The Sean McDowell Show - 7 Great Bible Translations (ft. Mark Ward)

Episode Date: November 18, 2023

What makes a Bible translation good? What are some of the best Bible translations and when should we use them? Sean welcomes back scholar and YouTuber Mark Ward about the BEST Bible translations. READ: What Makes a Bible Translation Bad? https://textandcanon.org/what-makes-a-bible-translation-bad/ SUBSCRIBE TO MARK'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/user/mlward038 *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

What are the best seven Bible translations available today, and what makes them so good? Our guest today, Dr. Mark Ward, came to the show a few months ago to discuss seven bad translations and is back by popular demand to discuss his recommended translations. Mark, it's great to have you on. Let me start by asking you this. What do we mean by a good translation? Because I suspect some people might think if it's understandable, if it's entertaining, but I suspect you mean something a little bit different.

Well, whenever do we trust people who do spiritual work for us? You know, evangelicals don't have a pope with an imprimatur who gets to say, this is a good translation, this is a bad translation. We tend to use trusted friends and contacts, especially trusted pastors when it comes to this, and those pastors themselves are tending to trust individual scholars through institutions that they trust, like our respective alma maters, educational institutions. That's a very natural thing. I think it's important to recognize we don't have, from God, some kind of list where these are good ones and these are bad ones. We don't even have

principles really like in the Bible. We are just doing our best to translate well, looking for trustworthy people. And you normally expect those people, right, to have good training. You would hope, I would think, if you're a thoughtful Christian, that it wasn't just one denomination that translated this Bible. We're trying to spread out the authority here and the trust. So I look for what are called committee-based Bible translations done by responsible people who share my basic evangelical commitments, even if they're not part of my particular Baptist and conservative tribe.

I want to see that they have good reason to believe they know what they're doing and that they have worked with some checks and balances. And when you put all that together, you do end up with basically the list that we're going to talk about. Awesome. Now we're going to get to those seven. I have two more questions for you. You chose these seven, and I asked you because this is your lane, we're going to get to your YouTube channel, some of the unique things that you do there. But what criteria do you use when you're distinguishing what you consider a good translation from, say, a bad translation? I talked on your channel previously about two bad kinds of Bible translation.

That would be sectarian ones and crackpot ones. So I'm able to set those aside. You know, I might have some on my shelf for various study purposes. But for me personally, in my own Bible reading, you know, I'm just going to admit, because I am an evangelical and because, you know, like all of your viewers and like you, I am finite as well as fallen. I can't read every single Bible translation there is. I have some translations up on my shelf, like one done by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Evangelical Heritage Bible. I haven't had an opportunity to read through it. I haven't yet read through the NASB 2020. I haven't read yet through the Legacy Standard Bible. I've done just a little bit of checking, so I'm not

ready to give an assessment. I had to pick some, you know, set of Bibles that I was going to have time with in the last 20 years, really. And so what did I do? I stuck with the Evangelical ones. That means I really don't know much about the Catholic Bible translations. I don't know a whole lot about the mainline Protestant ones that are out there. So I try to limit my comments about good Bible translation and my own use to the ones that I have reason to trust already and then now have spent a good 20 years with in some cases. You're such a good, careful scholar. I appreciate that you nuanced that the way that you did. So one more question. What might help folks is maybe make a distinction

between what's called a formal and what's called a functional translation. Then we'll jump into the top seven. I've got a number of translations on my desk. I'm just going to pull the first one off the top. This is the New King James Version. This is actually a British edition of the New King James that one of my YouTube viewers sent me. It's one of the cool things about being a YouTuber. People send you stuff, hopefully not letter bombs. But in this case, this is a formal translation, like the King James before it, and like the beautiful Wellington leather ESV that Crossway just sent me. Oh man, this is just such a beautiful Bible. Formal translation has nothing to do, however, with the leather on your Bible, although I'm going to show this off because it's just so fun to touch in one second. It has to do with how

closely does the translation stick to the forms of the Hebrew and the Greek. And that in turn means all the things that language is. Word order, word choice, the number of words. In general, formal translations tend to aim to have at least one English word for every Greek or Hebrew word. And what that ends up with is a Bible that is accurate, but that does sometimes tend to be difficult to read. And some people say, well, that's exactly what I want. I don't want to dumb down the Bible, but it's more complex than that and more dynamic or functional translations. Like where did my NIV go? Oh, here we go. I've got a wonderful NIV reader's Bible that I love to read from. It doesn't have chapter or verse numbers breaking

up the text. It's just laid out like a novel, which I find to be really helpful for contextual Bible reading. The NIV translators take a more functional approach. I was just interviewing Mark Strauss about this, and his new book, 40 Questions on Bible Translation, talks about this in some detail. It's really helpful. He points out that functional translations can actually get the meaning across more effectively in places where a formal translation is actually going to leave a lot of people puzzled or even sometimes misled. This has been a big fight in evangelicalism ever since I was a kid. I remember this being discussed as a small child in a Bible church in the Northern Virginia

area. And I myself thought for a long time, oh, I'm going to have to choose one way or the other. Am I going to be a functional, you know, more interpretive, you know, thought for thought Bible user? Or am I going to be a word for word? And it, you know, it seemed to me at the time, it's the conservatives who go word for word and it's those liberals who, you know, go the other direction.

