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I have been enjoying the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast a lot this year. It has become routinized this year around a weekly delivery on Sundays. I think the plan was for Dr. Peterson to interview people for these podcasts, but you learn through his daughter, the podcast host, that he has been dealing with some health issues this year—first with his wife, then himself. So, instead of interviews, there have been a number of talks he has given from his 12 Rules for Life Book Tour. What is extraordinary about this tour is that it’s not a scripted presentation. No talk is ever the same. As Dr. Peterson describes his process, he spends about 45 minutes before the show thinking about a problem he wants to solve. Then he walks out onto stage, states the question, and for 70 minutes or so tries to answer the question before answering audience questions at the end. It feels like a high-wire act.

I’ve heard him describe how he became a lecturer who could talk without notes while maintaining audience interest and, I might add, actually saying something coherent and edifying. He says it started with the three hours a day he spent over a period of fifteen years writing his first book, Maps of Meaning. He says he was pretty ruthlessly protective of those three hours. He could have been doing other things and he was frequently asked to engage in other things (including by family), but the time he spent thinking seriously about deep things, allowed him to get down to the bottom of some things. (Did he envision what those three hours would produce? Are there people who have spent an equal amount of time and it didn’t produce the kind of results that includes a best-selling book and a world-wide lecture tour? Is there more to the picture? I think it doesn’t hurt that he tried to wrestle with the hardest questions he could think of. And, clearly, the man is brilliant.)

Dr. Peterson has been a college professor for a number of years and he talks about how he learned to talk without scaffolding (i.e. lecture notes). As he lectured, he tried to get away from using notes to the point where, today, he can walk on stage and talk to an audience off the top of his head. It is a bit like a jazz performance (I think he has used that metaphor himself) where he knows his scales well and that allows him to take the performance in a different direction every night. On the surface, it appears as though he is winging it for a 70-minute talk. Most of us would need to spend hours preparing for that kind of talk. He has spent those hours, they are just in the past rather than in the days and hours before each talk.

A recent podcast—Season 2, Episode 37: “Struggle Between Chaos and Order”—I found particularly impressive and moving. The talk was given in Zurich, Switzerland. He had been interviewed earlier by some reporters and he was annoyed by a particular question—actually, he was annoyed by his answer to a particular question. He decided he would use this night’s lecture to give a better answer.

The question of the journalist was about chaos and order. In particular, why are men considered order and women considered chaos? I really enjoyed his answer. First of all he doesn’t think it’s his idea. It’s his observation of “how stories work.”

Aside: Dr. Peterson’s talk of stories is probably his greatest contribution for those of us in the Christian faith. We live in an age when—well, it’s a funny time—stories have never been more popular in one sense. We still go to see movies. We still read novels. We still attend church (ish). But we’re in this scientific age which attempts to reduce everything to facts, to the things we can measure, sense, and experience. Dr. Peterson has said that the path to truth does not come solely through science. Science gives us facts where stories carry values. Both are truth. And the stories we need as much, if not more, than facts. Further, we pay a price when we jettison those stories.

He thinks of thought structure as a map. “You want an accurate map to stay out of pits.” And one of his goals as a lecturer is not to convince people that he is right, but to make his map better. The better your map, the easier it is to move in the world. He says “a story is a kind of map … a way of perceiving the world and acting in it.” He believes stories are “so deep and important” you re biologically prepared to enjoy them. “Stories are at the bottom of everything.”

The fundamental metaphors of the world are chaos, order, and the force that mediates between the two of them. Order he describes as “when what you want is happening.” We have desires and the world is in order when those desires are being fulfilled. This is not to say that whatever you desire is right, but that we understand that things are in control when we’re getting what we want. The result is that “You’re not anxious.”

On the other hand, chaos is “antithetical . . . where all hell breaks loose.” Sometimes chaos comes from the outside—natural disasters bring chaos, but chaos can also come from interpersonal relationships—from betrayals. And chaos can come from within when we betray ourselves.

The great stories of the world talk about order and chaos. The opening of Genesis is the one I am most familiar with. Genesis 1:1 describes order:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Then verse 2 introduces chaos:

“The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.”

