The Bible in TRANSLATION

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The Bible in TRANSLATION
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• By the seventh month the people of Israel were
  all settled in their towns. On the first day of
  that month they all assembled in Jerusalem, in
  the square just inside the Water Gate. They asked
  Ezra, the priest and scholar of the Law which the
  LORD had given Israel through Moses, to get the
  book of the Law. So Ezra brought it to the place
  where the people had gathered---men, women, and
  the children who were old enough to understand.
  There in the square by the gate he read the Law
  to them from dawn until noon, and they all
  listened attentively. (Nehemiah 81-3)

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• They gave an oral translation of Gods Law and
  explained it so that the people could understand
  it. When the people heard what the Law required
  (when they understood the meaning), they were so
  moved that they began to cry. So Nehemiah, who
  was the governor, Ezra, the priest and scholar of
  the Law, and the Levites who were explaining the
  Law told all the people, This day is holy to the
  LORD your God, so you are not to mourn or cry.
  (Nehemiah 88-9)

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What is the Bible?

• 66 Books
• 39 Old Testament books Hebrew, some Aramaic
• 27 New Testament books Greek

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The Bible in Jesus day

• The Greek translation of the Hebrew OT - the
  Septuagint, LXX (285 246 B.C.)
• The first translation of the Hebrew
• All Scripture is inspired by God (1 Timothy
  316)
• All OT quotes in the NT are from the LXX
• To this day it is the authoritative biblical text
  of the OT for the Greek Orthodox church
• Christian Bible accepted the LXX sequencing, not
  the Hebrew

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The Bible in Jesus day

• Samaritans
• Lived in the former northern kingdom
• Only considered the 5 books of Moses (the
  Pentateuch) to be the Bible
• he will send you a prophet like me from among
  your own people, and you are to obey him.
  (Deuteronomy 1815)

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The Bible in Jesus day

• Sadducees
• Only considered the 5 books of Moses (the
  Pentateuch) to be the Bible
• Did not believe in the resurrection or angels,
  etc.

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The Bible in Jesus day

• Essenes
• A collection of the books of Moses, the prophets,
  Psalms, and apocryphal works
• Dead Sea scrolls

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The Bible in Jesus day

• Pharisees
• Essentially held to the same 39 books of the OT
  as modern Christianity

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The Catholic Bible

• Includes the apocrypha
• Considered 2nd class books (deuterocanonical)
  but yet.
• What happens to the soul at the resurrection?
  (The Book of Wisdom)

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Muratorian fragment (canon)

• Discovered in Milan (1730s)
• Dated late 2nd century (170 A.D.)
• A list of all the works that were accepted as
  canonical.
• Added the 4 gospels, and the rest of the NT
  (except Hebrews, James, Peter)
• Rejected the gnostic writings
• Accepted certain apocryphal writings (Book of
  Wisdom, etc.)

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Eusebius canon (bishop of Caesarea)

• 4th century (325 A.D.)
• 27 books of the NT
• Greek Septuagint (OT)
• Apophryphal OT writings

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• Athanasius of Alexandria
• Eliminated apocryphal books (367 A.D.)
• Specified the 27 books of the NT
• Council of Carthage (397 A.D.)

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Manuscripts

• We have no original composition of any part of
  the Bible!
• Copies of copies of copies of copies
• Masoretes added vowels between 500-700 A.D.
• Chapters added 1240 A.D.
• Verses added 1551 A.D.

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Ancient versions

• A tribute to the success and spread of
  Christianity!
• Aramaic Targums
• Arabic (10th century)
• Syriac (Syria, Iraq, southeast Turkey) a branch
  of Aramaic
• Coptic (Egypt)
• Latin (Western church)
• Gothic (Eastern Germanic people) - extinct
• Slavonic
• Anglosaxon (7th, 8th century)
• Frankish
• Greek (Eastern church)
• Armenian (Black sea, turkey, Syria)
• Georgian (North of Armenia Black/Caspian sea)
• Ethiopian
• Persian
• Chinese

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The Latin Vulgate (405 AD)

• Multiple very poor quality Latin translations
  pre-Jerome
• Jerome (340-422 AD)

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Jerome

• A scholar of Greek, Latin, and some training in
  Hebrew
• Translated in Latin from the Greek and Hebrew
• Did not want to include the apocryphal works
• For that time, a great translation

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• For almost 1,000 years (6th-16th century) the
  Vulgate was the recognized text of Scripture
• Justification
• Sanctification
• Expiation
• Propitiation
• Salvation
• Reconciliation

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Jerome to his detractors

• two-legged asses
• yelping dogs
• People who think that ignorance is identical
  with holiness

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Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085)

• For it is clear to those who reflect upon it
  that not without reason has is pleased Almighty
  God that holy scripture should be a secret in
  certain places lest, if it were plainly apparent
  to all men, perchance it would be little esteemed
  and be subject to disrespect or it might be
  falsely understood by those of mediocre learning,
  and lead to error.

