How Often Should A Good Translation be revised/Updated?

Depends on current language usage. The translation may be fine forever, but the language around it changes (1611 KJV for instance) so an update is required.

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/16/132106374/google-book-tool-tracks-cultural-change-with-words

 

I believe a given translation should be left "as is" unless its makers find a goof or goofs in it, & then it should be revised only to correct the goofs.

If the language leaves it behind, it's timeta make a new translation.

 

With respect, the ESV is not a new translation; it is a revision of the RSV.
Whether it is based on better texts than the KJV/NKJV is, shall we say, unproven.

To answer the OP, I believe that if the KJV had been carefully and respectfully revised about every 50 years, we would not have had this profusion of translations appearing every five minutes to confuse us. The Spaninsh version, the Reina Valera, was revised in 1909, again in 1960 and is being revised again as we speak, by the T.B.S.

Steve

 

It is a new translation. If you went by that, there are no new translations. Even the KJV is a revision of another translation, but we still consider the ESV to be a "new" translation. The NASB is the ASV. The KJV is the bishops.

 

*sigh* Why do people ALWAYS gotta go there? You have no idea whether those texts are "inferior" or not. Do you have the originals to compare them to? If not, then you don't know, so statements like that are.........well........ridiculous.

 

:BangHead: The copyright of the ESV reads, "The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV) is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. All rights reserved." The publishers of the ESV acknowledge that it is 91% the same as the RSV. They wrote, "Our purpose is not to make a new translation, but to change the wording only where there is a significant problem."

The NIV was an entirely new translation.

Steve

 

From Theopedia, s.v. English Standard Version:

Why wouldn't they refer to the Hebrew and Greek for ALL passages?

If the Hebrew and Greek isn't the starting point for the ESV, then what is?

 

How about a third?
Deficiency in the initial translation work. A superior translation is not going to require all the tinkering that some of these versions do even before the ink is dry.

 

Did that hit a sensitive spot B4L? Most textual scholars deem the TR to be inferior on the basis of good tests. You're not going to find many conservative New Tesament textual scholars who consider the the so-called Received Text as being a superior work. (Besides, the TR comes in many flavors.)

 

Listen, Mr. NIV, no one has the ORIGINAL manuscripts, so making any kind of statement about "superior" or "inferior" is ridiculous.

 

Regardless, those on all sides of the issue make those judgments. It's all part of textual criticism.

 

The following is taken from : New Testament Text And Translation Commentary by Philip W. Comfort.

Most contemporary
scholars contend that a minority of manuscripts --primarily the earliest ones --preserve the most authentic wording of the text. Those who defend the Majority Text (and its well-known incarnations,TR and KJV) would have to prove that these manuscripts,usually having a slimmer text than what appears in later manuscripts,were purposefully trimmed at an early stage in the textual transmission. In other words,they would have to present good arguments as to why early scribes would have purposely excised the following passages :Matthew 5:44b;6:13b;16:2b-3;17:21;18:11:20:16b,22,23;23:14;27:35b;Mark 7:16;9:44,46;11:26;15:28;16:8-20;Luke 4:4b;9:54c-56;11:3;17:36;22:43-44;23:17,34;John 5:3b-4;7:53-8:11;Acts 8:37;15:34;24:6b-8a;28:16b,29;Romans 16:24; 1 John 5:6b-8a. Had these portions originally been in the text,there are no good explanations why they would have been eliminated. On the other hand, there are several good explanations why they were added,such as gospel harmonization,the insertion of oral tradtions,and theological enhancements... It is true that some of the earliest scribes were prone to shorten their texts in the interest of readability,but these deletions usually involved only a few words. Thus most scholars see TR as being the culminationof textual accretions. (p.xxiv)

 

No it's not, it's a revision of the NIV 1984. :laugh:

 

I think he meant the original NIV.​

 

The following is taken from D.A.Carson's :The King James Version Debate : A Plea For Realism.

The TR is not the "received text" in the sense that it was the standard one at the time of the Elzevirs [the Elzevir brothers who published it in 1633 --Rip]. Neverthless the textual basis of the TR is a small number of haphazardly collected and relatively late minuscripts. In about a dozen places its reading is attested by no known Greek manuscript witness. (p.36)

In fact,I cannot think of a single grat theological writer who has given his energies to defend a high view of Scripture and who has adopted the TR,since the discovery of the great unicals and,later,the papyri and other finds. (p.71)