New English Bible - Considerations and Concerns

Considerations and Concerns

The New English Bible was produced primarily by British and European scholarship (for example, Whitsuntide is rendered in 1 Corinthians 16:8 rather than Pentecost). However, directly following the Second World War the English of the United Kingdom and Europe began to be influenced by foreign idiom, especially that of the Americans. For this reason, passages found in the New English Bible could be understood by a large body of English speaking individuals.

In relation to the issue of gender neutral language, or gender-accuracy, the New English Bible was produced before a time when there was any awareness that this was going to become an issue. So it rendered pronouns (among other things) using the traditional literary method followed by many previous translations in which the generic use of "he" is both typical and assumed. However, using this literary method has become increasingly unpopular, and a revision of the New English Bible, aptly titled the Revised English Bible, was undertaken. Among the goals for this revision were rendering the text of the New English Bible gender-accurate, as well as fixing errors of transposition and interpretation that many felt to be present in the text.