In this message, William Einwechter teaches us how to determine which English translation of the Bible is most accurate and most biblical 

Good morning to everyone. Thank you for coming to this session. This is a very challenging topic, a topic that's often neglected in the many issues of the day, but in my opinion, one of the most foundational of all. If we don't get this one right, in terms of the overarching principles in which the translation of the Scriptures take place. We've laid the foundations for the very undermining of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture.

We are gathered here for that purpose to discuss the biblical and confessional understanding of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. I cannot emphasize how much this subject applies to the reformation of the church, the Christian family and each individual believer. In fact, if we're going to have a new reformation, in my opinion, we need to return to the doctrines of the absolute authority and complete sufficiency of Scripture. This doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture is stated in the Belgic confession of faith. Listen, we believe that this Holy Scripture contains the will of God completely and that everything one must believe to be saved is sufficiently taught in it.

For since the entire manner of service which God requires of us is described in it at great length no one even an apostle or an angel from heaven as Paul says ought to teach other than what the holy scriptures have already taught us for since it is forbidden to add or to subtract from the word of God, this plainly demonstrates that the teaching is perfect and complete in all respects. Probably most of us when we hear a statement like this on the sufficiency of scripture, like to connect it with the English Bible that we or our church uses. We make the assumption that our particular version is the Word of God and that, quoting, it contains the will of God completely and that everything one must believe to be saved is sufficiently taught in it." And we believe that this translation that we use has not added to or subtracted from the Word of God so that, again quoting the confession, its teaching is perfect and complete in all respect. But are these proper assumptions? The fact is that there are now at least 20 English versions of the Bible available and many more translations of the New Testament.

Really an unprecedented situation in the history of the church. Historically, the church in various countries have had usually one major translation that the people use. Here we've got twenty or so that are competing for our attention. And among these twenty English versions, there are significant differences between these translations. Not only do they differ, and sometimes radically, in style, grammar, and wording, they also differ in the actual verses that they include in their text.

Even a casual comparison of the versions available to us reveal that we have fundamentally different kinds of English Bibles. And so it's important for us to understand here at the outset that not all English versions are created equal. And they are not therefore equally the word of God. And this means that they are not all equally sufficient as a standard of faith and practice. Now this subject of English Bible translations is complex.

And we cannot hope in any fashion to adequately cover it in one lecture. But my hope here is to provide some help in understanding the issues from a biblical perspective and to give guidance in terms of the sufficiency of scripture that you as a believer can make a decision, an informed biblical intelligent decision concerning what constitutes a faithful translation of the Word of God in English. There are four areas that we are going to touch on. Number one, we need to determine the place of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament in the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. Secondly, we need to determine if an English translation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures can be considered the Word of God.

Number three, we want to identify the primary biblical standards then for judging Bible translations and at number four we want to apply these standards to the two fundamental aspects that go into making a translation. First of all let's talk then about the place of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament in the doctrine of sufficiency of Scripture. When God chose to reveal his word unto men and have that word committed to writing, he chose the Hebrew and the Aramaic languages for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament. The choice of these languages was not arbitrary. But according to God's purpose, In other words, the one who created human language and then divided it in tongues, various tongues of the Tower of Babel, could have used other tongues or other languages to give his inspired word to men.

But these languages were chosen by God because they were perfectly suited to convey his truth to mankind. And they were perfectly suited because God providentially guided the development of each of those languages so that when the time came for his word to be written in the Holy Scriptures, these languages would be available and the ideal means for expressing his truth to men. As I said, the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic. These are both Semitic languages and they're closely related to one another. However, the overwhelming majority of the scriptures in the Old Testament are in Hebrew.

In fact, the Aramaic portions consist only of Ezra 4, chapter 4 verse 8 through 16, chapter 7 verse 12 through 26, and then Daniel chapter 2 verse 4 through chapter 7 and verse 29 and then a stray verse in Jeremiah 10 11. Everything else is in Hebrew. So for practical purposes we're going to talk about the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. Now Hebrew is a vivid, concrete, and beautiful language. F.F.

Bruce explains its superb fitness as a revelation medium. He says, quote, biblical Hebrew does not deal with abstractions, but with the facts of experience. It is the right sort of language for the record of the self-revelation of a God who does not make himself known by philosophical propositions, but by controlling and intervening in the course of human history." Secondly, the New Testament was written in Greek. At the time of the writing of the New Testament, Greek was the common tongue and what we call the trade language of the nations that made up the Roman Empire. And by giving his revelation of the New Testament in Greek, his revelation became immediately available to all of those nations.

