Contemporary English Version(CEV)

The Contemporary English Version grew out of research Dr. Barclay M. Newman began in 1984 for the American Bible Society, studying how ordinary English is actually spoken and heard — in books, magazines, television, and everyday conversation — rather than how it's written for silent, literate readers. The New Testament was published in 1991, for the American Bible Society's 175th anniversary, and the complete Bible followed in 1995. A lightly revised second edition followed in 2006.

The CEV's own introduction sets the goal: a text that an inexperienced reader "can read aloud without stumbling," and that a listener unfamiliar with traditional Bible vocabulary can follow on one hearing. That put the hearer — not just the silent reader — at the center of the translation, down to details like avoiding tongue-twisting phrases and breaking poetry lines where a reader naturally pauses.

Like its ABS sibling the Good News Translation, the CEV uses a dynamic, thought-for-thought approach, translated from the standard Hebrew and Greek texts published by the United Bible Societies. Its drafts were reviewed by biblical scholars, theologians, and educators from a wide range of church traditions, by the English-speaking Bible Societies, and by more than forty United Bible Societies translation consultants.

On gender language, the CEV takes an inclusive approach, translating generic references to people — “everyone,” “humans,” “men and women” — rather than defaulting to generic masculine terms wherever the original addresses people in general rather than a specific man.