Lesson 15: Modern Translations

Kootenai Church

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Well, good morning everyone Come on in and find a spot in the sanctuary for the adult

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Sunday school class All right.

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We are in lesson 15 in your workbook modern translations All right.

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Let's pray as we begin Father we give our time and attention to you this morning

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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 in this day

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We pray that we may use it wisely and that you would keep our hearts and minds attentive to your word

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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.

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Amen All right. We're in lesson 15 modern translations. This is the last lesson that I'm going to be teaching in this

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Series on God wrote a book There are actually two other lessons that I have that are kind of along the same vein

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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

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I have a lesson on the other Textual variant the the other large textual variant, which is the woman caught in adultery and John 7

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I think is verse 53 through 8 verse 11 or 12 somewhere in there Those are the two longest textual variants in the

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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

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Bible you see that footnote says most manuscripts do not have this or most Manuscript families do not contain this section.

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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

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Sunday school class and all will cover end up covering one of those textual variants oftentimes I have the opportunity when

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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

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I get called upon sort of last -minute and if I need instead of doing a Q &A I'll just grab one of those lessons and teach that but this will be the end

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Officially of the God wrote a book series of lessons. So modern translations. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago

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Or a couple of lessons ago that in the English language. There are about 350 English translations of the

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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

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Paraphrases are different than translations. So what we're covering today is what makes a paraphrase a fair paraphrase what makes a translation a translation?

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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

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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

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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 a translation

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Translation translates from the Greek and the Hebrew text attempting to give the meaning of the words to the nearest equivalent

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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

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Greek and Hebrew texts Attempting to give the meaning of the words of those texts in the nearest equivalent

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English words so it's just a Translation from the original documents and the copies we should say of the original documents into whatever

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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 revisors may consult the

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Greek and the Hebrew text in an attempt to Clarify to improve or to tighten up an already existing translation

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So there are translations which go from Greek and Hebrew right into English a revision takes a translation and usually years decades later

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They try and take that Translation and they try and clean it up and make it tighter make it better and they consult the

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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 It's so it translates really the thoughts rather than the words themselves

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So a paraphrase really takes an idea of the text and tries to put the idea in the nearest

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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

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So a paraphrase plays very fast and loose with the meaning of Scripture and oftentimes

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In fact, most times a paraphrase is not based upon the Greek or the Hebrew text of the of the scriptures it's based upon an

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English translation so they will take an English translation and Expand upon that to try and make it more flowery and more more readable and and sort of add to it a little bit

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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.

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There are two types of different two different types of translation. This is number two. There are two different types of translation

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You cannot simply take a Greek when translation doesn't work the way that many of us

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Think that it works where you you have the Greek text and you take a Greek word and you say what's the English equivalent of?

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this word and you take that word and you write that down and then you take a the next word in the

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Greek and you write that word in English is you don't 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.

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I Because you know and understand that oftentimes a word can have radically different meanings in different contexts, right?

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The word trunk for instance I use this one commonly the word trunk Can mean a number of different things could be the trunk of a tree could be a trunk that you put your clothes in the

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Trunk of a car 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 is used

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So it is impossible to just simply take a word and find an English equivalent and say that's we're just gonna do a word -for -word Translation you can't do that translations don't work that way languages don't work that way.

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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

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There are two different ways of translating scripture and these are number letter C here for first there is what we call formal equivalency and then there is what we call dynamic equivalency and Here's the difficulty of rendering

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Here's the difficulty of rendering languages in translation. Let me give you an illustration In the French, let me give you a

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French phrase and then I'm going to translate it into English the French phrase. Je le caffard Does anybody else besides me speak

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French here? No You do no, we do. Okay, we do. Yeah, I don't speak

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French Je le caffard. Did we know what that means in French? Means I have the cockroach.

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I Literally, this is a literal equivalency a Formal equivalency if you just translate literally, it means

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I have the cockroach But if you want to know what it means in the English equivalent, the meaning is

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I'm depressed I'm depressed They say what does a cockroach have to do with being depressed?

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I don't know we take our phrase. He's a little down in the mouth a Little down in the mouth, right?

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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?