Again, as in the Hebrew, the Greek of the New Testament is the perfect language for setting forth the revelation of God in Jesus Christ to the nations. It is a language that's capable of a precision of expression that is virtually unmatched in any other language. The New Testament Greek was a wonderful combination of classical Greek, the vernacular Greek, and also the Hebrew through the influence of the Greek Old Testament. Now the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament and the Greek Scriptures of the New Testament are together the infallible Word of God and the final standard of truth, doctrine, and practice. These Scriptures consist of the very words, the very words that God inspired.

Therefore, they must be of supreme authority in the church. Now the finest confessional doctrinal statement on the subjects of the inspiration and authority of the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures and Bible translations from those scriptures is given in the Westminster Confession of Faith. And this epitome of Reform doctrinal formulation on this subject is also included word for word in the Savoy Declaration and the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. And here's what it says. Please listen carefully.

The Old Testament in Hebrew, which was the native language of the people of God of old and the New Testament in Greek, which at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations, being immediately inspired by God and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages are therefore authentic. So as in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal to them. Now there's three critically important points that are made here. First of all, the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures are the only scriptures immediately inspired by God. The word immediately is an adverb describing the manner of their inspiration.

And the word, of course, immediately here in this context means direct without any intervening medium. Now the Scriptures in translation do have an intervening medium. It's a process of translation from the Hebrew and the Greek into another language. So the first point, these scriptures are the only scriptures immediately inspired by God. And Pay attention to the word immediately.

Okay, the second point they make in this grand doctrinal confession that summarizes, I believe, in a very, very precise way with the scriptures teach about this subject. The second point is this, God has providentially preserved the words of these original inspired scriptures so that even though the autographs, that is the original manuscripts that the prophets in the Old Testament or the New Testament writers actually put pen to, actually wrote, even though we have lost them, we do not have them today, the church still possesses reliable and trustworthy copies of these original autographs. And number three, these providentially preserved Hebrew and Greek texts are the final court of appeal in all controversies of faith and practice. Now these three points provide the essential starting place for any discussion on the subject of English Bible translations. And it's on the basis of these doctrines that the questions and the controversies surrounding translation and the merit and authority of the individual versions have to be answered.

Now just from a side note, the realization of the unique place of the Hebrew Old Testament in the Greek New Testament shows the importance of the study of these languages among English speaking Christians. Ministers and elders, church leaders, as they are able, and I know there are limitations that many of us have, but as they are able, they should try to acquire a basic working knowledge of these languages. Very important. Furthermore, our home schools and our Christian schools should make the study of these languages our priority. Now, of course, there's a place of learning other languages for cross-cultural communication.

But as far as fundamental to the training of our children we should be in our school seeking to give them some introduction some help in the learning of these languages and thankfully there are many many excellent tools out there to that end And so the Hebrew and Greek scriptures are the final authority in the church. Now that leads us to the next question. What about a translation? Is an English translation of these Hebrew and Greek scriptures the Word of God? Very important and profound question, especially for those who have no knowledge of these languages.

Are they cut off from the Word of God, the inspired Word of God? In answer to these questions, I want to continue with the Westminster Confession statement, because it's so important I'm going to read the first half again before I go to the second half. The Old Testament in Hebrew which was the native language of the people of God of old and the New Testament in Greek which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations being immediately inspired by God and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages are therefore authentic. So as an all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal to them. Now I'm going to continue that quotation which I hadn't read before.

Continually it says this, but because these original languages are not known to all the people of God who have a right unto and an interest in the scriptures and are commanded in the fear of God to read and search them. Therefore, they are to be translated into the vulgar or common language of every nation unto which they come. That the word of God dwelling plentifully in all, They may worship him in an acceptable manner and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope." End of quotation. Three very important points are made in the second half of this doctrinal statement. Number one, not all the people of God know Hebrew and Greek.

And yet, they not only have a right and an interest in the Scriptures, they're commanded by God to read and search them. Secondly, therefore the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures are to be translated into the common language of every nation to which they come. That's the duty of the church. It's according to God's will that we have translations. It's essential that we have translations.

And number three, these translations, and I must say parenthetically, if carried out faithfully are the word of God. And they enable the people who use them, that is the translations, to serve God in an acceptable manner and to receive all the benefits of Scripture in their walk with the Lord. Now because of the nature of language, remember God is the creator of human language. And the shared characteristics of Hebrew and Greek with English, in terms of vocabulary and the basic parts of speech, It is possible to translate, to transfer the words and phrases of the Hebrew and Greek into the words and phrases of English. Therefore, a translation that reproduces in English the words and the sense of The original Hebrew and Greek is the word of God in English.

