58 - A Comparison of Translations

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. We're glad to have you with us. We are, as we're going through our School of Systematic Theology, we are currently in what we're saying is book number three, three major of the four books that we're going to be going through in total to cover all of systematic theology.

You can pick these books up if you want to get the syllabus. They're at our website, strivingforeternity .org. You can pick up a copy, have all of the notes, fill in the blanks, a place where you can write your own notes.

But we're basically trying to give an overview of systematic theology. We're in lesson number 58, which means going over systematic theology is not something you do really, really quickly, is it? We're actually in book number three, we're in lesson number seven, which is a comparison of translations.

We said that in this book, we're going through the doctrine of the Bible. And so we're, because, well, we're speaking English, so we're going to focus on English. I don't know as much about the Spanish, I know a little about the Chinese translations.

Any of you interested in that? But there's a couple different Chinese translations, but I'm more familiar with the English. And so we're going to focus there, if that's all right with you, because I don't think many of you are using the Chinese translations.

And well, I don't really speak Spanish, see, I actually, I got through Spanish class because my teacher, I think, just had pity on me. I used to answer everything, yo no se, which means I don't know. And I got partial credit for at least saying it in Spanish.

I still remember a final where we had to go through the kitchen, and I got partial credit for making my teacher laugh because, you know, we had to do the silverware, things like that. And I went, el forco, el nifo, el plato, and then in parentheses I said, but not the philosopher.

She thought that was cute, and I think she gave me partial credit. I don't know how I passed Spanish, to be honest with you. So some question whether I even know English. So that's a good point. Okay, computer languages.

Now let's talk my language. Okay, I know Java, I know C, I know JavaScript, I know Basic, I know, let's see what I remember. I don't know if I could program in Ada anymore, COBOL, I knew them at one time.

But C, C++, what else, Perl, and most of you are going, what in the world are you talking? What language are you talking? I'm talking geek, nerd, it's the nerd language. All right, but let's talk English.

So all right, we've been going through, and if you remember in the last lesson, we talked about some of the things with different manuscripts and stuff like that. We talked about some of the basis of the Texas Receptus, which is where the King James is based on.

The reason we had to deal with that is there is some debate that some hold to being that the King James is the only translation that should be used. So some that believe in that are going to have a real issue with this lesson because they're going to think every other translation but the King James is wrong to use.

Now let me make a preface with that, or qualification. There are those that prefer the King James and there's those that believe the King James is it only. The difference is that someone that prefers the King James is no different than someone that prefers, say, the ESV or the Holman, which I prefer, because they think it's a better translation.

That's fine. When someone says it's the only one and all other translations are of the devil, that becomes a problem. And so that's why we had to deal with that. We're going to kind of pick up on some of that because there's basically five major and there's a lot of translations, there's been a lot of work in translations.

At the end I may just kind of wrap up with giving some others that aren't in the notes just real quick, but we're going to cover five of the major ones that are in use by churches and Christians today.

And in this study we're going to examine the history of these texts, their strengths, their weaknesses. So let us begin again with the King James Bible, which by the way, most people don't use the King James.

In case you want to really know, they're using what's called the authorized version, the AV, all right? And that is because the King James is a very different kind of English and it's been modernized.

And so most people are using a authorized version, which is really a little bit later. So let's look at the history, all right? So here's some history on the King James. Because of the variety of independent versions, the Puritans petitioned King James I in 1603 to find a solution.

This resulted in a conference at Hampton Court in 1604. One statement from this conference says this, quote, In time of divine service, unquote. Now notice the Hebrew and Greek, if you remember in the last lesson, we said that some of the translations that they had at the time were printed purely from the Latin Vulgate, not the Hebrew and Greek.

And the Puritans wanted, because they understood with every translation you lose something. So when you do a translation of a translation, you're that much removed. You're trying to find the best English word from a Latin word that's from a Greek or Hebrew word.

So you lose something with each translation. So they wanted to go back to the original and they wanted it to be something that came because there was a lot of infighting between Catholicism and Protestantism that went on in England at the time.

And you kept having this thing of what was the state Bible and they kept being ripping out the old state Bible, a new state Bible. You know, if you're Catholic or Protestant, work actually began on this translation in 1607.

