Stirring Up The Assembly (Hebrews 10:24-25) - Worship Service | Modern Translations - Adult Sunday S

Modern Translations, Revisions, and Paraphrases

Okay, we're going to utilize a different pianist.

So for communion today, Sandy is going to play for communion, and then Josiah is going to play for the closing song. So we may have to adjust the volume a little bit, just so you're aware.

We're not repeating it ourselves, but if you want to play it yourself, tag it yourself, then you can. Over there, Joe. Yeah, I heard you up there.

Well, good morning, everyone. Come on in and find a spot in the sanctuary for the adult Sunday school class. We are in lesson 15 in your workbook. Modern Translations. All right, let's pray as we begin.

Father, we give our time and attention to You this morning, and we are grateful for this place that we can gather and for the freedom to do so. We are thankful that You've called us here and that You've given us this time and this day.

We pray that we may use it wisely and that You would keep our hearts and minds attentive to Your Word, help us to think clearly, to learn much today, and that this time would be spiritually fruitful for us, we pray in Christ's name.

Amen. All right, we're in lesson 15, Modern Translations. This is the last lesson that I'm going to be teaching in this series on God Wrote a Book. There are actually two other lessons that I have that are kind of along the same vein.

One of them is about the textual variant at the end of Mark's gospel, the long ending of Mark, verses 9 through 20, and the textual transmission of that and where that appears and whether that is legitimate or not.

And then I have a lesson on the other textual variant, the other large textual variant, which is the woman caught in adultery in John 7, I think it's verse 53 through 8, verse 11 or 12, somewhere in there.

Those are the two longest textual variants in the New Testament. There are some other ones, but those are the two big ones, the main ones. And so every time you read through your Bible, you see that footnote that says, most manuscripts do not have this or most manuscript families do not contain this section.

So you always wonder, is that Scripture or not, how should I treat that, how should I view it? So I have a lesson on each one of those and in the months ahead, if I have time and there's an opportunity for me to jump into adult Sunday school class and we'll end up covering one of those textual variants.

Oftentimes, I have the opportunity when Cornell's out of town and Jess can't make it for some reason or some physical malady strikes somebody else who is supposed to teach, then I get called upon sort of last minute and instead of doing a Q &A, I'll just grab one of those lessons and teach that.

But this will be the end officially of the God Wrote a Book series of lessons. So modern translations, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago or a couple of lessons ago that in the English language, there are about 350 English translations of the Bible, 350.

Now I think that that would probably, in order to get a very generous figure like that, that would probably include both revisions as well as paraphrases. Paraphrases are different than translations. So what we're covering today is what makes a paraphrase a paraphrase, what makes a translation a translation, what is a good translation, what is a bad translation, what are the translations to stay away from.

So we're going to cover all of that material as well as some of the pluses and minuses, the positives and the negatives with various English translations. Mostly we're just going to be focusing on the most popular ones and some of the most recent ones.

Translation, Revision, and Paraphrase

So let's talk about, first of all, translations, revisions, and paraphrases, and we're going to revisit some of this a little bit later on, but I want to give you a few definitions. Translation translates from the Greek and the Hebrew text, attempting to give the meaning of the words to the nearest equivalent English words.

Now there are issues that come up with this, but if you were trying to write that down, I'll give it to you again. It translates from the Greek and Hebrew texts, attempting to give the meaning of the words of those texts in the nearest equivalent English words.

So it's just a translation from the original documents, or the copies we should say of the original documents, into whatever language it is that we're speaking. We're talking about the English translations today.

A revision is a little bit different. A revision is based upon an existing translation, and the revisers may consult the Greek and Hebrew text in an attempt to clarify, to improve, or to tighten up an already existing translation.

So there are translations which go from Greek and Hebrew right into English, a revision takes a translation, and usually years, decades later, they try and take that translation, and they try and clean it up and make it tighter, make it better, and they consult the Greek and Hebrew text in an attempt to do that.

And then third is a paraphrase, and a paraphrase attempts to convey meaning rather than the words of the original authors. Paraphrase attempts to convey meaning, and so it translates really the thoughts rather than the words themselves.

So a paraphrase really takes an idea of the text and tries to put the idea in the nearest English equivalent. Sometimes using a paragraph where a sentence will do, sometimes adding words to it in order to really expand the meaning of it.

