Bible Translations and Sermon Preparation
We must see, as accurately as possible, what God said in His Word. Anything less and we are in danger of misstating, misrepresenting, and misunderstanding the Bible.
ARTICLES
D. B
9/16/20268 min read
Bible translations are not a new idea. During the time of Jesus, there was a translation of the Old Testament into Greek. It was called the Septuagint. As early as 382 A.D., Jerome created his Latin translation of the Bible. In 1348 A.D., Wycliffe starts to translate the Bible into English and to distribute handwritten pages to people. Since that time, over 450 translations of portions of the Bible have been made in English, alone.
We will be looking at the three main methods of translation and the theory of translation behind those methods. Just for the sake of illustration, let's consider the New Testament. We have some 5700 manuscripts of various types. There are variations in the manuscripts. We know this; it is a fact. We know this because when we compare manuscript to manuscript, we see that they are not the same. The first task is to develop as reliable and as accurate a complete manuscript of the Bible as we possibly can.
Through textual criticism, we determine what the New Testament says in Greek. We put this into a document. Now we want to translate our Greek text into an English text. Simple enough, right? Not so simple. It is very naive to think that we can simply substitute an English word for each Greek word and come up with an accurate, readable text.
Translation Theories
1) Literal Translation
There are many challenges here.
- Not every word in the Greek has a simple equivalent in English.
- A Greek word might have several meanings.
- The Greek phrase could be an idiom (figure of speech).
- The Greek sentence structure is not the same as the English sentence structure.
Ex. English: Noun - Verb - Direct Object - Indirect Object -
Ex: Tom ran to the store to get some candy.
While there are some common patterns of clauses in the Greek, there is no definite structure. The words can occur in any order in the sentence. To further complicate the matter, Koine Greek had no punctuation. Let's assume we are the translators and we know Greek and we know English. We will look at the Greek text and substitute a Greek word for each English word. Below is the verse John 3:16 taken from the Greek Interlinear Bible.
Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵναπᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ' ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.
thus for loves the God the system as-besides the Son of-him the only-generated he-gives that every the one-believing into him no should-be-perishing but may-be-having life eternity.
We can somewhat conclude what is being said here, but I contend that we only know what is being said because we are already familiar with the verse in English. What if we did not know what John 3:16 said? What if it were not a verse we are not so familiar with?
For the sake of illustration, let's look at one more. This is a very simple verse and one I am sure that many of you are familiar with.
Καὶ ὑμᾶς ὄντας νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν,
A "word-for-word" translation would read like this:
And you being dead to the beside falls and the misses
The verse is Ephesians 2:1- “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,”
A "literal" translation or a "word-for-word" translation is not helpful to us. Consider, please, that all we have done is look at two verses. One of the verses is very familiar. Both of the verses are relatively short. Neither contains idioms or figurative language. Neither of them contains deep doctrines, nor are they points of great theological debate.
I hope these examples destroy the myth that a "word-for-word/literal" translation is the best. Frankly, a word-for-word translation is impossible to read in most cases. Simply knowing both languages and mechanically replacing one word in the original language with a word from the second language is not going to give us a text we can read with understanding. The literal translation is part of the process, but as you can see, it is not the end of the process.
2. Formal Equivalency
Once we have the word-for-word translation, we must make the necessary adjustments to make the text readable and understandable. The question now is how much of the form - how much of the structure of the original text -can we maintain and still produce a readable text? The formal equivalency is "closer" to the original text, but it is often more difficult to read and memorize.
Wayne Grudem uses the phrase essentially literal. He says, “An essentially literal translation translates the meaning of every word in the original language, understood correctly in its context, into its nearest English equivalent, and attempts to express the result with ordinary English word order and style, as far as that is possible without distorting the meaning of the original." (Are Only Some Words of Scripture Breathed Oout by God?, p.20)
One example that Grudem uses to illustrate this is the word “bowels.” The Greek word translated “bowels” is splagchna, which refers to the inward parts of the body, especially the stomach and intestines. When not used to refer literally to those parts of the body, the word referred metaphorically to the seat of inward emotions or to the emotions themselves, especially of love, sympathy and mercy.
