Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post from Keith Williams, general editor of the Holy Bible: Mosaic. Keith has agreed to write this post for me as a stop on the Holy Bible: Mosaic Blog Tour. I have enjoyed getting to know Keith better through emails, twitter, and even meeting him for coffee as he and his wife were travelling through Louisville. Keith was willing to step up and write this post with limited time after an unfortunate timing conflict kept our original guest author from writing (a conflict beyond his control). Truly, Keith is a man dedicated to his work.

Holy Bible: Mosaiccelebrates the diversity of the church in many ways. The collection of art, writings, prayers, and quotes from around the world and throughout the centuries in the Mosaic material highlights this diversity quite noticeably. A lot has been made of the diversity of the content, and it truly is a great feature of Mosaic, but I think the unity of the church amidst this diversity is the more important point.

One of the reasons we chose the title Mosaic for this Bible was to point to this truth. All of us, those who have been incorporated into Christ Jesus, are pieces of a larger whole: the body of Christ (Gal. 3:26-29). This body, like a mosaic, is made up of individual pieces that are each distinct, yet they come together to make a whole that is far more beautiful than any single piece, or even an group of pieces, would be on its own. Some of the pieces are beautiful on their own. And some are rather unremarkable. But as a whole, every piece is elevated by pointing to the central unifying reality: Jesus Christ.

Some of the pieces that are brought together in Mosaic are quite different. I know Mark Driscoll (p. m184) is very different from Doug Pagitt (p. m22). And both of them are very different from Anna Pak Agi (p. m139) and Augustine of Hippo (throughout). Amidst all of their differences, one thing unites them all: Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who motivates these men and women from all over the globe and throughout history to write and speak and create art that proclaims his glory. What an awesome Lord we serve, that he has brought together a body made up of all these different pieces.

This emphasis on unity does not negate the fact that there are real differences between the way some of these people express their faith in Christ from others. Those differences should not simply be smoothed over and ignored; rather, they should be explored. Not everything we find will be agreeable to us, but many (I daresay most) of them will expand and enrich our faith rather than mislead us. God is far too big to be contained by any one person or group or culture of people that serve him. The most important thing we can do is to listen to one another and discover what God might be teaching us through the people he has called to himself from places and times distant from ourselves. Perhaps through them, we can get a better sense of what God is calling us to do in our culture, in our time, in our community.

Holy Bible: Mosaic only gives a glimpse into the mosaic of voices that God has provided us with through his people around the world and throughout history, but I hope that this glimpse will encourage believers to be mindful of the diversity within our unified body of Christ, and to celebrate both the differences and the oneness that we share.

Yesterday, I responded to Tim Challies’ review of Leland Ryken’s book defending the “essentially literal” translation methods, and the idea of a “word-for-word” translation. While no one made these comments, I want to make it clear that this isn’t simply a theoretical discussion for me, but that there are pastoral concerns as well:

Brothers and sisters, trust your translations!

Challies says, reflecting (I assume) the shared thoughts of Ryken, that “in the end I hope, I trust, you will have greater confidence in the Bible you read.”

However, when they say it, they mean “those of you who are using (so-called) word-for-word translations should have confidence.”

Here’s my concern: people are throwing out the work of experts for the opinions of hobbyists (at best). What about those who simply cannot read their (Ryken et al.) preferred translations? Let’s face it, the NASB’s grammar is anything but English—with fractured sentences that can actually obscure the point of a passage for anyone not familiar with the original languages—and the ESV is academic at best and archaic at worst. If Seminary professors struggle over their wording sometimes, what chance do those who have reading difficulties have?

So what should we do? If you ask some people, their response seems to be throw out that easy-to-read translation and go with something unnecessarily hard. Sure, the KJV and the ESV might be excellent literary translations, but not everyone is a literary enthusiast. The vast majority of people couldn’t care less about how much meter and rhyme they have.

They want the word of God, and they want it in language they can understand.

