New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA)

Version Information

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NRSV) was published in 1989 and has received the widest acclaim and broadest support from academics and church leaders of any modern English translation.

It is the only Bible translation that is as widely ecumenical:

  • The ecumenical NRSV Bible Translation Committee consists of thirty men and women who are among the top scholars in America today. They come from Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic church, and the Greek Orthodox Church. The committee also includes a Jewish scholar.
  • The RSV was the only major translation in English that included both the standard Protestant canon and the books that are traditionally used by Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians (the so-called "Apocryphal" or "Deuterocanonical" books). Standing in this tradition, the NRSV is available in three ecumenical formats: a standard edition with or without the Apocrypha, a Roman Catholic Edition, which has the so-called "Apocryphal" or "Deuterocanonical" books in the Roman Catholic canonical order, and The Common Bible, which includes all books that belong to the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox canons.
  • The NRSV stands out among the many translations available today as the Bible translation that is the most widely "authorized" by the churches. It received the endorsement of thirty-three Protestant churches. It received the imprimatur of the American and Canadian Conferences of Catholic bishops. And it received the blessing of a leader of the Greek Orthodox Church.

The NRSV is truly a Bible for all Christians!

Rooted in the past, but right for today, the NRSV continues the tradition of William Tyndale, the King James Version, the American Standard Version, and the Revised Standard Version. Equally important, it sets a new standard for the 21st Century.

The NRSV stands out among the many translations because it is "as literal as possible" in adhering to the ancient texts and only "as free as necessary" to make the meaning clear in graceful, understandable English. It draws on newly available sources that increase our understanding of many previously obscure biblical passages. These sources include new-found manuscripts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, other texts, inscriptions, and archaeological finds from the ancient Near East, and new understandings of Greek and Hebrew grammar.

The NRSV differs from the RSV in four primary ways:

  • updating the language of the RSV, by replacing archaic forms of speech addressed to God (Thee, Thou, wast, dost, etc.), and by replacing words whose meaning has changed significantly since the RSV translation (for example, Paul's statement in 2 Corinthians 11.25 that he was "stoned" once)
  • making the translation more accurate,
  • helping it to be more easily understood, especially when it is read out loud, and
  • making it clear where the original texts intend to include all humans, male and female, and where they intend to refer only to the male or female gender.

You Might Also Like:

Wycliffe Bible (WYC)

Version Information Click to download the Introduction, Endnotes, and Conclusion, Introduction to the Apocrypha, and a Personal Statement Regarding the Apocrypha. The "Early Version" of the "Wycliffe Bible", hand-printed about 1382, has long been criticized by Bible historians as too literal, often ...
Read More

Worldwide English (New Testament) (WE)

Version Information This New Testament was originally prepared by Annie Cressman, who died in 1993. She was a Canadian Bible teacher in Liberia in West Africa. Whilst teaching students in a Bible School where the language used was English, she found that she was spending more time explaining the mea...
Read More

Lexham English Bible (LEB)

Version Information With approximately one hundred different English translations of the Bible already published, the reader may well wonder why yet another English version has been produced. Those actually engaged in the work of translating the Bible might answer that the quest for increased accura...
Read More

Modern English Version (MEV)

Version Information The Modern English Version (MEV) heralds a new day for Bibles with the most modern translation ever produced in the King James tradition, providing fresh clarity for Bible readers everywhere with an updated language that doesn’t compromise the truth of the original texts. The MEV...
Read More

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Version Information The NASB does not attempt to interpret Scripture through translation. Instead, the NASB adheres to the principles of a formal equivalence translation. This is the most exacting and demanding method of translation, striving for the most readable word-for-word translation that is b...
Read More

1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

Version Information All but forgotten today, the Geneva Bible was the most widely read and influential English Bible of the 16th and 17th centuries. It was one of the Bibles taken to America on the Mayflower. Mary I was Queen of England and Ireland from 1553 until her death in 1558. Her executions ...
Read More

New International Version (NIV)

Version Information The New International Version (NIV) is a completely original translation of the Bible developed by more than one hundred scholars working from the best available Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. The initial vision for the project was provided by a single individual – an engineer...
Read More

King James Version (KJV)

Version Information In 1604, King James I of England authorized that a new translation of the Bible into English be started. It was finished in 1611, just 85 years after the first translation of the New Testament into English appeared (Tyndale, 1526). The Authorized Version, or King James Version, q...
Read More

Good News Translation (GNT)

Version Information The Good News Translation (GNT), formerly called the Good News Bible or Today's English Version, was first published as a full Bible in 1976 by the American Bible Society as a “common language” Bible. It is a clear and simple modern translation that is faithful to the original He...
Read More

The Message (MSG)

Version Information Why was The Message written? The best answer to that question comes from Eugene Peterson himself: ""While I was teaching a class on Galatians, I began to realize that the adults in my class weren't feeling the vitality and directness that I sensed as I read and studied the New Te...
Read More

New International Reader's Version (NIRV)

Version Information A WORD ABOUT THE NIRV God has always spoken so people would know what he meant. When God first gave the Bible to his people, he used their languages. They could understand what they read. God wants us to understand the Bible today too. So we have worked hard to make the New Inte...
Read More

International Children’s Bible (ICB)

Version Information The International Children’s Bible® is not a storybook or a paraphrased Bible. It is a translation of God’s Word from the original Hebrew and Greek languages. God intended for everyone to be able to understand his Word. Earliest Scriptures were in Hebrew, ideally suited for a bar...
Read More

International Standard Version (ISV)

Version Information The International Standard Version (ISV) is the first modern Bible translation in any language to provide an exclusive textual apparatus comparing the text of the famed Dead Sea Scrolls with the traditional Masoretic text of the Hebrew Tanakh (i.e., the “Old Testament”). The ISV ...
Read More

Common English Bible (CEB)

Version Information The Common English Bible (CEB) is more than a revision or update of an existing translation. It's an ambitious new translation designed to read smoothly and naturally without compromising the accuracy of the Bible text. A key goal of the translation team is to make the Bible acc...
Read More

New Living Translation (NLT)

Version Information The goal of any Bible translation is to convey the meaning of the ancient Hebrew and Greek texts as accurately as possible to the modern reader. The New Living Translation is based on the most recent scholarship in the theory of translation. The challenge for the translators was ...
Read More

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Version Information Uncompromising simplicity marked the American Bible Society's (ABS) translation of the Contemporary English Version (CEV) that was first published in 1995. The text is easily read by grade schoolers, second language readers, and those who prefer the more contemporized form. The C...
Read More

New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995)

Version Information While preserving the literal accuracy of the 1901 ASV, the NASB has sought to render grammar and terminology in contemporary English. Special attention has been given to the rendering of verb tenses to give the English reader a rendering as close as possible to the sense of the o...
Read More

Darby Translation (DARBY)

Version Information The Darby Bible was first published in 1890 by John Nelson Darby, an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher associated with the early years of the Plymouth Brethren. Darby also published translations of the Bible in French and German. J. N. Darby's purpose was, as he states in the preface to...
Read More