Understanding Bible Translations

[0:00] Hey, that thing's staying on. I'm excited. It might actually work. Uh-oh, is this? Are we getting feedback? Take it down just a little tad, Roger.

[0:13] Down. Maybe to the left, a little to the right. See if that works. How's that? Okay? Or is that too? Is that okay? Okay, great.

[0:27] Well, good morning, everybody. Good morning. Um, I'm excited. Man, Friday was a big day, wasn't it?

[0:40] Can you believe it? That Roe v. Wade is dead? I can barely believe it. I never thought that I would see the day where that would happen.

[0:53] You pray for it. You hope for it. Um, and it's not like, you know, this is done and, you know, everything's solved. There's still a lot of work to do, but man, was that a huge, a huge deal.

[1:08] Um, so man, I could barely get anything done on Friday. Yes, Roger? Can you imagine that orange man bad is the one responsible for putting good people on the Supreme Court?

[1:21] Can you imagine? I, it's hard to believe. I, it's hard to believe. But man, you know, God used all kinds of people in the Bible, right? Good, bad, and everything in between.

[1:31] And so God can work in anybody. And, uh, uh, wow. Just tremendous. Uh, so it's, my whole weekend has been hyped up because, because of that.

[1:47] Uh, my, Ethan, my son Ethan is heading out to Washington, D.C. today to spend the week there. So, um, with, uh, Created Equal, the, the group that he's interning with.

[2:00] So, um, he's pretty excited, um, about all that. He's, I said, well, what are you going to be doing? He says, I don't know. I'm just going. And, uh, they'll tell us what to do.

[2:11] But, uh, a lot of street level outreach and activism and, and that kind of thing. Um, right there in D.C. So, well, we're going to continue.

[2:24] On Keys to Understanding the Bible. Oh, no. Did it just do that? Um, and, uh, we'll see, we'll see if we can get the graphic working.

[2:36] But, all right, cool. I'll just have to come back here and, like, tap something every few minutes. Um, today we're going to look at the topic of Bibles.

[2:47] Bible translations. And just Bibles in general. But really, how to choose a Bible. And, um, do you know how many Bible translations, English Bible translations there are just English?

[3:00] It's like somewhere around 50. 50. That's a lot. So, how do you choose out of these 50 Bible translations? For a lot of us, uh, who grew up in the Christian faith, the Bible translation that we use may be based on what we grew up with.

[3:18] Kind of what our parents had, uh, or used. Um, how many of you have changed Bible translations? Kind of your primary Bible translation over the years?

[3:28] Yeah, most of us. I have. I know I started out, uh, as a student, as a young person, mostly reading the NIV. And then over time, I, I decided I was going to move to the New King James.

[3:43] And that's what I use primarily today. Um, what are, so I'll just throw out a question. So, what are some of the other translations that people are using in the room here?

[3:54] New American Standard. I think that's what are the Bibles in this, in the pews are, right? Yeah. Yeah. The NASB. Amplified.

[4:05] Amplified. Okay. Which is a, which is a reference Bible. I think it's King, King James. Schofield is, yeah. Any others? There's a New Living Translation, I think maybe is what you're thinking of.

[4:20] Yeah. So, we've got up here, uh, kind of a list. It's all the, the, uh, the acronyms, which I don't always know how to, how to interpret the acronyms.

[4:30] Can everybody see this okay, by the way? Okay. So, Bible translation is hard. It's not, uh, something that's easy to do.

[4:42] And, uh, because of that, um, there is, you know, uh, uh, there's academics involved in Bible translation.

[4:53] And people need to study. It's not a mathematical science, like I've said before. It's more of an art form, um, Bible translating. And even though some may disagree with me on this, I don't think that we can say that there's any perfect translation.

[5:09] At the end of this, I'm not going to say, well, after everything that I've explained, here's the best and most perfect translation that you should use. I'm just not going to do that. I don't think that there is a perfect translation, um, that we can just recommend to everybody.

[5:26] Though I think there are strengths and weaknesses that we can discuss and talk about, and also just other considerations. Um, whenever it comes to translation into any language, you know, and with the Bible, we're talking about translating from Greek and Hebrew primarily to English or to other translations.

[5:44] Um, there's give and take. There's things that you have to consider. And, um, different translators or translations, Bible translations, have chosen kind of different techniques, different, um, strategies, uh, for interpreting the Bible.

[6:01] Um, so we're going to talk through what these are. And there's basically, uh, generally three types of, uh, techniques or strategies for translating the Bible.

[6:17] And they're indicated up here. One is called for a formal equivalence technique. And by the way, if you open up the front of your Bible, your Bible will typically explain, like, how it approaches translating the Bible.

[6:34] Like, my New King James. I open it up, it's got a preface. And it says, this is kind of the general idea where the New King James came from, what was kind of the principles and ideas behind creating this translation.

