Biblical Translations

off because I I knew that somebody was going to come pray with me, my my friend Jared, even though he likes to pretend he's not my friend, he is. So, I knew he was going to come pray for me and I didn't want to have everybody here in his prayers cuz they're too good for most of us, so. So, I'm going to uh go over today And by the way, I this I have to admit I've been coming to this church now for 25 years and I think that maybe less than five times I've ever been in this class.

So, when I'm used to teaching a Sunday morning class, usually there's interaction, so that would be great if there'd be interaction. So like Mike, if you want to you know, throw something at me or ask a question, that'd be great. So, I'm completely open to it. So, today we're going to be talking about how did we get here? And when I mean how did we get here, if I uh had a Bible with me, presumably that Bible would be written in English because we're in an English-speaking country.

But obviously, we know that the Bible is not written in English. And the uh Christianity is different in the fact that it is different than say, for example, Islam. So, if you are a true Muslim, you should be reading the Quran in its original language. You should be reading it in its original uh interpretation. And um it is literally a word-for-word translation is the way that it is supposed to be written. Whereas, in Christianity, that is not the way that it works. And so, uh we're going to talk a little bit about that this morning.

We're going to talk about how we got there. But to break the ice here, I'm going to tell you a story here really quickly, and this is going to bother me, so I'm going to get my keys over here and put them on here, otherwise I'm going to keep putting putting my hand in my pocket and playing with them. And then what's going to happen is I'm going to hit the alarm on my car, and then we're going to have to all go out there and look at it.

So, to break the ice, there was a story I was telling Jason about this earlier, Jason Martin. So, a few years ago, my brother called me up and he said, "Hey, I've got a friend of mine who is an electrician." And no, uh Brother Martin, he was not a union, and he wasn't even certified yet. So, come to find that later. So, what happened was he's up there trying to run a light from one uh uh put another uh can light in. And so, that the way that that works is you put a hole in the ceiling and you run a uh a wire from one place to the other place.

And he's up there for about 2 hours trying to run a light from one place to the other and finally he screams in my house, "I don't even KNOW WHY I TOOK THIS JOB. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M DOING." And I'm My wife and I look at each other and we're like, and then we're like and then I said, "Would you like some help?" Well, turns out he could have had the job done in like less than 5 minutes, but he kept running the wire from one place to another and trying to do this himself when what he really needed was a second pair of hands just to go like this for literally 30 seconds and the job would have been done, but he was too proud to ask for help.

There's a spiritual application right there, guys. Too proud to ask for help. See what I did there? I brought it full circle, Mike. So, sometimes we're too proud to ask for help and I am not too proud to ask for help. So, I'll just tell you I don't know everything. So, if there's any if there's any questions you have afterwards and you said, "Aaron, you said this. Can you further explain it?" I'm more than happy to to talk to you about this. So, um this morning we're going to ask questions like, if the if the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic, why why is it in English?

How did we get it here in English? Why are there so many translations? Is there one translation that's better than another? Is the King James the only translation you should ever read? Is it divinely inspired? Um And why are Bibles written differently? So, there's several different types of philosophical translations. So, before we start you have to understand that the languages that the Bible was written in and largely they're just they're not spoken. They're spoken in in academic circles to to keep them alive or to to know how ancient text was written, but people are not randomly uh talking in Koine Greek or ancient Hebrew.

Typically speaking, that's not how it works. So, you're trying to translate something and trying to understand words that don't exist anymore and concepts that don't exist anymore. So, for example, one of the great things that Greek does that English doesn't do, we all probably know this because we've sat in these services many times and we hear uh this the four different types of love. So, you know, there's a phileo, storge, and then there's two others that are not going to come to my brain right now, but there's people out there telling me what they are in their brain and I receive it.

So, what happens is is there's better ways to describe what happens in Greek sometimes. And so, we're just saying, "Oh, I love this pizza. I love my car. I love my wife. I love my kids. Oh, I love that that guy hit a home run." And so, we all know that that's not the same thing. And so, you're trying to take that concept and apply it to the God of the universe. And what was this God trying to tell us? Is this making sense so far?

So, when you're describing something, it's not going to be a word-for-word and it's not going to be perfect because those words don't exist. So, in some cases, we have to make things up or we have to say, "Well, this is about a roundabout what they were trying to say here." So, there's several different types of translations. There is a literal translation where they're trying to say, "This is the every word in its place philosophy." Um is that the best way? Maybe. Is it Does it miss something?