Now, at this point, order sounds like a good thing and chaos is bad, but this is too simplistic a view. Initially, the former seems like a positive and the latter is a negative, so that men are good and women are, you know, chaos—a pejorative. A simple answer is that chaos and order are not good vs. bad; they are opposites. Dr. Peterson reminds his audience that we need both order and chaos. Too much order actually means you have tyranny. He references the Exodus story from the Hebrew Scriptures. They left the oppressive tyranny of Egypt but then found themselves in chaos. I love the psychological application he brings to the Biblical stories, like the departure from Egypt: “You’ve escaped from pathological tyranny and now you’re trying to orient yourself.” That’s chaos. It’s not good or bad, it’s reality. It’s important to know if we are in order or chaos, though “We’re constantly moving between the two things.” The truth is you’re neither completely in order or chaos. When you participate in the process of the movement between these states, you find meaning in life.

There is a cycle: Order is followed by collapse, which introduces you to chaos, which leads you to the Underworld, where you re-constitute yourself and re-emerge with a new order. (This pattern is based on ancient stories he will re-tell momentarily.) The result is a good:

“When you put yourself back together, you’re more together than you were.”

Here’s a truth:

“Life is punctuated by painful bouts of learning.”

The next step of his explanation is that we tend to experience order and chaos as personalities. Our distant ancestors wrote stories that captured this. He references three of them, from Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Genesis, the latter which he describes as a variant of the Mesopotamian story. He goes into some detail telling the Mesopotamian and Egyptian stories, explaining how they relate to order and chaos.

In the process he introduces a story about a grizzly bear that is grimly funny, but a captivating reflection on how you can think you are one place (in order) but instantly find that you were “off the path.”

He relates these stories to actual living. They are not simply stories from the distant past, but stories about how life works. The application of the Egyptian story is “when things fall apart, open your eyes … see what’s in front of you.” The dilemma is found in a question: “What’s in front of you? That which you don’t want to look at.” Dr. Peterson says,

“It’s your moral duty to keep your eyes open. The consequences are fatal.”

Dr. Peterson explains that there is something worse than death: “a lot of suffering, followed by death. … There’s plenty of hell if you’re incautious.”

The last part of his talk is the difficult connection he wants to make—how does order get associated with men and chaos with women? As far as order, hierarchies have been male. Until recently, women had a hard time competing with men because of their vulnerability in the area of reproduction. Though there are some women more dominant than some men, the most dominant humans are males. But this “doesn’t mean that women didn’t contribute or that men are exclusively masculine.” But there is a masculine quality to hierarchies.

Why is chaos represented as a feminine trait? Because “new things emerge out of the feminine.” And what follows is a really interesting but complicated discussion of natural selection and sexual selection. Encounters with either may throw you into chaos.

The end result is that he is “just trying to understand … symbolic patterns that have manifested themselves in gendered form.”

Near the end, Dr. Peterson offers a helpful prayer :

“What can I see
that I’m unwilling to see
that would guide me out of the hell.”

The reality is that “you will be in chaos … You won’t want to, but you can see if you want to … It’s useful to know that you can be in chaos … Open your eyes, it can be a place of renewal.”

I thought the Q & A for this talk was particularly insightful. Here’s this line: “I would rather have my corporations greedy than virtuous.” That’s one to chew on, though he gives some other thoughts about it. He notes this about the political left and the political right. The political left is deeply suspicious of large corporations; the political left is deeply suspicious of large government. What do they have in common? “Both don’t like large.” He referenced that phrase, “too big to fail,” from the financial crisis and turned it into a truism: “so big it will fail.”

There’s a strong moral message at the end of the Q & A:

“The more powerful we become, the more ethical we have to be.”

The decision of what we are going to do is made at the level of the individual. And Dr. Peterson believes “the direction of the world rests on your shoulders.”

The purpose of this series of blog posts is to help me think through Bible translations. I used the King James Version growing up. “Everyone” did. While I have no data to support this, my belief is that in the 1980’s, the trend away from the King James Version began in earnest for a good portion of the evangelical part of the English-speaking Church and the obvious (read only) serious choice was the New International Version. (I imagine would be telling a different story if I was in a different part of the Church.)

