Lesson 15: Modern Translations

Well, good morning, everyone.

Come on in and find a spot in the sanctuary for the adult Sunday school class.

All right, 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.

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, and 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 was 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.

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 texts, 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 the Hebrew texts 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 texts 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 texts 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.

You cannot simply take a Greek...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's the difficulty of rendering, here's 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, je le cafarde.

Does anybody else besides me speak French here?

No?

You do?

No, we do.

Okay.

We do.

Yeah.

I don't speak French.

Je le cafarde.

Anybody know what that means in French?

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.

So I'm not asking you to translate this, but if you need to correct the pronunciation of this in any way,

feel free, okay?

Here's the German phrase, Morgenstund hat gulden Munde.

How did I do?

I did well?

Okay, don't translate it for me, okay?

Does anybody here other than Angelica and is Andre 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.

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, 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, 14, and this is a word for word translation of Genesis 33, 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 it 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?

What is, how does this fit into the flow of the argument of the whole book so that he would 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 and 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, trying to learn the language, 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.

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 to 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 texts 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 is 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 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, thee, 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 words 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.

Well, the NASB translates that kept him safe or protected him.

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.

First 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.

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, etc., 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, etc.

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 long 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 into 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.

Yeah, many of them do.

I'm not sure who publishes the NIV.

I think Zondervan publishes the NIV.

Yes.

Yeah.

Good.

So the publishers make that call.

The publishers make that call of who's going to be on that because a lot of it is publisher -driven.

Yeah, do you have a question, Peter?

You just want me to repeat that?

No, I'll post Zondervan.

Yeah, yeah, Zondervan for the NIV.

Okay, number four is the NASB.

This is the Bible that I preach from and have since 2002.

Before I preached, before I changed to the NASB, I was preaching in the New King James and before I was preaching in the New King James, I

was preaching from the Old King James.

So there was a time in my life when I was a King James -only advocate.

I believed that the NIV was a liberal version and nearly inspired version and only perverts, pedophiles,

and apostates preached out of the NIV, and I don't, of course, believe that anymore.

I was eventually frustrated by the language of the King James and my own inability to understand it.

If I can't understand the text, then I can't explain the text to anybody else, so I switched over to the New King James, and I got

tired of correcting some of the translation issues in the New King James, so I switched over to the NASB, and the NASB that I preach out

of is not the NASB published in the 1970s, or sorry, 1963, I think, is when the first, when the New Testament

was published, the NASB, 1971, 70 or 71, is when the entire Bible was published.

In 1995, they did an update to the NASB, and that update capitalized the pronouns that refer

to God and got rid of some of the old archaic language, the these and the thous, etc., that the old NAS

had.

So here are some of the positives of the NASB, and I'm going to make a little bit of a case for this, and then I'm going to make a case for two other

translations that I think are of equal or better value.

First, the NASB is the product of 58 scholars, and they were committed to being as literal in their

translation as possible without sacrificing meaning, and I think that the NASB did quite well on that.

So the King James and the New King James over here on the formal equivalency, NIV over here on the dynamic equivalency side of it,

the NASB is over on the formal equivalency side.

It is more word for word.

I think that they did a good job of trying to, of striking a balance between being formally equivalent and yet capturing

meaning and trying to get a good, readable translation.

I think the NASB accomplishes that.

Everything the New King James tried to do, everything the NIV claimed it was trying to do, I think that the NASB, particularly the 1995

update, does that very well.

They used an eclectic text, which means that they were using all of the evidences, all of the manuscript families, the discoveries, all of

that comes into play for that.

They're not just Textus Receptus or just Alexandrian or just the Vaticanus manuscripts.

They're not narrowing the field, and they take into consideration all of the various textual families and texts that have been discovered.

Their punctuation and paragraphs have been changed to clarify the meaning of the passage, which can be helpful.

The personal pronouns referring to deity are capitalized, I mentioned that, and this involves some interpretive judgments.

One of them is coming up in Hebrews chapter 10 in this warning passage, in the warning passage of the apostate, where it talks about

God judging the one who walks away and considers as nothing the blood of the covenant by

which he was sanctified.

Who does the he refer to there?

Well, if it refers to, if it's lowercase h and refers to the apostate, then it means that you can lose your salvation.

But if it's uppercase h and refers to Christ being sanctified by the blood of the covenant, then it means you can't lose your salvation.

So obviously, how you translate that pronoun, he, is going to play into your theological construct

and your understanding of that whole warning passage.