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That wouldn't make any sense to them, right? so you can't just take a word -for -word translation to catch necessarily the

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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

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German language. I'm gonna 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

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Okay, here's the here's the German phrase Morgan student had golden moon How did

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I do I? Did well, okay, don't translate it for me. Okay. Does anybody here other than Angelica and his

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Andre in here? No, Andrea's not here know what that means Morgan student had golden moon

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It means the morning hours have gold in their mouths It makes sense to you

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It does. Thank you. Angelica says yes But it but if I were to say the early bird gets the worm

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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

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He's talking about you 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

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Dynamic equivalency is more of a meaning -for -meaning translation So formal equivalency is word -for -word

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Dynamic equivalency is meaning -for -meaning so a formal equivalency is I have the cockroach and morning hours have gold in their mouths

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Dynamic equivalency would be I'm depressed and the early bird gets the worm Now give me a let me give you a scriptural example of this in Luke 944 in the

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King James Version This is a formal equivalency. We read let these sayings sink deep into your ears

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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

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I'm about to tell you You see the difference between that let these words sink deep into your ears.

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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

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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

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Little bit more flowery and less formal Equivalency translation does that make sense a formal equivalency and a dynamic equivalency?

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now translators Have a difficulty sticking with one or the other of those translation methodologies.

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It is impossible impossible to Strictly translate

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I think of it on a spectrum. It is impossible to strictly translate something word -for -word. It cannot be done

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You cannot you have to translate in in Greek in the Greek language word order is

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Word order is far less essential than it is in English in the English Bob hit the ball

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Is different than the ball hit Bob it's all for 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

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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

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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

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Neither are you able to be faithful to Scripture and hold to a dynamic equivalency of translation?

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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 being leaning towards being word -for -word as well as trying to capture the meaning of it

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Does all that make sense to him? yes, or formal equivalency dynamic equivalency and the inability to strip stick to one approach so a literal translation of Genesis 33 verse 14 now

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This is this is the account of Jacob meeting Esau and Esau says hey Why don't you and your your folks come join me after they had reunited there after the the conflict they had reunited and you remember?

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Jacob had sent his wives and his children ahead of him as and offerings for Esau and then finally when they saw each other there

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Was this sort of reconciliation between those two brothers and then Esau said why don't you come to Sierra and join us?

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Well Jacob says this Genesis 33 14. 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

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Which is to my face and to the foot of the children that I shall come to see my lord to seer

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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

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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 seer

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Now the NASB translates it this way Please let my lord pass on before his servants 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

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Children until I come to my lord at seer Radically different right now the

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NASB which is more formal equivalence than dynamic equivalence That's the NASB translation if the

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NASB had just translated it word -for -word It wouldn't made any sense you'd never be able to read through that have any idea what

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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

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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

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Interpretation comes to play in here sometimes interpretation comes to play sometimes the translator has to and and if you

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And let me finish the 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?

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What is he meaning? What is he? What is the point here? What is how does this fit into the flow of the argument of the whole book so that you might know exactly how to translate?

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that phrase according to the intended meaning of the author and the Understood meaning of the original audience

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So sometimes a translator has to be a theologian and exegete he has to be somebody who can faithfully handle scripture and and get the

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Understanding and the meaning of the text and be able to do so so that he can translate faithfully

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Because every translation requires interpretation need to know this when you read an English translation

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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

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Okay, any questions here before we get into the different translations oh and if you want a fascinating a

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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

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Kootenai here the retired missionaries and Gordy and Nancy were on the mission field translating the

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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

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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

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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

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Translation process and the difficulties and the challenges of doing that. He would be that listen to those interviews.

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That's fascinating that family All right, any questions before I get into the different evaluating the different translations?

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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

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Let's begin with the King James version I'm gonna give you some of the strengths and weaknesses of each of these translations now

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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 in the translation might be to somebody else a strength?

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But here's my evaluation of some of the more popular translations First of all the positives of the King James translation.

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The King James is a fairly good literal translation of Scripture It is more formal equivalency.

