To be or..to become: when translators should try harder (John 1:1, 6)

by Dan Phillips

Last week I discussed an instance where the ESV used two different words to translate the same Hebrew verb in two consecutive verses, unintentionally obscuring a significant point of interpretation. There are cases where the reverse happens. One such is John 1:1 and 6.

Everyone knows verse 1, which doesn't warrant much creativity from a translator: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." That word "was" crops right up again in the ESV of verses 2, 3, and verse 6.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

"Was," "was," "was." Of course, verse 3 doesn't count since "was" there is just an auxiliary verb ("was made"). But the English-only reader is left to assume that every other occurrence of "was" must either translate the same verb, or that there is no exegetically-significant variation. Both would be incorrect assumptions.

In verses 1 and 4, the verb is ἦν (ēn), which is the imperfect active indicative of eimi, the common copula (I am). At this point, novices have sometimes waxed a bit imaginative, noting that the imperfect means continual action, so John is saying that the Logos continually was at creation.

Theologically, this is of course accurate. Etymologically, not so much. It might be, if a simple past (aorist) finite form of eimi were available to John. None was. Just the present (estin, is) and the imperfect (ēn, was). John could not have used that verb to say that Jesus "was," in the aorist tense, if he'd wanted to. (To oversimplify, aorist serves for punctiliar past events, with no emphasis on process: he ate, she sat, he built.)

But what of verse 6? According to the ESV, it's the same: in the beginning was the Word (v. 1), there was a man sent from God named John. The Word was, John was. No point is being made.

However, John (not the ESV) used two different words. Verse 6 employs the aorist tense of the verb ginomai, meaning simply "I become." It indicates beginning to be... something. Becoming something. Springing up on the pages of history.

In practice, one can't translate ginomai with forms of "become" every time, and I'm not arguing that we should. However, here it's pretty clear that John is making a point by using two verbs — ēn, ēn, ēn, ēn, ēn, ēn ...then egeneto. He introduces two characters in his opening verses: the Logos, and John. One had a beginning, one was at the beginning. The contrast between the two is, very literally, infinite.

So why not at least note the fact in translation? Sometimes, it is simply impossible to reflect nuances of Hebrew and Greek in English. Here? Not at all. Many translations make some try, such as "came" (NASB, NET, ASV, NJB), and "arose" (Rotherham). You could say "A man came to be; his name: John." But the ESV is not alone in apparently not even trying: "was" is found in ESV, NIV, CSB, KJV, and NKJV.

I can't even speculate about what moves translators to do or not do many things. It just seems like it's most respectful of the text to try to note both similarities and differences in the original text when one can. John could have used a sixth ēn, but chose to use egeneto instead. If we can reflect his word-choice, I think we should.

And here, we can.

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Literal translation can make a big difference: example from Proverbs 8

by Dan Phillips

Have you been following along in, and been using the outlines for, my sermons through the book of Proverbs?  If so, you'll have noticed, to your amusement or amazement or indifference, that I always provide my own very literal ad hoc translation. Here's an example of why.

As I have explained more than once to my dear ones here, I don't do it to supplant any standard translation. Our church used a now-out-of-print edition of the NASB, and has since switched to ESV. Probably like anyone who's studied Greek and Hebrew closely, it drives me nuts. Every translation does. There is no fresh, consistently and readably literal translation.

Now, my point isn't to discuss translation philosophy or debate individual translations, but to make one point. I don't know whether it's the effect of committees or what, but one of the specifics that drive me nuts is the interpretive clues that translations withhold from readers.

For instance, here's one all translations do: there are a number of different Hebrew words for "fool" and "folly" in Proverbs. English versions all tend to render them all simply by "fool" and "folly." If Solomon is doing something with his word-choice, no English reader can tell; he'll sometimes look unnecessarily repetitive — as in 17:21, where ESV has "fool" twice to render two unrelated Hebrew terms.

Now, some of this is pretty much unavoidable. Anyone who reads my translation will say it's well-nigh unreadable, and I will agree. It's extremely literal. It isn't meant to replace a standard translation. My point is to try to make transparent nuances of structure and word-choice that a smoother, more readable translation would obscure.

Sometimes there's no good reason for what English versions do, and the less-literal hides delightful features of Solomon's art.

An example is found in Proverbs 8:32-36. Here's the ESV:

32 "And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways.
33 Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.
34 Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.
35 For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD,
36 but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death."

