This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 550: Read the Bible for Yourself 17: How to Choose a Bible Translation by Sean Finnegan

This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode.


00:08
Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:24
After reviewing the resources, you can use to learn Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. We delve into the sources that translators use for their work.

00:34
Of course it is a lot more effective to just read the Bible in its original languages, but not everyone has the time for that, so we'll look at how translations are done, including translation philosophies like formal and dynamic equivalence. Lastly, we'll cover the controversial issues of gender accuracy.

00:55
And translation bias overall, this episode should give you a nice introduction to a deep answer for what translations you should use and why.

01:07
Here now is Episode 550, part 17 of our read the Bible for yourself class how to choose a Bible translation.

01:23
I'd like to begin.

01:24
With a quote.

01:25
From fee and Stewart's book how to read the Bible for all it's worth, they say your Bible, whatever translation you use, which is your beginning point, is in fact the end result of much.

01:39
Scholarly work.

01:41
Translators are regularly called upon to make choices regarding meanings, and their choices are going to affect how you understand.

01:51
I found that to be a very honest and truthful statement.

01:56
My first Hebrew teacher was from the synagogue down the road in Schenectady.

02:02
Her name is Lee Brice, and she started teaching us Hebrew, and she said every translation is a commentary.

02:10
And I remember hearing that and thinking.

02:12
That is way overstated, but at the same time, it's also true there's always an element of bias in translation. There's always an element of injecting some extra words and some extra meaning when you go between one language and another.

02:33
It's just the way languages are. It's there's nothing nefarious about it. It's just the nature of it.

02:39
So before I get into explaining how to pick a good Bible translation, I want to give an appeal to you to learn the biblical languages, and I have done this before and I will do it again because I'm looking for converts. I'm looking for eager.

02:59
Eager minds to learn the biblical languages. I want to ask you the question, why use the translation at all? What you do with the translation now? These languages, they may look weird, but you can learn them if you put in the effort.

03:14
The Bible, as we've seen, is comprised of 66 books.

03:21
And these 66 books are written in three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The Hebrew portion is the 1st 39 books of the Old Testament, with the exception of the middle of Ezra, there's a couple of Aramaic sections, and the middle of Daniel has a couple of Aramaic.

03:41
Directions. If you do the numbers.

03:44
98.85% of the Old Testament is Hebrew.

03:49
And 1.15% is Aramaic.

03:53
So I think you should, if you were going to pick one between the two, you should pick the Hebrew because you get more for your money in that. But the Aramaic is still there when it comes to the Greek, we have 27 books of the New Testament, all Greek, no other languages. So a lot of times we simplify, we just say Hebrew and Greek.

04:14
Because the Aramaic only has 268 verses, which is about only 1% of the Old Testament and less than 1% overall of the whole Bible.

04:23
So have you ever considered learning Hebrew or Greek?

04:28
Why not put the work in and gain reading fluency? And that's really what you want if you're going to learn Hebrew. Greek, you want to gain reading fluency. Just being able to say the alphabet or impress your friends with a couple of words.

04:43
That's not really what we're after. What we want is to be able to read it and have fluency in reading it to be able to look at these words and understand them, just like you understand the English language. That would be the goal, and I'm going to give you a quick reason why. OK, so this is Genesis 96. It says show Feh dam.

05:03
Adam. But Adam Damo ye shaf.

05:06
Say you don't know these words. I know that, but you can hear the sound of the words. OK, so this first word is the same as the last word. They're different forms, but they're the same word. And then this word here.

05:26
And this word here, Dom and Domo. It's the same word, but there's a little bit of a difference there. And then Adam and blah Adam are the same word again. So this this sentence, which in English comes across as.

05:44
The one who pours out the blood of the man by a man, his blood will be poured out.

05:50
You lose all of the.

05:53
Sound the word man and blood do not sound similar in English.

06:00
But Dom and Adam, you know, there's a poetry, there's an assonance, there's a sound, and to the.

06:07
Language and in Hebrew, that's the name of the game. Repeated sounds sound good? We don't have the same view in about English. We have like rhyming sounds, right? So there's some sense of that. Or here's an example from Matthew.

06:22
1618 which says cargos etc. Lego OTC EE Petros K Epitaph FTI Petra so in English translation of this it would say and I.

06:39
And or, but to you I say that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome her, as in the church we would translate that it in English. The point is, if you're reading this in the original language.

07:00
What you see is you are a rock.

07:05
And upon this rock face, I will build my church like there's there's a petros Petra. It's unmissable if you're reading it in the original. And then if you're reading in the English, you're like, well, maybe you have a footnote to help you there.

07:21
Nobody in English is going to think the word Peter sounds like the word rock.

07:26
Because it doesn't. But in in Greek they are the same word. So this my my point about learning the language is you just get more flavor. It's like you have.

07:33
Have.

07:35
Sunglasses on and you take them off and now you see more colors cause the glass is tinted at a certain direction.

07:43
Alright, so if you do want to learn Hebrew or Greek, let me just tell you how to do it. OK. The number one way you can do it is go to the country that speaks that language and live there for a short period of time or a long period of time. But at least enough time to be able to learn the language. So there's there are immersion programs.

08:05
So for example, the whole Word Institute offers a nine month program where you go to Israel and you learn.

08:10
Hebrew.

08:11
It's by far the best way to do it. Most people do not have that luxury to be able to just go and move and do that. And Israel's currently in a war so probably wouldn't be a good idea right now.