Then over the years, as I was reading all kinds of these translations, all the major modern evangelical translations from formal to functional, the whole spectrum, I realized nobody's putting a gun to my head making me choose one or the other. I'm a Bible scholar, I'm a Bible teacher, and I get to use them all. And then secondly, I realized I'm never, even if I chose one, I would never get rid of the others. Both kinds are useful for me." And what I saw was, God has arranged language in such a way that no one translation really can capture everything. So it's helpful to have a complementary set of translations. People wonder why there

are so many. I think that's one of the fundamental reasons why it's useful for our Bible reading to have more formal and more functional translations. That's a great way to look at it and helpful as we dive into our top seven. Now, are these seven in any particular order or are they just your top seven? As I recall, it's been a couple of weeks since I sent this to you, but I think I went basically from formal to functional. Let's see how it actually turned out. Okay, fair enough.

All right, so number one is the New King James Version. Tell us why you think that's a good translation. I actually want to start not with the English itself, because every one of these Bibles is good. It's well done. It's responsible. If it's the only one you ever used, I would be okay with that. I think it's good to use multiple translations, but let me talk not about the English, but about the underlying text. There is another debate among Bible readers around the world, especially those who've studied some Greek, among all of the minor differences that occur in the manuscript tradition of the Greek New Testament and of the Hebrew Bible. You know, we have thousands of manuscripts, especially the Greek, but there are these minor differences and you can see them for yourself. I've translated them into English with the team at kjvparallelbible.org. It

shouldn't be alarming to you. It's the situation God gave us. Let me give an example. Did the wise men come and see baby Jesus or did they come and find baby Jesus? That's the kind of difference that we're talking about here in the Greek. There are some major schools of thought and one of them is that we should go back to the oldest manuscripts. That's the school of thought that I adopt, and that's where most evangelicals who can read Greek would go. But others say, well, no, we should use the ones that are the majority, or the ones that

are traditional for our English-speaking culture. I'm totally fine with that. I don't think that's something Christians should fight over. I think I can argue that's totally fine, but it shouldn't turn into a conflict or a point of division. The New King James Version adopts the same traditional Greek and Hebrew text as the King James. This is more important in the New Testament than it is in the Old Testament. We're talking about very few differences in the Old Testament, but there's a number of minor differences in the New Testament. If you grew up with the King James and you kind of like the idea, well, we should use the majority or we should use the traditional text of the New Testament. If you grew up with the King James and you kind of like the idea, well we should use the majority or we should use the

traditional text of the New Testament, fine, use the New King James. It's translated responsibly into contemporary English. And I love the King James and my main translation, if you call it that, we'll talk about it, is the ESV. I love using the New King James or ESV because it is more familiar to me. That's my, the first one on the list here. Okay, fair enough. All right, so that leads us naturally into second on the list, which is the ESV. Yeah, the ESV stems from a little bit different aspect of the family tree of the King James version.

Effectively, every English Bible lives in the wonderful shadow of Tyndale's translation going way back when into the early 1500s. But the path that the ESV translators went, it actually goes from the King James to the English Revised Version to the American Standard Version to the Revised Standard Version, which conservatives tended to be suspicious of because of Isaiah 714. And then Crossway, back in the late 90s, bought the rights to the RSV and created the ESV from it. And I know many of the translators, Verne Poythress in particular, I run his website where he has a lot of free books by the way, really great godly man. He

helped produce this, J.I. Packer, it's been endorsed by major names like John Piper, etc. It's a more formal translation and it does use the critical text, meaning it does depart from the textual basis of the King James Version, which is what I prefer because I think that is more likely to be original, but we're not talking about a big deal and you're not hardly ever going to notice it. Actually though, the reason I recommend the ESV so often is that Crossway is second to none in putting out beautiful and useful and numerous Bible editions. I love this single column Legacy Heirloom Bible. It's just so tastefully done. But there are journaling Bibles. There is this chronological Bible that they've just put out. They have a