It looks like Wisdom asks them to listen and promises a blessing, says to hear (similar word, but different), then gives blessing and warning. And that's not wrong. Nobody is harmed by that translation.

But what Solomon's doing is a bit more artful than what's apparent. Here's my very-literal translation:

8:32  “So now, sons, listen to me!
And oh! the blessings of those who keep my ways.

8:33  “Listen to discipline, and be wise,
And do not ignore it.

8:34  “Oh! the blessings of the man who listens to me,
Watching at my doors day after day,
Keeping vigil at the doorposts of my opening.

8:35  “For he who finds me finds life,
And he obtains favor from Yahweh.

8:36  “But he who misses me does violence to his own soul;
All who hate me love death.”

Oh, look, that's a little different. "Listen" is in v. 32a, and v. 33a; then "oh! the blessings of" begins both v. 32b and v. 34a. Could that mean something?

Indeed it does. It means that verse 32 is the key to the entire section. Line A's call to listen is expanded in the terse imperatives (three imperatives in five words) on v. 33, and Line B's exclamation "oh! the blessings" is expanded in vv. 34-36.

In other words, Solomon has Wisdom saying "So now, sons, listen to me!" in Prov. 8:32a. Keying on "listen," verse 33 then expands this to three commands of which two are positive and one negative. It is a terse five-word verse, of which three words are imperative. Positively: listen, be wise. Negatively: do not ignore.

Then in Prov. 8:32, Wisdom exclaims "Oh! the blessings of those who keep my ways." What does all that involve? She tells us in vv. 34-36. Keeping her ways involves listening (again!), eagerly watching at her doors daily, keeping vigil at her every opening (v. 34). The one who does this gains real life, which is to say favor from Yahweh (v. 35). This bounty is heightened by a glance at the anti-blessing, the consequences of not seeking and finding her: doing violence to one's own soul, and loving death. (As I expound it, Lines A and B ov v. 36 are cause/effect, then effect/cause, respectively.)

What ESV does with vv. 32 and 33 is what it does when it's at its worst: simply echoing RSV without needed revision (pun noted, not intended). Both versions translate the exact same Hebrew word (שִׁמְעוּ, shim`û) by two different English words (listen, hear) in two sequential verses. (CSB and [it pains me to admit] NIV do not obscure this connection.)

As I said: does it harm anyone? No. Would a false doctrine be born of it? No. Could a reader read and be blessed and built up? Absolutely.

But as I say and have often said, a pastor is like a professor of ancient Hebrew and Greek literature. It'd be pretty rough for him to teach that course without knowing the languages. And one of the things that knowing the languages does for anyone is show greater color. If you've got a good B&W TV, can you watch Star Wars or Sound of Music and "get it"? Absolutely. But might you miss the color, and in some cases, the beauty is in the chromatic variations? Sure.

Proverbs 8:32-36 is a perfect example where a pastor's possession of a color TV can serve to bless his congregation with a deeper appreciation for and reverence of what God did in inspiring Solomon to craft this masterpiece.

POSTSCRIPT: having said all that, it is also true that the woodenly-literal can sometimes mislead an English reader, as I illustrate in today's post over at my personal blog.

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Pyro brain trust forum: what Bible version, and why?

by Dan Phillips

I am still in need of a low-maintenance meta, and so...

At CBC, the pew Bibles are the 1978 version of the New American Standard Bible, which actually is no longer in print. I was happy enough to learn that this was the version in use, though, prior to coming. I had a long affectionate history with the NAS.

For English Bible reading, when I was saved I read the KJV for years, straight-up wide-margin or New Scofield-ized. I was also given a Living Bible, and soon got an NAS. Though I read through many translations (including the Modern Language Bible, the version by Charles Williams, the NIV, then later the CSB), the NAS was my staple for a good long time.

Specifically, I liked the Ryrie Study Bible version for a number of reasons. The margins were wide enough for notes; I often wrote the Hebrew and Greek in the margins. Also, the historical books' outlines were very helpful, often including date plus parallel versions (i.e. between Kings and Chronicles). Finally, the footnotes usually were less Ryrie's interpretation and more often helpful information such as "25 miles NW of Jerusalem," or archaeological finds, or the like, giving helpful facts fast and straight-up.

