New Revised Standard Version
(with
reference to RSV)
FD
Scale (formal
or dynamic): 2
I'll give it a 2 because it follows the dynamic practice of using
"brothers and sisters" for "brothers" when a biblical
author put brothers but really meant both. In this sense the RSV was a little
more formal than the NRSV (I would give the RSV a 1 on this one), except insofar that anthropos really meant "person" rather
than "man" (see my evaluation of the TNIV).
I probably would still give the NRSV a tie to the English Standard Version in
terms of the best formal equivalence translation (maybe I'll change my mind one
way or another when I dig into the ESV in more detail).
OC Scale (original text
or "catholic" text of the church): 1
I would say that the NRSV is admirable in its incorporation of insights from
the Dead Sea Scrolls. In all the instances where I mentioned a failure on the
part of the NIV/TNIV tradition, the NRSV incorporates the insights into the
text rather than the footnotes.
By the way, I laugh a little when I see the TNIV putting these things in the
footnotes. For over a hundred years from the 1700's to 1800's textual scholars
printed the "textus receptus"
or what I'm calling the "catholic" text as the main text, even though
many of them knew full well that it wasn't as original. They printed variations
from the newly discovered and far more ancient manuscripts in the footnotes. It
wasn't until Westcott and Hort that the textus receptus was placed in the
footnotes in deference to the older manuscripts that were being discovered.
Now the TNIV and NIV are doing the same thing. OT scholars who surely know that
the
Here's Deuteronomy 32:8-9, as in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, and now the
NRSV:
"When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he
fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods, the LORD's own portion was
his people, Jacob his allotted share."
Incorporation of
Drift (1)
I would say that the NRSV doesn't drift much at all, at least for our current
state of understanding. Here are a few of its "straight-up"
translations:
Genesis1:1-2: "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."
Philippians 2:6: "who, though he was in the form of God..."
Colossians 1:15: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of
all creation..."
1 Corinthians 7:1: "It is well for a man not to touch a woman..."
7:27: "Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife."
Psalm 8:4-5: "what are human beings that you are mindful of them... Yet
you have made them a little lower than God..."
The RSV was much the same in its lack of drift. Of course the RSV got a lot of
flack in the 50's when it came out for translating Isaiah 7:14 with "young
woman" instead of "virgin." But it was simply giving the
original meaning of the verse. Matthew's use of this passage followed the
Septuagint, which has a word that distinctly meant "virgin." So I
think I would give a 1 to the RSV as well. I might note that neither ventures
to change anything in the light of the "faithfulness of Christ"
debate over Romans 3:21 and Galatians 2:16--no doubt this will have to wait
until Metzger is no longer on the committee :)
Youth Scale (readability):
2
I'll give the NRSV the same rating here I gave the TNIV for the same reasons.
The RSV was less readable in more than one way (3).
I find no fault in the NRSV, although its use of "brothers and sisters"
for "brothers" means that I can't "cheat" as well off of it
as I could the RSV. When I didn't feel like translating from the Greek or
Hebrew, the RSV was my main port of call. With the NRSV, which I don't fault
for it, I cannot be sure that a singular hasn't been changed to a plural to
make it inclusive or that gender factors haven't altered the original some. But
I suppose I would do the same if I were one of their translators.