The Lockman Foundation just released the a major update to the New American Standard Bible (NASB), and I’ve attempted to provide a summary of the changes here (similar to the NIV 2011 changes I posted a while back):
NASB 2020 Update Information
The first full release of the NASB came in 1971 (the NT was released in 1963), then there was a major update in 1995, and this update is called the NASB 2020. Lockman describes their translation philosophy as “formal equivalence” which “translates word-for-word from the original languages as much as possible” while still recognizing “the need for the translation to be readable.”
The 2020 update “improves accuracy where possible, modernizes language, and improves readability.” Lockman has a more detailed page describing the NASB 2020 updates, including a detailed exploration of their updated philosophy on translating gender. For example, does the Hebrew (אדמ, adam) or Greek (ἄνθρωπος, ánthrōpos) works which can be literally translated as “man” refer generically to a “person” or specifically to a “male human”?
Changes Preview
On the technical side, I used node.js and the Diff library to process the changes.
Here is what the overall table with each book looks like:
| Book Name | Verses | Changed | % | Words | Changed | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 31103 | 23495 | 75.54% | 805472 | 66777 | 8.29% |
| Genesis | 1533 | 1116 | 72.80% | 29877 | 3216 | 10.76% |
| Exodus | 1213 | 886 | 73.04% | 25471 | 2541 | 9.98% |
And you can see the changes in each verse similar to this:
Genesis 1:21 – And God created the great sea monsterscreatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, afteraccording to their kind, and every winged bird afteraccording to its kind; and God saw that it was good.
Ephesians 1:5 – He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kindgood intentionpleasure of His will.