The version was completed in 1611. If you've been paying attention in class, that date has been familiar to you. Fifty men made up six panels of translators. Three panels worked on the Old Testament, two panels worked on the New Testament, and one panel worked on the Apocrypha.

That's right. The Apocrypha was translated and included in the 1611 translation. And again, I'll say this, I've said this each time, but I say this because this is, I think, the strongest argument against the King James only position being that it was inspired by God is that the 1611 version had the Apocrypha in it.

So you'll get groups, Seventh-day Adventists, some Seventh-day Adventists believe in this position and do not realize. And many who hold to the fact that the 1611 version of the Bible was somehow inspired do not know and are unaware that the Apocrypha was included.

And therefore, if the King James was inspired, so was the Apocrypha. I'm just saying, I mean, it was in there. In 1611, three revisions were accomplished. So again, if it was inspired, which one was inspired?

All right. The first, the second, the third revision, I mean, which one was it? And if it's inspired, why was there a need for revisions if God inspired it? This is one of the arguments that I make with Mormons, with the Book of Mormon.

They say that too, they say that was inspired by God. Then why were there so many revisions and corrections? Right. Because of their respective rendering of why were there three revisions? It's because of their respective renderings of Ruth 315.

The first was known as the He Bible and the last two are known as the She Bibles. And in previous works, we're not going to take time to look at this now. But if you look at Ruth 315, you'll see that where he or she makes a big, it makes a difference.

We looked at this. If you've taken a class on biblical hermeneutics, that's the art and science of interpretation, how to how to interpret the Bible. A lot of this may be familiar to students who've gone through that because we dealt with this back then as well.

And we looked it up there. So number four in your syllabus, the revisions that make up our King James version was affected at Cambridge in 1762 and at Oxford in 1769 in order to modernize the language with the previous authorized version.

So what you have is the one that most people are using and claiming that it is the King James Bible is a 1760s revision. So again, if the 1611 was the one that's inspired, which one of those 16, which revision?

And then you get into the question of, well, if it was inspired, you have a issue, I think, with the fact that you're not using it. You're using it at the earliest, the 1760s version. So let's look at some of the features.

It's a very literal and reliable translation based on the Byzantine family. That's your blank there, the Byzantine family. If you don't understand what the Byzantine family is, you look back the last lesson that we dealt with, last two lessons on the preservation and the translation.

But the Byzantine family manuscripts and the majority text. Now, we've also mentioned it other times. The difference is when we dealt with how to interpret the Bible, we dealt with these different types of translations.

A literal translation is a word for word translation. That's called a formal equivalent where you're translating every word. And then after you have a word translated, maybe then you're updating it for the proper grammar.

A more free translation or what's called dynamic equivalent is something like your NIVs that we're going to get into. That is where they translate sentence by sentence. So you're taking the whole sentence and trying to translate the sentence as a whole.

And so you're losing some of the words that might make a difference. The third is what's called a paraphrase. Your amplified Bible, your message, things like that. New living translation. They're going to be a paraphrase.

So now they're trying to translate thought by thought, furthest from the word for word. So word for word, sentence by sentence, thought for thought. Those are the three different types. King James is based on a literal translation.

So that's going to be a more reliable way of doing the translation word for word. Its only drawbacks is the arcane and obsolete words, making rendering to modern readers kind of difficult. So what are some of these pronouns?

The pronouns are the, and this is your blank there, the, thou, and ye. Now, I'm going to mention this and say, yes, these words are obsolete. Yes, these words are antiquated, but these words are more precise.

It's just that we do not understand the difference between thee and thou. It's actually one of the things I kind of laugh at when you look at the Book of Mormon. The only times that proper usage of the these and thous are used is when it's a direct quotations from the King James Bible, when they lifted it.

When Joseph Smith was writing, he didn't understand how the proper usage of thee and thou, but it refers back to who you're referring to. OK, makes the difference there. Some of the other words like super fluidity.

What's super fluidity? And shrewd, shrewd, you know, you have cool words like, you know, what is I'm trying to think actually something I don't have in the notes there. Um, what a hoary headed is when this gray hair is hoary headed.

You know, we just don't understand these things. By the way, one of the words you're going to see in the King James is a unicorn. And you go, well, hey, wait a minute. Unicorns don't exist, Andrew. Everybody knows that horses with a horn on its head don't exist.