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The King James is more formal equivalency It's widely used and has been very influential throughout church history

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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

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English translation It is an accurate translation. It has nice Shakespearean prose beautiful language

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It does have an authoritative sort of God has spoken feel to the King James and you read the

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King James It sounds otherworldly Because in many ways it is otherworldly it comes from a different world

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It is different than our ours and the language sort of bears that out the language bears out a different different style

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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

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King James translation The King James does not take advantage of the wealth of textual information that we have

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In the text other than the textus receptus or the received text. So the King James translation comes from Erasmus is

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Greek text produced from five or six different textual sources but we have hundreds and thousands of textual sources now to compare and to contrast so the the textual

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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

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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

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In that there's so much that we have learned about Greek and Hebrew language Syntax and grammar since the translation of the

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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.

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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

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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

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King James translation they wanted to put the Bible in the tongue of the English -speaking people so that they could read and understand

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Scripture in their own language and The fact is the language has changed since the King James Was translated and the

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King James has not done very well in keeping up with the changes in modern English language And by the way,

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I just remind you 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 the to one of their revisions of the

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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

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King James Bible Because they what 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

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Information would come to light and that those would 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

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I don't how be it Holden peradventure because that for that thee thou thy thine.

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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

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I know this because I've had conversations with pretty much everybody in this room So I know that you don't use a language unless you're a lawyer you might use how be it in your average day -to -day

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Doings the King James also contains words that mean something different today than they did in King James's day

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The King James words uses the word allege Where it should translate it as prove

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See allege meant something different 500 years ago than it does today You allege something that means you're doing what does that mean?

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You're proving it Which means you're alleging it, right? That's why we talk about alleged murderers. That doesn't mean he's approved a murderer

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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

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Right when I was reading the King James translation I read that and I don't know what why suffering children on what has to do with coming unto

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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

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Okay, that language has changed in the last 500 years prevent instead of precede and conversation is used instead of conduct

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Much of the grammar of the King James is outdated and inappropriate And remember that the goal of the

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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

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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 and the

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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

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Well, the NASB translates that kept him safe or protected him New King James translates have protected him the new

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King James improved that translation right observed him You observe somebody you observe

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John Herod feared John So he observed him and he protected him or kept him safe first Thessalonians 522 abstain from all appearance of evil

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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

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And then the King James includes some misleading translations Acts 17 verses 19 and 22

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Those two verses use the word Areopagus and the word Mars Hill of the exact same word

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It's translated at two different ways Areopagus and Mars Hill. Is that clear to you? So that's something that could be improved in the

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King James Matthew 2546 uses the word everlasting and eternal for the exact same

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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

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Jeremiah Jeremias and Jeremy to refer to one Old Testament prophet

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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

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Negatives of the King James translation now again King James is more formal equivalency. It is an older translation

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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

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King James none of that But we have to be aware that there are weaknesses particularly with older translations these weaknesses come up.

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Yes, Peter Yeah, let me address that real quick.

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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

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King James only advocates who would say that in 1611 God was basically correcting the Greek and Hebrew texts and re -inspiring

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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

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I'll give it just a second right. Maybe he's a King James only doesn't like me

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Had enough of this Okay, there are some King James only advocates who would suggest that the

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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

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King James That's obviously a very extreme camp. There's there's no evidence and no reason whatsoever to believe that That the

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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

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Agents of Scripture and it is simply an abuse of Scripture to suggest that anything in Scripture teaches that the King James Translation is the only

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English inspired version I have a I have a book coming written by a friend Fred Butler who works at grace to you

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He wrote a book called King James. No, what's it called? King James conspiracies

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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

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But it should 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's kind of deals with basically six of the arguments the

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King James only advocates use Yes Royal deception the conspiracies the conspiracies against God's Word and so he came out of the

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King James only Movement and he wrote a book basically It's a very good primer dealing with some of those arguments and and fallacious reasoning of King James only advocates

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All right. Now the new King James the new King James the new King James is a 1982 revision of the

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King James translation So again now we're talking about revisions right King James the translation the new King James is a revision

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Here are some of the positives the new King James Attempted to clean up clean up some of the faults of the King James and tried to keep the original

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King James wording and yet be modern, so it really tries to strike a balance between the authoritative kind of flowery

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Elizabethan Shakespearean language feeling as well as trying to be a little bit more modern and more readable

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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

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King James But lost some of the archaic words that these the thousand etc, and then all of the pronouns in the new

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King James those were The pronouns relating to God, I don't know if are those capitalized anybody have a new

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King James translation Anybody use the new King James are the pronouns to God and Christ capitalized and the

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Holy Spirit. I think so. Okay All right. So here's the negatives of the new King James.

