Talk:New American Standard Bible

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At one point, the article says there is no theological interpretation. At another point it says that the translation purposefully harmonizes the Old Testament to the New Testament. How can both these statements be true? john k 18:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

They cant. The whole point of the NASB is to keep the text as literal and transparent to the original languages as possible and avoid interpreting the text for the reader. This is one of the guiding principles for the NASB, and why it is a widely respected translation. The statement, "deliberately interpreting the Old Testament from a Christian standpoint, in harmony with the New Testament" contradicts the rest of this article, which makes statements concerning the integrity of the translation (not in dispute by any authoritative source that I know of), then makes a statement which I think in effect raises a question concerning the NASB's integrity without a basis for doing so. I think any deliberate harmonization would be in violation of the translation philosophy which guided this work. Also, the NASB does contain ambiguous passages and extensive footnotes which, at times, would not necessarily aid such a harmonization effort. PS: This article is almost word for word identical to this one: http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/New-American-Standard-BibleJeremy 22:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You are correct that the NASB is regarded as the most literal. The statement about harmonizing the texts is unsourced and, as far as I know, bunk. It should be removed unless someone can provide a valid source.

Actually, the harmonization is a standard procedure with Evangelical versions. The Revised Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version have both been lambasted for decades for not harmonizing the Old Testament prophecies with New Testament interpretations. Michael Marlowe has also strongly criticized the New English Translation on his Bible-Researcher website for the same reason. Is the NASB the most literal? Of the versions done in the past fifty years, yes. Is it the most accurate? That's a different question. I've read studies of comparisons between it and the Nestle-Aland, and yes, it was the most accurate (though there were some interesting textual differences). Now for the final question: "is it totally accurate?" Of course not. Nothing is, nor can be. It's a translation, after all. As for harmonizations, how about "almah" in Isaiah 7:14? The New Testament follows the Septuagint's parthenos (virgin) instead of the Hebrew almah (young woman) -- the explicit word for virgin in Hebrew is bethulah. Is this legitimate? From a New Testament perspective, of course. Is it legitimate for an Evangelical version to use the New Testament as a template for it's interpretation of the Old Testament? Of course. Is it legitimate to deny that this is being done? No, it is not -- nor is it even necessary, because it isn't a criticism. In fact, the English Standard Version has actually advertised such harmonization as one of it's strongest selling points. I'm not sure this really needs citation. I just googled "NASB harmonization Isaiah 7:14" and found pages of articles on the subject, both pro and con. Tim 14:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Computer Assisted?

Wasn't this one of the first (perhaps only) that involved computer analysis in the area of textual compilation? Perhaps it should be mentioned in the article.

Acts 27:23 in the NASB changes the scripture from "The angel of God" as in KJV to "An angel of God."
This completely changes the meaning of this passage stating that we belong to an angel of God.
We instead belong to THE ANGEL OF GOD (Jesus)as written in KJV . What is your outlook on this??
F. Miller
I think you have the wrong talk page.

[edit] NPOV

'Sometimes called the Catholic Bible, the RSV, has also has been criticized for containing the deuterocanonical books in keeping with the first officially canonized-Christian Bible'. This is certainly not NPOV. Plus, if you read the article on RSV, you will see that it did not originally contain the Apocrypha. The people who wrote this article seem to have liked the NASB so much as to forget about contradicting statements such as: 'the NASB's translators went back to ... deliberately interpreting the Old Testament from a Christian standpoint, in harmony with the New Testament' and 'the greatest perceived strength of the NASB is its reliability and fidelity to the original languages without theological interpretation'. I cannot even guess what 'no work will ever be personalized' might mean! Please, could someone have mercy on this article? I don't know much about the NASB myself, but it is quite obvious that some things could be changed for the better in this article.

[edit] Franklin Logsdon propoganda

Information was entered from the following links; http://www.tbaptist.com and http://www.wayoflife.org. Both are not in compliance with wikipedia's policy of neutral sources. The http://www.tbaptist.com claims Use The Bible God Uses — King James Version. The claims by http://www.wayoflife.org have been refuted by the Lockman foundation http://www.aomin.org/lockman.html. Let's try and keep this mature and on the adult side of things. Bibleman777 (talk) 22:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)