Get to know your Bible translations

Dave, anyone who simplifies Bible translations down to 1) two textual families or 2) two translation philosophies, normally demonstrates a lack of familiarity with both the actual Greek manuscripts and the basics of linguistics.
The critical text is merely a formulation of the “Majority text” that has a larger sample size.

Dynamic equivalence merely recognizes the breadth of syntactic range possible when translating from one language to another.
You must be a brave man to so brazenly suggest that God’s Word is not God’s Word.

Dave, I don’t have a comprehensive apparatus in front of me, but the apparatus that I do have suggests that there are no textual variants behind the different translations of Philippians 2:6. If there are textual variants that you’re aware of, could you please list them? The best I can tell with a very quick glance is that the translator’s questions are these:

1. Should the participle for being/existing be translated with a concessive meaning (“although”/”even though”)?
2. What is the best way to translate morphe?
3. What is the best way to translate harpagmon?

Which translation choices do you think best translate this verse, and why?

…have a hard time laughing at cartoons - or - they don’t get them at all, e.g., the previous comments.

Dave, a number of scholarly works have been written on textual criticism and bible translations. Wikipedia’s article is very basic….and it doesn’t actually support your statements. I don’t really care to spend hours on this because you myopia is evident and I doubt that we have a foundation for rational discussion.

I have done a lot of study on this issue. I used to hold to your position. My study of the “very interesting facts” has lead me to very different conclusions.

You continually reference the critical text as “narrow”…but TR is based off of the fewest manuscripts…I call that an interesting fact.

You suggest some ulterior motive for newer translations…but the TR was originally published with numerous mistakes so that it could be the first printed greek new testament. Erasmus wanted to make money, he reverse translated from the Vulgate so that he could finish. The KJV was translated because an Anglican king wanted to distance himself from Catholicsm. I do not think this is a road that you want to go down.

Dave, all three translations are accurate enough attempts to translate a very difficult phrase in Greek. They are well within the semantic range of both languages. There is no substantive difference between the translations. You’re mole-hilling.

[Dave Gilbert]

But nobody has answered the question to the problem I’ve posted above…one passage with 3 differing readings and ultimate meanings…and it seems everyone here considers it NOT A PROBLEM. They don’t say the same thing.

Actually, I asked a follow-up question a few posts up. You assert, “They don’t say the same thing.” Very well. You’ve been talking about manuscript differences. I would like to know where the textual variants are in this verse (Philippians 2:6). Please list them. You assert that they don’t say the same thing. Very well. Please explain why one way of translating the participle is better than another, why one way of translating morphe is better than another, and why one way of translating harpagmon is better than another. How can we best get the original meaning of the Greek into accurate and not-easily-misunderstood English?

This isn’t a shout-down. This is an invitation.

[Dave Gilbert]

What I’m interested in, is why many around here seem to be quick to jump on the ESV’s “bandwagon”, and equally quick to abandon prior translation efforts. Also, I’m interested to find out why the so-called Critical Text is so popular, when the Majority Text is supposed to contain a much wider sample size of manuscripts, and thus theoretically should be a more reliable manuscript base from which to start a translation effort.

Dave, if you are as unsure about textual topics as you claim, then perhaps you would benefit from heeding other’s alleged preference for the ESV.
The critical text balances out a number of different factors. Every Greek New Testament is a “critical text”, the editorial biases of the editor is what determines which of the three major textual families it follows. The most popular critical text is the Nestle-Aland (currently 28th). You can read their discussion of what factors they use in decision making. http://www.nestle-aland.com/en/history/
Overall, one of the biggest limitations of a “majority text” textual family is the lack of inclusion of the oldest extant manuscripts. A majority of opinions is not the only important factors, a simple transcription error could be copied hundreds of times. The mere fact that no two manuscripts are in complete agreement seems to indicate that God wants us to figure these things out.

