Transcription
Welcome to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast dedicated to helping modern-day believers live out the teachings of the first-century church. This podcast is part of the teaching ministry of Dr. David K. Bernard. Dr. Bernard has dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping believers apply its message to their daily lives. In Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, Dr. Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible teaches and how those teachings apply to everyday life. Thank you for joining us for this broadcast.
There are quite a few different English translations of the Bible, which I know you're well aware of. That, in fact, I read that one source that said there are 450 different English translations. That's a really overwhelming number, especially if you're brand new to the Bible and you really don't know anything about it. And when you start comparing verses across translations, there can be some variants, and that can be very confusing as well. Which translation of the Bible most accurately reflects what the original authors wrote, and which version or versions do you think Apostolic Pentecostals should read?
You know, the bigger question is somewhat humorously stated. The person said, "What is the best translation?" Uh, the best translation is the one you will obey. The the point being, it's not so much the wording, but there must be a commitment to following the teachings of the Bible. But having said that, I do think it's important to understand the history of translations. Again, let me refer you to my book, God's Infallible Word. So if you want a detailed discussion of English translations and the underlying translation philosophy, then I encourage you to read my book, God's Infallible Word. And then there's a sequel about interpretation, which is closely related. It's called Understanding God's Word.
But, but let's take a look, um, at this whole subject. Now, let me just say from the outset, in the English language, the classic, historic, most widely used translation has been the King James Version of 1611. And I would say, certainly, I endorse this as an excellent translation, perhaps, uh, used by God more than any other, uh, is for that matter in any language, uh, for the, the Word of God today. And certainly at the start of the modern Pentecostal movement, the early 20th century, it was the most widely used, best-known, standard translation in English. And so God used, has used it over the years. So I certainly highly recommend it. However, it is 400 years old, uh, and there are other translations.
So let me just give you a brief background. As you probably know, the, the Bible is written originally in Hebrew in the Old Testament, some Aramaic, and then Greek for the New Testament. So if you really want to read God's Word, the best option is to read it in the original languages. Now, I don't know Hebrew. I have studied New Testament Greek, and I can, with the proper study aids, I can work my way through and have, uh, work my way through much of the New Testament in Greek. And that really does help you. But for most people, they need a translation in their own native language.
Now, some people say you should only use the New King James Version or only use the King James Version. I don't think that's logically or biblically tenable for many reasons. First of all, we're Apostolic, so we follow the Apostles. Now, obviously, the Apostles didn't speak English. But let's take the Apostles. When they quoted from the Old Testament, apparently some of them at least knew Hebrew, and so they could make their own free translation. But most of the time in the New Testament, they actually quoted from a very specific Greek translation called the Septuagint, which was the popular Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in their day. And because they were writing in Greek and preaching Greek, they used the standard translation. But if you do a careful study of the quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament, you do find many of the quotations are exactly the Septuagint, but many don't match the Septuagint. So they were other translations or even free translations that the Apostles themselves did on their own.
Well, if we're Apostolic, we think that the Apostolic example is very important. So the Apostles and the New Testament writers themselves used various translations of their Bible. So to say you could only use, in principle, in theory, or biblically justifiably, only one translation, that's not what the Apostles did. So that doesn't seem to be a good way to start.
Then, if you're looking specifically at English, of course, the King James was not the first translation in English. There were others, Wycliffe and Tyndale. In fact, Tyndale's translation of the 1500s was revised a number of times. The King James translators, a century later, did not start from scratch. It was not an original translation. Actually, they started with Tyndale, and to a great extent, the King James is a fifth revision of Tyndale's. So if you say that the King James is great, which I do, you almost have to say Tyndale's was great as well. And in fact, you know, if the King James is the only possible one, what did people do before it existed?