I found myself more than a little bugged in 2011 when the NIV underwent a major revision but didn’t call it a major revision. Read the rest of this entry »

The problem for the serious generalist is that you know a lot and you know nothing. You know a little in a lot of areas, but in any one particular area, you don’t have any great depth. The generalist doesn’t worry, though, because he or she knows that there are people who are singularly focused on particular areas and have expert knowledge. They go way down. As a generalist, you can depend on these experts to drill down so you can take a more horizontal view. Or, you can follow their lead and increase your knowledge in any one particular area. As a generalist I am grateful for experts.

Of course, you’re always trying to figure out who is actually an expert. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve begun thinking about Bible translations. It began not as a thought, but a particular emotion that is hard to define. Perhaps a sense of loss is the closest. I’m trying to get past the vague feeling to try and make sense of where I am and decide what needs to be done.

The Bible I grew up with was the King James Version. In my part of the Church it was the only game in town. I suppose I might have been vaguely aware of other translations out there somewhere but no one in my world seemed to be paying particular attention to them on a large scale. Other translations (or paraphrases) were used to enhance the study of the KJV or to color a sermon that featured the KJV. I remember references to The Amplified Bible or the Living Bible or to translations by Moffatt or Phillips, but none of those felt widely adopted. For the most part it seemed like the KJV was what most of us owned. It was the Bible in the pews and what was read publicly in church and the text the pastors I knew preached from.

There was a kind of sea change in the 1980’s when the KJV fell out of fashion and was replaced by the New International Version (now known as the NIV 1984 or NIV 84). I don’t remember any great controversy at the time and thought it was received largely as a blessing. I was part of The Salvation Army at the time and, I assume because of its strong command and control, assume a decision was made within that denomination/movement to make the switch (at least in the English-speaking world). I’m certain there must have been some controversy, but that was out of my awareness or interest. All I knew was that the NIV was much easier to read.

(I imagine there are other accounts of a sea change that took place for other believers in other parts of the Church when one Bible translation was introduced to replace another. I assume, though, that in English the KJV had a kind of ubiquity for all “back in the day, ” though you never know if your part of Christendom is idiosyncratic or is representative of other parts.)

The change seemed good because the KJV was tricky. It was full of words which either I didn’t know because they had fallen out of use or only thought I knew because the definitions had changed over time and so they didn’t mean what I thought they meant. These latter are tough to recognize—if you have a KJV, you almost need an edition that highlights them so that you are reminded not to assume a particular word means what you think it means.

The NIV was much easier to read because the words were (more) familiar, even though theology and the world of the Bible was not always easy to understand. Many of the questions raised by the Bible—for example How do you reconcile a good God with this corrupted world?—don’t have easy answers regardless of the translation you are using. And while you can change the word “propitiation”—as in “And he is the propitiation for our sins …” (I John 2:2, KJV)—to “atoning sacrifice,” I’m not sure the concept is any easier to understand. Propitiation seems rather opaque, making it hard to think about, and perhaps “atoning sacrifice” is too easy not to think about because the words sound like they should be familiar. You still need an answer to the question Why did Jesus (have to) die?

But at least I lived in this circle that said the NIV (84) was God’s word. When we “looked to” or read together or memorized God’s word, we were all referencing the same words. Perhaps this was a naïve view of things. But it was the understanding I had of the world I lived in for a long time.

When the revised version of the NIV came out in 2011, early adopters were, of course, quick to go with it. But not everyone rushed to pick up this new version of the NIV. To be fair, there were people still reading the KJV. (There still are.) And there were those whose NIV (84) study Bibles were so full of notes that they weren’t eager to make (and may still not have made) the change. I remember feeling not a little bugged about the development. Some of it related to the fact that I had some things memorized from the NIV (84) and wondered if I needed to start over with the new translation, but I think part of the complexity of my feelings comes out of the fact that changing a translation (and I don’t think you can say this wasn’t a significant change) without changing the name feels a little disingenuous. I don’t want to say that the publisher was sneaky, but the lack of announcement (though, to be honest, I’m not sure how one goes about making this sort of announcement—and perhaps there was an announcement that was outside my awareness) felt like they were pulling a fast one.

