Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Jewish
Religion News
Why Do Our Bibles Keep Changing?

Why Do Our Bibles Keep Changing?

Last updated on: May 23, 2025 at 1:39 pm by Richard Ostling

0 Comments

Why Do Our Bibles Keep Changing? 2025-05-23T13:39:15-04:00 Richard Ostling

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ancient Bible manuscript: An ever-changing challenge / pixabay.com photo

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

There are two reasons, translations, and texts, both of which have cropped up in the news of religion this year. The venerable King James Version (KJV) appeared without changes over centuries. But today, experts continually reconsider the best available evidence to improve our English Bibles. Publishers periodically issue new updated Bible editions to incorporate their findings in the sacred text itself or footnotes that explain options and issues.

Regarding translations, scholars well-versed in ancient languages and cultures need to decide what present-day English words best convey to current culture the meaning of the ancient Hebrew and Greek, whether by word-for-word or thought-by-thought translation, or a mixture. Regarding “textual criticism,” specialists compare a passage in various available ancient manuscripts; though most differences they assess are minor, some are significant.

A summary by the late textual critic Bruce Metzger said revised editions are necessary for three reasons: ongoing manuscript discoveries, “further investigation of linguistic features of the text,” and “changes in preferred English usage.”

Turning first to texts: Consider this from the doctrinal basis of America’s conservative Evangelical Theological Society: “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs.” That last word refers to the inspired texts as first written down. Since these have not survived, technical scholarship must discern which manuscript option most likely preserves what the original version would have said.

Trump Cuts

President Trump’s sweeping budget cuts have reached the National Endowment for the Humanities. reducing the staff by two-thirds and cancelling some 1,500 academic projects previously approved for grants. On April 25, Religion News Service reported that newly-killed projects in the religion field include Duke University Divinity School’s major project to produce a definitive Hebrew text of biblical Psalms. NEH would provide $300,000 on condition that Duke raise an additional $150,000, which it has done. Duke was to re-examine the first 50 Psalms while other grantees covered the rest of the biblical book.

As with the Duke effort, modern translations — whether under supposedly conservative or liberal or Protestant or Catholic auspices — are “eclectic.” The experts ponder varied ancient texts and fragments in Hebrew, Greek, Syriac or Latin, etc., many of which have only become available in modern times. The beloved 17th Century KJV’s limited resources lacked for instance such major manuscripts as the 4th Century Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. A standard compilation from eclectic texts of the Old Testament and New Testament is regularly updated by the German Bible Society.

Such scholarship was reshaped beginning in 1947 when the rediscovered “Dead Sea Scrolls” provided manuscripts from all books in the Old Testament (a.k.a. Jewish Bible) except Esther. The scrolls were written a thousand years earlier than the medieval Leningrad Codex and Aleppo Codex that preserved Judaism’s authoritative Masoretic text tradition from early medieval times. The scrolls demonstrated the remarkable accuracy of Jewish scribes in transmitting texts across centuries, but some differences tweak modern Bible passages and produce footnotes.

Inserting the Trinity

Here’s a classic textual question. For centuries the KJV and Catholics’ standard Douay-Rheims version printed 1 John 5:7 as “there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” Modern translations omit that wording because experts agree it turned up very late in a few texts of dubious authenticity. Presumably some scribe(s) inserted language to profess Christianity’s doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three Persons.

Secondly, we turn to translations, underscored February 11 in an announcement about the English Standard Version (ESV). Its publisher, Crossway Bibles, says 315 million copies are in print. The ESV competes in the all-important evangelical market especially with the New International Version (NIV), whose owner Zondervan proclaims it the worldwide best-seller among modern English translations.

Crossway said it is changing 42 ESV verses and 57 footnotes, to be applied in various editions from now through the fall of 2026. This is rather remarkable because in August, 2016, Crossway bucked the practice of periodic updates, saying “the text of the ESV Bible will remain unchanged in all future editions” and freezing the2016 wording “for generations to come.”

But within weeks Crossway repented and apologized for this “mistake.” The company would not “establish a permanent text” but instead “allow for ongoing periodic updating of the text to reflect the realities of biblical scholarship such as textual discoveries or changes in English over time.” Such “updates will be minimal and infrequent, but fidelity to Scripture requires that we remain open in principle to such changes.”

Eve’s Desire

Most of the 2025 ESV alterations are trivial (see details in a link off of https://www.crossway.org/articles/esv-bible-translation-update/). But there’s an intriguing fuss over one word in one verse, Genesis 3:16, and proper translation of the Hebrew preposition ‘el. In the 2025 update, God proclaims to Eve that after the sinful Fall in the Garden of Eden “your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” A footnote says that instead of “for” the preposition could mean “to, or toward, or against” and likewise in Genesis 4:7.

The now-discarded 2016 ESV rendition says “your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you,” with a footnote listing “toward” as an alternative for “contrary to.” That disagreed with the ESV’s own first edition and its new 2025 wording, the NIV, the KJV, and William Tyndale’s pioneering English translation of 1530, which said “thy lust shall pertain unto thy husband.”

Patheos.com columnist Scot McKnight, New Testament professor at Northern Seminary in Illinois, said though the 2016 “contrary to” is a possible translation of ‘el, it is incorrect in this context per usage in other Bible passages. For McKnight, the “dangerously wrong” 2016 ESV depicted a power struggle that suggested uppity women would resist God’s will, instead of sexual desire. He also contended that God here is being “descriptive” about what the Fall will produce, not “prescriptive” in defining his design for humanity.

King James Examples

Another challenge with translation is that the meaning of a word may change over time as per a fun list of 39 examples from the KJV posted at https://carm.org/king-james-onlyism/the-king-james-version-and-the-changing-use-of-words/. Among them:

In Romans 11:20, Paul tells Christians, “be not highminded,” odd to us for whom that old-fashioned word means “principled” or “honest,” but for the KJV’s 17th Century readers it meant “conceited” or “arrogant.”

Genesis 1:29-30 says fruits are “meat,” confusing because today the word means animal flesh whereas for a 17th Century audience it meant “food” of any sort.

1 Peter 3:8 tells believers to “be pitiful,” which for us means sadly pathetic, while the original KJV meant “sympathetic” or “merciful.”

And you probably know that when Jesus (Matthew 19:14) says “suffer little children” he doesn’t mean kids were in pain or adults found them irritating but that the disciples should “allow’ them access to him.

Jewish

General Christian

History and Religion

Previous Post

May 8, 2025

Should Churches be Tax-Exempt? Why, or Why Not?

Next Post

June 6, 2025 Do the Popes Run a Network of “Spies”?

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"(First off, a correction: telescopes were invented about 1,300 years after Ptolemy's death.)Skeptics have been ..."

Ray Ingles

UFO buzz: Will life on distant ..."

"NIPs... spurn labels and are averse to “organized religion” with its expectations about moral lifestyles ..."

Ray Ingles

How do categories differ among America’s ..."

"Atheists are those who are certain God does not exist, and the same for all ..."

Brian Westley

How do categories differ among America’s ..."

"We already know what happens, Christianity is the only worldview that has completely answered all ..."

Lekrikrekral

Why doesn’t the Bible mention dinosaurs?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which prophet lamented over Israel's oppression of the poor?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Amos Joel Obadiah Hosea