The Old and New Testaments come to us in translation. We are not only separated from the original copies (not the original “autographs” which we do not have) by their original languages (earliest manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek); but also by culture and time.
My favorite saying is “Context is Everything”. And it is in so many aspects of life, but no less shwne it comes to the Bible. Read blandly from an English tranlation as if it was written yesterday in Akron Ohio and mistakes are going to be made upon reading.
Still, no series of books (66 in the Old and New Testaments) have ever received the time, attention and thorough scholarship that these have been given for thousands of years. And most of the fruit of such work is readily available in English. Your pastor may have taken three semesters of Greek in seminary, but you, all by your lonesome, have equal access to get to the heart of any text!
How? We will show you how over the next few months as we layout simple methods for approaching difficult passages or fulfilling your desire to go deeper (my personal favorites are the “difficult” passages that are either highly offensive, or grossly misused by others).
But in the meantime it is good to have a solid translation of the Bible handy. As with all translations, the tension is between accuracy and readability. Every language has it’s own way of ordering words and a strict word-for-word translation of the Greek texts of the New Testament are not very readable at all (they do serve an important purpose in study though).
On the far end are Bible “paraphrases” where those knowledgeable in study have “summarized” passages in a very common ways. “The Living Bible” or “The Message” are two good examples. Others have been done for more immediate concerns (sometimes with humorous results”. I can remember a paraphrase of the New Testament that came out in the late 60s called Letters to Street Christians where such paraphrases came out “and don’t be going and ball’n your neighbor’s wife!”.
Now, that is actually a fairly accurate rendition of the passage, just placed in a common Berkeley 1960s vernacular.
So my suggestion is a translation somewhere in between. Something that is somewhat verbatim, yet also readable. Most bible scholars and pastors seem to agree that the NIV (New International Version) and the NASB “New American Stand Bible” are both somewhere in the middle. Both accurate, both readable. But there are plenty of other translations just as good. And here is the important fact…we are talking readability. Any of the major translations are really just fine.
Even the King James Bible (written in 1611) is both accurate…just a tad less readable for us modern fork. But you are not going to see different meaning to these passages. In this sense there are not “different Bibles”, but different translations like any book that finds it’s way from one language to another in a variety of publications (I like the Dutton version of Padcal’s Pensees. The Penguin edition is stiff and well, “penguin-ish” But both are still accurate translations. Just the Dutton version has more of the poetry of the French language (and it has a foreward by T.S. Eliot)
