Building the Bible · Stop 7 of 9
Stop 7. Four Bibles on one shelf
Put four Bibles side by side: a Catholic Bible, the KJV, the NIV and the NET. For the Catholic Bible we used the NABRE, the New American Bible Revised Edition, whose text the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference posts online. Where the old Catholic English Bible, the Douay-Rheims, says something different, we say so.
Why would they differ at all? There are three reasons, and each one belongs to a part of the tree. Sometimes the copies themselves differ. Sometimes the translators chose different English words for the same Greek or Hebrew. And sometimes an old Latin Bible stood in the middle. The Douay-Rheims was made from the Latin Bible, not straight from Hebrew and Greek.
One warning about the Douay-Rheims: it is a translation of a translation. Jerome turned the Hebrew and Greek into Latin around the year 400. Then the English scholars at Rheims and Douay turned that Latin into English. Their title pages say it was translated "out of the authentical Latin" and checked against the Greek, and for the Old Testament against the Hebrew. Every step loses some fidelity. Most people read Challoner's revision of 1749 to 1752, which borrowed much of its wording from the KJV and was checked against the Latin, so the tables below are not pure 1582 English. So when the Douay-Rheims differs from the others, it tells you what the Latin said. It does not always tell you what the Hebrew or Greek said. The NABRE is not made this way. Look for the label "(from Latin)" in the tables below.
Who crushes the serpent's head? (Genesis 3:15)
| Bible | What it says |
|---|---|
| KJV | "it shall bruise thy head" |
| NIV | "he will crush your head" |
| NET | "her offspring will attack your head" |
| NABRE | "they will strike at your head" |
| Douay-Rheims (from Latin) | "she shall crush thy head" |
The Hebrew word here is "he." The old Latin Bible had "she," and the Douay-Rheims followed the Latin. Many Catholics link the "woman" to Mary. The Latin Bible the Vatican approved in 1979, the Nova Vulgata, reads "ipsum," which is neuter and agrees with the Latin word for "offspring." The NABRE uses "they."
Virgin or young woman? (Isaiah 7:14)
| Bible | What it says |
|---|---|
| KJV | "a virgin shall conceive" |
| NIV | "The virgin will conceive" (footnote: "Or young woman") |
| NET | "this young woman is about to conceive" |
| NABRE | "the young woman, pregnant and about to bear a son" |
The Hebrew word means a young woman. The Greek Old Testament translated it "virgin," and Matthew quotes it that way in his first chapter. So this difference is a choice between two roots. The NET adds a note saying the young woman was probably someone present at the scene.
Repent or do penance? (Matthew 3:2)
| Bible | What it says |
|---|---|
| KJV | "Repent ye" |
| NIV | "Repent" |
| NET | "Repent" |
| NABRE | "Repent" |
| Douay-Rheims (from Latin) | "Do penance" |
Here the Catholic and the Protestant Bibles do not split. The old Douay-Rheims stands alone, because the Latin Bible said "do penance." The Greek word means a change of mind. The modern Catholic Bible says "Repent," like the rest.
The gates of hell? (Matthew 16:18)
| Bible | What it says |
|---|---|
| KJV | "the gates of hell" |
| NIV | "the gates of Hades" |
| NET | "the gates of Hades" |
| NABRE | "the gates of the netherworld" |
| Douay-Rheims (from Latin) | "the gates of hell" |
The Greek word is Hades, the place of the dead. The KJV and the Douay-Rheims both said "hell." The newer Bibles keep "Hades" or say "netherworld." Notice what does not change. All four Bibles read "on this rock I will build my church." The fight over who the rock is comes from how people read the verse, not from how the Bibles translate it.
Prayer and fasting? (Mark 9:29)
A father brings his son to Jesus. The disciples could not cast out the demon. Jesus tells them how it is done.
| Bible | What it says |
|---|---|
| KJV | "by nothing, but by prayer and fasting" |
| NIV | "only by prayer" |
| NET | "only by prayer" |
| NABRE | "only come out through prayer" |
| Douay-Rheims (from Latin) | "by nothing, but by prayer and fasting" |
Here the KJV and the old Catholic Bible agree, and the modern Catholic Bible sides with the NIV and the NET. (In the Douay-Rheims this verse is numbered Mark 9:28.) The reason is the copies. Codex Vaticanus and the first writer of Codex Sinaiticus, two of the oldest big Greek Bibles, did not have "and fasting." A later hand added it in Sinaiticus. Other Greek copies have it, among them Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Bezae, and so does Jerome's Latin Bible. The KJV follows the later Greek. The Douay-Rheims follows the Latin. The NIV, the NET and the NABRE follow the older Greek. The Latin is still useful as a witness, because it shows what kind of copies Jerome had. But it cannot show us the Greek word for word.
The same saying shows up in Matthew 17:21. The KJV has it. The NIV leaves out the whole verse, and many scholars think a copyist added it to Matthew from Mark. None of this takes fasting out of the Bible. Jesus talks about fasting in Matthew 6:16 to 18, in every one of these Bibles. What changes is whether Jesus said it here, at this healing.
Where the copies differ, not just the words. These are the verses from Stop 6 and the tracer. At 1 John 5:7 and 8 and at Acts 8:37, the KJV has words that the NIV and the NET leave out. At Deuteronomy 32:8, the KJV and the NIV follow the standard Hebrew, and the NET follows the older reading, "heavenly assembly." At Isaiah 53:11, the NIV follows the Scrolls and the Greek, and the KJV and the NET follow the standard Hebrew. The NABRE follows the older reading at Deuteronomy 32:8 and at Isaiah 53:11, and its notes at Isaiah 53:11 do not tell you about it.