[6:49] Um, if you look in your Bible, you'll probably find something like that. Uh, but, uh, formal equivalence is the technical name for this first.

[7:00] And it's described as more of a word for word translation. Now, it's not actually word for word, because if you actually had word for word, it would be highly unreadable.

[7:13] Um, but it tends towards trying to translate word for word as much as possible. And then you have dynamic equivalence is the next one.

[7:25] And that's more thought for thought. It's not as, uh, intentional or, uh, it doesn't prefer as much trying to translate from the original Greek or Hebrew word to the English word, but tries more to get across the idea.

[7:42] And then paraphrase is the other one. These are the ones that are more controversial typically, are the most controversial, I should say. Okay. And paraphrase is there's almost, you know, no effort to translate the original words, but just try to get what's the, what's the big ideas trying to be explained.

[8:03] And let's just repeat it in my own words. So let's talk about these a little bit more. Um, all right.

[8:13] So, um, actually before we get into these, I'd like to talk about if, if this chart went further off this way, um, we have, uh, some translations that are intended to be highly literal.

[8:31] And, um, they're mostly used for reference. There's a Bible translation that I like called Young's Literal Translation of the Bible.

[8:42] Has anybody ever heard of that? Young's Literal Translation. And it's meant to be almost, uh, woodenly literal in its, uh, word for word.

[8:54] It's much, it's actually pretty difficult to read because it doesn't come across as natural. Um, because it, you know, in different languages, sometimes subjects and objects are in different orders and, you know, all these kinds of things.

[9:12] Uh, but a, a, a highly literal translation like Young's can be helpful for getting an idea of like the true literal aspects of, of the words used without having to understand the actual Greek or Hebrew.

[9:31] Some people, they will learn the Greek and Hebrew. And even as kind of, you know, just, uh, non-professional students of the Bible, if you will, will not, non-academics, you can learn a little bit of Greek, right?

[9:44] And a little bit of Hebrew. So you just kind of have some understanding. We have study tools too, but having access to a literal translation that brings it into English, but at the same time tries to keep the literal, literal nature of the words can be helpful and kind of seeing, well, what was the original text really about?

[10:04] So I enjoy every once in a while going back and looking at certain passages in Young's to kind of see, you know, what the, what the literal, um, or what the original was kind of closer to.

[10:18] Um, okay. So getting into formal equivalents, this word for word. So it's really attempting to keep as many words equivalent to the original as possible.

[10:28] while still making the text readable. Because if it's not readable, nobody's going to read it, right? That's, that's the, that's the purpose behind making something readable.

[10:39] And that's the, I think the purpose behind all of these is people want to make the text readable so that people can understand it. Eric? I've heard of the Moffat. Moffat translation.

[10:52] Yeah, I've heard of it. I'm not familiar with it though. Okay. Hmm. Yeah. If anybody has any thoughts or additional things to add here.

[11:03] Um, but, um, uh, so formal equivalents tries to keep more word for word. Some of the, some of the Bibles that would be under formal equivalents, they've got here the NASB.

[11:16] We talked about that. Um, we have the amplified, the amplified is a little different. We'll talk about that in a second or in a little bit. The ESV. Anybody here use the ESV?

[11:27] A couple. Okay. Yeah. ESV is newer. I'm trying to remember when it was, uh, put out. Uh, but it's actually from my understanding and I've read it a little bit, but pretty good translation.

[11:39] The King James version, the new King James version, and then we start to get into the, to the other ones. But those are just some examples. Um, so what are the pros and cons of a more form for, for having a formal equivalence word for word?

[12:00] Well, on the pro side, there's less risk of introducing errors of interpretation, right?

[12:14] If you try to stick to the actual words as much as possible, then you're not, uh, going to accidentally, right? Or sometimes intentionally, but we hope people aren't intentionally doing anything.

[12:26] The translator's right. But a translator could unintentionally introduce a, an interpretation to a passage in, in trying and attempting to make it more readable, but it could be a wrong interpretation, right?

[12:43] So it brings in that risk. Uh, but on the, on the, uh, on the other side, um, if you stick to the original words, you, the other risk is that people won't understand what's being said because it's too obscure.

[13:00] It's in an ancient tech. It's in an ancient language. And the way the words are put together doesn't make any sense. Um, this is especially important for figures of speech, right?

[13:13] We talked about this weeks ago, but figures of speech can be especially difficult, especially in other languages and other cultures to understand. I'm going to give an example.

[13:24] So we're actually going to look at some texts here. If you open up to, um, let's actually just look at Matthew 1.18. And I'm going to open up my King James here.

[13:39] And I'm going to ask for other translations too. Matthew 1.18. I keep this thing. All right.

[13:58] And my, um, this is, this is the story of the birth of Christ. And it says in my new King James version here, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.

[14:08] After his mother, Mary was betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. She was found with child of the Holy Spirit.