08:23
#2 in person college classes. Usually that's going to take two semesters. You can go to a local college. Most colleges will have Hebrew or Greek. These are languages that are that are still important. You have modern versions. Then you have the biblical versions. If possible, you want to take the biblical versions of them for reading the Bible.

08:42
And RTS Reformed Theological Seminary offers an 8 week summer program so that maybe it's more doable. It's kind of like an immersion experience, except you're still in America.

08:53
So it's not like you're just reading and thinking the the biblical language is all day, every day it's it's a couple of hours each day, but it's about as close as it gets.

09:04
Here, alright, #3 would be in person classes at a Jewish synagogue or Greek church or community.

09:11
Center.

09:12
Where you could go and you could take classes.

09:15
#4 would be an online program with a live instructor. This is something that I finished recently with the biblical language center. Liberty University has this a lot of colleges have this where you just take online classes where it's a live instructor and then the the last one is a pre recording or a digital program. So.

09:35
That's where you're you don't get to like.

09:39
Participate in it. You're just, you're just receiving in that case. And so Olaf with Beth is the name of a YouTube channel that does a great job teaching Hebrew.

09:49
And is free, or bill mounts is famous for his DVD course on Biblical Greek. And so those are ways. If you wanted to get started five different ways in order of which is most effective to least effective, which takes the least amount of time for the most amount of time to.

10:06
Gain.

10:06
Fluency. Now, if you already have learned some Hebrew or Greek.

10:10
How can you improve or at least not let it die?

10:15
Number one, if you are part of a reading group in person or online.

10:20
And you read a portion of the Bible together each week. That is fantastic for not only retaining, but developing in your languages. #2 is daily dose of Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic. These are websites daily doseofhebrew.com daily dose of greek.com daily dose of Aramaic. There's also a Latin.

10:40
On these are teachers that they're associated with, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and they.

10:46
They produce a YouTube video every day of the work week and you can e-mail it to you for free, and it just does the verse and it just shows you the verse and then the guy reads it and then explains it and then you know, it's like 5 minutes. The video ends. So that's a way to keep it alive or improve. The biggest thing you can do if you've already been through some grammar is to read.

11:07
Every day, read the Bible, read devotionals, read comic books. We. Yes, we have Hebrew and Greek Bible comic books by published by Glossa House. They're really cool. I have. I have the one for.

11:19
Truth.

11:20
Jonah and Genesis. And yeah, it's like actual comic books. But on the biblical language. And #4 is watch TV, watch modern Hebrew and Greek shows modern Hebrew and modern Greek are not identical to ancient languages, but they're close enough that if you're watching those shows, that will help you with your biblical skills.

11:42
You can watch Izzy, which is like Netflix for Israel and the Greeks have tons of online TV shows since you can watch. I was just checking that out today. Alright, enough of that. Let's talk about translations. You ever ask yourself, what do the translators use as a source?

11:59
This is an important question that most of us never think about. Most of us think about how well are they translating it? How much bias are they inserting into it? How accurate are they doing? We're not asking the question of how good's their source, what are they translating from, and So what they translate from are critical texts.

12:20
A critical text is a scholarly reconstruction of either the Old Testament or the New Testament. So in either in Hebrew or in Greek, it's the scholars best guess of what the original was, and why do they have to do this? Because we have all these manuscripts for the New Testament. They have over 5700 manuscripts.

12:41
In.

12:41
Week and then over 10,000 more early translations and Armenian, Gothic, Coptic, Ethiopic, and so forth, that some of them are really early and really important, and they have to be weighed in. In one manuscript it may say one thing and another main script. It says something slightly different. The question the scholar has to ask is well.

13:01
Which one is the original reading for this particular verse?

13:07
So they have to compare them together. They they do all that work and they produce a text that pulls from all these different manuscripts based on their basically best guess of what is original, and then that's called the the critical text that is the text the translators use to make their Bibles. So I want to tell you about the critical text.

13:26
Just a little bit.

13:28
With the New Testament, the main critical texts used not the only one, but the main one is called the Nestle Aland 28th edition.

13:37
Now the Nestle long text began in the year 1898.

13:43
We're in version 28 now. This year. I think it's probably likely that version 29 is.

13:50
Coming.

13:50
Out and I don't see any reason why there wouldn't be a 30 and a 31, you know, and so forth like they are. They are doing this work and it's ongoing.

13:58
It was last updated in the year 2012.

14:01
In other words, any translation you have that is from before the year 2012, we'll be using the Nestle Aland 27 edition. And if it was before that one was then it would be the 26th and so forth. Now, where does Nestle alone get their reading from? They get it from something called the editio critica mayor.

14:20
Also, abbreviated ECM.

14:23
This is a project that began in 2008 and basically what it's doing is revising every single book of the Greek New Testament using the coherence based genealogical method CB GM. If you want to know what that is and more about it, you got to take a look at my other class.

14:44
Cause that's way too deep for this class. Take take a look at how we got the Bible #10 New Testament textual criticism. I go into explaining what the coherence based genealogical method is, but just very briefly, it's using computers to figure out which read.

15:00
Things were before which other readings and developing it. You know what a genealogy is. So and so we got so and so it's like manuscripts have genealogy. This one was copied from that one was copied from that one is copied from that one the ECM completed the general epistles. You know what the general epistles are now, right. The Catholic epistles are the general epistles.

15:21
Hebrews James first, Peter, second Peter, and so forth, all the way down to.

