Welcome. Last week we talked about the English translations from the text and we covered Tyndale's translation, but it was an incomplete translation. He completed the New Testament. He also completed several of the books of the Old Testament. before he was betrayed by a friend and he was imprisoned and then executed. And about that time there was a change of administration in England and King Henry VIII decided that he was going to break from Rome and he was going to create his own English church, what we call the Anglican Church. And his advisors recommended that he authorize some translations into English. So we begin with Coverdale. Coverdale was a colleague of William Tyndale. He helped William Tyndale but he was not near as proficient in Hebrew and Greek as Tyndale. Tyndale was super when it came to understanding Hebrew and Greek. Cofidel used partly the Latin Vulgate and partly the German text of Martin Luther. But Cofidel's Bible was Then John Rogers came up with this Matthews Bible. John Rogers came up with the Matthews Bible, which is essentially Tyndale's Bible. What he did was, the New Testament was Tyndale. The Old Testament, whatever William Tyndale had translated, such as the Pentateuch and some of the historical books, as well as the book of Jonah, He took what Coverdale had done, removed it, replaced it with Tyndale's Bible, and he wrote and he created Matthew's Bible. But again, that's mostly Tyndale. Then Coverdale worked with Matthew's Bible to create the Great Bible by taking out all of the notes, most of the footnotes. to create the great Bible. And then, after King Henry VIII passed away, and his son passed away, you had this reign of terror. And a person on the throne known as Bloody Mary, and she wanted England to go back to Catholicism. And she persecuted Protestants, put many of them to death. Some of them escaped England and went to Geneva. And they translated the Bible, what we call the Geneva Bible. And now this Bible is actually the first to be completely translated from the Masoretic text in the Greek text because some, some, some, some, some, some, some, some of these Bibles were translated from German in the Latin book. Now this Bible was Protestant. And so the bishops really did not like that Bible. So they created their own translation called the Bishop's Bible. So you had these two competing Bibles. Most people preferred the Geneva Bible. Very few preferred the Bishop's Bible. It was more of a pulpit Bible. Bible. So then King James came to the throne, and he was encouraged to authorize a new translation of the Bible, what we call the King James Version. And this was supposed to be a revision of the Bishop's Bible. So within the span of less than 100 years, we go from Tyndale all the way up to King James. So you have a host of translations, a host of Bibles within a span of less than 100 years. Now, the foundation of all these Bibles, let's review what that is. For the Hebrew text, Old Testament text, there's the Mesoretic text. For the New Testament, there's the Greek text, what we call, what will soon be called the Textus Receptus, the Received Text. And this is from Erasmus, and from a person named Stefanos and from Beza. Each of these men would revise the text that they had, try to improve it, And so you have all of these texts right there. Plus, you have that Latin Vulgate, and you also have that Septuagint, and you also have a few other translations that they consulted, whether it's the Armenian translation or the Coptic translation, and also For Coverdale, there's the German. So this in red is the foundation. So today we're going to look at that foundation a little bit more and see how that is worked out in the upcoming centuries of academic scholarship. So if you turn in your notes to I think, let's see what, page 61. I did mention passing from last week that when the King James Version came out, it had a few deficiencies. And this is the problem. In the Old Testament, they used the Miseric text, which is a good text, but they were somewhat unskilled with the Hebrew. For the New Testament, they were really, really good at Greek. But this TR text was somewhat deficient. Because not only must you have a good text, you also have to know how to translate it. So those were the two issues that we see from the King James Version. Oh, and by the way, I do want to mention, Ron has brought a copy of the 1959 Geneva Bible. Now, this is not an original, but a reprint. Now, the thing that I want to note here with this Geneva Bible, is I kind of wish that I had an original Geneva Bible and an original King James Bible. Because the font, because if you look at the Geneva Bible, even with its reprint, as well as the original, you will see a Roman type. It's the type that we are accustomed to. type that's easily readable to us. The King James Version, when that came out, it used the Gothic type. Much more difficult to read. Of course, the people back then could. It's almost Greek to us today. That's one reason, so that's one reason among many that when it came to the two competing Bibles, okay, sure. Oh yes, yes please. If you look at the two competing