Five shrinking denominations generally regarded as “liberal” now have their own translation of the Bible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a number of translations available for conservative churches,\u201d spokesman Paul Franklyn told the Nashville Tennessean<\/em> newspaper. Now, the liberal churches have theirs, the Common English Bible. Its translation from the original ancient texts was funded by the Church Resources Development Corp, which, according to the Common English Bible website “allows for cooperation among denominational publishers in the development and distribution of Bibles, curriculum, and worship materials.”<\/p>\n The Common English Bible Committee, according to the website, “meets periodically and consists of denominational publishers from the following denominations: Disciples of Christ (Chalice Press); Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (Westminster John Knox Press); Episcopal Church (Church Publishing Inc); United Church of Christ (Pilgrim Press); and United Methodist Church (Abingdon Press).<\/p>\n Declining in membership, the five denominations have lost about 5 million members since 1960, according to the website demographia.com. Today the\u00a0Disciples of Christ total about 786,000 members, down from 1.2 million in 1960. The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. has 3.2 million members, down from 4.1 in 1960. The Episcopal Church has 2.3 million, down from 3.2. The United Church of Christ has 1.2 million, down from 2 million. The United Methodist Church has 8.2 million members, down from 10.7 members in 1960.<\/p>\n In comparison, the Southern Baptists total 16.2 million members, up from 9.7 members in 1960. The Roman Catholic Church claims 62.4 million members, up from 41.6 million.<\/p>\n Franklyn said the new translation’s backers are\u00a0hoping it will “make the Bible understandable and attractive to as many people as possible. To that end, the new edition of the CEB has made several ‘bold’ translation choices, including changing Jesus’ ‘Son of Man’ title to ‘the Human One.'”<\/p>\n The new translation is arriving from the printers this week and will be rolling into stores in August, said Franklyn.<\/p>\n The publishers gathered over 100 biblical scholars from across two dozen denominations and from various ethnic backgrounds to translate the Bible from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts into plain English. The publishers also field tested the new edition among 500 readers from more than six dozen groups.<\/p>\n Some other changes include swapping out the words \u201calien\u201d or \u201cforeigner,\u201d used by some translations for passages such as Leviticus 19:33-34. Instead, the Common English Bible uses the term \u201cimmigrant.\u201d<\/p>\n The translation is also gender-inclusive, so Matthew 5:21-22 now warns, \u201cBut I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment.\u201d Older translations did not include “or sister.”<\/p>\n The Lord’s prayer now omits the King James Version’s \u201challowed be thy name,\u201d substituting \u201cuphold the holiness of your name,\u201d which doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but sounds more modern.<\/p>\n The Common English Bible also uses contractions, removing \u201cit is\u201d and substituting \u201cit’s\u201d instead.<\/p>\n The new translation cost about $3.5 million and four years to complete.<\/p>\n It is already available in digital format on a number of Bible applications and software.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Five shrinking denominations generally regarded as “liberal” now have their own translation of the Bible. \u201cThere are a number of translations available for conservative churches,\u201d spokesman Paul Franklyn told the Nashville Tennessean newspaper. Now, the liberal churches have theirs, the Common English Bible. Its translation from the original ancient texts was funded by the Church…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":2655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,71],"tags":[375,324,381],"class_list":["post-2378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bibles","category-news","tag-bible","tag-common-english-bible","tag-news"],"yoast_head":"\n