Then when the 1995 revision came out, I quickly got it, glad that the translators had finally dropped the Thee's and Thou's which, while useful, were no part of (hel-lo?) standard American idiom, New or otherwise.

However, I soon became disaffected with the NAS95. For instance, I noticed that the NAS95 adopted the NIV's affectation of dropping conjunctions for the sake of smoothness — even when (as in Mt. 17:1) the conjunction is arguably exegetically important. Plus it did an odd thing with which the translators of the CSB were later to go a little nuts — of usually translating (or transliterating) Christos as "Christ," but a few times inexplicably using "Messiah" as well (Mt. 1:1, 16; 2:4... and never again).

As I said, I read through the CSB but never really adopted it. I did also use the New King James for some time. I appreciated that it was often even more literal than the NAS; however, the indefensible and irrational textual practices in the NT just drove me bonkers.

When the ESV came out, I switched to it and basically stuck with it, until now. I like it in most regards. But as I have read through, almost every time I see a translation issue, they've just echoed the RSV without freshly revisiting it. Plus, some passages are actually inexplicable steps backward in fidelity to the original (e.g. Mk. 1:40-41).

To match our pew Bible, I'm back to doing my personal English text reading (and preaching) in the pre-1995 NAS.

All that to ask this: what does your church use, and why?

I'm open to hearing from anyone, but I particularly want to hear from pastors. To be even more specific, I particularly want to hear from pastors who've kept up their Hebrew and Greek (which should be a tautology but, alas, is not). I'd like to hear

• What was your rationale?
• What process did you go through?
• Why do you use what you use?
• Were there helpful books, studies, articles online or in journals? 

Share.

For my part, I like the NAS just fine, though the ESV has a readability edge. Kevin DeYoung makes a decent case for the ESV. I have reservations about any English translations... including my own! Nothing will persuade me to use the NIV or (great googly-moogly) the execrable TNIV, except for reference in study.

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Book(let) review — Why Our Church Switched to the ESV, by Kevin DeYoung — plus a brief excursus on modern versions

by Dan Phillips

Why Our Church Switched to the ESV, by Kevin DeYoung

(Wheaton: Crossway, 2011; 31 pages)

About This Book

When Crossway sent me this little booklet, I have to admit it didn't instantly interest me — except that it was written by DeYoung. It was little, the topic wasn't "hot" to me, and I didn't immediately think it would grip me much.

But a reading-slot opened up in my schedule that perfect for something brief and relatively light, and ever since reading DeYoung's truly wonderful Just Do Something (which I even reference in the Proverbs book), I'm an admirer. So I gave it a go.

I'm glad I did. Why Our Church Switched to the ESV was a good read: crisp, informative, and to the point. DeYoung was facing the decision, as a pastor, of guiding his church in purchasing new Bibles for the pews. They had been using and liking the NIV, which DeYoung says several times that he regards as a usable, respectable version. In other words, unlike me, he wasn't predisposed to dislike it.

DeYoung recommended the ESV, and in this booklet he explains why. All of DeYoung's discussion is based on the 1984 version, which might lead one to think the whole is hopelessly dated since the advent of NIV 2011. However, he focuses more on translation-philosophy and its fruits as seen in the text, and this transfers over perfectly well to the NIV and any other predominantly "dynamic-equivalence" version.

DeYoung sets forth and explains seven reasons why he prefers the ESV and recommended it to the church:

1. The ESV employs an "essentially literal" translation philosophy.
2. The ESV is a more transparent translation.
3. The ESV engages in less over-translation.
4. The ESV engages in less under-translation.
5. The ESV does a better job of translating important Greek or Hebrew words with the same English word throughout a passage or book.
6. The ESV retains more of the literary qualities of the Bible.
7. The ESV requires much less "correcting" in preaching.

In these particulars, I think DeYoung goes to the heart of the matter, and I agree with his comparison and examples. In fact, though I had thought I'd thought this through, I found his explanation clarifying and helpful.

In the main, I'd agree with DeYoung's recommendation. Were facing the decision with a church I pastored and were I facing the same two-version choice, I think I'd make the same decision for the same reasons. The NIV (1984) is the most disappointing product one could imagine coming from such a stellar array of scholars and luminaries. It simply packs far too much interpretation into the text, and makes far too many interpretive decisions "backstage," without even alerting the reader to the fact that there even is any choice. If they called it the "New International Targum," I might feel a bit better about it.

