especially in the original languages."

Blum agreed. Even with the publication of the Holman CSB translation, his favorite version of the Word continues to be the original Greek and Hebrew.