Draft:Revised Version Improved and Corrected (RVIC)

Revised Version Improved and Corrected
Revised Version Improved and Corrected Bible Cover
Full nameRevised Version Improved and Corrected
AbbreviationRVIC
LanguageEnglish
AuthorshipJames B. Parkinson, Associated Bible Students
Derived fromEnglish American Standard Version 1901
Textual basisOT: American Standard Version with Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint influence. NT: American Standard Version, hundreds of Greek manuscripts published up to 1999; usually agreeing with UBS Greek New Testament, 5th edition UBS Greek New Testament, 5th ed..
Translation typeFormal equivalence, supplied words in italics, some alternate translations in footnotes
Reading levelHigh school
Version revision2020
PublisherPastoral Bible Institute
Copyright2016, by the Pastoral Bible Institute
Copies printed1000
Religious affiliationBible Student movement, Associated Bible Students, generally Protestant
WebpageRVIC Bible in PDF

The Revised Version Improved and Corrected (RVIC) is an English translation of the Bible published in 2020 by the Pastoral Bible Institute and produced as an update of the American Standard Version (1901). Since the Revised Versions were published (British 1885, American 1901), hundreds of "New Testament Greek manuscripts" have been published, as well as the Old Testament Dead Sea Scrolls. The RVIC is based on the oldest (and most reliable) manuscripts. It differs from other revised versions in that it footnotes additional specific manuscript evidence with alternate translations of important words and phrases. The RVIC is intended as a translation to serve the devotional and scholarly needs of the range of Christian religious adherents, independent of the theology of the reader.

Appendices are included on the Dead Sea Scrolls and New Testament manuscripts, and how to evaluate their testimony. Other appendices explain translation and how other English translations compare for accuracy based on the same 209 proof texts. More than 11,000 footnotes show where translation can be either more ambiguous or more specific than the Hebrew or Greek from which it is translated.

History

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The Revised Version Improved and Corrected (RVIC) was revised from the American Standard Version (ASV, 1901) by Associated Bible Student scholar J.B Parkinson. Other Bible Students made recommendations and proofread the RVIC for accuracy.

The Old Testament translation of the ASV was completed before the Dead Sea Scrolls were available to scholars. The New Testament translation of the RVIC has taken advantage of the hundreds of manuscripts that have been published since 1901. The RVIC summarizes manuscript evidence in footnotes, as well as advances in Biblical archeology. This allows for important Hebrew and Greek words to be translated somewhat more consistently.

Features

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The Revised Version of the Bible (RV, 1885) was the "first officially authorized and recognised revision of the King James Version in Great Britain" and the "work was entrusted to over 50 scholars from various denominations in Great Britain." The American Revised Version (ARV) or the American Standard Version (ASV, 1901) was created to "circumvent the unauthorized editions of the Revised Version that had been circulating in the US" and "incorporated more suggestions from the American translators since the British team used only a subset of those." Since then, many Bible manuscripts have been published, which allows for the improvement on the ASV. The book "Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts" discusses some of these manuscripts.[1] The Old Testament Dead Sea Scrolls (beginning 1947) are about ten centuries older than the previous standard Hebrew text of the Leningrad manuscript (Leningrad Codex). For the New Testament, 3rd century manuscripts were published: The Chester Beatty Papyri in the 1930s, the Bodmer Papyri ca. 1960, and the dozens of Oxyrhynchus Papyri published throughout the 20th century, as well as others.

Other translations have endeavored to utilize the manuscript evidence, while bringing the language more up to date: The Revised Standard Version (RSV, 1952) "was intended to be a readable and literally accurate modern English translation" though "critics claimed that the RSV translators had translated the Old Testament from a non-Christian perspective," in particular Isaiah 7:14. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV, 1989) however "adopted a policy of inclusiveness in gender language" that "in references to men and women, masculine-oriented language should be eliminated as far as this can be done..." The English Standard Version (ESV, 2001) was "created by a team of more than 100 leading evangelical scholars and pastors" and "emphasizes 'word for word' accuracy, literary excellence, and depth of meaning" relying on "recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts." The New American Standard Bible (NASB, 1971) "is considered by some sources as the most literally translated of major 20th-century English Bible translations." It prefers "a literal translation style that generally preserves the structure of the original language when possible..." The "English Bible Overview" chart originally from the evangelicalbible.com website shows the progression from the most accurate translations in the upper left corner to less accurate versions moving to the right. (It may be noted that each subsequent edition of the NASB - 1977 and 1995 - has progressively lost a little accuracy).

The Revised Version Improved and Corrected (RVIC, 2020) endeavors to maximize accuracy by starting with the ARV (ASV), comparing with the manuscript evidence the Old Testament Hebrew Massoretic text, Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient versions (translations), or with the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (GNT, 1st to 5th editions) and the good ancient versions. The quantity of manuscripts for a given reading should be less important than the reliability of older manuscripts which may have a different reading. The reliability of N.T. manuscripts (and early versions) is shown in a 43-page Appendix, and also a tutorial on how to understand and use their evidence. In footnotes, less-reliable later manuscripts (and some early versions) are shown in progressively-smaller type-face, so even an inexperienced reader may easily evaluate the evidence for each reading. The RVIC departures from the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, 5th edition are few but result from greater reliance on manuscripts than on “exegetical considerations” (e.g., see Bruce M. Metzger, “A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd edn., p. 502, for 1Cor. 15:49). E.g., 1Cor. 15:51, 1Peter 3:18.[2] Greater strictness with verb-tenses and literal meanings may be seen in translation of passages such as Matt. 5:32, John 1:18, Rev. 22:12.

The RVIC does the translation before the theology, leaving readers to discuss the meaning. It also endeavors to translate important words more consistently. Possible alternate translations are given in the footnotes, as are several discoveries of Biblical archaeology and historical records.

Revisions

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The RVIC was first published in 2016 (in limited quantities) and minor mistakes were found and corrected. A revised (and current) edition was published in 2020 (1000 copies).

References

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  1. ^ Kenyon, Frederic (1958). "Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, 3rd edition". New York, Harper.
  2. ^ Metzger, Bruce. "A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd edition" (PDF).

Further Reading

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