Bibles, which are now King James and Geneva, Most people preferred the Geneva. And there was various reasons for that. One is, it is easier to read. The second reason is, Protestants especially trusted the Geneva Bible. They didn't particularly trust this King James Version. And the reason is, the Bible is, it's a government Bible. It's a church authority Bible. And like, for example, the pilgrims, they kept their Geneva Bible, and they brought the Geneva Bible to to America. So, for a long time, you had these two competing bibles until gradually the King James Version would just be accepted. So, the reason is after the King James Version was published in 1611, you had new and better manuscripts coming to light. And so when, you know, such as Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Valentinus, as these manuscripts were studied, textual critics worked to analyze the variant readings and produce a better Greek text. And their text is an attempt to examine all the available Greek texts, determine what is most likely the original. And some scholars devoted their entire lives to this work, and while others would build upon their work. For example, British theologian John Mill, He labored 30 years of his life to improve the Texas Receptus. And he worked primarily with the Cordes Alexandrid Greenus. And he would die two weeks after his work was published in 1707. So he's someone that we can look up to. He helped us a lot. The next guy, Bingle, he also developed more enhancements, more improvements to the Texas Receptus. And what's important with Bingle is he cleaned up the Book of Revelation. Because if the Texas Receptus had any weakness, it's the Book of Revelation. And this is because Erasmus. When he came up with his Greek text, he first published it in 1516. He used about maybe a dozen or less manuscripts. None of them had a complete copy of Revelation. Well, what was he going to do? Well, this is what he did. He had a commentary on the Book of Revelation with the Greek text embedded in it. So he just took the Greek text out and put it in his Greek text. But there's a problem with that. The last few pages were missing from this commentary. So what did he do next? Well, he took the Latin Vulgate the Latin translation of the Greek text, and he translated it back into Greek, and he added that to his version of the Texas Receptus. So we can see at least two major issues with this Texas Receptus. So now, there were others who published their versions of the Greek text. So he said to his publisher, go grab someone else's book of Revelation and put it with mine. Because he wanted to improve his text's receptus. Well, the problem was that this other guy had copied from him. So that's how we get some issues, some weaknesses with the Texas receptors. It was never cleaned up, but Bingle helped us. And then also, there was this guy named Carl Lachman. He published a new text based upon 4th century manuscripts, and so what he did was, Instead of basing his work on the Texas Receptus, he built another foundation based upon his earlier manuscripts. And this has become known as the Critical Text. So now you have these two texts, Texas Receptus and the Critical Text. And others would build upon both of them. For example, Samuel Trigellus would publish a new text based upon the early manuscripts and citations from the early church fathers. So he would build upon the critical text. Another person is Tischendorf. who discovered the Codex Sinaiticus. He collected other manuscripts and produced several versions of the Greek New Testament. And then you have Wiscott and McCourt. They labored together for 28 years to produce several editions of their Greek New Testament. Also, you have Nestle, German biblical scholar Nestle, he published his first edition of the Greek New Testament in 1898. His son, Edwin Nessel, continued to publish new editions. And since 1952, another German scholar, Karl Amland, joined the effort, and they produced several other editions of the New Testament, known as the Nessel-Allen text, or abbreviated N.A. So in the latest version, I think is the 28th edition, abbreviated in A28, and this is used by most translators for our modern day translations. So, by the Later 1800s, there were several good Greek New Testaments, including that of Tregellus, Tischendorf, and Westcott in Omaha. With Stanford from the traditional Texas Receptus, additionally, there was a growing accumulation of knowledge of various Greek words. Hence, there was a good need for a new English translation based upon a better text with more accurate renderings from the original languages. So now we begin our modern translations. And so I just listed a few here. John Nelson Darby. leader of the Pemeth brethren. He was the first and he published a translation largely based upon Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus in 1871. His students would also publish the Old Testament. So that's the first modern translation based upon these newer manuscripts that were discovered, which actually predate all of those from the Texas Receptus. The next one is British scholar Waterham. He published a