9. Issues of Style and Format
Chapter 9: Issues of Style and Format
Throughout most of this book we have examined translation topics related to the meaning of the text of Scripture. In this chapter we survey a variety of other decisions translators must make, including issues of style, reading level, format, and presentation.
Style and Reading Level
A primary concern facing biblical translators is the “reading level” of the English that will go into the translation. Historically, most translators of the English Bible have been biblical scholars, who sometimes instinctively use language that is not easily understood by ordinary readers. This means that the first, and most critical, decision made by translators, either as individuals or as a team, has to do with the audience intended for their translation. In general, functional equivalent versions like the CEV, GNT, NLT, NCV, and GW are more sensitive to audience reading level than their formal equivalent counterparts. This is because, by design, functional equivalence seeks language that is natural and idiomatic in the receptor language.
Establishing a version’s reading level calls for a careful consideration of several matters: the choice of words, whether they will be more common or more literary; the length of words, whether to limit the number of syllables in a word; the length of sentences; and the end product, whether it will be useful for people who speak English as a second language. Translators should also keep in mind that much of the New Testament was written in 
(i.e., common or everyday) Greek rather than a more highly literary Greek (Luke-Acts and Hebrews are the two most notable exceptions).
The first matter, then, always has to do with the choice of words, whether they will be more common or more literary. That is, what English is to be used in the translation, that of the scholar or of the layperson? And if the latter, the question is still which layperson — the “college educated” or the (more mythical) “person on the street.” The fact is that good English can, and should, speak clearly to both groups.
What one must avoid is “sesquipedalian grandiloquence.” For example, we can say both “work” or “labor,” and thus “hard work” or “laborious,” since both communicate the same thing. But “hard work” probably speaks to a wider range of people. Or, as we have just done, the translator can say either “speak to” or “communicate”; again both are understandable to native English speakers, but what, for example, about readers for whom English is a second language? A good translation should probably aim to err on the side of shorter words, but do so without giving up either good English style or meaning. After all, in some cases a longer word is either the best choice or the only one that captures the sense of the Greek or Hebrew.
A good illustration of this is the Greek word 
which is used by the Gospel writers to describe the two who were crucified with Jesus.While the word can mean simply “robber” or “bandit,” its meaning was also extended to refer to those who robbed and vandalized in the context of trying to unsettle things in Palestine with the ultimate aim of overthrowing Roman rule. The context in this case, especially the fact that Barabbas was well known to the crowds, suggests that the two who were crucified were not simply “thieves” or “robbers,” but were brigands whose ultimate aim was insurrection.
So what is the best word in English to describe Barabbas and his companions? Probably “insurrectionist”; but will that be understood by all? “Robbers,” on the other hand, is too narrow to catch the point. The TNIV settled on “rebels,” which, while not precise, moves in the right direction. The NLT and the NAB have “revolutionaries,” which also captures the sense well with language that most people will understand, as perhaps “terrorist” might in some sectors today.
The matter of sentence length is also an important consideration. This, in fact, is one of the standard means of measuring the reading level of any work in English. The “math” here is quite simple: the longer the sentences, the less accessible the work is to younger and second-language readers. Functional equivalent versions tend to break long Greek sentences into shorter English ones for clarity and readability. Formal equivalent versions try to keep the Greek sentence intact. Mediating versions usually find some compromise between these two.
It is interesting to note that when the NIV, a mediating version, appeared, it was criticized by some scholars in this regard. By shortening the sentences, the translators also tended to leave out many of the “connecting signals” (especially conjunctions) that teachers and preachers find useful to show students and congregations how one sentence is related to another. This was especially true of Paul’s frequent use of gar (“for”), a Greek conjunction that connects many of his clauses, especially in argumentation. The NIV translators argued that the frequent repetition of “for” created awkward and unnatural English, and that the connection between clauses was clear from the context itself. In the majority of cases, this was certainly true, although the connection is certainly more obvious when gar is translated. Here we have a tension between natural, idiomatic English and a more precise translation. It was for this reason — the quest for greater precision — that some of these conjunctions were restored in the TNIV.
The matter of style and reading level can be illustrated by a “tale of two Bibles,” the New English Bible (1961 NT; 1970) and the New International Version (1973 NT; 1978). The titles themselves tell some of the story. The “English” in the NEB was first of all aimed toward readers in Great Britain; but even there its usefulness was limited, since it had been set at such a high reading level of English (British academic). The result was that it never did catch on with the ordinary believer in the pew, even in Great Britain.
