Translations

Sorry for not getting back to this in several days. It was my wife's birthday, among other things going on.

Let me start by answering Kurt's question about Bible Translations and Mark M's comment on the KJV.

The Bible is God's Word. A good Bible translation is also God's Word. None of the following is meant to, in anyway, take away from that fact. They all should be treated with respect, even if they have proven errors in the translation work. I have yet to see a translation error that changes big D doctrine or isn't addressed by good commentaries and pastors.

I use BHS for the Hebrew Bible and UBS4thRev. For the Greek Bible. However, since my Hebrew and Greek aren't the greatest in the world, I have to resort to the next best thing most of the time, the NASB 1995 update edition. But that's a translation for us scholar types.

When I judge a translation, I look at several things. First, does it do what it says it's purpose is in the Preface/introduction to the translation? Second, is the purpose it was written for valid? Third, is it accurate within the scope of it's purpose?

There are four kinds of translations. One is the Dynamic equivalence, which has been very popular in the last thirty years or so. Another one is the Formal equivalence, which has been the traditional way of doing translation work. The third one is the Historical equivalence (or "Split The Difference"), which is becoming popular of late. And the last one is the Paraphrase. And there are three different Greek texts used to translate from into English. The United Bible Society / Nestle-Alut Greek (USB/NA, sometimes just referred to as UN Greek) also known as the Wescott-Hort text (or Eastern text). The TR (Textus Receptus) or Byzantine or Western text. And the Majority text. Without getting too technical, the UN text is based upon the oldest manuscripts we have. The TR is based upon the majority to texts we had back in the 1500's. And the Majority text is based upon the majority of texts we have today. Everyone uses the same Hebrew text, the Maseretic, published in bible's Hebraica Stugarnesia (I'm sure I'm butchering the spelling), or BHS as it's called.

To understand these translation types you need to understand the idea of Freedom in translation work. A Paraphrase is very Free, in that the translator is free to change the text around and communicate to the reader what the translator thinks the passage is saying. Kenneth Taylor's The Living Bible ("The Book") is a paraphrase, as is Eugene Peterson's The Message.

A Dynamic equivalent takes the idea of translating the original language into English in "thought by thought" chunks. So it is not as free as a Paraphrase, but not as rigid as a Formal equivalence. Depending on the purpose of the translation and the reader level they are shooting for, will determine how Free the translators are. Most of the more popular translations out there are Dynamic equivalent. The most popular being the New International Version. You can see the bias in the NIV in various places. It was started by the Reformed Church of America and then passed off to the International Bible Society, and is very biased toward the RCAs theological positions on things. Not that it is necessarily a bad thing in most cases. Other Dynamic equivalence translations are New Century Version, Today's English Version ("Good News for Modern Man"), Contemporary English Translation, and the New Living Translation are all Dynamic equivalent translations. Today's New International Version (TNIV) is a "Gender Neutral" translation, an update of the British New International Version, that tries to make all references to gender neutral, ie. "people" instead of "men", "Brothers and Sisters" instead of "Brothers", "One" instead of "He", etc. Not good English or translating in my opinion.

A Formal equivalent is just like it sounds, Formal. They try to translate Word for Word from the original language into English. Even keeping the original language sentence structures intact as best they can and yet make it readable in English. The first real Formal equivalence translation was the English Revised Version, which came out in 1881 as an update to the KJV that switched the base Greek text from TR to the Wescott-Hort Greek text, which by then had been proven to be more reliable. The American translators who worked on the ERV incorporated their variant readings of it into the American Standard Version in 1901. The ASV was then updated in the Revised Standard Version. The ASV was also updated in the New American Standard Bible, and The NASB had a major update to it in 1995. The English Standard Version is an update to the RSV, and came out in 2001. There are also some Formal equivalent translations out there that are not based on the KJV tradition, such as the New English transition (NET Bible). The NET Bible is cool in that it has over 60,000 footnotes to it and it's FREE! Personally, though, I like the NASB95. It is the most accurate as far as being word for word and following the original sentence structures in the Greek UBS/NA. But it's not a Bible for new believers are those with low reading levels, as it's written at the College Freshman reading level and uses some theological terminology that a lot of new believers are lower educated believers might not understand. But it is, hands down, the most accurate.

The Historical equivalence translations try to be "As Literal As Possible, as Free As Needed". The most popular and best selling of all the translations is the Authorized Version, commonly called the King James Version written in 1611. It has a lot of places where the translators were more Free and others where they are wooden literal. The last update to it was in 1769, the version in all our modern day KJV Bibles, and it used the TR Greek text, which was the best available at the time to protestant translators. It was the standard translation for protestant believers for 350 years. It had a great impact on society in general. Believe it or not, the Thee's and Thou's are actually great when doing a Bible Study as they inform the reader if it's a plural "you" or sigular "thee". But it also makes it hard to read if you don't understand the formal and informal, or sigular and plural word endings of Elizabethan English. And now there are some 300 words used in the KJV that have changed in meaning or are no longer part of the English language. A couple of them have the exact OPPOSITE meaning today that they did when the translation was done. So it's antiquity along with the inferior Greek text make it not a very good translation now. The New Revised Standard Version, and update to the RSV, is probably the second most popular Historical equivalence translation, being the main translation of the so called "Main Line" churches in America. It made use of the UBS/NA Greek and many on the translation committee were also part of the UBS editorial committee. The main problem with the NRSV is that it doesn't follow the original language in reference to gender in all places. For example, it translates adelpho as "Brothers and Sisters", instead of it's literal "Brothers". It was the first of what is called the "Gender Neutral" translations. The New King James Version is probably just as popular as the NRSV, as Historical equivalent translations go. It uses the Majority Text as it's base for the Greek New Testament. However, it footnotes all of the UN and TR differences. What is impressive is the footnotes in the NKJV. Also, the Nelson Study Bible, the premiere NKJV Bible, is probably the best Study Bible on the market today. Another Historical equivalence translation is the new Holman Christian Standard Bible. The HCSB was produced by Holman Publishing in cooperation with LifeWays ministries, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. I like to call it the Southern Baptist Translation. Lifeway now doesn't have to pay royalties to use it in all their Sunday school and teaching materials. I use HCSB for my "Sunday go-to meetin'" Bible, as it's small, compact, and I can easily follow along with whatever translations is being read. It's kind of like they took the NIV, NASB, and NKJV and pasted them together into one Bible. And I have NASB95 along with my Greek and Hebrew tools all on my Palm tungsten E, so if need be I can look stuff up at church.

Okay, all that to simply say; KJV is terrible, NIV is Biased, HCSB is great for church, the NKJV Nelson Study Bible is the best Study Bible on the market, and the NASB95 is near perfect.

First Blog

Okay, this is my first stab at a blog. What do I talk about? Hmm... I could talk about how the main stream media is ignoring the fact that WMD was found in Iraq. Or I could talk about how we need to get control of the borders. Or I could talk about marketing in the pen & paper role playing game industry is killing itself. Or I could talk about all the TV show I used to watch and why I don't watch them anymore. Or I could talk about sily personal stuff like how our cats seem to like me more then my wife for some strange reason. Or how I got my Sub-Woofer finally installed in the Hyundi (had to pull the entire dash!). Or I could talk about the new heresy that's been creeping into the church, that has no name as of yet, excpet to say that it's embracing works for salvation, only from a reformed perspective (scary). Or I could rant about how terrible translations KJV, NKJV, and NIV are. OR, I could be positive! But is "Positive" really all that fun to read and/or blog about??