Nor can one say in all instances "Oh well, the literal rendering is in the footnote." How many Bible readers that aren't detail-freaks (< writer raises hand and waves >) even read Bible marginal notes? One I tackle at some length in The World-Tilting Gospel is the NIV's choice to render sarx as "sinful nature" rather than the literal "flesh." This is sheer interpretation. The NIV translators made dozens of such decisions, many of which are unnoted. DeYoung would call this a lack of "transparency," and perhaps an excess of "over-translation."

DeYoung makes clear that the ESV/NIV difference in these regards is often one of degree rather than a chasm, but the ESV leans one way, while the NIV leans the other. Thus, by using the ESV, DeYoung doesn't have to devote a large portion of a sermon explaining why the text which the church put in people's hands is basically wrong — thus leading them to think they simply can't trust their Bibles half the time — and more time preaching the text.

DeYoung recommends the ESV for church and personal use, and I recommend DeYoung. So I guess that makes me a second-degree ESV-recommender.

A digression on translations

I have to say I'm not a wild-eyedly enthusiastic one, however. Everything DeYoung says is true and accurate. I just wish the ESV was more the way DeYoung says it leans. I wish it were fresher, freer from the RSV.

For instance, working in Proverbs, two of the ESV behaviors that frustrated me were: (1) like all English translations, it renders about three different Hebrew words as "fool" — I wish some version would break from the pack; and (2) there and often when the ESV has a poor rendering, you check and find they've just echoed the RSV without re-examination. And then, in other cases, they're just odd and by-themselves, as I encountered in preparing to teach on Genesis 49:10 at the coming conference. Here (oddly) the ESV goes with NRSV in a translation-decision that hasn't convinced many evangelicals, including me.


What's my version-preference? It would probably be an impossible hybrid between ESV, CSB, NKJ, NAS and Modern Language Bible, in around that order, with the first and second choices nearly neck-and-neck. Plus, some modern Bible-believing translation simply has to break out of the traditionalistic and indefensible "LORD/GOD" superstition, and show respect for the name God chose for Himself (see further here, here, here and here, if you like).

Not that I have an opinion, mind you.

I find that, when I like the CSB, I really like it. They aren't afraid to be independent, and often in doing so in my judgment they get the text just right. Yet there are simple oddities which make the CSB seem, at other times, not-ready-for-prime-time. A glaring example would be their whimsical use of both "Messiah" and "Christ" to render christos in the NT, sometimes in the same passage, and even in consecutive verses (e.g. Ephesians 2:5-20 — absolutely baffling)!

So: use the ESV, and have a pastor who knows and uses Greek and Hebrew.

But, in the immortal words of Alistair Cookie, "Me digress."

Back-to-the-book conclusion

All that to say: DeYoung is, as always, readable, and helpful. If you're facing choices as a reader, this will give you brief and pointed guidance. If you lead a church facing a decision like this, Why Our Church Switched to the ESV would be an invaluable booklet to distribute. Recommended.

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Lost in Translation

by Frank Turk

This got said yesterday in the comments, and it deserves some treatment on the front page, since this is a one-man show this week:

Wordplay in the Hebrew and Greek is almost always lost in translation. The current translations we have of any philosophy, always copy too much from older English Bibles in deference to their alleged expertise. Worse, any political agendas in the older translations are also slavishly copied.

All this makes the case for JUST TEACHING THE ORIGINAL, so you can get all the delicious wit in the Bible as God intended. My pastor taught us that way, so now I can read Bible in those languages easily, within BibleWorks. Why not make a new practice of teaching Bible the way it was actually written? Frankly the original words are far more easy and fun to remember, once you know them.

Alternative: take a translation and correct it as you go along. If the congregation gets used to it, there will be no angst. Again, that's the approach my pastor took, so one doesn't have to fault past scholar errors, but rather one comes to appreciate the difficulty of translation. :)

Which, for all its good intentions, is pure bunk. For a litmus test, as someone with a very sincere love of the KJV how “slavishly copied” any of the translations produced in the 20th century are.

You know: my wife and I were discussing the Bible last night, and Titus 2:13-15 came up. I know this isn’t the Hebrew, but stick with me here. Here’s what the KJV says:

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Right? “A peculiar people”, borrowing the language from Deuteronomy. Now, we know in English that this is borrowed from Deuteronomy because the translation recognizes something Paul is doing through allusion, and makes sure to use the word used in Deuteronomy in English again here in Titus.


