New American Standard Bible 2020 Update

“The NASB 2020 is an important update because it utilizes advances in biblical scholarship over the past 25 years and it incorporates changes necessary to keep pace with the ever evolving English language. This refreshed text is designed to speak accurately and clearly to current and future generations.” - Lockman Foundation

Discussion

What a waste of time, talent and resources. The big reveal is that the 2020 NASB uses “let’s” instead of “let us.” And, when context suggests, it will add “and sisters” to the phrase “brothers.” I am so glad so many scholars gave untold hours to time and toil to this new update.

Can we just stop with this madness?

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Dr. Paul Henebury

I am Founder of Telos Ministries, and Senior Pastor at Agape Bible Church in N. Ca.

I have my text comparison tool in Logos set to compare 9 different English translations. It displays ESV, ISV, NLT, NASB95, NET, Lexham English LXX, HCSB, KJV, RSV. I won’t be updating to buy the NASB-2020. I preach from the ESV. For about one year, I preached from the RSV and loved it.

I tell you who’s making money = ESV. The guys at Crossway are marketing masters. Incredible.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

I use the NASB as my primary study Bible, along with ESV and NKJV. I have always been a bit surprised by the retention of KJV “Thee’s and Thou’s”. (Though only in reference to God.) I assume it is to maintain due reverence when speaking to or about God. However, since there is no equivalent in the original languages, I find it artificial. Will they continue this practice in the revision? If not, I would consider it more than a minor revision.

G. N. Barkman

The fun thing is that if you go back to Jacobean English—or really probably that of Henry VIII—Thee and Thou are informal, familiar forms, whereas the formal is “you”. Now we are to be close to God, and that’s why Luther chose 500 years back to use the informal German “Du” instead of the formal “Sie”, but it’s odd to think of addressing God informally but everybody else formally. :^)

I appreciate all the work people do in translating, and at a certain point, translating to English is great practice for translating to other tongues, so it’s not a total waste, but at a certain point, I also wonder whether the language has changed so much that a new translation is really needed. If it has changed so much in 25 years (or 5 or 10 or whatever), God help us when we need to understand a document from 20 years back!

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.