[14:20] Now, like I said, my, the new King James is over kind of over here on the word for word. But if you actually read the original Greek in this passage, um, there is no word child in the original Greek.

[14:41] There's no word child. She was found to be with child. And that translation found to be with child. If you were to word for word, literally translate it, it would be something more along the lines of, uh, she was found having it in the stomach.

[15:04] That would be the purely literal way to translate it. She was found having it in the stomach. It's also a definition of indigestion. It is, right?

[15:15] And you could understand, right, how, how you could get confused. Well, was she sick? You know, of course, you know, in context, you would, you would get it, right?

[15:29] You would, you would get it, but it would, it would, the readability really would suffer, right? You'd really, it would, it wouldn't be as fluid reading it. And speaking of having indigestion, that same figure of speech is used for sick people.

[15:45] So if you turn to Matthew 4, 24, just a few pages over. And it says, then his fame went throughout all Syria and they brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments.

[16:08] And so where it says, they brought to him all sick people, it's that same phrase. They brought to him all that were having it in the stomach or that were, um, uh, where is it?

[16:20] They brought to him all the ones having it badly, having it badly. There is no word sick there. It was just having it badly. Um, so you can see how that would be, that would be difficult to read.

[16:34] And so even though over here, we've got these formal equivalence techniques of translating the Bible that are supposed to be as, you know, as much word for word as possible.

[16:45] We have to understand that it's not always possible. We're always making decisions about, you know, do we really do the word for word or do we try to interpret a little bit? And so every translation, every single one does some level of interpretation to help with the readability.

[17:04] Um, and I think that's a good thing. I think that's positive. Um, though again, there are risks, right? And so, uh, it's, it's good to have, that's why I actually recommend it's good to have multiple translations at your disposal and also study tools.

[17:20] Joe? I would say, can you point out in scripture where that occurs? One version, when you read it, when we do, makes it, it's wrong. It's right out wrong, not correct by the word for word version.

[17:35] Do you have an example of that? You know, I have some examples. Um, I don't know that I have any where it's, where I would say it was wrong. But if anybody does have any examples that they could bring up, um, I'll have to maybe think about that.

[17:51] It's the paraphrase. I had a paraphrase Bible. That one, Oh, was it great. You know, I mean, you could really understand, you know, on this, this brought everything out, but it was pointed out to me by, as I contacted various Bible leaders and ministers, that this is wrong in there.

[18:13] That's wrong in there. That's wrong in there. That's wrong in there. In other words, I was getting a lot of not true, accurate message that the Bible was trying to tell me in the paraphrase Bible, the living Bible was the one.

[18:27] Yeah. Yeah. And that is the risk. That is the risk. And so, and I'm going to talk about kind of how to approach those. This may sound like a silly question, but are the gray lines showing anything specific or are they just dividing?

[18:42] What are the gray lines? These? Yes. I think those are just kind of pointing to like where it falls on the spectrum. Okay. And then, and then, what's that?

[18:53] What do you mean? Like it's more accurate if it's got the longer line or if it's not accurate? No, I think it's just trying to make room. So the longer lines just, yeah, make room. And so it's showing that there's like a spectrum here.

[19:06] It's not like everything that's word for word falls right in the same, you know, some are a little looser or tighter or whatever than others. And even this is somebody's interpretation, right?

[19:17] Of where it falls on the spectrum. Harry? I've heard some of them complain about where it says Mary was a virgin. Some of them play the way she was a young girl or something. Oh, okay.

[19:28] That's an interesting one. And I know a little bit about that. But that one is, has to do with the Septuagint, actually. And I'm trying to remember exactly what the, exactly what, which, what, what is Septuagint?

[19:49] Or is it the Maserat? I can't remember. But there's a, like a original text where one references her as a virgin and the other as a maid or something like that.

[20:00] So, and we actually are going to talk a little bit about the underlying text here in a little bit. We're not going to go deep into it, but we're going to talk a little bit because this is just one aspect of Bible translation, is the translation technique.

[20:18] Or we'll talk about original texts a little in a second. Okay. So, let's move on.

[20:28] Dynamic equivalents. That's the one in the middle. More thought for thought. So, because figures of speech can be hard. And like I said, many figures of speech are actually interpreted in all the way over here just because it can be so difficult.

[20:46] But as we move over here, we're doing more of that. We're translating more of the figures of speech to try to make things more understandable. And the pros and cons of these kind of get inverted over here, right?

[21:03] So, this is going to be more readable to most people. But there's going to be more risk to misinterpretation as you interpret through your translation rather than just trying to bring across the words.

[21:18] So, we've got HCSB, Holman. I don't know what the C stands for. I think it's Holman, right? Anybody know? HCSB?

[21:30] Okay. NRSV, New Revised Standard Version. The NAB. I'm not sure what that stands for. Anybody know? New American Bible.

