Theology in the Raw - What's the Best Bible Translation?: Tim Wildsmith

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Tim Wildsmith is a pastor, writer, and content creator whose goal is to help people find a Bible that’s right for them and apply it their lives. His Bible-related content has been viewed tens of millions of times by people around the globe from a wide array of Christian traditions and denominations. Tim earned a Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary and then was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Oxford’s Wycliffe Hall. His first book, Bible Translations for Everyone, was just published by Zondervan and that’s the topic of our conversation. -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The exiles and Babylon conferences happening again, April 3rd to April 5th, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I cannot wait for this conference. We're talking about the gospel and race after George Floyd. We're talking about transgender people in the church, social justice and the gospel, two perspectives, and a dialogical debate about whether the evangelical church is good for this country. Featuring my new friend, Adam Davidson. He's an atheist journalist and Sean McDowell, my other good friend, they're going to banter around about that topic. We also have Latasha Morrison, Ephraim Smith, Mark Yarhouse, Malcolm Foley, and many other awesome speakers. We're also adding some breakouts

this year, and we're going to have a killer after party. I can't wait for that one. Actually, if you want to attend a conference, you can do so by going to theology, raw.com. You want to register early. We do have an early birth, a fairly aggressive early bird special. It ends December 31st. So if you are planning on attending the conference, you want to sign up before then you could also attend virtually. If you can't make it out to Minneapolis again, April 3rd to 5th, Minneapolis, Minnesota, exiles of Babylon, go to theology and the rod.com. And I hope to see you there. Hi friends. Welcome back to another episode of theology and the raw. We have our exiles of Babylon conference happening next year, April 3rd to 5th in Minneapolis, Minnesota. That's April 3rd to 5th, 2025. All the info is that theology raw.com. We want to register

sooner than later because we have a pretty aggressive early bird special that expires December 31st again, theology in the rod.com. My guest today is Tim wild Smith, who is a pastor writer and content creator whose goal is to help people find a Bible that's right for them and to be able to apply it to their lives. He creates Bible related content on YouTube, which has been viewed tens of millions of times really blew up during, during COVID, like, like many YouTube channels did. And Tim just does a fantastic job navigating Bible translations and how to find and evaluate different Bible translations that are good for you.

He earned a master divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, and then was a visiting scholar at Oxford University's Weecliffe Hall. And his book on Bible translations that just came out is called Bible Translations for Everyone. And it's a very, very accessible book. Would highly recommend it. During this episode also, we introduced a new feature on Patreon where silver level supporters can tune in live to podcast, to the all general podcast conversations and can ask questions. So we were testing out this feature and I thought it went really well. It was really fun to see people interacting with the conversation in real time. So if something like that interests you, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the all general, get more info there. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Pastor Tim Welts. All right. Hey Tim, welcome to theology. I'm really excited about this conversation. Thanks

for having me Preston. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, man. So tell us a bit of your background. Who are you and what's your theological education background and what do you do for a full-time job? Yeah. So I grew up in the Midwest, kind of Omaha, Nebraska kid, bounced around a little bit, but I landed at Belmont University for college, for undergrad. I actually got a music business degree at Belmont back in 2005 and started leading worship when I was moved to Nashville working for a youth ministry in town and got leading worship when I was moved to Nashville working for a youth ministry in town and got into worship leading. My youth pastor back in Omaha hired me to be on staff at the church as a worship leader. So I did a worship leading and kind of singer-songwriter stuff for about a decade.

Found my way back to Nashville for Becca, my wife. We dated in college and I moved back to Nebraska for six years. We reconnected. So I moved back down here and to Nashville and we got married and a worship leading gig kind of accidentally turned into a youth pastor job. And I found myself in my mid 30s going, I'm now a full-time youth pastor. I have like two religion undergraduate courses under my belt. I need to deepen my well is the phrase I kept using. So I enrolled at Fuller and got an MDiv at Fuller in 2020 and had a really cool opportunity to go to the UK for a few months after I graduated from Fuller. It was like, there was this little window where I was able to get into the country in England during COVID in

between lockdowns and got to do some postgraduate work at Wycliffe Hall at Oxford. And then I joined the staff at Belmont University, my undergrad alma mater, as one of the campus ministers about three and a half years ago. So I've done a little bit of work in the church and now I'm working on a college campus every day as my day job. And then my wife and I are part-time on staff as worship leaders at a local Baptist church here in Nashville. What's the name of the church? It's called Crevewood Baptist Church. It's an old neighborhood called Creve Hall, kind

of on the south side of Nashville. Yeah. And so then a few years ago, I started doing YouTube stuff and talking about the Bible on YouTube. I was, I was looking for a project during COVID. That's kind of how some more stuff started happening for me. But yeah, I did the same thing. I dusted off my YouTube channel and resurrected it during COVID and man, I, yeah, I spent so much time learning how to try to edit and do YouTube stuff. And it was just a whole world that, yeah, I spent way too much time and didn't, right. I realized this is my stuff.

All of my stuff was really bad music videos that I made when I was doing music from like, so it was like stuff from like 2006 and seven. That was on my YouTube channel. I left some of it up there. So people do a deep dive. They can find it, but it was like, I had really bad hair and I thought I was really cool. And then I got into it. I told my friends, the first time I made a video about a Bible, like a Bible review during COVID, that video in like a week got more views than anything I'd ever done as a musician. So it was just the dopamine made me come back. I'm like, Oh, maybe there's something here for me.

So did you fall into evaluating Bible translations and stuff? Was that something that during that YouTube stint, you started doing more and more of that? Yeah, so I was finishing up at Fuller spring of 2020. My mom says, hey, dad and I wanna get you a really nice Bible for your graduation. This was prior to COVID kind of happening in March. And so, the way I tell this joke is like, normally when I go to Amazon or I look for something online,

I filter the search results by the least expensive. But because my mom and dad were offering, I started looking up Bibles and searching by most expensive. And over the course of a couple months, well, and then COVID hit. and dad were offering, I started looking up Bibles and searching by most expensive. And over the course of a couple months, well, then COVID hit. So while everybody else was like learning how to bake bread and watching the Tiger King, I was doing a deep dive on Bibles and discovering the world of all these different publishers. And I knew about translations, but just really the publishing world. And so I ordered a bunch of stuff because I was stuck at home and I was bored. And so I started checking stuff out.

I found all these Facebook groups, these other YouTube channels. And so I just made a couple of videos. I think it was like April or May of 2020 and, and people watched them and they, and they commented and they said, Oh, I'm looking for that. And then I saw all these numbers about, you know, people were returning to the Bible because of the pandemic. And I thought, okay, I'm going to help people find a Bible that they can enjoy. So that's what it started out as, just like reviewing Bibles that were being published.

A few months in, a couple publishers sent me Bibles. They're like, hey, will you review this for us? We found your channel. And I was like, free Bibles? Yeah, I'll review them for you. And then over time, I started getting more viewers and people going, hey, Tim, okay, send me a message or a comment. Okay, I've watched all your videos. I need to figure out which one of these is right for me.