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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

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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

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King James in the title of the new King James does not in any way will King James only Advocates from attacking the new

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King James. They would see it as a watered -down liberalized version of God's Word a perversion another perversion

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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

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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

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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

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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

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But also keep that sort of original feel of the King James language to some extent, but again, you can't yes

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They are capitalized. Okay, and So the King 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

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Here are some of the positives of all the modern versions The NIV is the most widely used and accepted now

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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

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NIV has going for it, though I'm not a fan of the NIV and I would stay away from the

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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

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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

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He uses the term beware three times there But the NIV in order to make it more readable just says beware of the dogs

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The evildoers and the circumcisions or something like that it it cuts out two of the references to beware Well, if I'm reading the scripture,

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I don't like that I don't want translators not reflecting what's in the text if Paul says beware three times

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I wanted however unreadable it might be I want to see it in my Bible three times So because the

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NIV errs on the side of a formally a dynamic equivalency sometimes trying to capture the meaning even if it means

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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

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That's why I don't recommend it. I don't 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

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English -speaking person but I don't 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.

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That's one of the errors of the NIV Yes, Thomas Yeah I knew

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I was hoping somebody to 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

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Greek language. There is no punctuation in Greek So if there's no punctuation in Greek, then how can you fault the

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NIV for breaking up longer sentences? Well, just because there was no punctuation 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 was odd There are obviously sentence structure in the

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Greek language that you recognize We 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 Versus 1 through is it 11 or 14 is all one one sentence.

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It's one run run run Try it again. It's one long run on sentence.

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There we go. It's one Sentence in the Greek. Well, you you can Recognize that that's one sentence and put semicolons or leave out punctuation or however it is

30:05

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

30:12

I don't I don't like it being broken up in paragraphs All right, and one warning about the

30:17

NIV this happened back in 19. I think I was 95 or 96 The NIV publishers tried to come out with the

30:23

TN IV today's NIV and 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 and brethren and things like that and make it more gender -neutral and And of course that was met with resistance back then that pushes still on today there are translations that still try and do that today and Back when

30:47

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.

30:53

So you need to be aware of that avoid anything that tries to Tries to downplay the gender gendered nature of the language of Scripture Yeah Mm -hmm

31:24

Yeah So the question is the fact that somebody tried to do this with a gender -neutral translation indicates their decision -makers in charge of these translations who are those people and For most of the trend most of the translations the the names of the translation committee are openly revealed

31:39

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

31:49

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

31:59

Scripture and we're going to allow culture or The politically the political environment of the day to affect how we're translating

32:05

Scripture then that's a that's a non -starter Yeah, many of them do

32:13

I'm not sure who Trent who publishes the NIV is it I think it's on driven publishes the NIV. Yes Right good.

33:04

So the publishers make that call the publisher make that call who's gonna be on that because a lot of it is publisher driven Yeah, do you have a question

33:11

Peter's want me to repeat that? Yeah, yeah, it's on driven for the NIV Okay, number four is the

33:18

NASB This is the Bible that I preach from and have since 2002 before I preached Before I changed to the

33:23

NASB I was preaching in the New King James and before I was preaching in the New King James of preaching from the Old King James So there was a time in my life when

33:31

I was a King James only advocate I believe that the NIV was a liberal version and nearly inspired version and only perverts pedophiles and apostates preached out of the

33:40

NIV And I don't of course believe that anymore I was eventually frustrated by the language of the

33:46

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

33:52

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

33:57

NASB and the NASB that I preach out of is not the NASB published in the 1970s Sorry, 1963.

34:03

I think is when the first when the New Testament was published to the NASB 1971 70 or 71 is when the entire

34:10

Bible was published then 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 languages that these and the vows etc that the old

34:24

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

34:30

I'm Going to make a case for two other translations that I think are of equal or better value

34:37

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

34:47

NASB did quite well on that So the King James and New King James over here on the formal equivalency and IV over here on the dynamic

34:53

Equivalency side of it. The NASB is over on the formal equivalency side It is more word -for -word that 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

35:07

Readable translation. I think the NASB accomplishes that everything the New King James tried to do everything the

35:13

NIV claimed It was trying to do. I think that the NASB particularly the 1995 update does that very well

35:18

They used an eclectic text Which means that they were using all of the evidences all of the manuscript families the discoveries all that comes into play for that They're not just Texas Receptus or just Alexandrian or just the

35:30

Vaticanus manuscripts They're not narrowing the field there and they take into consideration all of the various textual families and texts have been discovered

35:38

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

35:46

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 who

35:58

Walks away and considers as nothing the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified Who does the he refer to there?