daily reading Bible now. They've just got everything you can imagine. And actually, the differences among all these translations are, to me, so minor. We love the Bible, so we talk about them, that it's actually okay to say, you know, I'm going to choose for my church or for myself a translation on this basis, the pragmatic one, that there are lots of beautiful additions, and that's useful to me. That's why the ESV, if I had to choose only one, would probably are lots of beautiful additions, and that's useful to me. That's why the ESV, if I had to choose only one, would probably be my main translation. It's really helpful to hear you say that, that we're going to talk about the NIV and the CSB and some of these other translations,

but the big differences when they're all said and done are small. So some of these other factors, do you find a Bible that you think is beautiful? Does it fit? Is it useful? Is it familiar to you? Those can be pieces of the decision once you narrow down to a few of these key translations. That's really helpful, I think, to give people permission to do so. All right, so we've covered the New King James Version, the ESV. The third one on your list is the NASB. Tell us your thoughts on that one I have a really beautiful edition of the NASB that was also sent to me by Cambridge it's the clarion reference

edition and if you get a NASB this is definitely the one that I recommend I was the editor of Bible Study Magazine until it closed about a year ago and I did a cover story on the top Bible top Bible editions for all the major translations. That was so fun to do. But the NASB as a, and that's how it's commonly referred to, the NASB as a translation, it's known for being very literal. It's favored by Greek and Hebrew students in seminaries because it tracks more word for word with the original. That brings the strengths and the weaknesses that I mentioned earlier that Mark Strauss discusses in his recent book, 40 Questions on Bible Translation.

It is a strength to be able to match up easily when I'm studying Greek and Hebrew between the English and the original languages. It is a little bit of a weakness when it comes to the beauty of the translation. I think a lot of people consider the Nazby to be a little bit more wooden. This is a very minor difference between this and the ESV, for example, but I would say that's more or less accurate. I think there are some times when it's so fastidious in its literalness that it gets to the point

of not purposeful, but sort of accidental superstition. Like it has little asterisks next to verbs in the gospels that in the Greek are historical presence, like, and Jesus goes into the city. In English, we would say, and Jesus went into the city. Well, they got to make sure they let people know with a little asterisk that went is actually goes in the Greek. Okay. You know, I'm not sure who really benefits from that. But that, that shows the level of fastidiousness that they use. They put in small caps quotations of the Old Testament that are in the New Testament. I think that tends to stack up the number of little conventions that new Bible readers need

to master, and I think that's presenting an unnecessary difficulty to the lion's share of Bible readers. But for those who understand those conventions and can learn to use them, that can be a benefit. That's the NASB. That's great. So when we talk about what a translation is good for, it really depends on what we're looking for.

So for students who are diving into the Greek and the Hebrew, the NASB is really helpful because of the careful attention to detail and translation. But when I would have my students, I still teach a high school Bible class part-time, memorize scripture. The NASB is not a good translation to memorize scripture because it's wooden

and it doesn't roll off the tongue and it's not as easy to memorize. That doesn't mean it's bad. It just has a little bit of a different purpose from one versus the other. I was in an evangelistic ministry that used this. And I taught for years in that. And hundreds of kids from the inner city learned Proverbs 3, 21b to 23. Keep sound wisdom and discretion so they will be life to your soul and adornment to your neck.

Then you will walk in your way securely and your foot will not stumble." I was the one leader that I know of who repeatedly, I mean like every single time, asked the kids, do you understand what this means? And I walked them through it. They did not understand what it means. And I actually went to the leader of the ministry who is a great mentor of mine who actually gave me my beautiful ESV I've got somewhere on this desk. I had great respect for him, still do, and I said, why are we bothering? Can't we use a more easy to understand translation? And then when I became in charge of another aspect of the outreach ministry with his permission, I used the new international reader's version that was made for people who couldn't read as well. To me,

the whole point is understanding, not getting it right. I want to get both if I possibly can, but is it accurate if people don't understand it? Does it even count as a translation if it's just going in one ear and out the other, if people don't, if it's just syllables to them? That's great. Good, good stuff. Let's move to your number four, the CSB. I've got that on my desk somewhere here. Boy, where did I put it? I'm just awash in Bibles. Oh, I've got this. This was the free copy that I was given at ETS back when this one came out, I think in 2017. That's the Evangelical Theological Society. They've come out with a slight update since then. I don't think it's a very significant one. The CSB is a really great mediating translation. The Christian Standard