Where should I start? And I kept telling people, well, you need to figure out which translation you want to go with. That's a good place to start. But I couldn't find like one place to send them to really figure out everything about translations. And that's when I started developing my own content about Bible translations. What do you tell people about translations? Maybe we'll walk through, like, do you go through the different translations and here's a pros and cons in each one? It kind of depends on what the person is looking for? Yeah, absolutely. It's understanding the kind of the way that I've been tackling it is,

you've got textual basis. So like the Hebrew Aramaic and Greek texts that are being translated and those are slightly different depending on which translation you're going with. And so kind of helping people understand that and then really the a lot of people see the Bible translation spectrum. So on one side you have word for word, formal equivalence translations. On the other side you have thought for thought, word for word, formal equivalence translations. On the other side, you have thought for thought, dynamic equivalence translations. And the goals of the translators and what they set out to do is going to help you understand

what you're getting when you read this. And then there's all the little factors, like, good example, a lot of people don't know this, but the New American Standard Bible, whenever the New Testament is quoting the Old Testament, they render that verse in small caps. So it's capital letters, but it's not like big capital letters, it's small caps. And that's just a hint in the text itself, oh, they're quoting somebody from the Old Testament here.

And stuff like that, you may like that or you may not like that. So it's good to know the differences and the similarities between all these translations so that you can make an informed decision about which ones are right for you is kind of the way I say it. Do you have a favorite translation? I mean, because of all the work I've been doing the last few years, it's hard to do that. I grew up, you know, Midwestern evangelical.

I was born in the 80s. So like we use the NIV because everybody used the NIV, it felt like. My mom tells me that she spent some time with the NASB and the NKJV kind of earlier than that. And then when I started college, like I started college the same year that the ESV came out. And so over my four year span of college and undergrad, I just saw more and more ESV Bibles at church every week.

And it literally became kind of the translation of my generation, I think. And so I spent a long time with the ESV. And now because of reviewing Bibles and talking about Bible translations, I'm constantly kind of bouncing back and forth, checking out different ones to see how they render a certain phrase or a certain word, but also just to see how like, if I read an entire letter from Paul in the CSB, how does that impact somebody who really, I have the NIV and the ESV kind of embedded into my mind, how does reading from another one prompt to different ideas? And I bet it, if you're used to one translation, then you start reading another. I wonder if it

reintroduces some freshness into your Bible reading? Because you could, when you become so familiar with something, you could like almost, your mind checks out a little bit, but when something's a little bit more startling or unfamiliar, does that draw us back into that text in a fresh way? I think that's absolutely what happens because, I mean, for me, think like I'm 18, 19 years old, I've really only ever read the NIV, and then I start reading the ESV. I'm going from a dynamic thought for thought for translation of the Bible in the NIV to a word for word, more formal equivalence translation in the ESV.

And they, if you read them side by side, there are certain places where they, you can tell they're saying the same thing. We've all been in a small group where somebody were reading scripture aloud and somebody's reading from a different translation. And our Bible has slightly different syntax and things like that, but we can tell that it's the same thing. But every now and then you're like in that same small group, you're like, that's funny. Your translation said this word, but my translation said this word. And then the group starts having a conversation about how just one word difference can illuminate new things in the text. Let's go through some of the big ones and I would love to hear your pros and cons.

Okay. Like as people are considering this particular translation, here's some things to think about. Let's just start with the most popular NIV. Yeah. NIV is a, I think it's, it's came out in the late 1970s and since almost day one has been a translation that has really done well around the world for Christians who want a translation that feels like it's being rendered in the way we talk today. The kind of backstory is this guy named Howard Long was a businessman in the Pacific Northwest

in the U.S. and he was trying to preach the gospel, share the gospel with his friends and his co-workers, and he was using the King James Bible, and one of his colleagues started laughing at him. He's like, what are you reading to me? Like this Elizabethan English, you know? And that was like the first seed that kind of eventually led to the development of the NIV. And so it's a translation that is designed, it's one of the first major translations that was designed to be in the kind of more modern day vernacular of how you and I are speaking to one another right now. Still faithful to the original text, it's got a who's who

of biblical scholars behind it that were on the translation team. But it's definitely one of the kind of the mainstay in terms of a little bit more modern sounding translation. Now it is less, a little less literal, right? It's a dynamic equivalent. So sometimes phrases aren't rendered word for word, but more concept for concept. How would you describe the difference between a literal versus dynamic equivalent translation? Yeah, so I think of the literal, the formal equivalence as the translator's goal is to match the form of the ancient Hebrew Aramaic and Greek texts as closely as possible and the word order.

There's no truly literal translation in English because if we followed directly, just the syntax would not make sense. There's phrases and words that we don't have in English today that really match one to one. So there's a little bit of translation process in every one of them. But with those formal equivalences,

they're sticking to that as closely as possible. Whereas a dynamic equivalence translation is gonna say, hey, usually what they say is, if a formal translation, if a word for word translation works, that's what we're going to go with. But in the places where that's a little bit less understandable, less clear, we might tweak the word order or tweak the phrasing. We still want to get that, we call it thought for thought. We want to get the thought behind the verse right, but we want to render it in a clear

form of English. So those are your two. And a lot of people accuse literal translations. Like you hear people talk about the ESV is the Yoda Bible. Well, what they're saying is because Yoda's sentence structure is a little funky. That's because they're sticking close to the Hebrew. And so, yeah, sometimes it sounds a little Yoda-ish

when you read it, but you're also, you're staying close to the original text in that sense. By the way, if I'm looking over here, I have a Bible gateway here with different, uh, translations and stuff. So let me give an example here. It just kind of came to my head and, um, I have first Corinthians 16, 13 up in the NIV and the new American standard. So the NIV says, be on guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous and be strong. The NASB, which is a much, much more formal equivalence. People say, I like your distinction between saying something literal isn't quite accurate, but this, this one's a very wooden, very much trying to get word for word, trying to get the literal as well. Sometimes. Yeah. The, the, the, the more formal

equivalent of a Greek word. So this one says, be on alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men be strong. Now the Greek word here is, I think if I remember correctly on Drids on my on dross think men on Drids of my as a verbal form. So yeah, the most literal Translation of that Greek word is act like men But if you think about it, he's hot. He's speaking to a mixed congregation men and women. Yeah, absolutely telling women to Cross dress and transition or you know, like is this a pro trans? Verse I didn't really this wasn't planning going there. But you know, I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing.

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I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. it meant to be courageous, because that was a masculine virtue. So the NIV says be courageous, the NASB. So what I think is happening there is the NASB is looking at the Greek and rendering it pretty literally. The NIV is going, well, if we render that literally, we're going to have some confusion over what act like a man means because Paul's writing to more than just the men in the audience of this letter.

And so they're saying be courageous because they're basically saying that Greek word is trying to tell people to be strong, to be courageous. And we're now quoting Joshua, but that's the idea that they're going for. So that's a very slight, you're right. That's a good example. That's a very slight translation difference where one is definitely more literal to what the text says, and one is more trying to get the idea across of what he was trying to say to the actual audience that was reading it.

