Concise but complete reason(s) [non-sarcastic & positive in nature] that we have so many versions of the Bible

Why so many versions? Since this question has been answered numerous times before, I will try to be particularly brief here

1) Language - modern language keeps changing. Some words still in use today have very different meanings than they did in the time of the King James Version (KJV), for example. Witness how, in the Old Testament (OT), the word "meat" is used to refer to bread and the word "bread" is used to refer to meat. This is just one of the most obvious of a multitude of such changes in meaning. Modern translations ensure comprehension by modern speakers.

2) Source texts - archaeologists are continually making discoveries of more ancient, and more authentic, source texts. There is *still* no version that takes full advantage of the texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, and they were first discovered over 50 years ago. Modern, scholarly translations take advantage of the most recent and most authoritative source texts available.

3) Scholarship - the knowledge of translating the ancient source manuscripts increases with time. Thus, a modern, scholarly translation is bound to be more consistently accurate than a scholarly translation of 400 years ago, or even 100 years ago.

4) Translation methodology is important. Style ranges from a word-for-word literal translation (which tends to inaccuracies but is useful in study), to a thought-for-thought translation (which tends to be accurate but often displays over-interpretation as well as translation). There is a world of "gray area" between these two extremes.

5) Content - though some versions strive for an "inclusive" canon, i.e. a bible that contains all books used by all major Christian sects, most display a very strong religious bias by including only a more restrictive canon. This can be seen by comparing the contents of the New American Standard Bible (restrictive canon) with the Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard Version (inclusive canon).

6) $ - this is the most significant contributor to the many versions available today. Any publisher that produces a modern, scholarly translation can expect to earn a profit from publishing that work. Thus, publishers are continually producing such works in an effort to fill a niche in one of the above areas or simply in offering an improved (modernized) bible to replace a currently-filled niche. If producing a new version were a money-losing proposition, only a very few well-funded religious or university organizations would be making the financial effort to produce such works. We would likely have no more than 4 new translations every century under such cost-prohibitive conditions.

Jim, http://www.bible-reviews.com/

The Bible is not a single document; it was written by numerous people over a 1500+ year span of time.

The Old Testament, for example was begun by Moses, and continued by many other Hebrews/Jews. These "Scriptures" were sacred documents, and they Jews were rather fanatical about copying them exactly.

After Jesus completed his ministry on Earth, His Apostles were largely responsible for the New Testament. There was almost 400 years of relative silence between the two Testaments.

In the first Century of the Church, the letters and other documents of the Apostles were preserved in their native languages. Many were written in Greek.

At some point, the documents were bound together in a single book, referred to as the Bible.

Just for simplicity, all the scriptures were translated into common languages of the places where the Church took hold.

Of course, there were disagreements between the translations. By the year 600 or so, the Catholic church had become a strong force, and they published an "approved" version. There were people who, over time, disagreed with the Catholic approach, and they protested. Thus, Protestant churches came to be, along with their "corrected" versions of the scriptures.

By the 1400's a panel in England was convened, and these scholars argued and discussed the passages, and published what we now call the "King James Version". This became the "gold standard" for centuries.

As time went on, deeper studies of the old languages continued, and improved translations became available. Also, King James Version English is over 400 years old. We no longer say "thee" and "thou", and it gets difficult to read and understand.

Newer translations bring the language closer to how we speak today. New International Version, New American Standard Bible, and New King James are all modern translations.

Also understand that people learn things in different ways. You get some folks who need simpler words, so the New Living translation was born. Many needs yield many solutions.

All in all, though, the differences between modern translations are minor. The general ideas are consistent, but details and nuance differ.

That is a nutshell explanation. OK, it was a big nut, but we are covering 3500 years of elapsed time.

Each individual translation actually has its own story- and originally many of these got started around the issue of the Texus Receptus (sp?) -- read up on it.

I'm also sick of useless non-answers, but their prevalence is great enough to almost drive me away from this site permanently.

As far as the most contemporary versions (of which admittedly there are many!), they are perhaps better understood if you think of the world and the church before and after the Living Bible.

NIV for instance has not actually been around very long at all. Before that pretty much the only game in town for a Bible that you could read and draw from and understand was the RSV or maybe Darby's, but these were (and are) not exactly well-marketed.

Some versions (cough cough TNIV cough) perhaps meet with dubious evaluation in my eyes, but the Lord will judge his annointed. We don't have to.

A lot of people gripe about the NLT, GW, *and* Message, but these are actually different works that come from different places (see first line of this answer) and frankly they do a lot of good. It's also a strong possibility that part of this is business. The Holman for instance is an awesome translation that I expect history will remember as a landmark tantamount to the KJV, but came out at an unfortunate time when it has the apprearance of a middling also-ran instead of the remarkable height of scholarship which it is.

