More than three hundred and fifty years have passed since the publication of the King James Version. For most of this long period the 1611 revision has remained the most widely accepted version of the English Bible.

Almost immediately after its publication there were calls for further revision. Some changes were made in 1629 and more in 1638. Then in 1653 the Long Parliament considered a bill authorizing another full-scale revision.

Had this bill passed, there would have been a fourth "authorized" revised version in the seventeenth century, and the King James might never have achieved the wide acceptance it has now so long enjoyed. But with the dissolution of parliament, the plans to bring the English Bible once more up to date came to an end.

Quiet revision of the King James continued for another century. The last changes of much consequence were made at Oxford in 1769 by Dr. Blayney, and this is substantially the form in which we have the King James Version today.

More than two hundred and fifty years passed before another major revision was authorized. This time it developed into a joint British-American venture involving about seventy-five of the best Biblical scholars on both sides of the Atlantic.

The results of fifteen years of careful work were published in 1885 as the English Revised Version.

It was a model of precision, even to the point of being overly literal. One critic is said to have inquired, "Who asked the committee to prepare an interlinear for schoolboys?"–an interlinear being a translation that offers the meaning word for word between the lines, a crutch sometimes employed by lazy schoolboys when called upon to recite.

The new revision was met with great enthusiasm. There was, of course, the usual criticism accorded every revision of the Scriptures. But the English Revised sold immediately by the millions.

In fact, so keen was the anticipation for the long-awaited version, that when the New Testament was completed in 1881 it was teletyped across the Atlantic and printed in its entirety in the May 22 editions of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Times.

It had been agreed that after a suitable interval the American members of the committee would publish an edition of the same revision, embodying their preferences and certain other minor changes.

The American committee continued working for another fifteen years. The English Revised had retained many antiquated words and phrases such as "hough," "strowed," "holpen," "pourtray," "sith," "go to now." Some words had one meaning in England and quite another in America.

In 1901 the American Standard Version–the fifth authorized revision of the English Bible–was placed on the market. It won wide acceptance. It was still so highly regarded that in 1963 the New Testament was republished in a very attractive form under the title, The New American Standard Bible.

Just as these two revisions were appearing, a discovery of the greatest importance was being made. Archaeologists in Egypt began finding large quantities of ancient papyrus documents. Some of them had even been used as stuffing in mummified crocodiles. Many of them dated back to the time of Christ and even earlier.

Most of these manuscripts were private documents–letters, title deeds, birth and death notices, receipts, wills, marriage agreements, divorces, even a letter from a young schoolboy notifying his father that he had run out of money.

The language of these documents was not classical Greek, but the ordinary, everyday speech of the first century Mediterranean world. Scholars had long been uncertain as to the real nature of New Testament Greek. Now by comparison with the language of these papyrus documents, it became evident that the writers of the New Testament used the same koine–common, vernacular Greek.

No wonder that the early Christian message spread so swiftly and with so great power! The records of the life of Christ and the letters of the apostles had been written in language that everyone used and understood.

The impact of this discovery was felt at once.

If the early Christians were able to read Paul and John in the common speech of their day, why should not modern Christians have the same enlightening opportunity?

If the boys and girls in Rome and Corinth could hear the Gospels read to them in language they could follow and enjoy, what about boys and girls in London and New York today?

The implications were unavoidable. And since that discovery there has flowed a steady stream of so-called "modern-speech" translations of the Bible.

A mother asked if the New Testament could be translated into language her children could understand. Twenty scholars worked anonymously–and without pay–to produce such a version. Between 1898 and 1904 it was published as The Twentieth Century New Testament–a translation that I still find stimulating to read.

In 1903 Weymouth put out the first edition of his superb and widely known New Testament.

Moffat followed in 1913 with his strikingly different translation of the New Testament. In 1924 he added a modern-speech translation of the Old Testament. No one else has produced a great translation of the entire Hebrew and Greek Bible on his own.

Then in 1923 a New Testament in modern American idiom first appeared. It was the work of Edgar J. Goodspeed, who for much of his life was regarded as the greatest living scholar of Biblical and patristic Greek.

Some would still commend this version as the most precise, yet readable, of all translations. With amazing skill Goodspeed succeeded in turning the Greek into modern English without the multiplication of words so often found in other modern-speech New Testaments.

In 1931 there was added an Old Testament translated by Smith and other scholars, thus forming The Bible-An American Translation, sometimes known as the Smith-Goodspeed Version or the Chicago Bible.

Among modern-speech translators of the Bible, none is better known than J. B. Phillips.

Beginning with his 1947 Letters to Young Churches, millions of copies of his New Testament have been sold. Now he is venturing into the Old. The first part has already appeared–the Four Prophets, 1963. May he live to follow Moffatt in the completion of such an enormous task.

When you feel the force and warmth of this translation, you can guess the kind of person who would choose to spend a lifetime at such work. Phillips modestly makes no claim to linguistic erudition. As a pastor his only goal was to give his members a version that would win their interest and respect for God's Word.

One of my students was assigned to write a paper on the Phillips version. He sent a list of questions to the author. Back from England came a very gracious answer. "Please excuse the writing, but my secretary is away," he began. The immensely busy translator had taken time to give the student all the information he desired.

