New Century Version

The New Century Version emerged from the same translation project as the International Children's Bible, which serves as its predecessor and base translation, and it raised the reading level and style of that work for general readers rather than for children alone. A complete Bible, it was translated from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, taking original-language critical texts as its base text, and it follows a functional, readable translation philosophy in the tradition of twentieth-century efforts to render Scripture in plain, contemporary English. It is best categorized as a substantial revision of the ICB project rather than an independent translation. Among its distinctive features, a 1991 revision made further changes to style and gender language. Like other simplified-English versions of its era, it has circulated widely in devotional and study editions aimed at readers new to the Bible.