So what kind of person or maybe what kind of reading goals would someone benefit from with the NIV as opposed to the New American Standard, for instance? I think that's one of those things where if you are fresh to the Bible, or you don't speak Greek and Hebrew, and you don't have the tools and the resources to go and understand what so you might read if you're reading the NASB and it says act like a man, then you're you don't have the tools to understand some of the things behind that whereas the NIV is they're basically giving you a kind of an easier path towards understanding and clarity of what the text meant. Obviously there's some interpretive work going on there by the translators that you're putting your trust in, but that's the

goal with I think the NIV is something that's a little bit more directly clear for everyday readers who might not be coming to the text with seminary degrees and theological studies and stuff like that. Some people who defend a very literal translation like NASB would say the job of the translator is not to interpret the passage, but just to translate it. The pushback to that is yes, but all translation involves some level of interpretation. Yes.

The translator's making translation choices that there's a human element in there. You have a word that's capable of meaning three or four different things and how you decide that this specific meaning of this Greek word is what is trying to be, I'm gonna convey this in English, you're still making an interpretive decision there.

Would you agree with that, that all translations are a kind of interpretation and it's unavoidable or? Yeah, I think there is a level of interpretive decision there. Would you agree with that, that all translations are a kind of interpretation and it's unavoidable? Yeah, I think there is a level of interpretive work that's happening in the translation process because you have to look at these ancient languages and say, how do we render this in English in a way that makes sense for people? But again, there's words and phrases

that don't really have a one-to-one parallel. And so we've got to wrestle with that. And yeah, I think there's a good argument to be made that a literal translation of the Bible is a good call. That's a good approach to take as far as a translation philosophy goes because it's going to help us stay as close as the original wording is possible. What I think maybe gets a little bit lost in that sometimes is there's also a level of literalness that is in the way a text feels. And there's poetry in the Bible and like the different ways that the Bible comes to life that sometimes when we're just worried about letters and word order, we lose some of that flavor and feel that

really helps the text come to life in a new way. And so there's a little bit more wiggle room for a thought for thought translation to try to get towards that feeling of the text because they're not less concerned with being accurate. They're less concerned with being literal in that sense. Okay. All right. Let's talk about the NASB then again, pros and cons to the NASB. The NASB is, I think, the pros that I see in the NASB. Again, someone who didn't grow up with it but has started to use it more in recent years are things like what I talked about earlier with the capitalized letters in the New Testament. So if I'm studying Romans,

there's plenty of times when Paul says, as it is written, before he quotes something. But there's also times where he references Old Testament passages, where he doesn't really make it super clear. The text then helps us see, oh, he's quoting that. I love the NASB as a study tool because of that feature. Similarly, they used italicized words whenever there is a quote-unquote supplied word. So, when the word is not there in the ancient languages, but it's needed in order to be clear in English or it's inferred, then they add that. But they're just giving you a lot of transparency with the italicized words, the capital letters,

things like that. They help you understand if it's subtle too. You could read it and it won't distract you. But if you're paying attention, it's like, oh, there's something happening in the translation here that they want us to see. And then the NASB, most major translations have their own proprietary set of translation footnotes. And the NASB does a really good job. Many of the translations do, but the notes do a really good job. If you pay attention when there's a footnote and hop down to the bottom of the page and

read it, you'll get a lot of insight about some of the decisions that were made and some of the different readings. There's like critical text notes and things like that that will go, okay, so this manuscript actually says something different. Here's what we did in the translation. Those sorts of things can be really, really helpful. The downside of the NASB, you used the word wooden earlier, it's often accused as being the wooden, almost too formal.

I think that that's probably its greatest strength, but for ease of readability and just sitting down and having like an, if you just want to sit down and do your morning devotions and read some passages from the Bible, it doesn't flow quite as naturally as some of these other translations. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely is a bit clunkier. I've often said, this is a very general kind of approach to like, if I want to read the Samson narrative, Judges 13 to 16 in one sitting, it's a narrative. I want to feel the flow of the story. I, you know, I'm probably going to go to the NIV or something like that. You were even maybe the new, new living translation.

We could talk about that in a second, but if I want to do some research on like Galatians three, 10 to 14, and I just really want to understand this kind of complex argument of Paul, I'm probably going to go to the new American standard. If I'm really looking for kind of that, I'm looking at the, yeah, the, how this verse logically fits with this verse. And you know, I, and what is the original, like, like when I read the new American standard, I could almost guess, Oh, this is probably the Greek word line behind this because it's, it's usually given a straightforward definition and to your point about the quotation, so even like Galatians 3, 10 to 14, Paul's just quoting tons of scripture here, but only the first verse he says, as it is written, and he quotes Deuteronomy. But then he says, now the one who is justified by the law before God is evident for the righteous will live

by faith. No, it is written, but that's clearly from Hab back to four and then three 12 same thing. The law is not a faith on the contrary. The point who does these things will live by them. According to Leviticus 18 five. So what he's just doing this week, like complex weaving together these different verses. And sometimes he's even putting them against each other, but he's not coming right out and saying, okay, I'm quoting this verse. I'm quoting this verse. It's just kind of embedded into his argument. But all that to say that the, the, the, the all caps makes that really clear. It's so important. If you like to your point, if you really want to do a deep study, actually

did a video on my, on my channel recently about the best translation for deep study and the NASP was one of the ones I talked about, because it makes sense. If you really want to dig into what Paul's trying to get at in Galatians 3 and this overarching conversation he's having in Galatians, then you see that you're going, okay, I need to go figure out what this passage in Deuteronomy was talking about if I want to make sense of Paul's argument here. I need to hop over to Habakkuk and the NASB makes it really easy for you to do that because of the features of the translation. So if you want to dig deep, it's kind of built in to do that.

I think it's a great translation for that. My one big hang up with the new American standard is the name American. I even say that. I said that in the book that I wrote about Bible translations because I said, I think part of the reason why it didn't get bigger was because they put American, you have new Americans standard Bible and new international version. Guess which one did really well around the world. You know, it's like almost the name kind of hurts it a little bit. Yeah. And already Americans just have a, we struggle with ethnocentrism and we're the

center of Christianity instead of have a translation that's named after this country. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. But I guess the counter-argument could be, well, yeah, but Americans do speak a certain kind of English that is a little bit different than UK English. And so I guess that'd be the good pushback. I just still think it kind of just fosters the fact that I never even thought about it till I moved overseas and I was asked to preach and I'm reading on my new American standard and my British audience like, what are you reading out of? Like, Oh, it's the new American standard Bible. They're like, the heck is that? And then they rolled their

eyes because they're like, Oh, chip. Sure. Americans have their own translation. You know, of course, of course you would. When, when the ESV first came out, I was like, Oh, English standard version. I guess we're all supposed to use this one now. If we, if we speak English, like I just, that was like, oh, English standard version. I guess we're all supposed to use this one now if we speak English. Like, that was like great marketing by them, but I had no idea, you know? Do you ever feel like you're running on empty? I wonder how many hands went up.

