Which is the best Bible Version?

This is a thread which would be charged with a lot of strong feelings, but it could be really valuable if we could discuss it in a spirit of mutual respect and open mindedness.I take it as read that anyone on this forum is most likely to believe in plenary inspiration of the scriptures as originally given. If not, that might be a further thread, but it would be a distraction from this particular thread.This topic has been well-aired on many a web-site but often in the spirit of a street corner harangue. If we could start with the presuppositions that all contributors are seeking truth, rather than victory, it could be of real value.What do you think folks?

O.K. I am interested, again under the "rules of engagement" you outlined. This is something that has sat in the back of my mind and am glad you brought it up. Since the only objective in my mind is "what did the writers mean, not what do I think it means" or better yet what was God telling us through these men.Since not all of us are scholars or from higher education, I ask that you bear with us 'lay people'.Maybe some basic outlines for starters.For instance;Scripture interprets scripture.The bible was written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramiac.Context, culture and audience at the time they were written.The entire collections of books is about God's plan of redemption centered around one solitary figure, Jesus Christ. (Is that a correct assumption?)more?Also, without the Holy Spirit we might as well be reading the phone book, how do we discern which versions have a particular 'bent' towards man's thinking? A Hebrew scholar without the Spirit of God dwelling inside of him might be able to tell me something about language but spiritualy might as well be talking quantum physics. I have a ton of questions, so I will most likely be asking as oppossed to stating, an observer trying to get to the bottom line, which is truth. This is an imporant subject in light of the fact that there are many who would have us rewrite the scriptures to support their particular point of view and have done so. Translating from language to language is a difficult endevour and will always fall short in the hands of fallible men. So how do we keep this in a right perspective without spinning off into arguments over words, taking scriptures out of there proper context (which I at times am guilty of) and keep in mind what you originally stated?;If we could start with the presuppositions that all contributors are seeking truth, rather than victory, it could be of real value.I offer up this suggestion:Pray before you post.

In one sense the answer to the question is easy. The best Bible version is the one that you will read. If you had the Pentateuch in Moses' handwriting, and Galatians in Paul's they would be no benefit if they just sat on your shelf. Likewise if you had the purist Hebrew or Greek text they would be of no advantage unless we were fluent in those languages ourselves.This first posting is going to be long one. Sorry.Having said that, there are two major influences which affect all Bible translations. They are both vital so I won't say first...The underlying text. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew and a little Aramaic/Chaldean, and Koine Greek. Koine Greek distinguishes the Greek of the NT from modern Greek and more importantly from Classical Greek. None of the original 'autographs' (e.g. manuscripts in the handwriting of Paul) are known to exist. Every ancient Bible, no matter how ancient, is a copy.There are hundreds of ancient copies of the NT. There are some which are very old, back to the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. (I was looking at 2 of these in the British Library just last month. Only through the glass of the display cabinet; I don't want anyone to think I am claiming to be very expert on these matters.) When scholars examine all these copies they find that although the vaste proportion of each copy is exactly the same as other copies, there are some differences. They then discover that sometimes several copies have one word whereas several other copies have another word. They put the copies which have the same word into 'families'.They then try to work out why the differences exist; this is called textual criticism. Criticism here just means 'judgement'. These same scholars then decide that some families are 'better' than the others. You may have seen version of the Bible which have footnotes saying 'best mss (manuscripts) have ***'. This is where the problems begin, because different scholars have 'judged' that different 'families' are the 'best'.The reason that the RSV is sometimes different from the KJV is that the translators of the KJV judged that one family of manuscripts was the better, and the translators of the RSV judged that another family was better. Consequently the KJV and RSV translators, on this small percentage of different words, are translating from different Greek texts. Hence their translatons will be different at some points.If you decided that there were 2 main families you could make this your x axis, with The Western Family on the left and the Majority Family on the right. Every Bible could then be plotted on your graph depending on which family you judged (best) most reliable. Its a lot more complicated than this but this graph would have the RSV over on the left and the KJV over on the right. (we can go more deeply into this later if folks want to)So what is the y axis? The y axis is the translation philosophy of the translators. Some expert translators say we should translate one Greek word into one English word; this would be called Literal Equivalence. Other translators would say we should translate every Greek 'idea' into an English idea; this would be called Dynanic Equivalence. Your y axis could have dynaminc equivalence at the bottom and literal equivalence at the top. We can now plot every Bible translation on our xy graph, if you know which manuscript families they thought were best, and which translation philosophy they thought best.That's enough for one posting, but here is a true story. Bible translators were translating the sayings of Jesus into a tribal language in Papua New Guinea (PNG). "if you had a son who asked for a fish would you give him a snake?" said the translator. "YES", said the listeners. "Whoa", said the translator, "how come?" PNG is very hilly, the streams run very quickly and the fish are very small and boney. Snake, on the other hand, is highly nutritious, so if your son asked for a fish you would certainly give him more than he asked for if you were able, so by all means give him a snake. How would you have translated it?

