Staci Crim - What Should Be a Believer’s Concerns Regarding Different Bible Translations

3:22AM Jul 7, 2024

Speakers:

Staci Crim

Keywords:

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Kenny's got bigger ears.

So if you think about the fact that this is the mind of God, that God has revealed his will, and it has been translated into the language that you can understand. That is a wonderful thing. Man cannot know the mind of God. You simply cannot know the mind of God. We know that Romans, chapter one and verse 20 tells us that creation itself proves that there is a God, but we don't know what God has to say until he reveals his mind, and that's what the Bible is. And so we're very blessed to have the scriptures. In first, Corinthians, chapter two and verse 11, it says, For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him. Even so, noone knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. So, God is his mind is being revealed by His Spirit. It's the Paul makes the point there that nobody knows what's in my mind unless I reveal it. My Spirit knows. But you don't know. But then verse 12 goes on to say, "but the Spirit who is from God that we might know the things that have been freely given to us." So, God has given us things, and he's freely given them to us, and we cannot know unless God Himself tells us. And so we're able to read the scriptures by ourselves in the quietness of our home or even tonight, because we can read it in our own language. But sadly, and this is according to the Wycliffe organization, they say on their website, one out of five people do not have the Bible in their own language. And I've heard Brother buddy Payne talk about this before, about how many people don't even have a copy of the scripture in their own language. And who could believe that in 2024? Do you know what that translates to? About 1.5 billion people. So again, you can read the scriptures in English when it was written in a different language.

Now I just wanted to mention here that John Wycliffe, who this organization is based upon, is the first person to actually translate the whole scriptures into English. Some of you, I'm sure, know that. But the thing that's amazing is this was done in 1380 and 1381 and it's handwritten, handwritten. He did this, took the text and translated the whole Bible into English. And I think most of you know what they did to him after he was dead. They dug up his bones and and they burned them. And that's who this organization is, telling us again, and that there's one out of five. And so we're blessed. We're blessed to live in this country, to be in America, and we have available to us in large numbers, different English translations of the Bible. Some of us have access to different versions. You have hard copies, if you would, book form. Some of us have software, computer software, that has a bunch of different translations, which I have on my computer. I'm able to at any time. I can hit a button, and I can say compare, and it'll show the different translations that I've selected. And I can read the different ones as they say. I can look at the Greek or Strongs and so forth to define words, and so we're very we have it very easy. But how many of us, and I want you to think about this soberly based upon what I just said, How many of us tonight have actually showed up here without your Bible at a Bible study. Now, it's nobody's job to go around now and say, let me see your Bible, and I'm going to Patrick, get your book clipboard out and let's mark this down. But we don't want to neglect the Word of God. We simply do not want to neglect the Word of God. And so, it is important for us to know, though, that not all English translations are equal. And so I'll spend some time talking about that.

And so, the topic that I was given is, what should a believers concern regarding different Bible -- what should be a believers concern regarding different Bible translations? And this. Is the third or fourth lesson in your summer series. So, I hope that we can learn some things. And so, let me tell you where I'm aiming. My aim tonight is to talk a little bit about the Old Testament, the New Testament, and then I want to talk about various translations, and then I want to land by answering the question that you have there on the screen. But before I do that, I've got two very important things that I want to mention. We will all be judged by the word of God. John, chapter 12 and verse 48, "He who rejects me," Jesus said, "and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word that I have spoken will judge him in that day," John, chapter 12 and verse 48. So, the book that I asked you to hold up, the book that we're considering it, is going to judge you. This is the mind of God. This is His will. This is what He says to do. This is what He says don't do. This is how we determine what God would have us to do to please Him. And so we're going to be judged by this book. And I believe with all of my heart that being true.

Then I want to make this second point, and that is God has preserved his word. It would not be fair or righteous of God if he's going to judge me and you by His Word, and I don't have it. So, you and I here, as I've already mentioned, we are without excuse. There may be others that we're we've talking about. They say, Well, they're, they don't have access like we do. But how many of you, if I would go around the room, I'd say, What color is yours? Blue, pink, brown. What version? This, that, the other. I mean, we would just be overwhelmed. Large print, small print. Center column reference. I've got good maps in the back, and we have all of these wonderful blessings in our Bible. God has preserved His Word. Look at First Peter, chapter one, and in verse 25. First Peter, chapter one and in verse 25. The apostle Peter wrote something that is very powerful. He said, verse 24, "all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls away. But the word of the Lord endures forever." So, when I'm gone, when you're gone, the word's going to continue. God, and there's a whole study, and I love giving these things in the scriptures, you can go and you can see in the Scriptures where God was telling his prophets, his people, kings, he says, I want you to write this down in the book. And you remember there was a time that they lost the book, and then when they found the book, it was read, and they realized we're not even close to what we're supposed to be doing. But God was having a record kept, and we're blessed to have the word, because it will endure forever. And I think it's based upon that first point, and that is that we're going to be judged by the word of God, and therefore God make sure that people have access to his word.