I agree with you. But that's not what a unicorn is. You see in 1611, or even after 1611, if you look at Noah's Webster's dictionary and you look up what a unicorn is, it is a single horned rhinoceros.

A binocorn was a two horned rhinoceros. Have you ever seen a single horned rhinoceros? I have. I actually have a picture of one. If I was smart enough, I would have given it, put it on the picture right now.

But I have a picture of a single horned rhinoceros. That is a unicorn, one corn rhinoceros. There you go. So when you see words like that, the language has changed. And that's the point of that we want to bring up is that some of these things changed over time.

Number three in your syllabus is that some of the theology of the translators is evident by their translation. The choice of not to translate the word baptize. That's your blank there, baptize. Why is this an issue?

And the other word that I would include is deacon. These are two words I mentioned before. And why do I bring this up? Just again, because of this argument that some say that the King James was inspired.

If it was inspired, why? We have a perfectly good English word for baptize, for baptismo. It means to dip or to plunge. Why did they transliterate? In other words, create a new English word called baptize because they didn't dip or plunge, they sprinkled or poured.

And so because of that, they created a new English word because they couldn't translate that the way it's properly meant. I think this would also end some of the confusion people have when it comes to being baptized with the Holy Spirit because it means to be plunged or immersed or dipped into the Holy Spirit.

That's different than the controlling work of the Holy Spirit. But that confusion is there again because of this problem. A deacon, why they transliterate deacon? Deacon is a servant, a waiter of tables, literally.

But the deacons did not function that way. They functioned as leaders. And so they didn't want to translate the word servant because that kind of seems weird to call your leaders a servant, they thought.

So again, created a new word. So you can see that in Acts 2, 47, and the Lord added to the church daily, all those who should be saved, talking about those who are baptized, they were added and saved.

So this is now, let's go to the next one. This one's not used as much in modern churches. You're going to see this more in your Lutheran Methodist, or I think churches are still use the revised standard version.

Let's look at that's history. Now, the revised standard version of the Bible is an authorized revision of the American standard version published in 1901, which was a revision of the King James published in 1611.

So basically the Americans did a revision of the King James 1611 into their modern English of the time, which by the way, no one called at that time, the American standard version, the devil's Bible. Okay.

People accepted this as a revision because by the way, in the original 1611, which I have a reproduction on my shelf in there, it says in the notes of the original 1611, it says that there should be revisions to bring it to modern English.

And that's what the American standard version was. No one thought of it as some heretical book as was claimed when the NIV came out. We'll, we'll talk about that more. But this is a revision of the American standard.

Now, so the American standard version is not really used much anymore, but the revised standard version is still used somewhat. This text was based on the Masoretic Old Testament in the sixth to ninth century A .D. combined with, and used a combination of the families of New Testament.

If you remember correctly, we talked about the King James was not based on all of the different manuscript families, but focused just on one. Really kind of Erasmus' work and he was in a rush and that's one thing.

So there was 32 scholars for the revised standard version that completed this work in 1952. So this translation is older than some of you. OK, it's older than me, too. Just saying. All right. So some of its features, this text is often come into question because of a consistent bent toward liberal theology.

That's your blank there, liberal theology. You see that in Colossians 1 .14. I didn't give some of the verses here. I should have given verses here so we could put it up on the screen. But in Colossians 1 .14, this translation omits through the blood.

If you look that passage up, that is omitted, which is also omitted in the new American standard and the NIV. In Acts 8 .37, that completely omits the verse. That verse is actually in the margins in the NIV, but it's completely removed from this one.

And then in Isaiah 7 .14, virgin is translated as young woman and virgin is mentioned in the margin. So in other words, it removes this as being a prophecy of some supernatural idea of Jesus being born, a prophecy of a virgin giving birth.

The RSV is basically a literal translation, generally a word for word, though often not used by conservative evangelicals because of the concern of their liberal tendencies. OK, so it's used in more of their liberal churches.

So let's move on to one that I just mentioned a moment ago, which is your new American standard. You'll see many people that still use this in pews, in churches. The New American Standard Bible or NASB, when we look at its history, this translation was revised because of the perceived need to incorporate recent textual discoveries and renderings into English, a more modern than the 1901 American Standard Version.

