Why Are Our Bibles Different? Part 2: Let's Talk Translations

KJV, ESV, NIV, NLT, NASB, RSV, NRSV, the Message—What's the Difference?

If the people we serve are to be a people of the Book, they need to be a people who know the Book.

Of course, we must focus on helping them read it, study it, and live it, but we cannot neglect to help them understand how that book in their hands came to be in the first place. The first part of that is to help them understand the manuscripts used by translators to create English Bibles. We discussed that last week (if you missed it, check it out!).

This week, we're going to move to a difference between Bibles that your congregation will have noticed: translations. They won't have missed the three (or four) letters stamped on their Bibles—they may even already have strong opinions about which is the best. But awareness of the differences and understanding why they exist are different.

That's why we're going to discuss translation philosophy in this post. It's the key to understanding the differences.

Whether we like it or not, it’s impossible to translate the Bible without bias. As we have seen, bias begins with choosing the source text itself. But this bias is further revealed in the interpretative choices made by the translators.

We must remember that translating from one language into another is not an exact science. It’s not as if there is one and only one equivalent word or meaning between the source language and the target language. We can see this within the English language. Take bad for example.

Milk that is “bad” is not the same as a child who is being “bad.” For the former, we could substitute “spoiled,” but that same substitution would drastically change the meaning of the latter. And this doesn’t even account for times when saying a person is “bad” could mean the person is actually good, especially if it was said in the 1980s.[1] Then we have a “bad” decision, “my bad,” and other uses of this one English word. Can you imagine the difficulty some future translator 2000+ years from now with the record sleeve of Michael Jackson's hit album, "Bad"? Our translators face some of the same difficulties with ancient Hebrew and Greek.

Add to the ambiguity of individual words the differences in the texts themselves. Different grammatical rules—even to the level of sentence structure, as well as the total absence of capitalization, punctuation, and spaces between words in the originals.

It makes for a difficult task. And different translators tackle them in different ways.

The Translation Philosophy Continuum

You have no doubt seen charts that depict the translation philosophy continuum for modern English translations. They usually start with more “literal” or “word-for-word” translations called “Formal Equivalence” on the left to the more “figurative” or “thought-for-thought” translations called “Dynamic Equivalence” on the right. The imagination of these charts is to reveal how translation philosophies stack up against each other. Here are some examples: BibleGateway, Logos Community, and GodsWord.org.

But these charts might not be as helpful as we want them to be.

First, these charts usually lack scale and scientific methodology, which is why they vary quite often. How does one determine how “literal” or how “figurative” a translation is? And how far apart is the most “literal” and most “figurative” from one another? Are they so different, they aren’t even recognizable, or are they largely similar, with noticeable and understandable differences? Second, as we’ve seen, there is no single agreed-upon exact “literal” English translation of each word of the Scriptures to be a standard to define “literalness.”

Now, that’s not to say that the concept of “literalness” is completely devoid of meaning. A translation can indeed strive to be more “literal” in terms of preserving sentence structure and the most common meaning of words and phrases, even when they are part of an idiom. For example, the Hebrew word yada and the Greek word ginosko both mean “know,” but they are often used as an idiom for sexual intercourse. So while the CSB, NASB, NET, NIV, and NLT translate Genesis 4:1 as Adam being intimate or having sexual relations with Eve, the ESV, KJV, and NKJV translates this as him “knowing” her. What you might find interesting here is that the NASB is almost always placed among the most “literal” of translations. Here, however, it sides with a more “figurative” translation of yada. These translations made similar choices concerning ginosko in Matthew 1:25.

Neither does this mean that these charts should be outright rejected as useless. However, when they are consulted, it might be best to look not for a strict comparison between translations (e.g., is the NIV more or less literal than the NKJV?), but rather to look for the broader categories of translations (e.g., which ones tend to lean more literal versus figurative and which land somewhere in the middle?). And again, it’s important to remember that even these broader categories might be closer together than we think.

Major Choices for Translators

So, what other major decisions underly an English translation?

Reading Level

While this might not be a conscious decision for most translations (rather, the other decisions lead to the reading level being whatever it is), it is certainly one for children’s Bibles or translations that are intended to be used in cross-cultural applications. Here are the approximate reading levels for some well-known translations: 12^th (KJV), 11^th (NASB), 10^th (ESV), 7^th (CSB, NET, NIV, NKJV), 6^th (NLT), 3^rd (ICB, NIrV).