Yes. Every single translation misses something because again, every word in its place doesn't necessarily always get the concept of what the writer was trying to say. So, an example of a literal translation would be the King James Version, the New King James Version, and the NASB or the New American Standard Bible. Now, I will tell you that my favorite one to read, um because I like to be academic, um is the New American Standard and then the English Standard Version, but those uh and then the the New King James are the the ones that I try to stay to uh myself.

And we're going to talk about here in a second what's the difference between that. So, for example, Toby really likes the New Living Translation. Um so, we'll talk about that uh here in a moment. The dynamic equivalency uh dynamic equivalency focuses more on communicating the meaning than preserving the exact wording. So, the NIV, uh the Good News Bible. I remember when I was a kid, I would go to my grand my grandmother's house and she had this paperback Good News Bible that would sit on there and she would read it to us.

But, every time I hear the Good News Bible, I see I that's what I think about. So, I was just a pause for a moment of reflection. That's not going to be on the test. So, you don't have to remember that part. Um the New Living Translation is a dynamic equivalency. And it is really really well written. It's a thought-for-thought translation and it aims to convey the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek text in an easy-to-understand modern English. But, the issue with a dynamic equivalency is is that it may not be the best place to look for when you're getting into hard-hitting philosophical issues.

And so, they're just trying to give a concept of what's happening versus word for word and sometimes that's really really important. So, a great way to study your Bible would be to take First off, what's the best one? The one you're going to read. Okay? That's the first thing. Uh if you're not going to read it cuz you can't, well, then maybe you should switch to something else. But the if you like for me I I really like doing the NASB and the New Living and I'll I'll flip-flop between both of them sometimes if I have a question.

And so, I think that's a great way to understand it is to is to do both of those. So, how did we get here? Um and I this to me is so fascinating because I think that we can't understand what it was really like in those times because we just don't live in those times. So, people have blinder vision in front of them. So, it is very very very common for people to say, "The world that we live in is so incredibly violent. It's never been this bad."

That's not true at all. The world is actually more peaceful than it's ever been. Um and that's measurable. I will tell you how that is. Are there bad things that happen? Yes, but just a little side note, this will be on the test. Um if you lived when Genghis Khan ruled the earth, you had an 11% chance that you were going to die in battle. 11%. That means one out of every 10 people you knew how they died was they died at in war. Um very very very I think it they it's today I think it's 1/2 of 1% or 1/2 of 1/2 uh percent.

And so, the reason why I bring that up when I think that that's relevant is that we don't really realize the times that those individuals that were living in, literally translating the Bible could get your head separated from your shoulders. Like, we would go, "What what's so bad about that?" Well, because we have freedom. We have the ability to do those things today. At that time, they certainly did not. And so, what happened, uh, really around the 400s, is you had something called the Vulgate. This was a Latin translation of the Bible, and the churches largely used this from roughly the year 400 until, uh, we had John Wycliffe.

And you probably have heard this name before, but it roughly in the in the 1380s, he starts to translate this Latin Bible into English. Now, he's translating from Latin to English. From Latin to English. The reason why I'm emphasizing that is because that's important, because that's not how we do it today. One of the, um, arrows that people will shoot at Christians is you say, "Well, you have a translation of a translation, a copy of a copy of a copy." That's That's not how it's done.

That is literally not how it's done today. As a matter of fact, and I'll I'll spoil I'll go ahead and spoil it because I was going to say this later, but the way that it's actually done now is we're getting closer to the original text and not further away. And the reason why we're getting closer to the original text is because we're finding more and more and more original copies of little bits and pieces and fragments of the scripture. And so, do we have like one original Bible that was written at the time or shortly thereafter the life of Jesus?

No. But if we have bits and pieces here, bits and pieces here, and we have overlapping pictures. So, if I had a bit here and a bit here, and we go, "Oh, these pieces right here, they overlap." And we have all of these things overlapping, we realize that, "Oh, there's some continuity here. Is this making sense what I'm saying here? And so, Tom, is it making sense? Okay, good. So, it we're getting closer to the scripture because more and more things have been found. And the biggest treasure trove, as you probably have already been told, that was ever found was the Dead Sea Scrolls, which that's a whole Bible lesson in itself.

So, John Wycliffe starts to uh starts to translate it from the from the Latin Vulgate. And he was a radical critic of the Catholic Church. And this earned him the title of the morning star of the Reformation. The Reformation would take place uh 150-ish years later, uh of course, with uh Martin Luther uh really being the the the big kindling, if you will, uh and fire of the the Protestant Reformation. So, the key aspects of the Wycliffe Bible uh was that he believed that scripture should be available to all people in their language.

