Translating it myself. (And why that’s okay.)

During my church’s services, in between worship songs and sermon notes, sometimes I’ve put bible verses on our video screens. Not as part of the service; just as something to have on the screen in between the other stuff. Something other than a blank screen.

A few weeks ago I got asked,

SHE. “Which translation is ‘KWL’? What’s that stand for?”

ME. “Me. K.W. Leslie. I translated it.”

SHE. “Why’d you use your own translation instead of an official translation?”

ME. “What do you mean, official translations?”

SHE. “Well, like the Authorized Version. The NIV, the New King James…”

ME. “Those aren’t official translations. We don’t have an official translation.”

That is to say, neither our church nor denomination has an official translation. Other churches do. Some of ’em have made the KJV their official translation, and Catholics and Jehovah’s Witnesses have produced their own officially-approved translations, even though they still sometimes quote different translations. Our pastor prefers the New Living Translation ’cause it’s easy to understand, but he’ll quote other translations from time to time, and doesn’t object when others quote their own favorite translations. (This particular person I’m speaking with: Her favorite is the Amplified Bible.)

SHE. “Well, they were done by churches.”

ME. “They were not. They were done by publishers. Who did hire actual scholars to do the translating, so they’re not bad translations. But they weren’t done by any one church. They wanna sell bibles to every church, y’know.”

SHE. “But why do you do your own translation?”

ME. “As part of my bible study. When I’m studying a verse, I wanna really understand it, so I read it in the original, and translate it. I’m not trying to produce the ‘KWL version’ of the bible; I’m just trying to understand it better. Sometimes I’ll use different words than other translations. But I’m not too far different than any of the other translations. In fact if I were too far different, it’d mean I’m doing it wrong.”

SHE. “But why use your translation instead of one of the official translations?”

ME. [letting go the fact she still insists there are official translations] “Certain words I used, which I like better than the words other translations used.”

SHE. “Well I would be nervous about that. Aren’t you changing the words of the bible to suit yourself?”

ME. “I’m trying not to do that. I’m trying to stay true to the original language, the original authors’ intent.”

SHE. “But why do you think you’ve done a better job than the official translations?”

ME. “Because sometimes I did do a better job. Certain translations bend the meaning to fit how popular Christian culture interprets the bible. The new edition of the Amplified Bible does it all the time. The New Living Translation does it a few times. The New International Version tries to hide all the bible difficulties. I tend to compare my translation with the King James Version because I’ve found that translation bends it least. But translators aren’t infallible. Everybody makes mistakes. Myself included.”

SHE. “So how can you put your translation up there like it’s authoritative?”

ME. “’Cause it’s just as ‘authoritative’ as those other translations. Which is to say, don’t take any one translation’s word for it. Compare it with other ones, just in case one of us made a mistake.”

Pretty sure I didn’t convince her, though. When you grow up thinking of certain bible translations as absolute authorities… it kinda bothers you to discover they’re not the work of extra-special anointed creatures, but ordinary women and men. Especially once you personally know any of those ordinary women and men.

The imaginary rarified air of the bible translator.

And I actually do know some of those ordinary women and men. Some people who’ve worked on popular (or wanna-be-popular) English-language bible translations. But more people who’ve translated the bible as part of their missions work.

Y’see, not everyone has a bible in their local language. Those people may be able to speak a more common language, like English, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, or French, but they know their native language best, and they’ll understand the bible best in that language. So linguists go to those people, learn the local language, and translate a bible for those people. In some cases these linguists have to create a written form of the language for these people; they didn’t have one before. (You know, like the Cherokees before Sequoyah created their alphabet and made his nation literate within months.) That’s an awesome thing, as most Christians would agree. Now these people can read—and read bible. And Christianity isn’t limited to just the common languages; it can spread even further.

People praise the work of these linguists—and it is impressive and noble and all that. But if these very same people decided to translate the bible into English, they’d get the very same pushback I do: “Well… that’s just your translation of the bible. And who are you?” Guess these linguists are holy enough to translate bibles for pagans and foreigners, but not us. Whether that’s just condescending snobbery or full-on racism, I won’t get into today.

See, lots of regular Christians revere the bible. And they believe translating the bible, or even delving into its original-language words, is sacred and profound, and should be reserved for the holiest, most anointed language scholars.

Now, ask ’em what makes a language scholar holy and sanctified. Their answers will be all over the place. Some figure you need to be a seminary professor, or have at least one doctorate, or be a published scholar, or some high academic qualifications. Others figure you’ve gotta be a longtime Christian, a devout follower of Jesus, with a monkish lifestyle you’ve practiced for decades. And of course, no matter how accomplished or sanctified you are, you’ve gotta have the very same theological beliefs they do. Jesus’s first 12 apostles themselves wouldn’t qualify.