Hi KtrekI'm not telling you what I would have done, so you don't need to apologise. However, if you wanted a strictly literal translation it would have to read.."which (untranslatable word) of you the father shall request the son bread (untranslatable word) will give to him if also a fish (untranslatable word) instead of a fish a serpent he will give to him."I'm not sure what that would communicate.

Nor me, the Greek words are not translatable into English. It is a idiomatic form of contrast.Here's another story. This time from South America. Again Bible translators were beginning with some simple stories and sayings of Jesus. They wanted to use the phrase "I am the living bread". There were no edible grains in the rain forest so they began a working translation by referring to manioc, which was the staple diet of the tribe. The problem was that the tribe only distinguished between living and cooked. (Their only interest was food, so living had got away but the dead things were cooked.) Their opposite to 'living' was 'cooked'The problem is that uncooked manioc root is highly poisonous.

That's enough for one posting, but here is a true story. Bible translators were translating the sayings of Jesus into a tribal language in Papua New Guinea (PNG). "if you had a son who asked for a fish would you give him a snake?" said the translator. "YES", said the listeners. "Whoa", said the translator, "how come?" PNG is very hilly, the streams run very quickly and the fish are very small and boney. Snake, on the other hand, is highly nutritious, so if your son asked for a fish you would certainly give him more than he asked for if you were able, so by all means give him a snake. How would you have translated it? If you had the foreknowledge of their culture, I don't see any reason why you could not just reverse the order to; "if you had a son who asked for a snake would you give him a fish?" So that it would make sense to them. Then you could explain that in the 'original' the opposite is true and was written as such because of the culture and audience it was given to.Meaning. Is not that what should be considered the highest value in translating? I realize this is not always easy to do as you have well stated.Another example. 1 Cor 11:14 "Does not even natureitself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?" My particular version (NKJV MaCarthur Study Bible) gives a vauge explanation, are we talkin a matter of 'degrees'? What constitutes 'long'? I am assuming the culture of the people Paul was addressing would have understood his meaning, what about those who have taken a Nazirite vow?I just so happen to fall into this camp, since I have shoulder length hair, so am I now 'dishonored'? Or if I followed all the prescriptions of a Nazirite vow, would I skirt the issue? Or am I confusing the issue by these examples? (It's not something I have any anxiety over) :-)Surely there are those who like to use a pretext as a proof text. But do we do a disservice by holding to the use of words 'as written' even if the meaning is lost on the hearers because of their particular culture?Your thoughts are appreciated, since you guy's seem to have a better grasp of all this.P.S. No, I am not getting a hair cut! :-D

I've been working some on an article this summer (several parts to it) that hopes to address this question. When I finish it, I will post the link.Suffice it to say that it is impossible to answer the question of "Which Bible is Best?"; better questions would be "Which Bible is the most accurate?" or "Which Bible is the clearest?"

Your suggestion to reverse the order would not have anything like the same impact. A fish might be a disappointment but it wouldn't put you in deadly peril. It links with the idea of 'you being evil, know how to give good gifts'. Even an evil father would not give an evil gift. So we can't just switch labels for culture' sake.The supporters of dynamic equivalence would use these kinds of illustrations to make their point, but its time for me to take the other side. This is from The English Bible & its Origins Richard Purkis Angel Press 1988 isbn 0 947785 23 X page 56. Purkis supports Dynamic Equivalence.Here is an example of Dynamici Equivalence at work..(start of quotation)Dynamic EquivalenceModern translators of the Bible have worked out a very simple (but certainly not easy) method called Dynamic Equivalence. It works like this: 1. Original word/phrase (Greek/Hebrew) 2. All the ideas which this contains 3. Those ideas translated into the other language 4. The best word or phrase to convey the main idea of the originalLet's take the example with which we opened the chapter 1. Original Words (Greek, Luke 18:13) etypten (he beat) eis (on) sic to stethos (the breast) autou (of himself 2. Ideas behind those words a. he was sorry for what he had done. b. he showed that sorrow in an action c. he hit himself to prove that he wanted to punish and change himself d. he hit himself over his heart (which throughout the Bible represents the understanding). 3. These ideas are then transferred into the Chokwe language. (West Zambia Language) 4. The best natural equivalent in Chokwe becomes "he beat his brows" (to show a change of mind and thinking). (end of quotation)Can you see that in this instance Dynamic Equivalence has lost all links to sorrow and repentance? I suggest you act if out.. Do it the first time beating your chest and the second time beating your forehead. Can you feel the difference? The first is a broken hearted penitent, the second is a first century equivalent of Homer Simpson 'doh'.