Now, at this point, someone will bring up 2 Peter 3:15—even Peter thought Scripture was hard to understand!

True. Not the same point. The argument is not that Paul’s Greek was so literary that it made it hard to understand, but that his concepts were difficult to understand. If the concepts are hard—and they are!—then why should we make it harder for people to wrestle with them?

Translation teams are made up of people who have trained in the technicalities of translation and linguistics. They are also primarily comprised of confessing Christians who hold Scripture very highly.¹ For example, would critics who claim that NLT translators are changing the word of God want to bring that charge up face to face with Tom Schriener? Alan Ross? Paul House? Eugene Merrill? Raymond Ortlund, Jr.? Craig Blomberg? Robert Stein? D.A. Carson? Doug Moo? Moises Silva? That was just a sampling of the conservative scholars who worked on the NLT who all affirm the doctrine of inerrancy. They are hardly the liberals that Ryken and others have charged with tampering with the Word of God.

Are they perfect? Of course not. No translation is. That’s why we should employ several types from across the spectrum of translation method.
Brothers and Sisters, we can trust these experts with not wanting to tamper with the word of God. We may disagree with some of their decisions, but we cannot demonize them, spreading false information to win a theological battle.

Christianity has a weird affinity for not wanting to trust the experts. We trust them in everything else—from the engineers who put our cars together to the pharmacists who mix our medicines. Why such a priori doubt about the qualifications of the experts behind our translations?

Brothers and sisters, trust your translations!

(Note: The following does not use words in their technical linguistic sense. If you see anything that is used in a way other than their technical sense, feel free to let me know and I’ll make the necessary substitution.)

Let me start out that I enjoy reading the so-called “essentially literal” translations, though the title itself is a misnomer. I think that every translation type has it’s place and use. I probably own more ESVs than any other translation with the KJV and NLT coming up close behind. I am not anti-ESV. I am, however, anti- the new notion of KJV- ESV-onlyism “literalism” that has crept onto the scene.

I also admire the desire and presuppositions that most of these advocates hold. I held them myself. I still hold them, just with more nuance having dealt with translation issues, and even just the bare basic (and I do mean BASIC) understanding of linguistics, primarily remedial ideas of how words and meanings collide. Their desire is to have access to God’s very Word (inscripturate) in the english language. As someone who has benefited from having the Scriptures in english (most notably eternally benefited), I have this same desire. Their presupposition is that there is a very specific way that we get to have God’s very Word in English—1 to 1 correspondence between the original language and the receptor language. This is where we differ.

In his recent review of Leland Ryken’s new book, Tim Challies shows his lack of knowledge in how translation works. He says:

“[Ryken] wants Christians to have before them a Bible that accurately conveys the words that God has spoken—not a paraphrase of those words, not an interpretation of them, but simply a translation that, as much as possible, takes the exact words of the original and carries them over to English. One would think that this would not be difficult to come by, but the modern history of English Bible translation shows few versions that adhere to this philosophy.”

Italics and bold text are mine. Listen to what Challies is saying—it shouldn’t be difficult? It is, in fact, impossible. No translation can live up to these standards. That just simply isn’t how words, and therefore translation, works.

Words live their lives inbetween modernism and postmodernism it seems. For example, you can’t say that a word means (A). Just given a simple word, it is, in a sense, meaningless without a referent. However, we can’t go full out deconstructionism and say that a word means whatever we want either. While a word has no one definition (A), it has a range of possible meanings (A) to n. As an example, take the english word “board.” What does it mean? A plank of wood? A group of people who supervise something? The side of a ship? A circuit board? What if I said I served on a board of directors? Or that a I stepped on the nail that was sticking out of a board? Here, we know what each use of the word “board” refers too, because we have a given context for each word. But notice that this is true of every word in the sentence; they each have a range of meaning that we derive from the context of the other words with their own ranges of meaning.

