Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 36:3 (Summer 2022)
Article: Book Review "The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, NRSVue" (National Council Of Churches, 2021)
Author: Jeff David Miller

PP 36:3 (Summer 2022) p. 25

Book Review
The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, NRSVue
(National Council Of Churches, 2021)

Jeff Miller

Jeff Miller is editor of Priscilla Papers.

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published in 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. The NRSV was a revision of the RSV, which in turn was a revision of the ASV.

The 1989 NRSV was well received by a large swath of the Christian world, which is no surprise given its ecumenical nature. Unlike the NIV in wide use at the time, the NRSV was the work of Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish scholars. Its OT included the Apocrypha and writings accepted as Scripture only by certain Eastern Orthodox Christians (such as 3 Maccabees and Ps 151). Another aspect unlike the NIV at the time is that the NRSV translation team included women (Phyllis A. Bird, J. Cheryl Exum, Lucetta Mowry, and Katharine Doob Sakenfeld). For millions of English-speaking Christians, the NRSV became—and remains—the translation of choice for scholarly and liturgical use.

The NRSV had its detractors, of course. This was due, in large part, to the significant steps it took toward gender accuracy in its approach to translation. Where the RSV had “I will make you fishers of men,” the NRSV had “I will make you fish for people” (Matt 4:19, cf. Mark 1:17). Instead of “brethren” (KJV, ASV, RSV, 1977/1995 NASB, etc.) or “brothers” (1984 NIV, HCSB, ESV, etc.), the NRSV often read “brothers and sisters.”

In 2017, the National Council of Churches and the Society of Biblical Literature announced they would cooperate to produce a revision of the NRSV called the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (abbreviated NRSVue and pronounced as six letters, N R S V U E). This revision became available as a for-purchase app from Friendship Press late in 2021, then freely online in the spring of 2022, and will appear in print later in 2022. The NRSVue follows the dictum of the NRSV, “as literal as possible, as free as necessary,” and continues to have a formal feel.

The NRSVue translation team consisted of three groups: editors, section review leaders, and book reviewers. Women account for sixteen of fifty-six editors, four of eleven section review leaders, and sixteen of forty-one book reviewers.

While many factors could be considered when evaluating a translation, this review focuses on two: gender accuracy and translation of certain passages of particular interest to CBE In...