Style

The sixty-six books of the Bible include various genres and were written by over forty authors with varying styles. To translate the entire Bible uniformly would neglect so many important style differences, not just for reading enjoyment and beauty, but also for meaning. Translators, then, need to determine how to handle elements like Hebrew poetry, New Testament songs, and prophecy to preserve as much of the style as possible, while providing faithful English translations. Examples of this tension are found in the acrostic Psalms, plays on words, and parallelism. All of these can easily be lost when translating into English.

Gender

One of the more controversial translation philosophies concerns how to translate gender. For example, in 1 Corinthians 1:10, who is Paul urging in the name of Christ to end divisions and be united? The Greek word is adelphoi, which means “brothers.” Thus, the ESV, KJV, and NKJV translate it as “brothers” or “brethren.” However, the CSB, NASB, NET, NIV, and NLT opt for “brothers and sisters” (with the NASB putting “and sisters” in italics, indicating supplied text). The argument these translators would make is that adelphoi is commonly used in nonbiblical writings to mean “brothers and sisters.” The question is important: was Paul calling on only males or all believers to live in harmony?

While there are times when opting for a broader “brothers and sisters” or “men and women” translation for masculine words or phrases seems rather benign (e.g., Rev. 16:21), there are other times when gender seems to matter a great deal. For example, was Paul addressing fathers or parents in Ephesians 6:4 when he instructed them to raise their children in the Lord? Going further still, how are masculine divine pronouns to be handled?

The result is a spectrum of approaches. We could call one far end “Original Gender” translation. This is where the gender of the original language is preserved no matter what, as the ESV, KJV, and NKJV have done in 1 Corinthians 1:10. On the extreme opposite end of the spectrum would be what we can call “Neutral Gender” translation. This is where almost all gender is neutralized unless it is obviously referring to a known male or female. In the middle would be what can be called “Accurate Gender” translation. This is where each use is evaluated on its own to determine the best, most accurate translation. Hebrews 2:6 provides an example of this moderating approach.

While an Original Gender approach would retain “man” and “son of man” automatically, and a Neutral Gender approach would just as automatically change these to “people” or “humans” in both places, an Accurate Gender approach evaluates what is being said. Because “son of man” clearly points to Jesus, it should stay intact. However, “man” just as surely means humans. However, translating “man” as “people” or “humans” loses the writer’s intended connective thread to the “son of man,” thus some translators would opt to retain “man” in this instance.

Progressive Revelation

In Isaiah 7:14, “virgin” can be found in most English Bibles. However, not all. The NET, for example, translates the Hebrew term almah instead as “young woman.” Why? Is the NET denying Jesus’ virgin birth, which this verse is prophesying based on Matthew 1:23’s reference to it? Almah takes us all the way back to the range of meanings words can carry. It can indeed mean a “virgin,” but the word’s most basic use is a young female.

The question for translators then, is should they consider progressive revelation when translating or not? In other words, because Matthew clearly saw “virgin” in mind in Isaiah 7:14, does that mean it is best to translate it there as “virgin” to strengthen this connection? Or is it best to translate a verse based on what the original writer likely meant and what the original audience would have understood? In Isaiah 7:14, an argument can be made that Isaiah had a young woman in his day in mind, and that’s what the audience would have understood too.

They would have seen Isaiah’s immediate prophecy as being about a young woman, who was a virgin at the time of the prophecy, becoming naturally pregnant and giving birth soon after. To translate Isaiah 7:14 as “young woman” is not to deny the virgin birth, then; rather it is to take a translation approach that does not allow later revelation to inform a text from earlier times.

Theology

While theology has a role to play in all translation decisions, there are times when it can become primary. For example, based on a translator’s theology, passages that deal with homosexuality may be broadened to sexual sins in general, or narrowed to a particular form of homosexuality. The same is true concerning other doctrinal positions, such as women in ministry and the continuation of the sign gifts.

Conclusion

The same God who inspired the original writings of Scripture has surely been involved in the preservation, transmission, and translation of it, guiding the process so that we have a reliable copy of His Word in the English language. As we’ve seen, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a handful of issues to be aware of. God’s inspiration of the original Scriptures was perfect; unfortunately, translating the Bible into English isn’t. That’s not to say that we are wrong to put our unwavering trust in God’s Word as translated into English. We can and should, but with the recognition of the extremely small percentage of issues, none of which affect our understanding of truth and the gospel.

Indeed, because of God’s kindness, we are blessed with an embarrassing abundance of quality and trustworthy English Bible translations at our fingertips. While there are certainly some lesser-known translations that we would do well to warn people away from, in general one of the best ways we can serve others is by celebrating all faithful translations and encouraging them to read multiple translations. There’s nothing wrong with having a recommended translation, but the adage holds true: The best Bible a person can have is the one he or she reads.

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