36:04

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

36:10

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

36:16

So obviously how you translate that pronoun? He is going to play into your theological construct and your understanding of that whole warning passage

36:27

Words were 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

36:36

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.

36:43

The other thing I like about the NASB is that they Not afraid to use theological words like propitiation justification

36:50

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

36:59

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

37:06

NASB kind of has a strikes a good balance between those two extremes So here are the negatives.

37:11

There are none. No, I'm just kidding. I Don't always like paragraph divisions in my translations

37:17

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

37:22

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.

37:32

So sometimes the paragraph divisions are not helpful That's the translators putting a paragraph division in there.

37:38

Sometimes it's accurate Sometimes it's not and we have to be aware of that when we're studying Scripture, but that objection

37:44

I think could be made of a lot of other translations modern translations as well the King James and 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

37:53

Column and in the middle of a sentence that it'll just break off and go to the next verse It doesn't try and group the words into units of thought

38:01

Sometimes in the NASB a bad translation or a slightly inadequate translation which you're gonna have today in the message today

38:08

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

38:13

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 it's not like I never come across something where I say

38:24

I think this would be translated better this way one such example is 2nd Timothy 316 which uses the word inspired

38:29

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

38:35

God breathed and Ironically the NIV uses the term God breathed. It's the dynamic equivalency of it

38:41

It uses the term God breathed that would that's a formal equivalent translation of the onus does So I wish the

38:47

NASB would follow suit And I have found some areas in the NIV that are the NASB that have needed to be corrected

38:55

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

39:04

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

39:10

NIV the NASB Now Let me let me talk about two others because there are two other

39:18

Very good translations that have come out since I originally wrote out the notes for this So one of them is the

39:23

ESV the English Standard Version the benefit of this is that it's free It's not a it's not a published translation that is controlled by the like the

39:31

Lachman Foundation Which which publishes the the NASB or Zondervan which publishes the NIV it is a free translation.

39:38

It's available as it's wide It's very 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

39:55

The ESV is more formal equivalency and it stays away from Dynamic equivalency the language is a little bit more modern than the

40:02

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 if I were preaching the

40:12

New King James if the if the ESV had been available in 2002 when I went from New King James to NASB I would have gladly jumped from the

40:18

New King James to the ESV But I'm on this road right now, and it's too late in the game

40:23

I got more years behind me than I do ahead of me probably so I'm not changing anytime soon From the

40:28

NASB to the ESV, but I do often consult almost every week I consult the ESV just because I want to see how the

40:35

ESV puts it And sometimes it will highlight Things that need to be addressed in the preaching or the handling of the text can in the way that they will translate something then

40:47

Just coming out this last March is the LSB. This is the legacy standard Bible Now I'm going to spend a couple moments

40:54

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's Seminary Down in Southern, California.

41:06

This is John MacArthur Grace Community Church the seminary that they oversee This is the product of Master's Seminary It is the the

41:12

Lachman Foundation who owns the rights to the NASB Gave to Master's Seminary the ability and the right to their text to create and update a revision of the

41:23

NASB well when Master's Seminary got that Authorization from the

41:29

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

41:35

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

41:41

That's his preferred translation So he wanted a translation that was going to kind of read the same and be as a formal equivalency translation be very readable

41:48

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

41:58

New Testament when you come across the word Bond servant or servant when it is the word do -loss they translate that consistently as slave

42:06

That is important many English translations modern English translations have avoided the term slave because of its political or racial connotations

42:13

And so the LSB the legacy standard Bible Translates that word as slave and it does so consistently through the

42:22

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

42:28

Speaking of the 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

42:40

There were languages Spoken languages. I'm speaking in a tongue. It's the English tongue earlier

42:46

I spoke in the French tongue. It's the French tongue early after that I spoke in the German tongue a tongue is a language

42:51

So when they translate it as as languages when it's appropriate in the text, then that is a huge improvement