So a paraphrase plays very fast and loose with the meaning of Scripture, and oftentimes, in fact, most times, a paraphrase is not based upon the Greek or the Hebrew text of the Scriptures, it's based upon an English translation.

So they will take an English translation and expand upon that to try and make it more flowery and more readable and sort of add to it a little bit, kind of so you can catch sort of the flow of it and the meaning of it.

That's the idea behind a paraphrase, all right? There are two different types of translation. This is number two. There are two different types of translation. Translation doesn't work the way that many of us think that it works, where you have the Greek text and you take a Greek word and you say, what's the English equivalent of this word?

And you take that word and you write that down. And then you take the next word in the Greek and you write that word in English. You don't just take a word and find a synonym in English and just translate it word for word for word like that going through.

That's not how translations work. I wish it worked that way, but it doesn't because you know and understand that oftentimes a word can have radically different meanings in different contexts, right? The word trunk, for instance, I use this one commonly, the word trunk can mean a number of different things.

It could be the trunk of a tree. It could be a trunk that you put your clothes in. It could be the trunk of a car. It could be the trunk of a utility line, right? So the word trunk has all kinds of different meanings depending on the context in which it is used.

So it is impossible to just simply take a word and find an English equivalent and say that's we're just going to do a word for word translation. You can't do that. Translations don't work that way. Languages don't work that way.

And so there are two types of translations. Since language involves the use of grammar and vocabulary syntax and not one but two different languages that you're studying, there are two different ways of translating Scripture and these are number, letter C here.

First there is what we call formal equivalency and then there is what we call dynamic equivalency. And here is the difficulty of rendering languages in translation. Let me give you an illustration. In the French, let me give you a French phrase and then I'm going to translate it into English.

The French phrase, j 'ai le cafard. Does anybody else besides me speak French here? No? You do? No, we do. Okay. We do. Yeah. I don't speak French. J 'ai le cafard. Anybody know what that means in French?

It means I have the cockroach. I have the cockroach. Now if you just translated that literally, this is a literal equivalency, a formal equivalency. If you just translate it literally, it means I have the cockroach.

But if you want to know what it means in the English equivalent, the meaning is I'm depressed. I'm depressed. Now you say, what does a cockroach have to do with being depressed? I don't know. We take our phrase, he's a little down in the mouth, a little down in the mouth, right?

If you take that and you try and translate that into another culture, into another language, maybe even another time, they would say, how is somebody down in the mouth? That wouldn't make any sense to them, right?

So you can't just take a word for word translation and catch necessarily the meaning of that in the context of the language in which that phrase was used. Let me give you another one. This one from the German language.

I'm going to try this one, Angelica. I'm not asking you to translate this, but if you need to correct the pronunciation of this in any way, feel free. Here's the German phrase, Morgenstund hat gulden Munde.

How did I do? I did well? Okay, don't translate it for me. Does anybody here other than Angelica and is Andrea in here? No, Andrea's not here. Know what that means? Morgenstund hat golden Munde. It means the morning hours have gold in their mouths.

Does that make sense to you? It does. Thank you. Angelica says yes. But if I were to say the early bird gets the worm, that would be an English equivalent of that. The morning hours have gold in their mouths.

The early bird gets the worm. So you can't just take a word for word equivalency. That would be formal equivalency and dynamic equivalency would be trying to catch the meaning of that phrase in its equivalent in the language that you're addressing, you're talking about, you're translating into.

Okay, so there is formal equivalency and dynamic equivalency. A formal equivalency is a word for word translation, a word for word translation. Dynamic equivalency is more of a meaning for meaning translation.

So formal equivalency is word for word, dynamic equivalency is meaning for meaning. So a formal equivalency is I have the cockroach and morning hours have gold in their mouths. Dynamic equivalency would be I'm depressed and the early bird gets the worm.

Now let me give you a scriptural example of this. In Luke 944, in the King James Version, this is a formal equivalency, we read, let these sayings sink deep into your ears. The New American Standard, Luke 944, let these words sink into your ears.

The NIV is more of a dynamic equivalency and it reads listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. You see the difference between that? Let these words sink deep into your ears, listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you.

So one of those is a formal equivalency where it's more strictly kind of trying to capture the word for word essence of a phrase. Dynamic equivalency tries to stay faithful to the word for word meaning of that but also tries to capture the meaning of it even if they have to sort of dip into a little bit more flowery and less formal equivalency translation.