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English Bible pre-KJV

• John Wycliffe (1330-1384)
• Anticipated the reformation
• The Bible is the sole criterion of doctrine, not
  the church or the pope
• The authority of the pope is not found in
  scripture
• Handwritten translation from the Latin
• 1382 literal and wooden
• 1388 more readable
• The only English Bible until 1526

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• Wycliffe Bible
• Jesus spoke Aramiac ? Greek ? Latin ? English

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• About 180 copies survive

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The Reformation

• Constantinople fell (1453 A.D.), Greek scholars
  came west
• Plato

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The Reformation

• Printing press, Guttenberg (1398-1468)
• First printed Hebrew OT 1488
• First published Greek NT 1516

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The Bible translated from the original languages
the peoples book

• French Bible (1530)
• Spanish Bible (1569)
• Dutch Bible (1637)
• Swedish (1600)
• Czech (1579)
• Finnish (1598)
• Hungarian (1541)
• Polish (1541)
• German (1534)
• English (1525)

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The reformation

• Tension between scholar and priest
• The scholar had better versions
• Tension between priest and the common person
• The common person had better versions
• The authority of medieval Catholicism challenged

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The reformation

• Wealth/prosperity of the church vs. the humility
  of Christ
• Sacraments
• Indulgences
• Need for a priest/saint in between
• Purgatory
• Monasticism
• Transubstantiation

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German Bible Luther (1534)

• From the Greek and Hebrew
• Sola scriptura (the Bible alone)
• Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation of lesser
  quality
• Preface to the NT (1522) James is a letter
  written in straw
• Revelation I can in no way detect that the
  Holy Spirit produced it
• Rejected all forms of allegory as a means of
  understanding scripture

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English Bibles pre-KJV

• William Tyndale
• THE father of the English Bible
• Educated at Oxford and Cambridge in Greek and
  Hebrew
• English version, based on the Greek and Hebrew
• NT completed in 1525

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• If God spare my life, ere many years, I will
  cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more
  of the Scripture than thou dost.

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• Tyndale A great linguist!
• Tush, ye shall not die. (Genesis 34)
• The Lorde was with Joseph, and he was a luckie
  felowe. (Genesis 392)
• 80 or more of the English Bible down to the
  Revised Version has been estimated to be his

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Toxic foot notes

• 666 clearly the pope
• Oh, abominable pope with all his idols.
• Breaking someones neck This is a good text for
  the pope.

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• Lord, open the king of Englands eyes

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• Miles Coverdale (1535) first printed edition
• NT based on Tyndales translation
• OT based on the Vulgate
• Matthews Bible (1537)
• Pseudonym John Rogers
• Tyndale (and Coverdale) revision
• Burned alive in 1555 Rogers died with such
  composure that it might have been a wedding
• Richard Taverners Bible (1539)
• The Great Bible (1539) the largest Bible
  (15x10)
• A revision of the Coverdale and the Matthews
  Bible

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• Long live the King!

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• Edmund Becks Bibles (1549, 1551)
• In the same way you husbands must live with your
  wives with the proper understanding that they are
  more delicate than you. Treat them with
  respect... (1 Peter 37 GN)
• And if she be not obedient and healpeful unto
  hym endeavoureth to beate the feare of God into
  her heade

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The Geneva Bible (1560)

• Persecution in England, led to Protestants
  fleeing to Geneva, Switzerland
• The names of the translators were hidden (William
  Whittingham)
• From 1560 to 1616 a new edition was published
  every year!
• The Bible of Shakespeare, John Bunyan, Mayflower
  captain, Puritan pilgrims, King James
• The most popular English Bible for almost 200
  years!

