Bill Mounce asks: What makes a Bible translation accurate?

Bill Mounce is one of the evangelical experts in koine Greek, the dialect of the New Testament. He is also one of the translators of the New International Version.

The other day he published this short article, which I found particularly useful. He shows that the work of translation is far more complex than translating word-for-word! To quote:

This morning I was driving to the gym and saw a construction truck in front of me with the sign, “Construction Vehicle. Do Not Follow.” Now, if a German friend who didn’t speak English were riding with me and wanted to know what the sign was, how should I translate it?

The problem, of course, is that the sign does not say what it means. How can you not follow the truck in front of you? Once the truck is on the road, does the road have to be vacated until it leaves the road? Of course we understand that it means, “Do not follow closely.” So what would be an accurate translation? If you said, “Folge nicht,” would that be an accurate translation for your friend? Or would you have to say, “Folge nicht genau”?

It’s kind of like a Stop sign. The last thing it means is stop. It means, stop, and when it is your turn go; otherwise, you would never leave the intersection.

I highly recommend Bill Mounce’s blog in general! You might also enjoy my post, “Which Bible Version is the Most Literal?”

 

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Published in: on June 28, 2018 at 11:33 am  Leave a Comment  
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Help get the Bible into all 7000 languages!


I have been a volunteer with Wycliffe Associates for three years, in their MAST program, and am very excited about their goal to see the Bible in all 7000 languages of the world. It is very rewarding to spend some of my “off time” helping people around the world to hear the Bible in their language for the first time.
Some volunteers are Greek and Hebrew language people. But many jobs do not require special preparation, just a desire to invest a few hours a week in getting the job done. You can contact Dennis through the WA website, or Message me and I’ll give you his email
Dennis writes:
“We are seeking volunteers with Bible background to help us create Scripture tools which will serve national Bible translators. If you were a pastor, went to seminary, or just have strong Bible knowledge, we need your help!
We are looking for people who have extensive experience in Bible study; have a heart for world missions and the edification of the global church; and are familiar with current biblical reference materials (including Study Bibles, commentaries, Greek and Hebrew texts, lexica and grammars depending on the project). At least a basic knowledge of either Greek or Hebrew would be very helpful. (but not required!)
This is a remote position, and as long as you have a computer and an internet connection, you may work from your own home. We are asking for about 8 hours of service per week for this role. If this is something that might interest you, please let me know and I will have someone contact you with more info. Thanks.
Dennis DeRight, WA Recruiter
Published in: on May 21, 2018 at 2:57 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Preachers: don’t believe everything you see!

Have you seen the memes that go like this?

A pastor friend just mentioned something that I had also wondered, that the figure 365 seemed really high! So I ran it through my Bible software, and within a few minutes found that the number indeed was way off.[1]

“Fear not” is a Kings-James-ism; the NET and the NASB versions each have it a few times, the other modern versions do not, including the New KJV; the earlier English versions do use it: Douay-Rheims, Coverdale Bible, Geneva Bible. So, checking the KJV, I would say that are exactly 70 examples of the phrase “fear not.” But only around 44 are in the sense of, “Fear not, because God is with you,” as said by God or some messenger. The other 26 examples are more mundane: “Fear not, your baby is almost born” (Gen 35:17) and other things.[2]

33 “fear nots” are from the Old Testament, 11 from the New Testament; Isaiah is the winner with eight instances; taken together, the Nativity stories of Matthew and Luke have four.

#1 is this well-known verse: “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” Gen 15:1

#44, the last, is Rev 1:17 – “And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last.”

Even if one expanded the search to include other versions of the phrase (“do not be afraid,” for example), one does not attain the magic number of 365.

That is to say, the Bible has 365 “Fear not” passages if and only if you own nine copies of the King James Bible.

Of course, if one wanted to say that there are hundreds of verses which, whether they use the specific phrase “fear not” or not, serve to allay our fears with God’s promises, they will get no argument from me! To begin with, Matt 6:34 – “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” My point here is not to be finicky with regard to the semantics, but rather that, (1) it’s too easy to pass along “facts” without checking them, and (2) that preachers especially, more than are the laity, are under an obligation to check the facts before repeating them.