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saying literal, even though you don't prefer that term, but yeah, I think it's fine. I kind of use interchangeably word for word, formal equivalence and literal translations. And I do, there's a couple of studies that have been done out there that kind of measure the literalness, which I think is interesting. The ESV is going to kind of be somewhere very close to the NASB on that spectrum. It's going to be in the same ballpark, but they, their starting point was, well, it's actually interesting. Their starting point was the RSV.

So the ESV, they, they licensed, Crossway licensed the RSV. They obviously go back to all of the original languages and start over from scratch, but comparing and contrasting everything. But it's got some of those same hallmarks, but I would say that the ESV probably has a little bit more, they wanted to honor the poetic tradition of the King James Bible. If you go to Crossway's website, they'll say, we're like, we are in the line of Tyndale and the King James translators. So, I do think it's a little bit more poetic reading, particularly in the Psalms, where actually my pastor preaches from the NIV, and yet we do a

psalm reading every Sunday where one of our church members or attenders comes up and reads a psalm, and we usually read from the ESV because we just like the way they sound in the ESV, you know? But it's not going to have as many of those in-text features. It's a little bit more of a clean, straightforward translation. There's not the capitalized, there's not the italicized words, those sorts of things. But one of the other things about the ESV, and I'm convinced that one of the reasons

why it's so popular, particularly in America, is because Crossway's done such a great job as a publisher, where there's literally an ESV Bible for everyone, from journaling Bibles to preaching Bibles to study Bibles. They do such a great job as a publisher, so there's just tons of unique additions. And that's part of the conversation I have

on my YouTube channel is like, hey, like I'm convinced if you find an actual physical copy of the Bible that you enjoy, the layout and the vibe of it, that you'll want to spend more time with it. And CrossFit is a good job as a publisher in that sense. All right, let's get a little bit controversial here. This actually, since we're on the ESV, and I want to actually, I'm going

to go here first, but then I do end, want to end up, I want to have you give a brief history of the RSV and RSV in relation to the King James, how that came about. Cause I think for even a lot of evangelical Christians, I don't know if they weren't raised in a world that used the RSV or NRSV as much. So the fact that the ESV is kind of linked to that I'm not sure if that's a good thing to say, but I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say.

I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say.

I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I think that's a good thing to say. I pronouns and Romans 12, six to eight. I got the text

pulled up here. Yeah. Let's go ESP Romans 12, Romans 12, six to eight, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Let each let us use them if prophecy and proportion to our faith of service and our serving the one who exhorts. I'm not seeing male pronouns here. I mean, I can answer the question. I think what, what Ron's is getting at is, Oh, in his teaching. Oh gosh. Okay. Okay. Verse seven, if service in our serving the one who teaches the old, so once it mentions teaching in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation. Cause these are kind of the one who contributes in generosity. So no, no male pronouns there. The one who

leads with zeal. So no, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. So there's male pronouns. Yeah. So do you, I don't know if you have the Greek in front of you. I don't have the Greek. I don't have it in front of me. Is that, is that a little, is there a translation bias going in there? My bigger question was the ESP does get pegged as having a complimentary bias because all I think of as translators are complimentary and which does, could, could affect one's translational decision. Whether you, yeah. How you translate some of these debated passages. So, yeah, I think my guess is that the Greek word has the Greek without looking at it.

My guess is that the Greek, I'm looking at several other translations that says, if your gift is service, then serve. And then there's another one here. The NET says, if it is service, he must serve. Whether service and serving, whether teaching. Yeah, there's no male pronouns here in the Greek. the I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not,

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, ESP does have a bias, a complimentary and bias. I've gone back and forth on this personally. For one, I get really, really nervous projecting motivation. Yeah. And you know, yes, with some of these, leaving aside Romans 12, cause this is actually really interesting. I've never noticed this before. Some of these debated passages, there are legitimate interpretive options that I guess might support a or, or lend credence to a more complimentary position, but it's not that they're just making sense. Like these are legitimate interpretive options like with Junia in Romans 16 seven or Phoebe, you know, uh, whether you call her a Deacon or a servant, like Diokinia means servant. It also means Deacon means servant.

So whether, so I, I just, and maybe there is bias, maybe people are reading into it. Maybe they are landing on a certain interpretive option because of their complimentary. It is. I just, I hesitate projecting motivation, but it is interesting at least in, in a lot of these kinds of debated men, women passages that you kind of see the ESP landing on a certain view pretty consistently. Yeah. But those are my thinking out loud opinions. Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, I think, I think that the, I see it more when I look at like the ESV study Bible, like the study notes. I probably see more of that sense in the notes than I do in the text. That's an interesting one. I'm going to do a little bit of digging because I've...

Just while you were talking there, I looked at like four or five different translations, and it's like the NASB doesn't have the masculine pronoun there. The ESV, the KJV, the NET, they do. And the NET is kind of more of a middle of the road translation. It is, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think what a lot of people, the ESV was kind of part of the reason why it gets that reputation is because when it was developed, it was developed in response to gender inclusive language in the NRSV and the NIV and subsequently the NLT and now other translations as well. And so I think when it was, it was, it was noteworthy, it was newsworthy when the ESV

was being developed because they were, they were going this way. So I think from the outset, it probably has this perception from a lot of people as it's the complementarian translation. I think the vast majority of the ESV doesn't feel to me like it has a whole lot of heavy-handed pushing towards that. I think they did a pretty faithful job of translating the text, but there's probably some places where certain, again, like we said earlier, you have to interpret some things a little bit here and there. And is it being tweaked that way? I'm just looking at the page of the ESV translators.

I mean, you got a long... So you have 54 scholars divided into three areas. One is the Translation Oversight, are commentary and our Kent Hughes, very commentary and Rob Bob mounts commentary and William mounts comment. Uh, J I packer. He's not right now. He's not commentary. J I packer.

I he's not with us anymore. Uh, and then the other one is the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I'm not sure where he stands on that. But then you have the translation review scholars. And here I see some very, very strong commentaries, some more, I think, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, more of a, where he stands on that. But then you have the translation review scholars. And here I see some very, very strong commentarians, some more middle of the road. And then some

do I have rich Hess is not, I don't believe he's commentarian. Anyway, it's it in glancing at this list, it is overwhelmingly complimenting, but I don't think exclusively, at least people that are involved in some way. But again, I don't want to say, I mean, does that mean if you're egalitarian, you're also going to read in all your bias people are like, no, no, they're just interpreting it fairly. I'm like, well, everybody's going to have a view on certain things. And I don't know. I just, again, what I hesitate saying definitively that they are totally reading their theological precommitments in the text.

I think it's wise for people to understand, hey, okay, the ESV is a more conservative, evangelical group of translators. And so, if there's going to be a theological bias as a group, right, you're going to get theological bias when your project, when you read a translation that's translated by one person, right? Whereas you get a little bit more, you feel a little safer, I would say, even when you have a team of translators. But if they're all coming from the same theological perspective, it makes sense that there might be some of that that shows itself in the translation, or like I said, particularly the study notes. But you can kind of get that on both sides too, you know what I'm saying? So it's interesting. But that's one of the things I tell people. If you are from a certain tradition,

there are certain translations that are kind of backed by that tradition, and they're more common in that tradition. And so that helps to understand which ones are which. Wouldn't the best scenario then to be get a wide diversity of denominational, you know, healthy theological diversity among a translator, translation team? I mean, that would be something that would probably ensure more, less bias. It will ensure that there's less bias if you have a wider array of teams. There are translations that do that, that have a wider range of people

from different backgrounds. And then there are others that are a little bit more narrow. Can you give us a quick history? Okay, ESV was a, well yeah, tell us the quick history of what is the RSV, then NRSV in relation to the KJV and how does the ESV fit into that? Okay.

