The annual BibleTech Conference – where bible study enters the cyber cafe – is to be held in Seattle this March. In between consultations about the latest Bible apps, one wonders how much attention will be paid to the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible.
Steadily, Anglicans have put aside the King James Bible in favour of modern translations: many prefer to use the New Revised Standard Version which, according to its supporters, combines the poeticism of the AV with the familiarity of contemporary language. More recently, in 2002, former Presbyterian pastor Eugene Peterson brought out The Message; and Rob Lacey’s Word on the Street came out the year after. The latter cannot be described as a translation, but rather a paraphrase which remoulds the Bible’s stories into parables for a street-wise 21st century audience.
Accessibility is the watchword behind these revisions of the Bible; but what has this word come to mean in a culture of 140 word tweets and 24 hour news? No doubt they’ll have all the answers at BibleTech.
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