How should this word be translated today? The word “bowels” is not appropriate because it has come to be used in modern English almost exclusively to refer to the intestines and the discharge of bodily waste. Even translating it as “the intestines of the saints have been refreshed by you” or “the internal organs of the saints have been refreshed by you” would not help modern readers. These highly literal renderings would seem more physiological or anatomical than emotional. For this reason, nearly all modern translations (including some current printings of the KJV) have changed the phrase to “the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you.” The contemporary culture sees the heart as representing the inner being of man and, allegorically, the seat of human emotions.
An example of functionally equivalent or essentially literal would be the New American Standard Bible. For comparison's sake, we will look at different translations of Philippians 2:6-7.
LIteral
"who in the form of-God belonging not snatching deems the to be equal to-God but self empties form of-slave getting in likeness of-humans becoming and to-figure being-found as human."
Formal equivalency
NASB
" who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men."
KJV .
"Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men"
NIV.
"Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."
3. Dynamic Equivalency (or Functional Equivalency): Given the difficulty to make a mechanical, translation readable, we can see the inclination to not be so concerned about a "word for word" translation but move to a translation process that simple tries to communicate the thoughts of the writer. Meaning is emphasized over form.
Dynamic Equivalency (The Message)
"He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave; became human!"
Please notice that the farther we move from formal equivalency, the more confusing the passage becomes. The verse sounds contradictory to sound doctrine. (ex. “the very nature of a servant”). The Message creates the greatest confusing by saying “he became human.” Both of these translations could lend credibility to heretical views on the incarnation of Christ.
Review:
NASB: "did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped"
KJV: "thought it not robbery to be equal with God"
NIV: "did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage"-
Message: "but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what"
These may seem like subtle differences, but there are differences.
NASB: "regard" & "grasped"
KJV: "thought not robbery"/"made no reputation"
NIV: "consider/used"
Mess. " think of himself/cling to advantage"
They are almost saying the same thing, but from a technical standpoint, they are very different. The KJV phrase "thought it not robbery" is a very bizarre construction. When I compare that to the "word-for-word" I cannot help but wonder where did the word "robbery" come into the text? And more importantly, why is it there? It must be an attempt to capture the idea behind “snatch.” (1)
Let's consider exactly what Christ became.
Literal: "form of slave"
NASB: "form of a bond-servant"
KJV: "the form of a servant"
NIV: "taking the very nature of a servant"
Mess. "took on the status of a slave"
We have "slave," "bond-slave," and "servant." The words are similar but have slight differences, particularly between "slave" and "servant." The big difference is a slave has no say in his life. He is the property of the master (this is implied also by the "bond-slave" in NAS- the idea of being bound to a master). A servant, on the other hand, is a wage earner who has the ability to leave his employment.
Also consider the words: form- nature- status.
"form"- is to appear as
"nature"- has ontological connotations, speaking of the essence or being
"status"- has the idea of rank with no implication of a change in the essence or appearance.
The approach we take to translation will affect the actual meaning of the text. We develop our beliefs about God from Scripture. When we see such changes in translations, we must be very cautious. Is Jesus changing his appearance, his nature, or his rank?
I hope you can see the importance of Bible translations in sermon preparation. If we do not know the original languages very well, we have to rely upon a translation. If we are preaching and teaching, then the translation we use will either be clear or unclear on doctrinal issues. There will be times when we have to do word studies to bring out the full depth of the meaning from the text. The more literal the translation, the more likely we are to see the theological implications and not miss the point. Granted, a non-literal translation could still communicate some theological concepts, but only with a great deal of work. Chances you will never realize which words require research in the non-literal translations.
Some pastors are aware of these differences and seek to overcome them by using multiple translations in their sermon preparation. This is a poor solution and can only produce unfortunate results. At issue is that the pastor himself becomes the arbitrator or standard of which translations' wording to use. He obviously has no knowledge of the original and therefore is reduced to choosing wordings that fit his preference. Preference should have no place in sermon preparation. We must see, as accurately as possible, what God said in His Word. Anything less and we are in danger of misstating, misrepresenting, and misunderstanding the Bible.
(1) For the sake of this article, I will not address the source of the KJV translation. I have done that in detail with a book on the subject.
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