42:58

Then the other thing is in the Old Testament The Tetragrammaton YHWH, which is the covenant name for God, which we would pronounce

43:05

Yahweh They actually translate it as Yahweh in the Old Testament So oftentimes we are used to reading in our

43:11

Old Testament of the Lord doing this the Word of the Lord is pure etc Well, that's the Lord is not a translation of that Yahweh I mean

43:19

Yahweh is God's name when God God gave his name to Moses and to Israel This was his covenant name and he expected us to know his name

43:27

And so all the way through the Old Testament New Testament, we read about the name of God. Well, his name is Yahweh It's not

43:32

Jehovah. It's Yahweh and so the LSB translates that the Lord as Yahweh in the

43:38

Old Testament consistently and it kind of here's the Benefit of it it kind of adds a little bit of flavor to the to the hearing of the word

43:48

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

43:53

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

43:59

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

44:06

Psalms I'm gonna do it in the LASB the LSB because right now they don't have the whole Old Testament by the way They have the

44:11

New Testament Psalms and Proverbs the rest of the Bible the entire Bible we published in October That's the word on the street.

44:16

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 in the Proverbs. So I'm gonna read

44:21

Psalm 19 This is a familiar passage I'm gonna read Psalm 24 Which is also a familiar passage so you can hear how some of the familiar

44:29

Phrases that you're used to just reading as the Lord that probably strike you a little bit differently Psalm 19 For the choir director

44:36

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

44:45

There is no speech nor are there words their voice is not heard Their line has gone out through all the earth and their utterances to the end of the world in them

44:53

He has placed a tent For the son, which is a as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber It rejoices as a strong man to run his course

45:00

It's rising is from one end of the heavens and it circuit to the other end of them and there is nothing hidden from its

45:06

Heat this is just the description of creation or seven The law of Yahweh is perfect restoring the soul

45:12

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.

45:25

The judgments of Yahweh are true. They are righteous altogether They're more desirable than gold even more than much fine gold sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb

45:34

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

45:45

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.

45:55

Oh Yahweh my rock and my Redeemer a Little bit different isn't it? You're used to reading the

46:00

Lord, but when you're just reading through an English translation you read the Lord It doesn't stress stand out to you as something other than just a reference to a deity

46:09

Now the name of God is there in the text for you. It's a little bit different Psalm 24

46:16

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

46:23

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

46:32

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

46:38

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

46:48

Oh Jacob Lift up your heads Oh gates and be lifted up Oh ancient doors that the king of glory may come in who is this king of glory

46:55

Yahweh strong and mighty Yahweh mighty in battle Lift up your heads Oh gates and lift up yourselves

47:01

Oh ancient doors that the king of glory may come in who is he this king of glory Yahweh of hosts

47:06

He is the king of glory just a little bit different and I think that that is a good thing.

47:12

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

47:27

Hebrew sounding words and phrases and bring them in so it's not Jesus. It's Yeshua I don't have to do the whole

47:33

Hebrew thing and they have 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

47:47

Yes Yeah, right.

47:57

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

48:05

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

48:13

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.

48:19

We know his name. He knows us by name We call him Yahweh our God. That is our God and This will

48:26

I think in the New Testament there will be phrases Where there would be places where the name of God Yahweh is used of Jesus in the

48:33

New Testament And so when we have an opportunity to read the New Testament in the LSB It's gonna bring some of that out You're gonna 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

48:44

There's another question over here. Yes Well, Jehovah is an anglicized

48:56

Attempt to do the same thing with the Tetragrammaton So it's not we would you wouldn't say

49:02

Jehovah Yahweh is if there are two different things It's just Yahweh Jehovah is an English attempt to try and add vowel sounds to the

49:08

YHWH Yeah Yes Yeah, so these are paraphrases and this was the next thing

49:27

I needed to get to so Yes Right, do

49:36

I know anything about the NASB 2020 I do not yet I know that that is like a parallel attempt because while the while Master's Seminary was working on the

49:45

LSB The NASB the Lachman Foundation was also making some revisions to the NASB 2020 to make the

49:50

NASB 1995 It's the NASB 2020. So I know that there is an attempt to update that into modern language

49:57

But I don't know anything about I haven't read it yet I haven't seen it at 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?

