5.2.2 Contemporary English Version---

What some have said

"Contemporary English Version," Bible Researcher Com: http://www.bible-researcher.com/cev.html

Barclay M. Newman, ed., Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1995. The New Testament appeared in 1991.

Barclay NewmanThe Contemporary English Version is a simplified version of the Bible designed for children and uneducated adults (at a fourth grade reading level). It is similar to the Good News Bible previously published by the American Bible Society, though at a lower reading level. It was produced by employees of the American Bible Society (ABS) working under the direction of one of the Society's officers, Dr. Barclay M. Newman. Newman explained in an interview that he and his assistants "did a lot of research with children. We did a lot of research with persons who were not familiar with traditional biblical jargon, persons who are almost street people as a matter of fact, and then we tried to simply listen to the way that people speak ... We got it by their language, the way they speak, and do our translating accordingly." (1) In the Forward to the book Creating and Crafting the Contemporary English Version (1996), ABS President Eugene B. Habecker describes the origin of the version thus:

    Work on the CEV began in 1984 when Dr. Barclay Newman, Ph.D., a distinguished biblical scholar who had provided several decades of service as a translations consultant in the Asia Pacific Region of the United Bible Societies, first began to apply his considerable knowledge to his own first language—English. He meticulously studied the language that people, and especially children, used and were exposed to on a daily basis through books, magazines, newspapers, the movies, and television. This eclectic and careful study helped him to understand what terms and sentence sructures were most understandable to people who used English in their day to day communication. He learned what sorts of constructions confused readers, and even more significantly, he learned which terms and grammatical constructions were likely to be misunderstood by people who heard texts being read aloud.

    All of this knowledge guided Dr. Newman as he developed translation principles for the Contemporary English Version and as he prepared the draft of the first "test" publication in this translation. That book, published in 1986, was a collection of Scripture passages on the life of Jesus and was published as an illustrated edition for children. Response to this initial publication was warm, as expected. Children loved it. Teachers and parents loved it, too — many confessing that they enjoyed it for themselves. People asked when further publications would be available in this same translation. "When will you have the whole Bible? This is something I can understand!" (p. i.)

In Appendix A of the same book an account of "The Making of the CEV" is given, in which it is said that Newman "planned and organized the CEV project with the aid of Dr. Eugene A. Nida." Two other names are mentioned as members of the "core team of ABS translators" who did the translation work: Dr. Donald A. Johns and Dr. Steven W. Berneking. It appears, then, that the version is chiefly the work of Newman, Johns and Berneking, at a time when all of them were employed by the American Bible Society. In the paragraph quoted above Habecker describes Newman as a "distinguished biblical scholar," but he does not seem to have published any important scholarly work, and he is not well known outside of the American Bible Society and the United Bible Societies. The same is true of Johns and Berneking. Draft copies of the translation were distributed to various people who were asked to review and offer suggestions for improvements. The reviewers are described as "an international roster of biblical scholars — both Christian and Jewish — as well as linguists, English language experts, specialists in poetry and style, and denominational reviewers," and among them were "representatives of all the Bible Societies around the world with sizeable English-speaking populations, and a list of more than forty UBS Translation Consultants worldwide." The names of these reviewers are not given. The procedure outlined here differs from most other modern translation projects in that the actual work of translation is attributed to only three men, whose attention was focused primarily on the goal of making the text easy to understand. Ordinarily a committee of translators is comprised of a dozen or more scholars with significant academic attainments, and the comments of reviewers are used to improve the readability of the final product, not for scholarly improvements of the text. The CEV project was apparently modelled after the process followed in missionary Bible translation projects undertaken by ABS employees in undeveloped countries, where simple draft translations (often based upon simple English versions like the CEV) are gradually improved by ABS consultants who compare the work with the original language texts.
General Characteristics of the Version