The change in the 1980’s was a newer translation that used vocabulary and syntax from our own day supplanted a venerable (archaic?) one. The change in 2011 amounted to a publishing company discontinuing a translation of the Bible and offering a replacement under the same name. This was confusing at the very least. For one, rather than update language to be more comprehensible to our current culture, language was changed to respond to concerns of our current culture. In other words we were getting more interpreting than translating. That was different. It was a big change that we were not calling a change. (Which is not to say that the change was bad. But we needed to talk about and think about it rather than mindlessly adopt this new thing that we said wasn’t new. We needed Toto to pull on the curtain a little bit so we could understand the machinations that were going on.)

I also wonder if and how this relates to other changes we have been seeing in the Church over the last couple of decades. This change in the NIV wasn’t in isolation. Our culture has become more casual and, accordingly, worship in church has as well. For example, you are now as likely to see the pastor in jeans as in a coat and tie. We attend church services less than we used to and churches have fewer services (especially no Sunday evening services). We’ve largely removed the organ and piano as accompaniments of worship and introduced the guitar-led band. The choir has been replaced by a worship leader/team. We are very much aware of churches that are backward in their worship. And while I have no data to support any of this, I feel like there has been a change within churches to no longer identify publicly with a particular denomination. For example, Smalltown Baptist Church is now often known as Smalltown Church. (This may be a west coast phenomenon. I know there are parts of the country where Smalltown First Baptist—or whatever denomination—can be the going concern in town.) When we move to a new town, our first consideration may not be to find “our” denomination, but to find a church that we like, which likely will not be identified with a denominational label. (Alternatively, when we move, even if we want to find a particular tribe, we may have trouble doing so because it no longer wants to be identified as a tribe.) Does this mean the Church has and by extension church members have more of a consumer mindset.

Perhaps none of this is connected to Bible translations, but the change in 2011 was not simply within the church, but within a church that had changed dramatically. It does seem to me that there is a kind of informalizing of things in the church that renders the KJV even less popular today and encourages translations that sound like common speech, though this may actually be a good thing. And while denominations seem to be less important today, cultural issues have become elevated. In fact, denominations are splitting over these cultural issues.

When the NIV 2011 was introduced to (foisted upon?) us, it was no longer the primary option to the KJV. The English Standard Version had been introduced and was adopted by many. I knew people who liked The New Living Translation. Today, if you search for a Bible, there is a bewildering choice of versions and multiple editions within those versions. And while our churches may not always want to be identified with a particular tribe, we seem to be looking for a Bible that makes sense with our tribe. (For example, a complementarian group may like a translation that uses the word “man” or “men” or “brothers” even when the word being translated likely includes “woman” or “women” or “sisters” in the meaning. It’s likely the more literal translation. The egalitarian church may want a translation that refers to “a person” or “people” or “brothers and sisters.” And there are those options out there.

One of the things I’ve grown to understand is that more choices is not always better. For example, while one brand of spaghetti sauce in the supermarket isn’t enough (strictly speaking, that isn’t even a choice), the decision among a dozen or more isn’t helpful.

As the pastor of a small church, I am searching for a translation that is faithful to the original languages which I can read in public and the language of which I can incorporate into my life. And I’m not sure what that is. What should be my primary study Bible? Go back to my old NIV (84)? Adopt the ESV? Try the mainline NRSV? Get nerdy with the NET Bible?

In the past, the choice (again, in my circle) of which Bible to use was relatively straightfoward—use the King James Version if you are traditional, use the NIV (84) if you are trying to be more contemporary. But today it doesn’t seem like there’s any clear line of authority for making the decision of which Bible to use. It all feels very individual and personal—in the same way that we now feel like we should dress how we like and enjoy music that we like.

My understanding is that there are some groups who have attached themselves to a particular translation. I’ve heard the Holman Christian Study Bible is enjoyed by some Baptist churches. There is a King James Only movement that tells us there really is no other choice. I’ve heard some pastors make a recommendation for the New American Standard or ESV. The New Revised Standard Version is nearly the only option (along with the KJV) for those who want to follow the reading plan in the Book of Common Prayer, which includes the Apocrypha.

What I don’t hear (at least not yet) is a lot of acclaim for the NIV (2011), perhaps because we haven’t had a good conversation about what the implications of those changes are.