PS – To mention another “fact”: I have lately seen “Prophecy Experts” claiming that unless the United States backs the permanent unification of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Palestinians, then they will fall under God’s final judgment. This is based on “… there will I deal with and execute judgment upon them for their treatment of My people and of My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and because they have divided My land” (Joel 3:2).[3] In my opinion this is a poor interpretation indeed of the Joel passage; but my point here, again, is that the preacher who hears this being passed around is under obligation to determine for him/herself whether this really means that Jerusalem must be the capital of the modern State of Israel and not (simultaneously) the capital of a Palestinian state.

NOTES:

[1] Here is one example among many: https://www.christianpost.com/news/rick-warren-why-god-encourages-christians-to-fear-not-365-times-in-the-bible-163029/

[2] Here is the list of 44: Genesis 15:1, 21:17, 26:24, 46:3, Exod 20:20, Deut 1:21, 20:3, 31:6, 31:8, Josh 8:1, 10:25, Judges 6:23, Ruth 3:11, 1 Sam 12:20, 22:23, 2 Kings 6:16, 1 Chron 28:20, 2 Chron 20:17, Psalm 78:53, Isaiah 7:4, 35:4, 41:13, 41:14, 43:1, 43:5, 44:2, 54:4, Jeremiah 46:27, Lamentations 3:57, Daniel 10:12, Daniel 10:19, Joel 2:21, Zech 8:13, Matthew 1:20, 28:5, Luke 1:13, 1:30, 2:10, 5:10, 8:50, 12:7, John 12:15, Acts 27:24, Revelation 1:17. The verse mentioned in the second meme, Joshua 1:9, has “fear not” only in the older Catholic Bible, the Douay-Rheims.

[3] Here is one of the more extreme versions of this idea, but in all honesty I have not found anyone who takes this viewpoint do anything better with these key Old Testament passages. David Jeremiah takes a similar view.

“Preachers: don’t believe everything you hear!” by Gary S. Shogren, Professor of New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on May 1, 2018 at 4:22 pm  Comments (2)  
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Romans Commentary, Romans 6:1-8:39

This commentary was prepared for Kairos Publications in Buenos Aires. It was composed specifically for the Latin American church. In some cases I have retained the words “Latin America,” at other times I have substituted “the Americas.” The bibliography reflects what is available to the Spanish-speaking church. We will publish it a section at a time, and eventually as an entire pdf file. The reader will notice that its purpose is to explain and apply this wonderful epistle to the church of today. Blessings! Gary Shogren

To download the first half of the commentary as a pdf, click here Shogren_Romans 1-8 Commentary

 

IV. The Miraculous New Life in Christ (6:1-8:39)

Ask citizens of the Majority World, “What is the main human dilemma?” and they might respond with legitimate concerns: economic inequality, or perhaps corruption, political oppression, lack of education, destruction of the environment. But according to Romans 1-5, our most basic and universal and intractable predicament is that we all, Jew or Gentile, are cut off from God through deliberate or even unconscious rebellion, meriting his anger. The only solution is forgiveness and reconciliation, freely offered through Christ. All other issues are secondary, all further discussion mere commentary. (more…)

Published in: on March 29, 2018 at 1:01 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Romans Commentary, Romans 3:21-5:21

This commentary was prepared for Kairos Publications in Buenos Aires. It was composed specifically for the Latin American church. In some cases I have retained the words “Latin America,” at other times I have substituted “the Americas.” The bibliography reflects what is available to the Spanish-speaking church. We will publish it a section at a time, and eventually as an entire pdf file. The reader will notice that its purpose is to explain and apply this wonderful epistle to the church of today. Blessings! Gary Shogren

To download the first half of the commentary as a pdf, click here: Shogren_Romans 1-8 Commentary

 

III. Salvation in the Gospel of Christ (3:21-5:21)

Paul has moved step by step to reach his goal, “that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God” (3:19b); he needed, as previously noted, approximately 68 verses to close everyone’s mouth. But now that he has arrived at the solution for the human dilemma, he needs fewer than 10 verses. This disparity reveals what was the mindset among the Roman Christians – no-one doubted that salvation was through Christ; some may have doubted that Christ was indispensable for Jews (in Spain? in Rome?) who were faithful to Torah. (more…)

