In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches,[8] the NRSV was created by an ecumenical committee of scholars "comprising about thirty members".[9] The NRSV relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. A major revision, the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue), was released in 2021.
Used broadly among biblical scholars,[10][11] the NRSV was intended as a translation to serve the devotional, liturgical, and scholarly needs of the broadest possible range of Christian religious adherents.
The translation appears in three main formats: (1) an edition including the Protestant enumeration of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament (as well an edition that only includes the Protestant enumeration of the Old Testament and New Testament); (2) a Roman Catholic Edition with all the books of that canon in their customary order, and (3) the Common Bible, which includes the books that appear in Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox canons (but not additional books from Oriental Orthodox traditions, including the Syriac and Ethiopian canons).[14] A special edition of the NRSV, called the "Anglicized Edition", employs British English spelling and grammar instead of American English.[15]
History
The New Revised Standard Version was translated by the Division of Christian Education (now Bible Translation and Utilization) of the National Council of Churches in the United States. The group included scholars representing Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christian groups as well as Jewish representation in the group responsible for the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament. The mandate given the committee was summarized in a dictum: "As literal as possible, as free as necessary."[14]
Committee of translators
The following scholars were active on the NRSV Committee of translators at the time of publication.[14]
The Old Testament translation of the RSV was completed before the Dead Sea Scrolls were available to scholars. The NRSV was intended to take advantage of this and other manuscript discoveries, and to reflect advances in scholarship.[8]
Gender language
In the preface to the NRSV Bruce Metzger wrote for the committee that "many in the churches have become sensitive to the danger of linguistic sexism arising from the inherent bias of the English language towards the masculine gender, a bias that in the case of the Bible has often restricted or obscured the meaning of the original text".[8] The RSV observed the older convention of using masculine nouns in a gender-neutral sense (e.g., "man" instead of "person"), and in some cases used a masculine word where the source language used a neutral word. This move has been widely criticised by some, including within the Catholic Church, and continues to be a point of contention today. The NRSV by contrast adopted a policy of inclusiveness in gender language.[8] According to Metzger, "The mandates from the Division specified that, in references to men and women, masculine-oriented language should be eliminated as far as this can be done without altering passages that reflect the historical situation of ancient patriarchal culture."[8]
In 1990 the synod of the Orthodox Church in America decided not to permit use of the NRSV in liturgy or in Bible studies on the grounds that it is highly "divergent from the Holy Scriptures traditionally read aloud in the sacred services of the Church."[21]
NRSV Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE)
The New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE) is an edition of the NRSV for Catholics. It contains all the canonical books of Scripture accepted by the Catholic Church arranged in the traditional Catholic order. Because of the presence of Catholic scholars on the original NRSV translation team, no other changes to the text were needed.[22]
An Anglicized Text form of the NRSV-CE, embodying the preferences of users of British English, is also available from various publishers.
In 2007, the Canadian conference and the Vatican approved a modification of the NRSV for lectionary use beginning the following year.[23] The NRSV-CE, along with the Revised Standard Version (RSV), is also one of the texts adapted and quoted in the English-language edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[24]
When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue) is a major revision of the NRSV. A three-year process of reviewing and updating the text of the NRSV was announced at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.[29] The update was managed by the SBL following an agreement with the copyright-holding NCC. The stated focuses of the review are incorporating advances in textual criticism since the 1989 publication of the NRSV, improving the textual notes, and reviewing the style and rendering of the translation. A team of more than fifty scholars, led by an editorial board, is responsible for the review.[30] It was released for digital purchase on December 25, 2021, with the first print editions following in 2022.[31] As of July 2024, the NCC has submitted the NRSVue for review by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops with a request for an imprimatur.[32]
The Word on Fire Bible, 7 volumes (Word on Fire, 2020–ongoing)
The SBL Study Bible with Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books (HarperOne, 2023, ISBN978-0062969439)
Canon
The New Revised Standard Version is available in a 66-book Protestant Bible that only includes the Old Testament and New Testament; a 73-book Catholic Edition containing the Catholic enumeration of the Old Testament and New Testament; and an 84-book Ecumenical Bible that includes the Old Testament, Apocrypha and New Testament.[13][14][33]
Notes
^The translation teams had preliminary access to "changes to be introduced into the critical apparatus of the... 4th edition."[4]
^Primarily associated with mainline Protestantism, the New Revised Standard Version features the work of "translation teams" that are "both ecumenical and interfaith,"[6] consisting of "scholars affiliated with various Protestant denominations, as well as several Roman Catholic members, an Eastern Orthodox member, and a Jewish member who serves in the Old Testament section."[7]
^Primarily associated with mainline Protestantism, the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition features the work of "translation teams" that are "both ecumenical and interfaith," having developed the NRSVue as "a Bible produced by consensus that can be used among and across pluralistic communities in contexts both academic and religious."[28]
^"Endorsements". NRSV: The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Archived from the original on June 9, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2023.
^ abBertone, John (1 September 2016). Finding God in Scripture. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN978-1-5326-0475-1. The NRSV was published in 1989 and is popular among academics and church leaders. It is an ecumenical Bible translation whose committee consists of thirty men and women who are among the top scholars in America today. They come from Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Greek Orthodox Church. The committee also includes a Jewish scholar. The NRSV is available in three forms: a standard edition with or without the Apocrypha; a Roman Catholic Edition, which includes the so-called "Apocryphal" or "Deuterocanonical" books in the Roman Catholic canonical order; and the Common Bible, which includes all books belonging to the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox canons.
^Durken, Daniel (17 December 2015). New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament. Liturgical Press. ISBN978-0-8146-3587-2. The King James tradition was continued in the Revised Version of 1881 and 1885, the Revised Standard Version of 1946 and 1952, and the New Revised Standard Version of 1989.
^ abcde"New Revised Standard Version - Home". Marketing Pages. Retrieved 2019-12-07. Standing in this tradition, the NRSV is available in three ecumenical formats: a standard edition with or without the Apocrypha, a Roman Catholic Edition, which has the so-called "Apocryphal" or "Deuterocanonical" books in the Roman Catholic canonical order, and The Common Bible, which includes all books that belong to the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox canons.
^"PCC Writer's Style Guide"(PDF). Presbyterian Church in Canada – Life and Mission Agency. November 2009. p. 19. Retrieved 2020-11-05. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is the official Bible standard for The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
^The Go-Anywhere Thinline Bible Catholic Edition New Revised Standard Version. HarperOne. 2011. p. ix. ISBN978-0062048363. ...and an edition of the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books placed between the two Testaments. The text of the latter edition received the Imprimatur (official approbation) of the United States and Canadian Catholic Bishops.
^The Go-Anywhere Thinline Bible Catholic Edition New Revised Standard Version. HarperOne. February 1, 2011. pp. ix–x. ISBN978-0062048363. ...Because of this Catholic presence no change in the translation was requested for this edition. The only exceptions are the Book of Esther, which exists in two different forms that are explained below, and the Book of Daniel, which includes the deuterocanonical portions that are listed below...In this Catholic edition, however, the translation of the Greek portions [of Esther] has been inserted at the appropriate places of the translation of the Hebrew form of the book.
^"New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition". Archived from the original on 2021-07-26. Retrieved 2021-07-26. Standing in this tradition, the NRSV is available in three ecumenical formats: a standard edition with or without the Apocrypha, a Roman Catholic Edition, which has the so-called "Apocryphal" or "Deuterocanonical" books in the Roman Catholic canonical order, and The Common Bible, which includes all books that belong to the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox canons.