Now, having said that, let me talk about the the Old and New Testament for just a minute. And I think this is important for us, because we need to understand the language that the Old Testament was written in and the New Testament. So let me ask again. This is a Bible study, so I'll open it up. Someone would like to answer, but what language was the Old Testament written in? Hebrew. In Hebrew, and then we know that parts of Daniel and Ezra are Aramaic. That is when the Babylonian captivity was taking place and working into the Persian Empire. There was a different language that was being spoken. Aramaic. And so, part of the Scripture sections of Daniel and Ezra are written in that language. How many books are there in the Old Testament? 39. That's right, 39 in the Old Testament. Now, in our Bible, how many New Testament books are there? 27 for a total of 66 very good. VBS was just a couple of weeks ago, I think, right? So, surely you've sang the. Songs, and you've been asking the kiddos that, or you need to do a Bible drill again. Yeah. So it's 39 old. Now, I think all of us understand too, that before chapters and verses, books were combined. You know, the Bible has not always been the way that we have it today. Now, what was the New Testament written in? That's right, Greek, and you'll often hear the word koine Greek. Do you mind? Know what the word koine means? It just means common, just common Greek. Do you remember how Greek became the language that of the New Testament? Who went out and conquered? Alexander the Great. And so, he when he conquered he said, we're going to assimilate everybody, and everybody's going to know the Greek culture, and everybody's going to speak the Greek language. And so by the time the New Testament page is open, all of a sudden we learn they're speaking Greek.

So, now I'm making this point because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, but the New Testament was written in the Greek language, and so all of our books in the New Testament are written in the Greek language. Now, let me ask a question. Does anybody know what the original now, this is said very carefully, what the original handwritten document was? In other words, the very original parchment Paul had written, let's say the letter to the Ephesian church. You know what that was called. And again, this is - what's that? It's called, the autograph. Very good. Thank you. And so, that is, that's what scholars call it. We don't find that word in the scriptures, but that's what when you hear someone talk about the autograph, they're talking about the very handwritten document. Yes, sir? (question from member asking about latin being taught in schools) Well, you'll have to talk to your teacher about that, but I often say personally that I wish they had done that when I was in school, because there's a lot of things you can learn from knowing Latin in the scriptures. Yes, well, again, I've often wished that I had actually learned that, because I understand it is very helpful with regards to these things. Now, I want to make this point. There is not a single, not one, not one original autograph of any book of the Bible. So, what am I saying? Let me ask you a question, do we have the original Constitution of the United States? Has anybody seen it? That's the fake one. They stole that National Treasure. So, I don't know what you're talking about. But you know, yes, we have the original document. There is not a single Old Testament or New Testament book where we can hold in our hand or behind a glass or something, the very handwritten by the author when it was first pinned.

Alright, let me ask you another question. What's a handwritten copy of the original document? And this is important in the original language, what is that called? And I know you're going to know, not going to put you on the spot, but alright, anybody? Alright, it's called a manuscript. A manuscript. Now, please understand what I'm saying. Alright, so now what we're talking about is, is there copies of the original in the original language in which it was written? And the answer is yes, yes, there are. In fact, let me put this up. You've probably seen a chart like this before. I've used it a number of times over the years. That number there that I have circled changes. That's why I have 5600, plus. And basically what that chart is showing you is well documented, well accepted, ancient literature. And you've got dates, and you've got the names there, and you've got when it was written, and how many copies of the original in the original language that are found. Now, notice what we have in the New Testament. Are there a lot of copies of the New Testament, scriptures in Greek, copies of the original in the Greek language? There's over 5600 now that's partials. That may be one book. And I don't know if you realize how important the Dead Sea Scroll discovery was. But when that happened, all it did was to attest to the fact that what we have is very accurate. And there's a whole lesson and a whole study, and I've actually done a lesson like this before over in Tri Cities where we talked about textual variants. Why are there differences? Well, let me just reassure you, without going into that, that there's very few, and it's nothing major. It's some things like they translated Jesus instead of Joshua, things of that nature, but nothing of any really kind of certain concern. But people look for these things to say, I don't believe in the Bible.