The present situation feels like a buffet line without a carving station for the main course at the end.

I grew up with the King James Version of the Bible. Somewhere in the 1980’s, I switched to the New International Version, I think simply because of its popularity and readability. I assume the latter had something to do with the former. Most of the churches and pastors I knew had begun using it. The KJV was and is spectacularly beautiful (see Psalm 23 for a high-water mark in the English language) but at times it required a lot of background knowledge to uncover the meaning (as with 2 Corinthians 5:14: “For the love of Christ constraineth us …”) because so many words (like constrain) have changed over time. I dabbled with a New American Standard version for a while, but the NIV is the Bible I have used since college, especially when I wanted to memorize something. For example, I learned Psalm 1 by heart.

Somewhere along the line, the publishers of the New International Version decided to update their translation. But they didn’t call their update the New New International Version. They simply changed the publication date so that you now had the NIV from 1984 and the NIV from 2011. For a while, a source like Biblegateway.com provided both versions identifying each by copyright date. Today, that website only lists the New International Version in its latest version and without a publication date. (The 1984 version may still be found here.)

Admittedly, I am change averse, but this new edition of the NIV really messed with me. Things I had memorized from the Bible were no longer in the Bible so to speak, at least in this new version. Do you go back and re-memorize? It’s hard to hide God’s word in your heart when God’s word changes (you know, every 27 years or so, which still is a lot for the “unchanging word of God”). I shouldn’t be so dramatic, but something in this change was demoralizing. Do I still have the Bible (God’s word) memorized (at least this portion of the Bible)? Do I need to re-learn it using the new revision?

Admittedly, the changes are not severe. Here is Psalm 1, line by line, with the 1984 and 2011 (in italics) editions of the New International Version:

Blessed is the man
Blessed is the one

who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way of sinners
or stand in the way that sinners take

or sit in the seat of mockers.
or sit in the company of mockers,

But his delight is in the law of the Lord
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord

and on his law he meditates day and night.
and who meditates on his law day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season
which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither
and whose leaf does not wither—

Whatever he does prospers.
whatever they do prospers.

Not so the wicked.
Not so the wicked!

They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
They are like chaff  that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish.
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

A number of the lines are exactly the same. (Where this is no bold typeface.)

One change has improved clarity. Changing “or stand in the way of sinners” to “or stand in the way that sinners take” seems to be a better rendering for the simple reason that the former sounds like you should not impede a sinner (as in “Blessed are those who … get out of the way of sinners, or “Blessed are those who … don’t get run over by sinners”), where the latter tells you to stay off the path that sinners take. This seems like better English, though, admittedly, this is without consideration of what the original Hebrew says (which should be a consideration).

The main change you can see is that the translators avoided the use of the word “man.” I’m not sure the word “man” to the exclusion of females was intended (or, rather, I’m fairly certain the word man was meant to include women), but I don’t know what it would be like as a woman to listen to or try to memorize the 1984 version. It’s probably easier as a man to say that the word man includes both men and women than it is for a woman to hear the word man and know that she is included. This new version appears to want to use more inclusive language. (Actually, I am certain it does, but am limiting my claim solely to this one passage.)

I like the idea in principal of inclusive language where appropriate, but there is one thing that bugs: It’s the singular “they,” as in “Blessed is the one … that person … whatever they do prospers.” It seems like the NIV has done a couple of things that I want to think about a little bit. First, it has gone beyond direct translation of the words into an interpretation of what the words mean. And perhaps this is a good thing in this case. The translators have said that “man” really means man or woman and I don’t argue with that. But second, it is making stylistic/linguistic changes to the English language by using a third person plural pronoun as a third person singular pronoun. This latter decision I find more troubling than the decision to use a less exclusive word (“man”) in a passage that seems to mean both men and women. I’ve used the formulation of they as a singular pronoun from time-to-time, but I feel awkward and it feels clunky when I do. You are changing grammar when you do that. Additionally, the word “they” has been politicized recently, to go beyond inclusivity of both genders to be an acceptable pronoun of choice for the so-called non-binary. I wonder if this confuses issues.

*   *   *

The changes to the New International Version have me thinking about translations in general. I’ve never really considered other translations. But for that matter, I never really considered why I use the NIV. What translation(s) do I want to read, study, memorize, and preach from?