50:05

So regarding paraphrases now paraphrases right formal equivalency word -for -word

50:11

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

50:19

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

50:25

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

50:32

The Living Bible JB Phillips the Amplified Bible the Message Bible the Good News Bible the Word on the Street Bible and probably a hundred

50:39

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

50:50

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

51:01

King James interview I'm not quite sure reading a paraphrase can kind of help you say, okay I this is this guy's attempt to try and explain a little bit about what that means and so it could be helpful with that Woost Kenneth Woost has a good paraphrase

51:17

Paraphrasistic translation of scriptures that I think is probably one of the best paraphrases But again paraphrases are not translations, they're they're trying to catch the sense and the ideas behind it

51:26

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

51:35

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

51:40

Those I think are radically dangerous and you need to stay away from them. The Message Bible has has become very politically

51:47

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

51:57

The Living Bible came out years and years ago. It was the only Bible I had growing up in my home I was just a living

52:03

Bible and once in a while We'd sort of wipe the dust off of it and I would crack it open and read a couple of sentences and put it back away some of the negatives of the

52:10

Of the paraphrases is meaning is nearly always sacrificed for readability and the difficult that the the paraphrases will show you the

52:22

Interpretation and the biases of the translator. I use that term translator loosely the paraphraser

52:28

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

52:33

Because oftentimes they are gonna steer away from things that might be controversial The other things that paraphrases do not do is they they do not use words that we ought to learn what the meaning of those words are justification sanctification

52:44

Etc. There are 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 to get into nuances of theology

52:56

They're interested in just being a readable sort of assessment of what scripture says You would do better to read

53:01

J. Vernon McGee's running commentary on scripture than you would a paraphrase in my opinion Peter The Good News Bible is a paraphrase

53:11

So it's not a translation. It's a paraphrase again. You're having one on your this is how I would use a paraphrase

53:17

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

53:22

Because I have them 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

53:30

There's I 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 you just make scripture sort of personal and makes it an understandable

53:39

Okay, look I Don't mean this to sound harsh, but let's mature to the point quickly where you can use a translation

53:48

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

53:55

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

54:01

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

54:12

More formal equivalency translation. I would recommend the ESV the LSB or the NASB 1995 or 2020 update

54:19

I guess those would be what I'd recommend. Yes Yeah, that's a good point a good study

54:31

Bible with a good solid commentary It'd 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

54:38

MacArthur study Bible MacArthur study Bible is available in New King James in I think it's an

54:43

NIV I think it's an ESV and I know it's in the NASB because that's normally what we give to our graduates

54:49

Those are good notes In fact, if you read the text of the Bible and every footnote and every study note in the

54:55

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

55:01

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

55:07

MacArthur study Bible notes the theology there is great And I know I'm certain that the LSB will be available as a

55:13

MacArthur study Bible probably by Probably by the end of next year at the latest Yes, Peter Yeah, the recommended list of Bible translations would be

55:25

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

55:32

LSB the legacy standard Bible the legacy standard Bible in calfskin just feels so nice and No, it just it smells like God's Word in there

55:43

It's available New Testament Psalms and Proverbs now to show you how how tight this is to the

55:49

NASB the passage that I'm preaching on in Hebrews Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good days not forsaking the assembling 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

55:59

You see the day approaching that passage reads identical in the LASB as it does in the NASB There's absolutely no difference.

56:05

It's the exact same passage. I compared those so you're gonna see a lot of that This is going to be an improvement on the

56:10

NASB so This might work its way into my preaching in the years to come possibly

56:19

All right. Yes question real quick. We're way over time. Go ahead. You've been told the 1977 edition of the

56:33

NASB is better than the 95 edition that would probably be a judgment call by people probably that whether they like the language the 95 edition got rid of the these and 1000 some of the more archaic language that the earlier

56:43

NASB had so it might be that somebody who liked that like to the more flowery Language as far as tightening up the the usage of it.

56:52

I've never a 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 in every way

57:02

But I don't own a 1977 edition of it. It came out in 1963 I think in the

57:07

New Testament, they're 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

57:16

I use this one. I'm most familiar with Okay All right.

57:21

We are done. That is my last class on this subject. I hope that was beneficial And yay

57:29

Okay, 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

57:38

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

57:45

You'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.