[Dave Gilbert]

Mr. Osborne, I’m not a translator, so I don’t and can’t know the difficulties…but what I’m really looking for, is an answer to this question…in the English, they don’t say the same thing. WHY? Would someone please tell me how I’m supposed to memorize God’s word, when the “translation-du-jour” is always changing? To top it off, each translation team is changing the English in subtle ways each and every time, it seems. Is this part of some “continuous improvement philosophy” or something?

The Greek language is very different from English…the words, grammar, and syntax are very different. There is not a one-to-one correlation between Greek and English….sorry…it doesn’t work that way. English has also changed significantly in the last 400 years. We can either remain immutable (and increasingly irrelevant) or we provide God’s Words in the most accurate way we can. Change for the sake of change is bad. Change for the sake of accuracy is good. Have you ever noticed that pastors have to spend an inordinate amount of time translating King James English to the congregation (i.e. read the Scripture then spend 5 minutes explaining what the English meant; then, finally they can start elucidating principles and applications)? God’s Word should not be a mystery to the masses. Every person should be completely convinced of their ability to understand and apply God’s Word without someone else having to explain it to them.

[Dave Gilbert]

I’ll tell you what: Let’s use a popular piece of literature that was originally written in Greek, such as Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey… How many different ways has it ever been translated into English, and have those differing ways actually amounted to significant changes in the way it reads from one translation effort to the next? I mean, if Greek is so difficult to translate, then how many difficulties have there been in translating Homer’s Odyssey into English? Let’s put a translation effort done 400 years ago up against one done in the last 100 years..do they read the same?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_Homer

There have been about 30 translations of Homer. The changes to translations to Homer are no more significant than the updated English of newer Bible translations. Almost all English translations of the Bible have sought to follow the KJV when they deemed it the most accurate translations. The NIV and a few paraphrased versions have significantly deviated from the tradition of the KJV because they were trying to accomplish different things. The NIV is especially jarring because of its dissimilitude to the KJV, not so much for its translative choices…although I have come across some translative concerns.

[Dave Gilbert]

I mean, I haven’t really looked, so I’m curious. If so-called scholars can ( hypothetically ) get classic Greek literature to read nearly or exactly the same in one work, why can’t they get God’s word to read exactly the same? It’s a fair question, so it should be an easy one to answer. Is there something I’ve missed as to why, during the course of my lifetime, upwards of 20 English translation efforts have been undertaken with seemingly no end in sight? Did I miss the “memo”? Does “Christendom” get a final, once-for-all English translation at some point in the future, so that I can point to it and say, “Thus saith the Lord”?

I hope not. That would be completely discordant with the Church’s understanding of Scripture for 2000 years. the KJV-only movement is an American invention in the 20th century. Otherwise, the universal church has been happy to receive accurate and faithful translations of God’s Word.

[Dave Gilbert]

On a side note, I find it interesting that at least one group, who many consider a cult ( as do I ), does their own translation ( The New World Translation ) and the majority of people believe it’s an unreliable one…but when a well-known publishing house sponsors one, it’s accepted with open arms.

The New World Translation is not a good translation. It makes translative choices that jibe with everything we know about Greek studies. Wikipedia (that scholarly source) summarizes

“Walter Martin identified Nathan H. Knorr, Fredrick W. Franz, Albert D. Schroeder, George Gangas, and Milton Henschel as members of the translation team, writing of them, “The New World Bible translation committee had no known translators with recognized degrees in Greek or Hebrew exegesis or translation… None of these men had any university education except Franz, who left school after two years, never completing even an undergraduate degree. In fact, Frederick W. Franz, then representing the translation committee and later serving as the Watchtower Society’s fourth president, admitted under oath that he could not translate Genesis 2:4 from the Hebrew.” (However, the court transcript indicates that Franz declined to translate text from English back into Hebrew.[27] ) Franz had stated that he was familiar with not only Hebrew, but with Greek, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French for the purpose of biblical translation.[28] ” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Translation