15:26
They completed that in the year 2012, which prompted the Nestle on 28th edition. So what the ECM does, the Nestle Elon follows and these are German scholars using computers to systematically figure out what is this genealogy of the manuscripts and how can we get to the most accurate version.

15:46
They have now completed market acts, which is why we expect to receive a new version of the Nestle Allan Tax, the 29th edition this year.

15:55
And they're hoping to finish the entire New Testament by 20-30, which no doubt would then precipitate a rash of new English translations in the twenty 30s, or sometimes scholarly stuff like this is delayed. Maybe the twenty 40s we are in an exciting time where they're now using computers, and they have been.

16:16
For a couple of decades now to really figure this stuff out earlier in the earlier days, they just had people that were just genius level people that knew all these different manuscripts and could remember. Ohh, this is Codex Vaticanus over here. Oh, that's funny. Atticus over.

16:32
There and it wasn't P46, didn't it say it's depended a lot more on the mush in your?

16:38
Head.

16:39
Than systematic analysis, and I think it as a result, we are going to get closer and closer to the original New Testament, which is really what?

16:49
We all want.

16:50
Overtime, another critical text comes from.

16:54
Cambridge University and that's the Tyndale House Greek New Testament, also called the TH G&T. The Tyndale House Greek New Testament rejects the coherence based genealogical method and prefers the old school method of physical manuscripts and privileging certain manuscripts over others that have a higher priority.

17:15
Overtime we'll see and we'll continue to see little changes in our New Testaments as a result of this important work that's ongoing these change.

17:24
Is.

17:25
Tend to be quite minor. OK. It's like an extra word. the OR something like that. A lot of times, or maybe a rewording of the sentence. Sometimes it matters a little bit more than that, but generally these are these are pretty minor, but it's exciting because.

17:40
We're getting closer and closer to the original. Alright, let's talk about the old test.

17:46
The Old Testament work was developed by a guy named Kiddle. His edition was called the Biblia Hebraica of Kiddle or the BHK started in 1906, First Edition, 1913, Second Edition, 1937, Third Edition, 1997.

18:06
Was the 4th edition, and they're expecting the 5th edition to be complete in 2032.

18:13
I wouldn't put any money on that, OK? Cause that that one's been delayed and delayed and delayed. But that's what they currently are.

18:18
Saying.

18:19
So regardless of all the different versions, the two versions that really matter for translators are the BHS and the BHQ. The BHS is biblia. Hebraica stuck. Artesia and the BHQ is Biblia Hebraica Quinta.

18:33
Stands for five, right? So this is the. The 4th edition is is already out the 5th edition. The BHQ is only partially out.

18:43
And I think it's a little less than half of the Bible has.

18:46
Been completed.

18:48
But the problem with both of these is that both of these Hebrew critical texts just slavishly produce the Leningrad Codex in their main text, and then they do all of their scholarly work in the footnotes, where they talk about other readings from other manuscripts.

19:08
Apart from the Leningrad Codex, the Leningrad Codex is a fairly young manuscript. It was 1000 years.

19:13
This.

19:14
From today, so about 1000 years ago, comparably the Dead Sea Scrolls are 1000 years older than the Leningrad Codex. A lot of the manuscripts found at the Cairo Geniza and so forth. So my point is that the BHS and the BHQ, which is what translators are using to make our Old Testaments put a lot of work on the Old Testament.

19:35
Translator to look at the little footnotes and figure out ohh well should I go with?

19:40
With the Leningrad Codex that's in front of me here. Or should I go with a different manuscript? Should I go with the Septuagint? Should I go with the Vulgate? Should I go with one of these other early translations? I think that's kind of an unfair burden to put on the translators of the Old Testament. The New Testament guys just go with the critical text, you know? Like, maybe they make.

20:00
One or two variations for whatever reason. But like with the Old Testament, it's a lot more work on the translate.

20:07
Now there is a project that was begun by Ronald Mendel of the University of California at Berkeley, called the Hebrew Bible Critical Edition HB CE. And they did come out with the volume.

20:20
On.

20:20
Proverbs. But that's it. So I don't know if this project is ongoing, but I would love to see it continue.

20:28
OK, why did I go into so much detail on the text that they used for the translations? Two things. One, I want to make the point that newer is older.

20:38
That is not an easy to receive statement. OK? What do you mean? Newer is older. How could a newer translation of the Bible be based on older manuscripts? Well, as we discover, catalog and then determine the relationship of the manuscripts to each other, our critical texts.

20:50
No.

20:58
Are improving and we are in the midst of this renaissance of improvement right now.

21:03
For both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and so as time goes on, we're going to continue to get new translations. I know it's annoying. You like the translation that you like? You don't want to get a new translation, but as new translations come out, they have improvements that go back to older versions of the text that.

21:23
Years ago, they didn't have access to, so it is a little confusing, but that's why I kind of wanted to get into the weeds a little bit.

21:29
With.

21:29
You to show you what's really going on here.

21:33
Some Christians think the 1611 King James version is God's.

21:39
For all time only inspired translation in the English language. Why are you laughing? Because you know you know people like that. Alright, look, it's not gonna kill them to believe that it's not gonna send somebody to hell to have that belief. But it's also not true. And we know it's not true because the manuscripts that they.

21:58
1611 Committee had available to them to translate.

