How many years are Bible translations usually called New or Revised for?

score:13

Accepted answer

The name given to a version of the Bible is just that, a name. It's a bit like asking how long New York will stay New for - it's not going to be dropped because it's what the city is called, rather than a description of it.

Some versions of the Bible are referred to by year, or sometimes by century, for example:

  • 21st Century King James Version
  • New International Version 1984
  • Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition

Sometimes that's officially part of the name when published (such as the first item on that list) and sometimes the year is added later to disambiguate it from more modern editions of the same version. I think that's as close to the Google Chrome analogy as we're likely to get.

Upvote:3

As a_hardin commented, the original NIV is now the NIV 1984. (No obvious Orwellian connection... I think :D). I remember it as, well, NIV (I happen to have found God in... 1984 :D. And I remember the original NIV well. I had two English-language bibles back then, NIV and KJV). So, the name, being its name, stays. Forever.

As to the "why not name Bible translation revisions like software", there actually is a German-language Bible that is thusly (sub-)named: the "Volxbibel" (from "Volksbibel", which means "People's Bible" in English). Current version is 3.0, and they're working on a 4.0.

And interesting project, and an interesting result. It's not very traditional or "orthodox". Instead, everyone can work on it (it's a wiki :D). And the result is a very... "modern" Bible. Sadly, everything is in German, and this is not the place to wax philosophically about it.

Upvote:6

It's basically a marketing term, like anywhere else "new and improved (revised)" is used. It doesn't signify anything meaningful about the translation itself, at least not beyond a few months. IMO a better naming convention is to name the translation after something actually unique to the translation.

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