Now, I brought that to your attention to say, Do you have any, or to ask, Do you have confidence then in the New Testament, scriptures? I do. And it goes back to that point that we made at the start. God preserves His Word. So let's talk a minute now about, well, what does it mean to have a translation? What does that mean? Well, let's look at that. Well, a translation is the process of translating words or a text from one language to another. And that's an easy definition. I think most of us could if I had asked that question, what does that mean? You have told me what that means. But when we're talking about the Bible, the best, the best translation, is when you go from the Hebrew and the Aramaic to English. You're looking at the copies. Now, would it make sense that you look at more than one copy available? Let's just take the, say the book of Isaiah. If you are going to translate into English, wouldn't it make sense that you gather and you try to access all the different ancient accounts of Isaiah written in the Greek? Because you can translate and you understand what the Greek is saying, and then directly translate, translate that into English in the New Testament, or, you know, Hebrew, and you translate it into English. That would be the best way to make a translation. Does that make sense? Alright? Now it's not a good idea then to do it this way. Well, we've got the original Greek text, but it was translated into German, and I know German, and therefore from the German, I'm going to then translate into English. What happens when something like that happens? Just naturally, you would think? You lose some things, right? Because you're going from one language to another language to another language. Do you see why I said it would be best to do it back this direction than to go this direction? I hope that you can see that. Too much can be lost in a translation from Greek to German to English.

Let me give you, for example, just because you make a copy or copies of a manuscript of the Bible in Greek, it doesn't automatically mean that you'll have a good translation. Alright, so let's say that I do look at all of the Greek and then it's translated into English. That doesn't necessarily mean you have a good translation. Why do you think that would be? Context. Yeah, okay, so we're going to talk about various types of translations, various ways to do a translation. Now, for me, it would make sense that it not just be Stacy's translation. Like John Wycliffe did, because what are you depending on? His knowledge of Greek, my knowledge of Greek, my understanding of the English language, if anybody knows anything about me, when I started my freshman year at college, they made me take English five days Monday through Friday. They said, this guy doesn't know anything. I got to, by the second semester, I got to go to two day English or three day English. So I did pretty good my first semester. So, Staci's translation wouldn't be very much good at all. And so, what happens if there's a bunch of us that know Greek and we pour over this meticulously and we try to pick a good English word, would that give you a little bit more confidence? I would think so. So, just thinking about the Scriptures from that standpoint, that would make a better translation. So, not all the translations are going to be equal.

So, let's talk about some various ways to translate the Scriptures. And you have a chart on here that basically shows that a word for word translation, or maybe a thought for thought translation, or maybe a idea for idea translation. So, let me talk to you for a few minutes about what the differences are. A word for word translation, and you'll see it there in the parentheses, literal. Back on the back of this slide, down at the underneath, you saw literal, dynamic or paraphrase. That'll give you an idea of what each of those mean. But when we think about a word for word, translation, we're looking at a translator, or, as I said better translators, chooses the closest English word to the original Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek word. In other words, here is the Hebrew word. This is what it meant at the time. What is the best English word today that would convey that word? That's a word for word translation. And let me give you an example of that. It's called a Greek, we'll talk about the Greek, a Greek interlinear. Interlinear. And what that is is, here is John three and verse 16, "thus, for he loved the god the world order is so that the son of him, the peerless, he gave that all the believing into or unto him, not he might be exterminated, but he may have life eternal." That's taking all of the Greek words as they are written in the manuscripts and saying, here's the word for that. Now, that's not very readable, is it? In fact, some of those words, we would say are, I don't even know that. I know exactly what that is or how that fits in there. So, what I did, this is one I found online. So, next to my desk is the interlinear that I use. And I was curious, so I pulled it out and I said, Well, what does mine say? And by mine, it's Nettle and Marshall. It's not mine, but my copy. And here's what mine said. It said, "for thus love God the world, so as the son, the only begotten, he gave that everyone believing in Him may not perish, but may have life eternal." Now, that's getting closer to what I and you could quote from John 316 but what that is is that's a word for word translation of the scriptures, and sometimes it's outdated words.

