Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

Do you ever get overwhelmed or confused by what version of the Bible is best for your needs? Before you take the plunge, get the skinny on the differences between the most popular modern translations. Join us for Ask Pastor Mike right now on Focal Point.

And welcome to Focal Point. I'm your host. Well, you may know that Pastor Mike Febares is not only your pastor on the air, he shepherds a flock at Compass Bible Church in Southern California.

As a shepherd, he's keen on guiding you towards an accurate, reliable translation of the Bible. So right now, I'm turning the mic over to Focal Point's executive director, Jay Worton, for important insights to consider before you make a decision on the next translation you read in this week's edition of Ask Pastor Mike.

Speaker 2

Thank you. I am here with Pastor Mike and Pastor Mike. We have a question today about Bible translations. A listener asks, what is the difference between all the Bible translations? Is one better than another?

Speaker 3

Well, yeah, that's a great question. And yeah, I mean, certainly some are better than others, but it's a pretty complicated question. It sounds like a simple question, but it's a complicated question.

I mean, there's at least three factors we've got to think about. Let's just take the one that comes to mind immediately, and that is, you know, when you're translating from one language to the next, I mean, you have to take words that are in another language and bring them into our language. And how do you do that? How close do you stick to the words that are there?

In other words, I guess the best way to do this is to illustrate it when Jesus is walking on water. Mark chapter six, verse 51. If I were to read the literal words of the Greek text and just bring one word over at a time, let me just give you how verse 51 reads. And very out of excess in themselves. They were astonished. That'd be the way you just translate every word across.

Speaker 2

Well, that sounds very simple.

Speaker 3

It's very hard for anybody to kind of process. It sounds like you're almost in another language. I mean, you have to take that and very out of excess in themselves. They were astonished. That's a mouthful to try and explain something that every translation is going to now try to put into words in our language that is close as possible to what's being said there. Like the ESV, the translation we translate out of, does that in four words: "They were utterly astounded." The NIV states, "They were completely amazed." And then you get into some that are just trying to express it as powerfully as that Greek text. I mean, the Phillips translation says, "They were scared out of their wits," or the Message, if they're trying to put it in just in the lingo of the day, states, "They were stunned and shaking their heads."

I mean, you got to figure out how you're going to take these words across, how literally you're going to bring them across. So when we talk about translations, most people say, "Well, I want a literal translation. I want it to be brought over as literally as possible." But you got to be careful in saying that you want that without risking the fact that you have to be able to read this and read it smoothly as someone communicating in our language. And every translation of any language works in this way. So that's really the first thing: how literal are you going to be?

The second one is kind of this historical distance. In other words, there are things that are idioms in ancient Greek or Hebrew that you kind of have to decide: do I let people know what these idioms mean in our language, or do we just bring them straight across? A classic example is "gird up the loins of your minds." You know, Peter writes this about how we should be ready in our own thinking. I mean, that's a concept that we don't have anymore because no one's wearing long robes and having to tuck their robe into their belt. So you have to decide how do you translate that historical difference in terms of the idioms that are on the page?

And so you're looking for one, I suppose, that is as literal as possible. And yet, it doesn't leave you looking in a Bible dictionary every paragraph to figure out what these idioms mean.

Now, lastly, and this is for those that are informed about how we come to take our Bibles into our language, we have to first know: what am I going to base this translation on? Because we don't have the original documents that Moses wrote. We don't have the original manuscripts that Paul or Peter wrote. So what we have is copies. Now we have more copies and as ancient a set of copies as any document of antiquity. In other words, we have the best, most reliable ancient book that's ever been written given to us in the Bible. And yet we can't just pull out of a file cabinet somewhere the letter that Paul wrote.

So we've got to base it on the best manuscripts that we have available. In the Old Testament, for instance, you could just base your translations on the Masoretic family of documents, which are faithfully done by Jews throughout the history of Judaism. Or you could include, well, do I take into consideration the findings of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Do I take into consideration the very, very ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint? You'd think, well, I'd want all of those manuscripts on the table, so to speak, the proverbial table, to decide what the original writing actually was.