Words that are added that are not in the original but are added in the English to make it readable and to clarify,

those were put in italics, and the thing I like about the NASB is they're not afraid to be word for

word literal, even if it means that the phrasing is awkward.

The other thing I like about the NASB is that they are not afraid to use theological words like propitiation,

justification, sanctification, etc.

And there is a dignity to the language of the NASB that I like.

I don't think it is so modern that it feels like you're just, you know, speaking Eubonics down in South Central LA,

but at the same time, it's not so archaic that you feel like you're having a conversation with Shakespeare.

I think the NASB kind of strikes a good balance between those two extremes.

So here are the negatives.

There are none.

No, I'm just kidding.

I don't always like paragraph divisions in my translations.

I don't always like that because sometimes when you, just like chapter divisions, they're not always helpful.

Sometimes chapter divisions are helpful.

Sometimes verse divisions are helpful.

Sometimes they're not.

But when we break the passage up into paragraphs, we're breaking it up, we are trained to read paragraphs in terms of unit of thought.

So sometimes the paragraph divisions are not helpful.

That's the translators putting a paragraph division in there.

Sometimes it's accurate.

Sometimes it's not.

And we have to be aware of that when we're studying Scripture.

But that objection, I think, could be made of a lot of other translations, modern translations as well.

The King James, the New King James, just divided up in the verse.

Each verse begins at the beginning of the, at the head of the column, the left -hand side of the column, and in the middle of the sentence, it'll just

break off and go to the next verse.

It doesn't try and group the words into units of thought.

Sometimes in the NASB, a bad translation or a slightly inadequate translation, which we're going to have today

in the message today, there's a word that we're dealing with in text today that I think could be a little bit stronger in the NASB, would be a little.

Bit better.

There are sometimes bad translations that persist in the NASB.

I've had to correct some of those or mention some of those.

We've gone through Hebrews, and it's not like I never come across something where I say, I think this would be translated better this way.

One such example is 2 Timothy 3 .16, which uses the word inspired.

I wish the NASB would get rid of that word inspired.

It doesn't mean inspired in the sense that we talk about inspired.

It means God -breathed.

And ironically, the NIV uses the term God -breathed.

It's the dynamic equivalency of it.

It uses the term God -breathed.

That would, that's a formal equivalent translation of Theonoustos.

So I wish the NASB would follow suit.

And I have found some areas in the NIV that, or the NASB that have needed to be corrected.

Overall, I think, I said at the time that I wrote this little series of lessons, I think it was the most

accurate translation available, and it just is.

I think it is more accurate.

I'd be willing to die for this.

It is more accurate than the King James, the New King James, or the NIV, the NASB.

Now let me talk about two others, because there are two other very good translations that have come out since I originally

wrote out the notes for this.

So one of them is the ESV, the English Standard Version.

The benefit of this is that it's free.

It's not a published translation that is controlled by the Lockman Foundation, which publishes the

NASB, or Zondervan, which publishes the NIV.

It is a free translation.

It's available.

It's wide.

It's very liked and loved in Reformed circles or Calvinistic circles, rightly so, because it's a very good translation that

is not afraid of getting into some of those areas of theology when it translates the text.

And I think that that's a good thing.

The ESV is more formal equivalency, and it stays away from dynamic equivalency.

The language is a little bit more modern than the NASB, so it's a little bit more spoken English like we speak it,

but it is a very good formal equivalency translation.

And if I were preaching the New King James, if the ESV had been available in 2002 when I went from New King

James to NASB, I would have gladly jumped from the New King James to the ESV.

But I'm on this road right now, and it's too late in the game.

I got more years behind me than I do ahead of me, probably, so I'm not changing anytime soon from the NASB to the

ESV.

But I do often consult.

Almost every week I consult the ESV, just because I want to see how the ESV puts it.

And sometimes it will highlight things that need to be addressed in the preaching or the handling of the text

in a way that they will translate something.

Then, just coming out this last March, is the LSB.

This is the Legacy Standard Bible.

Now, I'm going to spend a couple of moments, I'm going to read to you a couple of short passages out of this so you can see how this reads.

The LSB, the Legacy Standard, is the product of Master Seminary down in Southern California.

This is John MacArthur, Grace Community Church, the seminary that they oversee.

This is the product of Master Seminary.

It is the Lachman Foundation, who owns the rights to the NASB, gave to Master Seminary

the ability and the right to their text to create and update a revision of the NASB.

Well, when Master Seminary got that authorization from the Lachman Foundation to do that with

the NASB, they had a couple of things in mind that they wanted to do with this new translation.

