A few weeks ago in a sermon, I mentioned the Lexham English Bible as a good study tool. Why might one translation be more helpful than another for study?
First of all, let’s be reminded that the Bible was not written in English. It was written mostly in Hebrew and Greek (small portions in Aramaic). If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, you know that between two languages there is not a 1-to-1 correspondence regarding words’ ranges of meaning, figures of speech, etc. I good translator does not translate “word-for-word,” but idea-for-idea.
To demonstrate the point, here is John 3:16 translated as literally as I can:
“Thus for he loved the God the world, so that the Son the only he gave in order that all the believing ones in Him not may perish, but may have life eternal.”
That’s the shotgun marriage of English words with Greek grammar and syntax. It’s unusable.
So Bible translators have to make a decision: (1) Are we going to do our best to retain the sense of the original by rendering it in words and phrases that sound natural in English? OR, (2) are we going retain the grammar and syntax of the original by rendering it in ways that may sound unnatural in English?
You might wonder, “Why would they ever do #2 over #1?” Because #1 requires the translators in many instances not just to translate, but to interpret. #2 makes fewer interpretational decisions, and therefore, allows the reader to do more interpretation.
Of course, #1 and #2 above represent two ends of a spectrum with many points in between. The ESV is thought to be a good mix of the two. For that reason, it is a great all-around translation.
Still, Bible study is a bit different than Bible reading. It requires going deeper, noting and investigating specific features of the text, including: the individual words and their meanings in context; parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc); syntax (how words, phrases, and clauses are grouped together); and, patterns in all of the above. We analyze these features in order to determine their contribution to the author’s meaning. These features are more easily and reliably identified in a translation designed for study…a translation close to the #2 end of the spectrum.
This is one reason I like the Lexham English Bible (LEB). It sounds like English but retains as much of the original language word order as possible.
There are other helpful features. First, any translation will at times add words in order to make the translation readable in English. In the LEB, these words are always italicized. (This feature is not unique to the LEB, but it is helpful.) Second, the LEB identifies idioms (figures of speech) with corner brackets. Footnotes tell you the literal meaning of the figure of speech, while the translated text gives the sense in common English. Third, conjunctions in the original languages are often ambiguous, requiring translators to make a decision. The LEB footnotes these, indicating the other options. Fourth, difficult or obscure words in the original text are often footnoted.
So if you’d like to dig a little deeper, take a look. It is available electronically on You Version, Bible Gateway, and Logos.
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