And while there's just very fine and very small variance between these documents, you do want a translation that's going to translate this text from all the available best manuscripts that are out there. So we've got lots of manuscripts, we have lots of ancient manuscripts. We should consider them all. We should make it as literal as possible and yet readable. And we should try to bridge the historical distance as much as we can without just completely ignoring some of the rich idioms of the Bible.

Speaker 2

I'm sure all of those criteria probably span a couple of different versions. Is there one that I should be using over the other one? Should I go with what my pastor is using, what my church is using? How do I choose?

Speaker 3

Sure, yeah. And I guess it depends on what church you're in. But I would say yes, if your church is led by a solid pastor. He's been trained, he's gifted, he's called. He's made a wise decision about the translation he's using.

Then I'd say use your pastor's translation, because it's great to sit in a church where the Bible's being taught and as he reads and explains the text and then seeks to apply it to us, that we've got that same translation in our lap.

So use the translation your pastor uses in the service. But certainly it's not a bad idea to use a lot of the respected translations that we have every day in your own reading and study of the Bible.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I trust this has been a helpful discussion for our listeners, and we're going to continue this conversation with a message you gave called Comparing and Evaluating Modern Translations.

Speaker 4

John Wycliffe translated the Bible in 1382, and it was him and his fellow scholars. Wasn't too long after all of this was now being distributed and copied, that in 1408, it was illegal in the kingdom there in England to read the Bible in English. It was outlawed. Anybody caught reading the Bible, anybody caught with Wycliffe's translation of the Bible was liable to punishment. This was a pivotal moment in history.

Obviously, Gutenberg, which we learn about for a variety of reasons after centuries of painstaking copying, changed everything. The best of it was done either in the Old Testament scribal community or in the monasteries of the medieval church. We now have a fabulous invention called the printing press, moveable type. And this was an amazing thing. It was the vehicle that would fuel the Reformation. The message of the Reformers was going to be accelerated and made possible in a new kind of way, expedited through Gutenberg's printing press.

Now, of course, there were a few things printed on his printing press before the Bible, but the first real complete masterpiece, the real accomplishment of movable type was the Bible, of course, the most important book in the world. And it was printed up in Latin, you need to know. Printed in 1455 by Gutenberg. There's a lot of history surrounding that. He had some help, and they split up the work, and there is very interesting history there that maybe you can take some time to read about. Gutenberg, of course, was from Germany. This is 100 years after Wycliffe.

Now, of course, talk about the Reformation. Wycliffe was the morning star of the Reformation, we call him, because he had all the concerns that would reach an apex after the printing press was now in place with a guy named Martin Luther. Martin Luther lived, just to give you a frame of reference here, from 1483 to 1546. He was a part of the system, studying to be an Augustinian monk. Yet he was increasingly frustrated the more he studied Galatians and Romans in particular, with the corruption of the Church, the sale of indulgences, and the attitude that you don't need to read the Bible, you lowly people, just listen to the priests and the leaders of the church, and you'll be okay.

He recognized that the solution was the same as Wycliffe's. If you get the Bible in the hands of the people, they can begin to compare their teachers to the written word of God, and they'll realize, hey, this doesn't add up. And that's exactly what happened. Though Luther wanted to reform the church, obviously there was a gigantic break in the church. His big accomplishment for his kinfolk was translating the Bible into German. I'd love to say more about Martin Luther, but the reason he comes up in the history of the English Bible is because he was the catalyst. Under the umbrella of his powerful leadership, we had now the opportunity for the English Bible to be propagated.

One more guy that may not seem like it's part of the history of the English Bible that we need to know about is a guy named Erasmus of Rotterdam. Erasmus was a Dutch scholar. He was over in Cambridge, and he was a genius in languages. He was commissioned to put together a translation of the Latin Vulgate. Actually, it was his passion, and he wanted to put together a translation of an improvement on the Latin Vulgate. He re-translated the Latin text from a newly constructed critical edition of the Greek New Testament. It was huge because everyone used it. As a matter of fact, that was the standard Greek New Testament on which every translation was based for about 200 years, maybe more.

