Category: Bible Translation

Find out what our partners at the Institute for Bible Reading are talking about and visit ImmerseBible.com to learn more about the Immerse Bible Reading Experience. Read Part 5 of the 6 part series by Bible Scholar Glenn Paauw.

Editors Note: From “No Bible” to “Know Bible” is a 6-part series on the path toward great Bible engagement.

What does it mean to receive the Bible on its own terms? Dynamic, living Bible engagement happens when a community:

• has good access to a well-translated text presented in its natural literary forms,
• regularly feasts together on whole literary units understood in context,
• understands the overall story of the Bible as centered in Jesus, and
• accepts the invitation to take up its own role in God’s ongoing drama of restoration through
  the power of the Spirit.

When the Scriptures are received on their own terms like this they can once again become God’s speech act—instructing, revealing, convicting, judging, comforting, healing, and saving with all their intended power

Part 5: The Heart of the Matter—The Story of God and Us

We’ve been proposing that there are several steps to reaching the goal of great Bible engagement. Everything from the physical presentation to the reading of whole books, and from experiencing the Bible in community to taking note of the Bible’s various contexts. But here’s the single biggest factor: reading the Bible as the grand adventure God made it to be.

All those books in the Bible come together to narrate the world. In concert, they take us through all those ups and downs—big moves forward and devastating setbacks and losses—to disclose the big shape of the story. We learn the beauty and glory of God’s intention in creation, the failure and darkness of human rebellion, and then the long, slow road back to the redemption and flourishing of God’s entire creation.

There are of course lots and lots of messages, big and small, throughout the Bible. We can learn particular truths about all kinds of things—from the proper worship of God to getting along with our neighbors. But overall, the Bible has one exceedingly great goal: to tell us how things are with God and his world.

More than anything else, the Bible is a story.

This has all kinds of implications.

Jesus was once questioned by an expert in the law about what must be done to gain a share in the world to come. Jesus answered the question with one of his own: “What does the Law of Moses say? How do you read it?”

That indeed is the question for us too: How do you read it?

Jesus is teaching us something crucial about the Scriptures right here. The Bible is not some collection of words that simply jump off the page and communicate by themselves. We have to read and interpret them. And we have to read and interpret them well for them to do their proper work in us. Jesus’ question implies there are options.

Unfortunately, many of our current options for reading and interpreting fail to provide the full and compelling meaning the Bible is offering. Too often the Bible is treated in a piecemeal fashion, as if it were a handy reference book for looking up short, infallible answers to all our questions.

But there’s a better way: big reading leads to big meaning. Because God created our world and always intended to interact with us as significant actors within it, the revelation in the Bible moves along with God’s people. If the Bible wants to enter human history as part of God’s mission to transform that history, then it has no choice but to be story. Because story is where we live. We don’t live in information — even good, inspiring, encouraging, or wise information. We always and invariably think of our lives as individual stories within some bigger, overall story.

So the Bible enters the fray of all the competing narratives that are trying to tell us they are the true story of the world. These narratives are actively trying to recruit us every day. Nationalist. Consumerist. Narcissist. Pantheist. There are would-be Master Narratives everywhere. If we don’t read and know the Bible’s story of the world, then we will end up reading the Bible for little snippets of information and bits of spiritual wisdom that we then fit into another controlling narrative that we get from somewhere else.

This is why the centerpiece of our recovery of the Bible is the recovery of the Bible as story. The piecemeal Bible fails to capture imaginations because it is simply too small. This is certainly part of the reason why fewer people, especially fewer younger people, are engaging with the Bible.

The upward journey from a minimalist Bible to being immersed in God’s full revelation takes us from bits to full books then all the way to God’s beautiful saga of world transformation. It is precisely as this surprising and redemptive story that the Bible comes into its own to confront, judge, forgive, save, and restore.

This is the Bible God intends for us. A Bible we know deeply. A Bible filled with people and covenants, with dramatic scenes, rising and falling action, and major movements that all fit into a plot that is taking us somewhere. To know the Bible is to know all these smaller stories that fit into the Story.