[21:40] New American Bible. And then one of the most popular ones, the NIV, which has been around since the 80s, I believe. And does anybody know where these translations kind of fall on the popularity spectrum?

[22:02] Does anybody know what the most popular Bible translation is? King James or NIV? Yeah, it's the King James. It's actually the King James by a huge margin.

[22:13] Huge. I think in looking this up the other night, it was like 35% or somewhere in the low 30s. So, about a third of people read the King James Bible.

[22:25] And then the NIV is next. And I think it's like 11 or 12% or something like that. So, it's about, the King James is about two and a half times more popular than the next most popular version.

[22:39] So, but, you know, they're very different. King James is over here. NIV is more over here. So, the New Living Translation is kind of like right in the middle.

[22:56] I mean, it really pushes into the paraphrase. But the New Living Translation has a certain amount of popularity as well. All right. So, looking at paraphrases.

[23:07] A paraphrase, like I said, is, it's basically, I'm going to rewrite the Bible in my own words. There's little attempt at all to try to translate words into their equivalent in English.

[23:25] It really requires the translator. And I use that word loosely because I don't think, I think we're really stretching the word translation to call these paraphrases a translation.

[23:41] We're like, yeah, I mean, it is, right? I mean, sometimes I think I've had translators before. I was a missionary in Vietnam and Cambodia, and I'd do preaching or teaching, and I'd have translators who would translate it into Vietnamese or Khmer there in Cambodia.

[24:01] And they would translate what I would say. And sometimes they would understand like an English figure of speech, and they would translate it into something that was, that their hearers would understand.

[24:17] And I'm sure sometimes they would do more paraphrasing, right, because it would be helpful. So, but, you know, we're getting a lot more loosey-goosey, if you will.

[24:31] But these quote translations, these paraphrased Bibles can actually be very easy to read. But like Joe was saying, man, some things, they could just get totally wrong.

[24:44] And really bring confusion into your reading of the Bible. So when it comes to paraphrases, I don't want to say, you should stay away from these, don't ever read a paraphrased Bible.

[24:55] I can't really say that. But I will say, be careful. I don't know that I would use these for my day-to-day Bible reading. Because as you read through the scriptures, you know, it'll introduce ideas from a story that might be totally wrong.

[25:11] And you're just unaware, right? But at the same time, it can be useful, right? Somebody's paraphrase or in their own words of a passage can be helpful to understanding it.

[25:26] Roger? Well, exactly that. Because a paraphrase is, what's this saying to me? Yeah. Well, no. What I say God said isn't the point.

[25:39] It's why God said it's the point. And so I have to be careful with that. As long as you approach a paraphrase, or even the so-called thought for thought, which is really approaching paraphrase, that is, ask, basically what you do is you're asking the editor of that, what's your idea about what they've done?

[26:02] Yes. You're not really saying, what did God say? And I think of the danger or the caution to me is, Roger, remember, when God spoke through the prophet, he said, it's not your private interpretation.

[26:21] God spoke. It's a thus saith the Lord kind of thing. Yeah. In trying to be generous to those putting together the paraphrased Bibles, and by the way, we've got, I guess they've got New Living Translation, the NIRV, I don't know what that is.

[26:43] The Living Bible, TLB is the Living Bible. This is the Good News. I don't know what G and T is. I can tell you one of the, I would say the positive, it would spike your interest in the Bible more, and you get into it, even though it's paraphrased vision, and you learn things like you're sharing today, that, oh, I'd still better keep track of what says in these other Bibles, but it spurs you on to, hey, this is easy reading, I understand it, you know, I'm going to read the Bible.

[27:16] Yeah, I think so. Somebody brand new, they've never read a Bible before, and it could, you know, you could get through the whole Bible, and a paraphrased edition of the Bible, you could get through the whole Bible, and you would understand the big picture of the Bible, right?

[27:31] Some of the details, it might get wrong, but you could understand the big picture, and you could get through it maybe in just a few months, right? Because it's so fluid, it's so easy to read.

[27:42] I think there's value there. And to be generous to those who are putting these out, you know, they may, you know, I don't always know their intention, right, behind their paraphrase, but they might be trying to interpret the Word of God, and trying to get what God was trying to say in all this.

[27:59] But I treat it more as like a commentary, because there are commentaries of the Bible, and even like when somebody's up at the pulpit explaining the Scriptures, isn't that what a preacher is doing, is paraphrasing?

[28:16] You know, I'm going to read a Scripture, and then I'm going to explain it. I'm going to, in my own words, explain it. And that is appropriate. But we don't want to say that what the preacher is saying up there has this final authority, right?

[28:31] And so your interpretation, your paraphrase, your, you know, saying it in your own words, that's not where the authority lies, right?

[28:42] But we ought to do that, and that can be helpful. Anyway, so I think just understanding, I think understanding these things can help us in choosing which tools that we use.

