Good News Bible

The simplicity of the Good News (AKA "Today's English Version") translation of the Bible comes in for a lot of flack. One of my friends commented to me recently "An educated man such as yourself should not still be reading the Good News." (Yep, John sure knows how to couch a criticism)

On the other hand, a Bible translator I met at Cession a few years ago told me that "Every established translation is reliable." (I'm probably paraphrasing both parties)


As a teenager, I was given a full-length hardback edition of the Good News Bible, which I set about reading from the start. Years later my parents gave me a pocket one to take on my travels in my twenties.


It travels with me still. Well, what's left of it these days does.

Back in the UK again, and reckoning at 37 to have now completed reading the Good News translation, this morning I returned to my much larger yellow hardback edition, looking at all the additional pictures it contains, just to be thorough in my reading-plan. (I draw the line at having to read all the sub-headings, which are not an expression of the original wording, and therefore not really part of the 'translation'.)

And even these line-drawings demonstrate its honest simplicity. For example, Job features image after image of Job running the full gamut of human emotions. And rarely do these minimalist sketches seem to dare to interpret the verse – what you usually get is a literal depiction of what's taking place, and given all the Bible's spiritual content, that's often quite tough to draw.

For example, Deuteronomy 30:19:


Or Proverbs 15:19:

If you are lazy, you will meet difficulty everywhere, but if you are honest, you will have no trouble.


Whoa – hold on a sec. How on Earth is that verse represented by those squiggles?

In fact, as with a few other images in Proverbs, it actually appears that the illustrator was bizarrely working from a different translation. Here's the same verse in the NIV:

The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns,
but the path of the upright is a highway.

Oh, okay then.

And then there are all those pictures that just contain unintended comedy value. Who among us does not smile when coming across our old friend the Good News Klingon?

(that's Proverbs again BTW)

I'd have to say that I continue to read the Good News Bible for several reasons:

1. It assumes you know nothing. I like that – it meets me where I am.

2. It’s so easy to read. I've found some other translations to be full of old language (the KJV), very wordy (the God's Word), or overly-punctuated. (the NIV does contain rather a lot of commas, I know, I expect so much)

3. Its unambiguous footnotes-system. No asterisks, arrows or economically reusing a single footnote in place of ten identical ones within the same chapter. A simple letter 'a' in the text leads to 'a' below, meaning that 'a' below easily connects back up to 'a' in the text too. And it utilises the whole alphabet for this system, ensuring that you're always 26 footnotes away from the closest one that you could otherwise get mixed-up with. (still looking at you, NIV)

Granted, the text of the footnotes themselves seems to be an unfinished project, being applied somewhat sporadically, but you can't have everything.

4. Because it's always been there for me.

Sure, I find the Good News a little simplistic in places too, and as I say the footnotes are kind of patchy, but they did set out to make an easily readable translation, and in this I feel they've really succeeded.

(review of CEV Bible here)
(review of God's Word To The Nations Bible here)
(review of The Message Bible here)
(review of NIV Bible here)