So again, we had that American Standard Version. They wanted to update this. Well, this one, this edit, the editorial team completed this work in 1971. Now, this is, again, older than some of you, but unfortunately not me.

So I was alive when this was finished. Granted, I was probably still, well, yeah, I was probably maybe still in diapers, but I was alive. So, yeah, so I'm not as old as Dirk, thank you very much. I know I don't remember who Noah, I did not go to school with Noah.

Thank you very much. Right. Yeah. All right. So the NASB, some of its features was, is that when, and this is from the prefix of the N-A-S-B, so I'll give this to you. It says, quote, when it was felt that the word for word literalness was unacceptable to the modern reader, a change was made in the direction of a more current English idiom, unquote.

OK, so you have, again, this was a case where in 1901 you had a translation of the American Standard Version. Here they want to update it. There are some new discoveries, new manuscripts that were found, better textual, higher criticism, textual criticism is being done.

And in the textual criticism, they had better textual variance that made it a little bit better to make an argument for certain usage of the Greek versus another. And we've looked at that in the last two lessons.

If you don't understand what textual criticism is and the variance, we kind of covered that in the last two lessons. So go back and watch those. And so they wanted to update it into a modern English and also with better usage from the Greek.

All right. And so while it was more idiomatic, it was still to be considered a very literal translation. That's your blank there, literal translation. So you're seeing that right now, all three of the ones that we've come up with were literal translations.

And also note that this was finished in 1971. And at that time, there were not people calling for this to be removed as the devil's Bible. The King James only controversy didn't seem to complain about this translation at that time.

That came a few years later. We're going to look at a moment at what they had real issue with. But the NASB is primarily based on the New Testament work. And if you don't know all this, that's fine. Just throwing it out there.

The Nestle's, which OK, so this is a text, Nestle's Novum Textorium text, which is based on the Alexandrian manuscripts. So this is basically where King James is mostly based off of the Byzantine. OK, this now is going to be based mostly on the Alexandrian text.

So those are those two main families of text that we talked about in the last two lessons. And so remember, the Alexandrian is going to be those older texts where we used to have fewer of them, but now we're getting more of them.

Byzantine text was thought to be more reliable because we had more of them. But now that we're finding more and more of the Alexandrians, we're starting to see that that seems to be the better quality and many are holding to that.

And there are some people that really make big issues over these. We're going to give some reasons in some later works of why both of that whole argument is kind of going to go away. But because of its exclusive reliance on fewer older manuscripts, it often omits notes of omissions of various texts and they put it in the margins such as Colossians 114.

And this is what I was saying, because it has older it's going to rely on older and there were fewer of them, but we're finding more and more of them as we go on. But there's still fewer than the Byzantine.

OK, and so the thought is, is that somehow you wage between which one's going to be the better. Because this is going to weigh heavier on those older ones, there's things that used to be in the margin that worked their way in the text aren't going to be there.

All right. And some would say that those were in the text. Here's some of the argument that you'd get from someone that would hold to a Byzantine as being better, is that sometimes and you've seen this, you've probably done this if you ever had to copy things over and over.

Sometimes you'll see a word on you see several lines and several lines have the same exact word and your eye just it sees the and the and you you start writing the from here. But then when you look back up, you get the second the down here and you skip the whole line and your eye plays a trick on you.

You didn't even know and you're just copying. And sometimes you can skip a whole line and it still makes sense. And so the argument is that those that would hold to the older manuscripts are going to say, well, those were things that didn't work their way in.

In other words, as you kept making copies, they got added to the text. Those that would hold to the Byzantine would say as they were copied, those got removed from the text. And so that's going to be the argument.

Which one's right? Don't know. Which one's safer? Well, it's really hard to say. You might say it's safer to take the passage that excludes those things. So you're not adding to the Word of God, but you don't want to subtract from it either.

So at least you're not saying something God didn't say again. Remember, as we looked at the last two lessons, none of these variants affect any major doctrine. So it really doesn't matter. But it'd be very wrong to base a doctrine on some of these variant texts.

In other words, to create a doctrine that you only find in a text that's a variant would be really difficult, would be really wrong, because if it's not there, if it's something that wasn't there, then you're in danger.

OK, so I would probably lean toward the older manuscripts just because I don't want to add to the Word of God. I could be guilty of saying that God didn't say things. So people who make a whole doctrine of snake handling based on Mark 16, that's a variant text that may not be there.

