The New English Bible
Full name:	The New English Bible
Abbreviation:	NEB
NT published:	1961
OT published:	1970
Complete Bible published:	1970
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press
Copyright status:	The British and Foreign Bible Society
Genesis 1:1-3
In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth, the earth was without form and void, with darkness over the face of the abyss, and a mighty wind that swept over the surface of the waters. God said 'Let there be light', and there was light;
John 3:16
God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, that everyone who has faith in him may not die but have eternal life.

The New English Bible (NEB) was a fresh translation of the Bible into modern English directly from the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts (with some Latin in the Apocrypha); with the New Testament being published in 1961, and the Old Testament, along with the Apocrypha, being published in 1970. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (408x605, 75 KB) // Summary Main article: New English Bible New English Bible, 1974. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (408x605, 75 KB) // Summary Main article: New English Bible New English Bible, 1974. ... John 21:1 Jesus Appears to His Disciples--Alessandro Mantovani: the Vatican, Rome. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... NOTE: Judaism commonly uses the term Tanakh, but not Old Testament, because it does not recognize the New Testament as a continuation or completion of the Jewish bible. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... For other uses, see Bible (disambiguation). ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... John 3:16 (chapter 3, verse 16 of the Gospel of John) is one of the most widely quoted verses from the Christian Bible. ... For other uses, see Bible (disambiguation). ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... Aramaic is a Semitic language with a four-thousand year history. ... Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... John 21:1 Jesus Appears to His Disciples--Alessandro Mantovani: the Vatican, Rome. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... NOTE: Judaism commonly uses the term Tanakh, but not Old Testament, because it does not recognize the New Testament as a continuation or completion of the Jewish bible. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ...

The New English Bible (New Testament)

Image File history File links Neb-cover. ...

Background

Near the time when the Copyright to the English Revised Version was due to expire (1935), the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press, who were the current English Revised Version copyright holders, began investigations to determine whether a modern revision of the English Revised Version text was necessary. In May of 1946 the Reverend G. S. Hendry, along with the Presbytery of Stirling and Dunblane produced a notice, which was presented to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, indicating that the work of translating should be undertaken in order to produce a Bible with thoroughly "modern English." After the work of delegation was finished, a general conference was held in October of 1946 where it was determined that a completely fresh translation should be undertaken rather than a revision as originally suggested by the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge. Copyright symbol. ... The Revised Version (or English Revised Version) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version of 1611. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Oxford University Press (OUP) is a highly-respected publishing house and a department of the University of Oxford in England. ... The headquarters of the Cambridge University Press, in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. ... The Revised Version (or English Revised Version) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version of 1611. ... The Revised Version (or English Revised Version) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version of 1611. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Broad St at the heart of Stirlings Old Town area called Top of the Town by locals on a rare snowy day Stirling Castle (Southwest aspect) The main courtyard inside Stirling Castle. ... Dunblane is a small town north of Stirling in the Stirling council area in Scotland. ... The Church of Scotland (CofS, known informally as The Kirk) is the national church of Scotland. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

Translation

In due time, three committees of translators and one committee of literary advisers were enlisted and charged with the task of producing the New English Bible. Each of the three translation committees was responsible for a different section of the Bible. These three sections consisted of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament. A committee comprises a mechanism of bureaucracy or of proto-bureaucracy whereby a limited number of people receive delegated functions of government or administration. ... A committee is a (relatively) small group that can serve one of several functions: Governance: in organizations too large for all the members to participate in decisions affecting the organization as a whole, a committee (such as a Board of Directors) is given the power to make decisions. ... NOTE: Judaism commonly uses the term Tanakh, but not Old Testament, because it does not recognize the New Testament as a continuation or completion of the Jewish bible. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... John 21:1 Jesus Appears to His Disciples--Alessandro Mantovani: the Vatican, Rome. ...