But we have a problem with the ol’ KJV: this word doesn’t mean what you think it means. We see (and most of us remember) the phrase “a peculiar people”, and we think, “huh: ‘peculiar’. It means ‘unusual’, or ‘unique’,” and we then get sort of knee-capped when we open the trusty ESV and find this:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

What happened to “peculiar”?

The problem, as usual, is you. You don’t speak the same language they spoke in 1611 – and in 1611, the word “peculiar” did not mean “unusual”: it meant “one’s own possession”, coming from its Latin roots relating to the ownership of cattle. So the KJV actually says, “a people for his own possession” just like the ESV does – it just uses an obsolete word meaning to do so.

And I point that out to say this: this is why it is critical to continue to have a vital, ecumenical (meaning: having a consensus among English-speaking churches, as we are talking about translations in English) effort to maintain the translations of the Bible from the original languages into the contemporary tongue. Foundational to the reformational way of thinking about the Bible is that it ought to be accessible to all men, and that translations are not inadequate vehicles.

I said I yesterday that I had three points to make, and that’s my first one: it’s a bogus point of view that a translation of Scripture is inherently faulty or inadequate; translations are sufficient vehicles through which to receive God’s revelation. There are probably a dozen reasons why this is so, but here are the two which I think should matter most to us:

[1] We have to have confidence in God’s word when it is handled by men. If we don’t, we have to reconsider what we mean when we think about preaching.

[2] This is not a perspective evident in Jesus or the Apostles. That the earliest church used the LXX without controversy as the word of God should give us some confidence that even a bad translation possess what God intends for His Word to possess.

That said, here’s my second point: while it is both interesting and in some ways useful to “JUST TEACH THE ORIGINAL”, this work in practice degrades the common man’s confidence in the text, which is an unjustified consequence inherent in the “preach from the Greek/Hebrew” perspective.


I have a very hard time with the phrase “lost in translation”, especially in this context, because frankly it is far more smug than it intends to be, and far less useful than it needs to be. Think about this: let’s imagine that there is some kind of high-octane literature genre which is somehow only able to be communicated in the Hebrew. Maybe it’s only a pun or a rhyme or maybe it’s a tone which is generated by a form of expression. And let’s say that there is actually no way to convey this in the English – that when we translate Ps 103 or something from the Hebrew all we get is wooden prose.

Is the point of our Bibles to titillate us with word-play, or is it to reveal to us the plan of God in Christ?

I don’t want to be a minimalist here because I do think that the Bible is actually great literature, not just words but words used (in a very real sense) in an inspired way. But the idea that we have to “get” all the Hebrew puns and word play in order to get how Moses and all the Prophets spoke of Christ is simply incongruous. I don’t want to call this pursuit idolatry, but there’s a massive difference between studying the Scripture to know that it is true and studying it as if its greatest purpose is as an aesthetic artifact. There is overlap between these two pursuits, but when we say that we have to mistrust translations and “JUST TEACH THE ORIGINAL TEXT”, especially for the sake of noodling out all the lit geek (and I speak as a lit geek) fairy dust, we have gone off the path which is really intended when we sloganeer the phrase “sola scriptura”.

Third and finally today: You are, for better and worse, stuck with English as your mother tongue. Ultimately, you personally have to speak to others in English. That means that at some point, you have to agree with someone about what, for example, the book of Romans says in English in order to tell others about it. You are far better served from a body of Christ (read: local church) perspective to have a common translation which serves as a basis for discipleship and catechesis, rather than demanding, absurdly and in a very suspiciously-Galatian manner, that someone first learn the Greek and/or the Hebrew before he can be a proper disciple and student of the word.

There is nothing wrong with learning Greek and Hebrew if you are so gifted and inclined. But it turns out that nowhere in Scripture is the ability to read Hebrew a requirement for the elder in spite of the requirement that he be able to rightly-handle the word of God. And for us to either feel like we are second-class for not being Hebrew readers, or to imply that English translations as a class are inferior to the point of being useless from the pulpit, makes us people who really don’t understand the Gospel very well.

The Gospel is proclaimed so that people from every tribe, tongue and nation will worship and give glory to God, and enjoy Him forever. In the Kingdom – in the New Earth – there is no indication that we will all be speaking Greek. If that’s the case when Christ finally has all his enemies as his footstool, maybe we should see some value in the tongues which then praise him today when we are declaring to them that they should.