[28:54] So bottom line when it comes to these things. I think that for regular study, we should try to stay over here as much as possible.

[29:10] There's less risk of interpretation coming in to discolor or get things off.

[29:21] But I think it's fine to use any of these as helps for whether it's reading or whatever. But I think in general, kind of for regular study, for in-depth study, staying over here is generally better.

[29:38] So that's kind of my idea. Yeah. The NIRB and Blue International Readers version. Okay. Okay.

[29:54] Oh, wow. The Readers version? Okay. We'll look at a couple of example verses, and we're going to read a few different versions.

[30:06] So the first one we'll look at is 1 Peter 1.13. And we'll look at an example in each of these three.

[30:18] 1 Peter 1.13. Does anybody have, and I'll just go ahead and get these readings from the audience here.

[30:30] Does anybody have a King James or a New King James? Or really even an NASB for this one? I have a new name. I have a new name. I have a new name. I have a new name. I have a new name. I have a new name. All right. What is it?

[30:40] Before, prepare your minds for action. Oh. Sober in spirit. Fix your hope completely on the grace that you brought to me at the Revelation.

[30:51] Okay. Okay. So we'll focus in this particular case on that first part of the sentence. So what did it say again? Prepare your minds for action.

[31:01] Prepare your minds for action. Okay. I have a new King James. It says, therefore, gird up the loins of your mind. Gird up the loins of your mind.

[31:15] Now, gird up the loins of your mind is actually closer to the word for word. But, man, is that a funny way to say something, right? Gird up the loins of your mind.

[31:26] It's a figure of speech, isn't it? But yours, it said, what does it say? Prepare your minds for action. It's trying to interpret that figure of speech, isn't it?

[31:42] And it can be helpful. ESV, I've got the ESV here. Therefore, preparing your minds for action. It's very similar. Preparing your minds for action. The NIV says this.

[31:53] Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober. Okay. And then here's the Message Bible. You ready?

[32:04] So roll up your sleeves. Put your mind in gear. Be totally ready to receive the gifts that's coming when Jesus arrives. So that's like what a preacher would say, right?

[32:19] Yeah, right? And so, you know, those are all helpful. But when you look at the more word-for-words ones, you're getting that figure of speech.

[32:32] And, but understanding what that figure of speech means is helpful. And if you don't get it right away, it's going to be a tougher read. You're going to go through it more slowly. Let's look at Psalm 23, verse 5.

[32:45] Psalm 23, verse 5. Popular psalm, probably the most popular psalm.

[33:06] And we're going to look at three. I've got three examples here. I've got the King James, the Good News Bible. And then the message. So the King James says, and this is where the King James really shines.

[33:22] The beauty of the language is like unparalleled. Especially with this psalm. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

[33:34] Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Isn't that beautiful? It's beautiful. It's beautiful. But what does it mean? Sometimes beauty and meaning aren't always, don't always come together.

[33:48] Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. This is poetry, right? It's poetry. So poetry tends to be beautiful.

[33:59] Yet the meanings tend to be a little bit more abstract. Right? Here's what the Good News Bible says. You prepare a banquet for me.

[34:10] Instead of a table, it's a banquet. That's probably what table means, isn't it? Yeah. Where all my enemies can see me. You welcome me as an honored guest.

[34:23] You welcome me. That's replacing thou anointest my head with oil. That's very different, isn't it? But what does it mean to anoint somebody's head with oil? Well, according to the translators here, that means to honor somebody as a guest.

[34:40] The Message Bible says, You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. Now that's taking quite a liberty. That's a very specific number of courses.

[34:51] Not a five-course dinner, but a six-course dinner. You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head. Instead of anoint my head with oil, my cup brims with blessing.

[35:08] You revive. Revive. But that would not seem to be what the meaning is there. Honoring the person.

[35:19] You said earlier it would mean honoring the person. Reviving the person is not the same as honoring the person. Right. So they may just have different views of how this should be interpreted. You know, anointing your head with oil, there's different reasons that people would do that.

[35:34] I mean, one was just to freshen up, right? You know, you want to make yourself look good. Wild root cream oil. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the ladies put on their makeup.

[35:46] You know, this kind of thing. Back, Jesus actually criticized the Pharisees for fasting and kind of making themselves look, you know, real mangy.

[36:02] It's like when you're fasting, don't, like, brag about it. Put some oil on, you know, your head so that it's not obvious that you're fasting because you're just bragging about it. Anyway. So what does it mean?

[36:14] You know, what is he talking about? Thou anointest my head with oil. What's the kind of big idea around that? And one person in their translation is saying, well, you know, I was treating somebody as an honored guest.

[36:27] They'd come into your home and you'd anoint their head with oil. Wow. And then somebody else is saying, well, you have somebody who's, maybe they are grieving, right?