Does that make sense? A formal equivalency and a dynamic equivalency. Now translators have a difficulty sticking with one or the other of those translation methodologies. It is impossible, impossible to strictly translate, and think of it on a spectrum.

It is impossible to strictly translate something word for word. It cannot be done. You cannot, you have to translate, in the Greek language word order is, word order is far less essential than it is in English.

In the English, Bob hit the ball is different than the ball hit Bob. It's all four of the same words in English but the word order, it tells you the case, it tells you the noun, what the verb is, what the direct object of that verb is.

All of that's conveyed in word order. In Greek it's not, it's not as significant as it is in English. So you might have a Greek word order that would make no sense at all if you translated that just word for word into English.

So no translation is able to hold to a strictly formal equivalency translation. Neither are you able to be faithful to Scripture and hold to a dynamic equivalency of translation. So every translation is going to fall somewhere on this spectrum and every translation or translation committee is going to have to balance between being leaning towards being word for word as well as trying to capture the meaning of it.

Does all that make sense to you? Okay, so formal equivalency, dynamic equivalency, and the inability to stick to one approach. So a literal translation of Genesis 33 verse 14. Now this is the account of Jacob meeting Esau and Esau says, hey, why don't you and your folks come join me after they had reunited there, after the conflict, they had reunited.

And you remember Jacob had sent his wives and his children ahead of him as offerings for Esau and then finally when they saw each other there was this sort of reconciliation between those two brothers and then Esau said, why don't you come to Sierra and join us.

Well, Jacob says this, Genesis 33 verse 14, and this is a word for word translation of Genesis 33 verse 14. As for me, let me lead my gentleness to the foot of the business which is to my face and to the foot of the children that I shall come to see my Lord to Sierra.

Yeah, I'll read it again just in case you're wondering, what did I miss in that? Did he leave out any words? No, here it is again. As for me, let me lead my gentleness to the foot of the business which is to my face and to the foot of the children that I shall come to my Lord to Sierra.

Now the NASB translates it this way, please let my Lord pass on before His servant and I will proceed at my leisure according to the pace of the cattle that are before me and according to the pace of the children until I come to my Lord at Sierra.

Radically different, right? Now the NASB which is more formal equivalence than dynamic equivalence, that's the NASB translation. If the NASB had just translated it word for word, it wouldn't have made any sense.

You'd never be able to read through that and have any idea what Jacob was talking about. But they had to go way over into the dynamic equivalent side of that to try and capture the sense of what Jacob meant by all of those Hebrew phrases that he was using.

So every translation tries to strike a balance between translating literal words and literal meanings. And sometimes interpretation comes to play in here. Sometimes interpretation comes to play. Sometimes the translator has to, and if you, let me finish this sentence before I get into an illustration.

Sometimes the translator has to read and exegete the text and say what is the author talking about, what is he meaning, what is the point here, how does this fit into the flow of the argument of the whole book so that he might know exactly how to translate that phrase according to the intended meaning of the author and the understood meaning of the original audience.

So sometimes a translator has to be a theologian, an exegete. He has to be somebody who can faithfully handle Scripture and get the understanding and the meaning of the text and be able to do so so that he can translate faithfully.

Because every translation requires interpretation. Need to know this when you read an English translation. Every translation that you have here, no matter what it is, every one of them is going to require some interpretive judgment calls along the way.

Okay? Any questions here before we get into the different translations? Oh, and if you want a fascinating sort of side education on this, there's I think two, maybe three interviews that I did with Gordon and Nancy Hunt.

They're the family that attends Kootenai here, the retired missionaries. And Gordy and Nancy were on the mission field translating the New Testament into the Mon Hui language. They spent seven years just learning the, trying to learn the language of the spoken language of the Mon Hui people.

Then they had to create a written alphabet and then they had to create written words for them and then teach them how to read it while they were translating Scripture into their own language. So I think it was three hours of interviews that I did with Gordy and Nancy and talked about the translation process and the difficulties and the challenges of doing that.

He would be, listen to those interviews, it's fascinating, that family. All right. Any questions before I get into the different, evaluating the different translations? Okay. You understand the difference between formal equivalency and dynamic equivalency.

Now we're going to talk about different translations that are somewhere on this spectrum. Let's begin with the King James Version. I'm going to give you some of the strengths and weaknesses of each of these translations.