new translation based on Trogillus' text in 1872. Irish biblical scholar Samuel Davidson produced a translation based upon the text of Tischendorf in 1875. And also Robert Young produces Young's literal translation using Texas Receptus in the Meseritic text. Now I should point out one thing about translations. Nearly all of our modern translations, in fact, even King James Version, they are produced by communities, multiple people. And that's good because that decreases the probability that someone's theological bent is going to be evident in the translations. You typically want to avoid translations that are just translated by one person, no matter how good he is with these ancient languages. So that's why these translations never did catch on. or one unreason. So the first major committee effort originated from Canterbury in 1870 to respond to a new revision of the King James Version. Chosen 65 British scholars, Also was selected a few American guys to serve as associate members with the understanding that if their suggestions are not incorporated and were not accepted, they would appear in an appendix. And they were promised, and they had to promise that they could not publish their Bible for 14 So that was the agreement. So, they made significant changes to the King James Version to reflect the better textual evidence reflected in the texts of Turgelus, Tischendorf, and Westcott in Omhort. They also corrected many of the mistranslations from the Old Testament from the King James Version. because they knew Hebrew a whole lot more, a whole lot better than those of the King James translation coming in. So their Bible, English revised version, appeared in 1885. And for the most part, it was ignored. You know, people just loved their King James Version. And they didn't see any need to update to this new translation. So, yes it was a good translation, but it takes more to have a recognized Bible than a good translation, you have to have it accepted. And if it's not accepted, well, it just gets lost. So the Americans, they came back with their own version, their own translation, what they call the American Standard Version in 1905. For the most part, it's a whole lot better. than the English revised version. I mean, they had 14 more years of research. So, yeah, it should be a better translation. Also, the American Standard Version finally removed the Apocrypha. It's been there all this time. So is it a Catholic Bible then? What? If it had apocryphal, was it like, was it not a Protestant Bible or did they just put it in the back, apocryphal? Even though it was a Protestant Bible, it's still, the apocryphal was still there. But like, did they put it in the back? Because I know some Bibles do that. Well, well, well, well. They'll have the apocryphal in the very back. Oh, okay, okay. Cofidel. Yeah. He put it right in, right in, he put the apocryphal right in, in the middle. Okay. But when the King James Version was published in 1611, it still contained the Apocrypha. Now granted, some versions did not have the Apocrypha. But the Apocrypha was still there. And so not until the American Standard Version was the Apocrypha removed. And so, also the American Standard Version uses the name Jehovah, has the covenant name of God, in contrast to the word Lord, all in uppercase, that's used in the English Revised Version, which is a copy of the King James Version. Okay. So, So now we have these two modern translations, which are really not that much different than the King James Version. Yeah, there are words updated, but the Elizabethan-era language is still there, for the most part. But now, Because even though people did not speak that Elizabethan-era language, people called it majestic. But that doesn't mean that it's better. Because something else happened around this time. And that is, people began to look at these papyri that they discovered from Egypt. And there were thousands of these documents written in Greek. And it was a Koine Greek, common Greek, marketplace Greek, the Greek of the people. And people began to realize that this biblical Greek is not some specialized divine Greek. It's the Greek that people spoke. So if the Bible was written in a Greek that people spoke, then why not have the Bible written in an English that the people speak, speak, speak, speak, So that was the emphasis of a whole host of modern translations. Yes? What about the Old Testament? Was it the Hebrew? Was it wherever, like Hebrew that people speak, or more like high majestic? It's also the common language of the Hebrew people, because it's in the conversations And yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that the Hebrew is the common language because the Greeks, because the Hebrews did not have, you know, some high royal Hebrew. It was a Hebrew of the people. So, the first of these efforts to translate the Bible into present-day English was this 20th century New Testament, published in 1904, based upon the text of Westcott and Hort. And what's interesting in this translation is that the New Testament books are placed in chronological sequence. not in the order that we see in our Bibles