And another good example is the Pilgrims. When they came to the New World, to New England, that was before and during the King James Bible translation. And, you know, they came right after it was published, but it, the King James didn't achieve immediate success. It was not the most popular Bible and not widespread for a number of years later. So actually, um, the Pilgrims didn't use the King James. They used the Geneva Bible. And what's really interesting, that was probably the most popular Bible among Protestants in English at the time the King James was written. So the King James translators, in their preface, they needed to quote the Bible for certain things. Guess what? They didn't quote their own translation. They quoted the standard translation of their day, which was the Geneva Bible. So even if you take the King James translators as your authority, they themselves said, well, there's another good translation.
Another interesting example, if you use the historic, um, Lord's Prayer, when you come to the point, it says, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." That's from the English Book of Common Prayer. It's not from the King James. It's from a translation before the King James. So I'm just giving you a little illustration, not to discredit the King James, but just to say historically, we have not said you could only use one translation. The Apostles didn't say that. The King James translators didn't say that. Even the early Apostolics, if you study the writings of the early books of the Oneness Pentecostal pioneers, such as Frank Ewart, G.T. Haywood, Andrew Urshan, you, you look at the early Pentecostal Heralds of the, of the United Pentecostal Church, 1940s and '50s, we, our authors predominantly use the King James, which is no surprise because it was the most popular, standard translation in English. But they would use other translations to demonstrate certain points. So from the beginning of the Apostolic movement, we've understood there could be other translations.
So what should we do today? And why is there even any issue? Why should we just keep using the King James? Well, we can and do. But face it, the King James is 400 years old. And so there are many words that are uncommon to us. And maybe what's even more troubling is they're words we think we know, but they've changed their meanings, so we don't really know. We get the wrong impression. And even such things as the "thee" and "thou." We're familiar with those if we're raised in the King James. But what we don't realize is that "thee" and "thou" was the singular and intimate, personal, whereas "you" was the plural, second person, and the most more formal. So if, uh, but that's kind of flipped in our thinking. So we say, "I thank the Lord," because we think we're using exalted, biblical, prayerful language, where really it was intimate, personal. I think the one-on-one relationship. So we misunderstand, or we get the wrong impression. It's kind of humorous to me when I hear people using the "thee" and "thou." They usually can't keep them straight with grammatical consistency because we've forgotten all the rules that are associated with those. And so we actually botch the job because we don't know the old language. Uh, so, and then I've learned as a pastor, when dealing with children, youth, people not raised in church, prison ministry, so forth, the King James is difficult for many people to comprehend. So I do think there's a value in other translations.
Now, when you look at other translations, you have to look at, uh, two things. You first of all look at the text, the underlying text, which is called textual criticism. And there are some differences among manuscripts, but that has been overstated because all the major translations have all the Apostolic doctrine biblically clearly stated. In fact, some other translations are even more clear in certain passages. So there's really no significant concern there, but that's a deep subject that we don't have time to go into.
The other one is the translation philosophy. Some translations, like the King James, are very literal. Some are more idiomatic. So the King James takes the traditional thought, you try to translate word for word as much as possible. If you know two languages, as I do, knowing English and Korean, as well as New Testament Greek and some French, you know that you can't always translate one word with exactly one word. Sometimes there's no exact correspondence. Sometimes a word works well in one context, but you need a different word in another context. Sometimes you need several words or a phrase to actually to accurately capture the meaning of the original word. So it's, it's a judgment call. It's an art. It's not a mechanical thing where you can crank out with Google Translate with perfect accuracy. So it is always subjective, and a judgment call.
So there's a question: Should you try to translate as much as possible word for word, which means when you do that, you're going to miss some of the connotations that were obvious to the original reader? Or do you try to try to translate thought for thought, where you try to capture the full thought, but in doing so, you might have to use some words that are not literally in the original? And so which philosophy is better? And I think it depends on what your purpose is. I think there's a room for both. So if you don't know the original language, as most of us don't, probably a word for word is the best because it does get closest to capturing the actual text. But since you lose a lot of thought in translation, if you're going to use a literal word for word, you need some commentaries or word studies that help add to the picture. And that's where a more idiomatic translation or what they call a dynamic equivalent translation can fill in the gaps. So I actually recommend for study that you use both kinds. So for a public reading or a text, use a literal like King James. But if you really want to dig into something, uh, you have to look at several translations and use one or more that have the more idiomatic or dynamic equivalent, so you kind of recapture the, the, the connotation in addition to the actual word that you're trying to duplicate, look at the meaning and the connotation of that word in, in the original language and explain in your language.