Published in: on March 6, 2018 at 10:11 am  Leave a Comment  
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Romans Commentary, Romans 1:18-3:20

This commentary was prepared for Kairos Publications in Buenos Aires. It was composed specifically for the Latin American church. In some cases I have retained the words “Latin America,” at other times I have substituted “the Americas.” The bibliography reflects what is available to the Spanish-speaking church. We will publish it a section at a time, and eventually as an entire pdf file. The reader will notice that its purpose is to explain and apply this wonderful epistle to the church of today. Blessings! Gary Shogren

To download the first half of the commentary as a pdf, click here: Shogren_Romans 1-8 Commentary

 

II. The Coming Condemnation of All (1:18-3:20)

Paul’s goal is to prove that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23) and that even more fatally, any and all sin is eternally disastrous for Gentile or Jew.

Foremost of course he is addressing the Christians of Rome, whether they are Jewish or not. But on another level, Paul is talking as if he were addressing an imaginary synagogue audience (see our description of “apostrophe” under 2:1). In 1:18-32, he first speaks about Gentile wickedness, in a way that his hypothetical synagogue would have certainly appreciated. It is precisely what the young rabbi Sha’ul would have heard or preached before he encountered Christ. Then, beginning in 2:1, he speaks to that same imaginary audience of Jews about how their own sins are enough to bring down God’s wrath on their heads.

It is human nature that we feel most happy when someone judges the sins of “them” or “Those Others,” especially if we are left in peace with our own behaviors (more…)

Published in: on February 27, 2018 at 12:02 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Romans Commentary, Romans 1:1-17

This commentary was prepared for Kairos Publications in Buenos Aires. It was composed specifically for the Latin American church. In some cases I have retained the words “Latin America,” at other times I have substituted “the Americas.” The bibliography reflects what is available to the Spanish-speaking church. We will publish it a section at a time, and eventually as an entire pdf file. The reader will notice that its purpose is to explain and apply this wonderful epistle to the church of today. Blessings! Gary Shogren

To download the first half of the commentary as a pdf, click here Shogren_Romans 1-8 Commentary

It is the style of Paul in his letters that the introduction is a road map, to show where the apostle is going. A sermon is not like that! The pastor gives some announcements, he asks why the projector isn’t working, he has to change the batteries in his lapel mike, he tells a story, funny in its way, but having nothing to do with his message. And finally, he launches his sermon into the deep.

An epistle has another nature, or to use the technical term, it is in the epistolary genre. In this case, Paul indicates from the first word where he is going to take us. That is why, if we compare Romans 1 with 1 Corinthians 1 or Galatians 1, it will be evident to which epistle belongs which introduction, since they are not interchangeable parts.

Years ago, in a class dedicated to the Pauline letters, the professor told us: The introduction of an epistle is simply a way of saying Hello, there is no substance in it. So we can jump over the first two or four or six verses and move directly to the “body” of the letter. With all due respect to the teacher, this idea is indefensible, and in fact many scholars have written about the introductions to Paul’s epistles, showing that each one has its own agenda and also tone, and that they merit our full attention.

In 1:1-17, Paul drops several clues to show where we are going. One might speak of “foreshadowing”, a literary figure in which something that happens early in the story hints at what will happen later on. One example in Romans: once we arrive at chapter 3, Paul will have proved that the Jews and the gentiles have a desperate need for the gospel. And in that moment, we will see that his references to the Jews and the Gentiles (or Greeks) in 1:16 was no casual observation, but a foreshadowing of a vital part of the message to Rome.

Other foreshadowings in the introduction include:

  • 2 – the Old Testament prophesied the gospel
  • 3 – Jesus Christ is the descendant of David
  • 4 – God declared him Son of God by the resurrection, and the Spirit of God is who gives him life
  • 5, 14-16 – the gospel is for the Jews and for all the nations
  • 5, 8, 12, 16-17 – one receives the gospel by faith

And others too; the reader will gain much by tracing these themes throughout the book.