The ESV, NKJV, NASB, HCSB, and to some extent the NIV have all been accepted as faithful translations of God’s word. They have made informed textual choices (although the NKJV continued some unsupported textual choices of the KJV) and they have consistently applied the best and most accurate translation practices. They have all had dozens of knowledgeable scholars and theologians on their committees. For your enrichment, I have included a link to the list of ESV translators.

http://www.bible-researcher.com/esv-translators.html

If you are familiar with Greek studies, you might recognize Bill Mounce (author of the definitive textbook on Greek grammar), Packer and Hughes (Longtime Pastors and theologians), Grudem (wrote an excellent systematic), Ryken (widely regarded as the foremost Evangelical authority on Literature). The translation was reviewed by chumps like Clinton Arnold, Greg Beale, Craig Blomberg, Darrell Bock, Gene Gree, George Guthrie, Harold Hoehner, Andreas Kostenberger, Leon Morris, John Oswald, Tom Schriener, Moises Silva, Frank Thielman, Willem Van Gemeren, and Robert Yarbrough….All of these men have made substantial contributions to either linguistics, theology or biblical studies.

I can definitely see the accuracy of your comparison….

If you are as ignorant about Greek and New Testament Studies as you frequently claim, then perhaps you should trust that these Godly, scholarly men know a little bit more than you…

[Todd Bowditch]

Dave, all three translations are accurate enough attempts to translate a very difficult phrase in Greek. They are well within the semantic range of both languages. There is no substantive difference between the translations. You’re mole-hilling.

Some of you might have noticed my use of “between” when referencing three different objects. Plagued by self-doubt I scoured the internet to find grammatical justification for the apparent disjunction. After lengthy research (Google), I determined that “between” was an acceptable word choice.

“”These words share more common ground than they used to. Between was formerly reserved for situations where just two things or people were being related—shared between husband and wife—and among complemented it when there were three or more: shared among the relatives. The restriction on the use of between has certainly gone by the board, and Gowers declared it to be ‘superstition’ in Complete Plain Words (1954). It is not uncommon for between to be used in expressions referring to more than two groups or reference points, as in a balance between deference, quotation and his own critical comment. But among is still reserved for situations where there are at least three parties involved.”
(Pam Peters, The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004)”

http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/Among-And-Between.h…

Please stop direct-messaging me with jeers, chastisements, and belittling comments. Thank You.

[Dave Gilbert]

What I’m interested in, is why many around here seem to be quick to jump on the ESV’s “bandwagon”, and equally quick to abandon prior translation efforts. Also, I’m interested to find out why the so-called Critical Text is so popular, when the Majority Text is supposed to contain a much wider sample size of manuscripts, and thus theoretically should be a more reliable manuscript base from which to start a translation effort.

Fair enough question. I think the cartoonist himself keyed in on the current “cool” status that the ESV enjoys in Reformed circles. We can interpret the ESV phenomenon unfavorably, that it’s just the cool thing to do. Maybe this is the case for some. And we can also interpret it favorably, in which case I think it’s the preferred translation by those who want (1) an English translation that uses more contemporary English (i.e., it’s not the KJV); (2) uses formal equivalence more or less (i.e., it’s not the NIV); and (3) is less “wooden” than the NASB. The ESV seems to fit that bill. The Holman Christian Standard Bible might fit it, too, but my unstudied impression is that the realities of the Christian publishing world are that the ESV “beat” the HCSB. In the interest of full disclosure, whenever I do exegetical studies, I find myself siding with KJV and NASB most often. Yet my family and I have switched to the ESV because (1) it’s easier to read than the NASB; and (2) I suspect Reformed circles will pick this as their translation to memorize from in years to come

As far as the popularity of the critical text, sample size, etc., the theory is this: it’s not the numbers that count, but the reliability of the manuscripts. Lots of unreliable manuscripts don’t make a reliable consensus, especially if the numbers all come from the same parent copy. Whether you think the manuscripts are reliable or not is another question, and very detailed. We are all faced with the existential reality that the manuscript copies differ from each other in small ways, which means that God in His providence allowed some of the copies to be wrong in some details, which means that God expects us to make an effort to sort it out.