The work of translating was typically undertaken in this fashion: A member, or members, of one of the committees would produce a draft of a book, or books, of the Bible (typically from the section in which they were assigned) and submit the draft to the section committee. Occasionally a scholar outside of the committee would be invited to participate in this phase of the translation process, and was asked to submit a draft of the book or books with which he or she had renowned experience. This draft was then distributed amongst the members of the appropriate committee. Members of the committee would then meet together and discuss the translation choices made in the draft. The draft that resulted from this meeting of the concerned committee was then sent to the committee of literary advisers who would revise the draft in cooperation with the translators. When a consensus on the draft was reached, the final draft would be sent on to the Joint Committee, which was head over the four sub-committees. A scholar is either a student or someone who has achieved a mastery of some academic discipline, perhaps receiving financial support through a scholarship. ...

For the Old Testament the translators primarily made use of the Masoretic Text as presented by Rudolph Kittell in his 3rd Edition of the Biblia Hebraica (1937). In addition to the Masoretic Text, the translators also made use of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic Targums, and the Syriac Peshitta. NOTE: Judaism commonly uses the term Tanakh, but not Old Testament, because it does not recognize the New Testament as a continuation or completion of the Jewish bible. ... The Masoretic Text (MT) is the Hebrew text of the Tanakh approved for general use in Judaism. ... Biblia Hebraica is a Latin phrase meaning the Hebrew Bible. ... The Masoretic Text (MT) is the Hebrew text of the Tanakh approved for general use in Judaism. ... Fragments of the scrolls on display at the Archeological Museum, Amman The Dead Sea scrolls comprise roughly 825-870 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran (near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran... This entry incorporates text from Eastons Bible Dictionary, 1897, with some modernisation. ... The Septuagint (LXX) is the name commonly given in the West to the Greek Alexandrine translation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh/Old Testament) translated some time between the 3rd to 1st century BC. The Septuagint translation includes additional books and chapters of the Hebrew text, including the books of the... A targum (plural: targumim) is an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) written or compiled in the Land of Israel or in Babylonia from the Second Temple period until the early Middle Ages (late first millennium). ... The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible in the Syriac language. ...

For the Apocrypha the translators made the decision to follow The Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint, edited by H. B. Swete. Also, the translators made use of the Codex Sinaiticus (for the Book of Tobit), Theodotion's translation of the Apocrypha (for The Song of the Three, Daniel and Susanna, and Daniel, Bel, and the Snake (sometimes referred to as the Dragon)), Codex Vaticanus (for Ecclesiasticus), Codex 248 (also for Ecclesiasticus), and R. L. Bensly's Latin text The Fourth Book of Ezra. The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... A portion of the Codex Sinaiticus, containing Esther 2:3-8. ... Tobias and the Angel, by Filippino Lippi The Book of Tobit (or Book of Tobias in older Catholic Bibles) is a book of scripture that is part of the Catholic and Orthodox biblical canon, pronounced canonical by the Council of Carthage of 397 and confirmed for Roman Catholics by the... Theodotion (mid- 2nd century AD) was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar[1], perhaps working in Ephesus [2], who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, but whether he was revising the Septuagint, as most readers think, or was working from manuscripts that represented a parallel tradition that has not survived is debated. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Page from Codex Vaticanus Graece 1209, B/03 The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. ... The Wisdom of Ben Sirach, (or The Wisdom of Joshua Ben Sirach or merely Sirach), called Ecclesiasticus by Christians, is a book written circa 180 BCE in Hebrew. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language. ...

For the New Testament the New English Bible Translators relied on a large body of texts including early Greek New Testament manuscripts, early translations rendered in other languages (those aside from Greek), and the quotations of early Christian writers and speakers. The text adhered to by the translators of the New English Bible can be found in The Greek New Testament, edited by R. V. G. Tasker and published by the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge (1964).

Form

The translators of the New English Bible chose to render their translation using a principle of translation called Dynamic equivalence (also referred to as Functional Equivalence or thought-for-thought translation). C. H. Dodd, Vice-Chairman and Director of the Joint Committee, commented that the translators "...conceived our task to be that of understanding the original as precisely as we could... and then saying again in our own native idiom what we believed the author to be saying in his." Dynamic equivalence is an approach to translation in which the original language is translated thought for thought rather than word for word as in formal equivalence. ... Charles Harold Dodd (7 April 1884-21 September 1973) was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian. ...