That’s the context for Leland Ryken’s book, and we should be grateful to God that he cares enough about this subject to be passionate about it. And whether we agree with his philosophy of translation or not, we should be that passionate that all people have the word of God in their own language – because even in translation, it is the word of God.

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Word Up

by Frank Turk


Before I give you my review of this next book, let me be up-front about something: I'm a formal translation guy and I like to use a formal translation when I'm reading the Bible because, well, I do.

I don't want to be too glib about that choice on my part because I am pretty sure it's a reasoned choice -- and I could line out for you the reasons in about 5000 words if we had that kind of time today, but we don't.

At the root of it, I like a formal translation of the Bible because when I am studying seriously (for example, when I am teaching at church) and I open up the reference material to see what's going on behind the text in the original languages (not because I can read Greek or Hebrew, mind you, but I took Methods and Research in Grad School and I can use reference books), it's always reassuring that what I see in the English is somehow representative of what the Greek or Hebrew expresses according to the lexical experts.

I mean: it always bothers me when we have a translation that we have to debunk for the reader so that as a teacher (or as a preacher) we have to say, "but what the Greek really says is ..." Translation is an art, to be sure, but it's not a baffling mystery which leaves the reader at the mercy of the translator to the place where the translator has interjected himself as the author's editor.

But in that, I have a respect for "functional" or "dynamic" translation as a methodology for some purposes. For example, I think there is a good use for the NLT as a first-pass read through the whole Bible -- because it seeks to deliver the message of the text without using a collegiate-level vocabulary. That is valuable in evangelism and in other kinds of ministry to those who are not pre-grad or post-grad egg-heads.

That said, there is a larger debate going on in the realm of Bible translation regarding the methodology which is best for the church and for Christians in general. For me, the most forceful spokesman for the "essentially literal" approach is Leland Ryken. He's an English professor, and if you ask me we need more men like him teaching English at the college level so that there are more, better readers of our language. He also wrote my favorite all-time book on the philosophy and theology of Bible translation: The Word of God in English. The egg-heads among you readers should read that book and forget about the rest of this review/recommendation.

But Dr. Ryken has just written a new book for Crossway called Understanding English Bible Translation, and it will be reviled by anyone who has any affection for dynamic equivalence. Coming in at 194 pages before the brief appendices and index, it's a brutal assessment of the flaws of dynamic equivalence and a brief and popularized argument for the use of what Dr. Ryken calls "essentially literal" translation. It's red meat for the common inerrantist, and frankly it's a pretty gripping read for the kind of book that it is because Ryken argues with passion and keen intellect. He doesn't let much get by on the other side, and while he gives gracious credit for some things (for example, he's gracious about the really good motives for some dynamic equivalent practitioners [e.g. - evangelism]), he doesn't let that get in the way of making his case at every point. By the end of the read, if you're not a convicted "essential literalist", I'll need to see your baptismal certificate and have a talk with the elders at your church.

Now, having said that, and now saying explicitly, "buy this book, read it, and get other people to read it," let me offer some criticisms of the book which I think are important to consider.

First, I think Dr. Ryken's approach to translation philosophy veers dangerously close to a correspondence theory of translation which, let's face it, would be a little simplistic. There is no way to say that every word in (for example) Greek has a categorically-equal corresponding word in English both lexically and practically. And because this is true -- that in some cases we would need an uncommon word in English to translate a relatively common word in Greek -- we have to admit that often translators ought to make a judgment call about how to present some text as the author intended, thereby having occasions in which giving us just one word for another is an inadequate approach.

And this happens in all translations of the Bible, including the KJV, the NASB and especially in the ESV. However, Dr. Ryken seems to make the case that the practice of doing this across the board in order to improve the reader's basic comprehension of the ideas of the text is inherently disreputable and undesirable for philosophical reasons. The irony here is that I agree with his objection but I disagree with the force with which he makes it. By a long shot, this is best exemplified by his lumping together of the NIV and the Message as two types of the same kind of Bible translation -- and this is simply a category error. Everyone by now knows that the Message is a paraphrase and not intended to do anything but, well, paraphrase the original text rather than translate it. And while his system of explaining this issue may simply call all translations to the "right" of the NKJV "dynamic translations", it seems to me to be a difficult pill to swallow to make the NIV or the HCSB texts which destabilize the common understanding of the Bible.

