Preface

god intended for everyone to be able to read and understand his Word. The Old Testament is written in Hebrew, the language of the people of Israel. Through the use of vivid stories based on real events and beautiful poetry, it appeals to the minds and hearts of the educated and the uneducated. The New Testament was first written in the simple Greek of everyday life, not in the Latin of Roman courts or the classical Greek of the academies. Even Jesus, the Master Teacher, taught spiritual principles by comparing them to such familiar terms as pearls, seeds, rocks, trees, and sheep. Likewise, the New Century Version translates the Scriptures in familiar, everyday words of our times.

The New Century Version is a translation of God’s Word from the original Hebrew and Greek languages. A previous edition of the complete New Century Version, the International Children’s Bible, was published in 1986.

A Trustworthy Translation

Two basic premises guided the translation process of the New Century Version. The first concern was that the translation be faithful to the manuscripts in the original languages. A team composed of the World Bible Translation Center and fifty additional, highly qualified and experienced Bible scholars and translators was assembled. The team included people with translation experience on such accepted versions as the New International Version, the New American Standard Bible, and the New King James Version. The most recent scholarship and the best available Hebrew and Greek texts were used, principally the third edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek text and the latest edition of the Biblia Hebraica, along with the Septuagint.

A Clear Translation

The second concern was to make the language clear enough for anyone to read the Bible and understand it. In maintaining clear language, several guidelines were followed. Vocabulary choice has been based upon The Living Word Vocabulary by Dr. Edgar Dale and Dr. Joseph O’Rourke (Worldbook-Childcraft International, 1981), which is the standard used by the editors of The World Book Encyclopedia to determine appropriate vocabulary. For difficult words that have no simpler synonyms, footnotes, references, and dictionary definitions are provided. Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page and are indicated in the text by an n (for “note”). A dictionary with a topical concordance of words and phrases found throughout the text is located at the back of the Bible.

The New Century Version aids understanding by putting concepts into natural terms. Modern measurements and geographical locations have been used as much as possible. For instance, terms such as “shekels,” “cubits,” “omer,” and “hin” have been converted to modern equivalents of weights and measures. Where geographical references are identical, the modern name has been used, such as the “Mediterranean Sea” instead of “Great Sea” or “Western Sea.” Also, to minimize confusion, the most familiar name for a place is used consistently instead of using variant names for the same place. “Lake Galilee” is used throughout the text rather than its variant forms, “Sea of Kinnereth,” “Lake Gennesaret,” and “Sea of Tiberias.”

Ancient customs are often unfamiliar to modern readers. Customs such as shaving a man’s beard to shame him or walking between the halves of a dead animal to seal an agreement are meaningless to most people today. So these are clarified either in the text or in a footnote.

Since meanings of words change with time, care has been taken to avoid potential misunderstandings. Frequently in the Old Testament God tells his people to “devote” something to him, as when he tells the Israelites to devote Jericho and everything in it to him. While we might understand this to mean he is telling them to keep it safe and holy, the exact opposite is true. He is telling them to destroy it totally as an offering to him. The New Century Version communicates the idea clearly by translating “devoted” in these situations as “destroyed as an offering to the Lord.”

Rhetorical questions in many instances have been stated according to their implied answer. The psalmist’s question “What god is so great as our God?” has been stated more directly as “No god is as great as our God.”

Figures of speech have been translated according to their meanings. For instance, the expression “the Virgin Daughter of Zion,” which is frequently used in the Old Testament, is simply translated “the people of Jerusalem.”

Idiomatic expressions of the biblical languages are translated to communicate the same meaning to today’s reader that would have been understood by the original audience. For example, the Hebrew idiom “he rested with his fathers” is translated by its meaning—“he died.”

Obscure terms have been clarified. In the Old Testament God frequently condemns the people for their “high places” and “Asherah poles.” The New Century Version translates these according to their meanings, which would have been understood by the Hebrews. “High places” is translated “places where gods were worshiped,” and “Asherah poles” is translated “Asherah idols.”

Gender language has been rendered in keeping with the principles of meaning-based translation. In the interest of providing the best rendering of the original Hebrew and Greek texts in contemporary English, appropriate gender terms are used whenever it is possible to do so without hindering clarity or accuracy. Masculine terms are used when the meaning of the original has to do with males, including references to deity and to male cultural situations such as the military and the priesthood. Feminine terms are used when the meaning of the original has to do with females. When the meaning of the original has to do with both males and females, nongendered terms are used. (In such cases, the masculine resumptive pronoun has sometimes been preferred to changing person or number.)

The divine name YHWH, the tetragrammaton, has been indicated in the New Century Version by putting “Lord,” and sometimes “God,” in capital letters, following the tradition of other English versions. This is to distinguish it from Adonai, another Hebrew word that is translated “Lord.”

Proper English style has been maintained while clarifying concepts and communication. The beauty of the Hebrew parallelism in poetry and the wordplays have been retained, and the images of the ancient languages have been captured in equivalent English images wherever possible.

Study Aids

Other features to enhance understanding of the text include full-color maps of Bible lands, subject headings throughout the text to identify speakers and topics, book subheadings to give a synopsis of each book’s theme, a dictionary with a topical concordance of biblical words and concepts, and footnotes offering additional information on selected verses.

Our Prayer

It is with great humility and prayerfulness that this Bible is presented. We acknowledge the infallibility of God’s Word, as well as our own human frailty. We pray that God has worked through us as his vessels so that we all might better learn his truth for ourselves and that it might richly grow in our lives. It is to his glory that this Bible is given.

The Publisher