The New American Standard Bible reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
(provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

New American Standard Bible

 This article is part of the
History of the English Bible series.
 Old English Bible translations

 Middle English Bible translations

 John Wyclif

 William Tyndale

 Great Bible

 Bishops' Bible

 Geneva Bible

 Douai Bible

 King James Version 

 Modern English Bible translations

 Revised Version

 American Standard Version 

 Revised Standard Version 

 New American Standard Bible 

 New International Version 

 New King James Version 

 New Revised Standard Version 

 English Standard Version


The New American Standard Bible (NASB) is a translation of the Bible.  It is a literal translation of the Bible from the original Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew text.  There was no attempt by the translators to interpret the Bible.    The NASB version of the New Testament was published in 1963.  The first version of the NASB was published in 1971. A revision of the NASB was published in 1995.

The strength of the NASB is that it is an attempt at a literal translation without interpretation, and thus is closer to the words used in the original text.  The weakness of the NASB is that the wording and sentence structure can be confusing.  The NASB also sometimes fails to convey the intent of the author.

For example, a comparison of Psalm 66:1

NASB version:  "Shout joyfully to God, all the earth."

King James Version:  "Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands."

In this example, while the NASB version is more literally accurate, there is little doubt that the King James Version is much more poetic and perhaps closer to the intention of the author.


External Links