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The Geneva Bible (1560)

• The first English Bible to have chapters and
  verses
• Breeches Bible They sewed figge-tree leaves
  together and made themselves breeches (Genesis
  37)
• Marginal notes
• the angel of the bottomless pit the pope
• King James decision in 1604 for a new translation

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• The Bishops Bible (1558)
• Revisers were bishops
• Displaced the Great Bible in churches
• Less popular than the Geneva
• Rheims-Douay Bible (1582-1610)
• An English version for Catholics
• A translation from the Latin Vulgate (KJV)
• Footnotes
• Protestant hereticks
• 666

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• You cannot be a slave of two masters you will
  hate one and love the other you will be loyal to
  one and despise the other. You cannot serve both
  God and money. (Matthew 624 GN)
• Footnote Two religions, God and Baal, Christ
  and Calvin, Masse and Communion, the Catholike
  Church and Heretical Conventicales.

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The King James Bible (1611)

• 1604 Committee of 50 learned men (the model
  to follow)
• Lancelot Andrews had he been present at the
  tower of Babel, he could have served as
  interpreter general.
• Rules
• The Bishops Bible was to be followed with as
  little altered as the truth of the original will
  permit and to include other translations
  Tindolls Matthews, Coverdales, Whitechurchs
  (the Great Bible), and Geneva.
• Marginal notes only to explain the Greek and
  Hebrew!
• Italics used

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Preface

• The KJV is a REVISION, not a new translation
  (although they did have the Greek and Hebrew)
• The KJV is really a revision of the Bishop
  Bible....which was a revision of the Great Bible,
  which was a revision of Coverdale and Tyndale.
• The "credit" of the KJV in terms of vocabulary
  should go to Tyndale, the expression and harmony
  to Coverdale, the scholarship and accuracy to the
  Geneva Bible.

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• The first printed version of the KJV contained
  about one error for every 10 pages - some of
  these errors, due to printing, persist in the
  current KJV today.
• Matthew 2334 Ye blind guides, which strain at a
  gnat, and swallow a camel (KJV) should have been
  printed, strain out a gnat.
• 1631 printed edition of Exodus 2014 "Thou shalt
  commit adultery"!

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• Ask, and it shall be given you seek, and ye
  shall find knock, and it shall be opened unto
  you For every one that asketh receiveth and he
  that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it
  shall be opened. (Matthew 77,8 KJV)
• Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy
  name (Matthew 69 - KJV)

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• Weakness
• The textual basis for the KJV is inadequate.
• NT Textus Receptus (Erasmus of Roterdam)
  1469-1536
• Mediocre manuscripts, the earliest from the 10th
  century!
• Erasmus did not have a complete Greek NT text
  (Revelation) using the Latin Vulgate he
  finished it into Greek!!
• OT A partially corrupt Erasmus Greek text
• Codux Alexandrinus (5th century) not available
• Many errors in the book of Job, Isaiah
• But, the best Bible to date

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Weakness

• Knowledge of Hebrew largely derived from the
  Bible
• Less knowledge of the Greek
• The English language has changed
• Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means
  come out thence, till thou hast paid the
  uttermost farthing. (Matthew 526 KJV)

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• Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me,
  and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye)
  should be ashamed in this same confident
  boasting. (2 Corinthians 94 KJV)
• From which some having swerved have turned aside
  unto vain jangling (1 Timothy 46 KJV)

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• And Jonathan stripped himselfto his girdle. (1
  Samuel 184 KJV)

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• ERV (1881)
• ASV (1901)
• RSV (1952)
• NASB (1963 1995)
• NKJV (1982)
• NRSV (1990)

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• To many people, the KJV sounds like the Bible
  because it is different than our modern English.
  It is old and therefore seems to be
  authoritativeand other Bibles just dont sound
  right
• Most Bible translators greatly respect the KJV
  for what it is and what it was. But the KJV cant
  be used in modern translation work for the simple
  reason that its language and its text are out of
  date. (Essential Guide to Bible Versions, Philip
  Comfort, pages 159, 160)

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Between the KJV and the RV (1870)

• Private versions
• Edward Harwoods NT (1768)
• Charles Thomsons Bible (1808)
• Noah Websters Bible (1833)
• Found 150 words and phrases in the KJV to be
  erroneous or misleading. Almost all used by the
  RV.
• Julia E. Smiths Bible (1876)

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The hunt for older/better manuscripts

• Mid-1800s the Greek manuscripts had shown
  beyond question that the KJV was based upon a
  Greek text that contained the accumulated errors
  of fifteen centuries of manuscript copying. (The
  Bible in Translation, pg. 100 Metzger)
• Today, 5,000 Greek NT manuscripts that date back
  prior to the 5th century!

