10 How does the WEB (World English Bible) compare to other translations?
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This article is from the World English Bible Translation FAQ, by Michael Paul Johnson mpj@ebible.org with numerous contributions by others.
10 How does the WEB (World English Bible) compare to other translations?
The WEB is different enough to avoid copyright infringement, but
similar enough to avoid incurring the wrath of God. By "different
enough," I mean that the wording is about as different from any one
Modern English translation as the current translations differ from each
other. By "similar enough," I mean that the meaning is preserved and
that the Gospel still cuts to the very soul. It is most similar to the
ASV of 1901, of course, but I suppose that similarities will be found
with other translations.
The WEB doesn't capitalize pronouns pertaining to God. This is similar
to the NRSV and NIV, and the same as the original ASV of 1901. Note that
this is an English style decision, because Hebrew has no such thing as
upper and lower case, and the oldest Greek manuscripts were all upper
case. I kind of prefer the approach of the KJV, NKJV, and NASB of
capitalizing these pronouns, because I write that way most of the time
and because it is a way of offering greater honor to God. I admit that
it is kind of a throw-back to the Olde English practice of capitalizing
pronouns referring to the king. This is archaic, because we don't
capitalize pronouns that refer to our president. It is also true that
choosing to capitalize pronouns relating to God causes some difficulties
in translating the coronation psalms, where the psalm was initially
written for the coronation of an earthly king, but which also can
equally well be sung or recited to the praise of the King of Kings.
Capitalizing pronouns relating to God also makes for some strange
reading where people were addressing Jesus with anything but respect.
In any case, in the presence of good arguments both ways, we have
decided to leave these as they were in the ASV 1901 (which also gives us
fewer opportunities to make mistakes).
The WEB, like the ASV of 1901, breaks the KJV tradition by printing
God's proper Name in the Old Testament with a spelling closest to what
we think it was pronounced like, instead of rendering that Name as
"LORD" or "GOD" (with all caps or small caps). The current scholarly
consensus has shifted from spelling this Name as "Jehovah" to spelling
it as "Yahweh." There are a couple of other English translations that
use "Yahweh," so this is not new, per se, but it does set it off a
little from other translations.
Because World English Bible (WEB) uses the Majority Text as the basis
for the New Testament, you may notice the following differences in
comparing the WEB to other translations:
* The order of Matthew 23:13 and 14 is reversed in some translations.
* Luke 17:36 and Acts 15:34, which are not found in the majority of
the Greek Manuscripts (and are relegated to footnotes in the WEB) may
be included in some other translations.
* Romans 14:24-26 in the WEB may appear as Romans 16:25-27 in other
translations.
* 1 John 5:7-8 may read differently in some translations.
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