22:03
Were fairly young manuscripts. The whole field of archaeology wasn't even invented until later, and then it wasn't really developed. The paleography and the skills to find these ancient, much older manuscripts wasn't until the 1800s and the 1900s is when all that big work was done.

22:22
Which was centuries after the King James has already finished, right? So newer is older.

22:30
That's a weird thing to say, but I'm sticking to it now. Translate.

22:33
Others.

22:34
Are allowed to diverge if they wish is the prerogative of the translator. They can diverge if they wish from the critical text.

22:43
If they have good reasons to do so, if they do diverge, what they do is they leave you a footnote, and that's why the footnotes in your Bible matter, because they're telling you when the translator is doing something different and the translators will let you know. How do you find out?

23:03
When this happens, well, the best way to find out the easiest way to find out is to get.

23:08
A net Bible N ET net Bible.

23:11
It's loaded with footnotes.

23:15
In the picture here I have Psalm one. You can see the text.

23:21
Is just this little portion in the.

23:23
Middle.

23:24
That's the Bible part.

23:25
Everything else is a footnote about the text, explaining in gory detail all the information you never wanted to know. So if you if you do want to get the inside scoop and and you don't have the languages, you have to study the languages you just want to do it in English. The net Bible is the way to go. And guess what?

23:46
That's free online.

23:48
If you want to go to net.bible.org, you just get it for free, no charge. If you want to buy a hardcover copy, go for it. They smell great, so take a look at this. If this is the sort of thing you wouldn't like, wanna read all the way through, there's 60,000 footnotes, literally 60,000 plus footnotes.

24:08
But it is a sort of thing that's helpful if you're studying something and you have a suspicion you're like, why is it translated this way in this version? And this way, in this version, what in the world's going? The net Bible? I'm not gonna say always, but usually is going to have your back and at least even if it disagrees with you, it tells you all the options.

24:26
And their reasoning, which is really helpful if you want to go a little deeper than the net Bible, get yourself New Testament text and translation commentary by Philip W Comfort. It's the sort of thing that you can mostly get through just knowing English, but knowing the Greek would really help.

24:46
And these two, the net Bible and Philip Comforts Edition are both actually pulling from Bruce Metzger's textual commentary of the Greek New Testament, the Red Book. And you definitely need to know Greek to read that one. It's very abbreviated as well.

25:00
Well, so enough about the text. Let's talk about translation on the top. I've got first Timothy 25 in Greek, and you can you can see even if you can't read the letters, you can see there's three lines that I put here. E Garth. Theos is the first one. E Kay mysites.

25:20
OK, OK. Anthropol 1 is the second one and the third one is Anthropos Christos. Jesus, if I translate that word for word, you'll get one for I'll just wait for you right here. One for God one and mediator of God and of men.

25:41
Man, Christ Jesus.

25:45
That is not proper English, so the job of the translator is not just to tell you what the Greek words mean is to put them in the correct order and add filler words to make sense in English. So a finished translation would be something like this, for there is one God.

26:04
And there is one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.

26:11
So when you do the translation, you add in extra words like I added in there is twice. I added in the word the before man and you also capitalize the original, although you might not be familiar with it, the original did not capitalize even the word God is not capitalized. A capital Theta looks different than this. This is a lower case.

26:33
You know, it looks capital to an English reader, but whatever can't be helped so.

26:39
In the literal I had it lowercase, but in the finished translation, yeah, of course you're going to capitalize that. You're going to capitalize the word God. And then in this case, the word Anthropocene, which means men.

26:51
I translated it as mankind instead of men because, and we're gonna come back to this the the plural word for man.

27:01
Means not just males but males and females. So we have a few words to do that we have mankind, we have humanity, we have people.

27:11
I think probably that's the easiest translation between God and people, but then you lose out the connection between anthropol and anthropos, right? So mankind and man shows that Jesus is from the member of the human race in a way that the outgoing. So this is what translators fuss about. They're like, oh, well, if we say mankind.

27:32
That's kind of old englishby word. People don't say that anymore. We should say something like people would have, say, people. They won't recognize that Jesus is one of the people that's a little bit about how the translation process works. There are two main translation philosophies according to fee and Strauss in their book how to choose a translation for all it's worth, they say.

27:54
If the Greek or Hebrew text uses an infinitive, the English translation will use an infinitive. They're talking about the translation philosophy known as formal equivalence.

28:05
So we have formal equivalents and dynamic equivalence. Formal equivalence is trying to mirror the source text in the English language. You know what an infinitive is like to go.

28:20
I would like to go to the store to go. That's an infinitive. So if you have to go in Greek, you put to go in English. Just this, there's this, you mirror the forms of the words, whereas the dynamic equivalence you might use the word went or some other or going you would use.

28:40
Maybe even some other word apart from go if it if it had that nuance to it.

28:45
So back to the quote here by theus. Strauss. They go on when the Greek or Hebrew has a prepositional phrase, so will the English. The goal of this translational theory is formal correspondence as much as possible, as kind of their the technical term formal correspondence, another description of formal equivalence.

29:06
Comes from Ron Rhodes in his book The Complete Guide to Bible translations. He says formal equivalence translations can also be trusted not to mix too much commentary in with the text derived from the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.

29:20
To clarify, while all translation entails some interpretation, formal equivalence translations keep to a minimum in intermingling interpretive additives into the text. As one scholar put it, and essentially literal translation operates on the premise that a translator is a steward.

29:40
Of what someone else has written, not an editor and ejit who needs to explain or correct what someone else has written.