So you have King James Version 1611, the predominant Bible. After a couple of decades, it became the predominant Bible in the English speaking world, was so for over 200 years. In England, they decided we need to update this to an official updated version. That came out in 1885. It was called the revised version. During that time. So that was a revision of the King James. It wasn't a different... That's right. The revised version. But they used... This is where we get into the textual

basis conversation because they used what is now known as the critical text. Since the development of the King James Version, lots of new manuscripts in the Greek translation world and the Greek New Testament world were discovered, full codexes that were now... So this is why you hear the question about, are there verses missing in your Bible? Well, no, they're using a different textual basis that had a slightly different, some variations in it. But during the time that between KJV and Revised Version, America became a thing. And so they invited American biblical scholars to participate in that process, but they told the Americans, you can't publish your own version of this for 15 years. They

was kind of foreshadowing the business of Bibles. So 1885 Revised Version, 1901 American Standard Version, that's basically the Revised Version with a few of its own tweaks. So, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, is an update to the ASV of 1901 that at that point, the copyright, so Thomas Nelson had the copyright. They worked with, it was developed, the RSV was developed as an update by what became

the National Council of Churches. And so in 1952, you have, and it was the first, it was big time because it was the first translation to take out all the these and the thousand. It felt really modern. So it's an update of these. It's like one generation removed from the King James version. It's really modernizing the text. It's also coming in the 1950s where the debate between modernists and fundamentalists and like, you know, that kind of question in the church in America is starting to skyrocket. So it's like embraced by all of these mainline churches that are kind of question in the church in America is starting to skyrocket. So it's embraced by all of these mainline churches

that are kind of under the umbrella of the National Council of Churches, but vehemently rejected by a lot of conservatives and evangelicals. The RSV. The RSV, in part because of things like in Isaiah 714, they translate the Hebrew word as young woman instead of virgin. Now, worth noting in the Gospel of Matthew, where that verse is being quoted, they use

the word virgin because it's a translation issue. So a lot of people were saying they were trying to take the virgin birth out of the Bible, those sorts of things. So the RSV gets... That's a good example there because the Hebrew word does, can mean young woman, which in that culture was also most likely a virgin. Yeah, it's used in other places in the Old Testament that is referring to a young woman and has no sexual connotation to it. Whereas there's other places where it seems to be saying

that she is a virgin. But there is another Hebrew word that undoubtedly means virgin than the one that's used in Isaiah 7, 14. Oh, interesting, okay. So that happens in the 50s. The RSV becomes really big in the mainline world. And then immediately evangelicals, conservatives start working on their translations, the NASB,

the NIV. Those are the ones that come out of that. Forty years later, the National Council of Churches says, we're going to do an update to the RSV. That becomes the new revised standard version of 1989. And then when you get into the big gender inclusive translation debate of the 90s, so you've got the NRSV is the first translation to fully embrace the idea of gender inclusive translations where they are kind of the opposite of what we just looked at in the ESV.

They're taking Greek words like Adelphos and they're rendering them as brothers and sisters because they're saying, well, Paul was speaking to everybody, not just the men. They look at it contextually. The NIV started playing around with that. The NLT did that. And the ESV, they have the, you know what the Colorado Springs statement is? No. There was like a gathering of evangelical leaders in Colorado Springs in the mid-90s where they basically released this statement, these

guidelines for translations, and they say, we're not going to do the gender-inclusive thing. That's not how we're going to do it. And out of that comes this question of, okay, we need a new... It was Wayne Grudem and John Piper and those sorts of guys, they're looking at Bible translations going, okay, the best one we have that doesn't do this gender inclusive thing is the NASB. And a lot of people don't love the NASB. Wayne Grudem asked a bunch of his students and he found out they were all reading the RSV.

The translation that evangelicals had rejected 50 years earlier, 40 years earlier, was now popular at the seminary level. And so Grudem and Piper went to Lane Dennis, the CEO at Crossway, and said, we need to do an update of our own, update of the RSV, where we don't use gender-inclusive language. We keep things at a more literal kind of male-oriented. And so, it makes no sense for the, I think they thought it makes no sense for the National Council of Churches to license their translation and update of it to a bunch of evangelicals, but they did. So now you have the ESV, which is easily the most popular literal word-for-word formal equivalence translation of the Bible for evangelicals, and it's over 90%

identical to the RSV from 1952, which they roundly rejected for being too liberal. So it's not that different from the RSV. If you compare it, I've seen a couple of things that say that it's like 93 to 95% identical. Can you expand just briefly on what you mentioned about the gender inclusive language so that people can understand, like, what are the two camps? Like, what are the two camps kind of saying? Yeah, I think the biggest thing I'd like to make clear is when we talk about gender-inclusive Bible translations, we're not talking about the same conversation our society is having about gender identity.

And like, a lot of people I see comments on YouTube and Facebook where they're confusing Gender inclusive Bible translation says, you know, oh, yeah, like I have people say well Does that mean they put they's and them's in there? You know You'd be surprised how many comments I get like that It's basically the camp is we have the you know for a long time In many ancient languages the default is masculine language when referring to groups of people. And in English, it was that way for a long time. We talk about man in a general sense to refer to everybody.

But over time, that has become less the norm. And so in 1989, the New Revised Standard Version Translation Committee makes the decision that in these places where masculine language is used to refer to more than just men, we are going to look at the context of each passage and if it makes sense, we're going to render the translation in a way that is gender neutral or gender inclusive. So in the, you know, Philippians 4.1, finally brothers, Paul speaking, they translate brothers and sisters because they want it to be clear for their readers, if you're a woman, you're not being spoken to here, this is to everybody.

And so in places where it does seem like the writer or the speaker was just speaking to men, they leave it that way. And there's a few other words that that's going to happen with. And that was seen as a paradigm shift in the late 80s and early 90s. And that's one of the reasons why I think the NRSV has always been kind of labeled a quote unquote liberal translation, because they were the first ones to do that. And because it was from the National Council of Churches and a bunch of mainline denominations, you have, you know, the religious right of the 1980 ones to do that and because it was from the National Council of Churches and a bunch of mainline denominations

You have you know the religious right of the 1980s and everything that's happening in our country culturally kind of setting that up But then a few years later the NIV Released a version called the NIV I Inclusive edition they released it in the UK. That was what sparks kind of outrage was Evangelicals in America were like, time out, is our number one translation, the NIV, about to go the way of gender inclusive language. They subsequently released something in America called the TNIV, today's new international version.