One of them, of course, was to tighten up and make the NASB better, because MacArthur's preached out of the NASB for years, that's his

preferred translation, so he wanted a translation that was going to kind of read the same and be a formal equivalency

translation, be very readable, but also improve it in a couple of very specific and intentional ways.

One of the ways that they improved it, very specifically and intentionally, is in the New Testament, when you come across the word

bondservant or servant, when it is the word doulos, they translate that consistently as slave.

That is important.

Many English translations, modern English translations, have avoided the term slave because of its political or racial

connotations.

And so the LSB, the Legacy Standard Bible, translates that word as

slave, and it does so consistently through the New Testament.

The other good improvement is the fact that in the New Testament, where the word tongues occurs, speaking of

the gift of tongues, they will translate that as languages.

That is a dramatic improvement, because tongues are not just babbling, nonsensical, angelic,

incoherent gibberish.

They were languages, spoken languages.

I'm speaking in a tongue, it's the English tongue.

Earlier I spoke in the French tongue, it's the French tongue, after that I spoke in the German tongue.

A tongue is a language, so when they translate it as languages, when it's appropriate in the text, then that is a huge

improvement.

Then the other thing is in the Old Testament, the Tetragrammaton, Y -H -W -H, which is the covenant name

for God, which we would pronounce Yahweh, they actually translate it as Yahweh in the Old Testament.

So oftentimes we are used to reading in our Old Testament of the Lord doing this, the word of the Lord is pure, et cetera.

Well, the Lord is not a translation of that, Yahweh is God's name.

When God gave His name to Moses and to Israel, this was His covenant name, and He expected us to know His

name.

And so all the way through the Old Testament and New Testament, we read about the name of God.

Well, His name is Yahweh, it's not Jehovah, it's Yahweh.

And so the LSB translates that, the Lord, as Yahweh in the Old Testament consistently, and it

kind of, here's the benefit of it, it kind of adds a little bit of flavor to the

hearing of the word.

It strikes the hearer, especially those of us in English who are used to reading Yahweh as the Lord

translated in the Old Testament.

It adds a little bit of a different, more personal flavor to some of the passages.

So in my Bible reading through the year, I was going through the book of Psalms recently, and I usually do like the first 50 in a chunk,

and so I was reading through the Psalms, and I thought, I'm going to do it in the LSB, because right now they don't have the whole Old Testament, by the way.

They have the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs.

The rest of the Bible, the entire Bible will be published in October, that's the word on the street.

So probably by the end of the year at the absolute latest, they'll have the whole Bible.

Out.

But I have here the Psalms and the Proverbs.

So I'm going to read Psalm 19, this is a familiar passage.

I'm going to read Psalm 24, which is also a familiar passage, so you can hear how some of the familiar phrases that you're used

to just reading as the Lord, they'll probably strike you a little bit differently.

Psalm 19, for the choir director, Psalm of David, the heavens are telling of the glory of God,

and the expanse is declaring the work of his hands.

Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words, their voice is not heard.

Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their utterance is to the end of the world.

In them he has placed a tent for the sun, which is a bridegroom coming out of his chamber.

It rejoices as a strong man to run his course.

Its rising is from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

Now this is just a description of creation.

Verse 7, the law of Yahweh is perfect, restoring the soul.

The testimony of Yahweh is sure, making wise the simple.

The precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandments of Yahweh is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever.

The judgments of Yahweh are true, they are righteous all together.

They're more desirable than gold, even more than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover by them your slave is warned, in keeping them there is great reward.

Who can discern his errors, acquit me of hidden faults, and keep back your slave from presumptuous sins?

Let them not rule over me.

Then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Yahweh, my rock and my redeemer.

A little bit different, isn't it?

You're used to reading the Lord, but when you're just reading through an English translation, you read the Lord, it doesn't

stand out to you as something other than just a reference to a deity.

Now the name of God is there in the text for you.

It's a little bit different.

Psalm 24, another example.

The earth is Yahweh's as well as its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it.

For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.

Who may ascend into the mountain of Yahweh?

And who may rise in his holy place?

He who has innocent hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to worthlessness and has not sworn

deceitfully, he shall lift up a blessing from Yahweh and the righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face.

Pay heed, O Jacob.

Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in.

Who is this king of glory?

Yahweh, strong and mighty.

Yahweh, mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift up yourselves, O ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in.

Who is he, this king of glory?

Yahweh of hosts.

He is the king of glory.

See, it's a little bit different.

And I think that that is a good thing.

That is a dramatic improvement and a good improvement.