29:50
So it's the idea of being a steward. So that's formal equivalence. We have a whole bunch of translations in that translation philosophy family, and then on the other side we have dynamic equivalents, which Ron Rhodes says dynamic equivalence translations generally use shorter words, shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs.

30:11
They use easy vocabulary. They use simple substitutes for theological and cultural terminology. They often convert culturally dependent figures of speech into easy, direct statements. They seek to avoid ambiguity as well as biblical jargon in favor of a natural English.

30:28
Aisle translators concentrate on transferring meaning rather than mere words from one language to another. So the dynamic equivalence translator is going thought for thought, whereas the formal equivalence translator is going word for word. Do you get the difference?

30:48
So let me show you an extreme example of dynamic equivalence.

30:53
Now, to be fair to most dynamic equivalents people, they would say this translation has gone too far. OK, so I don't want you to think they're all like this, but this very well illustrates the problem with dynamic equivalence when taken too far. This is the message Bible that says you're blessed when you're content with just who you.

31:11
Are no more.

31:13
No less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud. Owners of everything that can't be bought.

31:21
Where's that in the?

31:22
Bible.

31:24
Well, as it turns out, that's Matthew 55, which in the inner SV says blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

31:33
So you see, what they did is they they interpreted it and then wrote what they think it means rather than just translating it word for word. And in fact, most dynamic equivalents, proponents would say at that's not dynamic equivalence. That's a paraphrase, bud.

31:51
That's a paraphrase that's too far, and I would agree with that. So summarizing a little bit, the difference between formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. On the left it says formal correspondence word for word literal, transparent to originals transfer interpretation to the reader.

32:11
As opposed to interpreting it for the reader and then focus on accuracy, whereas the dynamic equivalents, they focus on functional equivalence, thought for thought being readable, replicating the experience. Interpretation was built in so that it's easy to understand.

32:29
To be honest, there can be great dynamic equivalence translations, but only if you already share the same theological bias of the translators, because otherwise their interpretation of what it means is going to conflict with what you think it means.

32:44
And so I'm just not, honestly comfortable putting that kind of power in translators hands. I personally prefer formal equivalents, and that's what I recommend that you use.

32:55
Here's the question. How do you know a Bible is formal equivalence as opposed to dynamic equivalence? Well, here's the easy answer. It has the word standard in it somewhere.

33:07
OK, that usually is a signal. I mean the the true answer is read the introduction for your Bible translation and they will tell you what they're doing. They all do, and they're not ashamed or afraid of it. They're they'll just explain. Hey, we're trying to to do it this way. We're trying to go word for word or we're trying to go thought for thought or.

33:27
Or some mix of the two. So the formal equivalence Bibles that I would recommend.

33:32
Events.

33:33
Include the English standard version, the New American Standard Bible, the Legacy standard Bible, the new revised standard version, which is the version I'll be using for this class, and the Holman Christian Standard Bible. There are others as well, but these are ones that I would be comfortable recommending. Are they perfect? No, but do they?

33:54
Do their best to render for you what's actually hidden underneath as clearly as possible. Yes, they are really trying to do.

34:02
That let's move on to gender accuracy.

34:06
This is a whole subject that I want to be very brief about, but I want to tell you about because it's important to me and it's something that I changed my mind on after learning the history of it and studying the topic. We're not talking about the gender of God. We're not talking about the gender of people in the Bible.

34:26
OK, none of that we're talking about when there is a word that can refer to either male or female in the original.

34:37
Language.

34:38
And how do we translate that accurately into English? So in Ephesians 428 the the English standard version reads, Let the thief no longer steal that phrase. Let the thief no, no longer steal comes from a kind of construction. We don't have it in English, but it's an articular participle and literally it translates.

35:00
Let the one who steals OK, which is why the nasb translate it. Let the one who steals. So the one who steals is, is that phrase O Klepto 1 sounds like a klepto, right? That's where where from so, but it's it's actually masculine. This is this is, there's no question about it.

35:15
We get.

35:20
Ambiguous any first year Greek student would be able to tell you this. This is a masculine phrase. It's the male. If you want to be really excessive, you say the male individual who steals.

35:32
OK, that's that's what the Greek says. But that's not what the Greek means. The Greek means anybody who steals.

35:39
So is it appropriate to translate it? Let the thief no longer steal so that the SV just avoided it here, which I think that's pretty clever, but then as it continues but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands.

35:54
OK, that is what the Greek says. But that's not what the Greek means. The Greek means anyone he or she.

36:01
This is not just men can't steal, but women are allowed to steal, right? OK, we all agree on that. So the NSB 20 basically does the same thing.

36:12
Whereas the NRSV and This is why I chose to use it for this class. Says those who steal must give up stealing. Rather let them labor doing good work with their hands. If you're reading the NSV, even if you're a woman, you're not allowed.

36:28
To.

36:28
Steal. OK, but what? What did they sacrifice?

36:33
As a result, they had to move the the grammar from singular masculine to plural.

36:40
OK. And that's something that is a change and some people don't like it, but what they're doing is they're trying to render it in a way that makes sense in English to both genders. So the NSV is not going to call God A she. It's not going to say that Jacob was a they or is none of that kind of stuff.

37:01
It's just trying to render things as plural that refer to men and women, rather than just using masculine language. Now look. When?

