How to Study the Bible

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How to Study the Bible

• Translations and Bibles pt 2

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Texts

• What would be the best collection of manuscripts
  to translate from?

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Texts

• One needs to keep in mind that the variants are
  minor in most cases
• Most Bibles will footnote verses that are left
  out of certain texts
• Many translations will also include textual
  information about variants
• Different translations come from using these
  different texts and applying different
  translation philosophies

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Modern Translations and Texts

• The 'Preface' of the NIV begins 'The New
  International Version is a completely new
  translation of the Holy Bible made ... directly
  from the best available Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
  texts.'
• Jack P. Lewis in his book, The English Bible from
  KJV to NIV, writes, 'It is unfortunate in Bible
  transmission that the KJV was based on a late
  text rather than upon an early one.... To state
  that the text now available is superior to that
  of 1611 is to repeat a truism.'

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Translation Philosophy

• Formal Equivalence
• (essentially) word-for-word
• Dynamic Equivalence
• thought-for-thought
• Paraphrase
• Does not even reference the Greek texts

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Formal Equivalence-ESV

• As an essentially literal translation, the ESV
  is committed to the principle of word-for-word
  translation, as the translation philosophy that
  most accurately conveys the Bibles own
  understanding that all Scripture is breathed out
  by God (2 Timothy 316), or as Jesus said, Man
  shall not live by bread alone but by every word
  that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 44).
• From the website www.esv.org

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Formal Equivalence-NKJV

• The translators have also sought to follow the
  principles of translation used in the original
  King James Version, which the NKJV revisers call
  "complete equivalence" in contrast to "dynamic
  equivalence" used by many other modern
  translations.
• From Wikipedia

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Formal Equivalence-NASV

• The New American Standard Bible is widely
  regarded as one of the most literally translated
  of 20th-century English Bible translations.
  According to the NASB's preface, the translators
  had a "Fourfold Aim" in this work
• These publications shall be true to the original
  Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
• They shall be grammatically correct.
• They shall be understandable.
• They shall give the Lord Jesus Christ His proper
  place, the place which the Word gives Him
  therefore, no work will ever be personalized.

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Formal Equivalence-NASV

• Seeing the need for a literal, modern translation
  of the English Bible, the translators sought to
  produce a contemporary English Bible while
  maintaining a word-for-word translation style. In
  cases where word-for-word literalness was
  determined to be unacceptable for modern readers,
  changes were made in the direction of more
  current idioms. In such instances, the more
  literal renderings were indicated in footnotes.
• From Wikipedia

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Dynamic Equivalence

• According to Dynamic Equivalence it is the work
  of the translator to discover the 'meaning' of
  the words, and then to convey that meaning in
  freely chosen words of his own and in the idiom
  of the day.

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Dynamic Equivalence

• From the Preface of a modern translation
• 'The first concern of the translators has been
  the accuracy of the translation and its fidelity
  to the thought (emp. mine) of the biblical
  writers' (p. viii).
• '... they have striven for more than a
  word-for-word translation. Because thought
  patterns and syntax differ from language to
  language, faithful communication of the meaning
  (emp. Mine) of the writers of the Bible demands
  frequent modification in sentence structure and
  constant regard for the contextual meanings of
  words' (p. viii).
• The translators have aimed, we are told, at '...
  convey(ing) the sense...' of the text (p. ix).

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Translation Philosophy of the NIV

• In 1974 Burton L. Goddard, Chairman of the NIV
  translation project, was interviewed in Eternity
  magazine.
• We tried to avoid making a mechanical
  word-for-word rendition, which is the tendency in
  some versions that stress faithfulness to the
  original languages. Our translators always asked,
  'Knowing what the original writer was trying to
  communicate, how would we say the same thing
  today?'

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Dynamic Equivalence-TNIV

• It was felt by the translators that many passages
  in older translations are misleading to
  contemporary readers. The intent of the TNIV
  translators was to produce an accurate and
  readable translation in contemporary language.
  The Committee on Bible Translation (CBT) wanted
  to build a new version on the heritage of the NIV
  and make it a balanced, mediating version, one
  that would fall in-between the most literal
  translation and the most free word-for-word
  (Formal Equivalence) and thought-for-thought
  (Dynamic Equivalence).
• Todays New International Versionfrom Wikipedia

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Paraphrase-The Message

• According to the Introduction to the New
  Testament of the The Message Bible, it was
  written in a contemporary idiom keeps the
  language of the Message (Bible) current and fresh
  and understandable.2 Peterson notes that in
  the course of the project, he realized that this
  was exactly what he had been doing in his
  thirty-five years as a pastor, always looking
  for an English way to make the biblical text
  relevant to the conditions of the people

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