This, then, is our itinerary: as we continually feast on whole books, the Story will emerge with greater and greater clarity. And with clarity comes both understanding and invitation. We will begin to understand what God is doing, and then the Bible’s endgame for us will emerge. We will be invited to join him.

Learn more about the Institute for Bible Reading

Translating the biblical texts into English (or any other language) is not as simple as it may sound. For starters, the translator has to determine which philosophy of translation to follow. The two basic options are formal equivalence (also called word-for-word, literal, or essentially literal) and dynamic equivalence (also called thought-for-thought). And there is also a combination of these two basic philosophies (as often exemplified by the NIV and the HCSB).

The difference between the two translation philosophies can be seen in lots of ways. One is the question of whether it is appropriate (or even permissible) for the translator to add specificity in the translated text. Here’s a simple example in 2 Kings 24:19. I’m quoting first from the NASB, which generally provides a good word-for-word translation of the original text, and then from the NLT (dynamic equivalence):

2 Kings 24:18-19 (NASB95)
¹⁸ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
¹⁹ He did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

2 Kings 24:18-19 (NLT)
¹⁸ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.
¹⁹ But Zedekiah did what was evil in the LORD’s sight, just as Jehoiakim had done.

Look at the first word of v. 19. The NASB translates the Hebrew text literally with the pronoun “He.” Incidentally, all formal-equivalence translations (e.g., KJV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, ESV; also NIV) join the NASB in rendering it “He.”

The NLT (joined by NCV, TEV; also HCSB) replaces the pronoun with the proper name Zedekiah. These dynamic translations feel free to translate beyond the literal wording to ensure that the meaning is accurately conveyed. (Everyone would agree that the antecedent to “he” is Zedekiah, who is named at the beginning of v. 18, even though the masculine name that immediately precedes the pronoun is Zedekiah’s maternal grandfather, Jeremiah.)

Is each approach appropriate? Is each permissible? Is one preferable to the other?

My answer is that each translation is simply following its own basic philosophy. The literal translations render the passage with a word-for-word correspondence. The dynamic translations render it with an expansion of the wording to ensure that the meaning is accurately conveyed.

If you use both styles of translation, you get the best of both worlds.

We find the story of the widow’s mite in Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4. In both passages (which are nearly identical), Jesus makes the point that the widow’s gift to the Temple treasury was very costly to her, because it represented everything she had. But the challenge for the translator is to determine how best to translate the technical terms for the coins she dropped into the box.

The Greek text in Mark 12:42 says that she dropped in “two lepta, which is a kodrantes.” So if we simply translate it that way in English, everything is clear, right? Sure, if the reader has an intuitive sense of the value of two lepta! And Mark even gives us a clue by telling us that two lepta (Jewish coins) are equal to a kodrantes (a Roman coin). But most of us would still have to reach for a Bible dictionary to make sense of those terms. So translators have resorted to numerous solutions.

KJV: two mites, which make a farthing
RSV: two copper coins, which make a penny
NASB: two small copper coins, which amount to a cent (with a footnote)
NIV: two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny (with a footnote)
ESV: two small copper coins, which make a penny (with a footnote)
HCSB: two tiny coins worth very little (with a footnote)
NLT: two small coins (with a footnote)

Which translation is correct? I would argue that the KJV, RSV, NASB, NIV, and ESV communicate the wrong message. After all, a penny has very little value in our current economy. But in the first century, a kodrantes was equal to 1/64 of a denarius, and a denarius was considered fair pay for a day’s wage. If today’s wage for a laborer in the USA is $15 per hour, that comes to $120 for an 8-hour day. At this rate, 1/64 of a day’s wage is $1.88. Round it up to $2.00, and we could say that the widow dropped two dollar-coins into the collection box. That feels very different from “two coins worth only a fraction of a penny.”

It’s for that reason that the NLT simply says “two small coins” [footnote: Greek two lepta, which is a kodrantes (i.e., a quadrans)]. After all, the point of Jesus’ teaching was that the widow gave everything she had. And if her two small coins were worth a couple of dollars in our economy, let’s not give the impression that she had only two pennies.