Bible was done by Thomas Schreiner and some others in the Southern Baptist world, but it was a multi-denominational committee that put it together. It doesn't have a Southern Baptist bias. And when I see people say that sometimes, I never see them point to any particular rendering within the CSB as an example. They just kind of assume it because it's done by the Southern Baptist ultimately. I have not found that to be the case though. It's very well done. And what they did was they pretty much nailed the blend of accuracy and readability that

everybody's going for. And those translations that go for more the accuracy side, the formal side like the ESV and New King James, they see the benefits of that. And then they see the benefits of the readability, the NIV, and they worked hard to hit that middle ground. And it's been successful for that reason. Also, for what it's worth, people love to fight online about all kinds of things. The CSB is new enough that it doesn't have that many detractors yet. And sometimes I like it for just that reason. Like, can I just read the Bible without stumbling into somebody online

who tells me it's from Satan? The CSB is a good choice for that reason. So I had a chance to be the editor, general editor for the Apologetic Study Bible for Students. And the first version was the HCSB. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I think they called it a dynamic equivalent that tried to have the formal and the functionalCSB. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I think they call it a dynamic equivalent that tried to have the formal and the functional elements together. How is the CSB different

and or similar to what was the HCSB, if you're familiar with that translation? It's, you know, actually, whenever you summarize an entire translation, you're actually trying to make an aggregate judgment of what I like to call 800,000 choices. It's actually more depending on how you count, but let's say there's about 800,000 words in the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Bible. Every one of them requires a choice by translators. So how do I sum it all up?

I mean, that's just very difficult. I would say the HCSB and CSB are similar and there were just a few noticeable differences between the two. And I'm going to forget some of the precise things here, but I believe that the HCSB, you might know this better than I do, use the word Yahweh to transliterate, actually not translate the divine name, the Tetragrammaton in the Old Testament. And the CSB, in fact, I can see it right here, does what most translations do nowadays, aside from the Legacy Standard Bible. And they use the word LORD in all caps to translate Yahweh. That was the one thing that kind of made it onto my radar there. There are numerous other, you know, minor things,

but that's probably the major thing that kind of comes up when the HCSB is set in contradistinction to the CSB. That makes sense. CSB strikes me as more readable than the HCSB. I don't know how much work they put into that, but when it came out, I was like, oh, I like this. It's fresh. All right, let's move to number five, which my guess would be one of the most popular translations today, or at least a generation ago, is the NIV. Tell us about your thoughts on that. Mark Strauss that I've mentioned now several times, I just interviewed him for Logos Live. He's one of the NIV translators.

Doug Moo, who is the top evangelical commentator on the Book of Romans, almost a legend in his own time, is the head of the committee Bible Translation that puts out the NIV. And the NIV is the standard sort of big tent, you know, evangelical translation. They were the first major translation to work hard to break away from the shadow of the King James Version. I found it very interesting when I was reading, I think one of the translators back in the 60s now, his name is John Steck, who told the story of the NIV in a book. He mentioned that the translators found it very difficult to forget the King James Version. They'd all grown up with it, like I did.

And so the apple of the eye doesn't sound funny to them. They had to really work hard to pay attention to how do regular English speakers at a seventh grade level actually use the language. And it's the NIV translators who, to my knowledge, have done the most work on that particular question. They've really tuned their ears, and I would say their scholarly ears via scholarly tools, to the way people use the language. That has led to some controversy. I am the sort of rare conservative who has been very happy with the gender language in the NIV. They've worked toward what they call gender accuracy. There are a couple places where, of course, you know, anybody might, you know, quibble. But overall, they're recognizing whoever, you know, whatever the reason for changes

in English, whether, you know, people got to the controls of the English language and changed it or whether it's natural, seven-year-old girls like my daughter were tending to say when they would hear, how blessed is the man that does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. They would say, and my daughter did this. She said, Dad, why is the Bible for boys? And they're saying, well, then we need to translate into our English if it's a generic, because God is not specifying in Psalm 1 only men. You know, men who don't walk in the way of the wicked, they'll be blessed. It's for everybody.

So Psalm 1-1, I'm trying to pull it up here in my reader's Bible in the NIV, is going to be generic in the NIV. Here we go. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked. And I think Mark Strauss was saying, basically, conservative evangelicals have come around to this. It was alarming at first. But most of us have said,

yeah, when the reference is generic, then we should use resources in English that are also generic. Okay, so if the original biblical language itself is not specifying gender, then we should find an equivalent or something comparable to that that doesn't specify gender within the english language but if it is specifically male or female we shouldn't take the liberty and just say person human etc i i that's exactly what mark strauss would say and don carson who wrote one of the major defenses an elegant argument way back in the late 90s uh the inclusive language debate a plea for realism carson wrote and carson is an arch conservative he's heading up you know he helped found tgc way back in the late 90s. The inclusive language debate, a plea for realism, Carson wrote, and Carson is an arch conservative.