[36:38] And what, when somebody's grieving, it was common in that ancient culture to put ashes on your head, right? To wear sackcloth and put ashes on your head. And then when you're ready to kind of clean up, what do you do?

[36:51] You replace the ashes. You clean out the ashes and put oil on, right? So it could go both ways. Yes. Okay.

[37:15] There you go. What comes before? What comes after, right? He is setting to go both ways, which is the right way. Well, I don't know.

[37:27] Do you know? No. Okay. John? It could literally mean that Samuel, for example, that anointed David's head, was king.

[37:38] Could he be talking about that? I don't think so. So, yeah.

[37:51] It's been a while since I've looked at Psalm 23. To me, it's just a bigger picture of what is going on here is that these things are being done for him.

[38:05] He's not doing these things himself. That, I think, is where the comfort comes in. Yeah. Even though he's walking through the valley of the shadow of death, he doesn't fear any evil because God's taking care of him.

[38:20] Yeah. I think that's where, you know, what it's getting at. Basically, you're going through difficulty, trial. You know, I think of somebody who's gotten beat up, who's sick, who's in battle, and then they're taken to the hospital.

[38:36] They're taken care of. Their wounds are bandaged. They're anointed with oil. They're freshened up, if you will. And God is taking somebody who's gone through dark times or difficulties and bringing refreshing to their life.

[38:51] And we can also look at the context of that verse. Yeah. It follows that with my cup before they flow. Prosperity, blessing. I can help you interpret that.

[39:03] Yeah. Ron? God provides us with everything that we need. He provides us with everything that we need. Yeah. He is our provider. He brings us tremendous blessing.

[39:17] So, it's just another thought, and I won't spend too much time on this, but another thing that is controversial among translations, especially when you start to get to the paraphrases and these thought for thoughts, this New Living Translation, especially the NIV.

[39:32] The NIV is interesting because it has actually changed a lot since it first came out in the 80s. Like, I was actually looking at the first Peter one that we looked at.

[39:45] I have an NIV right here. This is a student, spirit-filled life Bible. Oh, no, this is a new, oh, never mind.

[39:56] Maybe I was looking at the wrong one. That's the New King James. Scratch that. But that specific example. But the NIV, a lot of things have changed over the years.

[40:09] It's been updated quite a bit. And so, one of the controversies that comes into play is gendered language. Has anybody seen this over the years? And where it uses especially, right, and this is a big part of what's going on in the culture, is you're not allowed to refer to people in general in masculine terms anymore.

[40:31] That's not allowed. That's too sexist. And so, the Bible is a sexist book, and so we need to fix it. And where it talks about all mankind, right, well, it refers to men.

[40:45] You know, it's masculine. And what does mankind mean? It means everybody, right? And so, you know, but we've got, you know, these mentally ill people that are going up and saying, instead of amen at the end of their prayer, they're saying a women, as if that makes any sense whatsoever.

[41:07] But other things, too, like, you know, you would have a, on an airplane, you would have a steward and a stewardess, right?

[41:20] But you're not allowed to say that anymore, right? You have to call them a flight attendant because we can't make these distinctions, you know, by adding S to the end of words.

[41:30] And so, I think some of this stuff is maybe trying to placate things that are going on in our culture. At the same time, I don't think we should be too, how do I want to put this, too upset about it.

[41:53] Because I think, you know, it's not like these Bible translations are calling God they instead of he, God the Father.

[42:04] You know, they're still referring to people with the proper pronouns. But they're just trying to say, like, mankind. They'll just say people or something like that.

[42:15] I don't even know if that's an actual example, if they replace mankind with people. I'm not sure. I should have maybe provided some examples.

[42:27] But I do think we should be careful kind of with the cultural trend and trying to placate some of these cultural things that are not really godly in nature. And so, when it comes to men and women, look, for example, the Bible says that we who are believers are all sons of God.

[42:51] Right? We're all sons of God. And some people could possibly walk away thinking, oh, well, that's just talking about men. Now, you'd have to, you know, that's quite a stretch for somebody to think that.

[43:06] But it's not, right? And so, some people will say we're all children of God. And that's actually a good way to say it, isn't it? But it's not word for word because the original word is we're all sons of God.

[43:21] But is it wrong to say we are all children of God? No, it's not wrong. It's actually correct. So, anyway, I think that's as far as we'll go there.

[43:35] A lot of languages do this. The original Bible languages do this. In general, masculine terms or even the term man in the Bible is just the term for a human being.

[43:51] Right? When God created the woman, he created a very special and unique type of human being. The way I think about it is the man was kind of the generic vanilla man or person, human.

[44:05] And then he wanted to create a different kind of person. And actually, in the Hebrew, the word for woman is actually, if you were to be woodenly literal, it would be a she-man.

[44:19] Because it's the word man, but it's got, just like we use, like I said, steward and stewardess. Right? You add the S at the end to feminize a word. That's the way that it is with the word woman.