If that's the only verse you have, and it is, then you don't have much to go on. All right. Same with the drinking poison that's in that passage. So let's move on. Now, here's where we get into the rub, OK, with this next one.

This is the new international version. This is where people got in a rough. The new international version is where the King James controversy began. All right. So this is after all these other revisions that didn't have an issue.

But let's go into its history. This revision was developed by establishing a series of three committees. The translate, the translation that this is the translators translation of the books of Proverbs, Proverbs provides a basis.

Wow. Let me try saying that one again. The translations. Translation of the Bible books provides a basis. OK, so in other words, this was using translations to translate the Bible. These translations were then reviewed by one of and of the intermediate editorial committees for revisions.

From there, it went to a general editorial committee for further revision. So you had different people doing translations. They did these translations and they come up with what they think the translation is.

And then it goes through a committee to review. So you have several people, several groups doing translation. Then they take these different translations, revise those, review those, and then do then have a final committee.

The work was completed in 1978. OK, so this is now where the controversy really begins. Why? Let's look at its features. While asserting to have drawn from all the families of the Greek texts. And this is key because this is really kind of the first that you're seeing one of the translation that's trying to grab from all of the different families of Greek manuscripts.

But you have a problem, don't you? See, if you're going to grab from all the different families, how do you do a word for word translation when there's some variances between these different families of manuscripts?

That's the dilemma. OK. And so while asserting to have drawn from all families of Greek manuscripts, the translators desired for a more modern English translation, resulting in the NIV being a free, that's your blank, free translation and not very literal translation.

OK, free not meaning that it doesn't cost anything. It costs a lot to do, but free meaning that it is a dynamic equivalent. As I mentioned earlier, it's not a word for word, which you can understand why that would be a problem, because they're trying to handle the different manuscripts.

Now, there's a couple of reasons this got came under fire. One, because it wasn't using the Texas Receptus as its only basis. Some people had real issue with that and they feel the Texas Receptus is the best manuscript to be using.

So some of it is that. Some of it is, and we'll get to it in a moment, is some of some of the actual content. But it's not a literal word for word translation. That's the issue that caused problems. But it's hard to do it.

I'm not going to be too hard on these guys to say, oh, they were trying to create a liberal translation. It does have some some liberal biases, but I don't think that was really their goal. Their goal was to try to get to use all the manuscripts.

They saw this problem between the Byzantine manuscripts and the Alexandrian manuscripts. And there's others. And they were trying to bring those all together, OK, and come up with one really good translation based on, in their mind, based on the different manuscripts.

That was their goal. So let's give them credit where credit is due. But it eliminates large amounts of texts such as, and if you look in your notes, I give you all of them, but Mark 7, 16, Mark 9, 44 and 46, Mark 11, 26, Mark 15, 28, John 5, 3 to 4.

I mean, there's a whole bunch of that. You can look in your syllabus for all of them. This does not include a number of portions from other verses so that I don't give you a full list that's there. Now, the reason this is sometimes called a, that some of the translations here are called weak is, for example, in 1 Timothy 3, 16, the word he is used instead of God.

And so many argued, many of those in the King James only position started to argue that this was the devil's Bible because it reduced God or Jesus from being deity. They argued that there was a lack of the deity of Christ.

Let me recommend with that James White's book on the King James Controversy, if that's going to be your argument against the NIV, and there's plenty of reasons to be against the NIV. NIV is a good translation, but not a good one to use for study because it's a free translation.

If you're going to do serious study, you want to be with a literal translation. But NIV is OK to do reading by. It's fine for that. And so and even now, there's got to keep in mind the NIV has gone through several changes as well because there's been a couple of modern translations.

The today's NIV, bad translation only because it tries to remove gender from God. And then they had to revise that. Zondervan had to correct that. Now, I think it's again called the NIV or the new new international version.

But it is something where, you know, you end up seeing that some people make this claim that the NIV removes the deity of Christ. James White in his book, the King James Controversy, goes through other translations and compares it to the King James and shows where other translations hold up the deity of Christ, where the King James does not.

So if that's going to be your argument against that, well, then the NASB holds up better than the King James. So you may not want to make that argument, just saying. OK, so number four, as a translation, it too often interprets.