Thank you. I would like to not have to learn Latin. So, uh in addition to that, uh he believed in the authority of scripture. He believed, and this was a big deal for those of you who grew up Catholic or you know Catholics, this is a very big deal in Catholicism, and that's tran- transubstantiation. This is the belief that uh the blood when we when we take communion that it is the literal blood and and body of Christ. Typically speaking, Protestants don't believe that. They believe um that it is uh a symbol, if you will.

So, he didn't believe that. He believed that it was a symbol and that was not literal. Um in addition to that, he believed in uh political he had political involvement as well. And his Bible was finished after uh he died. Now, he did not die at the hands of any church authority. He did have a a stroke, and that's how he died. But, the But, the big real leap forward comes from William Tyndale. And you probably have also heard that because you've seen it on the spine of a of a Bible or a book before from Tyndale publishing.

Has anybody ever seen that before? Thank you. So, um So, John Tyndale or William Tyndale, rather, um he did pay for his actions with his life. And he was executed in 1536. And uh when he was executed, he was executed by strangulation, and then they burned him. So, I guess just, you know, just to make sure that it was really done. So, this was an unauthorized translation. Nobody said, "Hey, you get to do this." He uh took it upon himself to do this, and he was translating from the original Greek and Hebrew.

So, this isn't the copy of a copy of a copy. He's going back and saying, "What did the original writers write?" And this is a huge huge war that we're fighting right now in uh the broader uh the broader umbrella of Christendom. Just because somebody says that they are Christian, doesn't mean that they align with what historically Christians align with. So, um we have people today saying, "Well, if Paul was alive today, this is what he would have written." Or this is what Jesus really meant.

We can't do that. We can't do that. We have to go back to what was the original intent of the author. When they wrote that, what did they mean? And that is what Tyndale did. Tyndale went back and said, "What was the Greek? What was the Hebrew?" This is extraordinarily important. We can't just make it up and say, "Well, this is what it should mean." It doesn't matter what you what you want it to mean. And I often will tell people, "You don't have to like everything in the Bible.

You don't have to go, 'I agree with that. I like that. I like that the Lord did that. That makes sense to me. I would have done it that same way.'" No, you wouldn't have. You would have done things a little bit differently if you were in charge. And so, um we're not in charge, which means this is why we go back to what the original intent was. So, Tyndale uh does this and he had a really uh big enemy um that when I say big, I mean big as far as size, arrogance, and personality.

Anybody know who that enemy was? There was He was the eighth of this man. Say? Thank you. Thank you. King Henry VIII, yes. He made enemies with King Henry because he was like, "Hey, you probably shouldn't do that. Probably shouldn't be marrying those people then divorcing them and then killing them so you can have a a male heir." They didn't like that because he was challenge challenging uh the authority of the king. Uh that ultimately wasn't what got him uh killed. He had a really good friend of him who sold him out.

Um he spends 500 day days in jail and then his last words his very last words were, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." And that's fascinating to me that even at that last moment he still had, you know, uh mercy and and and wanted the king to uh have his eyes opened. But, the first sanctioned Bible. When I say sanctioned, this means that somebody in authority says, "We're going to translate this from Greek and Hebrew over into English was the Great Bible. It was called the Great Bible because it was literally great.

It was huge. And I believe uh I think it was like 7 lb uh this Bible was. And so, uh I didn't get the measurements of it, how how big it was, but a funny story. People were craving the word of God so much. They were craving uh to to read it in their own language cuz it had only been uh in Latin. That during church services and that the king uh King Henry the VIII says, "Hey, I want the Great Bible in every single church."

Okay? So, it's in each church. Now, imagine your whole life you've never been able to read it in your own language. So, these people like during church services would go up there and they're reading while the preacher's preaching. And they're just ignoring what the preacher is doing. So, they had to make rules saying, "Hey, you can't read the Bible during church." So, um I just thought that was a little bit funny. So, uh then we have what happens uh this is a a huge step forward.

So, then we have King Henry the VIII dies. Uh spoiler alert. And then he his daughter Mary, who was known as Bloody Mary, she uh says, "I don't like that my dad did all that Protestant stuff. We're going to be Catholic again." So, she goes and starts persecuting all the Protestants. A lot of them move. They go to Geneva, Switzerland, and they translate something called the Geneva Bible. And so, the Geneva Bible uh was the first Bible. Does anybody know what it did? Anybody should raise your hand if you know like what it You don't have to say it, but anybody?

Nobody? Oh, well, this is cool. I get to tell you. So, prior to that point, the Bible was like a regular book. You would open it up and you would just read it, but there was no verses in there and no chapters. And so, the Geneva Bible not only had verses and chapters, but what it also had was pictures in there for people like you and I, Tom. So, it would have maps in there, which is my favorite book of the Bible, the book of maps.