The situation is complicated enough already. Now, throw in the whole aspect of translation, which includes all of the above for each word in the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic originals, then determining which english words best convey the sense of the context of the original with the same shared referents in meanings. Then, we must factor in the organic nature of languages. The English language is always changing.

Challies shows his lack of understanding of how translation works in two ways. First, when he says “takes the exact words of the original and carries them over to English” he shows that he is ignorant of the fact that this is impossible. We cannot take the “exact words of the original” because that would simply leave us with the originals themselves. Greek cannot be “carried over into English,” because it is not English. Translation is necessarily much more than “carrying over.” As Mike Aubrey has said aner means aner. Aner doesn’t mean “man,” they just happen to have the same referent. A perfect example is the Hebrew word hesed. We have no English word that conveys the concept of hesed, which is why we have some translations that say loving-kindness, or longsuffering, or steadfast love, or covenant loyalty. We just don’t have an exact word for this, or many other words. Another example is shalom. Quite frankly, our word “peace” doesn’t cut it.

Second, he shows his misunderstanding when he says, “one would think that this would not be difficult to come by,” but that was the gist of what I mentioned previously, after the quote, so I’ll just refer back to it.

The problem is that many of the advocates of a so-called “essentially literal” translation have the same set of presuppositions. Tim is obviously not the only one making these arguments. In fact, I hear them pretty often. They don’t get it, but then again, neither did I not too long ago.

See Mike Aubrey’s review of Leland Ryken’s first book, The Word of God in English, and his other review on amazon with different content here.

The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate
John H. Walton
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: IVP Academic
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0830837043
ISBN-13: 978-0830837045
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
Buy Here: Amazon.com

Thanks to Adrianna Wright and IVP Press for sending me a copy to review!

Introduction

It’s funny how polar opposites can be entangled. Both the beginning and end of history are sources of debate and sensationalism. Both have as many theories, and conspiracies, as people who are willing to discuss them. When was the universe and the earth created? How was it created? Is evolution and theism compatible? What role does creationism or Intelligent Design have in teaching science? If you’ve had a pulse in the last century, you’ve certainly heard, or probably even discussed, any number of these questions and more. Just within the Christian camp, there are legions of views, it quickly becomes overwhelming hearing them all. The debate just seems to be the same points rehashed.

Into this haze comes John H. Walton’s new book, The Lost World of Genesis One. Walton presents a theological and contextual reading of Genesis 1 presented through 18 propositions (one per chapter) that explains Walton’s suggested reading of the text, how it effects our theology, and ultimately what it’s implications for modern science and school curriculum. The books is a fairly easy read, especially considering its content which drifts in and out of theology, metaphysics, science, and others. Just hearing that list may scare some readers from picking up this book, but Walton does a fine job of explaining unfamiliar terminology and ideas. Also, though chapters and books on this subject tend to be very convoluted, the chapters in this book are pretty short—long enough to present the proposition in full, but short enough that the reader does not lose focus. The Lost World stands firmly in the tradition that I’ve noticed lately of being both scholarly/academic and accessible at the same time. I hope to see this trend continue.
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[Author's Note: Apparently, when the server crashed at the beginning of June, one of the posts that went missing was my book review of James White's book "The King James Controversy." I have found where I added my review on amazon, and am putting it back here again.]
The King James Only Controversy
James R. White
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Bethany House; 2 Upd Exp edition (June 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0764206052
ISBN-13: 978-0764206054
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
Buy Here: Amazon.com

Thanks to Jim Hart and Bethany House Publishers for sending a copy of the book to review!

The “King James Controversy”–the debate on whether the KJV Bible is the only true Bible or not–is on that is very interesting to me for several reasons. First, I grew up in an area where many churches “favor” the KJV, and are functionally KJV Onlyists. Second, I am a bit of a translating geek if you haven’t been able to tell. I have been wanting to read James White’s book for awhile now, and was excited to receive the new second edition in the mail. I haven’t read the first edition, so unfortunately, I cannot compare the two, though it seems that a couple of sections were added, and James added the ESV to most of the translations lists throughout the text.

