Previously Asked Questions

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RepelGravity
August 7, 2021 at 3:52 pm

Mike, I’m curious as to your feelings on the NASB 2020.
I like parts of it and and have great respect for the Lockman folks. I feel that it needlessly destroys some of the poetry of some passages. I have just felt more let down by it and wondered how you found it.
Thanks,

Mike Gantt
August 7, 2021 at 4:24 pm

It’s a good question to which I can only give a partial answer at this time. A month or so ago, I got around to beginning an analysis of the 2020 changes and was immediately put off by some of the explanations I was reading in the foreword – so I set the analysis aside and don’t know when I’ll get back to it.

Two of the specific aspects that bothered me were those categorized as “GENDER ACCURACY” and “THE WORD BRETHREN.” In both cases, the Lockman people are, in their own words, seeking to be more “inclusive” with the language they use and thereby conforming to current societal pressure. In so doing, I think they are compromising their mission to be as faithful as possible to the original writings.

Like you, I have great respect for the Lockman people. I am also familiar with some of the acute pressures they face – not just the societal pressure I mentioned above but also financial pressure. By this, I’m referring to the fact that all the major Bible publishers have, as an economic decision, chosen to sponsor their own translations so that an independently-produced translation like the the NASB is increasingly minimized in the market. It’s less about which translation is better and more about which one has the most marketing muscle behind it.

It appears further that NASB supporters are going to be divided into 1977, 1995, and 2020 camps. And then there’s John MacArthur’s Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) which is actually also a version of the NASB. Where it all goes from here, I cannot say – except to say that until I find a translation more faithful to the original Scriptures than the NASB, I will stick with some form of it. For the time being, that’s the 1995. (I actually think the 1977 is better, but it was the right thing to do to remove the “Thee’s” and “Thou’s” because, while they were faithful to the King James Version, they weren’t faithful to the original texts; this is why I use the 1995 and not the 1977.)

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