[Dave Gilbert]

In the English, they don’t say the same thing. WHY? Would someone please tell me how I’m supposed to memorize God’s word, when the “translation-du-jour” is always changing? To top it off, each translation team is changing the English in subtle ways each and every time, it seems. Is this part of some “continuous improvement philosophy” or something?

Well, they don’t use the same words. But they may or may not have the same sense. I think they do have the same essential sense in terms of what the passage is teaching.

1. I think the participle is best understood as concessive, “Even though.” Whether the translator puts “even though” into the translation or not, I think readers will most naturally read it as concessive anyway.
2. The morphe could be philosophically loaded to talk about Jesus’ essence as God…but I don’t think so. I think in the context, the emphasis isn’t on what Jesus essentially is, but how people saw Him. So I think “form” is a better translation than “essence.”
3. The harpagmon has the idea of a seized prize or stolen prize. I’m reluctant to translate this “robbery” because it sounds like something Jesus might have taken for Himself, but the passage emphasizes what Jesus laid aside. So I think some kind of “grasped” or “held onto” translation communicates the thought best.
4. Incidentally, moving into the next verse,the other loaded term ekenosen is literally “emptied” or “voided,” but I think the KJV does the best job of translating this, “made Himself of no reputation,” because I think it captures the emphasis of the passage, as defined by the participle of means, “by taking the form of a servant.” I’m not sure how well “made Himself of no reputation” speaks to a contemporary audience, but it’s right on.

I think they are all justifiable translations given the range of meaning of the Greek words, and the English words available to translate them.

As far as the translation-of-the-day always changing causing difficulties memorizing…yes, this is a practical problem, especially if you’ve started in one and your church uses another. Every local assembly needs to figure out that question for themselves, based on their context.

As far as “continuous improvement”: in 400 years, the English language has changed quite a bit, so some new translation is justified. Whether the embarrassingly rich array of English translations is warranted when some people groups have no Bible in their own lanaugage…that’s a different question.

[Dave Gilbert]

I’ll tell you what: Let’s use a popular piece of literature that was originally written in Greek, such as Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey… How many different ways has it ever been translated into English, and have those differing ways actually amounted to significant changes in the way it reads from one translation effort to the next? I mean, if Greek is so difficult to translate, then how many difficulties have there been in translating Homer’s Odyssey into English? Let’s put a translation effort done 400 years ago up against one done in the last 100 years..do they read the same?

I mean, I haven’t really looked, so I’m curious. If so-called scholars can ( hypothetically ) get classic Greek literature to read nearly or exactly the same in one work, why can’t they get God’s word to read exactly the same? It’s a fair question, so it should be an easy one to answer. Is there something I’ve missed as to why, during the course of my lifetime, upwards of 20 English translation efforts have been undertaken with seemingly no end in sight? Did I miss the “memo”? Does “Christendom” get a final, once-for-all English translation at some point in the future, so that I can point to it and say, “Thus saith the Lord”?

Interesting example you cite. I suspect that the translations of Homer differ far more than the Bible, not less. The reason is that the translator of Homer has to capture not just the sense, but also the mood and feel, since it’s poetry. (Now Hebrew translators run into some of this in the OT, and I’m sure even prose works have a “mood” to communicate.) I asked my wife re: translations of Homer, and she’s aware of some that choose one meter and some that choose another. I listened to Ian McKellan read The Odyssey as translated by Robert Fagles, and was enthralled with the language and rhythm of the translation, the alliteration, etc. How faithful it was to the Greek I couldn’t say (though reviewers gave it high praise).

But you can compare side-by-side Chapman’s classic translation of the Illiad with Fagles’s more contemporary translation (use the look inside feature). These are separated by centuries. The fact is the English language is a moving target (as is any language). “In my father’s house are many mansions” was accurate in 1611 because of the semantic domain of mansion back then; the semantic domain of “mansion” has narrowed to mean “really nice and pricey house,” which no longer serves us well.