We don't have "versions." We have translations. The reason we have translations is because:

1. Not everyone can read Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.

2. English didn't even exist when those languages were spoken widely, so it's really hard to translate them into English.

Some English translations are more "literal", while others just try to get the general idea of what the manuscripts say.

Edit: They aren't versions. All of them are translations. Some of them are revisions of other English translations (to make the English more understandable, or to reflect the finding of various scrolls), but most were translated directly from the Latin, Greek, and/or Hebrew texts themselves.

Edit 2: Charlie (below) mentioned the Holman, and that's my favorite too. It's VERY well-done, understandable, not too literal (some of the idioms in Hebrew don't translate well into English), plus I have the Holman study Bible...and I love it!

There are many versions of the Bible because some of the scripts were written in Latin, some in Hebrew, and there may have been other languages.

There were many versions of the Bible before Gutenberg (1438) printed the Gutenberg Bible. King James became the most popular because he used the printing presses to make sure there were Bibles for the people to read. Since the speech patters of that time were thee and thou we see this in the KJ version.

Other versions, that take the original documents, and translate them do not use these terms. Some make it much easier to understand (such as The Living Bible); I have a layman's parallel with 4 versions matched up in columns so that I can see the same scripture in 4 different versions.

I think others will continue creating different versions of the Bible as they try to make it more readable and easier to understand.

But anyone can read the KJ Version and understand if they pray that God will help them.

T.

Because translating between languages leaves us with a good deal of grey area, particularly when you are translating concepts from ancient languages which are not au courant. As a secular example, look up the movie Tombstone on Wikipedia, and read the translations into English of the Latin gibes traded between Doc and whatshisname. In Pace Requiescat is translated as "in the sense that ..." etc. It means, Rest in Peace, right? But the interpretation is subjective...

Hence difficulties between versions. Take the Jehovah's Witnesses version of the Bible, as versus the King James version. The translation of the concept of "soul" for example, is rendered in the JW bible to refer to individuals: in other words, we are all "souls". In the KJV, it is rendered in the more common sense, as in, the body possesses a separate yet integral "soul", the divine essence of man, if you will, that which survives death.

In addition, the beginning of the JW Gospel of John reads, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was A god."

That's quite a different take than the KJV! But I suppose, to be fair, it's up for debate, although I've heard both sides bandy back and forth accusations of poor scholarship.

And of course, there are those who insist on translating the translation, into "modern American," and so on. The object in all of these cases is, at least partly I believe, to make the original readily understandable. And to do that, as in any translation, you have to take certain liberties with the text.

As I was taught when studying Asian languages, and then translating them and comparing my translations, sometimes you can use the letter of the text, and sometimes, that doesn't translate "exactly" so you must use the spirit of the text.

Hope that helps.

The meanings of words changes over time and region. Some people want each and every verse explained for them at the bottom of the page, which I personally don't care for (reading one of these is kind of like asking God to speak to us, then interrupting Him with our own ideas, in my opinion) Then, some Bibles are study Bibles with concordances, topical studies indexes, etc. Also, some people just want an easier read, so we have translations like the New Living Translation or the Amplified Version. Personally, I like that we have so many to choose from, but I really don't think we need anymore than we already have.

There are so many versions of the bible, because there is so much OF the bible to go around. There are literally hundreds of gospels and many versions of each. Historians and translators alike quabble about what this word means or what this phrase means, so they just come up with their own. It's like the story that starts at one end of the room and ends up at the other, an entirely different story. And that's all the bible really is, a story. Told by word of mouth for hundreds of years before anyone thought of writing it down. Hell, they had debates over the minutest details of what to put into "the bible", from Jesus' birthday, to the divinity of he himself.

And I'm meaning this in a totally non-sarcastic way. Technically I'm Catholic, but, I'm also an archaeologist, and like most in my field, I consider myself agnostic now.

Different translations for different purposes. You have para-phrased which reads more like a novel. You have your archaic english translations like douay-rheims and king james. they have beautiful language, but it is hard to under stand. Revised standard, which updated the english from the archaic to more recent, while trying to keep the beauty of the language intact. New rsv which updated the english to our current language.Then you have other translations which are gender neutral,because God may not be male. Then you have sect specific like the new world translation for the J.W.sand different levels of english in different translations. Sorry this got so long, hope it helped.

what do you mean so many versions? If you mean so many translations it's because: we have a lot of translations of the same text. On the other hand, if you're talking about Byzantine text-type vs. Alexandrian text-type vs. Textus Receptus, the answer is somewhat more complex.

There are answers, but at this point I would just say: I don't think that anything particularly important turns on the difference between the versions, so what in particular is it that you're so concerned about?