Money, money, money, mun-ne

Peter Gurry on translations:

On John Piper’s Desiring God site, “The Word Increased and Multiplied: Grasping the Complexities of Bible Translation,” by Peter Gurry, who is an Associate Professor of New Testament at Phoenix Seminary.

Multitude of English language translations.

Gurry notes that “one scholar writing in 1925 catalogued over one hundred English Bible translations in whole or in part” (John V. Madison, “English Versions of the New Testament: A Bibliographical List,” Journal of Biblical Literature, No. 44 (1925): 261–88). He says that there are several reasons for this.

“The English language has the most Bible translations available of any language in history. Such variety is due to a number of factors, including differences in theological convictions and translation philosophy, new manuscript discoveries, a desire to reach broader audiences, and the financial needs of publishers.”

Notice that one factor is the financial needs of publishers.

Money.

Gurry discusses a few things regarding Bible publishing and money. On the one hand, a Bible translation success is potentially a financial boon for a publisher. Of course, a failure is not.

“One final motivation for new translations is financial. Publishing is a fickle business. Major publishers survive the risks in large part thanks to their backlist. These are books that have already come out and that keep selling. They can include everything from coloring books to classic bestsellers like Lord of the Rings. They also include the Bible. In a recent court case, the CEO of HarperCollins, one of the five big US publishing houses, which owns Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, revealed that Bible sales account for $80 million of their business. So there is significant potential to be gained if a publisher owns the rights to a popular Bible translation. But there are also no guarantees, and new translations do flop (as the TNIV did). Like other books, a Bible translation is a gamble — sometimes a very expensive one. By the time the NIV was finally released in the 1970s, its editorial costs were estimated to be around $8 million ($40 million in today’s dollars).”

Another part of this issue is groups trying to save money by publishing their own Bibles. This releases the group from paying substantial fees for the use of another publishers Bible.

“Translations can make money, but they can also save it. Very few of us notice an important page in our Bibles that precedes Genesis 1:1 because it’s tucked away between the title page and the table of contents. It’s the copyright page. The copyright page says who owns the translation, but it also specifies how much of the translation can be quoted before permission must be sought. My NIV puts the number at 500 verses, whereas my ESV puts it at 250. For most of us, these restrictions never apply and do not matter. But for publishers that sell Bible-study curricula, VBS material, commentaries, and the like, these limits matter a lot. Even when permission is granted, it may come with the need to pay royalties, and these cut into a publisher’s bottom line. So, it is often in a publisher’s own interest to have the rights to their own translation, and many do. Crossway owns the ESV, Zondervan owns exclusive rights to publish the NIV, Broadman and Holman owns the CSB, and Tyndale House Publishers owns the NLT. Each of these has their own set of Bible-study resources that use their own translation. It saves money.”

Gurry works to diminish the liability of admitting to publishing Bibles for financial reasons, writing about a publisher’s ongoing expenses and publishers putting some profits into translation into other languages. Nevertheless,“In any case, financial incentives certainly explain the increase in translation options. As long as people buy new translations, publishers will supply them.”

Gurry is a proponent of multiple translations, so his calling out financial issues is soft. We English-speakers – and especially Americans – ought not think of the proliferation of English translation as an embarrassment of riches, but just an embarrassment, period! We are spoiled, impulsive, and wasteful people.

The kings and priests in the Lord’s churches ought to consider the gravity of multiplying hundreds of translations to ourselves while some languages do not even have one. And the pillar and ground of truth ought also consider the neglect of our farming out the publishing of God’s word to financial interests.