Revised English Bible
| Revised English Bible | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Revised English Bible |
| Abbreviation | REB |
| Complete Bible published | 1989 |
| Derived from | New English Bible |
| Textual basis | 31% deviation from Nestle-Aland 27th edition (NT) |
| Translation type | 22% paraphrase rate |
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was a vast waste, darkness covered the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water. God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light;
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who has faith in him may not perish but have eternal life. | |
The Revised English Bible (REB) is a 1989 update of the New English Bible of 1970. Like its predecessor, it is published by the University publishing houses of Oxford and Cambridge.
The churches and other Christian groups that sponsored the REB were:
- Baptist Union of Great Britain
- Church of England
- Church of Scotland
- Council of Churches for Wales
- Irish Council of Churches
- The London Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
- Methodist Church of Great Britain
- Moravian Church in Great Britain and Ireland
- Roman Catholic Church (in England & Wales)
- Roman Catholic Church (in Ireland)
- Roman Catholic Church (in Scotland)
- Salvation Army
- United Reformed Church
- Bible Society
- National Bible Society of Scotland
The REB is the result of both advances in scholarship and translation made since the 1960s and also a desire to correct what have been seen as some of the NEB's more egregious errors. For examples of changes, see the references. The changes remove many of the most idiosyncratic renderings of the New English Bible, moving the REB more in the direction of standard translations such as NRSV or NIV.
The translation is intended to be gender neutral, to the extent that this is justified by the original language. Thus it can be criticized by those who think this approach to be a bow to political correctness and feminist theology. However it doesn't go as far as the NRSV or TNIV in this area. The gender-neutral approach has also been widely praised by others as a needful corrective to centuries of church-inspired paternalism
The style has been described by several people as more "literary" than NRSV or NIV. It tends slightly further in the direction of "dynamic equivalence" than those translations, but still translates Hebrew poetry as poetry and reflects at least some of the charcteristics of that poetry. The Revised English Bible's general accuracy and literary flavor led Stephen Mitchell and others[1] to compliment it as one of the best english renderings.
These days there are few differences between evangelical and non-evangelical translations. The best-known difference is probably Isaiah 7:14, where evangelical translators often have "virgin" and others "young woman." The REB is a non-evangelical translation.
Like the NEB, it is primarily presented to the British and British-educated publics although it certainly has some American users and admirers.
External links
- An Overview of the REB By Michael Marlowe
References
- The Revised English Bible (Top Ten Bible Versions #6) Rick Mansfield
- The Revised English Bible (1989) Michael Marlowe
- Better Bibles Blog Wayne Leman, plus comments
- review of The Revised English Bible with Apocrypha by Roger Coleman, in Novum Testamentum, Vol. 33, Fasc. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 182-185