A. Greetings (1:1-7)

v. 1

Imagine a narrow, stuffy apartment in Rome, where you and your companions in the faith are seated shoulder to shoulder. When the time comes, you close their eyes to hear the words written on a scroll, read by Deacon Phoebe of Cenchrea (see Introduction). To recall Genesis 27, The voice is the voice of Phoebe, but the words, these are from the Apostle: “Paul, servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle…”

Epistles in the ancient world began with a formula in which the author identifies himself, then greets the recipient and offers some sort of blessing or prayer. A typical letter would thus start off with something general: Paul, to the Romans, may God grant you grace and peace. The fact that Paul takes seven verses to begin his epistle reinforces what we seen above, that he is adding extra material in order that his listeners might know from the very beginning which direction he is taking. (more…)

Published in: on February 13, 2018 at 4:07 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Romans Commentary, Introduction

This commentary was prepared for Kairos Publications in Buenos Aires. It was composed specifically for the Latin American church. In some cases I have retained the words “Latin America,” at other times I have substituted “the Americas.” The bibliography reflects what is available to the Spanish-speaking church. We will publish it a section at a time, and eventually as an entire pdf file. The reader will notice that its purpose is to explain and apply this wonderful epistle to the church of today. Blessings! Gary Shogren

To download the first half of the commentary as a pdf, click here Shogren_Romans 1-8 Commentary

Introduction

The epistle to the Romans rises to meet the reader on two levels: (1) as a treasure house of beloved gospel texts; (2) as an ancient missionary letter, written for a specific moment in Paul’s work among the nations. Both levels are valid. Today’s disciple first comes to know Romans because of its neat formulations of, for example, the deadliness of sin (3:23), the free gift of eternal life (6:23), the transformation of the new person in Christ (12:1-2). Beyond that, secondly, we must enter into the mind of Paul and appreciate his plan for the final years of the AD 50s – a missionary journey that would take the gospel farther west from Jerusalem than it had ever gone, across several of what we now call time zones. We then see that Romans, when first delivered, was a clear call to action for the believers in the capital to receive Paul for a time, and later to sponsor his trip to evangelize Spain. In the Americas too, we are arming ourselves to take the gospel to the nations, in particular unreached ones. We too will benefit from knowing, not just what Paul said about salvation, but why he said it to these Christians in Rome, and by extension how it is God’s summons to us to show forth the gospel (more…)

Published in: on February 7, 2018 at 1:43 pm  Comments (3)  
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Bible word studies!!

It is a common idea that doing Bible word studies is the method for digging deep into the Bible.

A common enough idea, but a myth. One propagated by some popular “expository” preachers, in fact, who take a somewhat useful tool and use it on all the wrong jobs.

To illustrate: if you were to do a Word Search Game on the Bible, the vast majority of words would be things like “is, are, the, a, an, some, of, this, that, to,” etc.

Here’s how the frequency list begins in the KJV, for example, and the same principle applies in the Hebrew and Greek –

Bible meaning:
it’s not just the words used the counts,
it’s the way they’re arranged.

Added note: a method that seeks to interpret the Bible by such breaking down of the text into its tiniest components is said to be “atomistic.”

“Bible word studies!!” by Gary S. Shogren, Professor of New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on February 6, 2018 at 4:17 pm  Comments (2)  
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The Solitude of the Dusky Cave

When I first saw the title of the epic novel Cien Años de Soledad by Gabriel García Márquez, and got that it meant “one hundred years of solitude,” my heart leapt in anticipation. But 500 pages later, I finally grasped that the protagonists of the story didn’t get their promised seclusion; the title seems to have meant something else!

And let’s turn our thoughts to spiritual solitude.

For some believers, there exists a sweet solitude of the lone rider (“God and I”); but for others there is the hostile drawing into themselves (“I Alone, Without God”), an implosion.

We are all familiar with how Adam and Eve put on masks to hide themselves:

the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (Gen 3:7-8 NRSV)

Now in fact, this was a symptom of an earlier refusal to live in God’s presence; they had turned a cold shoulder to God even before they covered up and ran away. The very act of eating the fruit was already a signal of their independence – not the emotional self-actualization of the adult, but the sulky leave-taking of the runaway child. (more…)

Published in: on December 23, 2017 at 11:14 pm  Comments (2)  
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