Sermon Notes For Sunday February 26,. 2012

Some Discussion of Copies and Translations

Does It Matter Which Bible Translation You Use?

February 26, 2012  Adult Bible Study, Rivers of Joy Baptist Church, Minford, Ohio

Charles e. Whisnant, Internet Researcher, Google Image and Google Engine Enthusiast,

1A       GOD EXPECTS US TO TRANSLATE SCRIPTURE INTO ALL LANGUAGES

God specifically endorsed copies of the Scriptures Deuteronomy 17:18-19:

·       18 And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:
19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:

A copy, unlike the inscripturated original, can contain errors.  This is because God never said that ”immediate inspiration” by the Spirit (if you didn’t read the last post for definitions, stop now and go read it!) applied to anything except the original writing of the Scriptures.  II Peter 1:21 tells us that the Holy Spirit moved holy men to write the Scriptures.  It says nothing about copies.  We’ll look later at the fact that God preserves His Word, so the fact that some copyists made mistakes isn’t a problem

2A      DOES IT MATTER WHICH BIBLE TRANSLATION YOU USE?

3A      DO MODERN BIBLE TRANSLATIONS REPRESENT ORIGINAL TEXT?

3A      Translations are like theologies: Human attempts to express the Divine Word.

4A      CHOOSING A BIBLE TRANSLATION:

5A      DEFINITIONS:

TRANSLATIONS: “A word, phrase, or text in another language that has a meaning equivalent to that of the original.

FORMAL EQUIVALENCE:  “Word for word” As much as possible. Words, figures of speech, and even the sentence structure of the original language.

DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE: “Emphasis on reproducing the functional meaning of the ancient words with freedom to rearrange the order of the words (syntax) in the target language. Thought for thought.  Thought-for-thought. Sometimes passages become more interpretation than translations.

PARAPHRASE: “Emphasis is on expressing the meaning in contemporary language, with numerous additional words.  It’s not a translations.

THOUGHT-FOR-THOUGHT: Attempts to convey the original author’s intended meaning without interpreting the text beyond what is necessary.

WORD-FOR-WORD: The translators do their best to find English equivalent for a given word in the original language. The method produces the least interpreted text. There is going to be some need to interpretation.

VERBAL EQUIVALENCE: “Emphasis is on reproducing the modern English equivalent of the ancient words, with tendency to use same word order as the ancient language.

HYBRID VERBAL: “Equivalence with dynamic balance and common language.

MASORETIC: “The most widely used Hebrew text of the Old Testament”

TEXTUS RECEPTUS: “Received Text” 1550 edition of the Greek NT used by most translators before 1900.

TRANSLATION ORIENTATIONS:  The direction in which a translation thoughts, interest or tendencies are.

6A      CHARTS:

 

 

  7A      WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO USE DIFFERENT TRANSLATIONS? HOW WOULD IT HELP IN BIBLE STUDY?

8A      WHICH BIBLE VERSION IS SUPERIOR? How do you determine a good Bible to read ?  Let’s take a look at how translations are done.

I heard a sermon in which the speaker criticized certain “meaning-based” Bible versions and promoted “literal” translations as “more the word of God.”