Berkeley Version

The Modern Language Bible - The New Berkeley Version was published by Zondervan in 1958 with its New Testament having appeared earlier in 1945. Today it is more widely known as the Modern Language Bible. The translators and publishers stated goal was to create a plain English translation of the Bible that communicated, as accurately as possible, the original meaning of the text. To quote the editor-in-chief of the project, Gerrit Verkuyl, “The conviction that God wants His truth conveyed to His offspring in the language in which they think and live led me to produce the Berkeley Version (BV) of the New Testament. For I grew increasingly aware that the King James Version (AV) is only, in part, the language of our people."