Currently, I use the New Revised Standard Version for my daily Bible readings from the Book of Common Prayer because the former includes the Apocrypha, from which the latter often has readings.

I am in the midst of a Bible study project reading through the entire Bible using the English Standard Version.

For now I use the NIV (2011) in my preaching, but my commitment to it is up for negotiation at this point. After a recent church service, I was asked by a church member, “What translation are you reading from?” I sensed a slight bit of exasperation and/or bewilderment in the question. She uses the earlier NIV and told me that her husband uses the New American Standard Bible and that neither of them could follow me when I read scripture in church, which makes sense—they are different translations. Which translation(s) should you use for the public reading of scripture and for teaching?

If you walk into a Bible book store or even visit the Bible section of Barnes and Noble, it is amazing how many translations are commonly available:

King James Version
New King James Version
English Standard Version
New Revised Standard Version
New International Version
New Living Translation
Holman Christian Standard Bible
New American Standard Bible
Common English Bible
The Message
Contemporary English Version

This just for starters. The list goes on.

So, which one do I read? Which one do I study from? Which one do I preach from? Which one do I memorize? I heard someone make this statement: “New American has the finest [New Testament] Greek rendering, NIV has the finest Hebrew poetry … and ESV has the finest blend of both.” But then he goes on to say that he uses the New King James Version for his teaching. So perhaps I need to be thinking in terms of multiple translations.

There’s a lot to think about, so I’ve begun a little investigation into Bible translations. I’m not trying to decide anything at this point. I’m certainly not wanting to persuade anyone of anything. I just want to learn and the best way for me to learn is to write.

As I began the most basic and preliminary research, I noticed that it’s not always easy to separate fact from opinion, both for those who hold strong opinions on this subject and for me as I attempt to tell the truth about what I know and believe. As I’ve listened to people talk about Bible translations, there seems to be two approaches: to inform or to convert, to help people figure out which Bible to use or to create loyalty around a particular translation.

So, this is a first attempt at thinking through some of the basic issues involved with Bible translations. My goal is to say what I think is reasonable. (There is plenty of unreasonable out there and I want to choose carefully what it is I want to be unreasonable about.) Here’s what I understand so far, and I am including visuals as a way to help me let this sink in:

1. Most of us need to read the Bible in translation because the Bible was not written in English. A translation is needed to get us from there to here.

I have all sorts of respect for, say, a Jewish person who can read the Hebrew Bible (what Christians refer to as the Old Testament) in the original Hebrew (and a little Aramaic) or for Bible students who can read the New Testament in its original Greek. (Although by “read” I don’t mean have some understanding of Biblical Greek, but can open a Greek New Testament and read it and comprehend it without aids. It seems to me that many people who have lots to say about the original languages don’t actually have that kind of fluency with those languages.)

Aside: I have noticed that some who are fluent in Biblical languages maintain that those who are reading the Bible in translation are reading an impoverished Bible at best. Part of me is sympathetic to that idea while another part of me thinks it is a bit snobbish or worse. It would be great to read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables in French (I wish I could), but it’s worth reading even in translation. It’s possible to understand the story in English. I believe that is true of the Bible as well.

The fact that the Bible was not written in English seems self-evident, but there was a joke growing up—“The King James Version—good enough for Paul, good enough for me!”—which, while funny, illustrates the idea that ignorance sometimes enters these discussions. There aren’t easy cures for ignorance, but it begins by recognizing that no matter what English translation you have or favor, if you’re reading any English translation you aren’t reading what Paul wrote because Paul didn’t write in English. The English that most of us can understand, beginning with the English of Shakespeare’s day (which actually isn’t all that easy to understand) didn’t even exist until the 1500’s.

2. English is neither the first nor the only language into which the Bible has been translated. For a long period of time, Latin was the primary language in which the Bible was read. It was a big deal when the Bible was put into the colloquial language of the common person, as Martin Luther did with German. William Tyndale paid a high price for his work as a translator. His (partial) English translation resulted in his being burned at the stake. At this point in my understanding, I don’t think it’s important to know what all those translations were and when they came about. It is essential to know that there were earlier translations and there are other modern languages into which the Bible has been translated.