You can trust the translations put out by such men.

But now the time had come for another official revision of the entire Bible.

In 1946 a large committee of scholars sponsored by the National Council of Churches of Christ in America, representing forty million Protestants in thirty-three denominations, published the Revised Standard Version New Testament.

Since the R.S.V., as it is affectionately known, is in direct line with the five previous official revisions, it could be designated as the sixth authorized revised version.

By 1952 the entire Bible had been completed. On the appearance of the Old Testament, with its handling of such texts as Isaiah 7:14, there burst over the heads of the translators a flood of the most vitriolic criticism since the days of Cochlaeus.

The revisers were accused of being communists, atheists, modernists, agnostics, and even "semi-Jesuits." Their version was denounced in innumerable pamphlets bearing such titles as "That Blasphemous Version," and "Satan's Subtle, Subversive Masterpiece. The most Dangerous Book of the Twentieth Century."

As it was no longer permitted to burn the translators, the critics burned the translation. I have a newspaper picture of the R.S.V. being put to the torch at an Ohio church meeting. A Florida clipping tells of its being publicly dunked into a bucket of boiling water and lye.

Luther's Bible suffered similar indignities. So did Tyndale's. So did the King James Version.

True, the R.S.V. is not perfect. The revisers themselves would be the first to concede it. No translation ever can be. But the widely publicized charges against it can be shown to be false and based largely on ignorance of the problems of translating from one language to another. When anyone asks me to recommend a conservative but readable translation of the whole Bible, I never hesitate to suggest the Revised Standard Version.

Originally the R.S.V. was to have been another joint American-British venture. But World War II intervened, and the American scholars went on alone.

With the end of the war England returned to the work of revision. But it was discovered that the religious atmosphere of Britain was undergoing a serious change. It was reported that less than ten percent of the people of England attended church, and hardly anyone was reading the Bible anymore.

In 1947 an interdenominational council was set up by the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the free churches of Great Britain, Ireland and Wales, to consider a solution to the dilemma. Representatives of the British and Foreign Bible Society and of the National Bible Society of Scotland joined in the planning.

Since the study of the Bible is the very lifeblood of Christianity, how could the people of England be persuaded to take up their Bibles again? The council agreed that the situation called not for a mere revision as originally planned, but for a brand-new modern-speech translation fresh from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

The reasoning that led to this decision is well summed up by A. M. Hunter of Scotland in his book Interpreting the New Testament 1900-1950:

"Since the famous forty-seven did their work in 1611, nearly three and a half centuries have passed, and in that time our speech has so changed that the Authorized Version, for all the glories of its language, has grown more and more of a foreign tongue. The common man does not speak or properly understand the great accents of his Elizabethan ancestors. Were the Christian preacher or teacher concerned only with literary appreciation, he might rest content with the Authorized Version. But his task being what it is–to preach and teach the Word of God to a generation that is almost Biblically illiterate and slowly lapsing into paganism–he demands, and rightly demands, a version of the New Testament that 'will clothe the word of the gospel in the vesture of our common speech' and come home with living power to men who do not understand, much less appreciate, the archaic splendors of Elizabethan prose."

Thus in 1961 the famous presses of Oxford and Cambridge Universities published the New Testament of the New English Bible.

Instead of being the seventh authorized revision, the New English Bible is the first authorized Protestant English translation ever to appear. All the preceding authorized versions were revisions, not translations. All of them go back to Tyndale. And Tyndale was not authorized, He was executed.

It is a daring and highly interpretive translation. This is not a bad mark against it. It simply means that it is exciting and enlightening to read.

Work on the Old Testament is nearly finished, and soon the complete New English Bible will be available.

How will the public receive it? I can see the pages turning to Isaiah 7:14. Will it be "virgin" or "young woman"? Will there be more burnings, more buckets of lye?

The public attitude toward versions seems to be growing more friendly every day. There seems to be less suspicion and more awareness of the plain good sense it makes to read the Bible in language just as modern as the original was in its day.

Some of the finest translations have been produced by Roman Catholic scholars, a number of them being translated from the Greek rather than the Latin Vulgate.

There is the Westminster Version (1935), the New Testaments translated by Spencer (1937) and by Kleist and Lilly (1956), the whole Bible from the Latin by Knox (1949), and the large new Jerusalem Bible (1966).

Just as the Protestant King James Version of 1611 has been revised through the years, so has the Catholic Douay Version of 1610. Likewise, as the 1769 edition of Dr. Blayney became the standard form of the King James from then on, so the 1750 edition of Bishop Challoner became the standard form of the Douay. And when the Protestant Revised Standard Version appeared in 1946-1952, it was matched by the Catholic Confraternity revision begun in 1941and soon to be completed.

For many years there has been talk of producing an English Bible acceptable to both branches of the Christian Church. Catholic scholars have agreed that with minor modifications the Protestant R.S.V. could meet this need.

In 1966 there was published the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. All changes from the Protestant edition are listed in the appendix. You would have to see the list to believe how few and very minor all these changes are.