Again, translation is possible because of the basic structural unity of human language. But because it is possible, it does not mean that it's always done well. The fidelity of a translation to the original text determines the quality of the translation. A translation can be good or bad. Not all translations are equal.

Not all English versions are equally the Word of God. A translation can be good or bad depending on its adherence to the text and the meaning of the original. That's why I said to understand that God originally inspired his word in the Hebrew and the Greek is very important and is foundational because our translations must reflect in their words and in their meaning that immediately inspired text or they are not the Word of God. And it is possible in translation for a translator to not bring to you the Word of God but his own understanding, his own interpretation of the Word of God and give you something that is not Scripture. And so I would say this in the context of our conference.

A translation of the Bible is the infallible, all-sufficient Word of God to the degree, to the degree to which it reproduces in translation and conforms in word grammatical structure and meaning to the text of the original Hebrew and Greek. It should be the goal of every Christian and every church to use a very good translation of the Bible So that the word of God might richly dwell in you. And here is where the doctrine of sufficiency of scripture and English translations intersect. I cannot say this enough. Your English Bible is a sufficient standard of faith and practice to the degree that your English Bible faithfully transfers what God actually said in the original Scriptures of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament.

There's no room for complacency in this matter. We talk about the sufficiency of Scripture. We talk about the Word of God dwelling richly within us, but we don't even think and consider this issue that if we're going to have that happen, we have to have the originally inspired Hebrew and Greek brought over faithfully into English. And you've got to understand there's a lot of forces involved in the translation of our English Bibles. A lot of money to be made, for example, in the translation of the Scriptures.

It's the number one bestseller. And you're a publisher looking to make money. Hey, let's have another translation, see if we can get a piece of the market. And to make sure we sell it, let's put a flashy cover on it with a picture of some teens doing this or some people doing that. Let's dress it up and we're going to market this.

You know, a tragedy has happened our day. Paul says the Scriptures were committed to the care of the church. And the church has given up that care and turned over the most important thing we can be doing in terms of bringing the Scriptures to the people into the hands of Bible societies and for-profit publishers. We don't need 20 versions. In fact, the English church got on well for centuries with one.

The choice of the English version that you use is one of the most important decisions you will ever make as a Christian and as a church. And though that may seem a little bit of an overstatement to some of you, if you believe, as the confession summarized, that God's immediately inspired word was the Greek and Hebrew, you want somebody to bring that to you as carefully and faithfully as possible into your English tongue. But how do we determine what is a faithful translation? I've been talking about that. How do we judge between these?

How do we know if our Bible is an accurate or reliable reproduction of the Word of God in English. Well, we want to move now to point number three. We want to identify the biblical standards for judging this question, for judging English Bible translations. We believe that God's Word provides all that we need to know for faith and godliness. We believe that the principles of the Word of God will give us the wisdom we need to evaluate the many English translations that are out there.

As in any controversy facing the church, we must go, Isaiah 820 says, to the law and to the testimony. Because if we don't do this, there'll be no light in us. There's a lot of opinions, a lot of things said about this issue, but how much light is being shed on it? If the light that's being shed is not grounded in the Word of God and a proper interpretation application of it, There's no light in us. We believe that Scripture is sufficient for answering the questions surrounding Bible translations.

That will enable us to determine what constitutes a faithful and trustworthy authoritative version of the scripture that will become our sufficient guide for all of life. There are several doctrines that would apply to this issue. We're going to just focus this morning on the two main doctrines that serve as our primary standards for assessing the quality and trustworthiness of an English version. And these standards are two in number. Number one, the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture.

The verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture. And number two, the providential preservation of those verbally inspired Scriptures. Verbal inspiration, providential preservation. Verbal inspiration, providential preservation. If you don't remember a whole lot from what I say today, go out with that ringing in your ears.

They're the standards that we need to apply. Let's briefly look at these standards. Inspiration refers to the influence of the Holy Spirit upon the writers of Scripture that caused them to write the very words, the very words that God intended for them to write. And this Process, this miraculous process of inspiration guarantees to us that the words of scripture, though written by men, using their personalities and so forth, were yet the revelation of God, the very word of God, not the words of men. And therefore the book of Romans is not the words of Paul, the words of God through the Spirit of God's inspiration on Paul.

Inspiration is also verbal. Verbal inspiration. By that we mean that it extends to the actual words of Scripture. The actual words. And when we say it is plenary, we mean that it extends to every word and to all parts.

The law, the prophets, the gospels, The Epistles, all parts and every word within those parts, verbal plenary inspiration. Now this doctrine is taught in many scriptures and here's three of the most prominent. Second Timothy 3 16 which we're memorizing. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's God breathed.