I’ve know people who’ve contributed to “official” bible translations. (And no, I’m not just speaking of my own Hebrew and Greek professor.) Met ’em at conferences. The first one was Bruce Waltke, who translated parts of the NASB and NIV. I was still in high school, curious about biblical languages but not yet serious about them, so I asked where I might learn Hebrew. Any good bible college would teach me Hebrew, he said. In fact if nobody there teaches Hebrew, or even knows it, it’s not gonna be a good bible college. Advice I bore in mind when I later did choose a bible college, ’cause a bothersome number of ’em don’t do Hebrew. (Nor bother with accreditation.)

But in my language classes, I learned the nuts and bolts of actual bible translation. It’s not all that hard. I learned Spanish in third grade; biblical languages aren’t any harder. People just assume they’re harder ’cause they use unfamiliar alphabets. Learn the basic vocabulary and grammar, so you can kinda read and translate it without a dictionary.

Which I do. Wanna intimidate the heck out of your bible study leader? Translate the Greek New Testament freestyle, right in front of him. Your bible study leader will definitely do his homework before class from now on. (Learned that trick from my Greek professor. It’s always fun.)

But when you sit down to translate bible, get out that dictionary anyway, and double-check every single word you’ve translated. Compare it with other English translations to make sure you’ve not gone off the deep end: If your translation looks like no other translation, you’ve made a mistake. Maybe several. Find and fix your mistakes.

And yes, any Christian, so long that they’re careful with the grammar, syntax, and context, can translate the bible. Any Christian. It’s not just for clergy, not just for scholars, not just for saints. Just as any Christian can read the bible, any Christian can read the original-language texts of the bible, and try to put them in their language. And the rest of us can judge how well they did. As we should. (As we probably will regardless.)

Fear of a bad translation.

This is the part Christians are most nervous about: They’re afraid when “unqualified people” produce “unofficial translations” of the bible, we’re gonna go astray. Or lead others astray.

Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses do with their sloppy bible translation. The New World Translation says in the beginning, the word was a god. Jn 1.1 NWT (They claim it’s correct ’cause θεός/theós, “God,” doesn’t have the article ὁ/o before it. It’s a god, not the God. To them, this helps prove Jesus isn’t the God, but a god.

Okay. If you’re gonna translate Greek that way, then you gotta translate “in the beginning” the very same way. And ἀρχῇ/arhí, “beginning,” doesn’t have an o before it either. It’s a beginning, not the beginning. In a beginning the word was a god.

The reason the JWs are wrong is because o is not an article; it’s a determiner. It doesn’t tell us whether a noun is definite or indefinite; it helps us understand what case the noun is in, and which other words are connected to it. They’d know this if they had actual linguists in their church. Instead what they have are doctrinaires who wanna bend the bible to defend their official heresies.

This was the reason medieval Christians persecuted unauthorized bible translators, like John Wycliffe. These guys didn’t work for the official churches, and they feared heresy. Frankly, some Christians think this kind of persecution isn’t such a bad idea… though they’d make exceptions for Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Knox, or any translator they consider a saint. As for my sainthood, they consider it debatable.

But even recognized saints, like our pastors, make ’em anxious. When I was a kid, I remember when my pastor at the time was going to graduate school on the weekdays. Suddenly all his sermons were peppered with, “In the original Greek, this word means…” because he was taking Greek and learning to use the Greek dictionary properly. (My notes from the time contain a lot of my guesses as to how to spell these words. He pronounced a lot of ’em wrong. But he was trying, which is the important thing.)

Thing is, sometimes he still didn’t get the definition right. He did look it up, but he made the rookie mistake of many a new Greek student: A word may have a dozen definitions, but in the context of this particular verse, only one of those definitions is correct. But sometimes you’re gonna be tempted to try out every single one of those definitions, just to see if it fits better. And sometimes it fits you better—not the text. Or sometimes every different definition changes the nuance of the verse just a little bit, which looks profound, but it’s actually rubbish. He fell for that mistake more than once. He eventually stopped, ’cause obviously his Greek professor got to that lesson. But some preachers never do learn that lesson. One prophet I know loves to preach on her “discoveries” where she uses all the alternate definitions of Hebrew words. Loves it so much, she’s kinda impossible to correct. You may be able to trust her prophecies… but never her sermons.

And some of the reason Christians fear bad translations, is because they were raised Fundamentalist like me. Their churches taught ’em they couldn’t trust any bible but the King James Version; that when anyone starts talking about “the original Greek,” it’s a devilish plot to undermine the holy KJV.

Once you have an infallible bible translation, who needs to worry about original languages? Jack Chick, The Attack 19

So whenever my pastor trotted out the original Greek, no doubt there were folks in my church who were rubbed the wrong way by this behavior. They knew their Chick tracts: This wasn’t appropriate! How dare he correct the holy KJV? When our pastor switched to the NIV, they probably thought it apostasy.