This method of translation is in contrast to the traditional translations of the Authorized Version (King James Version), English Revised Version, American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, and others, which place an emphasis on word-for-word correspondence between the source and target language. C. H. Dodd goes on to summarize the translation of the New English Bible as "...free, it may be, rather than literal, but a faithful translation nevertheless, so far as we could compass it." This page is about the version of the Bible; for the Harvey Danger album, see King James Version (album). ... The Revised Version (or English Revised Version) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version of 1611. ... The Standard American Edition, Revised Version, more commonly known as the American Standard Version (ASV), is a version of the Bible that was released in 1901. ... The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible that was popular in the mid-20th century and posed the first serious challenge to the King James Version (KJV) owing to its aim to be both a readable and literally accurate modern English translation of the Bible. ... Charles Harold Dodd (7 April 1884-21 September 1973) was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian. ...

Due to these translation principles the New English Bible is necessarily more periphrastic at times in order to render the thoughts of the original author into modern English. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Considerations and Concerns

It is evident that the New English Bible was produced primarily by British and European Scholarship (Whitsuntide is rendered in 1 Corinthians 16:8 rather than Pentecost). However, directly following the Second World War the English of Great Britain and Europe began to be influenced by foreign idiom, especially that of the Americans. For this reason, passages found in the New English Bible could be understood by a large body of English speaking individuals. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... World map showing Europe Political map Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of Earth; the term continent here referring to a cultural and political distinction, rather than a physiographic one, thus leading to various perspectives about Europes precise borders. ... An idiom is an expression (i. ...

In relation to the issue of Gender neutral language, or Gender-Accuracy, the New English Bible was not produced within any guidelines that specified such a need and chose rather to render pronouns (among other things) using the traditional literary method followed by many previous translations in which the generic use of "he" is both typical and assumed. However, using this literary method has become increasingly unpopular and a revision of the New English Bible, aptly titled the Revised English Bible, was undertaken. Among the goals for this revision were rendering the text of the New English Bible Gender-Accurate, as well as fixing errors of transposition and interpretation that many felt to be present in the text. Gender-neutral language (gender-generic, gender-inclusive, non-sexist, or sex-neutral language) is language that attempts to refer neither to males nor females when discussing an abstract or hypothetical person whose sex cannot otherwise be determined. ... Categories: Stub ...

Summary

Due to its official status and scholarly translators, the New English Bible has been considered one of the more important translations of the Bible to be produced following the Second World War. F. F. Bruce, then Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis in the University of Manchester, declared that "To the sponsors and translators of the New English Bible the English speaking world owes an immense debt. They have given us a version which is contemporary in idiom, up-to-date in scholarship, attractive and at times, exciting in content..." However, T. S. Eliot comments that the New English Bible "astonishes in its combination of the vulgar, the trivial and the pedantic." Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Frederick Fyvie Bruce (1910-1990) was a Bible scholar, and one of the founders of the modern evangelical understanding of the Bible. ... The University of Manchester in Manchester, England, was formed by the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester (commonly known as the University of Manchester before the merger) and UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) on 1 October 2004. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was an American (naturalised British) poet, dramatist and literary critic, whose works, such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, and Four Quartets, are considered defining achievements of twentieth century Modernist poetry. ...

Controversial Passages (and various complaints) of the New English Bible

• In Psalms 22:16, the New English Bible renders the familiar passage "... have pierced my hands and feet..." as "... hacked off my hands and my feet..."
• In Genesis 1:1-2, the New English Bible renders the passage using “a mighty wind” rather than the familiar, and traditional, choice of “the Spirit of God”.
• In Isaiah 9:6, the New English Bible translators chose a rendering that is both interpretive and non-traditional.
• In Nahum 1:12-14, the New English Bible transposes two verses and renders the promise of God interpretively.
• In Acts 20:7, the New English Bible renders the traditional phrase “first day of the week” as “Saturday night”.