He speaks the word out to men and it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, righteousness. Very important passage. All scripture, Plenary inspiration, given by inspiration, verbal inspiration. 2 Peter 2, 20-21, knowing this first that no prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Scripture is not of any private origin, is the idea of the word interpretation. It did not originate in the minds of men, but in the mind of God. And the Holy Spirit moved men to speak and to write. 1 Corinthians 2 12 and 13, Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak.

Not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Paul here is not talking about you and I. He's talking about the apostles. He's talking about the process of inspiration.

He's giving his testimony as an apostle and saying, we as apostles have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit of God so that we might make known the things that are freely given to the church by God. And therefore we speak not in words, which man's wisdom teaches, but the Holy Spirit teaches. In other words, the very words that were chosen by the writers were taught them by the Spirit of God. Verbal inspiration. Now, the doctrine of verbal inspiration is denied by what is known as the conceptual or the dynamic view.

Conceptual or dynamic view of inspiration. This view of inspiration contends that God's revelation in Scripture is limited to the doctrines and the concepts contained therein and it doesn't extend to the actual words of the text. In other words, they're saying here that God only gave the writers of scriptures the ideas and he let them free to express those ideas in whatever words they chose. So it's not the words that are important, it's the doctrines and the ideas. Now this view is not correct, to put it mildly.

Aside from the obvious fact that the thoughts and ideas that we have must necessarily be communicated by words. Pretty basic isn't it? You cannot communicate thoughts and ideas without words. But beyond that thought, the explicit claim of the authors of Scripture is that God revealed his words to them. Jeremiah says this, then the word of the Lord came unto me.

The Lord touched my mouth and the Lord said unto me, behold, I have put my thoughts in your mouth. I have put my words in your mouth. Jeremiah and the prophets were not claiming that God gave them some ideas and some inspiration in terms of elevated thoughts to go and communicate to the nation. He said, here's what I want you to deliver to my people. And they went and preached on the authority that they had received the word of the Lord.

And we've already talked about 1st Corinthians 2 and verse 13 where Paul teaches that the Holy Spirit gave the Apostles the actual words they were to write. Furthermore, scripture contains a warning against tampering with the words of scripture. We are not to add or take away from the text. And if conceptual inspiration was fine, then we could add to the words because the words are not really important as long as we get across the same ideas. But the Lord fences in his word by warning against any tampering, any adding to or taking away from the word that he has given.

Furthermore, at times in the scripture, an entire argument in a passage by an apostle or a prophet is based on a single word. Sometimes a single letter. We're singular and plural. Paul in the book of Galatians chapter 3, talking about the promise to Abraham being fulfilled in Christ. He says, and not as to seeds as of many, but as to thy seed, which is Christ.

Singular versus plural is Paul's whole argument there. The conceptual view of inspiration cannot be reconciled with scripture. It has been advanced by some to try to explain the human element as they see it in scripture and its proponents also believe there were errors in scripture. And so in trying to accommodate these things, well let's just go with the thoughts and ideas of the conceptual view. And what this view does, it reduces the Bible to a book of inspired ideas communicated by uninspired words.

Now this doctrine is the first major standard for judging English Bible translations. It teaches us that the very words of the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures were given by inspiration of God. That means that translators must focus on the word as the basic unit of translation. Since the word is the basic unit of inspiration. Now hopefully this will become clear to you what we're building on here when we look at the various theories of translation.

Because one theory of translation is built on the dynamic view of inspiration And another theory of translation is built on the verbal plenary view of inspiration. And they produce different kind of Bibles, different presuppositions, different results. The second doctrine that we need to look at is the doctrine of the providential preservation of scripture. Now this is of equal importance, the doctrine of providential, excuse me, verbal inspiration. These two go together.

They're the two sides of the same coin. They're both essential to our faith. We're saying that God not only inspired his word, but he has preserved that word so that it is not passed away, but has been available to the church in every generation. Remember the Westminster confession of faith, where it said that the Scriptures were immediately inspired by God and by his, I'm quoting now, his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages are therefore authentic. You see, without God's providential preservation of the Scriptures, the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration would be emptied of its significance and power.

For apart from divine preservation we cannot be sure that we have today the words of the original prophets and apostles. I mean, they wrote thousands of years ago. Moses. Thousands of years ago. We don't have the original copies anymore.

How do we know that we have the Scriptures today? And that the intervening generation after generation after generation have corrupted and tampered with the Word so that what we have today is only a shadow or an echo of what Moses originally wrote. How do you know that? How do you know that what you read in the book of Romans is what Paul actually wrote when he wrote it almost 2, 000 years ago? We don't have the originals to compare with what we have in our text today.