But now, regardless, there are certain translations that you can't trust because they're ideological. They're, they're a certain group that has its own agenda, such as Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation. So, so you wouldn't want to use that. You want to use a translation that, it's not just limited to a certain denomination, but you have a group of scholars that are well-respected, come from different backgrounds, and they believe the Bible is the Word of God, or they have a high respect for the Bible, so they would feel bad about deliberately trying to change the meaning. So you want, you really want a conservative group of translators that are committed to try to faithfully transmit the Word. So there are some liberal translations that you would exclude. And there are some paraphrases that may be good as like a personal commentary, but you wouldn't want to use them as the Bible. So like The Message, it's great if you're just wanting to get a Bible story, or if you want to get a commentary of what Eugene Peterson thinks it means, but you wouldn't want to read it as the Bible. And then end of subject, because he's going to use a lot of words and phrases that aren't in the original, but it's his interpretation of what he thinks the original means. So there's a place even for paraphrases, but more as Bible commentaries, or more as Bible story books, rather than actual text.
So if you're going to restrict ourselves to conservative, Bible-believing authors, what should we use? Well, for a literal translation, the King James is excellent. But if you want to use an update in modern English that still uses the same Hebrew and Greek text, the New King James Version, it is excellent in principle. If you believe that the King James is good, you shouldn't have an objection to the New King James. And then there are some others like the Modern English Version that uses the same underlying text but tries to modernize the English. There are others that use a slightly different critical text, but they're still conservative. The English Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, which is maybe the most literal of all, even more than the King James. So sometimes the King James is, uses somewhat figurative language, even though its basic philosophy is literal, it's not always completely literal. The, the New American Standard Bible tries to be the most literal Bible. But then that has a disadvantage of sometimes sounding very wooden or artificial in English, which in turn can maybe hinder your comprehension because it's not regular English necessarily. But those that I've mentioned of a more literal, conservative philosophy, King James, New King James, ESV, MEV, NASB, uh, I'm sure there are probably a couple of others that I'm not thinking of, but all those would fall into that category. The Christian Standard Bible would be another, CSB.
Now, if you want a more dynamic equivalent that is trying to capture more of the thought, but yet you still want conservative, um, conservative philosophy, conservative translators, the NIV, New International Version, is very good. And more recently, the NLT, the New Living Translation, not to be confused with The Living Bible, which is a paraphrase, but the New Living Translation. Now, I really like both the NIV and the NLT for vividly bringing out the meaning in modern English. It can, you can really open your understanding because you're so used to the traditional language that sometimes it doesn't fully register. But when you read a fresh translation, it comes alive. You say, "Oh, that's what it means! Now I get it!" And you go back to the King James. Well, yeah, that's what it was saying, but somehow I just never saw that.
I will caution you though, with the NIV and the NLT, especially when you want to make a doctrinal point, go back to one of the more conservative translations and make sure the doctrinal point especially goes back and forth. And sometimes the more idiomatic translations will obscure a point that really is significant to us as Apostolics. So there might be a statement about God's name, which we, the theology of the name is very important. A more idiomatic translation might say "God's honor," which is true, that's the connotation, but you miss the fact that there is a specific identification with the name. So that's why I say the more idiomatic translations can help your comprehension, oh, this is what this is meaning, this is the significance. But you still need the more literal translation to make sure you don't miss a key doctrinal point. So I say use both.
Um, so I say use King James and New King James for more literal, as well as the others I've mentioned. The NIV and the NLT, uh, for more idiomatic. And together, using both kinds of translations in your reading and study, you can really grasp, I think, as much as possible, the original Hebrew and Greek text.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Apostolic Life in the 21st Century. If you enjoy this podcast, please take a moment to give us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We also appreciate it when you share Apostolic Life in the 21st Century with a friend or family member. Finally, join us again next time as we look at how the Bible applies to everyday life.