Members of the Committees

Old Testament Committee

The Rev. Professor W. D. McHardy, The Rev. Professor B. J. Roberts, The Rev. Professor A. R. Johnson, The Rev. Professor J. A. Emerton, The Very Rev. Dr. C. A.Simpson, Professor Sir Godfrey Driver (Convener), The Rev. L. H. Brockington, The Rev. Dr. N. H. Snaith, The Rev. Professor N. W. Porteous, The Rev. Professor H. H. Rowley, The Very Rev. C. H. Dodd (ex officio), and Miss P. P. Allen (Secretary).

Apocrypha Committee

The Rev. Professor W. D. McHardy (Convener), The Rev. Professor W. Barclay, The Rev. Professor W. H. Cadman, The Rev. Dr. G. B. Caird, The Rev. Professor C. F. D. Moule, The Rev. Professor J. R. Porter, The Rev. G. M. Styler.

New Testament Committee

The Rev. Professor C. H. Dodd (Convener), The Very Rev. Dr. G. S. Duncan, The Rev. Dr. W. F. Howard, The Rev. Professor G. D. Kilpatrick, The Rev. Professor T. W. Manson, The Rev. Professor C. F. D. Moule, The Rt. Rev. J. A. T. Robinson, The Rev. G. M. Styler, The Rev. Professor R. V. G. Tasker.

Literary Committee

Professor Sir Roger Mynors, Professor Basil Willey, Sir Arthur Norrington, Mrs. Anne Ridler, The Rev. Canon Adam Fox, Dr. John Carey, and the Conveners of the Translation Panels. Basil Willey (1897-?) was a professor of English literature at Cambridge University and a prolific author of well-written and scholarly works on English literature and intellectual history. ...

Scholarly Associates

The Rev. Professor G. W. Anderson, The Very Rev. Principal Matthew Black, The Rev. Professor J. Y. Campbell, The Most Rev. J. A. F. Gregg, The Rev. H. St J. Hart, The Rev. Professor F. S. Marsh, The Rev. Professor John Mauchline, The Rev. Dr. H. G. Meecham, The Rev. Professor C. R. North, The Rev. Professor O. S. Rankin, The Rev. Dr. Nigel Turner.

Contributors to and Sponsors of the New English Bible

• Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland
• Church of England
• Church of Scotland
• The Congregational Church in England and Wales
• Council of Churches for Wales
• Irish Council of Churches
• The London Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
• The Methodist Church of Great Britain
• The Presbyterian Church of England
• British and Foreign Bible Society
• The National Bible Society of Scotland

Baptist Union of Great Britain - the oldest and largest national association of Baptist churches in Great Britain. ... The Church of England is the officially established Christian church[1] in England, and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. ... The Church of Scotland (CofS, known informally as The Kirk) is the national church of Scotland. ... Logo of The United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Christian denomination (church) in the United Kingdom. ... The Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers or Friends) began in England in the 17th century by people who were dissatisfied with the existing denominations and sects of Christianity. ... The Methodist Church of Great Britain or British Methodist Church is the largest Wesleyan / Methodist body in the United Kingdom, with congregations across Great Britain and the Isle of Man. ... Logo of The United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Christian denomination (church) in the United Kingdom. ... The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS; more commonly known as Bible Society) is a charity that was founded on March 7, 1804. ...

See also

• Revised English Bible

Categories: Stub ...

External links

• Michael Marlowe on the New English Bible
• Kenneth Rexroth on the New English Bible

References

• Ebor, D., (Editor) (1970). The New English Bible with the Apocrypha. Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.

• Lockyer (Sr.), H., (Editor), et al., (1986). Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc. ISBN 0-19-285439-9

• McManners, J., (Editor) (2001). The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity. Great Clarendon Street, Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-7852-5051-4

• Nicolson, A., (2003). God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-083873-6