How do you know that? A biblical epistemology is based on the presuppositions of faith. Everybody begins their thought, their answer to their questions with a fundamental worldview and presuppositions about how we know what we know to be true. Some men base their claims to knowledge on experience. Others claim their basis of knowledge and justify it on rational thought, logical deductions based on certain premises.

There are the two reigning theories of how men know, how men justify their claims to knowledge. The third epistemology is the Christian one. God is the creator of all things. Therefore, he is the creator of the heavens and the earth. He is the providential governor of history.

All events are under his care and control. This means God is the creator of all things and all the facts of the universe, of science, of history were created by God through the act of creation or through providence. Therefore if he is the creator of all things and all facts derived from God, who do we look to to interpret those facts? To give us the infallible interpretation of what it means to be a man or to be a woman. Experience, rational thought, or the Word of God?

God created man and woman and therefore we look to the Word of God for His interpretation of maleness and femaleness. God created the inspired Scriptures. And if we're going to answer the question, how do we know that we have the Scriptures? We look to those Scriptures themselves for the answers. And the answer to this question is God's ironclad promise in the Bible that he will preserve his word pure through all generations.

And it is a doctrine we accept by faith. And we accept it by faith because the Holy Spirit has regenerated our hearts, has given us new minds, And we hear when our Father speaks. We hear when the Shepherd speaks. Those who are not of His flock do not hear His voice. But when God speaks, we hear.

Listen to what the Bible says about the issue of preservation. I would like to do an exposition of each one of these passages because they're so powerful, but we can do much more than to read them. Psalm 12, 6 and 7. The words of the Lord are pure words. As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

There's inspiration, infallibility, perfection. But then it says this, thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Not only do you inspire them, but you will keep them. And thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. When the psalmist wrote these words, He was conscious of the inspiration of the Spirit of God.

And God had given him pure words and he was confident that those words that he had just penned would be available forever. Generation after generation would have the Word of God. Because God would preserve his word. He did not inspire his word and then cast it out to fate into the hands of men but he providentially superintended the copying of those scriptures and the guarding of those scriptures within the confines of his covenant people so that they would be available in all generations. Psalm 119 89, forever oh Lord, thy word is established or settled in heaven.

Forever, not lost, forever settled. Psalm 119 160, thy word is true from the beginning and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever. They're not lost. When he inspired Moses with the righteous judgments that he gave him in the law, that judgment was going to endure forever. It was not going to be lost to the church or to history.

Isaiah 40 verse 8, the grass withereth and the flower fadeth but the word of our God shall stand forever. If that word has been lost, it doesn't stand today. If all we have today are the corruptions of men's hands and minds from thousands of years of transmission and copying, the word doesn't stand forever. But it does stand forever because God providentially preserves it. He watches over it with tender care.

He birthed the word And as a jealous parent, in terms jealousy for the safety and well-being of a child, he has watched over his word and guided its course through history. So that you and I can be confident that we have the Bible today. It's not lost. Matthew 5 18, for verily I say unto you till heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law. The law be fulfilled.

The jot is the is the Hebrew word naming the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Not the smallest letter and the the tittle referred to the stroke of the pen that differentiated some of the Hebrew characters that were almost identical. Little stroke of the pen. So the smallest letter, even the smallest stroke of the pen differentiating the letters, will not pass away. That's what our Lord Jesus believed and taught.

Matthew 24, 35, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. First Peter 1 23 and 25 being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. The word of God that liveth and abideth forever for all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower fades and falls away. But the word of the Lord endureth forever and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

The scriptures of the original Hebrew and Greek immediately inspired by God were not like grass and like flowers that would eventually wither away because of the lack of care and concern of men over transmitting them. No, they are the word of the living God that endures forever. And so these scriptures assure us that God has kept His word in its essential purity down through all of history. By faith, we know that God has preserved in his word for us in the existing manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament, in the Greek New Testament, which are the basis of our English Bibles. Now this doctrine is very important.

It's the second major standard. It's important because we will use it for determining the proper Hebrew and Greek text from which our Bibles should be translated. You see there's a controversy over that. There is essentially, and just simplifying this a little bit, there's essentially two approaches to the question of what is the true text of the Hebrew Old Testament and what is the true text of the Greek New Testament. And there are differences.

Have you ever looked in your English Bible and said some manuscripts have this, some manuscripts leave this out, sometimes whole verses, particularly the end of Mark, You see it in brackets or something. It said this was not part of the original word and we take out all the verses at the end of the Gospel of Mark. Why are those things there? Because there's different approaches and understandings to the question of what is the true text? And that's a decision we have to make.

