The Basic Tool: A Good Translation

*Taken from How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth

Most people don’t know Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, so we need a good (a couple good) translations

What factors should be considered in choosing a translation?

The Science of Translation

Which text should be used?
There are 5,000 different Greek manuscripts
Medieval copies are similar to each other, but are different than the earliest copies and translations

Textual Criticism (textual analysis)
External evidence—quality and age of the manuscripts
Internal evidence--Copyists and authors

Textual concerns

1. 1 Sam 8:16
Your menservants and maidservants,
your goodliest young men and your asses ----KJV

from a medieval Hebrew text

Your menservants and maidservants
and the best of your cattle and donkeys ----NIV

from the older Septuagint (Greek) text

-------One letter difference in Hebrew

2. Mark 1:2
As it is written in the prophets --KJV

It is written in Isaiah the prophet--NIV

--(in all the best early Greek manuscripts)

Verses from Isaiah and Malachi follow, so it seems that one of the scribes wanted to indicate that.

3. I Cor 11:29
He that eateth and drinketh unworthily…not discerning...---KJV

Anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing…--- NIV

(unworthily not found in the earliest and best Greek texts—but it is in v. 27 in both texts)

Textus Receptus— the only Greek text available to the translators of the 1611 King James Version. It was quite a late text. We now have access to many earlier manuscripts. This is why most all evangelical scholarship supports versions which don’t depend on the textus receptus.

Questions of Language

Historical distance:
Lamp = flashlight?
Holy kiss = handshake of Christian love?

1. Literal: Keep the words and phrasing the same
2. Free: translate the ideas into a modern context
3. Dynamic Equivalence: language, grammar and style are updated, historical items stay the same

2 Cor 5:16

Literal Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. --NASB

Dynamic Equivalence So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. --NIV

Free Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore.--The Message


Isaiah 5:10

“For ten acres of vineyard will yield only one bath of wine,
And a homer of seed will yield but an ephah of grain.” ---NASB

The grapevines growing on five acres of land will yield only five gallons of wine.
Ten bushels of seed will produce only one bushel of grain." ---GNT

Matthew 18:24, 28

…ten thousand talents
…a hundred denarii…--NASB

…millions of dollars
…a few dollars…--GNT

Fee and Stuart’s recommendations on translations—
one from each category

1. NIV; GNB; NAB (Dynamic equivalence)
2. NASB; RSV; NRSV (More literal)
3. NEB; JB (a little freer)

Why isn’t one translation enough?

1 Cor. 7:36
But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin… (KJV)

But if any man thinks that he is acting unbecomingly toward his virgin daughter…(NASB)

If anyone thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to… (NIV)

If a man has a partner in celibacy and feels that he is not behaving properly towards her… (NEB)