New Century Version

I haven't read it enough to form a full personal opinion, & all I've seen is the "Easy To Read" edition, but it employs mostly Dynamic Equivalence and gender neutrality. I understand that to properly convey a thought from Hebrew, Aramaic, or Koine Greek to English, some liberty must sometimes be taken from a strictly-literal translation, but this "NCB" seems, to this reader, to take too many liberties.

However, that's just my opinion, as I prefer more-literal versions.. It's not outta line, at least in what I've seen, from more-literal versions, so I have no right to cast rocks at a version that could very well be God-made.

 

The first bible given to me after I was saved was a NCV. I liked it because it was easy to read and understand. As I became more mature, and started understanding things better, I moved on to a more literal version, but have kept my old NCV.

I've seen it recently in a "'tweens" study bible at Lifeway, and it will probably be helpful to a lot of young kids who need more than a children's bible, but aren't up to a KJV or NASB yet.

 

NCV has an interesting background... it came out in 1984 as "The Word: New Century Version" and it has some connections to the Churches of Christ.

This same translation, with possibly minor revision, was orginally introduced in 1978 as the "English Version for Deaf" by the World Bible Translation Center and the work done by Ervin Bishop, the senior translation consultant [I also own a copy]; later, in an attempt increase sales, it was released as the "New Easy-to-Read Version" (1980) and also as the "International Children's Bible" (1983). Briefly, it was also known as "The Everyday Bible" and had an endorsement of the Rev. Billy Graham.

It has historically been a translation intended for those with limited vocabulary [ideally, any deaf version would have a coinsiding ASL sign for each written word, except for 'biblical' terms]. The translation was acquired by Thomas Nelson which currently seems to print a 1991 revision which consistently employs gender-neutral language. So, the EVD/ERV/ICB/NCV should not be confused with other completely different translations also marketed as 'easy-to-read' Bibles (the "Bible in Basic English" and the "AV7" as examples).

While there have been are many unique complete Bible or New Testament English translations done in the past 105 years [almost 200 by my count] it is also not uncommon that a translation be revived and marketed under a different name, often with little or no changes from the previous [a primary reason that the exact count of recent English translations is difficult to specify; and in my accounting method this translation is considered as only a singular entry].

 

New Century

My wife has a New Century Edition of the Devotional Bible by Max Lucado. She likes it, it has many ways to apply what you read to everyday life. Not a study Bible by any means ut a good daily read Bible.:thumbs:

 

There are translations, and then there are different marketing packages placed upon a translation.

For example, some actual unique translations are: KJV, NCV, NIV, NASB, etc.

Some special packages applied to many of these translations have been: study notes (Scofield, Ryrie, MacArthur), maps, commentary, themes (Armed Forces, Precious Moments), etc. These 'add ons' do not affect the words of the translation.

I hope it is understood that all NCVs do not have the Lucado Devotional notes, for example. I don't know for sure, but perhaps Lucado Devotional notes are available within other translations.

While it may be that special features are liked, but that does not reveal anything about the translation itself.

 

You're right, Franklin. Whether we like the particular set of additions to any Bible (Ryrie notes, Scofield notes, etc.) should have no bearing on what we feel about the translation text. After all, none of the notes in any Bible are added by God - all the notes in all the Bibles in all the world have been added by man. And we should not confuse these notes with the Scriptures. One person may say "The Ryrie says..." and another person may say "John MacArthur says..." and yet another person may say "Scofield says..." while all the time the true question is "What do the Scriptures say?" Remember, the notes are just the feelings and opinions of the writers and editors, while the Scriptures themsalves are what God had to say about things.

Personally, I am like Cranston. I haven't read enough of the NCV to really form an opinion of it one way or another.