Your suggestion to reverse the order would not have anything like the same impact. A fish might be a disappointment but it wouldn't put you in deadly peril. It links with the idea of 'you being evil, know how to give good gifts'. Even an evil father would not give an evil gift. So we can't just switch labels for culture' sake.Maybe I lost something here in translation (pun intended).Since the snake is highly nutritious, and would be a preference over a small, bony fish...I get your point (I didn't think about the peril comparison, I have to quit posting these things before I am fully awake!)Hmmm...do they have Piraniah's in PNG? Would that make more sense? Or how about a dead snake? Or neither, what about two completly different animals to convey the meaning?I agree with what you stated in regards to Dynamic Equivalence, it leaves out the true meaning. Which is what I am puzzled over, surely in different cultures there must be a way to convey the intent/meaning....without it becoming...man's interpretation :roll: How do I state this?...It seems as though the best way would be for the translator as well as the 'native'(for lack of a better word), to be schooled in each others language to be able to come to an understanding of how best to convey the thoughts intended.Surely this isn't anything new. I know some of the arguments over just what we have in English, the NLT and The Message, as stated earlier, for example.Difficult, I feel I am in over my head already, just keep in mind that you are dealing with someone who doesn't have his full inventory of functioning brain cells in operation...kind of a long story :-D Don't want to keep going over this one point...if it's getting redundant_/crsschk\\_

It seems as though the best way would be for the translator as well as the 'native'(for lack of a better word), to be schooled in each others language to be able to come to an understanding of how best to convey the thoughts intended.This is what folks such as the Wycliffe Bible Translators have always endeavoured to do. I have friend who was a translator working in a small tribal group in Brazil. The process is long and painful. They arrived with not a single word of the tribal language. They started by displaying an item never before seen in that area. The people asked, in their own language, 'what is it'? The translators then memorised this phrase so that they could point to any item in camp and say 'what is it?'. They quickly built a vocab of nouns. Then they began writing on paper and the people asked 'what are you doing? By learning this phrase the translators could build a vocab of verbs by asking 'What are you doing?'This is all very labour intensive and it takes a long time before you can can translate "for God so loved the world than He gave His only begotten son....". Have you every thought how many concepts there are in that verse? Some groups have no word for 'God, love, or world. and a son belongs to the whole tribe'.Now what does such a translator do? Wait until they can create statements of soaring concept and beauty in a tribal language, or try to make a start from where they are?And for 'tribal groups' think of the increasing post-modern world of New York or London. Where do WE start?

Don't want to keep going over this one point...if it's getting redundantI don't think it is quite redundant yet. I have been deliberately provocative in these posts to provoke some thought.In order for communication to take place the communicator has to have something in 'common' (this is where the word comes from) with the hearer. There is a lovely story about an Irishman who was asked the way to Dublin. "If I were you" he said "I wouldn't start from here". Any preacher will know exactly what he meant. You get what seems like a simple question but you can't start from the point the questionner has chosen. Then they say why can't you give a simple answer to a simple question? Because you haven't asked me a simple question!!The Word became flesh; it was the only way He could adequately communicate with us. He embraced much human weakness (not sin), he became thirsty and tired. The amazing thing is that "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Human beings were made in the image and likeness of God, and once a new 'virgin' beginning could be achieved there was the possibility of God and man in one person becoming the means of full communication (or communion if you prefer).But the level of His communication was limited by the hearing ability of those to whom He spoke "I have many things to say unto you, but you are not able to bear them yet." It still is. Remember Paul's comment to the Corinthians? He didn't say "I won't talk to you until you can eat meat"!For the communicator the question becomes "Do I begin to communicate even though I know I can't say everything I want to, or do I wait, saying nothing, until I can say everything?"

This is a great topic. Our church also supports a couple who are doing work through Wycliffe and up till now I had not given it much thought, you have prompted me to think and to pray for these who are giving themselves to this challenging work.Now what does such a translator do? Wait until they can create statements of soaring concept and beauty in a tribal language, or try to make a start from where they are?Indeed. I guess in a sense you have to start with the language that transcends speech, love. "By this all will know that you are My disciples"And for 'tribal groups' think of the increasing post-modern world of New York or London. Where do WE start?Yes, I have been asking that same question. I live in a small apartment complex (11 units) and currently we have a devout Muslim (saw him passing out material on Islam at the mall yesterday), a Hindu couple and also a leader with the Jehovah's witness. I've got some work to do.

I don't think it is quite redundant yet. I have been deliberately provocative in these posts to provoke some thought.Check! The Word became flesh; it was the only way He could adequately communicate with us.In a way we must do the same, to be able to cross the language barrier.Brings to mind Paul "I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." For the communicator the question becomes "Do I begin to communicate even though I know I can't say everything I want to, or do I wait, saying nothing, until I can say everything?"Certainly we can not wait, for myself I can only cry, guilty! Used to be of the mindset that I needed to get all 'my doctrinal ducks in a row'then I could start...but I soon realized that all my ducks were scattered anyway ;-) and it was just something to hide behind.Back to the issue at hand. Translation. This topic surely has some broad implications which we have only begun to touch on, and you have brought up some very good questions. To reiterate, we should be lifting those who do this work in other cultures in prayer and support, I am sure they could use it!