Jewish scholars have also been active in the translation of the Bible. A new version of the Old Testament is now under way, and the first five books, The Torah, came off the press in 1962.

Could there ever be a version acceptable to Protestants, Catholics, and Jews?

It is already one-third done! The new thirty-eight volume Anchor Bible is a joint production of all three. The fresh and scholarly Genesis volume was the first to appear, in 1964. When I read it out loud to my family, the most frequent reaction was, "We never noticed that in the Bible before!"

There can be no end to the list of versions, for even now more are on the way. The American Bible Society has just put out Today's English Version of the New Testament, or in paperback, Good News for Modern Man.

But if you would prefer to read the King James version in its 1611 form, even that has just become a possibility. Publishers in England, Italy, and America recently produced a magnificent facsimile of the original King James Bible–all twenty pounds of it. Only 1,500 copies have been printed.

Why have so many men taken it in hand to retranslate the Scriptures? What has prompted them to devote so many years of their lives to this work?

One sometimes hears it darkly suggested that one reason for preparing these versions has been to provide an opportunity for unprincipled scholars to twist the words of Scripture to suit their own theological ideas. Such charges have usually been made by those who themselves have had little or no experience in the difficult and delicate work of Biblical translation. The evidence does not support their criticism.

For my own satisfaction I have examined all the more influential versions of the English Bible, comparing them verse by verse with each other and with the original. I have looked especially for instances of willful distortion of the Scriptural text for doctrinal purposes. Such instances are so extremely rare as to be singularly noteworthy. Bible translators have been moved by far loftier purposes than this.

Tyndale risked and lost his life in his urgent desire to give the Bible to the people in their own language. He wrote that he "perceaved by experyence how that it is impossible to stablysh the laye people in any truth, excepte the scripture were playnly layde before their eyes in their mother tonge, " "which thinge onlye moved me to translate the new testament."

The translators of the 1611 King James Version wrote in their no-longer-published preface that their purpose was to do that which "helpeth forward to the saving of souls. Now what can be more available thereto, than to deliver God's book unto God's people in a tongue which they understand?"

The committee of scholars, including Goodspeed and Moffatt, who prepared the 1946 Revised Standard Version of the New Testament, expressed their purpose in the preface:

"In the Bible we have not merely an historical document and a classic of English literature, but the Word of God.... And men need the Word of God in our time and hereafter as never before.... It is our hope and our earnest prayer that this Revised Standard Version of the New Testament may be used by God to speak to men in these momentous times, and to help them to understand and believe and obey His Word."

But isn't it true that some versions are more literal, while others interpret rather than translate?

It is not possible to translate without interpretation. There is a great deal of interpretation in every major English version of the Bible, including such supposedly uninterpretive versions as the King James, Douay, and Wycliffe.

It is true that some interpret with greater freedom, clarity, and consistency. These are the ones that give me the most help.

Are there any versions that one could not recommend? Are any of the many translations not safe for one to trust?

Yes. When a version openly announces itself as translated "from the metaphysical viewpoint" (there is one) or "based on numerology" (there is one), one is immediately warned to take care.

Or when a version seems to be the special possession of some religious group and contains unusual translations that are given particular emphasis by this group, again I would say, Beware!

Truth needs no special version of the Book.

But isn't it confusing to be faced with so many different ways of translating the same passage? Wouldn't it be better to have just one?

Consider, for example, one of the most significant Greek words used in the New Testament to summarize the purpose of Christ's sacrificial death. In Romans 3:25 Paul declares that the Son of God thereby became our hilasterion. For centuries Bible translators have wrestled with this term.

Wycliffe (1382) translates, "an helper," changed in a later edition to "forgiver."

Tyndale (1525) prefers "a seat of mercy, "following the leadership of Luther, who invented the name "mercy seat" for the golden covering of the ark.

The Great Bible (1539) translates, "the obtainer of mercy."

Whittingham (1557) offers "a pacification," changed later in the Geneva Bible (1560) to "a reconciliation."

The Bishops' Bible (1568) translates, "a propitiation," the words adopted by the King James Version in 1611.

Goodspeed (1923) chooses "a sacrifice of reconciliation."

Mrs. Montgomery (1924) renders, "an offering of atonement."

The Basic English (1941) translates, "the sign of His mercy."

The Revised Standard Version (1946) offers "an expiation."

The New English Bible (1961) interprets, "the means of expiating sin."

Other versions present numerous additional alternatives.

The very variety of translations bespeaks the broad significance of this term and warns against the error of too hasty or narrow an interpretation. It makes apparent the necessity of more careful and wider study of Scripture to discover further clues as to Paul's inspired intention in this vital passage.

I think Tyndale would rejoice to see our day. So would the translators of the King James Version.

Never has the Bible been so readily available in such excellent translations as today. The Bible societies report that now the Word of God has been rendered into 1,232 languages covering more than 97 percent of the world's population.

How else could the gospel go to every nation under heaven, that God's truth may triumph in the end?

You can trust these modern versions. Read as many as you can.

–A Graham Maxwell, excerpt from You Can Trust the Bible © 1967, Pacific Press Publishing Association.