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Constantin Von Tischendorf
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• St. Catherines Monastery (1844)
• 43 leaves in the trash - - virtually an entire
  Greek translation of the NT
• The entire Old and New Testament dated as early
  as 340 AD
• In the British Museum since 1933

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P52 (1920)
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P52

• The Oldest known fragment of the NT 125 A.D.
• John 1831-33 37,38 Are you the King of the
  Jews?... I was born and came into the world for
  this one purpose, to speak about the truth.What
  is truth?
• Shot down several theories!

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Dead Sea scrolls 1947,1948

• Scrolls found in a cave by the Dead Sea, dated
  100 BC 100 AD (? 70AD)
• 1,000 years earlier than any of the Masoretic
  manuscripts!
• Every OT book except Esther is represented, LXX,
  Targums of the OT
• Surprisingly few differences from the Masoretic
  manuscripts, despite 1,000 years of copying!
  This shows that Jewish scribes for over a
  millennium copied one form of the text with
  extreme fidelity.

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• No one has seen God at any time. The only
  begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,
  He has declared Him. (John 118 NKJV)
• No one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is
  the same as God and is at the Father's side, he
  has made him known. (John 118 GN)

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• KJV still dominated
• English Revised Version (1870-1895)
• And they did eat, and were all filled and there
  was taken up that which remained over to them of
  broken pieces, twelve baskets. (Luke 917)
• American Standard Version (1901)

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NKJV (1982)

• Updated language but still.
• day of his espousals (Song of Songs 311)
• dandled (Isaiah 6612)
• Inferior edition of the Greek text

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• In these lay a great multitude of sick people,
  blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of
  the water. For an angel went down at a certain
  time into the pool and stirred up the water then
  whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of
  the water, was made well of whatever disease he
  had. Now a certain man was there who had an
  infirmity thirty-eight years. (John 53-5
  NKJV)
• Few textual scholars today would accept the
  authenticity of any portion of vv. 3b4, for they
  are not found in the earliest and best
  witnesses. Biblical Studies Press. 2003 2003.
  The NET Bible Notes .

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Modern speech versions

• Discovery of large numbers of Greek papyri
• It became clear that the NT documents were
  written in a plain, simple style to meet the
  needs of ordinary men and women. Should they not
  then be translated into the same kind of
  English? (The Bible in Translation, pg. 105,
  Metzger)
• The Twentieth Century NT (1901,1904)
• Drink ye all of it. (KJV, RV)
• Drink from it, all of you.
• Weymouths NT in Modern Speech (1903)
• Moffatts Translation of the Bible (1913,1924-5)
• Smith and Goodspeeds American Translation
  (1923,1927)

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• I have said all this to you in figures, but a
  time is coming when I shall not do so any longer,
  but I will tell you plainly about the Father.
  When that time comes you will ask as my
  followers, and I do not promise to intercede with
  the Father for you for the Father loves you
  himself (John 1625,26 - Goodspeed)

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• Revised Standard Version (1952)
• New Jerusalem Bible (1966)
• The first Catholic Bible in English translated
  from the Greek and Hebrew
• New English Bible (1970)
• Asphodel, lapis, lazuli, panniers, reck, ruffled
  bustard, runnels of water, and stook
• New Revised Standard Version (1990)
• Revision of the ASV, using best Hebrew and Greek
  sources
• the most up-to-date textual studies of the NT
  (Essential Guide to Bible Versions, Comfort, page
  175)

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• New International Version (1978)
• Somewhere in between a literal translation and
  a free, modern-speech edition
• Since 1987 has outsold the KJV
• I gave your ancestors no commands about burnt
  offerings or any other kinds of sacrifices when I
  brought them out of Egypt. (Jeremiah 722 GN)
• For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt
  and spoke to them, I did not just give them
  commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices
  (Jeremiah 722 NIV)

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• New American Standard Bible (1971,1995)
• Literal translation
• J.B. Phillips Version (1972)
• Of all modern English translations of the NT
  epistles, this is one of the best perhaps
  actually the best for the ordinary reader.
  (The English Bible, pg.223, Bruce)

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• If I speak with the eloquence of men and of
  angels, but have no love, I become no more than
  blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the
  gift of foretelling the future and hold in my
  mind not only all human knowledge but the very
  secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute
  faith which can move mountains, but have no love,
  I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all
  that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body
  to be burned, but have no love, I achieve
  precisely nothing. This love of which I speak is
  slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of
  being constructive. It is not possessive it is
  neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish
  inflated ideas of its own importance. Love has
  good manners and does not pursue selfish
  advantage.