The translators of the NIV, on the other hand, took the word “international” seriously, even though they were well along in the process before the name was chosen. Their stated aim was twofold: first, to offer a wholly new translation of the Bible into English for use both by individuals and in the church. Second, they deliberately set the reading level so that it would be useful for second-language people. Their measure of success is indicated by the fact that of all the translations since the KJV, the NIV has been the best-selling Bible in North America and beyond for over two decades.
The issue of intended readership is so important that people would benefit from reading the preface to their translation. This will make them aware of the version’s intended audience as well as other important matters related to the translation process.
Paragraphs, Chapters, and Verses
One of the major difficulties facing all Bible translators is how to properly mark “sense units,” especially sentences and paragraphs. While such sense units existed in biblical Greek and Hebrew, they were not marked with punctuation. For the sake of the reader, one of the tasks of the translator is to identify such units.
Probably through the influence of Latin, two things came to exist in English that did not exist in Greek antiquity: the separation of words with a space between them, and the marking of sense units by various kinds of punctuation. Since the object of translation is to transfer meaning from one language to the other, one of the tasks of translators is to identify these units in the original language and punctuate them accordingly in English.
Our earliest New Testament manuscripts were written in a script similar to our capital letters, known as “uncial” script, and with no spacing between the words. This phenomenon carried on well into the fourth century. For the most part scribes showed a degree of sensitivity in breaking words at syllables at the end of a line, but this was not always the case. So, for example, the scribe of a manuscript known as P66, a copy of the Gospel of John that dates from the late second or early third century, was quite relaxed on this matter (just as he also was with spelling). He would often end a line of text with just a single letter from the next word. In so doing, of course, he was able to keep his margins straight!
Putting the Greek text into English, however, requires that it be English, and therefore that there be sentences with proper punctuation. Thus English statements must end with a period, questions with a question mark, and what is understood to be exclamatory with an exclamation point. All of this, of course, involves interpretation. But, as we have seen throughout this book, every aspect of translation involves at least a minimal amount of interpretation.
This also means that Bible versions will vary somewhat on matters of punctuation. For the most part, however, there are enough grammatical clues in Hebrew and Greek sentences to determine with a high degree of certainty where these sentences begin and end. The larger decision translators face is the one discussed above, namely, whether to retain the longer sentences found in Greek or to break these into shorter ones for better English.
All versions, even the most literal ones, sometimes break up Greek sentences. For example, it is difficult to imagine how anyone could put Paul’s impossibly long Greek sentence that makes up the entire thanksgiving in 2 Thessalonians 1:3 – 10 into one meaningful sentence in English. Even formal equivalent versions break it down in a variety of ways. The one translation that tried to keep the Greek sentence intact was the KJV, but to do so the translators used a variety of ploys (commas, semicolons, and colons) to clue the English reader into how the sentence works. In this they were followed by the American Standard Version (ASV, 1901). But most other English versions turn the single Greek sentence into several English ones, whether two (NKJV), four (RSV, NRSV, NASB, ESV), or more (REB: five; NLT, NET: six; NIV, TNIV: eight; GNT: nine).
The more difficult issue in this regard has to do with longer sense units (paragraphs and “chapters”). The “chapters” found in our Bibles were apparently first introduced into the Latin Vulgate by Stephen Lang-ton (d. 1228), who did so for the obvious need to “find things” for the sake of citation. The verse numbers did not appear until some three centuries later, when they were introduced by Robert Stephens in his GreekLatin New Testament of 1551. The first whole Bible to have verse numbers was Beza’s Latin Bible of 1555; and the first to appear in English this way was the Geneva Bible (NT 1557; whole Bible 1560).
The unfortunate thing about this numbering system of chapters and verses was that it bypassed the more standard unit of thought beyond the sentence, namely, the paragraph. This shortcoming is particularly evident in the King James Version (followed by the NASB and NKJV), whose translators adopted the then recent (half-century old) practice of “canonizing” every numbered unit (a “verse”) by setting it off as a paragraph. The result is an artificial division of the text into “verses” instead of a natural division into sentences and paragraphs.
