Good News Bible | |
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The international cover of the Good News Bible, used since 2004.
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Full name | Good News Bible |
Other names | Good News Translation, Today's English Version |
Abbreviation | GNB (or GNT/TEV) |
OT published | 1976 |
NT published | 1966 |
Complete Bible published |
1976 |
Textual basis | Medium Correspondence to Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece 27th edition |
Translation type | Dynamic equivalence |
Publisher | Bible Societies, HarperCollins |
Copyright | American Bible Society 1966, 1971, 1976, 1979 (Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha), 1992; Anglicizations British and Foreign Bible Society 1994 |
In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water. Then God commanded, "Let there be light" — and light appeared.
For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.
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The Good News Bible (GNB), also called the Good News Translation (GNT) in the United States, is an English translation of the Bible by the American Bible Society. It was first published as the New Testament under the name Good News for Modern Man in 1966. It was anglicised into British English by the British and Foreign Bible Society with the use of metric measurements for the Commonwealth market. It was formerly known as Today's English Version (TEV), but in 2001 was renamed the Good News Translation in the U.S., because the American Bible Society wished to improve the GNB's image as a "translation" where it had a public perception as a "paraphrase." Despite the official terminology, it is still often referred to as the Good News Bible in the United States. It is published by HarperCollins, a subsidiary of News Corp.
The beginnings of the Good News Bible can be traced to requests made by people in Africa and the Far East for a version of the Bible that was friendly to non-native English speakers. In 1961, a home missions board also made a request for the same type of translation. Besides these requests, the GNB was born out of the translation theories of linguist Eugene Nida, the Executive Secretary of the American Bible Society's Translations Department. In the 1960s, Nida envisioned a new style of translation called Dynamic equivalence. That is, the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek would be expressed in a translation "thought for thought" rather than "word for word". The dynamic theory was inspired by a Spanish translation for Latin American native peoples. The American Bible Society, impressed with Nida's theories, decided to use them. Due to these requests and Nida's theories, Robert Bratcher (who was at that time a staffer at the American Bible Society) did a sample translation of the Gospel of Mark. This later led to a translation of the full New Testament. The result, titled Good News for Modern Man: The New Testament in Today's English Version, was released in 1966 as a 599-page paperback with a publication date of January 1, 1966. It received a mass marketing effort with copies even being made available through grocery store chains.