Then in 2011, they retired the 1984 NIV and the TNIV and came out with what's commonly referred to as the NIV 2011, which is a mixture, but it does have gender-inclusive language. And now, many evangelical translations have adopted this. The NLT, the CSB, the most recent edition of the NASB have all included various levels of gender-inclusive language. And they all say the same thing in their prefaces and on their websites. This is about clarity in English. It's not about politics and it's not about social norms. It's about, we want it to be clear

who these texts are speaking to. But then you have other translations, the ESV, the NKJV, the LSB now coming from MacArthur's camp, kind of in the NASB world who are saying, no, we're gonna leave it. LSB? The LSB, the legacy standard Bible. Are you not familiar with that? I have not heard of that.

The legacy standard Bible... We can come back to that. I don't want to slow you down. Okay. Yeah. Those translations say, we're going to render it literally because that's our translation philosophy. And we're going to... Usually what happens is, here's what's crazy. If you look at the ESV, when you read the word, I think it's the first time it appears in the book. When you read, the translation of Anthropos says brothers in the ESV.

There's a footnote down at the bottom that says, or it could be brothers and sisters. So they're not arguing with the fact that it was probably written to both male and female. They're just translating it literally. Whereas in the NRSV or another translation, it's gonna say brothers and sisters, there'll be a footnote that it says, it literally means brothers. So the notes give you all of the transparency. Most I think translators agree that these passages were not written just to the men, but that's become

the hot button issue is do we render it in the actual text of scripture as it's written, or do we update the rendering in scripture so that it's clear in English? But you think about it, if you think about it, if your translation philosophy is that functional dynamic equivalence, clarity in English, it makes sense that you might want to do that. And if your translation philosophy is adherence to the original text, it makes sense that you wouldn't. I think it's good that we have translations of both kinds.

Yeah. So the argument on each side, yeah. Um, to not to translate a Delphos, which means brother, either Greek words or brother people would say, well, if you say brother and sister, you're now making it and you're now introducing an interpretation. The word simply means brother. Uh, yes, it's being addressed to a mixed group. Just like I might come in to a room and say, I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word.

I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word.

I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that render the word that way in a translation. The other philosophy is, no, it actually does mean, since it's addressed to a mixed congregation, it doesn't actually mean males. It is a generic term for all people. Yeah, I get, yeah.

So you would say, hey, both are using different translation philosophies. Both are basically legit. Yeah, I think that it's, I find the explanation, none of these translations that are adding ancestors for that word are not addressing it. They're explaining their process behind it. And again, in terms of the translation philosophy, it makes sense to me. But I also don't, I don't have a problem with the ESV choosing not to do that. Their rationale, it's just, it's just a

different perspective that we, that you can look at the same issue from two different lenses. And I think both of them are rational reasons for choosing to do what they've done with the translation. And part of it too is like the English language just on a sociological level changes too. Yeah. Like even now, even now, like I actually don't typically say, Hey guys, very often anymore. 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago, what wasn't a big deal. But now, now our society has shifted to where there is a bit more sensitivity to various subtle forms of, for lack of better terms, male centricity or male domination

or whatever. So I think there is maybe a bit more of an, of an intuitedness to that. So given the fact that our society is now maybe viewing language slightly differently, and people could say that's I'm not, I'm not making a value statement where that's good or bad. I'm saying it is I mean, you can see a snapshot of that if you go to King James version, right? If you and I pick up the King James version and read today, it's not going to make sense to a lot of people because of how, how the language is being used. And so I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing.

And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing.

I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think, right? If you and I pick up the King James Version and read today, it's not going to make sense to a lot of people because of how old the language is, because the language has changed

so much. Now, that's been 400, and at this point, 413 years. But we still see some of those more compressed timelines. Many of our translations will make tweaks every five to 10 years because some things are just outdated, you know? So yeah, I definitely think that's the English language changing factor is the biggest factor in that one, not politics, you know? All right, here's another question from a theology and Ra community person. Phil wants to know, what is your opinion of Bibles without

verses and chapters? I have, yeah, I have seen a couple of these come out. It feels so different, doesn't it? Like I haven't actually read, just kind of thumped through it. I'm like, whoa, this just feels different. But that's how the Bible was originally written for hundreds of years, right? Yeah. I've got a couple of sets.

This set behind me is the Bibliotheca set for my friend, Adam Lewis Green, which is actually an updated version of the American Standard Version, the ASV from 1901 that he used. And I absolutely, I have a current CSB Bible. I'm doing some reading in the CSB that is free of verse numbers and chapter numbers. Really, okay.

And I love it. I love it for, I don't love it obviously for like Bible study or preaching. It's hard to find your place, but I love it for- Turn the page 340. Right? I love it for, I did a couple of years ago, I spent a year in the gospels

and I just did a deep dive into each gospel. And I started by reading each gospel straight through in one sitting. And a Bible without verses is pretty good for a practice like that because you're just immersing yourself. I want it to be single column. I don't, I want it to feel more like I'm reading a book. And you're right. Yeah. That's how, that's how the Bible was written. Like, you know,

the more I study the Bible, the more I go, man, who chose to put the chapter break there? Because he clearly wasn't finished with what he was trying to say. And now there's a new chapter there. You know, it's like sometimes the chapter breaks and the verse breaks don't really make a lot of sense. But I think those are a unique tool. Again, grabbing a physical Bible that's different, that kind of breaks you out of the norm, those sorts of rhythms in our lives, I think will help us re-engage with Scripture in a meaningful way. Yeah, that's good. A big one for me is like the division between Romans 12 and Romans 13, where in Romans 12, you had this litany of all these like very peacemaking love your enemy. Don't execute vengeance, you know, leave it to God. And then Romans 13 begins

submit to government authorities. And you feel like Paul is now doing something totally different. Whereas not submit to government authorities is kind of the final command in a litany of Romans 12 commit commands, be at peace with everybody. Don't return evil for evil, you know, love your enemy or, you know, and then submit to government authorities. Like it's part of that Christian posture. And then it kind of expands on, you know, kind of God's role in government or whatever. But yeah, a lot of times people just say Romans 13. I'm like, well, Romans 12 and 13, you know, exactly. Yeah. Okay. How about, yeah, let's the, the CSB, the Christian standard Bible, tell us about that translation. So that's my, if I, if I had one Bible on a desert island, that would be probably my pick.

It was designed to be something in between functional and formal equivalence. And it really does kind of sit in the middle of the translation spectrum. It's a great read developed by the Southern Baptist, same time as the ESV was being developed kind of in the 90s. Lifeway which is the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, is looking at their licensing the NIV for all, you know, Lifeway is producing copious amounts of Bible study material. They're having to license, pay for the rights to the NIV to put it in there.

Meanwhile, there's all these conversations happening about gender inclusive language. So they start having the same conversation just in a different vacuum, I guess. And they pull in a team of folks. Mostly, I think it was from, I think the guys were located at DTS, Dallas Theological Seminary. It was actually Arthur Farstad, the guy who was the head of the NKJV they brought in initially, and he passed away not long into the process. And so I think it was Ed Bloom, his friend was the one who kind of took over and finished everything. But it originally came out as the Holman Christian Standard Bible in the early 2000s. That's how I got into it. Yeah, I love that one. Yeah. Holman is the name, the family name of the publishing arm of like the book side of Lifeway, Broadman and Holman.