It’s fascinating to listen to how impassioned some people are about certain English translations when English is not the only language in which people are reading the Bible. (More on them another time.) It seems rather self-evident/obvious, but I notice that some who are intent on making the case for a certain English translation, don’t seem to have a way to explain their choice in a way that would help someone from another language choose an adequate translation in their language. If, say, you thought the King James Version of the Bible was the best (or perhaps the only appropriate) English version, how do you come to that conclusion in a way that isn’t some sort of circular argument (“The King James version is the best version because it’s the King James Version, which means it’s the best version …”) or simple dogma (“The King James Version is the only authorized version.”) or doesn’t exclude other language groups (“You need to read the Bible in the King James. It’s perfect.”)? (To readers for whom English is a second language I’ve heard the argument, “They should learn English,” but, instead, maybe we should all learn Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek so that we can read the Bible in the language God gave it. My view is this is not a simple discussion.)

3. We don’t have the original manuscripts of the Bible. For example, whatever the apostle Paul wrote down and what he wrote it down upon is gone to history. That is true of every book of the Bible. Similarly, we don’t have the first manuscript copies. Those are all lost as well. That’s another story that I haven’t internalized, yet. When we talk about translating the Bible into English, we are not translating from what the writers of the Bible wrote down. All we have for doing the work of translating are early manuscripts and the earliest available manuscripts.

Aside: It’s interesting to read claims on behalf of these original manuscripts (for example, “The Bible, including both the Old and New Testaments, is a divine revelation, the original autographs of which were verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit.”) when we don’t have these original autographs.

There’s a lot to this discussion as well. At first, the idea of using the “earliest available manuscripts” seems the logical and self-evident choice. However, a problem emerges with the King James Version (and, therefore, the New King James Version), which used early manuscripts, but not the earliest available manuscripts. (I don’t think that last statement is controversial and I am certainly not looking to be controversial. It should simply be factual.) What gets controversial is when you consider the implications of your choice of which manuscripts you use to translate the Bible.

The “earliest available manuscripts” come from different places and times and there are small but not insignificant differences among the earliest available manuscripts depending on where they come from and when they were written. And there are difference between these “earliest available manuscripts” and the “early manuscripts” used for the KJV. The translator has to decide which of these manuscripts will be used to make the translation knowing that the end result will be affected by this choice. People often have strong feelings about this choice of manuscripts and, no surprise, there is no perfect agreement about which of these manuscripts should be used and how this issue should be resolved. I’ve seen reasonable people offer reasonable points-of-view in discussing these issues, but there is no easy way to say which point-of-view is “correct”. Some people seem better than others at stating why they hold to their point-of-view while others seem to believe their point-of-view is correct simply because it is their point-of-view, which is fine until you have two people saying the opposite thing. One of them (at least) is wrong (Why is it we assume it’s the other person?).

Here’s where the choice gets problematic: The translators of the NIV, for example, place John 7:53–8:11, the story of the woman caught in adultery, in italics and include this note: “The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11.” Well, that’s a disturbing message to come across in your Bible. Is this passage in the Bible or not? It is in the KJV. It’s in italics in the NIV with that note in brackets. There may be versions that actually exclude the passage with or without a footnote.

Matthew 17:21 is actually missing in the NIV. In its place is a footnote: “Some manuscripts include here words similar to Mark 9:29.”

When you turn over to Mark 9:29 in the NIV, it reads,

“[Jesus] replied, ‘This kind can come out only by prayer.’”

There is a footnote to this verse which reads, “Some manuscripts prayer and fasting.” Again, which is it? Did they only need to pray or did they need to pray and fast? How do you answer this?

I’m not ready to draw any conclusions for myself, yet, but at this point it’s worth noting that when we talk about verses missing in modern translations of the Bible (that are present in the KJV), it’s not a long list. See here and here.

This is a complicated issue for some and not for others. On the one hand there are people who are on different sides of the issue but can talk clearly about it and are willing to acknowledge and consider differing viewpoints. For them it is a complicated issue. Alternatively, there are some people for whom this issue is relatively (or just plain) straightforward. And some of them consider this issue the proverbial hill to die on. They are committed to (for this and, perhaps, other reasons as well) “King James Version only.” The words of Revelation 22:19 are the end of the discussion for them: “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” (See for example here.)

