A Bible Reader’s Website

BSN: Improvements that could be made to the NASB 

  • I have not yet come across any English translation that seems more consistently faithful to the original texts that the NASB 1995. I love it and will forever be grateful to those who produced it. This does not mean, however, that it could not be improved upon. And no, I don’t consider the 2020 version an improvement. As for the items below, I am not saying that the NASB 1995 is wrong in each case – just that I don’t understand why the translators did what they did. Therefore, they may or may not be opportunities for improvement.
    • I don’t understand why there is a comma between “people” and “producing” in Mt 21:43.
    • I don’t understand why “He will judge the world in righteousness” is not rendered in the small caps the NASB usually uses for OT quotations in Acts 17:31, especially since this expression occurs twice in the NASB OT (Ps 9:8; 96:13) and in word-for-word order.
    • I don’t understand why “breaker” in Micah 2:13 is not capitalized as “Branch” is in Isaiah 4:2. Clearly, both terms are referring to the same person.
    • I don’t understand why “live by faith” in Gal 2:20 is not in all caps since this verse seems to be Paul’s personalization of Habak 2:4 (a verse he was obviously fond of: Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38). That is, Paul seems to be using himself as an example of someone with faith and Jesus Christ as the proper object of that faith.
    • I don’t understand why Jude 1:12 doesn’t render “clouds without water, carried along by winds” in all caps since the wording is so much like what’s found in Prov 25:14.
    • Similar to the Jude 1:12 comment above, I wonder if Jas 4:13-14 isn’t alluding in part to Prov 27:1.
    • There seem to be a number of words translated differently in the 1995 version when compared to the 1977 version, but without an obvious reason for the change. Once a word has been translated in, say, the 1977 version, it should not be changed in a future versions without a good reason. Some changes seem to result from an inadequate appreciation for the value of keeping with precedent.
    • In biblical times, written material existed in scroll (aka roll) form. A “book” as we know it (pages bound together) did not exist in biblical times. An early form of the book, called a codex, began appearing in the late 1st century. Yet the English word “book” appears 173 times in the NASB (40 in the NT, and 133 in the OT). Therefore, the references to “book” or “books” in the NASB are conveying a misleading visual image to modern readers. (The NASB 2020 corrects this in some verses, such as Lk 4:17, but it still uses the word “book” 157 times.)
    • There should be more red letters in the NASB New Testament. The four Gospels seem fine as is on this point; I’m talking about NT passages outside the Gospels. Perhaps the most notable example of this is 1 Tim 5:18 where it seems obvious that Paul is quoting Jesus from Luke 10:7. For more such examples, see the list in Red-Letter Bibles, which identifies how other translations print in red verses that the NASB does not.
    • Deut 32:8 has “sons of Israel,” which is what is found in the Masoretic Text (MT), but the Septuagint (LXX) and Dead Sea Scrolls have “sons of God,” which seems to make more sense in this context. The ESV puts “sons of God” in the translation and mentions the MT’s “sons of Israel” in a footnote. It seems the NASB translators could have at least put the LXX’s “sons of God” in a footnote, if not in the translation itself.