[44:31] A woman is a specific kind of a man. Right? So we're talking about mankind. We're talking about human beings. And men in particular are just the generic form.

[44:42] And women, they're like the souped-up version of a man. Right? Even a difference. Yeah, amen. So women are like the spicy, sassy version of a man.

[44:54] Right? Right? Men are like vanilla and women are chocolate.

[45:05] I'll sign that too. All right. A few things to consider. We're running out of time, so I'll just go through this quickly. Actually, I had another chart here.

[45:19] And this really gets into not just, so it's got the word for word versus thought for thought on the translations. But this is a tremendous overview.

[45:30] In fact, maybe I'll just get into this. So you actually really should start from the bottom because this looks at a history of where did our English Bible come from.

[45:44] There's a lot of history with our English Bible. I've got a great 45-minute to an hour video that I might bring next week or sometime in the future that kind of talks about the history of the Bible.

[45:59] It's fascinating. But this kind of shows the history and where our translations come from. The other thing to consider with choosing a Bible translation is not just their technique or strategy in Bible translation, but the actual root text that is used.

[46:14] And that's a whole study in and of itself. The manuscripts used. There are thousands of manuscripts in the original languages, Greek and Hebrew.

[46:25] And Greek and Hebrew, those are kind of looked at separately. There's different approaches. The Hebrew text is less controversial. Basically, we have something called the Masoretic text that's used by both Jews and Christians.

[46:41] And most Bible, almost all Bible translations use the same underlying Hebrew text. But the New Testament is different. There's more controversy around which text should we use.

[46:54] The big idea is to consider, first of all, is that we have these original Greek texts. Some are old. I think the oldest text we have is maybe from the second century, which is pretty old because the original was from the first century, right?

[47:11] But most of them are around like the 12, 1300s, that kind of thing. And there are differences between these original, quote, original or older Greek texts that we use as the basis for our translation.

[47:29] The differences are very small. When you compare all these different original manuscripts, there's about a half a percent of all the words where there's variation.

[47:45] And of that half a percent, most of them are just spelling differences. So they're not even word differences. They're just spelling. And then the other big majority is just having a preposition being replaced with like a the.

[48:03] So it's like these minor little things. But there are some that, you know, seem more impactful, but none that really like have any kind of significant impact on like Bible doctrines or things like that.

[48:19] A lot of people make a big deal about the differences. They are so, so small. But there are these differences. And so over the years, people have taken these different manuscripts and they've decided, well, how do we translate these when when this one has this word?

[48:35] Sometimes it's a different name. Sometimes it's a different number. And which one do we pick? And so there are different kind of ideas on on how that should be done. We got the Latin Vulgate here, which is a translation of the Bible from the Greek, the Greek New Testament into Latin that was done in the 400s.

[48:55] And Wycliffe used that. And there's this other translation over here that's based on the Latin. So it's gone through a translation twice. So people are like, well, that's not that great. But this was a translation that happened back in the 400s.

[49:11] And then we have this Greek text. And I won't get into it, but there's a Greek text called the Texas Receptus that the King James Bible was based on.

[49:24] And the Texas Receptus was put together by a guy named Erasmus. He was a contemporary of Martin Luther. And he mostly used texts that were not that old, texts that were from like the 1200s to the 1400s.

[49:42] And we call those the majority texts. There's a ton of them. There's thousands of them. But they only go back to about, well, this says the 10th to the 13th century.

[49:53] And the basic idea with the Texas Receptus and the majority text was, well, there's these little changes. Let's just, you know, look at, you know, what, you know, if we have 100 readings that go this way and only three copies of readings that go this way, let's go with 100, right?

[50:14] That's why it's called majority text. That's how it goes. And so he created basically like a base Greek text out of reading all of these to use as the standard to translate from.

[50:30] And a lot of these Bibles, Bishop's Bible, the Geneva Bible that the Puritans were known for using, Tyndale's New Testament, Coverdale, all, and then the King James.

[50:44] And then consequently, the New King James were based on this text by Erasmus. In the 1800s, late 1800s, there was a lot of textual criticism going on.

[51:00] And so there was this new Greek, a New Testament put together called the Critical Text. The guys that did this, that put this together, didn't like the thing that Erasmus did.

[51:14] They thought it was poor. They thought, well, he didn't have, there's a lot of information that we have now that he didn't have. And so they put together this Greek text. And there's a lot that goes into it.

[51:26] But basically, the bottom line was they say, well, we prefer the older texts. We've got these older texts from like the 2nd, 3rd, 4th century. And since those are closer to the original, we think that those are probably more accurate.

[51:41] And so we'll go, we'll prefer those over these other ones. So there's a ton of manuscripts from the 11th and 12th and 13th century.

[51:52] There's a lot less, but they're closer to the original, to the time of Christ, to the time that they were written.

[52:03] And so those were, so they created a new, what they called critical text, critical Greek text manuscript that's based on those older versions.