He's heading up, you know, he helped found TGC, which is a complementarian organization. A lot of conservatives have been alarmed that, oh no, the NIV is, you know, a backdoor for evangelical feminism. I just don't share that concern. I've had my ears trained to the way people actually use English. And my goal here is that uninitiated

person of 1 Corinthians 14 that Paul talks about, when he, in the King James, it says, if you use tongues, he's going to think you're crazy. But if you, well, that isn't the King James, that's my paraphrase. But if he hears you use intelligible language, he's going to fall down and confess that God is in you of a truth. You know, his conscience is going to be stirred. I want the lost person coming into an evangelical church service to be struck right away with the meaning of Scripture, if at all possible, rather than having to wade through some evangelical ease, either in the sermon or archaic language or evangelical ease

in the Bible translation that's being preached from or read. So we have two more and this was not in our list so you can just pass, but I noticed you said NIV instead of the TNIV. Have you taken the time to look at that and had any additional thoughts on that or no? The NIV that I'm holding right now is an NIV 2011. The main NIV in use before that was the 1984. There were actually several minor editions before that. I think there was a 1978. That goes back before my time, so I do not remember. The 2011 got in some controversy, but not nearly as much as the TNIV, which came out, I want to say 2004, 2005. I got a free copy when I was in seminary. They were sending them out to

seminary students. That was when the gender language debate really heated up, and the TNIV was retired for that reason. And I think rightly so. I think that any translation that just ends up being pilloried in the public square has lost the most valuable thing a good translation has, and that is widespread trust. So some of the same strategies that were put in the TNIV were used in NIV 2011, I'd like to think, and I do think, that the Committee on Bible Translation learned a few lessons from that experience. And I hasten to say that there are ways to mistranslate gender language, to take it in a way that's

actually denying or changing what the passages say. But the NIV translators did a really careful job of trying not to do that, even if, again, in some cases we might quibble. That's great. All right, let's move to number six, the NET, which I believe is the New English Translation. Give us your thoughts. I don't have a physical copy of that. I don't remember what I did with mine.

I've got so many Bibles floating around all the time. It might be at my other office at Logos Bible Software. Here's why I mentioned the Net Bible. I actually don't read the translation itself very often. I will check it sometimes, and I find it to be refreshingly creative. That is, when I look in a commentary and I see here's a couple different options for how to interpret or translate this passage, which is common and it's not a squishy or wishy-washy thing to do. It is a recognition of the way God inspired the Bible. There are things that Paul wrote that are hard to be understood, Peter says,

and there are difficulties in poetry and in metaphor, and good Bible translators who are not being inspired, right? They're just doing their best. They can legitimately come up at times with different ways to interpret or translate something. Like, let me give an example. Jesus talks about the person who is worrying, and he said, which of you by worrying can add a cubit to his stature? Modern translations often, not always, they're kind of divided on this. I just quoted the King James. Modern translations will say sometimes, how many of them can add any time to their span of life? Well, that sounds very different. It's because there's some inspired ambiguity there, and it is legitimate to go either direction. And we don't have the Spirit of God telling us, the King James translators mentioned this, we don't have the Spirit of God telling us,

go that way. So translators go different directions. Well, when that happens, the Net Bible will often go a little different direction than most other people just because they can. I find that to be helpful. But the real value of it is the notes. I have tons of study Bibles I've had over my life. There's lots of great ones. I tend to reach for commentaries now, but I still use the Net Bible because it gives me sort of technical notes on textual critical issues and on translation issues that are rather difficult. And I don't find that level of, you know, intense academic, but still accessible notes elsewhere. When people ask me, why does the ESV differ from the New King James here?

I will often tell them, I could give you a fish, but let me teach you how to fish. Go get the Net Bible and check the notes there. It's free on bible.org. And oftentimes, I would say nine times out of 10, the answer to their question is found in a Net Bible note. So those notes, if you get a Net Bible, does that automatically come with it? You don't have to go buy a special study note net? I do think they've started to come out with Net Bibles that don't have the notes, which always seems like a waste to me. Like the whole reason I want the thing is the notes. I happen to, I'm a nerd about Bible typography. I was at the Society of Bible Craftsmanship Conference at the Museum of the Bible. I got to meet Klaus-Erik Krogh, whom I've already

interviewed in the past. He's from 2K Denmark and he has revolutionized Bible typography. He's made beautiful readable typefaces for these Bibles. If you look at early net Bibles, they're kind of ugly and difficult to read. Typographically speaking, he made it beautiful, amazing type. It was very, very hard work because it has so many notes, but he made it as accessible as possible. I would definitely get a net Bible and get one of the more recent ones with, Make sure you see 2K Denmark in the front, and then you'll have a quality net Bible. All right, good translation number seven. And this one, I wouldn't say it surprised me, and you could totally correct me if I'm wrong,