I will have to sort this out another time. At this point, I see it as a complicated issue and am uncertain how contentious it is (or should be).

4. Translations of the Bible exist along a spectrum/continuum and fall into roughly three categories: Word-for-word translations (also known as formal equivalencies), thought-for-thought translations (also know as dynamic or functional equivalencies), and paraphrases. (There is a fourth category of translation that might be called corrupt or heretical translations. The New World Translation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is placed into this category by some. But that, too, is for another day.)

These concepts are relatively self-explanatory. A word-for-word translation will take the words and structure of the original language and choose English words on a one-to-one basis. A thought-for-thought translation will take complete thoughts in the original language and find like thoughts in English. With a paraphrase, the translator, will attempt to summarize what he or she (not they!) think the original means in a way that he or she believes will make sense in a modern language.

So here, for example, are two renditions of John 3:16 from the ends of the spectrum. First, John 3:16 from an interlinear translation:

“Thus for loved God the world that the Son the only begotten He gave so that everyone believing in Him not should perish but should have life eternal.”

This translation follows the Greek language in structure and, in my opinion, sounds not a little funny in English because our language isn’t structured the same way.

Out on the other end of the spectrum is the paraphrase. Growing up, The Living Bible was the most common paraphrase, but in recent years, Eugene Peterson’s The Message has become very popular. Here is how he renders John 3:16:

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.”

Basically, every translation falls along this spectrum in some way. Here is one picture of where the various translation would be placed along the spectrum (I think this is from the website Biblegateway.com):

(Note: The creator of this slide has only “two approaches” for translations of the Bible and considers paraphrases as thought-for-thought translations. Not everyone does. I prefer the three categories.)

Two things happen when you move from left to right on the spectrum, from the literal word-for-word to the paraphrase. First, you improve readability.

There is no question in my mind that The Message is easier to read and understand than the literal.

Aside: There is another spectrum to readability that has to do with the reading level of the translation. In other words, how educated do you need to be to read the translation? My understanding is that the language of the New Testament, at least, is in a rather simple, common Greek. But English translations can be more or less difficult to read. Someone has evaluated the reading level of various Bible translations and produced this infographic (it mentions 15 translations, but I only count 14):

I haven’t correlated this graphic with the graphic of the various translations along a spectrum, but it appears that in general the more thought-for-thought the translation, the simpler the vocabulary that is used. 

The second thing that happens as you move from left to right along the spectrum of translations is you increase the amount of interpretation. In other words, the more you are trying to translate thoughts, the more interpreting you are bound to do.

There isn’t necessarily an inverse relationship between readability and accuracy, but the less you focus on the words and structure of the original, the more you are answering the question, “What is this saying in our times and language?” This is an interpretive act, because two different people may look at the same passage and conclude it says different things in our day. For this reason, many people suggest that it’s best to think of a paraphrase as a commentary rather than a translation.

From an admittedly small sampling, people interested in offering an introduction to this subject have a sweet spot they recommend for people when choosing a Bible. That sweet spot is larger or smaller for some, but in general it ignores the most literal translation on the far left (the inter-linear) and the most interpreted renditions on the right (the paraphrases). (“Left” and “right” as used here are conceptual and not political terms.)

I’ve heard the following principle put forward: you should try to be as far left on the continuum as possible (again, no reference to politics, here). I’ve also heard the suggestion to find a Bible that mediates between the word-for-word and the thought-for-thought, but there are no rules for this as far as I can tell. There are people who are happy to tell you which Bible you should read and/or condemn certain translations, and I suppose it’s possible to belong to a group that make decisions for you or your congregation, or at least makes recommendations to you, somewhere from “You will use this translation” to “You might consider this translation.” As an individual, I find myself most responsive to those who encourage an informed choice but leave the choice in the hands of the individual, although I can see why a particular church or denomination would tend to gather around one particular translation.

I started my study on YouTube and enjoyed videos featuring (in no particular order) Tim Challies, James White, Todd Friel, Mark Strauss, Robert Plummer, Michael Brown, Mike Winger, and Todd Wagner. More to come as the exploration continues.