The character of the CEV is largely determined by its attempt to put the Bible into words "widely used in everyday speech" by modern readers who are "unfamiliar with typical church language" (Creating and Crafting, pp. 26, 27). This inevitably leads to a great deal of interpretation being worked into the text and some problems of inaccuracy, because the books of the Bible were not written for modern children or for adults who are uninitiated. They were written for adults in ancient times who were already familiar with the religious traditions of ancient Israel. The authors of the New Testament assume that their readers are Christians who are already familiar with the Old Testament books, and also familiar with the "insider's jargon" of the Church. (The language of the New Testament is heavily infuenced by the vocabulary and grammar of the Septuagint, which is a hybrid of Greek and Hebrew.) Even intelligent and well-educated adults of the present day will have some difficulty understanding the Bible if they lack the appropriate kind of education—the education gained by years of faithful attendance at a church where the Bible is expounded by seminary-trained ministers. Many of the difficulties that the Bible presents for uninitiated English readers of the present day are not caused by unfamiliar words, but by a lack of background knowledge. Any neophyte of ancient times would have encountered the same kinds of difficulties in trying to understanding the original text itself. For instance, the Bible begins with the statement "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Now, an uninitiated person in ancient times would have stumbled right there, because this sentence assumes that there is one God, and although this may be a very familar idea for most non-Christians today, it was not a commonly held assumption in ancient times. The ancient reader, if he was not a Jew or a Christian, is likely to have been a polytheist, and likely to have misundertood Genesis 1:1 as a statement pertaining to one of the gods or perhaps a group of gods. In order to understand the text it would have been necessary for the reader to be a Christian, or a Jew, or at least someone who is familiar with Judaism or Christianity. It is unrealistic to think that an accurate translation of the Bible could be prepared which removes all potential difficulties like this. A translator cannot approach his task with the idea that the readers are completely unprepared to understand the text. The question is, how much background knowledge, how much interpretive assistance, and how much native ability to figure things out, can be assumed in the readers? The CEV sets the bar very low. An example of this may be seen in the CEV's handling of "through" expressions in the text, as explained in the Creating and Crafting volume:

    The use of through with persons or abstract nouns has been rejected by the CEV translators because doing something "through someone" is an extremely difficult linguistic concept for many people to process. This is why the CEV does not render the opening verses of Hebrews in the manner of one modern translation which says "through the prophets ... through his Son ... through whom." Instead this passage is rendered as follows: "Long ago in many ways and at many times God's prophets spoke his message to our ancestors. But now at last God sent his Son to bring his message to us. God created the univese by his Son, and everything will someday belong to the Son." (p. 17.)

Yet it is obvious that when we translate the idiom literally here, "God spoke to our fathers through the prophets," this says much more than the CEV's "God's prophets spoke his message to our ancestors." In the Greek text (not merely "in the manner of one modern translation") it is God who speaks, and the prophets are merely his instruments. This was the view of Scripture held by the author of Hebrews, in full agreement with the contemporary Jewish understanding. But in the CEV this concept is deliberately expelled from the text because the translators have decided that it is too difficult for the uninitiated. In the CEV the prophets speak for God, but it is not God who speaks through them. Surely the difference will be noticed by anyone who cares about the accurate representation of the biblical authors' view of Scripture. The decision of the CEV translators here, and their opinion that this expression is "extremely difficult" for "many people" to understand, is certainly open to criticism. For it does not seem likely that people of ordinary intelligence would find this so hard to understand. That God does things through the agency of human beings is, in any case, an important teaching of the Bible, and whether or not this is found to be difficult by some readers, it must not be obscured in translations. Rather, people should learn this Biblical concept from the translation. The same is true of the key theological concepts traditionally expressed in the English words grace, justification, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, atonement, repentence, and covenant, all of which are absent from the CEV and dismissed as gobbledygook in chapter three of the Creating and Crafting volume (p. 25). The fact is, these linguistic "biblicisms" are practically indispensible for an understanding of the Bible, because when key terms like this are avoided with circumlocutions, the concepts embodied in them become less substantial. The lack of an adequate set of technical terms tends to hamper learning and clear thinking in any field of study, and religious teaching is no exception to that rule.

It is interesting to note that in the paragraph quoted above the author speaks of "doing something through someone" as a "concept," although he modifies it with the adjective "linguistic." Ultimately concepts cannot be divorced from the words used to express them. Concepts are not like ghosts that flit around outside of words, they are born into and take shape in a matrix of language, and they cannot be expressed apart from the shaping influences of language. That is why Christians have traditionally held that the Bible is verbally inspired, and have favored translations which give the most literal renderings possible.