Because if we're going to have the Word of God in English, it must be based on the true text of the Old and New Testament. And so it's on the basis of these two standards that we come to the question of evaluating English Bibles. Now we want to apply those standards in the little bit of time we have remaining here. There are two basic elements that go into a translation. I've already mentioned these.

The translation philosophy that is followed by the one doing the translation and the underlying Greek and Hebrew texts that are used for translation. These two components provide the basis for all English translations of the scripture. And the ones who do this, either singly or in committee or however they approach it, are making decisions concerning how they will translate. They're making decisions about what they will translate. Our task therefore, the challenge for us, is to examine these different views and judge those views in view of the only sure standard we have, the Word of God, the doctrines of Scripture.

And the doctrine of verbal inspiration is the standard that we use in evaluating translation theory. And again, we're going to take this down to two basic approaches, Two philosophies of translation. The first is what we're going to call the formal equivalent translation approach to the Bible. This translation, this approach seeks to be a literal translation. That is, it seeks to be as literal as possible.

The word literal comes from the Latin term that means letter. And when we think of a literal translation, we're talking about a translation that's concerned with the very letters, or I should say the combination of letters that make up the words. So the unit of translation is the word itself. And according to this practice, what is translated is to represent the exact words of the original text as closely as it is possible in the transfer from Hebrew, Greek, and New English. And so the basic unit of translation in the formal equivalent method is the word.

Obviously words are combined together to make meaning, but it's the exact words that provide the precise meaning. Different words, a different adjective or a different adverb or the like can change and alter the meaning of any statement. And so we're looking at the exact words that are in the Hebrew and Greek and we want to translate them into their closest English equivalent, both in terms of vocabulary and in terms of the structure and grammar of English. This means that a translator following this philosophy seeks to render a Greek noun by an English noun, a Greek verb by its corresponding English verb, a Greek prepositional phrase by an English prepositional phrase and so on. In formal equivalence, the concern is not only what God said in the original, but how he said it.

The words that were there. Because the form of the text is part of the transfer of meaning. Just to give you a little illustration of this. In the book of Ephesians, Paul opens up with a tremendous doxology about the work of God and salvation. He looks at the Trinitarian work.

First the Father, then the Son, and then the Holy Spirit. He begins after the greeting and he starts his doxology and it runs down. I didn't write down the exact number of verses, but it's like about 15-16 verses. It's one sentence in the Greek. You get a modern English translation, it's probably about 5, 6, 7 sentences.

But you look at your older translations, you'll see all, you'll see English punctuation, semi-colons and commas and that type of thing because they're bringing across Paul couldn't stop for a period. He was so exalted in the presence of God as he thought of the divine work of redemption, He couldn't stop his pen. In other words, there is something being communicated by the form of the original that is lost when it's chopped up and chopped up into these little segments so that we can read them. And the translator there is trying to give you, because you're not smart enough, you're not equipped enough to take this so he's got to cut it down into all these little bite-sized pieces for you so you don't choke some translators, but not the formal equivalent translator. As was it, Vody Vakim just said in the session this morning, he's just a mailman.

He doesn't write the text. Former equivalent translator pretty much says that. You can't understand it? A little bit tough grammar? Doesn't immediately come to mind what the apostle means.

I didn't write it. It's my job as a translator to give it to you as God gave it to the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures, the writers. Now the primary examples of a formal equivalent translation in English would be the Geneva Bible, the King James Version, The American Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, and the New King James Version, and I should add the newer one, the New English Standard Version. All of these translations are building on the concept of, again there's degrees obviously, but on the concept of formal equivalence. The other theory is the dynamic equivalent translation.

Now, these are philosophically different. They have different presuppositions about human language and communication. The dynamic equivalent translation is based on modern theories of language, meaning, and communication. It's a very recent development. Throughout the history of the church, the church has by and large sought to reproduce formal equivalent translations.

And I believe that's because they were guided by the doctrine of verbal inspiration, but no longer. The reigning theory, and thankfully it's being challenged, and its reign is starting to be called into question, but for a number of years the reigning theory has been the dynamic equivalent theory of translation. In this translation, there is not an attempt for what we have called a literal translation. But the primary concern of the translator is to convey the meaning of the original rather than transfer the words of the original to the modern reader. The dynamic of Scripture is in its meaning, not in its words.

And Therefore, the dynamic equivalent translator has a process that he goes through. He must first analyze the text, he must interpret the text, and then he must take the meaning and transfer to you in language that is natural. It's how people speak in the newspaper or on the street or on the television and transfer that word into that type of language. At the center of the dynamic equivalent method is interpretation. Because the goal here is to transfer meaning, not just words.