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• It is not touchy. It does not keep account of
  evil or gloat over the wickedness of other
  people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good
  men when truth prevails. Love knows no limit to
  its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of
  its hope it can outlast anything. It is, in
  fact, the one thing that still stands when all
  else has fallen. For if there are prophecies they
  will be fulfilled and done with, if there are
  tongues the need for them will disappear, if
  there is knowledge it will be swallowed up in
  truth. For our knowledge is always incomplete and
  our prophecy is always incomplete, and when the
  complete comes, that is the end of the
  incomplete.

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• When I was a little child I talked and felt and
  thought like a little child. Now that I am a man
  my childish speech and feeling and thought have
  no further significance for me. At present we are
  men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror.
  The time will come when we shall see reality
  whole and face to face! At present all I know is
  a little fraction of the truth, but the time will
  come when I shall know it as fully as God now
  knows me! In this life we have three great
  lasting qualities - faith, hope and love. But the
  greatest of them is love. (1 Corinthians
  131-13, JB Phillips).

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Easy to read translations (ABS)

• The Good News Bible (1976)
• The GNB is not a word-for-word translation.
  Instead it adopts the principlecalled
  dynamic/functional equivalence
• Stresses the clear meaning of each passage
• Gone are the Latin words
• The Contemporary English Bible (1995)
• Directly from the best available original texts
• Designed for early youth

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Paraphrase Translations

• Free rendering or amplification of a passage,
  expression of its sense in other words.
• Living Bible (1971)
• Paraphrase of the ASV into simple English
• Mid-1970s 46 of all Bible sales in the USA
• The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of
  Tekoa (ASV)
• Amos was a herdsman living in the village of
  Tekoa. All day long he sat on the hillsides
  watching the sheep, keeping them from straying.
  (LB)
• New Living Translation (1996)
• Dynamic/functional equivalence rather than
  paraphrase
• Reading level junior-high student

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Paraphrase translations
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Paraphrase Translations

• The Message (2000)
• This version of the NT in a contemporary idiom
  keeps the language of the message current and
  fresh and understandable in the same language in
  which we do our shopping, talk with our friends,
  worry about world affairs, and teach our children
  their table manners. The goal is not to render a
  word-for-word conversion of Greek into English,
  but rather to convert the tone, the rhythm, the
  events, the ideas, into the way we actually think
  and speak. (introduction, page 7)

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• Does not choose simple English words, but
  power-packed words to convey the meaning
• Chagrined, embryonic, resplendent
• It is obvious what kind of life develops out of
  trying to get your own way all the time
  repetitive, loveless, cheap sex a stinking
  accumulation of mental and emotional garbage
  frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness trinket
  gods magic-show religion paranoid loneliness
  cutthroat competition all-consuming-yet-never-sat
  isfied wants a brutal temper an impotence to
  love or be loved divided homes and divided
  lives small-minded and lopsided pursuits the
  vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a
  rival uncontrolled and uncontrollable
  addictions ugly parodies of community. I could
  go on. (Galatians 519-21 The Message)

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• New Century Version (1991)
• Readable down to 3rd grade level

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• GODS Word (1995)
• Natural equivalence
• Avoid the extremes of formal equivalence
  (literal), but the errors of dynamic/functional
  equivalence (inaccuracy due to oversimplification)
  

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• For God has done what the law, weakened by the
  flesh, could not do by sending his own Son in
  the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with
  sin, he condemned sin in the flesh (Romans 83
  NRSV)
• But God sent his Son to have a human nature as
  sinners have and to pay for sin. (GODS Word)
• to be an offering to pay for sin (NCV)
• for sin (KJV)
• by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
  (NLT)
• to be a sin offering. (NIV) footnote (for
  sin)

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• for sin (ESV)
• to do away with sin. (GN)
• sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful
  flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned
  sin in the flesh (NASB)
• to be a sacrifice for our sin. (CEV)
• on account of sin (NKJV)

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• God went for the jugular when he sent his own
  Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something
  remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he
  personally took on the human condition, entered
  the disordered mess of struggling humanity in
  order to set it right once and for all. The law
  code, weakened as it always was by fractured
  human nature, could never have done that. The law
  always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin
  instead of a deep healing of it. (Romans 83
  The Message)

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Conclusions

• The Bible has never been so widely available and
  so well translated
• Taken as a whole all of the modern translations
  of the Bible are trustworthy but none are
  perfect
• - Strength in numbers