Of course since paragraphs are not marked in the early Greek manuscripts, their identification is up to the discretion of translators. In an earlier time British and American authors in general, and nineteenth-century novelists in particular (e.g., Scott, Brontë, Hawthorne), tended toward very long paragraphs. In more recent times, the motto has become “shorter is better.”
The tendency toward longer paragraphs found its expression in the American Standard Version (1901). These were slightly modified toward shorter paragraphs in its next revision, the Revised Standard Version (1946, 1952). Surprisingly, the paragraphing of the RSV tended to be kept intact by its two later, unrelated revisions (the NRSV and ESV). More recent translations not related to this tradition have tended toward shorter paragraphs (NIV, TNIV, NLT, NCV, etc.).
We should point out at the end of this section that the presence of chapter and verse numbers in our Bibles is a mixed blessing at best. They are, of course, absolutely essential for “finding things” and for everyone getting on the same page, as it were. But they have had an unfortunate history of promoting poor reading of the Bible by breaking the text down into artificial units. Our own instincts are that if these numbers were not present, Christians would read their Bibles far better than they now do.
A positive step in this direction is the common practice today of placing verse references unobtrusively in small, superscript type within natural paragraph divisions. An even better solution might be to place both chapter and verse divisions in the side margins, completely separate from the text itself. This would allow readers to find specific references, but would also encourage them to read biblical narratives as stories, New Testament epistles as real letters, and Hebrew psalms as poetry. This is how Scripture was intended to be read.
Translation or Transliteration
Another challenge facing Bible translators is how to handle certain Hebrew and Greek technical terms that are difficult to put into adequate English. At issue is whether to use (supposed) English equivalents or simply to transliterate them (i.e., to change the Hebrew or Greek letters into corresponding English ones). We have discussed the issue of transliteration with reference to weights, measures, and money in chapter 6. Here we consider several other technical terms.
Two such words occur together at the end of 1 Corinthians, which the KJV chose not to translate but to transliterate. They appear side by side, with an initial capital letter and without punctuation: “Let him be Anathema Maranatha” (1 Cor. 16:22). One wonders how the average reader could ever have understood that without help.
Anathema
The Greek term anathema, which occurs six times in the New Testament (Acts 23:14; Rom. 9:3; 1 Cor. 12:3; 16:22; Gal. 1:8, 9), is drawn from the Greek Old Testament, where it was used to translate Hebrew cherem. The Hebrew term could mean, positively, something “devoted to God,” or negatively, something placed under God’s ban and so destined for destruction (e.g., Judg. 6:18 – 7:15). In its six New Testament occurrences, anathema always carries this negative sense. Apart from the ASV, which transliterated the term as “anathema,” most English versions consistently render it with some form of “curse/cursed/accursed” (NIV, TNIV, NET, ESV, NASU, REB, NJB, NAB, GW, GNT, NLT, etc.).
An exception appears in Galatians 1:8 – 9, where Paul calls down judgment against false teachers who are preaching a counterfeit gospel to the Galatians. While most versions keep the language of “cursed” (TNIV: “let that person be under God’s curse” cf. NJB, NAB, ESV, NASU, NKJV, NLT), other versions translate it as the final outcome of the “curse”: “let him be eternally condemned” (NIV); “let him be condemned to hell” (NET, GNT, GW, TEV). These latter two translations probably go too far, losing the connection to Paul’s other uses of the term and moving beyond his intended meaning.
Maranatha (Marana Tha)
While only the KJV and ASV transliterate the word anathema in 1 Co rin-thi ans 16:22, several versions transliterate the word immediately after it: “Maranatha” (KJV, ASV, NASU, NAB, HCSB). This Greek word itself is a transliteration of an Aramaic phrase meaning, “Come, O Lord” or “Our Lord has come.” The surprising use by Paul of an Aramaic phrase in a letter written in Greek to Greek-speaking believers suggests to many scholars that the phrase is a traditional one that goes back to the early Aramaic-speaking church. If this is so, it would mean that the earliest church prayed to Jesus as their exalted “Lord” and expected his soon return. Transliterating the Aramaic phrase in these English versions apparently attempts to alert readers to this background. Most other versions simply translate the phrase as “Come, O Lord!” (NIV; cf. NKJV) or “Our Lord, come!” (NLT, NET, ESV, GW), sometimes with a footnote identifying the Aramaic words.
