The New American Standard (or NAS) Bible is widely regarded as the most literally translated of 20th-century English Bible translations. According to the NAS Bible’s preface, the translators had a “Fourfold Aim” in this work:
• These publications shall be true to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
• They shall be grammatically correct.
• They shall be understandable.
• They shall give the Lord Jesus Christ His proper place, the place which the Word gives Him; therefore, no work will ever be personalized.
As its name implies, the NAS bible is a revision of the American Standard Version of 1901. This translation was begun as an alternative to the Revised Standard Version (1946–1952/1971), itself a revision of the ASV, but considered by many to be theologically liberal. Using the ASV as its English base, the NAS Bible’s translators revised the ASV as literally as possible.
Seeing the need for a literal, modern translation of the English Bible, the translators sought to produce a contemporary English Bible while maintaining a word-for-word translation style. In cases where word-for-word literalness was determined to be unacceptable for modern readers, changes were made in the direction of more current idioms. In such instances, the more literal renderings were indicated in footnotes.
The greatest perceived strength of the NAS Bible is its reliability and fidelity to the original languages, which, along with other literal translations, also allows for ambiguities in the text’s meaning.
No comments:
Post a Comment