Good News Bible - Criticism

Criticism

The GNB has been challenged as to the degree of accuracy one of the translators maintained to the Greek texts. Concern was raised in the USA after Robert Bratcher made public statements questioning the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture in March 1981, as well as deriding those who hold such views as dishonest or wilfully ignorant. Some people think that Bratcher's viewpoints unduly influenced what was written into the GNB. His speech so outraged many churches that they withheld monetary donations to the American Bible Society, a move that nearly bankrupted the ABS. The ABS requested Bratcher's resignation later that year.

Further statements from Bratcher and subsequent investigation of the GNB cause some to believe that it weakens or undermines other key doctrines, such as the virgin birth of Christ; it failed the "Isaiah 7:14 litmus test"—i.e. translated the passage with "young woman" instead of "virgin"—that had been used by conservative Christians since the publication of the Revised Standard Version in 1952 (see Revised Standard Version#Reception and controversy). Others emphasize that Bratcher was only part of a committee of translators, and that this attack is simply an attempt to support the view held by some that "literal translations, especially the King James Version, are God's word, and all dynamic translations are evil", typified by the King-James-Only Movement.

The GNB has also come under heavy criticism from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church for substituting the designation "Sudan" (originally referring to Western Africa) in place of the original word Kush in Hebrew, Aethiopia in the Septuagint.. This is because in the Bible the term Ethiopia refers mainly to the Upper Nile regions south of Egypt, including what are now Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan, whereas the name Sudan was never applied in Biblical times and only denotes a modern day political entity.