English Bible Translations Trivia Quiz

Answer: Wycliffe

Although parts of the Bible had been translated earlier, the first complete English translation was made by John Wycliffe and his followers. Their work was based on the Latin Vulgate, which had been translated from the Septuagint, the Hebrew, and older Latin texts by St. Jerome. All of Wycliffe's works were condemned at the Council of Constance in 1415.

Answer: Tyndale

Luther translated the Bible into German, not English. His translation was completed a little later than Tyndale's.

Answer: The Great Bible

First translated in 1539, it was revised in 1561 and was then known as the Bishop's Bible.

Answer: The Geneva Bible

This 1557 translation was the predominant family Bible use in England until the time of the Civil War. Shakespeare likely would have read this translation. Individual verse numbers were added to the English Bible for the first time by Robert Stephens, in 1551.

Answer: The King James Bible

King James commissioned this "authorized" translation in 1611. At the time, it included the apocrypha as an index. Committees worked on other translations as well, but the King James is the only one generally agreed to be a literary masterpiece in and of itself.

Answer: Knox

Monsignor Ronald Knox published his translation in 1945-1948. Knox was born an Anglican but converted to Catholicism at the age of 29. Prior to Knox's translation, the first Catholic English Bible translation was the Doway/Rheims version, published in 1609.

Answer: New Revised Standard Version

The New Revised Standard Version came out in 1988, and ignited controversy because of its insistence on gender neutral language, which some considered too political. The main source of controversy, however, was that in some instances the NRSV translation seemed to remove the Christian, messianic implications of Old Testament passages, as compared to earlier English translations.

For example, the explicit image of the crucifixion in Psalm 22:16--"they pierced my hands and feet" in the KJV--became "my hands and feet have shriveled" in the NRSV. Isaiah 7:14, taken by Christians to be a prophecy of Christ, read in the KJV: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." In the NRSV, however, "virgin" became "young maid."

Answer: The Jerusalem Bible

Until the Jerusalem Bible in 1966, Catholic English Bible translations relied on versions not written in the original languages. The New American Bible is the first specifically American Catholic English Bible translation based on the original languages, and it appeared in 1970.

Answer: The New International Version

The completed NIV was published in 1978. The committee that produced it consisted of scholars from various countries, thus making it "international." A variety of denominations were also represented.

Answer: The Living Bible

All Bible translations are necessarily interpretive, since the meaning of some words is unclear in the original languages. But some Bible Versions aim not for generally accurate translation, but for a paraphrasing of the text, in an effort to provide interpretive meaning. The most popular of these paraphrases is the Living Bible, first published in 1971.

Answer: King James Version

The Shakespearian language -- with the "behold" and the "shall" should give this one away. Many people often forget that the KJV is a modern English translation.

Answer: New Revised Standard Version

The clue here is the choice of "young woman" rather than "virgin." Since Christians take this verse to be a prophecy of Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, this change has been very controversial, and has been seen by some to be a liberal theological statement.

The Hebrew word can actually mean either "virgin" or "young woman," though the Greek Septuagint chose the specific Greek word for "virgin" when translating the Hebrew Scriptures.

Answer: Wycliffe Bible

The verse is Mark 6:34. The use of older language -- "ruth" rather than "mercy" or "compassion" -- should be the clue here. In the more modern KJV this verse reads, "And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.

Answer: The New American Standard Bible

These others are more often described as "paraphrases" than as "translations." The NASB, however, is a formal translation that is generally more accessible than the King James and was published, in an updated version, in 1971.

Answer: New International Readers Version

Zondervan rates the reading levels as follows: KJV (12), NASB (11), NKJ (9), and NIRV (2.9). The NIRV uses very simple words and is meant to be accessible to readers of many nations.