The following is my transcription of Daniel Wallace’s comments on the New King James Bible in his lecture “Which Translation is Best” (comments on the NKJV start about 18 minutes and 14 seconds in).
“The New King James Version, done in 1982, is a curiosity. Now, I’m going to say some things that are negative about it. But the reason I’m saying this is because I worked on it. I was Arthur Farstad’s assistant for quite some time. He was the senior editor of the New King James Bible, and I did a lot of proofreading and a little bit of editing. And basically, the New King James takes exactly the same Greek and Hebrew texts as the King James Bible took, and gives them a modern translation. The kind of translation (they had a lot of scholars, a lot of these scholars worked on some of these other translations), the basic kind of translation that the New King James Version has is along the lines of the New American Standard. It’s not as elegant as the ESV; it’s not quite as rigid as the New American Standard Bible. The problem with it is its textual basis is so bad. Now, it’s not that it is heretical, it’s just -- why use a Bible that in 5000 places isn’t the word of God, when you can use one that is the word of God in those 5000 places? It just makes no sense to me, and yet Christian after Christian loves the New King James Bible and say – ‘Oh, but I just love this translation I know it’s inferior in terms of textual basis, but wherever it’s translated it’s really good.’ Then use an ESV and you have a much better textual basis and you’ve got great notes. It just troubles me that we want these things just because of how it sounds rather than because of the textual basis, on which it’s based. Again, I worked on the New King James Version. In fact, I was kind of the watchdog to make sure the translators were translating from the Textus Receptus. In one or two places they weren’t, they used a modern Greek text and I really nailed these guys. I said, ‘No, that’s not right. You’ve got to do the TR.’ So, not a single one of the translators, not a single one of the editors of the New King James Bible thinks that the Greek text that they translated is the best one available today. Not one of them. And over 100 scholars worked on this. They just wanted to do it so it was in line with the old King James, so, it’s a throwback, it’s a nostalgia thing that I just think we need to get past.” [18:14-20:24]
Next is the transcript provided by BiblicalTraining.org to go with the lesson. From that you can see that the above transcription is a spoken and expanded version of this:
“The New King James version of 1982 is a curiosity. I am going to say some negative things about it and I can say this because I worked on it. This Bible takes the same Greek and Hebrew text as the King James Bible and gives it a modern translation. The basic kind of translation that the New King James Version has is similar to the New American Standard. It isn’t as elegant as the ESV or as rigid as the NASB. The problem with it; its textual basis is so bad. Interestingly, none of the translators involved with the NKJV thought the manuscripts which they used were the best manuscripts to use and over a hundred scholars worked on this translation. They wanted it done in line with the old King James Version. It was a nostalgia thing that we need to get past.”
This material is worth considering because Daniel Wallace, who at the time worked on the NKJV as an assistant to the senior editor Arthur Farstad, relates some of its history and work-in-progress, even pointing out that none of the NKJV translators believed the Greek text basis they were using was really what they should use – and some even tried to use something other than what they were instructed to use. I have previously pointed out that the NKJV and NIV has several translators in common. Wallace indicates that some NKJV translators worked on more than just that one modern translation.
Dan Wallace is obviously very biased against the NKJV, and some of what he says needs to be seasoned with a few grains of salt. The (then) young whippersnapper’s assessment that “I really nailed these guys” trying to use the CT must be judged in light of the product – there are several places where the NKJV translation better matches other modern translations based on the Critical Text than the King James Version based on the Textus Receptus. Some of his “nails” apparently did not hold.
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