today. For example, the book of James is, I think, before the book of Romans. Yes? I'm not sure. Also, The text is also in a one-column paragraph format. You know, most, you know, some Bibles today are two columns per page, some are one. I'm sure you have your own preference as to which one you like. So as far as whether you enjoy reading it or not, that depends a lot about how The text is presented on the page, but this Bible had one column. Also noteworthy is that the translators, they were not PhDs. They were ordinary people just like you and me, except they knew Hebrew, they knew Greek. Also, Whenever a translation is done, it needs to be updated occasionally because English changes, words change, knowledge increases. What you thought was really good one year, After doing some research in five years, you may think, you know, that needs to change. So there are updates. And plus you have more and more manuals, which gives you more and more information about what variants should be removed or what. What are the more likely readings of the text? So there was an effort to update the English revised edition. And so what came out was the revised standard version that was published in 1946, the Old Testament, and in the complete Bible in 1952. And what's noteworthy about this is the very first copy published was given to U.S. President Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... Oma... would use the traditional Mesoretic text, but they also began to look at the Dead Sea Scoros and incorporate some changes based upon that one. They used the 17th edition of the Nestle-Allen text And they also used some additional changes in the Pauline epistles due to the Chester Betty papyrus, P46. They also did this. The story of the woman caught in adultery, that text that I said a few weeks ago, was likely that it wasn't original. At least to the Gospel of John. Well, they took it out. Now, what happened was, there was an uproar. People did not want it taken out. So, the next edition, they put it back in. And again, they took out the long ending of Mark, but the next edition, they put it back in. People just did not like it when translators took out portions of the Bible, even if it was likely that it's not original. Now, this Revised Standard Version was, for the most part, accepted, except by one group of people. by conservative Protestants, evangelicals, you know, us. Because basically of the translation of one verse. Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14. The RSV translated this verse, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. A young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Okay, this word, young woman, was problematic because evangelicals contended that the translation should be virtuous. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And basically, the conservative is all correct. Even though the Hebrew word translated here, young woman, could be translated young woman, it's always an unmarried young woman. And the text itself demands that the word be translated virgin. So that's one reason why the RSV wasn't well accepted, at least by conservative Eve and Peter Taylor. Also, the RSV did one more thing. Now if you If you had memorized John 3.16 when you were young, you probably memorized it in this way, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Well, the RSV took out the begotten. It's only son. In fact, your English standard version, the one that we use here, also has only son. Now, why is the word begotten? So, why was that taken out? Well, here's the reason. Okay, deep, deep, deep. First of all, let's just note, the word begotten originates from Wycliffe. When he translated it from the Latin volgate into English, he rendered the term only begotten son. And that's because it's in the Latin volgate. But Jerome had mistranslated that term. The actual Greek word monogenes denotes only or unique or one of a kind and it does not have anything to do with birth or generation even though the text does mention God has fathered And Jesus has Son. Now, should it be there or not? Well, some say, well, let's identify why Christ is only or unique. He's the only begotten Son. But that's not a translation. That's an interpretation. A translation should be a translation. It is not an interpretation. The pastors and the commentators, they're the ones who will tell us what that word means. There are some translations such as NASB, also the Legacy Standard Bible, that uses the word begotten here. Technically, the term could adequately be translated only son or unique son. Okay, so that's why you don't see that word begotten in the RSV or the ESV. or in many other modern day translations. It's an interpretation, not an ex, because a translation is not, because a translation is not an interpretation, it's not an ex, it's a geological commentary. So, only begotten becomes only son. Now, the revised Standard Version also had a revision of itself called New Revised Standard Version. It came out in 1989. It began this process of thinking more about how do you render terms say in the King James Version that are masculine. When the King James Version