OK, why is that? Again, it's a sentence by sentence. OK, translation. So, for example, 1 Samuel 15, 33, where it says, and Samuel put Haggai to death. OK, versus, you know, he put him to death versus he hacked him to death, you know, it kind of softens it.

All right. And so you end up seeing some things in that where you can look up there's it's some of the translators are softening things. And that's that is a interpretation. It's not a paraphrase where you're getting someone's interpretation.

Right. But just keep in mind, for serious study, you want to stay to a literal. Number five, this translation may be helpful in Bible study, but it must be recognized as a free translation and not a literal translation.

I said that a couple of times because it's really, really important to understand. Let me go. Actually, I actually want to check my notes because I think my notes are actually wrong here. Very beginning, I said we're going to deal with five.

Yeah, I said five. We're going to deal with six. I just noticed that just now. Sorry. We'll correct that next syllabus. But let's move to the next one. New King James Version. The New King James Version.

This is the one that I started with the King James Version that was taken from a hotel room, a Gideon's Bible that they provided. It was given to me. That was my first Bible. I still have it. I appreciated the guy who stole it from me.

I mean, I gave it to me. He told I asked him, I said, did you steal this? He said the Gideon's will replace it. That's what they do in ministry. They have. And I was glad because that was actually my first Bible, King James Bible.

Then I moved to the New King James, which I appreciated. Let's give the history and some of the features there. The preface, the preface. Authors of the 1611 authorized version states that the purpose was not to, quote, make a new translation, but to make a good one better, unquote.

They spoke of the bishop's Bible in the King James time when they spoke of that and the King, which is just I don't remember again, 1611. They didn't they were basing it off of other translations. They were making good ones better.

The New King James editors used the above statement to refer to their translation. So they said the King James was a good translation, but they wanted to make it better for the Old Testament. They drew on a number of ancient Hebrew texts and the Spituagin.

The Spituagin is a Greek translation of the Hebrew and the Vulgate, which is a Latin translation of the Hebrew and relevant portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered by this time. Number three, the New Testament was based on the Byzantine text.

So again, that's what King James was based off of the Byzantine text with references made to the various manuscripts discovered since the authorized had been completed. This translation was completed in 1982.

And so this was just before I became a believer, by the way, just saying by two years now I'm dating myself. Sorry. But notice that because this becomes the major feature of this is that they based it on the Byzantine manuscript, but they footnoted all of those other manuscripts.

This is what I really appreciate the most about the New King James. This gives you the footnotes so you know, here's the Byzantine, but here's where the different manuscripts differ so you can see it.

So there should be. So let me help you to learn how to read a New King James. Right there. Should there be differences in the manuscripts witness? The New King James indicates the variant readings with marginal notes and those notes are NU.

If you see an NU, that's the Nestleans Greek. I mentioned that earlier. That's within NASB. The majority text is going to be an M. And so when you see these different differences, you're going to see these footnotes that are going to tell you, is this the Nestlean, is this the majority text, things like that.

Number two, the New King James also includes the fullness of the King James version and the literal word for word translating that characterize the King James. It just doesn't have all of the arcane obsolete words and replaces them with words that we understand today.

Good alternatives. OK, so if you kind of like King James, but you have trouble with these, that's I used to when I first became a believer, I read the Bible and I had to read it with a dictionary because I didn't know what NYE meant.

NYE means near, but I didn't know that because I never heard that before. But I had I didn't understand the words and it became difficult. So, yes, did I learn new words? Yes, I did. Words that I was never going to use again.

So let's go to the sixth one that we have, and that is our ESV. This will be the last one we're going to focus on and give the history and features. But the ESV, or English Standard Version, has grown out of the Tyndale King James legacy.

With the 1971 RSV text as a starting point, the ESV had a 14 member translation oversight committee that benefited from the work of 50 biblical experts. The translators drew mostly from the Masoretic text for much of the Hebrew.

In some cases, they looked at the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Spittuagin and the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Samaritan Pentateuch is the Samaritans version of just the first five books of the Bible, as well as other sources.

The Greek was based mostly on the 1993 edition of the Greek New Testament published by the United Biblical Societies and the Novum Textrium Greek, the 27th edition, edited by Nestlin and Adlon. So that's why it's called the Nestlin.