Many Christians nowadays have learned to be tolerant of multiple bible translations. They have their favorites; they consider those favorites absolute and authoritative, but they put up with the fact Pastor’s sometimes gonna preach from another translation, or the various people in our bible studies use various translations. Occasionally some crank’s gonna insist everybody bring the same translation—their favorite—because they don’t trust the others.

Why? No good reason. Christian newbies regularly ask me, “Which translation’s the best one?” Once, someone else in the room piped up, “Oh, the NASB is the most accurate.” It’s really not; I’ve used the NASB and it’s really good, but it’s no more accurate than other wooden word-for-word translations. How does he know the NASB is most accurate?—has he compared it with the original text of the bible? No; he doesn’t know a lick of Hebrew or Greek. He heard the NASB is most accurate. That’s how the NASB’s marketing department describes it, and NASB fans simply repeat the slogan everywhere, and believe it without question. In journalism we call this an “unsubstantiated rumor.”

People fret about my translation because, while I frequently translate word-for-word, I’m aiming for concept-for-concept, idea-for-idea. That’s properly how you translate. You don’t translate buenos dias literally as “good days”; you translate it for the English equivalent ideas, “Good day” or “Hello.” If you hire a translator, you want your ideas to get across. Same with bible.

People don’t always understand this, and fret that I might be inserting my own ideas into my translations. Which is a totally valid concern; the latest edition of the Amplified Bible inserts conservative Evangelical ideas into the text all the time, regardless of the fact some of those pop-culture ideas are neither what the authors of scripture were trying to say, nor are even historically accurate. I’m all in favor of asking valid critical questions of a bible translation. My problem is Christians don’t aks these questions about the bible translations they use. I shouldn’t get a free pass—and other translations shouldn’t either. Don’t unquestioningly accept or embrace the NIV, ESV, NLT, or any of the other translations produced by unknown, unseen bible scholars. By now you probably know about a bunch of my biases. You know any of theirs?

Yeah. You think about that for a while.

So, about the KWL translation.

As you know, I make no claims of infallibility. On the contrary: I am wrong. Trying to be right. Trying to follow Jesus, and accept the Holy Spirit’s correction. I’m a work in progress.

So’s my bible translations. As I study the scriptures, as I write articles for TXAB, I’m gonna read the original text of the scriptures, and translate as I go. Sometimes I’m gonna spend a lot of time and study and prayer on the translation. Sometimes I’m gonna whip it out ’cause I’ve got other ideas in my head at the time. Hence sometimes I’m gonna make mistakes. Double-check me. Click on the verse references; I link everything to Bible Gateway.

My translation is an ad hoc translation. That means I’m not doing it because I intend to someday publish a full KWL bible. I have no such plan. I’m only translating as necessary. When I need to quote a verse, I consider it part of my due diligence to translate it so I know I’m not misusing it. I’m not striving to complete entire books of the bible (although that’s gonna happen as I study entire books). I’m not trying to meet a deadline for getting a translation done. I’m not even trying to format it consistently throughout: Sometimes I’ll translate the psalms so they rhyme, and sometimes I won’t.

I do go back and double-check myself from time to time. If I’m writing an article, and refer to a verse I already translated for another article, I don’t simply quote my previous translation. I’ve already got my bible software open, so I’m already looking at the Hebrew or Greek text… and I might discover I was mistaken the first time, and gotta fix it. And gotta go back to the other articles I wrote, and fix them. Like I said, work in progress.

Yeah, this means every single verse in my KWL translation is subject to change. So don’t quote it like it’s written in stone! It’s not. You want a translation that nobody’s ever gonna update, you want the KJV, or ASV, or Douai-Rheims, or any of the other older translations. (They do all have updates, though. The NKJV is an update of the KJV, the NASB of the ASV, and the NAB was meant to supersede the Douai-Rheims.) But translations get updated because translators aren’t infallible, know this, and sometimes go back and fix things. Mine gets updated more often because I’m particularly aware of this.

Yeah, you may not like the conclusions I come to in my translation process. You’ll hardly be the first. No doubt you’ll have similar beefs with other bible translations. Won’t like the words I picked; won’t like the ideas I chose to emphasize. Hey, sometimes I look back on old articles and I don’t like the ideas I chose to emphasize. So I update. Work in progress. There’s no pleasing some people, and I’m one of those people too.

But I’ve found when I do serious bible study, and really wanna understand the scriptures, there’s no substitute for translation. That’s why I do it. That’s why I recommend you give it a shot. Learn the alphabets, learn some grammar, get out those dictionaries, and take a stab at it. Stay humble, and stay at it. You’ll definitely learn something.