And so, it would have all of that stuff in the back of the Bible and it would and have all of the page breaks. And this is what was built on there by the King James Bible because a lot of people were like, "Oh, this is much easier to read when you would have the the breaks in there." So, um in 1604, four Puritan leaders, they meet with King James and is to to discuss grievances. And one of them, his name was John Reynolds. I honestly, I don't know anything about John Reynolds.

He said, "Hey, look, we need to have a a Bible that's authorized for all English speakers." And so, what happens is that King James says, "That's great. I agree with you. We should have a Bible for all English speakers, but we're not going to have this Bible slanted towards one sect of Christianity or another." It says, "This is supposed to be non-sectarian. And so, if there were uh disagreements, there could be there would be notes that were at the the bottom of the page saying, "Some scholars believe this or some scholars believe that."

And so, what was really, really revolutionary about the King James version was that there was close to 50 scholars that got together and they worked in these pods and they would translate and they would come together and then they would say to each other, "Well, what what do you what do you have? What do you have?" And then they would try to reconcile and say, "Well, this is why I interpreted it this way. Why did you interpret it this way?" And they would try to get as close to the original meaning uh and and the words of what the scriptures were.

And so they had a reverence for scripture. Uh this wasn't uh just purely academic to them. They they it it was uh again something that they had uh a reverence for. So, there was actually uh was it 54 translators and continuously reviewing reviewing reviewing. So you may or may not know this because I I don't think this is as as prevalent as it once was, but there are a group of people who would stick their hand in the air and say, "I'm King James only. That is the only inspired version."

I actually saw a YouTube video and I was going to play it, but then I was like, "Nah, it's a waste of time." But there was a guy this was a serious thing and he says, "This is the uh why would we read anything else? This is the only divinely inspired version of the Bible." And I'm like, "No, that's not That's not how that works. You know, we had the other translations prior to that so on and so forth. So, why is it uh why am I pausing here?

I'm pausing here is because there's been many revisions of the original King James uh versions. Uh as a matter of fact, I wanted to so the 1629, 1638, 1762, 1769, and the one that you see today as your King James Version was re uh revised in 1873. You'd say, "Well, Aaron, what what what is being revised? Are they changing parts of the of the of the scripture?" And the answer is no. Um part of the the biggest reason, Jason, if you want to put that that screenshot I gave you up there.

This is going to maybe be difficult. That's my fault. Um this is a screenshot and it wasn't a Word document, so Jason could make it bigger. So, if you want this, I can be more than happy to to give this to you. But, these words don't mean So, what I mean by that is um let me give you some of the the ones that I think The word leasing. When I hear the word leasing, what do I think? I think of an arrangement between a renter and uh the rentee.

Uh lessee. Well, that doesn't mean what you think it means. It means to lie. I know you guys are thinking most landlords lie. I get it, but not here. So, um passion. It means suffering. Pitiful means compassionate. So, if I'm reading something and I say a pitiful, I'm not thinking that person is compassionate. I think that they look sorrow sorrowful or they look like uh how I imagine the Chicago Blackhawks roster is. And I'm very happy happy about that. Um quick means living. That's not what it means to me.

It means a 100-yard dash sprinter. Um straight means narrow. I So, conceit means opinion. Let means to restrain. Um winked at. Kind of get this one means to overlook. Um I like this one. Took up carriages. Does anybody ever heard that one? Took up carriages. It means to to pack. I get that one. Um so uh convenient means fitting. So, you can kind of see how we got there, but why is this important? Because if you're reading and you don't know that that's what those words mean, then up here it's going to mean something else than what it's supposed to mean.

So, this is why the Bible is revised because language changes. You've seen it in your own life how words have changed meanings. And now let's take that over a 400-year period. And so, this is why it's very, very important that we do have some revisions. And so, uh one of the ones I'm going to to read to you is a perfect uh example. Let's see here. To a modern reader, this sounds like permission, but it actually means he who now restrains will restrains will restrain. That is actually uh he who will letteth let letteth.

I like lettuce except it's got that we got that What's that cyclosporine right now? So, I can't really eat as much of it. Those are that's a joke, people. It's a gardening joke. So, it's a time joke. You'll get it when you have some time. So, the modern translations, and this is where we can get into a little bit of trouble. Is that there are versions that um I for lack of a better way to say it, I I just would probably stay away from because they're not uh um they're not right.