37:12
The 1975 or whatever year it was, original NASB came out. That's how the English language worked. You could use the word he in a hypothetical and it meant he or she, but the English language no longer works that way and as a result the Bible translators have to change and this is nothing to be alarmed.

37:32
About this is the way it's always been for all translations. If you try to read the original earliest English translations, you would have no idea what they you wouldn't even know how to pronounce the words the English language has changed so much over the centuries.

37:51
So the Bible.

37:52
Translations have to change as the language changes.

37:55
Let me show you one more example of this.

37:58
This is Matthew 1115. Literally it says the one who has the male 1, the masculine, the one who has ears. Let him here. OK. And so the CSV translates it. He who has ears to hear, let him hear, which I think for older people you you translate in your head.

38:19
You think? OK, anyone anyone not just he.

38:22
But if you have younger ears, you think ohh, so this is to the guys. Let him hear. OK, then SB-20 makes some effort. It says the one who hears rather than he who hears. But then it leaves some masculine language there. Whereas Inner SV says let anyone with ears listen.

38:42
So it's not exactly following the one who hears. It's changing that to anyone who ears. The reason is clear. It's to make it.

38:53
Inclusive of males and females when reading. Alright, one last topic on translation is bias. I want to talk to you about bias.

39:03
Bias is woven into our translations to varying degrees, and it's so hard to see our own bias until you look at the subject from a different perspective. When you look at it from a different perspective, then you detect the bias and you say ohh this is being read into this sentence or this word.

39:23
Now there are multiple camps, each with their own translations, and many of us just know the evangelical translations.

39:33
And it won't do to compare the NIV to the NSB and say hey, look I I compare two different translations and therefore you know I've avoided bias. I've countered for bias that doesn't actually work and I'm gonna show.

39:44
You why?

39:46
The evangelical tent is big.

39:49
And many of the most popular and best selling translations are evangelical and evangelical Christians have a certain set of doctrines that they insist on believing in order to be on the translation committee.

40:04
So guess what? Those doctrines are reflected in their translations.

40:07
So for example, here are some evangelical translations. The new international version, the new living translation, the English Standard version, the New American Standard Bible, the New English translation, the Christian Standard Bible Home and Christian Standard Bible, the Lexham English Bible, the message, the passion, the amplified Bible, the.

40:28
Legacy standard Bible.

40:29
The contemporary English version, today's English version, which is the same thing as the good news translation, the new contemporary version, and the new International readers version. These are all translations that some are more formal, some are more dynamic, but they all have the same bias because all their translators agree to the same list of doctrines.

40:50
Then there are other tents. There are other tents that have different translations, so the Jewish tent, believe it or not, there are Jews who read English, and so they have English translations. They have the Jewish Publication Society translation, the Korean Jerusalem Bible, the stone edition of the tanach, Robert Altair's recent translation just came out.

41:11
And the shockin Bible? These are all good Jewish translations. The downside of Jewish translations is there's guess what.

41:18
No New Testament, so it's just the Old Testament. But still, hey, these people, they know Hebrew. You know what I mean? It makes sense that we would at least wanna see what they say. If we have a question about a particular verse in the Old Testament, then we have these Catholic versions, the New American Bible. They have the revised.

41:39
Addition the regular and then they have the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible, and the revised New Jerusalem.

41:44
Cool.

41:45
And then they, of course the duet Rams, which is an older Catholic translation, then you have the main line churches, which started out with the King James version back in the day. That's the Church of England is the mainline church in this country called Episcopalian.

42:00
Just in case you didn't know, Church of England is Episcopalian, so these are the older established churches that tend to be a little more liberal on things. We call them mainline churches.

42:12
They have the new revised standard version, the New English Bible, the revised standard version, the American Standard version, and the King James version. And then there are Unitarian Bible translations, like the revised English version, and that's done by Spirit and Truth. The new world translation is done by the Jehovah's Witnesses.

42:30
The emphatic diaglott, the Kingdom of God version Anthony Buzzard, has a version, and then there's the new European version, which was done by a Chris Adelphian. Alright, so why am I telling you all this? OK.

42:45
My recommendation to you is that you pick a good literal translation to use as your base translation, so you've got the English standard version, New American Standard Bible, new revised standard version, pick an S&S version. OK, that's your base text for study, but you can have other Bible versions too. God bless you.

43:04
Which means you want, but I'm saying like if you're studying you, you're focusing on accuracy and you see something funny in there to you. Now you want to look at it. A second translation. Don't pick one from the evangelical camp. If your Bible is already from there.

43:18
Pick one from the Jewish camp or the Catholic. You wouldn't believe how good the Catholic and the mainline translations are, because neither of them have the burden of deriving their beliefs from the Bible. Catholics believe that their doctrines are established by the church.

43:36
The Pope, the creeds, the Councils, they don't need the Bible to teach their doctrines. They're fine having it say whatever.

43:44
So there's a little more honesty there in more recent Catholic translations than in a lot of the evangelical translations. The mainline churches are fairly liberal, and so they don't need the Bible to say what they wanted to say either because they they have a different way of interpreting it. So that kind of gives them some space to just be like, yeah, this is what Paul said.

44:04
Or this is what Isaiah?

44:06
And for that reason, these translations, in my opinion, are really good for comparing, certainly want to give a plug to the revised English version that our our good friend Doctor Jerry Warwell is working on along with others.

44:20
Take a look at that. Most of these things you can get for free.

44:23
Online, which is great.