"Contemporary English Version," Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_English_Version

 The CEV project began as a result of studies conducted by Barclay Newman in 1985 into speech patterns used in Books, Magazines, Newspapers, and Television. These studies focused on how English was read and heard. This led to a series of test volumes being published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Among the volumes published were Luke Tells the Good News About Jesus (1987), The Good News Travels Fast - The Acts Of The Apostles (1988), A Few Who Dared to Trust God (1990), and A Book About Jesus (1991). In 1991, the 175th anniversary of the American Bible Society, the CEV New Testament was released. The CEV Old Testament was released in 1995. The Plain English Campaign awarded the CEV a Crystal Mark award in 1997 in appreciation of the clarity of the CEV's type of English. In 1999, The Apocryphal /Deuterocanonical Books were published. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the American Bible Society published a special booklet entitled God Is Our Shelter and Strength. The booklet contained passages from the Psalms and other parts of the Bible. This booklet was also published after the Hurricane Katrina disaster in September 2005.[1]. (The booklet can be downloaded here). In October 2005, the Bible Society in Australia launched a project called SMSBible, which was the entire CEV in SMS text messages. News reports about the service claimed that the Bible spanned more than 30,000 text messages. On October 25 2005, a church in New Zealand began a project called PodBible to produce an audio version of the CEV available via podcast or webcast. [2]

Translation principles and features
In translating the CEV, the translators followed three translation principles. They were: The CEV must be understood by people without stumbling in speech, The CEV must be understood by those with little or no comprehension of "Bible" language, and the CEV must be understood by all. The CEV uses gender-sensitive language for humanity and not for the Godhead. The translation also takes care to simplify "Bible" terms into more understandable words and phrases. An example can be found in Exodus 20:14, where the word adultery is translated Be faithful in marriage. The translators have also taken great care to translate the Greek phrase hoi Ioudaioi (literally, "the Jews") as "the Jewish leaders," especially in the Gospel of John (as in John 18:14). The CEV translators believe, along with many (but not all) biblical scholars[3], that the Greek phrase hoi Ioudaioi in the Gospel of John primarily refers to the Jewish leadership, not to the Jewish people, as a whole. So their translation as "the Jewish leaders" is intended to increase translation accuracy. One result of this translation decision is a reduction of the perception of Anti-Semitism in the New Testament.

"A Brief Description of Popular Bible Translations," American Bible Society: http://www.americanbible.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6393

The CEV is a meaning-based (or functional equivalent) translation done in a contemporary style using common language. It was designed to be understood when read and heard out loud, not just when it is read silently. It is one of the best Bibles for children and youth, as well as for new Bible readers who are not familiar with traditional Bible and church words.

"A Concise History of the English Bible: Contemporary English Version," American Bible Society:
        http://www.americanbible.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6145

The Contemporary English Version, the second English translation sponsored by the American Bible Society. The work began in 1985 and was entrusted to Barclay M. Newman (born 1931) and a committee of scholars including Robert Hodgson, Donald A. Johns, and Steven W. Berneking. Originally designed for children, like the Good News Translation, it uses the principle of dynamic or functional equivalence. Special attention is given to oral readability and aural comprehension. The New Testament was published in 1991 on the 175th anniversary of the founding of the American Bible Society, and the Bible followed in 1995. An interconfessional edition including the Deuterocanon was released in 2000.

      1 In the beginning was the one who is called the Word. The Word was with God and was truly God. 2 From the very beginning the Word was with God. 3 And with this Word, God created all things. Nothing was made without the Word. Everything that was created 4 received its life from him, and his life gave light to everyone. 5 The light keeps shining in the dark, and darkness has never put it out.
        [a] 6 God sent a man named John, 7 who came to tell about the light and to lead all people to have faith. 8 John wasn't that light. He came only to tell about the light. 9 The true light that shines on everyone was coming into the world. 10 The Word was in the world, but no one knew him, though God had made the world with his Word. 11 He came into his own world, but his own nation did not welcome him. 12 Yet some people accepted him and put their faith in him. So he gave them the right to be the children of God. 13 They were not God's children by nature or because of any human desires. God himself was the one who made them his children.
        14 The Word became a human being and lived here with us.  We saw his true glory,  the glory of the only Son of the Father. From him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us. 15 John spoke about him and shouted, "This is the one I told you would come! He is greater than I am, because he was alive before I was born." 16 Because of all that the Son is, we have been given one blessing after another. [b] 17The Law was given by Moses, but Jesus Christ brought us undeserved kindness and truth. 18 No one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is truly God and is closest to the Father, has shown us what God is like.

Summation
Bibliography

"Contemporary English Version," Bible Researcher Com: http://www.bible-researcher.com/cev.html

"Contemporary English Version," Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_English_Version

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