The King James Version and Its Strengths and Weaknesses

Now what might be strengths to me might be weaknesses to somebody else. What might be a weakness, a perceived weakness that I would see in the translation might be to somebody else a strength. But here's my evaluation of some of the more popular translations.

First of all, the positives of the King James Translation. The King James is a fairly good literal translation of Scripture. It is more formal equivalency. The King James is more formal equivalency. It's widely used and has been very influential throughout church history.

And I think that you saw that over the course of those last two lessons that we taught on this subject as we talked about the history of the English translation. It is an accurate translation. It has nice Shakespearean prose, beautiful language.

It does have an authoritative sort of God has spoken feel to the King James. When you read the King James, it sounds otherworldly. Because in many ways it is otherworldly. It comes from a different world that is different than ours.

And the language sort of bears that out. The language bears out a different style. It's a different syntax almost, a different feel to the King James. So those are some of the positives of that. Some of the negatives of the King James Translation.

The King James does not take advantage of the wealth of textual information that we have in the text other than the textus receptus or the received text. So the King James Translation comes from Erasmus' Greek text produced from five or six different textual sources.

We have hundreds and thousands of textual sources now to compare and contrast. So the textual family that the King James translates from is a very narrow field of the textual tradition. And so they didn't have the wealth of information that we have today.

Not only just the wealth of text that are available to us today, but also the wealth of understanding of those ancient languages, the culture of the time, and the different idioms that were used in that.

There's so much that we have learned about Greek and Hebrew language syntax and grammar since the translation of the King James Translation. There's so much more we have learned from our study of ancient manuscripts that the King James translators did not have access to.

The King James has some wording that simply does not mean anything to the modern reader. There are passages, I shouldn't say passages, there are phrases and wordings of the King James that mean nothing to the modern reader.

And the point of having the Bible in your own language is so that you can understand the text of Scripture. This is what the King James translators themselves were going after when they made the King James Translation.

They wanted to put the Bible in the tongue of the English speaking people so that they could read and understand Scripture in their own language. And the fact is that language has changed since the King James was translated and the King James has not done very well in keeping up with the changes in modern English language.

And by the way, I just remind you that the King James translators did not see themselves as producing the final and full and inspired English translation of Scripture. They didn't. In the preface to one of their revisions of the King James Translation, they actually wrote in the preface that they knew that more translations would come and they welcomed improvements to the 1611 translation of the King James Bible.

Because they knew the goal was to be clear and faithful to the text. That was what they were trying to do. And they knew that others would come along, more information would come to light, and that that would need to be revised and tightened up a little bit.

So they were open to that. The King James contains some obscure or misleading words. Now some of these words might, you know, maybe you use this every day. I don't. How be it? Holden? Peradventure? Because that?

For that? For that? That? The? Thou? Thy? Thine? We don't speak like that. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't speak like that. I'm just saying that none of you here do. I know this because I've had conversations with pretty much everybody in this room.

So I know that you don't use that language. Unless you're a lawyer, you might use how be it in your average day-to-day doings. The King James also contains words that mean something different today than they did in King James' day.

The King James uses the word allege where it should translate it as prove. See, allege meant something different 500 years ago than it does today. You allege something, that means you're doing what? Does that mean you're proving it?

It just means you're alleging it, right? That's why we talk about alleged murderers. That doesn't mean he's a proved murderer. So that word has changed meaning in the last 500 years. Communicate is used for the word share.

Suffer is used for allow. Suffer the little children to come unto me. When I was reading the King James translation, I read that and I don't know why suffering children, I don't know what it has to do with coming unto Jesus.

Allow is used for the word approve. Let instead of hinder. Let something happen instead of hindering something. Let and hinder, those are opposites. That language has changed in the last 500 years. Prevent instead of precede and conversation is used instead of conduct.

Much of the grammar of the King James is outdated and inappropriate. And remember that the goal of the King James was to have a Bible translation in the English language that everybody could understand.

The King James also contains a few errors of translation. These errors of translation are due to the fact that today we know more about the language and the meaning and the usage of these words than they did 500 years ago.

Mark 6 .20 in the King James says,. For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and a holy, and observed him. And when he heard him, he did many things and heard him gladly. While the NASB translates that kept him safe or protected him, the New King James translates it protected him.