They're translated to mean what the writer wants them to mean. So, we're going to get back to that uh in a second, but what about before we get into that, let's wrap this up. So, we've got the the New King James Version, which is a again another revision of the original King James. And I say the original, actually the 1873 version. Then we started to have some liberal theology that would sneak into text. And so, for example, the American Standard Version, which was written in 1901, was then rewritten uh in uh the last one was uh 1995, and then there was another one in 2020, but the 2020 version goes back kind of to like what the 1901 version is and has some more liberal theology, whereas the 1995 version tries to stick to what was the original meaning.

So, one of the ways that you can {quote} change the church is to change the text. This is why it's very, very important that we know what the original text is. And so, you'll find it uh where people sometimes will say, "Well, why do we need libraries? We can have everything digital." Because with the push of a button, I can change anything that's digital. And I make it say exactly what I want it to say. Did anybody ever read the book 1984? It's a great book.

It was written in 1948. George Orwell changed the last two numbers and said this is what the what a world could look like with a lot of government control, government overreach. And in the very, very beginning of the book, it starts with a person who works at the Ministry of Information, I believe is what it's called. And so, this guy's taking newspaper clippings and picked it like he's next to like a vacuum tube and he's recreating them, putting them like in the library and taking the old ones into the vacuum tube and they're burnt up because they're changing history.

This is why this is important. Because we don't want history to be changed. We want to know exactly what happened and we want to go back to the original text. So, if you can change history, then you can change the meaning of almost anything. So, this is why bias is extraordinarily important in translation. So, the So, so a few different bias uh the Revised Standard Version, Isaiah 7:14, does not say a virgin will conceive. It says a young woman shall conceive. Those are two completely different things.

And so, you'd say, "Well, isn't that what the the scripture is a possible that the Revised Standard Version?" Yeah, that's not what it says. They went back later. They're like, "That's clearly not what it says." And the word in the New Testament that you used here, you just changed it here. No, that's not what it means. So, the Revised Standard Version, no bueno. Then we have the uh Jehovah's Witness translation. Do you think that there could be some bias in the Jehovah's Witness translation? So, one of the clearest ones is in John 1:1.

In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God. In the beginning, the word was. And the word was with God, and the word was a god. You see that? That's a slight of hand that completely changes everything. That changes the relationship of who God is. When you say the word was a god, that means that the word was a separate god. Not even like a Trinitarian understanding of the Godhead. It's No, we have Jehovah Jr. Okay? So, again, this is the the the the danger of changing the original.

Then we have a Mormon translation, the Joseph Smith inspired version, which up until today was my choice, my favorite version. So, you guys are a rough crowd. Terrible. So, in the beginning was the gospel preached through the Son. And the gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God. That's completely different. And this is why, again, when we go back, it's so important, and this is what I circled back to the beginning where I said, the way that the Bible is translated today, when somebody says, "You don't even know what the original writers wrote cuz you have a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy."

They say, "No, it's not true. As a matter of fact, you wouldn't want just one original." We go back and this is the original book. Because if it's the original book, it's easy to change. But if you had a copy and you had a copy and you had a copy and you and all of a sudden we look at it like, "Oh, Bob's copy over here says the gospel was the word and the word was with the son and the son was the god. Well, what do your four say?"

"Oh, yeah, Bob, how do you how do you like being a heretic?" So, um this is why it's very, very important that we stick with the original Greek and Hebrew text. What does it mean? So, in conclusion, which one should you use? Which one should you write? If you're going to do serious Bible study, the King James Version, the New King James Version, the NIV, the NASB, and I'd say I'd stick with the 1995 NASB version. Those are the ones that I would do if you're going to do some serious study.

Um if you're going to do um if you're going to read something uh to start with that's that's again that dynamic equivalency, maybe the New Living Translation, but always have that companion uh piece with you. So, you want to to keep the keep this um keep these these these thoughts in your mind when you're studying and ask yourself, "What does this mean? What did the original uh writer mean with this?" So, you can have trust and the best way that that uh the best way that can ever be translated is when you have a group of people who are saying this is not um a quote unquote this is not a Pentecostal Bible.

This is not a Baptist Bible. This is not a Catholic Bible. No, it is the Bible. That is what we want. We don't want something that is slanted to what we already have of a preconceived notion. We want to have the original text. Does that make sense? So, uh the In closing here, I would say the best Bible that you can have is the one that you're going to read when you're studying. I would probably have the dynamical equivalency as well as one that is going to be a word-for-word translation.

And if it were me again, I would have the ESV or the NASB and the NLT. Um we've got just a few minutes here. I don't know if we typically do this, but does anybody have any follow-up questions or any thoughts or any comments here? Anybody? Any brave soul? I'm getting You want me to stop talking, Jared? Jared wants me to stop talking. He just did this. All right. Well, thank you all. Have a quality day.