Template talk:English Bible translation navbox

Introduction

As I've been browsing the Bible translation articles, I've kept expecting to see a navbox at the bottom with direct links to other articles about Bible translations.

The list of translations in the template is currently incomplete, and the grouping probably needs to be changed. Please make any improvements that you deem necessary!

The translations in the template are intended to be ordered chronologically. I've used the year of publication of the complete Bible for this purpose.

--stephenw32768^{<user page><talk>} 11:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A few missing ..

The box looks great and a chronological form is a probably the best idea. I noticed, however, a few missing: Clear Word Bible, Quaker Bible, and Joseph Smith Translation. 68.116.99.30 (talk) 22:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Simplification

This navbox is starting to get rather unwieldy. Adding every single KJV/RV derivative, no matter how obscure (rather than just the major ones, such as NKJV, RSV, NRSV, ESV, and so on) is making it much worse. I think there's some argument for limiting it to 'major' translations, but of course there's going to be some argument about what those are. Any thoughts? Is there some other way to keep things navigable, perhaps by sorting translations into families rather than by chronology? AndrewNJ (talk) 03:55, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how to do this myself but I suggest grouping KJV-related Bibles something like this:

King James family (RV, ASV, RSV, NRSV, NKJV, others)

The "others" can link to a list of other versions, or if anybody knows how to do this, some sort of pop-up menu of other KJV-related translations.

There are other translations that have less-defined relationships to the KJV (NAB, NIV) and could be listed apart from the KJV family. LovesMacs (talk) 22:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The Modern English Bible translations page actually delineates the families nicely, so that would be a starting point. Do you think, though, that it would even be useful to sort it in this way, or is the current chronological ordering the best that can be done, given the complexity of the material? AndrewNJ (talk) 00:02, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Andrew, I am severely concerned with your edits and besides your blanking your user page when I have tried to reach some orderly consensus, I feel you have a strange way of consulting people (if anyone) about the edits you do to articles. Putting this besides though, I protest against the deleting of Bibles such as the Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition from the list. Pete unseth (talk · contribs) has called it one of the more prominent Bibles of the Sacred Name Bible collections and I agree. For that reason, I will be reinstating it on the navbox. If you have a problem then don't blank your user pages, but talk. Working together (please) In Citer (talk) 13:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

In Citer, you'll find that it was there the entire time (and still is). The navbox sorts translations by chronological order by the publishing of the New Testament portion, and according to the SSBE page, this was done in 1981. The style of the navbox omits words such as "Version", "Bible", "Edition", etc. without using acronyms, and thus it makes most sense to reduce the name down to "Bethel", since this is the most distinguishing word in the name. As for other disputes, you'll find that I already responded to your comment on your own talk page. Please do not accuse me of things that I have not done. AndrewNJ (talk) 17:28, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Sequence and divisions

Proposal

The above discussion states that the current order in this template is based on the date of publication of the New Testament. It is proposed to re-order and sub-divide the template based instead on the date of completing both Old and New Testaments.

Oppose

Support

As this template is about Bible translations, it should be ordered and divided according to the date of completing the minimum definition of the Christian Bible, i.e. OT and NT, ignoring the date of apocrypha if included. Other scholars such as http://bible-researcher.com/versions.html count e.g. HCSB as C21. - Fayenatic (talk) 21:08, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to have the completed Bible as the basis for ordering. The Christian Bible is indeed defined to contain both the OT and NT. Also agree regarding the deuterocanonical/apocryphal as many translations completed said texts at various stages in the project or simply do not translate them at all (e.g. NASB). If that is the manner we order them, there are a couple (International Standard, Holman Christian Standard) that need to be moved from the 20th century to the 21st. Surv1v4l1st ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:12, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I support this too. As it's been more than a year since this has been proposed with no opposition, I think it's time to be bold and change this. I'm a bit sleepy now, I might do this tomorrow. Madlobster (talk) 07:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose & ;Support in different ways

The current divisions by time periods are meet. However, within each section, translations should be ordered alphabetically so as to make them easier to locate. This would follow the standard of numerous other navboxes. 1.126.109.232 (talk) 14:39, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Complete Jewish Bible

I went ahead and added the Complete Jewish Bible to the box in the proper order of translation dating. I believe it belongs on the list for two reason. First, it contains both the Old and the New Testament. Secondly, Messianic Judaism is generally defined as a Christian sect or movement. Regardless of the controversy of said movement/sect/belief system, the translation in question is, for all intents and purposes, one of the Christian Bible. Surv1v4l1st ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:17, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Is this a navbox for English Bible translations, or Christian English Bible translations

A lot of you have spent a lot of time on this template, and clearly a decision has been made to define a completed translation here as being "OT and NT" – i.e., a completed, Christian, Bible. I took the liberty at the page Jewish English Bible translations of commenting out this navbox for now, because as it stands it just doesn't belong there, even if the article on Jewish translations is itself included in the template.
I am going to propose that you change the header to "English-language translations of the Christian Bible" (added for emphasis here, not intended to be bold in the final product). The rest of the template remains as is, without the Jewish translations. I would also propose, nevertheless, that the article on Jewish translations remain near the bottom of the template for reference, as it is now.
Alternatively, I suppose you could add Jewish translations to the template. But I don't think that serves the purpose of the template itself all that well. I have to insist pretty strongly, however, that either the template header has to change or the template contents have to change. Since the unmodified term "Bible" is used in English to refer to either/both Christian and Jewish Scripture, the template as it stands now violates WP:NPOV, since it is clearly Christian in nature. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:08, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I believe that the NPOV thing to do is include all English Bible translations, period. Editor2020, Talk 00:37, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

That would certainly be the other way to go. That would provide an NPOV.