Now, we don't, let me get your question in just a second.

We don't necessarily like that right away when we read it because there's a whole group of Christians

who have abused this idea that they think they need to take Hebrew -sounding words and phrases and bring them in.

So, it's not Jesus, it's Yeshua, and they have to do the whole Hebrew thing.

And they have robbed from us something that is precious.

And that is an understanding of the name of God and who he is.

And so, this, I think, is a good attempt to try and take some of that back.

Yes?

Yeah.

Right.

He gave us his name, not because he doesn't want us to pronounce it or to use it.

He wants us to know him by that name, his covenant name.

So it is completely appropriate to approach him in prayer and call him Yahweh.

That is his name.

And he said, this is my name, and he gives it to us.

Not so that we can never say it, but so that we can know him by it.

It's personal.

You and I have an intimate relationship with God.

We know his name.

He knows us by name.

We call him Yahweh, our God.

That is our God.

And this will, I think, in the New Testament, there will be phrases where, there will be places where the name of God,

Yahweh, is used of Jesus in the New Testament.

And so, when we have an opportunity to read the New Testament in the LSB, it's going to bring some of that out.

You're going to see the deed of Christ pop right off the page, as it would if you understood the original languages and were able to read the

original languages in that way.

Is there another question over here?

Yes.

Well, Jehovah is an anglicized attempt to do the same thing with the Tetragrammaton.

So it's not, we wouldn't, you wouldn't say Jehovah, Yahweh, as if they're two different things.

It's just Yahweh.

Jehovah is an English attempt to try and add vowel sounds to the Y -H -W -H.

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, so these are paraphrases, and this was the next thing I needed to get to.

So, yes.

Right.

Do I know anything about the NASB 2020?

I do not yet.

I know that that is like a parallel attempt, because while Master's Seminary was working on the LSB,

the NASB, the Lachman Foundation, was also making some revisions to the NASB 1995, it was the

NASB 2020.

So I know that there is an attempt to update that into modern language, but I don't know anything about it.

I haven't read it yet.

I haven't seen it, had a copy of it at all, and I'm not even, I haven't even taken the time really to research what were they trying to accomplish with that

update.

So regarding paraphrases, now paraphrases, right, formal equivalency, word for word, dynamic equivalency, thought

for thought, and then paraphrases are over here on this side here, where they're not really interested in Greek and

Hebrew text and being formally equivalent.

They're really interested in just trying to be flowery and give you sort of a meaning and an idea of it.

Now, there are good paraphrases that try and be very restrictive, and then there are paraphrases that don't care anything about

theology.

The Living Bible, J .B. Phillips, the Amplified Bible, the Message Bible, the Good News Bible, the Word on the Street Bible, and probably a

hundred other ones that will all be paraphrases, but those are probably some of the most well -known examples of a paraphrase.

The positives paraphrases can sometimes help you kind of catch the sense of a passage, but I do not recommend

studying out of a paraphrase, nor would I recommend that a paraphrase should be part of your daily, normal Bible

reading.

It should not be.

Just if you're reading something, the King James, the NIV, I'm not quite sure, reading a paraphrase can kind of help you say, okay,

this is this guy's attempt to try and explain a little bit about what that means, and so it can be helpful with that.

Woust, Kenneth Woust, has a good paraphrase, paraphrasistic translation of Scriptures that I think

is probably one of the best paraphrases, but again, paraphrases are not translations.

They're trying to catch the sense and the ideas behind it, so I think it's more, far more of a liberal approach to

translating Scripture.

I wouldn't even call it a translating Scripture, because many paraphrases are not based upon Greek or Hebrew at all.

They take the English translation, and they just expand upon that without consulting the Greek or the Hebrew at all.

Those, I think, are radically dangerous, and you need to stay away from them.

The Message Bible has become very politically geared to translating Scripture in a way that's

politically acceptable.

They downplay some of the passages dealing with homosexuality and certain sins in the Message paraphrase.

The Living Bible came out years and years ago.

It was the only Bible I had growing up in my home.

It was just a Living Bible, and once in a while, we'd sort of wipe the dust off of it, and I'd crack it open and read a couple of sentences and put it back away.

Some of the negatives of the paraphrases is meaning is nearly always

sacrificed for readability, and the paraphrases will show

you the interpretation and the biases of the translator.

I use that term translator loosely, the paraphraser.

The biases and the theological leanings of the paraphraser will come out really quickly in a paraphrase because oftentimes they

are going to steer away from things that might be controversial.

The other things that paraphrases do not do is they do not use words that we ought to learn what the meaning of those words are, justification,

sanctification, etc.

