Translations I Especially Appreciate
The key to understanding the Scriptures, in my view, does not reside in trusting any particular translation. Neither is it our academic knowledge of the ancient languages. Nor is it the theological expositions or systematic theologies we have studied. The answer is found hearing the Holy Spirit speak to our hearts confirming God’s truth. Jesus, in a prayer to His father said:
“I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes.” Matthew 11:25
Note that he is relating to God’s judgment in this context. The religious leaders and experts in the Scriptures (the wise and prudent) of Christ’s day were blinded to the true nature and purposes of God. They “crucified the Lord of glory!”
To really understand the Scriptures, we must first know the character of God. That is our key. If our concept of God is one of a harsh and cruel being who torments most of His creatures forever in hell, we will interpret all of Scripture from that frame of reference. It will be the same if we believe in a God of limitless love and mercy.
“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness…” Matthew 6:22-23
If our view (eye) about God’s character and nature are correct, then our whole being will be full of light as we read the Scriptures, for we will interpret them through the correct lens. We will have the key that unlocks the meaning of the Scriptures to our hearts and minds. I can say one thing with certainty: never in my entire Christian life have I experienced such a depth and consistency of peace and joy as I have in my present understanding of God.
So, having established that the key interpretive factor is the knowledge of God’s true character, it is also essential that we compare many translations to get a clearer view of what the Biblical writers actually said. This is especially critical since most popular translations were created by scholars holding an extremely negative and horrific concept of God – a God who tortures His creatures forever in hell. Believing in a false concept of God naturally results in gross interpretative errors. In light of this, here are a few translations that I especially appreciate and which I compare with many others I use. Remember, no translation is perfect!
“New King James Version”
This is my main translation which I read and memorize. I do so because it is a popular and well respected translation, and because of the KJV fame. But even more important, because of the references to the footnotes which discloses the variants in the original ancient manuscripts, which for me is very important to know. I find those Greek textual variants very significant at times. For example, there I discovered that 1 Corinthians 15:55 is very different from the NIV which is in line with the NU-Greek Text (Nestle – Aland Greek N.T. (N) and United Bible Societies (U), hence acronym “NU-text.”) Paul says, “O Hades (same word used in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus – Luke 16:23), where is your victory?” So then, if the Textus Receptus (Received Text) which the KJV and the NKJV is based on is the more reliable Greek text (as some believe), then the one time Paul used the word Hades (Hell?), He used it to proclaim God’s victory over it! And regardless, Jesus exhorts us saying, “Do not be afraid, I… have the keys of Hades and of death. (Rev 1:17-18).” So the parable of Luke 16: 19-31,so often quoted in defense of a “hopeless” hell, is not hopeless at all!
“Young’s Literal Translation” by Robert Young, author of the popular concordance named after him.
This is a good literal (word for word) translation. I refer to it frequently. A word for word translation has a positive side and a negative side. It will also leave out the richer meaning of the original words that a word for word rendition cannot provide. This is why I compare at least 20 translations whenever a particular passage prompts a closer look. You can access it at BibleGateway.com or Amazon
“Concordant Literal New Testament”
This is a unique translation in that each Greek word is matched to one specific English word with a few exceptions. This can help us more easily discern for ourselves, through usage, what the Biblical writers meant. Some people have criticized this approach because they do not understand it. When you get it, I recommend you learn the abbreviations and symbols explained in the front. Like I said above concerning YLT, a literal word for word translation has limitations. I refer you to the comment below by Rev. Nathaniel J. Merritt Met.D. Available on Amazon and at this site:The Concordant Literal New Testament
Rotherham Emphasized Bible (1902)
This is an older translation and not as easy to read as most more modern versions. But the value of a Bible translation, to me, should be measured by its faithfulness to the original texts and not to the interpretation of its meaning. You can find it on Amazon where I see it has very good reviews. I only recently have started using it. I will use it as a reference.
Of this translation, John R. Kohlenberger III writes, “The Emphasized Bible is one of the most innovative and thoroughly researched translations ever done by a single individual. Its presentation of emphases and grammatical features of the original language still reward careful study.” Kohlenberger is the author or co-editor of more than three dozen biblical reference books and study Bibles. He has taught at Multnomah Bible College and Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon.
One website I found explains in detail why they feel this is the best translation for accuracy. Please judge the value of these comments for yourself. I did find them interesting though, and so I share them here. For more information, read the Amazon reviews and see this site (which offers a free download): www.teleiosministries.com
“A strictly literal rendering may not be so pleasant to the ear as one where the apparent sense is chiefly aimed at, yet it is not euphony but truth that ought to be sought. There are tens of thousands departures from the original text in the current versions. There are about two thousand instances in the New Testament where the definite article (the) is omitted. Verbal inspiration can be the least practical use to those who depend upon those versions” (Young’s preface). The Rotherham Emphasized Bible is the World’s best English translation of the Hebrew and Greek text that we have seen to date. This translation’s shortcoming is in capitalizing the word spirit [ruah (pneuma)].–Teleo Ministries
An Amazon review I appreciated was from Brian Albert. He writes, “This is really a fabulous work. Reading Rotherham’s Bible translation is about as close as you can get to reading the scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek, without having to actually learn those languages. For one thing, those languages have devices built into the grammar that place degress of emphasis on certain words and phrases. This gets lost in an English translation. Rotherham uses accent marks, brackets, double brackets, etc. to restore the emphasis. Now you can read in English and see what words and phrases were emphasized by the inspired writers. Rotherham also preserves the sentence structure of the original Hebrew and Greek. This makes the English sentences a little awkward, but I would say that it is still highly readable. Most importantly, Rotherham translates words consistently throughout. Most Bibles often translate the same Greek word into several different English words. Often this is done to preserve a certain doctrine. For instance, it can easily be shown that the Greek word “aion” means an age, a long but limited amount of time. Most Bibles render this word as eternity, but in places where the context doesn’t support such a rendering, a different English word is used, such as world, age, or course. Rotherham consistently renders aion as age and its adjective form aionios as age-abiding, not eternal. In Matt 25:46 Rotherham’s version says the unrighteous go off to “age-abiding correction” and not to “eternal punishment” as other Bibles say.”