So it did okay. I think it did pretty better in Southern Baptist circles than anywhere else. But then in 2017 they did an update to it. They made a few significant tweaks and they rebranded it as just the CSB, the Christian Standard Bible. And over the last six years, seven years, it's really done much better. And they have a great publishing team that produces really great Bibles. And the translation seems to be gaining traction every year. More and more people are reading the CSB. They get help from things like my friends, Amanda and Rachel at She Reads Truth

did the She Reads Truth Bible. They've now sold over a million copies of that Bible, and it uses the CSB. Oh, she uses the CSB, okay, yeah. Yeah, so, but it's a great translation that it's one of the ones that I had not spent a ton of time with since college. I was actually in a promo video.

I went to a Baptist church in college, that's where I led worship, and I was one of the guys there, worked at Lifeway in the marketing department, and they had me come over to the headquarters and read passages from the HCSB for a promo video. I remember thinking I was so cool and I had a goatee at that time and

I wish I could find that video online somewhere. But I didn't spend a lot of time with it until I started reviewing Bibles on YouTube and stuff like that and now I'm like, man, this is a great, like you said, it's a great translation. Similar to what we talked about the NASB, they use small caps in the New Testament when it's quoting the Old Testament. The CSB just gives you a slightly bolded text. So when you're reading the New Testament, you can clearly see this is not bold for emphasis. This is bold because they're quoting the Old Testament. So they do a few different things like that as well. I got turned on to the HCSB, the Holman Christian Standard Bible, years ago by a scholar named Scott Haifman. He's not a very well-known scholar.

He's one of the most persistent and just a bulldog of an exegete. The guy will spend months researching one verse until he figures it. He's just incredible. I was part of a group of pastors that he was kind of a theologian, kind of oversight or whatever. Anyway, he started raving about the HCSB is like, this is the best translation I've ever read. He said, he even pointed out things like John three 16. And again, he's so particular when it comes to translation, you know, for God so loved the world. He's like the Greek word who toss does not mean so like he's so

loved it. It means in this way and it's linked to John three 15, you know, with the holding up the snake in the desert and everything. And in this way, God loved the world. He says, that is really important for the, and he's really getting a patch. You know? And he's like, the problem is there is a sentimentality. There is some marketing, there is politics that go into Bible translations and you get a message on three 16. Come on. So no translation messes with God. So loved. Yeah. And he's like, they HHSB said, screw it. We're good. Well, they didn't say screw up. They either like, no, the Greek word doesn't mean that. Or even like Christa, they're famous for interpreting Christa as Messiah rather than Christ, which

makes it sound like a personal Jesus H Christ, you know, yeah. You know, like people think it's like a first name, last name, um, uh, Yahweh. They translate the all caps, all Lord, you know, Yahweh. And I think the CSP has actually revisited some of that. Um, and my friends who I've got a buddy who works with the CSP he's he's convinced me that it's, it's a better move. Cause I was almost like, I kind of liked the old HCS because there was all these things that just broke the rules for the sake of accuracy. But yeah, I do. I mean, I don't, I don't, I think there's lots of, I value different translations for different things.

One of the, if I'm reading old Testament narrative, my go-to is the NLT, the New Living Translation. Can you tell us about that part? Partly because it's so readable. Yep. Very, they take the poetry and everything, very readable. But also this translation team is some of my favorite Bible scholars. They're so, so really, you know, they're really good. Yeah. When I was, when I was writing my book about Bible translations, I spent some time with Trimper Longman because he's on the translation committee. And he and I had a really cool conversation

about all of that stuff. So the NLT is probably out of our major, like most popular translations, it is the most thought for thought, the most dynamic of equivalents. It's kind of on the one side of the translation spectrum, but that doesn't mean that it's not, it doesn't adhere to the original text.

In some places, I find that the NLT reads almost more literally than some of the more famous literal translations of the Bible. But the backstory is really cool. It's this guy named Ken Taylor did a paraphrase of the Bible for his kids. That's the living Bible, right? The living Bible, yep. This is back in the 60s and 70s.

Billy Graham got ahold of it and was like, I love this. I want to give this as a free. So Billy Graham kind of put it on the map and it sold tens of millions. I actually have a copy back here. I have my grandmother's copy of it from the 70s that she just wrote all over and all in. That was her Bible. And then when the NIV came out in the late 70s, early 80s, I think the Living Bible kind of, it was really of its own kind. It was definitely a paraphrase. They called it a paraphrase, but the NIV was

like, oh, this is a legit translation that's more functional equivalence. And so they brought in this team of scholars and said, we want to develop a new translation that does that. And so, we put together a new translation starting from scratch. And that was the NLT. So, it came out in 96 and very easy to read. It sounds like the way you and I are talking right now. When I was in youth ministry for six years, that was kind of my go-to, you know, teaching high school and middle school students because it was just a Bible that I think they could really connect with. But even for me now, in my 40s, I'm like, man, I really love to open the NLT and just to sit down and read, because I think it really flows really nicely. And even though it is very much a dynamic equivalence,

you know, there are some liberties taken with, I don't want to say liberties, because that almost And I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point.

And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point.

And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. they are not like they are, they know Greek and Hebrew and Arabic better than anybody else. You know, like there's, they're actually trying to render if Paul were here today, how would he say with, with, you know, while resonating with what he did say, how would he maybe say it today? So it's very, it's a very trustworthy translation, even if it does feel almost like, gosh, it seems like they're, you know, being kind of loose with

the text again, that's not their purpose. Okay. Another question here from both Michael and Steve, Steven want to know, has your understanding of varying translations changed or affected any of your beliefs? And if so, which ones have you had a belief shift after coming across a different translation of a certain passage or series of passages? That's a good question. I don't think so. I don't think that I've like found anything that's like totally, because we're not talking about, one of the things I tell people when I say find a Bible that's right for you, I'm not saying you can find a Bible that'll say whatever you want it to say. I'm recommending what I would believe are translations that are kind of in the parameters

of orthodoxy. Obviously, there are going to be some different perspectives on certain renderings in certain places, but I think for me, it's more about if I jump over to this translation and read the same verses that I'm studying in a... If I'm starting from a literal translation, I jump over here to translation and read the same verses that I'm studying in a, if I'm starting from a literal translation, I jump over here to a more thought for thought translation, how does that rewording or rephrasing help me connect with what the text is saying, what it means, and what it can mean for me in my life if I'm trying to put this into, so that's the process I go through.