but when we talk about translation, this one is maybe pushing the barrier a little bit, staying within the fold, but pushing certain limits, is the NLT, which is the New Living Translation. Tell us your thoughts on that. Yeah, I myself felt the same way about the New Living Translation when it first came out. I thought this is going too far, but then I had an experience. I was an evangelist in the not-so-nice part of town in Greenville, South Carolina while I was in seminary. And I really loved, I really cared for these children and teens that I was reaching out to every single week. I was actually also in a ministry to adults. And I remember I was asked

to preach at this special COLA Wars event we would have every summer. And there would be 150 teenagers who get to hear the gospel probably, you know, once a year at Kola Wars, a lot of them. Some of them were church, but most of them were not. And I had to preach something from Romans, and I was really struggling. How in the world am I going to communicate this, you know, naughty, K-N-O-T-T-Y, bit of NASB verbiage to them because it's so important that they understand. And it's so important that I actually read from the Bible in front of me. I often, even though I preach from my laptop or iPad, I'll have a physical Bible and I'll hold it up and I'll self-consciously look like I'm reading it, and I will read it, in order to

connect people to the authority that I'm claiming. I'm a herald. I'm not making up this message. So I noticed, I can't remember what the passage was, somewhere in Romans 2, the Nazmi was just not going to be understood. And I happened to check the New Living Translation, and it was perfect. They nailed it. It was easier English, which is what it is overall. Is it a little more interpretive? Absolutely it is. Are there times when I think they go a little bit too far? Sure. Are they wrong in their interpretations? Very rarely in my experience, and if they are, it's usually something that's pretty minor. And it's always a responsible take, right? It's not gonna be totally off the wall. Well, they got this right, and I was in an atmosphere at the church, I was a little bit nervous, you know, would the youth pastor mind

if I quoted from the New Living Translation? So I asked him, he said, go for it. And I took that as moral permission from then on to use whatever translation helps get the truth across to the audience that God has actually put in front of me. And if you struggle to read, your child struggles to read the New Living Translation, or I mentioned earlier,

the New International Reader's Version, those are excellent options. People are always on the quest for the best Bible translation. There's got to be one out there that gets it all right compared to all the others. No, there doesn't. They all have their uses. And the New Living Translation, I think, is useful for your own interpretation when you want something more interpretive because you're struggling to understand a passage. Or when you have a child or you're in a prison ministry or something and people are struggling, I think it's totally appropriate to use a less literal, more interpretive translation like the New Living Translation. So we've worked through your seven good Bible translations, the NKJV, ESV, NASB, CSB, NIV, NetBible, and NLT.

Are there any that just were like, if I said I need 10 mark, two or three more that would have made it? Are there any that get like honorable mention? Or is it like after these seven, it just falls off the cliff? You know, there are various iterations of some of these. I haven't read through the NASB 2020.

I expect it to be good. I haven't read through the Legacy Standard Bible. I expect it to be good because I know Will Varner. We went to the same undergrad, though decades apart. He teaches at Masters. I expect his work to be responsible. I actually like to use the message sometimes. It's a paraphrase and not a translation, although there are times when it kind of strays into translation territory.

I have some videos on my channel where I show Peterson, wherever his theology was, and it wasn't where mine is, his insight into these passages has been genuinely helpful for me at times. And even the cultural, like the transculturation that he'll do at times, as long as you understand why he's doing it, he's not saying this is what the Hebrew says. I think that can be really helpful. I expect the Lutherans in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod to have done a good job in the Evangelical Heritage Version. I've heard good stuff. Now I'm going to be on 10, but the Berean Study Bible, I have friends who are positive about that. A lot of people are alarmed, especially in the King James

only world, by how many translations we have. But I like to view it as a super good problem to have, right? We have so many people trying to help us understand God's Word. Are there people we need to be wary of? Sure. But solid evangelical people, Trinitarians and Errantists, who are just trying their best to pick a spot on the formal to functional spectrum and get you a translation that'll help you understand what God has said, that's something to be really thankful for. And our embarrassment of riches is something that puts a responsibility on our shoulders. To whom much is given, from that person much shall be required. So let's play a little game. I didn't prep you for this, and I realize there's no

perfect answer, so you can just kind of give the one that comes to mind, but I'm going to think of a few different people that will ask me at times for my preferred Bible translation. And I realized that none of these is like this one will nail it, but maybe just one that comes to mind that you would use. Okay. So how about for a new believer? I really have been saying recently, where did it go? The Christian Standard Bible is what I recommend, in part because it's right in the middle between formal and functional, in part because it has nice additions, but in large part because they're less likely to find somebody online who's saying that it comes from Satan, like I mentioned earlier. I just want them to be able to read the Bible without that threat, but that's where I'd go for a new believer. You know, it's interesting when people ask me my favorite, I really do enjoy the ESV

and partly doing the Apologetic Study Bible, which is in the CSB. I've been reading it more and I thoroughly enjoy that translation as well. How about for kids? If your child shows every evidence of being, you know, a normal reader, which means he or she is going to be proficient and is growing in proficiency at the regular rate, I tend to say the benefits of having the same translation that the adults have in church probably outweigh the detriments of the little misunderstandings that they'll have with a little Bible translation. So in my family, well, we're all over the place. We just have kids have whatever grandma got for them. You know, you might be surprised to hear that Mr. Bible translations

has been so prodigal, you know, letting his kids have whatever falls into their hands, but that's an evidence that I don't think it's that big of a deal and you kind of can't go wrong. But if your child struggles, I would tend to say the New International Reader's Version would be really helpful. Let's say the child is facing dyslexia or something. I think that would be good. I'm totally fine too.

