The New Revised Standard Version

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) was published under the authority of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America in 1989. The particular volume from which I am working is Zondervan's NRSV Reference Bible, which contains various types of previously published helps. My comments will be restricted to the text of the NRSV. Bruce Metzger, writing on behalf of the translation committee, set forth in his preface some of the changes made in this revision. The directive to the committee was "to continue in the tradition of the King James Bible, but to introduce such changes as are warranted on the basis of accuracy, clarity, euphony, and current English usage" (p. ix). More specifically, the committee sought to eliminate masculine-oriented language in keeping with modern societal attitudes, to remove the archaic second-person singular pronouns and their corresponding verb forms, and to bring the version into line with current English usage. Let us look in more detail at these changes.