The New King James improved that translation, right? Observed him. You observe somebody, you observe John, Herod feared John, so he observed him and he protected him or kept him safe. 1 Thessalonians 5 .22, abstain from all appearance of evil.

The word appearance is not a good translation of that. That's a mistranslation. It should be every form of evil, kind of evil, but not appearance of evil. And then the King James includes some misleading translations, Acts 17 verses 19 and 22.

Those two verses use the word Areopagus and the word Mars Hill of the exact same word. It's translated in two different ways, Areopagus and Mars Hill. Is that clear to you? That's something that could be improved in the King James.

Matthew 25 .46 uses the word everlasting and eternal for the exact same Greek word, which has no distinction in those two words. The King James in Matthew 27 verse 9, 16 verse 14 and 2 verse 4 uses the terms, the words Jeremiah, Jeremias and Jeremy to refer to one Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah.

It translates his name three different ways that would almost lead one who didn't know better to suspect that either three people wrote the book of Jeremiah or that Jeremiah had three different names.

So those are some of the negatives of the King James translation. Now again, King James is more formal equivalency. It is an older translation. There are certain positives about it. It's not a bad translation.

You're not going to hell if you read the King James. You're not going to hell if you study the King James, none of that, but we have to be aware that there are weaknesses, particularly with older translations, these weaknesses come up.

Yes, Peter. Yeah, let me address that real quick. The question is what about the King James only claims that the King James translation was and they would claim this almost a re-inspiration of Scripture.

There are some extreme King James only advocates who would say that in 1611 God was basically correcting the Greek and Hebrew texts and re-inspiring Scripture. And so there are some King James only advocates, not all, but some of them who would say that the King James translation needs to be used to correct our understanding of Greek and Hebrew texts.

I'll give you just a second. Right, maybe he's a King James only, he doesn't like me. Had enough of this. See, there are some King James only advocates who would suggest that the King James translation should be used to correct the Greek and Hebrew.

If the Greek and the Hebrew differ from the King James, that needs to be corrected, not the King James. That's obviously a very extreme camp. There's no evidence and no reason whatsoever to believe that the King James translation is a re-inspiration of the text in that way.

It was a translation. The translators did not see themselves that way as re-inspired agents of Scripture, and it is simply an abuse of Scripture to suggest that anything that Scripture teaches that the King James translation is the only English-inspired version.

I have a book coming written by a friend, Fred Butler, who works at Grace to You. He wrote a book called King James…no, what's it called? King James Conspiracies? No, I should know this. I did the formatting for him on the inside and helped him get it self-published just this last year, but I was hoping it would be here by today, and it hasn't.

I think it's coming this next week, but those will be available out in the foyer, and it kind of deals with basically six of the arguments that King James-only advocates use. Yes? Royal deception, the conspiracies, the conspiracies against God's Word.

And so, he came out of the King James-only movement, and he wrote a book. Basically, it's a very good primer dealing with some of those arguments and fallacious reasoning of King James-only advocates.

The New King James Version as a Revision

All right, now the New King James. The New King James. The New King James is a 1982 revision of the King James translation, so again, now we're talking about revisions, right? King James is a translation.

The New King James is a revision. Here are some of the positives. The New King James attempted to clean up some of the faults of the King James and tried to keep the original King James wording and yet be modern, so it really tries to strike a balance between the authoritative, kind of flowery, Elizabethan, Shakespearean language feeling as well as trying to be a little bit more modern and more readable.

That was the balance that they were trying to strike. The New King James is committed to a more formal equivalence than dynamic equivalence, and it improved some of the mistranslations of the King James, but lost some of the archaic words, the these, the thousand, et cetera, and then all of the pronouns in the New King James, those were the pronouns relating to God.

I don't know if…are those capitalized? Anybody have a New King James translation? Anybody use the New King James? Are the pronouns to God and Christ capitalized in the Holy Spirit? I think so. Okay. All right, so here's the negatives of the New King James.

It is a revision and not a translation, and the reliance upon the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, the wealth of it, is not there. Now extreme King James only advocates will say that the New King James is nothing but another perversion of God's Word.

So just because they use the King James in the title of the New King James does not in any way woo King James only advocates from attacking the New King James. They would see it as a watered down, liberalized version of God's Word, a perversion, another perversion.