One difference is not about words. The Catholic Bible has 73 books, and the KJV, the NIV and the NET have 66. The extra books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, plus additions to Esther and Daniel.
So what does the shelf show? Most of the differences people argue about are not Catholic against Protestant. Many come from old Latin against modern translation. Others come from a choice between two roots. A few come from the copies themselves. Knowing which kind of difference you are looking at is half the answer.
The tracer chart and table: eight verses in ten Bibles
The tree as text
Title and subtitle
- The Bible Tree. Every Bible on the shelf grows from the same roots. The Old Testament is where the branches split, most sharply in the 1500s.
Roots (below ground: no original survives, the deeper the root the older the copy)
Old Testament roots, Hebrew and Aramaic:
- Dead Sea Scrolls, 250 BC to AD 68. Checked by modern Bibles at hard spots.
- Septuagint, Greek, 3rd to 2nd century BC. Main text of the Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles.
- Masoretic Text, Hebrew, AD 9th to 11th century. Main text of the KJV line and most Protestant Bibles.
New Testament roots, Greek:
- Later Greek copies, most of what survives. Main text of the KJV line and the Orthodox Bibles.
- Great codices, 4th century. Weighed by modern Bibles, not the KJV.
- Earliest papyri, about AD 125 to 250. Weighed by modern Bibles, not the KJV.
Trunk, the 4th century
- 27 New Testament books named (AD 367).
- Jerome's Latin Bible written (c. 383 to 405).
Four branches
Ethiopian, 81 books (by tradition; Geʿez, from the Greek):
- Geʿez Bible, 4th to 6th century
- Amharic Bible
Orthodox, about 76 to 77 books (Greek Old Testament):
- Brenton, 1800s
- NETS, 2007
- Orthodox Study Bible, 2008
Catholic, 73 books (Latin Bible, longer Old Testament). Jerome's Latin Bible, itself translated from Hebrew and Greek, stands two steps from the roots:
- Douay-Rheims *
- NABRE, 2011
- Catholic American, 2027
Protestant, 66 books (1500s: back to Hebrew and Greek). It splits into three twigs:
Received Text line (KJV tradition):
- King James, 1611
- NKJV, 1982
- Reina-Valera, 1960
Revised line (from the ASV, 1901):
- Living Bible
- RSV, 1952
- AMP, 1965
- NASB, 1971
- NRSV, 1989
- ESV, 2001
Fresh translations (from the originals):
- NET, 2005 (the project's text)
- CSB, 2017
- CEB, 2011
- NLT, 1996
- NIV, 1978
- CEV, 1995
- The Message, 2002
- Good News
- NIV Reader's
The box on the picture, "Where each branch gets its text" (v101: redrawn and checked; explained in Stop 4)
- Received Text line (KJV, NKJV, Reina-Valera): Old Testament from the Masoretic Text, the standard Hebrew text; New Testament from later Greek copies, the 1516 Erasmus text.
- Revised and fresh Bibles (ESV, NIV, NET, NLT and others): Old Testament from the Masoretic Text, with the Scrolls and Greek checked at hard spots; New Testament from papyri, codices and later copies weighed against each other.
- The NET (this project's text): Old Testament from Biblia Hebraica (Masoretic), with corrections from other witnesses; New Testament from a Greek text weighing all copies, departing in places from NA27.
- Older Catholic Bibles (Douay-Rheims): both Testaments from Jerome's Latin Bible, itself a translation.
- Modern Catholic Bibles (NABRE): Old Testament from the Hebrew, with Scrolls and Greek checked; New Testament from Greek copies, weighed.
- Orthodox Bibles: Old Testament from the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint); New Testament from later Greek (Byzantine) copies.
- Ethiopian Bible: Old Testament from the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint); New Testament from Greek.
- Under the box: The KJV never saw the Scrolls (found 1947) or the oldest Greek codices (1844 and later).
Notes at the foot of the picture
- * The Douay-Rheims is English made from the Latin Bible, which was itself translated from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. That is two steps from the roots, and each step can lose fidelity. Modern Catholic Bibles go to the roots.
- Leaves are translations; years are first publication, and 2027 is an expected date. Orthodox and Ethiopian branches are shown from the Greek Old Testament (Asale 2016; Orthodox Study Bible introduction).
- Canon counts: Bible Gateway (2026); the Ethiopian 81 is a tradition (Asale 2016). Roots and trunk: project sources and Bible Gateway. Lines checked 2026-10-27; see the sources page. Not shown: Syriac, Coptic and Armenian Bibles.
How to read the leaves (the box at the right of the trunk)
- A revision grows from an older English Bible: KJV, 1611 leads to NKJV, 1982.
- A fresh translation goes straight to the roots: Hebrew roots and Greek roots lead to the NET. No English Bible stands between them.
- Leaves on one twig share roots. They are not copies of each other, and their order on the twig means nothing.
Boxes on the picture
- 1. One trunk: by the 4th century the church had named the same 27 New Testament books. The Old Testament list is where the branches differ.
- 2. The Scrolls changed the roots: found from 1947, they show the Hebrew text in more than one form. Some Bibles follow them where the Masoretic Text differs.
- 3. The NET is a fresh leaf: made from Hebrew and Greek, not from an older English Bible. Its notes show where the roots disagree. A gold star and the words "The NET is here" mark its leaf.