uses the word man, it's not always males. It's all people. So he uses a new mandate called, in references to men and women, masculine-oriented language should be eliminated as far as can be done without altering passages that reflect the historical situation of an ancient patriarchal culture. So in more recent times, there's been this movement to move some text away from Masculine, words that people in culture think as masculine into some more of a gender neutral translations. Now, there are also a number of paraphrase translations. A paraphrase is essentially someone writing, recording the biblical text in his own way. Now, technically, a paraphrase is not a paraphrase because a paraphrase requires that the words altered in a single translation. If you're going to translate it, say, from Greek to English, it's really not a paraphrase. But a paraphrase just means that the editor has rewritten the text in a way that he thinks it should be written. Now, of course, you have to trust that editor. You know, there's the Good News Bible, published by the American Bible Society in 1966 and 1976. And it's written in basically very simple English. Now, there's nothing particularly wrong with very simple English. I mean, they're trying to write it in common, everyday language, which is a good thing. Now, the issue is sometimes The editors, the translators, can make it almost too simple. For example, the Good News Bible translates as Covenant Name of God has the Lord. It makes no distinction between the names Yahweh and Adonai. In all of our Bibles, we can tell from the text that there's a distinction between the names of God in the Old Testament. There's a name Yahweh and a name Adonai. And as I told you, in most translations, whenever you see all uppercase, that's the name Yahweh. Whenever you see Lord in lowercase, that's the name Adonai. But when say the Good News Bible translates, Lord, you don't know. Now that's not to overly criticize the Good News Bible. I'm just saying, if you want to understand these names, then you got to use something else besides good news Bible. Also, those who try to simplify the text, they prove to be not all that theologically sophisticated. For example, the virgin birth. Let's go back to the virgin birth. Isaiah. 7 verse 14. I say it's weakly translated, almost to the point of smothering the doctrine and confusing the prophetic promise. Because the Good News Bible says this, well then, the Lord himself will give you a sign. A young woman who is pregnant will have a son who will name him Immanuel. Where is the virgin birth there? It's gone. So this is a very, very poor translation. And so there were many more other unparaphrased translations. The Living Bible, published by Kenneth Taylor in 1962, again is not a committee on translations. He just rephrased the Bible into contemporary speech because he claims, its purpose is to say exactly as possible what the writers of the scriptures meant, to say it simply, expounding when necessary for a clear understanding for the modern reader. But some have criticized this paraphrase as being almost too interpretive. But again, that's the nature of paraphrases. And I might also add one more problem with paraphrases is this. In the Bible, in the text, when you read, say, Paul, or when you read Peter, you see there's a difference. Paul does not write like Peter does. And Peter does not write like Paul does. The two have their different styles. But with these paraphrases, the readings sound like they're from the same person. In fact, they are. because they've all been written from one person's point of view. So you can't see any difference between Peter and Paul. Then you have the new international version. It's a completely new translation of the original languages. It's not based upon a previous version like most translations. This is done by an international group of scholars who sought to use vocabulary common to all major English-speaking nations. So that if you lived here in America, or if you lived in South Africa, or if you lived in England, or if you lived anyplace else that English is spoken, this Bible is the Bible that all English-speaking people would understand. It does not have regional dialects or anything else. It's also what we call a dynamic equivalent, which means that it's thoughtful thought, not necessary word for word like the English Standard Version or the NASB or the King James Version. It's more thoughtful thought, which doesn't make it wrong. But again, if you want to do a word It's hard to do so with a dynamic equivalence by Pibel. Then you have the New King James Version, published in 1982. This is based upon the Stuttgart version of the Bibliotheum Hebronica, based upon the Ben Asher text, in comparison with the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now, the revisers of the New Testament were convinced that the New Testament textual Christian had followed a wrong path over the past century, so they chose to use the Majority Text, or the M-Text, which is basically a revision of the Texas Receptus. The Majority Text is essentially what you would have if you looked at all of the