Hi AllMark (Nasher) has begun a thread on the TNIV. Here is a reminder of an earlier one which began but went into hibernation. One or two points raised here may be worth considering in the light of translations generally.

"Which is the best translation?"Depends what we mean by "best", and what our primary purpose for using it is.The English-speaking world is blessed because it has many good translations. Comparing them can really open up our eyes to the nuances of the original text.I wish the Chinese Bible has as many options...

Personally, I look for a translation that conveys accuracy in translating the Greek and Hebrew; not just word for word, but idea for idea. It becomes clearer when comparing translations such as the NIV to the KJV. For example, Mark 10:21 leaves out "take up the cross" in the NIV. Fasting and fornication are left out of different verses. Then you have obvious confusion in places like Isaiah 14:12 where KJV calls Lucifer the son of the morning, but the NIV calls him "Morning Star." When you turn to Revelation 22:16 you see that Jesus is the Morning Star. Well, obviously Satan said he would make himself equal with God, and he apparently has done so in some versions. I teach public elementary school and Bible College. When I am grading papers, I don't compare papers to papers to see how someone else answered a question. I go to the source text and compare the student's answer with the original source text. The score depends on how far the student strayed from the text. Amazingly though, many Bible teachers, like Beth Moore (who is very good and through)will list the way a verse is translated in several versions, as if all the different versions bring out different nuances of the original and the sum total of the versions added together should equal the truth. I can't buy that concept. It works for some people I guess. I do like Beth Moore's work though. She is accurate as far as her material goes. I can't say that for some very popular people I have read. Charles Swindoll is a great preacher, but after reading his book about Elijah and enjoying it throughly, I bought his bio of Paul. I have been studying the life of Paul in depth for a year and read many authors and built a 50 foot timeline in my garage of the details in Scripture of his life. So when I read Swindoll's account, I realized he was just hurrying to add one more face to his list of Profiles in Character from the series. There are many blatant errors in his work. Check p.195 first paragraph where he speaks of Paul's shipwreck being in chapter 20 of Acts. It's actually in chapter 27. There are several more. Swindoll does a great job of applying the story to our lives in a devotional manner, but he doesn't place an emphasis on accuracy or even on Scriptural consistancy. He compensates for his failure to study the life of Paul in depth by accepting the presented story of a few scanty sources. He would have done a better job if he had put away the books and consulted the Bible account. I can see he read some of Robert Reymond's account of Paul Missionary Theologian, because he gives an illustration about "gutter snipe" on page 206 that Reymond used. I didn't like the way he resorted to name calling, such as "eggheads" in the pentultimate paragraph of page 209. But, he did give expanded info (p. 210)about Paul's statement in Acts 17:27-28 which I had not seen explained elsewhere. He quoted a source of Aratus of Soli (third century B.C.) who wrote "Zeus fills the streets, the marts,Zeus fills the seas, the shrines or the shores, and the rivers!Everywhere our need is Zeus!We also are his offspring."Swindoll explained what others only stated, that it referred to Greek poets. But, he shows that it is Zeus specifically.Basically, I value the accuracy of the King James version. I would not be willing to sacrifice content for modern clarity. I prefer to go to the original sources and study for myself. I realize we do lose some things in any translation. So why continue to progress away from the original. I want to get as close as I can get to the actual words and thoughts expressed in Scripture. I am sure many people have different opinions. I own several translations of the Bible in different languages, including a copy of the Textus Receptus Greek, put out by the Trinitarian Bible Society. But, I couldn't get my hands on an actual Masoretic text of the Hebrew. I had to "settle" for a Jewish Pub. Society copy of the TaNaKh, which is based on the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHT.) In the preface and notes they refer to the text evolving, and explain how they "scientifically engineered" the BHT. They speak of the translation into English being an "unbroken chain of uncertainty," which they were obligated to correct. Actually the CBD catalog listed it as a Masoretic text, but upon opening the package and reading the preface, I realized it had been misrepresented accidentally. (Not the catalog distributors error.)CBD did offer a refund, but I didn't want a refund. I kept it because I didn't have an alternative text.Bible translation is very crucial in our time.Psalm 147:15 says:"He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly."I pray the Word continues to run in this age.

will list the way a verse is translated in several versions, as if all the different versions bring out different nuances of the original and the sum total of the versions added together should equal the truth. I can't buy that concept. Hi hijode1dios,this is a really interesting comment which i've often wondered about would you expound more? Im all ears!