Mark D. Taylor

Brent Kercheville has been writing a series of blogs about his interaction with the NLT text. One of those posts is called “Tongues vs. Languages (1 Corinthians 12-14).” Brent appreciates the NLT’s use of “languages” in place of the more obscure term “tongues” in 1 Cor 12, but he expresses frustration that the NLT then uses “tongues” in chapter 14.

In fact, the NLT uses both “speaking in tongues” and “speaking in unknown languages” in 1 Cor 14. Why? We had vigorous debates on the translation committee as to how we should translate glossa in a way that would be understandable to modern readers–especially those without much background in biblical teaching. And the situation is further complicated because scholars and church historians are divided as to whether Paul was referring in this passage to human languages not otherwise known to the speaker or to ecstatic utterances that are unrelated to any human language. If the translation had simply and consistently used “unknown languages,” it would imply that Paul was referring to human languages unknown to the speakers (as seems to have been the case on the Day of Pentecost; Acts 2:4-11). But if we had used the traditional term “tongues” throughout, it would imply that Paul was referring only to ecstatic utterances.

So in the end we decided to use both terms. This allows the reader to get the sense that Paul might have been referring to either or both of these meanings. We were apprehensive about using the word “tongues,” because it is a technical term understood only by readers well versed in biblical teaching. On the other hand, it is the term used in Pentecostal churches to refer to the contemporary phenomenon of “speaking in tongues.” So we used both “tongues” and “unknown languages” in order to provide the broadest sense of the meaning of the passage.

Incidentally, the NLT Study Bible provides a word study on the various uses of glossa in the New Testament.

By Mark D. Taylor

The issue of sentence structure in English Bibles is interesting. On the surface, one might assume that an English Bible could/should simply follow the structure of the sentences in Hebrew and Greek. But the very concept of a “sentence” differs from language to language.

Let’s look at the prologue to Romans (Rom 1:1-7) as an example. We begin by reminding ourselves that koine Greek does not actually use punctuation or paragraph breaks, nor does it differentiate between upper case and lower letters. This might surprise you, because the UBS Greek New Testament uses paragraphs, capital letters, and punctuation (commas, periods, question marks, and semicolons). But this is because the editors of that Greek text have made judgment calls as to how the Greek “sentences” should be presented in a format we’re accustomed to seeing in English.

In the UBS Greek text, Rom 1:1-7 is presented as one long sentence (i.e., the first full stop comes at the end of verse 7). But does that mean that English translations should also use only one sentence for that passage? Formal-equivalence translations tend to do so. For example, KJV, RSV, NASB, NRSV, and ESV all use only one sentence for this long prologue. Interestingly, the NKJV uses two sentences. NIV and TNIV use four sentences. NLT² uses nine sentences.

Which approach is correct? I would argue that they all are. Each translation uses a unique translation philosophy, and the structure of English sentences plays into that philosophy. Unfortunately, the proponents of formal equivalence sometimes imply that the only legitimate style of translation is to follow the sentence structure of the original texts as closely as possible. But life isn’t quite that simple.

Mark D. Taylor

As a dynamic-equivalence translation, the NLT translates the Hebrew and Greek text in natural, understandable English. This means that we try to avoid technical terms that the average reader would not understand.

Two such technical terms not used in the NLT are “propitiation” and “expiation.” The Bible Translation Committee chose not to use these terms because the average reader does not understand them. In fact, I’d guess that only 1% of the population could define the terms “propitiation” and “expiation” with any degree of accuracy.

The table below shows how four translations handle the Greek term hilasterion:

These are the only two NT passages that use the Greek word hilasterion. But the word is used frequently in the Greek translation of the OT, where it refers to the cover of the Ark of the Covenant. English translations of the OT render the Hebrew term as “mercy seat” (KJV, RSV, ESV), “atonement cover” (NIV), or “the Ark’s cover–the place of atonment” (NLT).

