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Summary
- There is no official Baptist Bible: each congregation chooses its own translation, and neither the Baptist Faith and Message nor the 1689 London Baptist Confession names one.
- In a 2004 survey, Southern Baptist pastors split almost evenly between the NIV (26%), NKJV (25%), KJV (23%) and NASB (22%); 51% of other Baptist pastors used the King James Version.
- The Christian Standard Bible (2017), a revision of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004), is published by Holman Bible Publishers, a division of the Southern Baptist publisher Lifeway.
- In June 2011 Southern Baptist messengers resolved that “we cannot commend the 2011 NIV to Southern Baptists or the larger Christian community.”
- Many independent fundamental Baptist churches read only the King James Version, because they hold that God preserved the New Testament in the Greek Textus Receptus; views among them range from “the best English translation” to calling the 1611 text perfect.
- The Reina-Valera 1960 is the most widely used Spanish evangelical Bible and appears to be the usual one in Spanish-speaking Baptist churches; some that hold the King James view use the Reina-Valera-Gómez instead.
- Baptist missionary Bibles that translated baptizo by a word meaning to immerse, Adoniram Judson’s Burmese Bible among them, led Baptists to leave the American Bible Society and form their own Bible society in 1837.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotation from the King James Version, via BibleGateway: Matthew 24:35. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A35&version=KJV
- Southern Baptist Convention, The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (as amended 2023), Article I, “The Scriptures,” and Article VI, “The Church.” https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/
- Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), Chapter 1, “Of the Holy Scriptures,” paragraph 8. https://www.the1689confession.com/1689/chapter-1
- Southern Baptist Convention, resolution “On the Gender-Neutral 2011 New International Version,” Phoenix, June 2011. https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-the-gender-neutral-2011-new-international-version/
- Michael Foust, “Most pastors use the NIV, KJV Bibles, study suggests,” Baptist Press, 6 May 2004 (Ellison Research survey of 700 pastors for Facts & Trends). https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/most-pastors-use-the-niv-kjv-bibles-study-suggests/
- Aaron Earls, “LifeWay releases new Christian Standard Bible,” Baptist Press, 19 January 2017. https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/lifeway-releases-new-christian-standard-bible/
- Holman Bible Publishers and Lifeway, “Questions and Answers: Christian Standard Bible” and “Retailer Talking Points” (2017). https://csbible.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Retailer-FAQ-TalkingPoints-1.pdf
- BibleGateway, version information and copyright pages for the Holman Christian Standard Bible and the Christian Standard Bible. https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/Christian-Standard-Bible-CSB/
- Michael D. Marlowe, “The Holman Christian Standard Bible,” Bible Research (2004, revised 2011), for the HCSB’s origin and publication dates. https://bible-researcher.com/csb.html
- Ambassador Baptist College, Doctrinal Statement, and “Ambassador and the Bible.” https://www.ambassadors.edu/doctrinal-statement and https://www.ambassadors.edu/post/ambassador-and-the-bible
- BibleGateway, “Reina-Valera 1960 (RVR1960),” version information and copyright (American Bible Society; Sociedades Bíblicas en América Latina, 1960). https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/Reina-Valera-1960-RVR1960-Biblia/
- Lifeway, product pages for B&H Español’s Reina-Valera 1960 children’s and study Bibles. https://www.lifeway.com/en/product/rvr-1960-biblia-para-ninos-exploradores-PM00101543
- Calvin George, Literatura Bautista: “An analysis of the text of the RVG Spanish Bible,” “Critique of new RVG-only book God’s Bible in Spanish,” and “Critique of Gomez Spanish Bible conference of November 2007.” https://en.literaturabautista.com/analysis-text-rvg-spanish-bible
- Henry C. Vedder, A Short History of the Baptists (1907), pp. 336–340, “The Bible Translation Controversy.” https://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/bible.trans.contr.vedder.html
- “Judson, Adoniram (1788–1850),” History of Missiology, Boston University School of Theology. https://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/i-k/judson-adoniram-1788-1850
- Southern Baptist Convention, “Resolution On Bible Translation,” Dallas, June 1997. https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-bible-translation/
- Crossway, Preface to the English Standard Version (Masoretic text as its Old Testament basis). https://www.esv.org/preface/
- BibleGateway, list of Bible versions (Spanish: NVI, NTV, LBLA, RVR1960). https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/
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