There is some awkward and old school language in the New King James that was retained like in like manner and did not heed them, fruit of your womb, et cetera. Some of those kinds of phrases that were part of the King James, some of those came over into the New King James, and the New King James did not clean up every fault of the King James, but it was an attempt to make more modern, and I think that the New King James did what it was intending to do, which was to clean up some of the issues with the King James, make it more modern, but also keep that sort of original feel of the King James language to some extent.

But again, you can't, yes, they are capitalized, okay. And so the New King James tries to strike that balance, and I think that they did a good job of doing that. All right, the New International Version, published in 1978, here are some of the positives.

Of all the modern versions, the NIV is the most widely used and accepted. Now, I would say that that is a positive in the sense that it is a widely used translation of Scripture. That is one of the things that the NIV has going for it, though I'm not a fan of the NIV, and I would stay away from the NIV.

It is very readable, and it is very clear, but the NIV is on the dynamic equivalency side of the spectrum, way over on the dynamic equivalency side of the spectrum, and they will sacrifice a word-for-word meaning or a word-for-word translation in order to be more readable at times, and that is one of the negatives.

Sometimes the NIV relies too heavily on dynamic equivalency. So for instance, in Philippians 3, verse 2, where Paul says, beware of the false prophets, beware of the dogs, beware of the circumcision, he uses the term beware three times there.

But the NIV, in order to make it more readable, just says, beware of the dogs, the evildoers and the circumcisions, or something like that. It cuts out two of the references to beware. Well, if I'm reading the Scripture, I don't like that.

I don't want translators not reflecting what's in the text. If Paul says beware three times, I want it, however unreadable it might be, I want to see it in my Bible three times. So because the NIV errs on the side of a dynamic equivalency, sometimes trying to capture the meaning even if it means not necessarily recognizing the presence of certain words there, it will err on that side, and I think that that is one of the negatives of it.

That's why I don't recommend it, I don't use it. The NIV also breaks up some of the longer sentences into shorter sentences, and that might make it more readable, more digestible to the English-speaking person, but I don't like that judgment called by the translators to break up the sentences into shorter sentences.

And sometimes they sacrifice meaning in the text for readability in the text. That's one of the errors of the NIV. Yes, Thomas? Yeah, I was hoping somebody would bring this up, actually, because I was sitting here as I was saying that, I was thinking, should I bring this up, or maybe if nobody notices that I won't bring it up.

So here's the question. Is in the original Greek language there is no punctuation in Greek? So if there's no punctuation in Greek, then how can you fault the NIV for breaking up longer sentences? Well, just because there was no punctuation in Greek doesn't mean they didn't have sentences.

So though the language, the writing of the language wouldn't have included a period, there are obviously sentence structure in the Greek language that you recognize. We mark that sentence structure with punctuation to highlight that, whereas, for instance, in Paul's, in the first chapter of the book of Ephesians, verses 1 through, is it 11 or 14, is all one sentence.

It's one long run-on sentence, there we go. It's one sentence in the Greek. Well, you can recognize that that's one sentence and put semicolons or leave out punctuation or however it is, but I prefer to see that in my English translation.

I don't want it broken up into four different sentences or even broken up into paragraphs. I don't like it being broken up in paragraphs. All right? And one warning about the NIV, this happened back in 19, I think it was 95 or 96.

The NIV publishers tried to come out with the TNIV, today's NIV, and that was a huge bomb because they were trying to make the translation gender-inclusive and get rid of the gender-exclusive language like he and him and brethren and things like that and make it more gender-neutral.

And of course, that was met with resistance back then. That push is still on today. There are translations that still try and do that today. And back when I designed this, that was sort of a new, when I designed this series, this study, that was sort of a new thing going on.

So you need to be aware of that. Avoid anything that tries to downplay the gendered nature of the language of Scripture. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, so the question is, the fact that somebody tried to do this with a gender-neutral translation indicates there are decision-makers in charge of these translations.

Who are those people? And for most of the translations, the names of the translation committee are openly revealed. They're not held secret. You do have to be aware of who is in charge of the translations and what influences that and who is affecting that.

I think that plays into it. Thankfully, most of our modern translations, at least all the ones that I'm dealing with here, are translations by committee so that you have some oversight and revision of that.

But it's true, once you have somebody who's making that decision to translate Scripture and we're going to allow culture or the political environment of the day to affect how we're translating Scripture, then that's a non-starter.