44:25
But yeah, that's how I would say to look at it now, if you'd like to learn more about manuscripts, critical texts, textual criticism, translation philosophies and all that, it's got a whole class on it, how we got the Bible. It's available at lhim.org.

44:40
24 teachings probably going into more depth than you ever wanted to know.

44:45
Yeah.

44:46
Let's review if you can learn the biblical languages.

44:51
So you can read the actual words of scripture rather than depending on a translation.

44:58
Translations of the New Testament depend on the Greek critical text known as the Nestle Elan, which is currently in the 20th edition, but it'll be 29 very soon.

45:07
Translations of the Old Testament depend on the Leningrad Codex, which is printed in the Biblia Hebraica stuck ortensia BHS, and the partially complete biblia Hebraica Quinta BH.

45:20
In addition, translators of the Old Testament are expected to look through the footnotes and commentary in these resources to judge readings from other sources.

45:30
Over generations, textual critics have developed strategies and computer tools to more closely approximate the original text. As a result, newer critical texts contain reconstructions of an older stage of the text.

45:48
Translation is the art of rendering a source tax into a receptor language accurately. Formal equivalence translations focus on transparency to the source text and a minimum of added interpretation. Dynamic equivalence translations, on the other hand, focus on readability in the receptor language they seek.

46:08
Clarity over ambiguity.

46:10
There will be times you're reading a formal equivalence translation and you'll say ohh I could take it this way. Or I could take it that way. That's on purpose. That's because the Greek is like that and it could be taken this way. Or it could be taken that way and the formal equivalence translator is saying you figure it out.

46:27
Whereas the dynamic equivalence translator is saying we are the professionals, we have the degrees. We will give you our best guess and make it easy for you to understand. Some of them will give you a footnote on what the other way to think of it is and some will not.

46:45
So that's the difference there.

46:47
Continuing on in our review, formal equivalence translations are safer because they leave it up to the reader to figure out what a text means. However, they can contain awkward English and be difficult to read, so that's a downside, especially if your English is a second.

47:00
Language.

47:01
Might not want to start with a formal equivalence.

47:05
Gender accuracy refers to the translation practice of including the feminine when a hypothetical singular masculine pronoun can refer to either sex or when masculine plurals include both genders.

47:18
Another one I forgot to mention is the word Adelphi, which means brothers in Greek. The word brothers in plural in Greek means brothers or brothers and sisters. It means both. So in English do you translate it brothers or do you translate it brothers and sisters.

47:37
The English standard version, you know what they did.

47:40
They translated brothers every time.

47:42
And then put a footnote literally every single time and says or brothers and sisters.

47:49
Because their translation philosophy won't allow them to make even that minor of a A meaning change. So they're like no, it says brothers, but what does it mean ESB people. It means brothers and sisters. So just put brothers and sisters, bias is intrinsic to translation, especially with reference to doctrines that are.

48:09
Widely held by committee members.

48:12
The best way to expose and combat bias is to check translations from different thought camps.

48:19
Although evangelical translations are better known, checking Jewish mainline Catholic and Unitarian translations provides a helpful corrective. Well, that's enough on translations for now. Next time we'll conclude our class with a survey of some of the helpful tools you can use to read the Bible for yourself.

48:43
Well, that brings this session to a close. What did you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find Episode 550 how to choose a Bible translation and leave your questions and comments there. And while you're there, why not comment what your favorite translation is and why?

49:01
Would be interesting to see what listeners of restitutio are reading in their Bibles.

49:08
In our last episode 549 how to read Revelation, I laid out a dual approach that tries to take seriously both the application of the Book of Revelation to its original audience as well as the obviously future aspects of the last several chapters in particular, but also chapter.

49:28
11 and arguably, previous little sections as well.

49:33
And on that episode, someone named Hugh wrote in on Spotify comments, which, by the way, you can comment on Spotify now. And he said, I appreciate the both and approach because it seems like it fits a trend of prophecy having more than one temporal manifestation. Perhaps I should consider a list of double.

49:54
Manifestations. This is a good point that Hugh Daniel brings up and it's it's this idea.

50:00
That a near and a far application of a prophecy is not an ad hoc interpretation of the last book of the.

50:08
Bible.

50:09
We do not wait to the Book of Revelation to start saying, Oh well, maybe this applies here and also in the future. This is the same way that I read.

50:20
The olivet discourse, especially Mark's version of the Olivet discourse. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds here, and this is somewhat.

50:27
But from my reading of Mark, it's perfectly ambiguous. It could refer to the past when Jerusalem was destroyed, or it could refer to the future when Jesus comes back.

50:41
However, Matthew to me reads very much like the future and Luke reads very much to me like the past, and I'm here saying they're all right. They're all correct.

50:53
Mark has the earliest version of the Olivet discourse, Matthew's taking it in a futuristic sense. Luke's taking in a past tense under God's direction, presumably by the inspiration of the spirit to do these things. That's my belief, at least, and they're all correct. They all work. We can see the same sort of phenomenon.

51:14
Where Matthew uses Isaiah's prophecy of the Virgin or young woman that would conceive in Isaiah Chapter 7 and applies that to Jesus. Now, Emmanuel originally did apply to a historical person in the time of Isaiah.

51:32
But the true and Greater Emmanuel is in fact Jesus Christ, and so this is not a shoehorn attempt to squeeze into the Book of Revelation multiple understandings that will help us. What survive with our faith intact and not be shaken.

51:53
That's not what's motivating me here. Obviously, I do want to survive with my faith intact.