Again, as I said above regarding YLT comment, a word for word translation has its imitations. If you are experienced with this translation, please email me to share your comments about it.
“Weymouth Translation” New Testament
The Weymouth New Testament (“WNT”), also known as The New Testament in Modern Speech or The Modern Speech New Testament, is a translation into “modern” English as used in the nineteenth century from the text of The Resultant Greek Testament by Richard Francis Weymouth. Weymouth’s popular translation of the New Testament into English was first published in 1903 and has been in print through numerous editions ever since with millions of copies sold. Weyland’s aim was to discover how the inspired writers of the New Testament would have expressed and described the events of the New Testament and Gospels had they been actually writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Weymouth succeeded in rendering it into a dignified modern English edition; the absence of ecclesiastical and doctrinal bias make it accessible to Christian readers of all denominations.
The Weymouth New Testament is in the public domain
You can read it free online at Bible Study Tools dot com. However, be aware that the intro material is from the NIV Study Bible and not part of this translation. Note also, this is not a literal translation. But that is not a bad thing, because we need to compare both approaches to translation. The Introductory Explanation in this Translation explains clearly why this is so. You can access that on Amazon if you click the “LOOK INSIDE” feature. Here’s the link: LOOK INSIDE
http://www.biblestudytools.com/wnt/
“The Apostolic Bible Polyglot” by Charles Van der Pool
The Greek Old Testament, commonly referred to as the Septuagint was translated from the Hebrew Scriptures approximately 250 years before Christ. For hundreds of years after Christ, during the formation of the apostolic age, the Greek Scriptures were consistently read and quoted by the Church Fathers.
When the apostles wrote the Scriptures to various churches and people, the common written form was Greek, and most of the Jews of the Diaspora understood Greek, and lived in areas where Greek was spoken. It was common for the writers of the New Testament when need arose to quote the Old Testament, to quote the Greek Scriptures rather than the Hebrew Scriptures. See this link for another interesting report about the Septuagint:
http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/Septuagint.html
This wonderful resource is the first numerically coded Greek Old Testament. It allows the student of the Word to study both Testaments in the same language, and to follow the association of a word from either the New Testament or the Old Testament or vice versa. For example, if you want to better understand the meaning of a New Testament Greek word, you can now reference the Old Testament as well. This provides you additional passages to help you assess its meaning.
This reference includes a 13 page Introduction, a 1232 page numerically coded interlinear Greek-English Old Testament (LXX), a numerically coded 372 page interlinear Greek-English New Testament, an 88 page numerically coded English-Greek Index, and a 366 page numerically coded Lexical Concordance…totaling 2112 pages. It uses a numerical coding system called the “AB-Strong Numbering System.”
I was privileged to speak with the editor of this awesome reference (Charles Van der Pool) and discovered that he devoted 25 years of His life on it. I asked about the Greek words “aion” and “aionios.” And though he holds the traditional view, He did say that in a future edition he may transliterate these words as “aion” and “aionios” due to the controversy surrounding them.
It may be purchased in hard copy from Amazon or downloaded free from the publishers at: http://septuagint-interlinear-greek-bible.com/
“Jonathan Mitchell New Testament” by Jonathan Mitchell
What I like about this reference is that Jonathan Mitchell believes in a God of limitless love and mercy, unlike most popular translations. Another wonderful feature is that this translator presents to us the various interpretive options he encountered in the text. The principle that governed him was trust in the Holy Spirit to guide his readers to discover what interpretation was best in each case. That is awesome! Thank you, Jonathan Mitchell, for not trying to be the Holy Spirit for us. Available on Amazon or at: http://jonathanmitchellnewtestament.com/
Finally…I pray you will find some of these translations helpful as you seek to understand the Scriptures more accurately. But remember…
In Luke 24, after Jesus rose from the grave, He expounded the Scriptures to two of His disciples and vanished. Then they said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us?” (verse 32). Luke says again in verse 45, “He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” We cannot understand the Scriptures unless Christ opens our hearts to them. And when He does, something burns within us! That’s because God’s message is the GOOD NEWS of PEACE (Acts 10:36 NIV).
Please get this:
When Christ opens our minds to the Scriptures, especially God’s precious promises, our hearts should burn within us (v 32). His gracious words fill our hearts with peace, even “joy inexpressible and full of glory” as Peter says (1Peter 1:8). If the message we are hearing from the Scriptures is not producing joy with a burning effect in us, filling our hearts with peace, I do not believe we are hearing from God. Even in His warnings, peace remains, because we know His unfailing and enduring Father heart for each one of us.
Bible reading without hearing from Christ is lifeless. It is about communion with Him, not of duty, but desire. It is our desire for Him that causes our hearts to burn when we hear His gracious words. They “marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth” (Lu 4:22). When is the last time you “marveled” at His wonderful words and your heart burned within you?
When our hearts burn within us we know that God has talked with us.
Gerry Beauchemin
Author of “Hope Beyond Hell” See hopebeyondhell.org for a free book download