And if anybody knows anything about translations, you'll know that translations go through revisions, don't they? Something like the American Standard is revised to the New American Standard, or the King James Version is revised and it is now the New King James Version. And what that is is you're taking maybe outdated words that we really don't know. Let me give you a couple examples. Superfluity, or, yeah, superfluity of naughtiness. If you know Frank Ritchie. Frank Ritchie, he said, I quit using the King James when I realized I couldn't tell anybody what superfluity meant. I've heard him say that more than once. The New King James translates that overflow of wickedness. Some of you have a different version, and you could look down and see how that's translated. Here's another one, evil concupiscence, although, if you look up how you really say that word, and I had to again, go back to my English problems, concupi-since. Concupiscence. And I for years, for years, in fact, for 20 plus years, I was preaching out of the King James Version, and I would butcher that word as best I could. What does it mean? Evil desires. You see, that's a revision that's taking something that you don't go out and talk about these things, you don't use these words in conversation, so you revise it and. You're not changing the meaning. You're choosing an English word that would be better understood. Now, some of the examples of word for word translations, the American Standard, the New American Standard, the King James Version, New King James Version, the English Standard Version, the new revived standard version. What are you using these days? New King James versions. Many of you are probably using the what, the ESV? So again, those are all word for word translations.

Now the other is, another way is thought for thought. And the translators, in that instance, what they're doing is they're saying, we're going to place a greater emphasis on summing up the Bible authors thoughts, but we're also trying to have respect for the text itself. So, just naturally, what would you think might create a problem there? A thought for thought.? What's that? Yes, now you're, what's happening is, I think this is what Peter was really trying to say. And therefore we're, we're giving greater emphasis to make sure everybody understands the thought. So, what's that do? What that does is that takes us, you know, one step, I think, in the wrong direction. Everybody see that? Because now we're we're dealing in the idea of, I have to determine what the thought is. Now in preaching, we're taking the scriptures and we're presenting them, but you bear the responsibility anytime Kenny speaks or somebody speaks, you have the responsibility of looking down in the scriptures, searching them, trying the spirits, being noble, like the Bereans, and making sure that what's being said is true. So, you have that responsibility, and that's a very important responsibility.

But let me give you an example, and here is the again, it's dynamic, but it's subject to interpretation. This is from a book that I had come across. This is, "the first concern of the translators has been fidelity to the thoughts of the biblical writers." That is the the intentions of the NIV, New International Version of the scriptures. And here's another, "because of most readers today, the phrases the Lord of hosts and God of hosts have little meaning, the version renders them the Lord Almighty and God Almighty." Well, those aren't the same thing, is the point. So, someone's saying, Well, we're just trying to get the idea of the thought, but there's power in understanding the Lord of hosts, because that conjures up the idea of the host of humanity and the spiritual beings and the innumerable and so that's the God. Is He Almighty? Absolutely, but you kind of take that away. Now also, "we have used the vocabulary and language structures of a junior high student," in the New Living Translation. So, that would again, this is their intention. We're trying to make it very readable, so we're looking at what it's being said, and we're making a determination of what the thought is, and that's what we will try to convey. But the problem with that is is there is greater concern given to who? The reader than there is to who God's word and God. You see, there's a problem. The emphasis, again, a man likes to do this. We like to make it all about us and place the emphasis upon us, but it's really all about God, and it's really all about understanding his will to the best of our ability. Now, let me give you some examples. This would be the Christian Standard Bible, the Complete Jewish Bible, the New Living Translation, and the New International Version.

So, those are thought for thought translations, but there's a third, and that is the idea of idea for idea. Or sometimes it's called the meaning to meaning method. And we often talk about, well, it's a paraphrase version, and we all have a good understanding of what it means to paraphrase. Sometimes you may even hear Kenny, and this happens because we're preaching, and it's really, I mean, you know what you the text, and you say, I can't think where it is right now, so I'm going to kind of get you close. So, I'm going to, so sometimes preachers say, I'm going to paraphrase here. And if someone's doing that all the time, then I think, and I hope Kenny's not doing this all the time, and I'm pretty sure he's not, but you know, you ought to scratch your head and start saying, hey, let's get in tune with, let's not do a lot of paraphrasing here. Let's, let's look at what God is saying. So we have a good handle, I think, on that. But let me give you an example. Well, first of all, you can't, you should not use a idea for idea version alone. Let me just say that out front. You need to have a good word for word translation that's your primary Bible. And it's good to look at all of these and to consider what they're saying. But you need to have something solid before you go off into the weeds and start looking at some of the, what somebody's trying to say this is what we think is being said, and we're going to make it to where you can understand it. So, I think that's good for us to know. Now, this, blew me away. So here is Matthew three and verse seven, the literal translation, "You brood of vipers who directed you to flee from the coming wrath?" And then you got the The Message Translation: "Brood of snakes, what do you think you're doing, slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snake skin is going to make any difference?" That's somebody saying, well, here's what we think Matthew chapter three and verse seven was trying to say.