51:58
It's.

51:59
But this is not an apologetics issue for me. This is really a question of interpretation, and when I read the Book of Revelation, I want to read it in both of those resonances in both of those frequencies. That would make sense to the people at that time, but also recognize and be honest that the Kingdom did not come.

52:19
In the 1st century, come on, people that it did not come the world has not laid down its weapons. It has not been at peace. In fact, if any.

52:31
Thing.

52:32
The world has grown more violent over the centuries as technology has given us more effective ways of killing each other and benefits and sanitation and healthcare have increased. The number of people on the earth. So I don't think it works to say all of this applies only to the past.

52:53
And we're living in the Kingdom of God now. I'm sorry that that just seems silly to me. And I don't mean to be rude to my full press brothers and sisters. I love you guys to see what you're doing, but at the same time, it just doesn't seem like.

53:07
A livable theory or a plausible theory in light of history, so I do want to say, and I get this from Paul, I get this from the other gospels that the Messiah is planning to return, and when he returns those old prophecies about the Kingdom will come to pass in a way that dovetails with.

53:28
The Book of Revelation. So that's my take on it. I know Revelation is, as ever controversial book because it's it's open to so many different interpretation.

53:39
But that's where I'm at for right now on another subject, my book Kingdom Journey is slowly climbing the number of ratings on Amazon. Our goal is to reach 50 ratings or reviews one or the other. Honestly, there's plenty of reviews already.

53:58
Of course, reviews are better than ratings because they, you know, give somebody something to read as well. But even if you don't have time for a review, if you have read Kingdom Journey.

54:09
Would you go on to Amazon and rate it and hopefully give it five stars? But obviously be honest with what you think it really does help. I'm trying to get to 50 so that people will just, I don't know, take the book more seriously and recognize that it's not just like some random self published.

54:27
Guy in his basement, which happens when you don't have that many reviews. Here are some recent reviews Joe Martin wrote. I appreciated the focus on the Bible, Church history and the practical folk stories of the author getting to a better understanding of the Christian message about a coming Kingdom.

54:46
With our current geopolitical mess, we really need to renew our hope in God's plan. Thank you. That was from last month.

54:56
Tom wrote in saying this really is a must read book. Sean is an excellent teacher and writer. The style is relaxed and personal, but the message is pure dynamite and he goes on from there.

55:08
Another Joe wrote in saying so many questions answered. Just finish reading this book and now I will grab a notepad and start over. Thanks Sean for this comprehensive history lesson and the clarity it brought about the truth of the Kingdom and all the bibliographies and appendices are much appreciated. So, friends, if you haven't gotten a copy of Kingdom.

55:29
Journey.

55:30
Yet what are you waiting for?

55:32
Why not go get one? It's available on all the big websites, from Walmart to Barnes and Noble to Amazon. It's on the publisher with the stocks website. Please get yourself a copy if you're interested in the Kingdom of God. What is it from a biblical point of view, how did we lose it historically? How do we recover it historically and what?

55:52
Is our mission today as Kingdom Ambassador.

55:56
In light of that, I did want to share that I am planning to do a couple of.

56:02
In person seminars on the Kingdom journey book and and what the Kingdom of God is biblically and historically, and the first of those, I'm going to be doing in July at a youth event called Fuel, which is held at Manchester University in Indiana. So if you're somebody that's going to fuel or you have.

56:25
Teenagers that are going. I am planning on teaching a class there on the Kingdom of God and bringing in a lot of the insights that are contained in the.

56:34
Look, additionally, I have been invited to Guthrie Grove Church of God in Pelzer, SC, to present at their special meetings in August, and I have accepted that invitation. Very thankful to Pastor Andy for doing that. So if you're in driving distance.

56:55
Of the Greenville, SC area, Pelzer is nearby there, and the church Guthrie Grove is near there as well.

57:03
Why not come by? I'm going to be preaching at their church on Sunday, August 11th, and then doing special meetings on the 12th, 13th and 14th both for lunch and in the evening. If anyone's interested in that, you can e-mail me sean@restitutio.org.

57:22
And I can probably give you better specificity as far as address and times and stuff like that.

57:29
Once again, if you are in that area, especially if you're in South Carolina, I know lots of you in South Carolina. If you're in the state, stop on by at Guthrie Grove, Church of God and would love to meet you if you have a book, I'd love to. I'd be happy to sign it for you and be able to talk about the Kingdom of God. I just. I'm so passionate about it. It's such an important.

57:50
Subject. It's something that Jesus talked about non-stop and I know there are other important subjects too and I certainly wouldn't.

57:57
Just focus on one thing, but this one is so important. Jesus says. Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you, talking about the necessities of life. So. So that's what I'm trying to do, and I hope I hope you can join me for that as well. That's enough for today. Thanks everybody for tuning in.

58:17
If you'd like to support us, you can do that at restitutio.org. I'm hard at work for my UCA paper for this year, and I I'm I can't really tell you what it is.

58:29
Such a frustrating process this whole blind review business, but I can't really tell you what it is, but it is something to do with the Old Testament and I'm super excited about it and it's a biblical study. It's an exegetical focus rather than historical or philosophical. And so I'm I'm excited about that and learning a lot.

58:50
And working on the research phase of that and as ever, research is expensive. And so I appreciate those who are supporting me and this ministry. So thank you so much.

59:03
I'll catch you next week and remember, the truth has nothing to fear.