Yeah. All right, one more question. This comes from Tim. He says, I've experienced some people struggling in their faith when they first find out about all the different translations. This is a great question. Worried about not having the true Bible. Like if there's so many different translations, what does this mean? Like, isn't there just kind of one Bible? How would you maybe speak to somebody that the fact that there's so many translations has caused a disruption of their faith, or maybe somebody else knows of somebody who is in that place, and how would you counsel them talking to that person? Jared Sussman What I would say is that my research and

the history of Bible translations unfolding, when you understand the historical context of the world of English Bibles, it starts to make more sense why we have so many different ones. Because you have a pocket of people over here who are working faithfully to do something, you have a pocket of people over here. And if you look at even our churches today, right, we have so many different denominations. We have Protestants, Catholics, mainline, Orthodox, all of the different subgroups underneath it. It makes sense that certain pockets of people are going to have a slightly different perspective on a theological issue. And one of the things I loved about going to seminary at Fuller was

that I was in an ecumenical space where I got to... I remember there being a class where we were in a group and we were supposed to like read this text and talk about what it meant. And I was in a group with five or six other people and I was like, I don't even remember what verse it was, but it was like, obviously I know what that means. I've been reading that Bible since I was that book, that verse since I was seven. And then I started listening to other people and they were saying what this verse meant to them. And it was things I would have never thought of. You know, it's like they're, they're just, they're, if we're standing there looking at a mountain, they're looking at it from a different hilltop than I am. And it really illuminated the text

for me. And I think that's what I would say about translations is, what I'm seeing is really faithful work done by good people who care about God's Word, and we have lots of different options. And sometimes that can be really confusing, but I do think it's a good thing at the end of the day that we have different versions to choose from and to use in comparison with one another to help us understand the Bible. And yeah, there are a few out there that are a little weird that I don't recommend, but

I definitely think... Which one's weird that you don't recommend? I got one of mine. I don't like to do like negative click-baity videos on my channel, but. I got one of mine. I've got the, I've got a, I don't like to do like negative click baity videos on my channel, but I've got one in the hopper that's about the passion translation, which I have a lot of people who say, will you do a video on the passion translation? I love it. And there's a lot of videos out there about the background of that translation. That just, it's a little bit suspect to me. I got in a lot of trouble on my channel recently when I, I wouldn't say I endorsed, but I did

endorse Eugene Peterson's The Message because I think it's an interesting project. After reading Wyn Collier's book about Eugene Peterson, I went back to it a little bit and I was like, oh, there's some, it's quirky a little bit. It's definitely one man's work, but I think it's really interesting. There are certain places where it has helped me. The same thing. Reading it has sparked new ideas for me as I study the text. I think Eugene Peterson was clear in what he was trying to do and not trying to do. So it wasn't intended to be translation per se, right?

It was more like if Paul were here today, how would he communicate this message in a completely kind of- Yeah. I mean, he said it. He was a pastor at a church in Maryland. He's like, I want to put the Bible in the vernacular of the people who come to my church. And I think he, Wynn engaged a little bit in my content about this, the author of the book. And he said, Eugene thought that how we define translation versus paraphrase is a little bit murky. Technically, he did go back to Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and translate. By definition, it's a translation.

Also, by definition, it feels like a paraphrase because of the way he chose to do it. I think it's kind of in a weird gray area between those two. I don't recommend the message as anyone's primary Bible on a day-to-day basis, but more as a secondary resource to help you kind of think about it from a different lens. And he, I mean, people don't realize, they know him as a pastor, a thoughtful pastor, but he was early on, I mean, on a track to be a,

like a Bible scholar. He got like an MA in Hebrew. I mean, he's very, very well versed in Hebrew. He got into one of the top Old Testament Semitic PhD programs, I think at Johns Hopkins. And he decided he was focusing more on ministry, so he didn't do it. I mean, he's not just, it's not like he just had a year of Greek and Bible college or something. He really is scholarly, pretty capable. So the passion, yeah, real quick, and I'll let you go.

For those who don't know what the passion is, what is the passion translation and what are your maybe some honorable critiques of it? It's a translation, I can't even think of the guy's name. He basically said that God came and spoke to him and told him to make this translation of the Bible. And it is very much a paraphrase feeling translation, very, very, very, I would say, loose on some of the translations. And even that right there, like just the videos you watch of the guy who did it talking about how the process went, it's just, to me, it's just kind of, it has a bunch of red flags

that kind of get sounded off. And I can't think of a specific passage that I've read, but I have a couple of friends in the YouTube world who've done videos about, you know, specific things that it says and places where it says, look at this versus look at the NIV. We've got some problems here, you know? And I think when you sell the thing as this is

God's gift to us through me, that's, that's a little bit. It's endorsed by Bill Johnson, Bobby Houston. Yeah. Did it. I think it's something like he doesn't know Greek or Hebrew, but he was like translated up into heaven or something and God gave it to him or something. Yeah. Is that, yeah.

Yeah. Sounds that? Yeah. Yeah, it sounds a little sketchy, but I don't need, I don't need to know Greek and Hebrew, I just, you know. Hey man, really appreciate the conversation. And again, the book is Bible Translations for Everyone, a guide to finding the Bible that's right for you. What I love about this book is when you say Bible Translations for Everyone, it is a very, very easy to follow. I mean,

you got like cool pictures of old manuscripts and stuff in here, and it's just written in a very easy to understand. Most books on Bible translation and textual theory and stuff that I've read are just a very technical and scholarly. You don't sacrifice any of the scholarly precision here, but it's incredibly readable. So highly recommend it for everybody here. When my, I first got reached out to by my editor, Dale, he said, do you have any ideas for books? I said, you know, I'm working on this video series about Bible translations,

because so many people ask me about which translation fits for them, and I can't find one resource that will help them. You know, I have all of these academic books that I don't think normal people are gonna read. And so my initial pitch to him was, what if it was like a book for normal people about the differences and similarities

between all these different Bible translations? And he's like, that has to exist already, right? I was like, I can't find a really good version of that. He's like, then you should write it. I was like, okay, I'll take a stab at it. Yeah, I was shocked too. I was like, wait, has it been done before? But then I thought, like, no, there's there's Bruce Metzger.

There's other scholarly types that are, you know, again, very scholarly and thorough. But yeah, and it's short, 150 pages, you know, like it's you can probably read it in a couple days pretty easily. So yeah. Yeah. Or you can you can grab the audiobook. I read it and it took me three hours. It's not long at all. Oh wow, three hours? Yeah, it's a short one. I didn't wanna... Nice, yeah. I had a bunch of stuff that I wrote

that I was like, let's just trim this out. Let's keep it short and simple. That's smart. And yeah. Cool. All right, man, hey, thanks for being on the show. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Preston.

This was a part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hey friends, Rachel Grohl here from the Hearing Jesus Podcast. Do you ever wonder if you're truly hearing from God? Are you tired of trying to figure it all out on your own? The Hearing Jesus Podcast is here to help you live out your faith every single day, and together we will break down these walls by digging deeply into God's Word in a way that you can really understand it. If this sounds like the kind of journey you want to go on, please join us on the Hearing Jesus podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hey, so I'm launching a new season on the podcast, The Doctor and the Nurse. World renowned brain coach, Dr. Daniel Lehmann, joins me as a co-host as we dive deep into the mind and the brain of everything high performance. I've been fascinated for years as I've worked with top athletes, high powered CEOs, Hollywood actors, and all high performers in all types of different fields of how they break through pressure, ignite drive, how they overcome distractions, how they put fear on the bench, how they tap into flow state and just dominate all these different areas

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