Sheol, Hades, Gehenna
These three words variously describe the place of the afterlife. Sheol is a Hebrew word that refers to “the place of the dead.” The Septuagint translators rather consistently, and correctly, rendered it as Hades in Greek. Gehenna, by contrast, originally meant “the valley of Hinnom,” a valley just south of Jerusalem where children were offered sacrificially to the “god” Molech during the Old Testament period (e.g., 2 Kings 23:10). By the time of Jesus this valley had become the city dump, where all kinds of garbage and things considered “unclean” (e.g., bodies of criminals) were burned.
As with many contemporary city dumps, the valley of Hinnom was a place of constant burning. Hence “Gehenna” became a word of abomination. When the idea of a future place of torment for the unbeliever took hold in the intertestamental period, this word was picked up to describe such a place, and it was so used by Jesus in the Gospels. Most modern versions have consistently rendered gehenna as “hell,” with only the NAB transliterating it as “Gehenna” (cf. Matt. 5:22, 29, 30).
The treatment of the Hebrew term Sheol is more varied. The KJV translated the term thirty-one times in the Old Testament as “hell” (e.g., Deut. 32:22). This is not accurate since the word refers more generally to the place of the dead. A number of versions follow the ASV in simply transliterating it as “Sheol” (RSV, NRSV, NASB, NASU, ESV, NET, HCSB, NJB). One problem with this is that most English readers will have to consult a dictionary to find out what “Sheol” means. Other versions use a variety of expressions, depending on the context. In Psalm 16:10 we find “the grave” (NIV, NLT, CEV), “the power of death” (TEV), and “the realm of the dead” (TNIV). In Job 11:8 the term is translated variously as “the nether world” (NAB), “the underworld” (NLT), “the grave” (NIV, CEV), and “the world of the dead” (GNT).
The Divine Name
One of the great difficulties for Bible translators concerns how to render the divine name “Yahweh” into English. The God of the Old Testament, who first revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3), at the same time revealed his Name — in the form of four Hebrew consonants YHWH (known as the Tetragrammaton, meaning “four letters”). Although the exact pronunciation is unknown, most scholars consider it to be “Yahweh.”
For most of the period of the Old Testament, Israel regularly called on their God by this name. But for reasons not fully known to us (perhaps as a way of never disobeying the third commandment — against misusing God’s name [Ex. 20:7]), after the exile the Jews became reluctant to use the name at all. Their way around it was orally to substitute the word ,adonai (“Lord”) whenever the divine name appeared in the biblical text. This had become the standard practice by the time the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek for the Jewish communities of the Diaspora. Thus the translators rendered it with the Greek word kyrios (“Lord”) and rather consistently did so without the article “the.” The result was a Greek Bible where kyrios, not ho kyrios (“the Lord”) was the way the divine name was known among all Greek-speaking Jews, including the writers of the New Testament.
But equally important for the early Christians was the fact that their primary confession was the short affirmation, “Jesus is Lord” (see Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:10). That this came to have double meaning is evident in Paul’s letters. Somewhere early on, Deuteronomy 6:4 had become the basic “theological confession” of Judaism: “Listen, Israel, Yahweh our God 
, Yahweh is one.” Well before the first Christian century, this confession had taken the form, “Listen, Israel, the LORD [Yahweh = 
= kyrios] your God, the LORD is One.” In 1 Corinthians 8:6 Paul divides this confession into two parts, where “God” refers to the Father and “Lord” refers to the Son. In his letters, which are among the earliest documents in the New Testament, “Lord” (kyrios) almost always refers to Christ. The implication for Christology is that Paul uses the Old Testament name for God to describe Jesus Christ.
But this bit of history also created problems for the translators of the Bible into English, especially because the first attempts to do so (Wycliffe, Tyndale) were still based on the Latin Bible, where Yahweh had been consistently translated Dominus (“Lord”). This created a long tradition of using “Lord” to translate the Tetragrammaton in the Old Testament. The result was that God’s name “Yahweh” is seldom found in the long history of English translation. The two exceptions are the ASV, which consistently rendered it “Jehovah,” and the NJB, which chose to go with “Yahweh.” (“Jehovah” is likely a mispronunciation, resulting from the combination of the Hebrew vowel marks for 
with the Hebrew consonants YHWH.)