They're theological words that we do well to know the meaning of them and to know how they're used and see them in Scripture and

understand them.

We should, and paraphrases will stay away from that because they're not interested in getting into nuances of theology.

They're interested in just being a readable sort of assessment of what Scripture says.

You would do better to read J. Vernon McGee's running commentary on Scripture than you would a paraphrase, in my opinion.

Peter?

The Good News Bible is a paraphrase, so it's not a translation, it's a paraphrase.

Again, having one on your, this is how I would use a paraphrase.

I don't, I can't even tell you the last time that I consulted a paraphrase unless I was trying to critique a paraphrase because

I have my NASB, now I have the LSB and I have the ESV, and then I have very readable, good language tools

that we can use.

There's just no need for me to consult a paraphrase.

And I know that some people will say, well, I like to use a paraphrase because it just makes Scripture sort of personal and makes it understandable.

Okay, look, I don't mean this to sound harsh, but let's mature to the point

quickly where you can use a translation.

Stay away from the paraphrases.

Get into a good translation, start learning the language, start learning the text of Scripture, you will be well served.

You will not grow in your faith if you are reading, if what you are reading is milk and pablum,

you will not ever get to the point where you can choose steak and potatoes.

You have to, you have to mature past a paraphrase.

Do so quickly.

Get out of the paraphrase, get into a more formal equivalency translation.

I would recommend the ESV, the LSB, or the NASB, 1995 or 2020 update, I guess.

Those would be what I'd recommend.

Yes?

Yeah, that's a good point.

A good study Bible with a good solid commentary would be a good way to wean yourself out of reliance upon a paraphrase.

And of course, we give out to all of our high school graduates here the MacArthur Study Bible.

The MacArthur Study Bible is available at New King James in, I think it's in NIV, I think it's in ESV, and I

know it's in the NASB because that's normally what we give to our graduates.

Those are good notes.

In fact, if you read the text of the Bible and every footnote and every study note in the MacArthur Study Bible, you'll

know more than 99 of pastors that are alive today and preaching in churches across the country.

And I'm not exaggerating.

You will be more theologically trained than most people who stand in pulpits today if you just are familiar with the MacArthur Study

Bible notes.

The theology there is great, and I know, I'm certain, that the LSB will be available as a MacArthur Study

Bible probably by the end of next year at the latest.

Yes, Peter?

Yeah, the recommended list of Bible translations would be ESV, the English Standard Version, the NASB 1995

update, and I'm holding off judgment on the 2020 because I haven't seen it, or the LSB, the Legacy Standard Bible.

The Legacy Standard Bible in calfskin just feels so nice, and it just

smells like God's Word in there.

It's available, New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs.

Now to show you how tight this is to the NASB, the passage that I'm preaching on in Hebrews, let us consider how to

stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but all the more so as you see the day approaching.

Encouraging one another all the more as you see the day approaching.

That passage reads identical in the LASB as it does in the NASB.

There's absolutely no difference.

It's the exact same passage.

I compared those.

So you're going to see a lot of that.

This is going to be an improvement on the NASB.

So this might work its way into my preaching in the years to come, possibly.

All right, yes, question real quick.

We're way over time, but go ahead.

You've been told the 1977 edition of the NASB is better than the 95 edition.

That would probably be a judgment call by people, probably whether they like the language.

The 95 edition got rid of the these and the thous and some of the more archaic language that the earlier NASB had.

So it might be that somebody who liked that liked the more flowery language.

As far as tightening up the usage of it, I've never, tightening up the translation itself, I don't know that I've

ever heard anybody, any scholar make that claim that the 95 update was not an improvement in every way.

But I don't own a 1977 edition of it.

It came out in 1963, I think, and the New Testament, or sorry, the full Bible came out in 1970.

So I don't know if there was a 77 revision of that.

I do know that the 95 revision is the one I use, it's the one I'm most familiar with.

Okay?

All right, we are done.

That is my last class on this subject.

I hope that was beneficial.

And yay.

Okay.

Let's pray.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank You for this time that we've had and for the blessings of Your grace.

Thank You for Your Word again and for the fact that we can have one in our own language.

What a joy and a blessing that is.

Thank You for the faithful men who have translated Your Word and the faithful people throughout the ages who have made this possible.

We're grateful for Your preserving work and Your inspiring work and giving us Your Word, and we pray that it may have its way and its

will in our hearts and that we may be continually transformed by it into the image of Christ.

Thank You for Your grace again, in Christ's name, amen.