The New Jewish Publication Society Translation of the Torah

Abstract

HE British Revised Version (RV) of 1885 and its too little known cisatlantic counterpart, the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901, did break with the Tudor grammar and vocabulary of the Authorized Version; nor did they, in the Old Testament, either break with the Hebraisms (though the ASV made a tiny beginning) or make very extensive use of non-Masoretic readings. They did, however, often render the original more accurately than the AV. The 1917 translation of the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) is but a slight modification of the RV. Other twentieth-century translations have of course gone further. They have aimed at both more modern and more idiomatic English, and some of them have also sought, in particularly troublesome passages, more intelligible readings than the Masoretic ones. The three best known are A New Translation of the Bible by James Moffatt (first edition of the OT, 1924; final edition of the whole, 1935; hereafter, M); The Complete Bible: An American Translation (also known as the Goodspeed Bible or the Chicago Bible, 1927; revised 1935; hereafter AT); and the Revised Standard Version, 1952 (hereafter RSV). Alike in modernity and idiom on the one hand, and in extent of textual criticism on the other, these translations represent, somewhat paradoxically, a descending scale. The RSV, last in the series, is as its name indicates, not a new translation in the language of today .... It is a revision which seeks to preserve all that is best in the English Bible as it has been known and used through the years. It is intended for use in public and private worship, merely for reading and instruction. We have.., .sought to put the message of the Bible in simple, enduring words that are worthy to stand in the great Tyndale-King James tradition.'