Now, there's a lot of people who that's the way they preach. And that's why a lot of people are not following the scriptures and learning what God would have them to do. Because, you know, and you know, here's the way they work up the crowd, you know, slithering as a snake. Nobody's like, yeah. So what do you do? You say it a different way. Well, they're, you know, they're just crawling down to the river, and you work em up, and they like that too. So, you just switch it a different way. And you just keep stirring them up and stirring them up with this type of language. Well, you get a translation. Say, we're all going to use The Message. Boy, you could have a heyday with something like that. But there's a good example, I think. Some other paraphrased versions are the Message Bible, the Living Bible, the New Living Translation, and the Good News Bible. So there are some others.

Now I did want to say this. I want to say something about the Living Bible that I found very interesting. It was the translation efforts of one man, Dr. Kenneth N Taylor, and he may have used others, but in his, the object was to paraphrase the scriptures using, in other words, methods. But here's what I wanted to point out his main text for doing this, he used the American Standard Version. Now, do you see the problem that we've already pointed out? If you're going to make a good translation, where do you go back? In the New Testament you go back to the Greek. You would know Greek. You'd get together a bunch of people that know Greek, and you would translate it into English. He takes an English word for word translation, and he takes that and he says, Well, we're going to make this into, in other words, type of method. So here's what it says. But in other words, this is what I'm trying to say, or this is what it's trying to say. We have to be careful with that, even when, even when, when I preach, or you preach, if you have that opportunity, you really don't want to say, let's look at this verse and then be pointing to this, well, in other words, here's what he's really trying to say. Again, I would say there's some more red flags, because the scriptures are pretty clear, if it's done right, this is what the Lord has to say. And so we want to understand words.

And so, what's another source that we have if we're going through and we're looking at a good word for word translation, and there's a word we're interested in to know, Well, what did that word mean way back when, when it was written? What do you what kind of sources do you use, Strong's, Thayer's? And so I used to hear preachers say, You know what you need to have in your library, you need to have, back before you could search things very quickly, you need to have a good concordance to look up a word and find where it's used. You need to have Vines or Thayer's or Strong's. Strong's deals with the Hebrew as well. And so now all of that is pretty much free online. And I've got a free Bible program that I downloaded years ago, and it has all of that right there at my fingertips. It doesn't have Vines. I'm cheap. I'd have to pay $15 so I just reach over and grab the old one, and I flip it open and say, well, what is, how does --. And what I'm saying is, is, these are scholars that have said this is what the Greek word meant in the first century. And then I can say, Okay, now, now I understand. And so I'm studying, I'm learning, I'm getting into the text.

Now, again, he's taking the American Standard Version, and he is using that to then make his translation. But what I found very interesting is it was the best selling book, The NIV, it was the best selling, excuse me, the Living Bible was the best selling book in America in 1972 and 73. By 1997 it had sold 40 million copies, an idea for idea translation. And what I'm trying to get us to understand is that's not moving in the right direction. So, using a good English translation or several translations together is important. And while, again, thought for thought translations or idea for idea translations, may be something that you can look at, or, you know, be curious about, or something of that nature, but you really wouldn't want to not have a good translation right there to use.

Now, here's another question. How many of you have actually gone to the front of your Bible and read all of those pages prior to getting to Genesis? I don't see any hands. Do you know what you learn when you actually look at the front of your Bible? A lot of the things we're talking about. The translators are going to say we used these manuscripts. It's going to tell you that NU means this, and M means that. Majority Text and so forth. It's going to give you, because what's going to happen is you're going to go and you say, oh, a footnote. Well, what in the world does that mean? Well, that's what the front of your Bible is doing. It's laying all that out for you to be able to get a handle of what's being done in the translation that you're using. Now, if you're using a paraphrase or a thought for, or a thought for thought or a paraphrase, it might be rather eye opening when you read the first few pages as to what they're saying.

Now, we want to end with this. Now, here was the question, what should be a believers concern regarding different Bible translations. Or as Kenny and all of the scholars that are in his field, they like to call it the W, S, B, A, B, C, R, D, B, T. I found it challenging to get that. I took your exact wording, and that's what I kept trying to make sure I got right. So, here's here's how I want to answer that question as we close, is that the first bell or the last one? Alright, I only got two points and we're done. Use a word for word translation as your primary Bible. What should your concern be? Use a good translation. And then the second point is, what do I do when I'm studying with somebody? Do I whack them over the head and say that's a terrible translation? What are you doing? Let me get that out of your hands as quick as I can. Now, you run them off. So, here's what I would say when you come across someone that's using a translation different than yours. Second Timothy two and verse 24, "and a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach and patient". So, be gentle and patient. I thank you for your time. Thank you for the invitation to come, and I really appreciate being able to spend the evening with you in this study.