In Heb 9:5, the term hilasterion is used in the literal sense–describing the Ark’s cover.

In Rom 3:25, Paul uses hilasterion as a metaphor. “God presented Jesus as the hilasterion.” But what does this metaphor mean? Jesus was the “atonement cover.” He was the “place of atonement.” He was himself “the sacrifice for sin,” the means of atonement between God and humanity.

Does the English word “propitiation” communicate this nuance of meaning? Perhaps to 1% of the population. To the other 99%, it communicates very little meaning at all.

That’s why the NLT uses words that communicate clearly to 100% of the readers: “God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin” (Rom 3:26).

By the way, Scripture Zealot has a post on this very subject called Romans 3:25, Propitiation and the NLT (in which he quotes the first-edition text of the NLT).

Coins of at least three different nations were used in everyday life in Judea during the NT era. The NT text uses the names of Greek coins, Roman coins, and Jewish coins. The original readers of the NT were presumably very familiar with all of these terms and also knew their relative values, just as Americans intuitively know the relationship between a dime and a quarter and a dollar. The challenge for the translator is to use English terms for the various coins that will convey for modern readers the same intuitive sense of meaning. A case in point is the incident in Matt 17:24-27, in which Jesus sent Peter to find a coin (in a fish’s mouth!) to pay the Temple tax.

Matthew–the former tax collector–is the only Gospel writer to tell about this incident. And in the space of four verses, he uses the names of two Greek coins. In 17:24 he twice uses the term didrachma, which means simply a two-drachma coin. (The drachma was the Greek coin more or less equivalent to the Roman denarius, and both coins represent the daily wage for a laborer.) This is the only use of didrachma in the NT, and it is used to refer to the annual tax required for the upkeep of the Temple. In Exod 30:13-16, its predecessor–the tax for the care of the Tabernacle–is presented (in ancient Hebrew terminology) as a tax of “half a shekel.”

Matthew’s readers would intuitively have understood what was meant when the tax collectors came to ask Peter, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the didrachma?” But how should this term be translated into English? Can we give the reader a similar intuitive sense of what was going on? Here’s a list of how nine major English translations have handled this term:

So which translation is most accurate? The answer is that each is accurate in its own way. The NLT, the NKVJ, the NRSV, and the NIV (in the second instance) all communicate clearly that the temple tax is in view. The RSV and its offspring, the ESV, both borrow from Hebrew terminology (half-shekel) to help make the connection with the tax first mentioned in Exodus. (Interestingly, the ESV is not at all literal in this rendering.) The most literal renderings are found in the NASB, the NIV (in the first instance), and the HCSB, But does the modern English reader understand that the literal rendering “two-drachma tax” relates to the temple tax? I doubt it.

A few verses later (Matt 17:27), Jesus tells Peter to go catch a fish, open its mouth, and pull out a stater. This Greek coin–mentioned only here in the NT–is equal to two didrachmas, or four drachmas. And if a didrachma pays the temple tax for one man, a stater is sufficient to pay the tax for both of them. Now let’s look at how the same nine translations handle this term:

Here only the NIV provides a literal translation–but does the reader have any intuitive sense of what a four-drachma coin represents? I doubt it. The RSV and ESV once again resort to a Hebrew term (a shekel), which provides little meaning for the English reader. Interestingly, the NASB also uses the non-literal shekel, though in the earlier verse it used the literal rendering “two-drachma tax.” The other translations use variations on the theme of “a coin.”

As the NLT scholars wrestled with how to translate this kind of technical terminology, we tried to ensure that the English reader would get an intuitive understanding of the meaning of the text (“the Temple tax . . . a large silver coin”). And the careful reader can look down to the NLT footnotes to get the technical data:

17:24 Footnote on “the Temple tax”: Greek the two-drachma [tax]. See Exod 30:13-16; Neh 10:32-33.
17:27 Footnote on “a large silver coin”: Greek a stater, a Greek coin equivalent to four drachmas.

Mark D. Taylor