However, I don't think it's especially useful or interesting to people interested in Jewish translations. You're going to have dozens of Christian translations, of all kinds of different flavors, and a few scattered Jewish translations. Personally, I think this template is more useful to more people as a navbox for Christian translations.

If other editors working on this template want to agree with you that all English translations be included here, fine. If they would like to keep this template as one for Christian translations only, I think that's fine, too, as long as the template header changes. Once the scope of the template changes, then the definition of what constitutes NPOV changes, too.

Let's give other people a few hours to weigh in. And your tone of voice was unnecessary. Period. StevenJ81 (talk) 02:49, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm in no hurry, so absolutely let's give everyone a day or two. (No offense meant for tone, I apologize if it offended you). Editor2020, Talk 02:56, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Apology noted and accepted. Thank you. StevenJ81 (talk) 03:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@StevenJ81:: Take a look at the section below: "New Testament translations?" This also seems to acknowledge the complementary point about Hebrew-Bible (OT) translations, such as Robert Alter's recently completed work. Might this help to fulfil your request? Feline Hymnic (talk) 12:13, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Joke Bibles?

Would it be fitting to have an additional section devoted to Bibles that are obviously not serious, like The Brick Testament and the LOLCat Bible Translation Project? The ones currently on this list are/have all been used by various sects of Judeo-Christianity, but the others are still technically Bibles, so I'm not sure. Supernerd11 _{Firemind ^_^ Pokedex} 02:08, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

It would be best to create a separate section for 'Picture Bibles for Adults' or something along those lines. You could add Manga Bibles to that list too.

The LolCat Bible is not strictly in English anymore than Jamie Stuart's 'A Glasgow Bible' (which doesn't appear to have a Wiki page). These should be placed in a category called 'Modern Dialectical' translations.

1.126.109.232 (talk) 13:06, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Orthodox Jewish Bible and Jewish Study Bible

Links to the Orthodox Jewish Bible links to a page about Messianic Bible Translations, which has nothing to say about an "Orthodox Jewish Bible". There is already the "Complete Jewish Bible", "World Messianic", "Heinz Cassirer's translation" and "Tree of Life" links to the page on Messianic Bible Translations. This makes a total of five links to the same page, including at least one which is misleading.. Maybe I'm missing something, but IMO the Orthodox Jewish Bible link should be removed.

Then, there's how there aren't actually specifically Jewish Bible translations (except those of Messianic Jews) like JPS and ArtScroll, so either they should be included or the title should specify that this is for Christian Bibles. --96.22.225.134 (talk) 20:10, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

New Testament translations?

Could we somehow include partial works? The translation that immediately springs to mind is the highly regarded 20th century "Phillips New Testament in Modern English" (J.B. Phillips). How might we do this? A section for "New Testament" translations? (How far should such an extension go? For instance, Phillips himself also did a little OT translation work.) Feline Hymnic (talk) 21:57, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

A related issue is that of Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) translations. For instance, the newly published Hebrew Bible (Alter) has recently been added (a good move), but that is, of course, does not (by definition) have a New Testament. How do we handle all this? Feline Hymnic (talk) 16:45, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

The current template has a single level of grouping: "5th-11th century"; "Middle English" etc. It is also, but implicitly rather than explicitly, for full Christian Bibles: Old Testament plus New Testament. I propose adding an optional second level for partial translations. See Template:Jurassic Coast for an example of this principle at work. For instance, the "20th century" group and appearance would remain almost as now, but would also have, near the end, a small second-level group "New Testament" to include J.B. Phillips' well-known version, and perhaps also an "Old Testament" to mention his translations on some of the OT prophets. Then "21st century" would also have, near the end, a second-level group "Hebrew Bible" to include Robert Alter's recent publication. Note how this retains sensitivity to Christian and Jewish conventions, allowing "Old Testament" and "Hebrew Bible" to remain distinctive. Any thoughts? I propose going ahead with this in a week or so (i.e. around, or shortly after, New Year 2019). Feline Hymnic (talk) 17:26, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

I have now done this for some known examples. Feline Hymnic (talk) 14:08, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