[52:13] So if you read in the book of Mark at the end, you've got the King James and you've got the NIV. If you're reading the NIV, the NIV is based on this.

[52:25] There are like, what is it, like 10 verses missing. They're just gone. And that's because this Greek text doesn't have them in there. Because the older, those ancient, like from the 2nd, 3rd, 4th century, they don't have them in there.

[52:40] So there's this debate, well, which one is more accurate? And that's probably one of the more dramatic examples of the differences. Most of the other differences are, like I said, very minor.

[52:52] But, so I tend philosophically to prefer the majority text. I think it's a better, and really, here's the thing.

[53:06] So, the idea is, is that the older texts are closer to the original. But, those who are kind of in favor of the majority texts say, yes, they're not as close to the original.

[53:19] But, which ones were actually used? So, if you actually use these scripts, these manuscripts, they're going to what?

[53:29] They're going to deteriorate. And then you're going to have to make new copies, and new copies. Anyway, so that's kind of the general idea. Like I said, I don't think it's, I don't think it's so huge that we have to make a huge deal about it.

[53:45] But, it is something to consider. The differences are so small. And, even in the NIV, like if you have an NIV Bible, it's not going to have those last ten verses, or however many there are. But, it will put them in the margin.

[53:58] Because, you know, they're like, well, there's a lot of texts that actually have these verses in it, so we're going to at least put it in the margin. I'm going to end there. We're actually over time. Any other thoughts before we wrap up?

[54:10] I brought all these examples of Bibles. I was going to get into study Bibles and all that kind of stuff. But, Jerry? Nathan, the New American Standard is pretty much covered just what you're saying.

[54:24] Yeah. It's put out by the Lachman Foundation. Yeah. Yeah. And it says, let me read this.

[54:35] Bibles. The Lachman Foundation, providing the verses, do not amount to a complete book of the Bible. Nor do any verses quoted to count for more than 50% of the total worth in which they are quoted.

[54:55] And that's talking about markers. That's talking about? It's talking about the Bible. Okay. The New American Standard. Okay.

[55:07] The New American Standard. That is Bible. Okay. I guess I had trouble hearing. So what was it saying? Okay. Just. Roger, can you use it? I'm not going to shake it.

[55:25] Right here. Okay. Actually, it says zero. Okay. Well, this is referring to reprinting or quoting.

[55:47] That you may quote up to a thousand verses without express tradition. Providing a dumb amount for the people. Hmm. Or the verses quoted to one to 50%.

[55:59] Interesting. Yeah. That is another thing to consider with translation. Some people have criticized newer translations saying that it's just a money-making opportunity. If you create your own translation of the Bible, you have an opportunity to make some money off of it.

[56:14] And some people don't think that that's a valid thing. You know, you shouldn't make money off of translating the Bible. And I don't know. How do you go to afford to do it?

[56:26] That's a good question. Right. So, yeah. Pastor Marv. I'd like to offer just a few words regarding the King James Version.

[56:38] Perhaps one of the greatest reasons for its overwhelming popularity is when you read it, it sounds like the word God.

[56:51] Primarily because of the King James English. Right. We've associated that with the voice of God. The these and the thous, etc. But if you eliminate those and go with vernacular today, the way we speak today, it doesn't sound like God's word.

[57:11] It only sounds like God's word with the these and the thous and the betrayeth and thine. And, you know, so that can be a little bit misleading. And it causes some people who have difficulty reading the King James.

[57:26] They associate that with the word of God. And because it is the word of God, I can't understand it. And I'm not going to pursue it. I'm just going to respect it from a different way.

[57:39] And that's exactly what a lot of people do. But when you get away from that and take the translation in the way we talk today in modern English, it can really open up the meaning and you can say, well, how can this be God's word?

[57:57] I understand this. And it's almost as if you're not intended to understand it because it's God's word and it's way up here and you're way down here. So you can forget about trying to understand it.

[58:09] And that is the downside of the King James. Now, as far as the beauty of it is concerned, there's nothing to compare with the beauty of the King James English.

[58:21] Personally and emotionally, that's my favorite. I cut my teeth on the King James as a new Christian. But from the standpoint of really understanding it and the accuracy and everything, we kind of settled in on the New American Standard.

[58:36] And it isn't perfect. And you need to understand this about the King James. And that is shortly after the King James version came out, it underwent revisions because they saw there were problems with it.

[58:47] So it's not a perfect translation either. The only perfect translation is the original, which we don't have. All right. Thank you. That was great. All right. Thanks, everybody. We'll wrap it up. I'll have a long time here.

[58:58] Gonna do remit. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks. Cheers. I'm going to move our faith. Cheers. Thanks, everybody. Cheers.

[59:10] Cheers. Cheers. Love you to sing. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Chance. Cheers.

[59:21] Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Mm-ду-essentials.