The great thing about Erasmus, and if you ever get a chance to read some things about him, you'll realize he wasn't just a dutiful scholar in Cambridge. He really did share the concerns of the Reformation. He felt like there was corruption in the Church and he wanted it fixed. He did what he could in his work, which was pivotal in God's plan. You can read his heart in many of his writings, and he was prolific. He really wanted the Bible in the hands of the people, which was the cry of the Reformation. If we want a church that is functioning properly, it needs to be functioning according to the law and the testimony, because if you don't function according to that, you're operating in utter darkness.

So we've got to get the Bible in the hands of the people. Here's one quotation from Erasmus's writings: "Christ wishes his mysteries to be published as widely as possible. I wish that they were translated into all languages of all Christian people, that they might be read and known. I wish that the farmer might sing parts of them at his plow and the weaver at his shuttle." That was anathema in the minds of the hierarchy of the church because they knew they were running a scam and they didn't want people undermining their authority by reading the Bible for themselves. It was kind of a "don't ask me questions, just trust me on this." Whenever leaders say that, that's the wrong kind of leadership. You need people that are always open to saying, "Test these things according to the word of God."

Okay, there's a lot of names I'm throwing at you, but if you can remember two, would you please remember John Wycliffe and William Tyndale? Those are the two most important people that you'll want to stand in line to meet when you are in the new Jerusalem. You know, being an English group, you'll want to meet these two guys. William Tyndale was an Oxford professor, and what he did that was unique was translate the Bible into English for the first time from Greek, with the advantage of Gutenberg's movable type.

Now, remember, Wycliffe translated the Bible into English and really fueled the Reformation, but he did it from Latin. He didn't have the advantage of Gutenberg's movable type. We didn't have Erasmus's critical Greek New Testament. Now you put all those things together, and you have a movement that Martin Luther has gotten going. You have a printing press now that's able to print Bibles. You have a Greek New Testament that has been weighed by different Greek manuscripts, most of them late. There's really none earlier than the 12th century. But still, you have a somewhat critical Greek New Testament.

In 1525, we have the English translation of the New Testament from Greek, and the Old Testament was not far behind it. This had credibility. This had people excited. Now we've just upped the ante with a very reliable English translation and the ability to spread it like wildfire because of the printing press. The Catholic Church in England was frustrated and angry. They were white-hot with anger and just could not hate William Tyndale enough. The first thing they did was ban the Bible in England. You could not be found with William Tyndale's translation of the Bible. It was like the plague; it was banned. They had to smuggle them in to try and keep the reform of the church going in England.

Tyndale, of course, was run out of town. He ended up going to Germany to print his Bible. He got as many people as possible involved in that. Of course, the church finally got a hold of him. I say the church, the Roman Catholic Church, and they burned him at the stake. William Tyndale's Bible—if you've ever read a King James Bible, you've read William Tyndale's Bible for the most part. About 80% of the verbiage, the language, the vocabulary, and the translation work of William Tyndale and his team ends up in the King James version of the Bible. This is a gigantic accomplishment.

One more guy that you need to know about is Myles Coverdale. Of course, Henry VIII had some problems, as you remember, and the church would not grant him the divorce that he so badly wanted. Upon the whole turnaround there with Anne Boleyn and all that, there was a fantastic political maneuver by Myles Coverdale. This was the debate: if you really wanted reform in the church, you liked William Tyndale and you wanted his Bible to succeed. Well, Coverdale took the opportunity with the divorce of the King to get this Bible actually printed in England. He did it through a lot of channels, through his political savvy.

Ultimately, the thing that won this over was he printed this Bible and dedicated it to Queen Anne Boleyn, the new wife of the King. It was the first printed and distributed Bible in England that was done with the blessing of the government, thanks to the political savvy of Myles Coverdale. There is one more Bible that's worth mentioning, Matthew's Bible, published by a guy named John Rogers in 1537. It was actually with the King's decree, literally the first authorized version of the Bible, Matthew's Bible. Cromwell called Coverdale to revise the Matthew's Bible, and it resulted in the Great Bible.

I just want to mash all these together, and these are all known as different things: the Great Bible, Cromwell's Bibles, Cranmer's Bible, the Chained Bible, which is my favorite one. These were produced by the church and the Church of England, which is now newly Protestant because of the policies of the King. They all got a Bible. Every church now got a Bible in English. Well, we had the Latin Vulgate in the Bibles the priests were privileged to read, but now we had a Bible in every church.