@Feline Hymnic: As far as it goes, it works. I'll be honest, though: this template is already so busy, and so slanted (understandably) toward Christian translations, that I'm not sure it's all that worthwhile to do this. (And once we open the template to these, if it then opens the template to NT-only Christian translations, it may really balloon the template to outrageous proportions. I'm far more inclined to leave access to Jewish translations here through the one link in the "Lists" section at the bottom, and perhaps to create a separate template for Jewish translations. (And, to be perfectly candid, I have no interest in encouraging "less observant" Jewish readers to be involved with this template. But that's a POV, and may be an inappropriate motivation.) StevenJ81 (talk) 19:03, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Jewish translations of the Hebrew Bible

@Prof .Woodruff, Czar, and Feline Hymnic: For a long while, there's been an implicit consensus to leave Jewish translations out of this template, other than by way of the link to Jewish translations at the bottom of the template. There are (relatively) only a few Jewish translations compared to the enormous volume of Christian translations. More, the general sense was that people weren't likely to be coming to any page this would be on looking for Jewish translations—but if they did, they'd find them through the Jewish translations link. (And, honestly, I don't really want all these Christian translations appearing at the bottom of a page on Jewish translations. I just don't.)

Now, this template is getting crazy complex, and I don't know that I really favor all the extra subsections (Hebrew Bible, New Testament, what have you). I'd get rid of them all, and I'd remove the Jewish translations while I did that. But ... if they remain, then I think the JPS, new JPS, etc., should be extracted into a new Hebrew Bible subsection of the 20th century section. If we're going to have them, they should be identified properly. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:18, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for this. (Disclaimer: I am an active lifelong Christian layperson in the UK, with no theology degree, but enough exposure to appreciate just how little I know! In the late 1980s I first encountered the work of Jewish scholar Robert Alter, and his translations are now my leading "go-to" version of the Hebrew Bible. And, yes, I try to use the term "Hebrew Bible" preferentially to "Old Testament" with the exception of when doing work on specific OT-NT interaction.)

I agree that the current template looks somewhat messy. And yet its (current) title is "...Bible translation", not "...Christian Bible translation. On that basis alone, I would think that it ought, somehow, positively to embrace, not exclude, Jewish translations.

That "...implicit consensus to leave Jewish translations out..." (emphasis here on "implicit") and its interaction with the generic, rather than Christian-specific "Bible translation" title may be the source of the confusion. I suspect we should home in on that.

If the template's content is Christian-specific, then shouldn't the title be Christian-specific also? But what then of Jewish translations? Where do they go?

An advantage of keeping it generic is that it implicitly draws the attention of Christian-oriented readers to the importance of specifically Jewish versions (see my own disclaimer case of encountering Robert Alter).

My vote is to keep it generic (rather than rename to "Christian..."), and to tidy it up. For instance, suppose (as one example) the content of sections "20th century" and "21st century" were mostly put under a subsection "Christian translation", parallel to the existing subsections "New Testament", "Partial", "Hebrew Bible", Septuagint", etc. Obviously detailed adjustments are needed, but for the moment I'm focussing on the overview. Might that be a starting point?

Feline Hymnic (talk) 20:10, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• I like the idea of breaking this navbox into smaller ones, e.g., separate navboxes for the items in Early Modern English Bible translations, another for Jewish English Bible translations, and so on for similar sub-articles. Without rehashing WP:CLT, separate navboxes for each pre-established grouping would mean greater interrelation between the navbox contents than the current catch-all navbox. And anyone who wants the full list of translations is already covered by the category structure. (not watching, please {{ping}} if needed) czar 12:16, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

• @Feline Hymnic and Czar: I like that idea, Czar. It could easily consist of several individual, collapsed navbox templates, contained inside {{navboxes}} as the shell. (Completely unrelated illustration example: "Links to related articles" at the very bottom of Philadelphia Eagles.) (With some fancy footwork, we can probably even make the individual template relevant to the given page default as expanded, though I don't promise that.) StevenJ81 (talk) 20:43, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, that sounds a promising route. Another example is Template:Scales which has a component "Template:Modes". It sounds as though we could have a set of smaller "Template:XXX" items, each meaningful in its own right, and that potentially larger templates, such as ours here, could use them as components. Worth exploring, I think. Anyone care to sketch some ideas in a sandbox? Feline Hymnic (talk) 20:58, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Bible type within dates

Separation by Catholic Bibles and Protestant Bibles Doremon764 (talk) 23:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Study Bibles

I just removed the NASB study Bible from the list because the article was deleted a while ago, so it was the only one without a link. I don't know if this is the best route or not; what do you guys think? The other options seem to be:

1. Link the translation, i.e. "Study Bible for NASB" (too lazy to disambiguate the link here)
2. Link the translation, but as the whole link: "Study Bible for NASB"
3. Link to a section in the article mentioning the study Bible (unfortunately, the study Bible isn't mentioned in the NASB article, although I suppose that's probably fixable).
4. Don't link anything: "Study Bible for NASB"
5. Don't include these

In any case except 5, I imagine there are several more we'd have to add - I know at least the EHV has a study Bible, and probably others. LittlePuppers (talk) 08:00, 9 August 2023 (UTC)