And if you're going to translate meaning, obviously as a translator you have to know what it means. And there's scores of places in the Bible where the meaning is difficult to discern. But the translator form of the dynamic equivalent view must understand the meaning so he can then transfer to you the meaning of the original. Now what's the problem there? How do we know he got the meaning correct?

And if he misinterprets the scripture, and since he's not tied to words, tied to meaning, He then takes that meaning and puts it in words that he thinks will be natural and easy for you to understand. How do you know that those words that he has chosen have anything to do with what God said? The problem is you don't. And those who use dynamic equivalent translations are handed over bound hand and foot to the translator. And we talked about immediately inspired.

In a dynamic equivalent translation, There is a big gap between what was immediately inspired and what was given. Now this is not to say that every verse in a dynamic equivalent translation departs from the wording of the original. That is not my point. Sometimes it does. But at the center of the method is this process of analysis and restructuring of the of the text of Scripture and then transferring the meaning.

Now if we take the verbal inspiration doctrine and we apply this to translation philosophy, and I'm running out of time here, so I'm just going to have to get right to the point, it judges and condemns the whole theory of dynamic equivalent translation. Because it is the word that is the unit of inspiration, not meaning. Now the words come together to make a meaning And meaning is present, but it's present because of the exact words that were chosen. And therefore, the doctrine of verbal inspiration tells the church, tells the Christian, that the translations they use need to be transferring as well as possible the very words of Scripture into the very words of English. Some of the well-known dynamic equivalent translations today would be today's English version, better known as the Good News Bible.

The New International Version, the most popular perhaps version that there is. The contemporary English version, the new living translation, and recent one that's almost off the charts when it comes to dynamic equivalence, the message. We need commentaries. We need teachers. But it is wrong to confuse the task of translation with the task of giving a commentary on the text.

And essentially a dynamic equivalent translation. And this especially comes out when there's differences of possible differences of interpretation. In the book of 1 Thessalonians, Paul says that every man should know how to possess his own vessel. The Greek word that is used there is the Greek word for vessel. Now it had developed other meanings.

You know literal vessel, you know what you hold water in or something. It came to be used as reference to a man's wife in the Greek. A Greek using that word could be referring to a man's wife or could refer to a man's body, his vessel. Okay, Now a dynamic equivalent translator comes to that. He cannot, we have an English word vessel that is a formal equivalent of the Greek word.

He can't put vessel in the passage because you won't understand what that means. So he's got to interpret the passage and make an interpretive decision before he translates. And so go look at your English Bibles. You may have a number of them. One translator says a man should know how to possess his wife.

Another one says a man should know how to possess his own body. What's the problem? One of them has corrupted the word of God and has not given you the word of God. He has given you something that God never said. What God said was vessel.

And it was probably a challenge to interpret when Paul first gave it. Dynamic equivalence tries to make the Bible easier to understand than it would have been to its own original hearers. If you any of you here know Greek or Hebrew you will know that knowing Greek and Hebrew doesn't solve the problems. The interpretive problems are still there. But the dynamic equivalent theory says we have to give you meaning and therefore we have to interpret the text before we give you our translation.

We're in a serious situation here. Robert Martin puts it this way, in order for the verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible to be properly acknowledged in the work of translation, the primary unit of translation must be the word, not just the idea. Any method of translation which departs from the commitment, that commitment is in serious conflict with the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration. Plainly speaking, the formal equivalence method of translation is philosophically committed to regarding and guarding the individual words of the original text as the primary units of translation. The dynamic equivalence method is not.

It's imperative that the church vigorously defends and proclaims the doctrine of verbal inspiration. I think we would all agree with that. We need to do that in our preaching and our creeds. But that's not enough. The church must also see the connection between its theology of inspiration and its philosophy of translation, lest it undermine the former by the latter.

This is exactly what happens when an Orthodox confessing church promotes the use of dynamic equivalent translations. It's Orthodox creed says verbal inspiration, while the translation it uses in church says dynamic inspiration. And so therefore, by applying the doctrine of verbal inspiration to this, and it's a technical question, but it's understandable. We can understand the issues and hopefully you're seeing the issues that are at stake here. By applying this doctrine of verbal inspiration, you as a Christian can judge the translations before you.

Are they formal equivalent, more or less literal translations, or are they dynamic equivalent, more or less, as someone called it, scientific paraphrases of the passage? The second area is the text that's to be translated. This is the issue of what we call textual criticism. Textual criticism is the discipline of establishing the true wording of the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures. This is necessary because we no longer possess the original autographs, the original writings of the books of the Bible.