And that, I understand, is a pretty stiff criticism of a book which one is actually recommending and endorsing. However, in spite of this concern I have for this book, Dr. Ryken's book is a stiff tonic in an age where all manner of issues relating to the author's original intent in the text is being subverted for the sake of appealing to contemporary, metropolitan sensibilities. If you want to clear your head about this subject, get this book and read it. In the end, you may not agree with this argument or the substantive reasons for it, but you'll be better made over having had to grapple with the scope and direction of this book.

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Good-riddance, TNIV; hello, Son of NIV

by Dan Phillips

In my own reading of the NT, I generally read the Greek text; if I'm preaching from the OT, I consult the Hebrew.

If I want an English translation, I generally use the ESV. If I want a commentary, I use a commentary.

Or the NIV.

A few years back, They unrolled a misbegotten version called Today's New International Version (TNIV). WORLD called it the "stealth Bible," for good reason. It was marketed in sneaky ways.

Though a laundry list of Big Names said glowing things about it, it apparently hasn't caught on, which is a very good thing.

I went through the Proverbs TNIV, and the notes I enter in my beloved BibleWorks contain many tut-tuttings over their renderings. The most frequent is to this effect: "Again, TNIV pluralizes the singulars to fit its agenda." That refers to the translators' fad-driven, politically-correct decision to turn singular verses (i.e. 26:16a — "The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes") into plurals ("Sluggards are wiser in their own eyes"). Without textual warrant, the excuse offered is that a sluggardly woman who is reading will be too stupid to see herself in the verse because the standard English device of "he" is used. We're to picture her snorting "Whew! That ain't me!" and popping another Bon-Bon into her mouth.

This results in many atrocious changes of meaning, such as Psalm 1:1-2, which is transformed into —

Blessed are those who do not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but who delight in the law of the LORD
and meditate on his law day and night

There is no lack of clarity in the original text. The TNIV paraphrasts simply take it to themselves to "improve" it, by changing it.

Gallons of ink (literal and virtual) were spilled trying to rationalize such changes. Thankfully, it never did catch on with most Bible-believers, and now it has been announced that the TNIV is being round-filed. Notable luminaries such as Ligon Duncan and Al Mohler have responded positively, and more will come. This subluminary also is happy to hear it.

So now the NIV will be updated, and Douglas Moo confirms that the translators are welcoming input and suggestions.

Do I have any suggestions? Oh, I have a few, off the top of my head. They're all serious, in case anyone wonders.

1. God is not "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." Call God by His name when the Holy Spirit does. God moved the writers of the Hebrew Old Testament to call Him "Yahweh" over 6800 times. Anyone believing in the plenary, verbal (hel-lo?) inspiration of the Bible should do the same, eschewing the superstitious practice of unbelievers who try to be holier than God by refusing to do what He commanded to be done. (I may have shared this thought previously once or twice... or three or four times, or more.) It's disgraceful that only one-man versions, a Roman Catholic version, or cultic versions honor the text-as-given in that regard, while supposedly VPI-accepting translators persistently don't.
   
2. Never, ever pluralize a singular. The men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit (as you and I are not) knew how to use plurals as well as singulars. When they don't, you don't.
3. Be much more cautious and conservative in dropping conjunctions for the sake of "smoothness." It is true that Hebrew uses the waw conjunction much more frequently than English can easily bear. However, conjunctions reveal the writer's logical progressions. Sometimes they are interpretively significant (as with the kai ["and"] which begins Matthew 17:1, dropped by the TNIV and other versions.) They should only be dropped when absolutely necessary... and even then, I'd wish some note of their presence could be made.
   
4. Resist the temptation to substitute commentary for translation. It tempts the pride to "correct" ambiguities in the text, but it is more respectful to the text to leave them there for believer-priests to wrestle with. To select one should-be-beyond-argument example, take Paul's use of "flesh." Every English reader knows that word. What does it mean? The answer to that is interpretive. To render it "sinful nature" as NIV does removes the text's own ambiguity and makes a decision for the reader. Don't.

There. I said "a few." I welcome you to share your own, particularly if you have some training in Hebrew or Greek.

NOTE: KJV-only folks (as opposed to those who simply prefer the KJV) are not invited to this discussion. We know what you think, and frankly, it is one alternative for which I (to speak as kindly as I can) have no respect.

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