manuscripts and just counted words. If something appears 51% of the time or more, it's in there. If it's 49%, it's out. So what they did was they revised, they updated the King James Version And they also footnoted where the King James Version differs from the modern text. And the reader is assured that textual debate does not affect one in a thousand words of the Greek New Testament. Furthermore, no established doctrine is called into question by any doubts about the correct reading in this or that text. The Christian can approaches New Testament with confidence. So again, they replaced the Elizabethan English of the New King James Version with more contemporary American English. Not completely eliminated, but they did try to sort of keep that so-called majestic English. Now, you might think that those who love the King James Version would just jump on the new King James Version. No, that's not what happened. Many people would still keep their original King James Version because of this. But two reasons which I'll talk about probably next week. That what I'm, what I'm, Amy passed out to you. Keep it, but bring it back next, next week. And, and they also updated the, the, the MCCT language of the King James Version, for example, in the King James Version of For example, there was no quotation marks. So, you know, when does a quote begin? When does it end? You don't particularly know. You kind of have to guess. But in modern English, we use quotation marks. And so that's what the New King James Version uses. They also capitalized pronouns having a divine reference. Okay, now. So we've seen that the American Standard Version of 1901 is old by now. So it needs to be updated. So the Lachman Foundation published a new American Standard Version, or the NASB, beginning in 1663 and 1797. I mean 1963 and 1971. And that was to go to adhere as closely as possible to the original languages of the holy scriptures to make the translation in a fluent, readable style according to current English usage. So it has the reputation of being accurate. It also has a reputation of being somewhat hard to read. And then it also used a single format, not the double column format of the original 1901 edition. But that would change. And they would continue to update. There's a revision in 1977. There's also a revision in 1995. Now, here's where many Christians kind of wish this had never happened. Because in 2020, the NASB decided to make some gender inclusion adjustments. Now, some of them were not all that bad. Like, for example, let's look at, see, this is, see, this is Philippians chapter three, verse one in the NASB 1995 edition. Finally, my brethren, Rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. The 2020 version says this. Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you. Notice the change from brethren to brothers and sisters. Now, is that a change that we could live with? Yeah, maybe. I mean, the term brethren, we recognize that as a term that just does not include men. It includes men and women. And so brothers and sisters are fine. Now, of course, now Paul, When he said that, he used one word, brethren, because back then everybody assumed brethren can mean any person. Okay, so that changed. Yeah, not bad. I mean, that's okay. Now, the other change is Psalm 19.5. 1905, yeah. Okay, the Nazby in 1995 said, which is, has a bridegroom coming out of his chamber. It rejoices, has a strong man to run his course. The 2020 version says this, finally, my brother's, no, this, which is like a groom coming out of his chamber. It rejoices like a strong person to run his course. Now, is that a good change? Is it a poor change? Well, let's just note this. A bridegroom, we all know what a bridegroom is. A bridegroom is a man. He is going to be married soon or just been married. He's always a man. So in 1995, edition is consistent in that it says, which is has a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoices as a strong man to run his course. But now the translators wanted to make it more gender inclusive. So what they did was they translated the word man to person. But to do that, they had to change bridegroom to groom, because a bridegroom is always a man. But what's a groom? Well, you know, in today's culture, same-sex, so-called same-sex marriage, a groom could be anything. Now, granted, they kept the pronoun his, which has a groom coming out of his chamber. But what's the point of translating man as person if you know that the person is a man? It's not anyone else. But let's just admit, the NASB is not the only translation that is doing this. Many others are. NIV. is, unfortunately, NASB is, and there's others. Okay, we are out of time, almost. Are there any questions? I know I've covered a whole lot. So, next week we're going to talk about What's this debate between the textus receptus and the critical text? Why is this even a debate? Also, we're going to talk about going into the translation of the Bible. What are the principles that translators use when they translate from the Greek text or the Hebrew text into English or into any other language for that matter. So let me pray.