What we have are handwritten copies of the original manuscripts. Printing did not come in until centuries after the writing of the Scriptures and therefore they had to be copied laboriously by hand. This opened up the door to many errors in the transcription. Errors were people would just make the kind of mistakes you and I make when we copy something over by hand or type something over by hand. I see I only have a couple of minutes left, I'm trying to decide how I want to bring this to a close.

Let me say this, there are two primary approaches to the question of the original text. It's what we're going to call the modern critical text and the traditional text of scripture. When we read the Westminster Confession and it spoke about the providential preservation of the Word of God, of the originally inspired Scriptures. They were in the midst of a life and death battle. What was the Reformation's cry?

Sola Scriptura, right? Rome's response was Scripture plus tradition, or Scripture interpreted by the church. The authority of Protestants was the written text of the Bible and early they went back and they realized they had to go back to the original Hebrew and Greek because the Church of Rome appealed to the Latin. The Vulgate, the Latin Vulgate was the authority in the Roman Church. And the Reformers saw the way to the Latin Vulgate departs from the original Hebrew and Greek in many places.

The ultimate authority is not the translation, but it's the original text. We judge the translations by the text itself. But as there was this encounter over authority, around this time certain men thought they would begin to apply this doctrine of textual criticism, they began to notice there were errors in the manuscripts. And so they came back and the counter-attack of Rome against the Protestant Church was your sola scriptura is a paper pope because your copies are corrupt. And since your copies are corrupt, all that we can stand upon is the Latin Vulgate that has been recognized by the Roman hierarchy as the true word of God.

And so there was a great battle here. And the Protestant church in a response to Rome's attack had to determine the canon of Scripture, the rule. Canon means ruler standard. You and I hear about canon and rule when we talk about the books of the Bible. That was one of the battles against Rome as well.

The Romans included the apocrypha within their books of the Bible. Books that are not in your English Bible. And so the Reformers had to define what were the actual books of the Bible. But they also had to define what was the true text. They needed a canonical text.

And as they work through all of these issues and did their own work in textual criticism, they came to a clear cannon for the original text of Scripture. And they are the Masoretic text of the Old Testament and what's called the Byzantine text of the New Testament. In other words, this issue, this matter of authority, reaches even to this question of the original text and in the battle of the Reformation, they defined the traditional text as being the word of God. Well, later on, things have changed. There's been A resurgence of attack upon this traditional text, and it's not been by Catholics.

It's been by Protestants following enlightenment methods of textual criticism have attacked these traditional texts, have said that the traditional texts that reformers said were the word of God from which the Geneva Bible was translated, the King James Bible was translated from the original German Bible by Luther and all of these off the traditional text was not really the word of God. It was a corrupt form and they have put forward today a new standard and your new translations of the English Bibles are based on the modern critical text. Now I'm out of time. I had intended to look at this subject a lot more closely, but I've run out of time so I'm going to make a sales pitch. I have a table there in the area where the books are being sold.

It's a book called English Bible Translations by What Standard where we deal with these issues in a survey form but in a way that's much deeper than we've been able to do today. We talk about these very things of the biblical standards, the translations of dynamic equivalence, formal equivalence and the biblical text. And also have an appendix here that you might find interesting where we look at John Owen, the great Puritan and his response to the Roman Catholic attack upon the authority of Scripture by attacking the original manuscripts as being corrupt. And we'll see how he took a theological approach to that issue. The most important decision, one of the most important decisions anyway that you're going to be making as a Christian is what Bible you use.

And I want to just conclude with six statements, even though I couldn't cover all of these things. Here's what we have seen today. If Scripture is sufficient to speak with authority and clarity to every aspect of the Christian faith, and it is, then Scripture is sufficient to answer the questions that confront us on the subject of Bible translations. Number two, the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture has ultimate reference to the inspired and providentially preserved Hebrew and Greek texts of scripture. Number three, an English translation is the word of God and sufficient for faith and practice to the degree that the text of the translation conforms in word, grammatical form, and meaning to the text of the original Hebrew and Greek.

Number four, the biblical doctrines of verbal plenary inspiration and providential preservation are sufficient standards for judging the faithfulness of an English translation. Both in regard to translation philosophy and for determining the authentic original text. Number Five, the biblical doctrines of verbal plenary inspiration and providential preservation call for translations that are based on the traditional, original text of Scripture. The Masoretic text, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, and the Texas Receptus of the Greek New Testament. And may God enable you to apply these standards to make this very important decision in your and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the family to the Word of God.

And for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org.