September 30, 1952: The Revised Standard Version of the Bible is published by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. It becomes the most familiar version of the Bible in America.
In the beginning, there was the Word. At first, "the Word of God" was called the Torah, or the Pentateuch, because it consisted of the 1st 5 books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This formed the written basis of Judaism.
It is traditionally said that these books, known as the Mosaic Books because of their association with Moses, were written by Moses himself. But while Moses could have written most of them in the third person, detailing his own exploits, Deuteronomy 34:5 says, "And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said." So, clearly, Moses didn't write that.
The remaining books written before the birth of Jesus became known as "The Law and the Prophets." After Jesus' time, they became known as the Old Testament, with the books written about Jesus, known as the Gospels, and the books about his Apostles, together, became known as the New Testament.
There's an old joke about a preacher demanding English as America's official language, holding up a Bible, and saying, "If English was good enough for the Good Book, then it's good enough for me!" In fact, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the Gospels in Aramaic, and the books by and about the Apostles in Greek.
For a majority of the history of Christianity, the leading version of the Bible was the Vulgate Bible, published in Latin in AD 382. Since priests studied Latin, and most people they preached to were illiterate, they could tell their flocks that the Bible said pretty much anything, and there wasn't much they could do about it.
This is why the Roman Catholic Church was very resistant to the Bible being translated into the native language of countries it oversaw. In 1521, while hiding at Wartburg Castle after telling the Diet of Worms, "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise," Martin Luther translated the Bible from ancient Greek into what was then the current version of German. William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English in 1536, and was executed for it by the head of the Church of England, King Henry VIII.
But in 1611, King James I of England (and VI of Scotland) commissioned a definitive English version of the Bible, and "The King James Bible" or "The King James Version" (KJV) was regarded as the definitive English version for over 400 years, including through the House of Stuart, the House of Hanover, the religious-tinged English Civil War of the 1640s, the Glorious Revolution of 1688-90, the Victorian Era, and the early years of the United States of America.
The desire for an American version led to the publication in 1901 of the American Standard Version, which, in its preface, said it aimed to "preserve all that is best in the English Bible as it has been known and used through the years," and "to put the message of the Bible in simple, enduring words that are worthy to stand in the great Tyndale-King James tradition."
The discover of the Dead Sea Scrolls led to the desire for a new version, with the cleared-up translation of the text. This led to the Revised Standard Version.
But for many of us who grew up in the 1970s, the RSV was our parents' Bible. Ours was The Living Bible, published in 1971 and translated by Kenneth N. Taylor into simpler prose. In a 1979 interview, he explained:
The children were one of the chief inspirations for producing the Living Bible. Our family devotions were tough going because of the difficulty we had understanding the King James Version, which we were then using, or the Revised Standard Version, which we used later.
All too often I would ask questions to be sure the children understood, and they would shrug their shoulders. They didn't know what the passage was talking about. So I would explain it. I would paraphrase it for them, and give them the thought. It suddenly occurred to me one afternoon that I should write out the reading for that evening thought by thought, rather than doing it on the spot during our devotional time. So I did, and read the chapter to the family that evening, with exciting results: They knew the answers to all the questions I asked!
An example: Jesus starts the Sermon On the Mount with the Beatitudes. In the RSV, Matthew 5:3 reads, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." In The Living Bible, it becomes "Humble men are very fortunate! For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."
In 1978, yet another translation was published, the New International Version, or the NIV. Its publisher, Biblica, formerly the New York Bible Society, claims, "The NIV delivers the very best combination of accuracy and readability." For the most part, it follows the text of the RSV. It has become the best-selling translation in America.
*
September 30, 1952 was a Tuesday. There were no games on this day: Baseball was between the end of the regular season and the World Series, football was in midweek, and it was too early for the NBA and NHL seasons.
