With so many Bible translations out in the world, what do we do? Are some Bible translation superior to others? Well, I hope to have an answer for you on this…
A couple of years ago I wrote a post, Knowledge, Who needs it?, which focused on the importance of knowledge to us as believers. And on my Biblical Foundation blog I focused on a series on Bible Study consisting of 4 posts (Foundation, Method 1, Method 2 and Digging Deeper)…
But why focus on the Bible translations now?
To be honest, this has been on my heart for a while now… I just have not had the opportunity to write about it… However today I saw another post regarding The Passion Translation of the Bible… This got me thinking that I need to write about this…
Before I start, I have to put out this disclaimer… I am not well taught on all translations, so everything in this post is regarding my experience on this… I use both Afrikaans and English Bibles, so I will be focusing on them primarily. And I have learnt that I could use the Strong for some extra knowledge regarding what the original languages meant…
Here are the questions I had regarding Bible translations…
- Are there superior translations of the Bible?
- Which translations work best?
- Should I use multiple translations in my effort be understand the verses?
- Are some translations misleading?
- Where do I start when deciding on a translation?
- Are there contradictions in the Bible?
This list can go on forever, but let me focus on these for a moment… And if you have any questions, do send me a message or leave a comment. I will try to answer them, if within my capabilities…
Now let us begin with the search… Note that above question are not in same order as below…
Are some translations misleading?
So to answer this, I will need to share a little about a specific translation. It started to make it way around… So the writer of this translation came to speak to a group in a specific ministry…
The reason I know of this was that I lived in the house with the ministry group. Thus I knew all the members in this ministry group…
What happened was that the writer did not believe that hell actually exists. Thus, he removed all references of it in the translation he did… The implication of this became that everyone goes to heaven. Regardless of how much we sin, if we follow Christ or not, get baptized or not… Everything would become permissible…
Now do not get me wrong… I am not saying that that translation may not hold any truth. However, basing our lives on it, may be an issue that we start following “our own version of God”, whom may not be the true God of the Bible…
Are there superior translations of the Bible?
Why this question?
Some people always used to tell me that the 1933 translation of the Afrikaans Bible had certain writing in it. That was different from the more “politically” correct newer versions of the Afrikaans Bible 1953/1983 translations, we know today… This was one of the reasons behind this question… To clarify why I say “politically” correct on the newer versions. The people believe some wordings were changed by “political” influence to give a different message…
A couple of years ago, around the time of my #KnysnaFires post, a friend of mine gave me a couple of boxes of Bibles. I had to distribute them among the people who needed Bibles, but did not have… I went through to remove any translation that may confuse people, as well as every Bible, not according to the “normal” Bible we know today as believers. In the midst I found a couple of older translations. One being a Afrikaans Bible printed in 1935, which made me excited. As there is no way this could be a rip-off of the 1933 translation… I also found a Catholic Bible, a few Message translations (Afrikaans and English), a lot of other Afrikaans Bible, and a few English Bibles…
So I removed the 1935 Afrikaans, Catholic Bible and Message translations from the batch for my personal use. And partially curiosity on my side…
My opinion on this…
I do not believe that there are superior Bible translations when it come to this. However, there may be some that may be badly translated… Hence what the next question is about…
The only superior translations are the original Greek and Hebrew, as they are the original translations…
Looking at the Greek and Hebrew, there are multiple meanings to a word. And some of this is also based in the roots of the culture itself… Hence the Hebrew Roots started to come up a lot as well… In the Hebrew, for example, some words had more powerful meanings based on what the Hebrews belief system was… Will look at in one of the questions ahead…
Should I use multiple translations to understand the Bible?
When you look at my one post on Bible study mentioned above, Digging Deeper, I mentioned already in “Scenario 1 – Bridging the problem”, that it helps to get different translations… But why?
Here is 1 Timothy 5:22 on BibleHub. I will use some of the translations from here to show what I mean…
Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. (NIV)
Lay hands on no one hastily, nor share inthe sins of others; keep yourself pure. (Berean Literal Bible)
Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure. (KJV)
Don’t be too quick to appoint anyone as an elder, and don’t share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.(HCSB)
Do not ordain anyone hastily, nor participate in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. (New Heart English Bible)
Do not hurry to lay hands on anyone [ordaining and approving someone for ministry or an office in the church, or in reinstating expelled offenders], and thereby share in the sins of others; keep yourself free from sin. (AMP)
Don’t be hasty to ordain them with the laying on of hands, or you may end up sharing in their guilt should they fall. Keep yourself pure and holy with your standards high (TPT)
My thoughts on above verse:
So I have used this in my Laying on of hands post, and this is why I chose it here as well… If we look at the translations above, we see that it does not seem to say exactly the same thing… Some read “Lay hands suddenly on no man…“, where others say “Do not ordain anyone hastily…“.