The New Living Translation, something easier. Why not? The point is not to have them have this set of sacred words that is never violated throughout their lifetime. You have no idea what context they're going to be living and ministering in. If your goal right then is, let's just get them to understand as much as possible right now. We don't have to worry about the future. Then I would tend toward the more functional. If your goal is, I think this kid's going to be a good reader. I want him to, or her, to grow up with the same language so that it just

kind of gets baked in. I see that as a value. Go with the ESV or the NASB, whatever your church uses, if it's more formal. I think I know what you're going to say to this one, but I want to hear it clarified. What about somebody who says, I'm a pastor and I'm preparing a message, or I'm a student and I'm diving into the Greek and the Hebrew. What translation or translations would you recommend for them? I think the more formal translations are more commonly used in those settings, and I think it's because they track more directly or obviously with the way the Hebrew and the Greek operate. I think there are benefits to that. I do think that regular lay people who are just trying to read their Bibles and understand can be raised higher in their Bible reading ability

and can live up to the challenge of a more formal Bible translation. I also just get pragmatic again. And if one of my goals in preaching, as I think it ought to be, and in Bible teaching in Sunday school, and I do both all the time, if one of my goals is to teach people how to read their Bibles and to invite people into Bible reading, almost just by implication by the way I treat the text, and that's absolutely the case, then, and if I expect that people probably will pick up whatever translation I'm using, I like the ESV for that purpose because of all the

many editions. They're beautiful. I think that matters a lot to me. They focus on the right aspects of readability when it comes to the typography. They're beautiful. I think that matters a lot to me. They focus on the right aspects of readability when it comes to the typography, and then they have something to interest and benefit everyone with all of their journaling editions and all. I mean, just anything you can imagine, you're gonna be able to point somebody in your church to

NASV and they can get it. Whereas with some other translations, although this is really improving in the last 10 years, there was a time when, for example, the NASB practically had no nice editions. To me, as I was trained in typography, they were all ugly. I'm sorry. I'm telling the truth. It matters for Bible reading. It really matters. I have a video on my channel, Why Bible Typography Matters. It's basically the first video on my channel. And thousands of people have watched it and their eyes have been opened up a little bit to why it matters, you know, the shape of the text on the page. Thankfully, praise the Lord, we have so many nice editions now coming out from some of my

friends at Zondervan and Thomas Nelson and these other versions. But the ESV, the Crossway folks, are still out ahead of everybody else. That's one reason I point to it for preachers. Well, you heard it from one of the best, if not the best on Bible translations, typography and beauty matters. Let's get it right. Right. Tell us a little bit about your channel and what you cover and maybe some series you have coming up.

I was raised in King James only-ism. My dad and mom weren't really King James only, but we kind of stumbled into that world. My mom and dad were saved as adults. In fact, your father was instrumental in my mother's conversion. Maybe we can talk about that in a bit. But they didn't perceive the King James only-ism

of my church in high school, where I also went to Christian school as a problem because we all use the King James only-ism of my church in high school where I also went to Christian school as a problem because we all use the King James already and to have a little extra oomph in its defense you know just wasn't a big deal to them but it was to me in a way I didn't really perceive at the time as a 14 or 15 year old and what I came to see as time passed is that King James-onlyism became a banner and a totem, a sacred totem, a symbol of the superiority of, you know, alleged superiority of one Christian group over others. It became a point of division. And Galatians 5 says that division, contention, and strife are works of the flesh. Is there any, you know, is there any Christian dispute that more

frequently causes bitter division than this? I mean, maybe, but in my conservative world, it's constant. I'm seeing it all the time, and not just because I do work on this. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers, and I saw there is still room to try to bring peace into very troubled waters when it comes to Bible translation. So on the one hand, my channel pushes back against King James only-ism. On the other hand, however, even if you're King James only, you can watch my channel. And because I focus on the readability of the King James, I am frequently teaching people how to read it with greater understanding. I would hope that even King James only, and they message me all the time saying this, or regularly, I should say, thank you for your channel. I disagree with you, but you've taught

me how to read my King James better. And then positively speaking, again, I'm not just helping people read their King James better, but I'm trying to promote the idea that there is no best Bible translation that God has anointed above all others. And therefore we should all use the embarrassment of riches that we've been talking about in this video. And I teach people how to do that. A lot of lay people are alarmed. God has not given them the opportunity to study Greek and Hebrew. So they come to these differences between the NIV and the ESV or between the New King James and the New Living Translation, and they don't know what to do with them.