So moving on with your example of Homer…if you read any one of those translations, and someone asked you, “Have you read Homer’s Illiad?” you would say “Yes,” wouldn’t you?

Mr. Gilbert, I think your questions on the Philippians 2 passage would be answered if you would read chapter one of Bruce Ware’s The Man Christ Jesus. Ware does a stellar job of explaining the text and leading the reader to worship. The issue is neither a translational nor textual in nature.

[M. Osborne]

As far as “continuous improvement”: in 400 years, the English language has changed quite a bit, so some new translation is justified. Whether the embarrassingly rich array of English translations is warranted when some people groups have no Bible in their own lanaugage…that’s a different question.

On this point, it might also be helpful to note that the KJV itself has had continuous improvement through the years. In fact, in 1611, two separate editions were published that were not identical. To this day there is a minor difference between Oxford and Cambridge editions of the KJV.

[Dave Gilbert]

Revelation 22:18-19: ” For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 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. “

Somewhat ironic that these are some of the verses that Erasmus reverse-translated from Latin back into Greek so that he could finish the original edition of the Textus Receptus…

[Dave Gilbert] Also,there are far too many changes, subtractions and additions to the text when comparing it ( the Authorized ) to other translations done in recent years, for me to just brush things aside as being necessary for further accuracy and modernization.

Your error here is that you use the KJV as the standard and compare other translations to it. Translations should be compared to the original language texts. Only then can it be determined if the translation is faulty. When all the manuscripts are compared there is no difference that places any doctrine in jeopardy and there are more extant manuscripts of the Bible than there are of any other ancient writing.

The Word has been preserved in manuscripts spread out all over the world. I say Amen to that!

Dave,

An excellent read from an historic fundamentalist pastor that works through in detail some of the very issues you are bringing up here is God’s Word Preserved: A Defense of Historic Separatist Definitions and Beliefs by Dr. Michael D. Sproul (2005)

Long-time reader and first-time poster who would love to pose some questions relating to this “veering-slightly-off-topic” discussion …

Recently I’ve been studying some about the writing / preservation of God’s Word. A few points have become clear which not all Christians are alert to and understand the implications of.

1. Most Christians would agree that the preservation of Scripture is a providential rather than sovereign/miraculous process meaning that God never made the scribal experts or the old guy down the road in 100AD copying one of Paul’s letter infallible in the work that they did.
   
2. Although there is widespread agreement (on the whole) in terms of word usage & meaning amongst the many NT manuscripts, there are many, many “errors” due to the repeated scribing processes (both intentional and unintentional)
   (BTW, I’d be interested to know if any two pieces of manuscript evidence are in complete 100% agreement with each other …
   
3. Even if we came across the original copy of Paul’s letter to one of the churches … how would we know it was the original …
   
4. People’s (even very well informed ones) preferences for particular Greek texts, text types, translation approaches, etc. are founded in philosophical beliefs.
   (e.g do you believe significantly fewer older manuscripts that are in less are agreement with each other are superior to many more recent but consistent manuscripts)

Anyway, what I’m getting around to this is.

Based on both a specific interpretation of passages of God’s Word, as well as the desire for absolute certainty about something as foundational as the Word of God, there are many Christians who see the necessity that God’s words (read “words”, each individual one) be preserved from generation to generation.

The points I’ve outlined above seem to contradict this in numerous ways, and the only way I can really so this being possible is that some unbroken chain of manuscripts were copied word for word time after time through the ages and are still in existence today. I suspect that those that know the manuscript evidence well and the history of English translations would quickly point of the unlikeliness of this process, and even if it did occur, how would we know which one was “the Word of God”.

So my question is this, in the light of the above discussion, how is a Christian to understand the preservation of God’s Word through the ages, given (as some have pointed out) the numerous discrepancies in the textual evidence and the proliferation of English translations?

Very interested in others thoughts …