Now, if you wanted to read the Bible in your language, you had to go to church. They put them on stands, and because they didn't want them stolen, they chained them to a post or a podium. This is why it picked up the name called the Chained Bible.

Now, give you the history here. King James assumes the throne. King James wants desperately to be the head of the Church. The problem is the guys that really have power in England, in the Protestant circles, now that we have again this ping pong flip-flop back to a Protestant kingdom, are the Puritans. The Puritans love the Geneva Bible. They love the notes in the Geneva Bible and are sympathetic to it. Well, King James isn't going to like the Geneva Bible.

So there's a guy in the Hampton Court in the southwest corner of London. They hold this court, and John Reynolds steps up and says, almost out of the blue—at least this is how history goes down—"Why don't we have a new Bible?" He knows King James is not going to support the Geneva Bible and the Puritans. John Reynolds was the president of Merton College at Oxford. He says, "Listen, we don't want the Bishop's Bible because we don't want all that stuff that goes with it."

So he politically suggests creating a new Bible, and King James, in one of those situations where everyone is quiet and King James is there, says, "Yes, it's a good idea." His line in history was, "I've yet to read a well-translated English Bible," which is nonsense. But he said, "Fine, we'll do a new one." Basically, they took the Tyndale text and stripped it of all of its notes that made it feel like a Puritan Bible or an Anglican Bible and created a kind of middle-of-the-road Bible with lesser notes that relate to any partisan. It's an ecumenical, peace, political Bible.

Puritans liked the Geneva Bible, but King James did not suggest a new translation. So we have the King James Bible produced in 1611.

The New American Standard Bible, some of you love that, is a 1970s rework of the American Standard Version. A couple of things I don't care for are the real wooden grammar, especially in the Old Testament, which is very hard to read in some places. I also don't like the reverting back to Old English pronouns, "thees" and "thous," when it comes to addressing God. It just seems so bizarre and artificial. But they made that decision.

The Lachman Foundation translation team produced the RSV, the Revised Standard Version, in 1952, which was a rework of the American Standard Version. It was bold and didn't care about tradition, but it was not well received by conservative Christians. The New Revised Standard was a revision of the RSV. It was the first translation, at least in that line of English translations, to consider the Dead Sea Scroll readings and some more manuscript discoveries from 1952. So it became, for a lot of people, the scholars' Bible. It has been preferred in many seminaries across the country.

The Message, published in 2002 by Eugene Peterson, is a paraphrase. While he does know languages and is a well-educated man, this is really not a serious translation. He is actually quoted as saying, "My goal was to give it a street language." So that's why it has such funny translations at times. I mean, it may be interesting to read, but it's not a serious translation.

Now, the English Standard Version—you should know this by now—has the phrase they like: not only is it a formal equivalent, but they like to go even further and say it's an essentially literal translation. A good thing about it, and you should too, is that it retains theological terminology. It doesn't try to water it down or move it away or simplify it. That's good. We have words like justification, propitiation, and repentance. Those are all kept, whereas in other translations that are thought-for-thought, oftentimes we don't have those anymore. I mean, it's a well-liked translation and is being well received.

All right, this is all for your edification. Let's pray.

God, we thank you so much for the way you've orchestrated our lives to put us in this particular place at this particular time. We know to whom much is given, much is required. So we want to be faithful stewards to let the Word of Christ richly dwell in us, to be filled to the brim in our hearts with the Word of God. When people are seeking their own impressions or ideas or thoughts, may we return, as Isaiah says, to the law and to the testimony to know what the truth is. Psalm 43: may we be passionate about the light and the truth shining forth from your Word, giving us clarity about who you are. We love it very much. We thank you for it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Speaker 1

You're listening to Pastor Mike Fabarez on Focal Point in a portion of a message on the Bible called "Comparing and Evaluating Modern Translation." Listen to the full unedited version when you go to focalpointradio.org. We trust today's message helped you think through which Bible translation is best for you.

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I'm Dave Drouy, wishing you a restful weekend. Pastor Mike Fabarez returns with a deeper appreciation for the power of Scriptures Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.

Speaker 5

Sam.