Most recent versions have maintained the historic practice that began with the KJV, to translate the divine name in the Old Testament as “the LORD” (small caps). So when readers see the word “Lord” in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word behind it is (usually) ; when they see “LORD,” the Hebrew term is YHWH. Unfortunately, this practice has not generally been carried over to the citations of the Old Testament in the New. Since the New Testament writers followed the Septuagint in using Greek kyrios for both and YHWH, most English versions have followed suit, using “Lord” (lower case).
One exception is citations of Psalm 110:1, where a few versions distinguish between YHWH and by translating “LORD” and “Lord,” respectively (KJV, NKJV, NLT; NLT does this elsewhere as well). The practice of not identifying YHWH in Old Testament quotations in the New has some unfortunate Christological consequences, since in most cases in Paul’s letters the reference is to the risen Lord, Jesus Christ. The implications of Christ’s deity intended by Paul might be missed by the modern reader.
Capitalization
The tradition of capitalizing certain words in English has had a long and varied history. In earlier centuries far more nouns were capitalized than is currently true, and the number keeps decreasing.
Although the KJV did not capitalize pronouns used for God, several contemporary versions have adopted this practice (NASB, NASU, NKJV, HCSB). (Other versions in the KJV tradition do not: RSV, NRSV, ESV.) Most English stylists advise that all pronouns — including those for deity — should be kept in lowercase.
Capitalizing pronouns with reference to Jesus in the New Testament can also create problems. Although the goal of emphasizing Christ’s deity in this way is a noble one in theory, in practice it can distort the meaning of the text. For example, when the scribes and the Pharisees say to Jesus, “We want to see a sign from You” (Matt. 12:38 NASU), the capitalized “You” implies that the Pharisees think Jesus is divine. But, of course, they do not. Whenever an individual in the Gospels speaks about Jesus, or to him, capitalized pronouns can misrepresent the meaning of the text.
Difficulties also arise when capitalizing pronouns in messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. For example, Psalm 22:1 in the NKJV reads, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” The first problem is that there is inconsistency here, since pronouns in other passages (see Pss. 16:10; 41:9) are not capitalized in the NKJV, even though they are identified as messianic prophecies in the New Testament (Acts 2:27; John 13:18).
The second problem, however, is that many of these prophecies are fulfilled “typologically,” rather than uniquely, in Christ. In other words, the original referent in the Old Testament might be David or righ teous sufferers in general. Jesus is indeed the “fulfillment” of these prophecies in that he is the last and greatest in the line of Davidic kings, and the last and greatest of righ teous sufferers. But capitalizing pronouns might wrongly suggest that the original human referents (like David) are themselves divine. It seems best therefore to follow the now standard practice of leaving all pronouns in the lowercase.
Exegetical Uncertainties and the Use of Footnotes
In chapter 8 we pointed out the difficulties that scholars sometimes have in choosing between variant readings in the manuscript tradition. There we also noted that the alternative reading could often be found in a footnote in the more recent versions. The phenomenon of offering transla-tional alternatives, or other information, in footnotes goes back as far as the ASV, where they appear for the following reasons:
1. To offer alternative readings where the textual tradition differs, or in the case of the Old Testament where there is a significantly different reading in one of the versions.
2. To offer alternative translations for the same text, when the committee was divided.
3. To offer verse location when a New Testament writer cites the Old Testament.
4. To offer explanations of difficult words or phrases, especially when the biblical idea is no longer a common one.
5. To explain the meaning of some biblical names.
6. To offer references “to other passages, which are either strictly parallel, or serve the purpose of illustrating or justifying a particular rendering.”
7. To offer a more literal rendition of a Greek or Hebrew word or phrase, where, apparently, the translators thought something was lost in translation.
Most of these, although rarely no. 5, are found in some form or another in contemporary versions, although each will have its own concerns and emphases. Some translations are especially spare with reference to notes (REB, NAB, NASU), while others (e.g., NRSV, TNIV) have moved in the other direction, offering a broader range of help for the modern reader. The NET Bible, with almost 61,000 footnotes of various kinds, certainly has the most expansive notes among contemporary versions. Readers would do well to consult the preface of whatever version they are reading to determine the reasons notes were included and manner in which these are presented.