White has written an excellent book defending modern translations, such as the T/NIV, ESV, NLT, etc. His arguments are thorough, easy to understand, and devastating to the King James Only (henceforth KJVO) position. He shows, primarily, that the KJVO position is built on circular logic, and that if they were to apply their critiques of translations to the KJV itself, it would fail their tests horrible. Their logic is circular, because they set out to prove what they already assume to be true–the KJV is the only true Bible, therefore all other translations must be false because they disagree with the KJV. There are some major problems here, not the least of which is why should we accept the KJV as the standard? KJVOists can’t answer this, outside of “because it is.”
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I’ve finished translating 2 Corinthians 1, and it is available under the translation link above. I’m pretty happy with most of it, though I’m not so happy about verses 13-14. That being said, I want to see how you would translate it. The text is:

¹³οὐ γὰρ ἄλλα γράφομεν ὑμῖν ἀλλ᾿ ἢ ἃ ἀναγινώσκετε ἢ καὶ ἐπιγινώσκετε· ἐλπίζω δὲ ὅτι ἕως τέλους ἐπιγνώσεσθε, ¹⁴καθὼς καὶ ἐπέγνωτε ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ μέρους, ὅτι καύχημα ὑμῶν ἐσμεν καθάπερ καὶ ὑμεῖς ἡμῶν ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ κυρίου [ἡμῶν] Ἰησοῦ.

My translation is:

For we never write anything different to you, but only what you can read and understand. However, my hope is that you will completely understand, just as you have partly understood us, that you will boast of us just as we boast of you in the day of our Lord Jesus.

I’m just not completely satisfied with it (and really, I’m never completely satisfied with translation). What say you?

I apologize to my reader who don’t know Greek- I want your insight as well. You’re absolutely free to work from several english translations and make it your own.

The work of exegesis and translation is a community effort. Post your thoughts in the comments.

Just a bit of a site update today. This summer I have two translating goals that I’m working toward: Genesis 1-3 and finishing 2 Corinthians. Ultimately, if I don’t finish these goals, but have been translating all throughout the summer, I’m quite ok with that as my highest goal is to just be in the languages. I have updated the translation to include the first 8 verses of Genesis, as well as 2 Corinthians 1:1-7:

Check them out here: Translations.

Secondary works will be in getting the rest of Jonah and John’s epistles up.

A few blog posts have come up on my reader recently about translation, specifically the method of translation. The first link, from Accordance developer David Lang, is an excellent article on fighting “Strongnosticism.” By this he means the tendency to look up a word in a dictionary like Strong’s, find a english gloss, and insert it into the text in such a way that they find a “deeper meaning”- all while ignoring the many factors that should be taken into consideration. Some of these factors include context (ex: should logos be translated as “word” “message,” “logic,” or any of the other glosses found in its semantic range?), author’s usage (Does Paul use “worship” the same way it’s used by Matthew?), etc. His first response to this (he promises more to come) is simply “[r]ealize that Greek and Hebrew are merely languages, and think about how you use language every day.”
You can check out David’s post here: Contra “Strongnosticism”

The second link is for the better bibles blog, where Wayne Leman takes a recent ESV article that included a chart dividing translations up between whether they are “word-for-word” and whether they are based on the “best manuscripts.” Wayne’s point of contention, and mine, is over the idea of a translation being “word-for-word.” There are no translations, other than an interlinear Bible, that can be called word-for-word. Wayne uses John 3:16 as an example of why the translations in the chart cannot be considered word-for-word. Another example that I like to use is in 2 John 12, where John uses a phrase: στόμα πρὸς στόμα λαλῆσαι which literally means “mouth to mouth to speak.” No translation would render it in such a “word-for-word” fashion. Most would translate it idiomatically as “talk face to face” because the idea behind the idioms (mouth to mouth in Greek, face to face in English) match.
Wayne, who is a far better linguist and translator than I, speaks to the issue here: comparing the five leading versions.