It's all too easy in that area of ignorance, right? People don't know what's going on. For a conspiracy theory to grow like mold in that dark area of ignorance and for them to fit these differences into a narrative that goes like this, the King James was totally fine or even my NIV 84 was totally fine. And then moneyed interest came in and Satan got his finger in there and he twisted things and he's changing the Bible. That is not the case.

And I'm trying to build people's trust in all of the good evangelical English Bible translations, in part, largely by showing them how to use them when they differ. What do I do? That's what my channel is all about. Well, you're doing great work and I hope people will subscribe and follow along. It's just helpful. It's interesting. You've kind of found

a unique niche that I don't know anybody else is really serving in that way. Now, you emailed me about this. You just hinted at it a minute ago that you were interested in sharing the story of, sounds like my dad's work in some fashion influenced your mom to faith. I'd love to hear. Yeah, back in the 70s, of course, before I was born, around the year of the evangelical, whatever year that was, I can't remember exactly when all this occurred, but my mom was something of your classic mainliner in America at the time, having grown up at the heyday of the mainline in the U.S. she happened to attend a Lutheran church that had pulled away from its moorings. And she thought of herself as a Christian. She, in general, believed the Bible, but the classic evangelical emphases that I think are biblical

emphases of a personal relationship with Jesus, actual personal repentance from sin, personal belief in Jesus' death and resurrection for sin, that just had not clicked with her. And a girlfriend of hers at an all-girls college that she went to, Longwood College in Virginia, said, why don't you come with me to hear this guy, Josh McDowell? And if I recall correctly, I think he was talking about some of the same material in Evidence That Demands a Verdict. but what really stood out to my mom, and I just asked her about this actually after I went on with you last time because it's been a long time since she's told the story, and that was what stuck out to

her is what I mentioned earlier that she believed in Jesus, like she didn't disbelieve that Jesus died on the cross, but the whole for her sins part and the whole repentance and indwelling of the Holy Spirit part, all these evangelical emphases, they had not clicked. And praise the Lord through your father's ministry, she came to firm faith, which lasts to this day.

She raised her children along with the Christian husband that she met on the elevator, who himself was saved at the University of Virginia, actually by reading his Bible on his own in a time of crisis, having also come from a mainline background. They raised us, and I'm so grateful for this, as in a Christian family, taught my sister and me the truths of the gospel and what better heritage could I possibly have. Mark, that's really powerful.

I appreciate you taking the time that you and I first met, really, when we talked last time and interviewed you. I had no idea that was a back story. And my dad is 84 years old. He's still plugging away, doing ministry as an 84-year-old can. But every time I hear a story like that, it's just, it's encouraging and it's amazing. And what a legacy to see that through you and your ministry you're doing that my dad was able to play a piece in that is uh is super encouraging if that was in the 70s

72 is when evidence demands verdict came out and then he wrote more than a carpenter in 1977. so that would have been the era he was talking about either maximum sex or he was talking about the evidence for the resurrection and the bible uh she may have heard one or both but but that's super cool mark we're gonna have you back uh i know there was you know anytime you talk about bible translations i can't imagine the amount of criticism and challenges you get uh there were definitely some of of those comments but i got a lot of positive people saying enjoy that that was helpful bring mark back so let's keep thinking of ways that we can kind of work together and help people get and read and understand their bibles uh more

faithfully and well together so thanks for your work those you watch and make sure you go remind me is if they just search your name on youtube will your channel come up even though i'll link it below it'll pop up they'll either run into me or into a rodeo rider or a nascar driver i can't remember but if they search for mark ward on words or mark ward king james version they'll probably come to my channel perfect i'll link it below and before you click away uh think about joining us here at biola make sure you hit subscribe we've got some great interviews really launching it at 2024 just re-envisioning this whole channel this is one of my first interviews on the cool new background cool new mic we've got guests

a whole new idea coming to transform this make sure you hit subscribe if you thought about studying apologetics we would love to have you in our ma program it's the top rated apologetics program fully by distance i teach classes on the resurrection problem of evil biblical sexuality reaching gen z would love to have you in class if you're not ready for masters that thought you know what i'd love to run apologetics we actually have a certificate program where we'll kind of walk you through good training information for that is below mark let's do it again this is a lot of fun it was an honor thank you for having me on