The five most common reasons for footnotes in contemporary versions are to provide: (1) textual variants, (2) references for Old Testament citations, (3) alternative interpretations, (4) explanatory comments, and (5) formal equivalent alternatives for idiomatic translations. All five of these can be illustrated from Mark 1 in the TNIV:
1. A note on Mark 1:1 in the TNIV indicates that “many manuscripts” add the phrase “Son of God ” to the introductory phrase. Most other versions also provide notes alerting the reader to this important textual question.
2. A note at the end of Mark 1:3 provides a reference for an Old Testament citation, informing the reader that the quotation beginning with “a voice of one calling in the wilderness” comes from Isaiah 40:3.
3. A footnote to the word “tempted” in the description of Jesus’ temptation in the desert by Satan (Mark 1:13) offers the alternate interpretation that “The Greek for tempted can also mean tested.”
4. An explanatory comment appears in a footnote on the word “leprosy” in Mark 1:40, where the reader is informed, “The Greek word traditionally translated leprosy was used for various diseases affecting the skin.”
5. A note on the word “evil” in the phrase “evil spirit” (1:23) provides a more formal equivalent rendering, “Greek unclean .” As discussed in chapter 6, an “unclean spirit” is an evil and defiling demon in opposition to God.
A sixth, much less common, reason for adding a note is to inform the reader that the meaning of a particular word or phrase is uncertain (usually a rare Hebrew word). For example, a note in the TNIV on the word “body” in Job 21:24 (“well nourished in body”) reads: “The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.” The reason for this note becomes clear when one considers the variety of ways contemporary versions translate the word (in italics):
“his loins full of milk” (NRSV)
“His figure is full and nourished” (NAB)
“his pails full of milk” (ESV)
“thighs padded with fat” (NJB)
“his sides are filled out with fat” (NASU)
“his body is well fed” (HCSB)
These examples should be enough to cause the reader to consult the preface of his or her translation so as to understand the purpose and nature of footnotes in the translation.
“Red Letter” Editions
The final item of format in this chapter generally lies outside the control of translators — who are concerned with the words, sentences, and paragraphs — and in the hands of publishers. This is the matter of “red letter” editions of Scripture. In terms of the production of Scripture, red letter editions are a recent phenomenon, whose beginnings date from the turn of the twentieth century.
The idea itself began with the longtime editor and publisher of the Christian Herald magazine, Louis Klopsch, who in 1899 first published a King James Version in which all the words of Christ were printed in red. This was the result of an unusual kind of piety, where the red was intended to remind people of Jesus’ blood that had been poured out for them. But the result was to create several strange ironies in North American Christianity.
First, here were people who believed strongly in the full divine inspiration of all of Scripture, yet they were willing to set out the words of Jesus in such a way that they seemed to have pride of place over the rest of Scripture. So while the whole Bible is Spirit-inspired, the “actual words” of Jesus seem to have a place of significance above those of the biblical writers themselves. For most biblical scholars that borders on a false understanding of the doctrine of inspiration.
Second, the words that appear in red in these editions are rarely the actual words of Jesus. Rather, his own words, spoken in a Galilean dialect of Aramaic, had already been translated into Greek for the Greek-speaking communities for whom the Gospels were intended. The few Aramaic words of Jesus that are preserved (mostly in Mark) are transliterated Aramaic (5:41, Talitha koum; 7:34, Ephphatha; 14:35, Abba; 15:34, Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani), followed by a translation into Greek. So, for example, Mark 14:36 has Jesus’ words in an Aramaic transliteration (abba), which Mark then translates into Greek (pater), but which we must now put into English (“Father”).
So in terms of biblical inspiration, what Jesus said is an extremely important part of the Story, but not more important than the Story itself in which the words are encased. One also wonders why God the Father has been left out here. Should not his words in the Old Testament and the New be printed in a distinct color?
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that most translators are opposed to red-letter editions because of the mixed theological, not to mention devotional, signals they send. But publishers continue to issue them because “this is what the people want,” despite the protests of translators. Perhaps this discussion will be of some help on this matter.
The following two chapters, which briefly outline the story of English translations, recount both the history of putting the Bible into English and descriptions of what we consider to be the primary efforts to do so in the past half century.
For Further Reading
Barker, Kenneth, and Edwin Palmer, eds. The NIV: The Making of a Contemporary Translation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.