NIV and NKJV common translators

While doing some of the research on the New King James Version (NKJV) translation, I ran across a statement about the translators in What Today’s Christian Needs to Know about the New King James Version. The booklet mentions that “Interestingly enough, there were nine scholars who worked on both the NKJV and the New International Version” (p. 2).

The booklet does not mention who are the nine. I looked through some lists and found seven names in common:

1. Edward M. Blaiklock, University of Auckland
2. Lewis A. Foster, Cincinnati Bible Seminary
3. Louis Goldberg, Moody Bible Institute
4. Roland K. Harrison, Wycliffe College, Toronto
5. Meredith G. Kline, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
6. G. Herbert Livingston, Asbury Theological Seminary
7. Charles C. Ryrie, Dallas Theological Seminary

To make the comparisons between committees, I looked at The NIV Committee on Bible Translation and New King James Version at Bible Researcher, as well as NKJV Translators at Darkness to Light/Zeolla.org. The “NKJV Teams” (translators, reviewers, consultants, and editors) are listed in “Appendices A-D,” on pages 141-159 of The New King James Version: In the Great Tradition by Arthur L. Farstad.

Ryrie’s tenure with the NIV and NKJV would not have been at the same time, but he did work on both. He is listed as an NIV translator who resigned in 1977, and served on the NKJV review committee created in 1984. Livingston is listed as an NIV translator, and worked on the OT review committee for the NKJV. Blaiklock was a translator on the NKJV, and a consultant on the NIV. The other four apparently worked as translators on both projects. However, Harrison’s NKJV translation work seems to have been in 1984, though he had previously worked as a reviewer of the NKJV Old Testament.  

I did not find the other two, though I could have simply missed them. My list is at seven, while theirs is at nine. The author may have worked from other lists of translators that were slightly different from those I found. On the other hand, there might be two people mistaken as the same person. For example, Alfred Martin and Alvin Martin could have been mistook as the same person, either by the researcher or perhaps on some lists.

Yes, it is interesting to find some of the translators on both committees of these two very different Bible projects. The booklet referred to above concluded “it is difficult to understand how these men could work on both translations.” Or, perhaps not, since the NKJV translators were not committed proponents of the Textus Receptus, but rather preferred either the Critical Text or Majority Text.