The translation I use is worth considering; here's sone info from their
faq. It was completed in 2020:
What is the WEB Translation Philosophy?
The WEB must
- be done with prayer -- specifically prayer for inspiration by the Holy Spirit.
- be accurate and reliable (Revelation 22:18-19).
- be understandable to the majority of the world’s English-speaking population (and therefore should avoid locale-specific usage).
- be kept in the Public Domain (and therefore be done by volunteers).
- be made available in a short time, because we don’t know the exact time of our Lord’s return.
- preserve the essential trustworthy character of the original 1901 publication.
- use language that is not faddish, but likely to retain its meaning for some time.
- resolve unclear passages by referring to the original Hebrew and Greek.
- be done with utmost respect for God and His Word.
- be done by Christians from a variety of denominations and backgrounds.
- retain the ASV 1901’s pronoun capitalization rules (lower case “he” referring to God).
- retain (in most cases) the ASV 1901’s use of “he” when that word might mean (“he and/or she”).
- restrict footnotes to those which clarify the translation, note textual variants, give reasonable alternate translations, or clarify some essential context.
Is the World English Bible Perfect?
We pray for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and I believe He supplies it. However, our ability to receive that great gift is imperfect. We do not claim that the translation is perfect, and we certainly don't believe it to be more reliable than the original language texts we are translating from. We do ask you to pray for us, that God would help us to find whatever needs to be corrected, and that we would be wise in filtering through suggested changes to discern what is from God and what is not.
What original language texts are you using?
Since this is primarily an update of the 1901 edition, the choices made by the original 50 or so Evangelical scholars that made this translation hold unless reference is made to the original languages to help with places where the Elizabethan English is not clear, or where major textual variants are known to exist. In this case, we are using the
Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, also called
The Stuttgart Bible, in the Old Testament, and the
Byzantine Majority Text . We referenced both the Robinson-Pierpont and Hodges-Farstad editions, which are nearly identical. This choice of Greek text is very close to what the KJV translators used, but does take advantage of some more recently discovered manuscripts. Although there are good scholarly arguments both for and against using the
Byzantine Majority Text over the “Alexandrian” text based on the dating and critical editing work of Nestle and Aland and published by the United Bible Societies (NU), we find the following to be compelling reasons:
- The NU text has a lot of “dropout” errors relative to the M-Text. Diligent scribes with a respect for God’s Word are more likely to miss copying something (i.e. by skipping a line, etc.) than to make up a line to add in.
- Different scribes copying the same passage aren’t all likely to make the same mistakes at the same places, even though some mistakes are likely to be copied over many times.
- When a scribe had a choice of manuscripts to copy, he would normally copy the one that he trusted the most, thus causing the most trusted text to be copied more often.
- The NU text relies heavily on the dating of the media upon which the text was written, but those texts that are used more and trusted more would both be copied more often and worn out from use sooner.
- The NU text is heavily weighted to a small number of manuscripts relative to those available to us, and relies heavily on one manuscript that was pulled from a trash can at a monastery.
- The Holy Spirit takes an active interest in preserving what He has inspired.
- In those few sections where the M-Text and UBS text differ significantly, I have taken my question of textual choice directly to God, and God chose to answer me by confirming in several different ways that reading which the M-Text rendered. The main passage in question is in Mark 16, but there are others, too. While I certainly don’t claim to be infallible, I do know when to say, “Yes, Sir” and follow the direction I see the Lord pointing me in. For you, this last reason is entirely subjective. For me, it is more real than the computer I'm typing on.
For the curious, the scholarly, and those who might think we "changed" the Holy Bible in translation, significant differences between these three credible choices of source text are footnoted in the World English Bible.
Please note that although there are many differences between the various manuscripts and critical compilations of manuscripts, none of them impact the essential Good News of Jesus Christ or any sound doctrine.
How does the WEB compare to other translations?
The WEB is different enough to avoid copyright infringement, but similar enough to avoid incurring the wrath of God. By “different enough,” I mean that the wording is about as different from any one Modern English translation as the current translations differ from each other. By “similar enough,” I mean that the meaning is preserved and that the Gospel still cuts to the very soul. It is most similar to the ASV of 1901, of course, but I suppose that similarities will be found with other translations.
The WEB doesn’t capitalize pronouns pertaining to God. This is similar to the NRSV and NIV, and the same as the original ASV of 1901. Note that this is an English style decision, because Hebrew has no such thing as upper and lower case, and the oldest Greek manuscripts were all upper case. I kind of prefer the approach of the KJV, NKJV, and NASB of capitalizing these pronouns, because I write that way most of the time and because it is a way of offering greater honor to God. I admit that it is kind of a throw-back to the Olde English practice of capitalizing pronouns referring to the king. This is archaic, because we don’t capitalize pronouns that refer to our president. It is also true that choosing to capitalize pronouns relating to God causes some difficulties in translating the coronation psalms, where the psalm was initially written for the coronation of an earthly king, but which also can equally well be sung or recited to the praise of the King of Kings. Capitalizing pronouns relating to God also makes for some strange reading where people were addressing Jesus with anything but respect. In any case, in the presence of good arguments both ways, we have decided to leave these as they were in the ASV 1901 (which also gives us fewer opportunities to make mistakes).
The original WEB, like the ASV of 1901, breaks the KJV tradition by printing God’s proper Name in the Old Testament with a spelling closest to what we think it was pronounced like, instead of rendering that Name as “LORD” or “GOD” (with all caps or small caps). The current scholarly consensus has shifted from spelling this Name as “Jehovah” to spelling it as “Yahweh”. There are also a few places in the Old Testament where God's proper name is shortened to “Yah”, and those are transliterated as they stand. There are a couple of other English translations that use “Yahweh,” so this is not new, per se, but it does set it off a little from other translations. However, in the World Messianic Bible (WMB), World English Bible British Edition (WEBBE), World English Bible Catholic Edition, and World English Bible Update, we go back to the KJV-like tradition of using “LORD” or “GOD” (all caps instead of small caps). Note that the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament do not transliterate God's name, but substitute the Greek word for “Lord”, instead, we do not use “Yahweh” anywhere in the New Testament or the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon.
Because World English Bible (WEB) uses the Majority Text as the primary basis for the New Testament, you may notice the following differences in comparing the WEB to other translations:
- The order of Matthew 23:13 and 14 is reversed in some translations.
- Luke 17:36 and Acts 15:34, which are not found in the majority of the Greek Manuscripts (and are relegated to footnotes in the WEB) may be included in some other translations.
- Romans 14:24-26 in the WEB may appear as Romans 16:25-27 in other translations.
- 1 John 5:7-8 may read differently in some translations.
Smaller variations based on textual variants are explained in footnotes.