This is exactly the reason one uses multiple translations of the Bible… I have found that in some translations I really struggle to understand some verses. If I use a different translation, I find clarity by comparing the translations… Looking at the Strong’s for a specific word’s translation helps. As we can build around what we have read in a verse… This sometimes breaks open the meaning of a specific verse, more than multiple translations…
Where do I start when I deciding on a translation?
Now, here is where this becomes interesting… For a long time I read the Holman Christian Standard Bible… Why?
Well, I have found it to be an easy-to-read translation, and the one I had was basically pocket size… Due to readability being easy, I was able to understand most of it off the bat… This does not disregard the previous question….
So where do we start when deciding on a translation?
If this is your first Bible ever, I would suggest looking for one in a language you are comfortable with. If it is an easy-to-read translation, it makes a big difference as well… In my opinion I would say that if you do not like your translation to begin with, you will probably not read it in most cases… There are many cross reference tools online (BibleHub, BibleGateway, etc). Then there is also some apps that can help too (Youversion Bible App is a good one). Also there is E-Sword(free on windows for the most part)… On E-Sword you can access the Strong’s dictionary, and on BibleHub there is a Lexicon which is also looking at the original languages…
If you consider a second Bible, I would suggest looking at an Amplified, as they have extra definitions included in it. The other option is a second language, since the languages may say the same thing in a way that is a little different, but breaks open the scripture for you…
There are also Bibles, like the one I got, which was a with the original language and Afrikaans/English… One example is The Interlinear Bible – Hebrew,Greek,English. This gives direct translation from Greek and/or Hebrew, as well as a KJV in this case.
As someone who tries to get Bibles to people who need it in my area, I am of opinion that I get at least get a Bible to everyone… If they later need a different translation, then we can make a plan, or they can buy one…
Which translations work best (for me)?
This is my own opinion, and some may differ here, based on preference… I am not able to tell you that you must read specific translations, as I am not going to try and discredit any of the translations… This decision is solely in your hands… Let God lead you in the translations to read…
I have many Bibles I read from… And also in 2 main languages…
English:
My favourite is the King James Version, and also, the easier to read, New King James Version. I also have the Holman Christian Standard Bible. These are my 3 main choices when reading the Bible… I use the Amplified Bible, Passion Translation and New International version…
Some I would also like to get is the Hebrew Roots Bible as an extra cross reference to the scripture… There may be others I did not mention that I also like… You will also see I use various translation in my blog posts that are not mentioned here…
I also compare scriptures to Catholic Bible I have at home, as I am fairly curious to what is written and may be differently translated…
Afrikaans:
As mentioned earlier, I have the 1933 translation of the Bible… This is the one I am most excited about these days…
Another translation, which I have on my phone, is the “Die Pad van Waarheid tot die Lewe (PWL)”(translated: The Path of Truth to Life). This is an Afrikaans translation that was translated from original Greek and Hebrew.
I also read the 1933/1953 translation, and the “Nuwe Lewende Vertaling” (translated: New Living Translation)…
Conclusion:
I love doing research in the scriptures as it brings clarity… When struggling with specific verse I go dig… More translation, Greek & Hebrew, Languages… I hope to find the answers… And this is why I enjoy different translation of the Bible…
Are there contradictions in the Bible?
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV)
I believe that everything in the Bible is inspired, due to lack of a better word, by God…
If the Bible was a way of convincing us to follow Christ, we would have seen only the good in the Bible, almost like advertising material… But we see people who lied to the Holy Spirit and died instantly…
It may seem like there are contradictions… I thought I found some of them, but upon further study I realized that all of this was easy to explain…
The main issue I had was context…
We go and read a verse in one book and a verse in another, and we see a contradiction, but none of the books in the Bible w created to read random (out of context) verses…
Paul didn’t write books… He wrote letters… When we read it, we need to read it like letters, and not like a bundle of poetry, which is the Psalms, or even random collection of statements (each verse being a statement…). Each verse carries tremendous power, but when we do not understand it, we can not use it… Many times the power is hidden in the context of the scripture… We need God to reveal to us what the truth is…
The other thing that concerns people lately is the Bibles with missing verses… This is one other reason to use multiple translations… Firstly I cannot say why the verses have been removed… But if we look at the chapters as a whole (no verse numbers), no one would have ever figured out that there is missing verses…
I really hope that this post help you in your discovery to find answers…
Remember:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV)
God bless, I believe that the Bible will guide our ways, IF WE ALLOW IT TO… (With the guidance and revelation of the Holy Spirit)
I do not show the translation names I have a issue with or any ministries for a reason… I am not planning to cause bias in any way towards any translation of the Bible. Nor do I want to show favoritism towards any ministry or church… I gave my opinion on this only, not any law… Please use this as a tool to help you grow further…