Our emotional attachment to Bible translations

One thing that’s become increasingly apparent to me as I've worked on the Open English Translation of the Bible (OET), is how much that Western Protestant Christians are emotionally attached to their favourite Bible translation(s). (This likely applies to other groups as well, but I can’t speak for them.) Despite being mono-lingual in most cases, they’ll tell you that their Bibles feel accurate, but of course, that’s an argument from emotions rather than from logic or linguistics.

Firstly there’s the KJB-only movement—a group (particularly in the USA) that claims that the King James Bible (a 400+ year old British English translation that received hundreds of corrections until 1769 and still contains some mistakes) is somehow more perfect than any modern English translation. Extremist holders of this view even believe that missionaries must teach this out-of-date and difficult-to-understand English all around the world. We find those positions so ridiculous that we don’t bother refuting them, but others have done that very well. All we want to say here is that we find KJB-onlyism to be an emotional attachment to a particular (old) English Bible translation without any logical reasoning—more a case of religiosity than reasoned God-following.

Secondly, many people just trust their denomination or pastor about their Bible translation. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the expertise of most pastors isn’t in linguistics and translation, nor (by definition, since pastor means 'shepherd') is it in sharing the Christian message with unchurched people (evangelism) who don’t necessarily know all the Christian jargon ('Christianese') yet.

Thirdly, most English Bibles are published by large multi-million dollar businesses with marketing departments. These organisations are very involved in advertising, including emails, videos, and other solicitation where they often claim their translation is best in class. Every single one of them knows that no Biblical character is named 'James' (just ask any European what their Bibles call that book), but marketing departments don’t want to rock the boat sales by making those kinds of corrections.

Finally, there’s very many of us (yes, we were exactly the same ourselves) who would read about the great earthquake in Rev 16:18 without ever noticing or thinking about how such a destructive event could be called 'great' (as we mostly use the word today, like a 'great dinner'). Or those who can quote John 3:16 from memory without ever giving a single thought to why it usually begins with the word 'For'. Or those who can easily sing Great is thy faithfulness without ever realising that those words are in the wrong order for modern speech.

At this point, most people tell me that the Bible is poetic. Yes, some of it certainly is, but the great majority of it is not poetry but narrative. So no, the reason it sounds 'quaint' is not that the Hebrew or Greek was quaint, but simply because the English translations that we get emotionally attached to still have much old-fashioned use of English words and phrases—many times following the original languages too closely instead of translating into our language, e.g., with phrases like son of God instead of the more up-to-date God’s son.

So yes, we’re aware that the Open English Translation will likely take a decade or so to make any major mark on the Bible market due to emotional attachment and other factors (not to mention that it won’t be finished for at least another two years). But we’re aiming for the 2030s generation who’ll be looking for a reliable Bible translation in the language that they actually speak.

Robert Hunt, October 2024.
Street and door-to-door evangelist, public school chaplain, prison Bible-study leader, Bible teacher/preacher, and professional Bible translator.