Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #34： Is Your Bible Translation Accurate and Reliable？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Real Christianity. Today we are talking about Bible translations. Yeah. Is the Bible translation that you read accurate and reliable?

00:00:10.680 This is a common question we get, and I think it's a really important question. This is actually Veronica's show idea. She's like, man, we get this all the time.

00:00:20.880 yeah especially like after our last podcast on head coverings had a lot of people reaching out

00:00:27.100 asking questions about that and then um several people asking uh what versions of the bible i read

00:00:33.260 or what translation do i think is best because their translation they're reading that passage

00:00:38.820 out of just seemed a little bit different and yeah i was like we really i think we really should

00:00:43.160 do a podcast episode on it so here we are yeah and so uh veronica and i we read the new king

00:00:48.740 James Version. We'll explain why. We also read ESV. But there's going to be a huge backstory

00:00:55.600 that, to be honest, we both never knew about a couple years ago. So we're excited to share

00:01:01.320 that journey with you. I think this is a really important episode for anybody who's serious

00:01:05.500 about scripture. Before we get started, again, would you guys, if you haven't already, and I

00:01:12.120 know thousands of you have, would you leave a review on iTunes? Because it really does

00:01:17.720 healthy exposure of the show our show made it down to number 13 i think last week of all religious

00:01:25.880 and spiritual podcasts that's every religion and so that's a big deal because uh we were we were

00:01:33.540 competing with probably the i mean literally the top christian influencers in the world out of like

00:01:39.100 55 000 podcasts we were number 13 and it's because these reviews and the content and the downloads

00:01:46.460 man I just we're humbled and we can't thank you guys enough but if you would would you please

00:01:51.700 leave a review all you have to do is tap the stars at iTunes and you don't even need to write

00:01:57.060 anything if you do write something we appreciate that we read those reviews we're super encouraged

00:02:01.300 actually when people write something but just tap the stars that's all we're looking for

00:02:05.120 and remind people that you guys can watch this on YouTube Spotify Google Play because a lot of

00:02:14.460 people ask us that question. Where can I listen to it? Anywhere you can listen to a podcast.

00:02:18.940 Pretty much anywhere. Yeah. So if you guys have a friend that you refer us out to, just let people

00:02:22.320 know that that's available there. So we're going to jump right in for this episode and Veronica's

00:02:30.620 going to start. Yeah. So for years before, I guess you and I, I would say, got way more serious about

00:02:40.080 our faith we just kind of read whatever bible translation we liked best um i believe you had

00:02:45.900 an niv and i had an nlt it was gifted to me um but you even have uh the message bible i did i

00:02:52.260 remember and we technically still have it but we just don't use it um but we really thought that

00:02:58.580 all bible translations were essentially the same um but then we realized you know several years

00:03:04.740 into our journey that that's actually not the case so we need to remember the remember the

00:03:11.240 only difference between a christian bible and the jehovah's witness bible is the translation

00:03:15.400 yeah they have a translation called the new world translation and people see that all the time like

00:03:19.460 oh that's another translation i want to check that out no that is that is the translation of a

00:03:24.400 another false religion but the only difference between them is just the translation practice

00:03:30.560 so chuck smith once said ever since the garden of eden satan has been attacking the word of god

00:03:36.780 sometimes directly sometimes very subtly and the garden of eden it was a rather subtle attack all

00:03:42.420 he did was misquote god leaving out a few words he's always been taking away or adding to the

00:03:48.300 revelation in order to slightly change its meaning another quote um i'll share with you guys by aw

00:03:54.640 Tozer is, we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing

00:04:01.040 less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian. Yeah. So I want to just kind of go off that quote 0.91

00:04:07.480 is that the question we have to ask ourselves is, well, what is a whole Bible? You know,

00:04:13.560 because if Tozer is saying we must not select a few favorite passages and exclude the others,

00:04:18.600 nothing less than the whole Bible can make a whole Christian. Then what is a whole Bible?

00:04:25.500 And that's an important question to ask because we just assume that, man, the Bible that I bought at the store is actually the whole Bible.

00:04:34.460 And you're going to learn today that that's not all Bible translations are created equally.

00:04:39.340 And so today we have pastors teaching small pieces, like just portions of scripture.

00:04:46.900 They're not doing the whole word of God.

00:04:49.320 Just they're doing topical sermon series.

00:04:52.360 And throwing in like one or two scriptures here and there.

00:04:54.180 Yeah, small series of pieces of the Bible out of translations that aren't really accurate to the original text.

00:05:02.820 And so, again, if we're doing the whole Bible to create the whole Christian, man, there's a lot of pastors out there that aren't really doing that.

00:05:09.820 I've seen several popular Sunday morning pastors podcasts that you guys all know their names.

00:05:18.240 I'm not going to name their name.

00:05:19.640 Preaching out of the message.

00:05:21.020 um people if your pastor is preaching out of the message uh you need to find a new church i'm just

00:05:29.860 going to be real with you not to say that you can't maybe reference the the message um even

00:05:34.800 then after listening to this podcast you guys might not even do that i have not found a reason

00:05:39.520 to look at the message bible for the last five years i don't even want to call it a bible it's

00:05:44.000 not a bible so again if if that's the case this is what we're talking about today uh not just the

00:05:50.780 message but other translations i call the message a literary commentary um it's it's actually called

00:05:58.320 eugene peterson who wrote it called it a paraphrase i don't even want if i want to call it a paraphrase

00:06:04.200 it's i think it's a literary commentary of modern text uh of the of the bible it's also at a fourth

00:06:12.000 grade reading level which we'll talk about later so let me give you guys some history here and

00:06:17.540 then Veronica is going to jump back in, but I'm going to give you like seven minutes, maybe not

00:06:21.780 that long, of history of the Bible real quick. And I just want to bring you guys up. Remember,

00:06:26.740 Hebrews says, let us move on from the elementary principles of the faith. For by now, many of you 0.99

00:06:32.580 guys should be teachers. That's two separate verses, but the same concept is that we, if you

00:06:37.740 guys have been a believer for longer than a couple years, this is the kind of stuff that you need to

00:06:42.800 know. Now, a lot of pastors and preachers aren't really teaching the meat of the Bible because

00:06:48.280 they're so concerned with the visitors that are coming their first day at church. But I'm telling

00:06:52.820 you, I'm going to take you through some history. This book, you bank your whole life on this book.

00:06:59.220 If this book isn't true, then the gospel isn't true. Your eternity is lost.

00:07:05.340 This book is so critical that you know a lot about it. Ideally, everything you can possibly

00:07:10.440 learn about it. So I'm going to give you some history. So the Bible, it's 66 books written by

00:07:15.520 40 different authors over a 1500 year period. And it was originally written the Old Testament in

00:07:22.100 Hebrew. There is a portion of the Old Testament, like 230 something verses that is written in

00:07:29.320 Aramaic. You can find it in Daniel and Ezra. I'm just giving you some beginning of the Bible so we

00:07:34.340 can move to translation. The New Testament, Old Testament is in Hebrew. The New Testament is in

00:07:39.680 Greek, and it's in Koine Greek. And Koine is the same word that we get from koinonia, which is the

00:07:45.800 word for fellowship in Greek. Koine means common, and it's common Greek. There's many, during that

00:07:52.960 time, the educated class was speaking classical Greek. It's a kind of a cool lesson to realize

00:07:58.400 that the scriptures are written in common Greek. It was written for the everyday person.

00:08:04.480 And that word koinonia means to have fellowship with people you have something in common with.

00:08:09.400 So again, that's how you get those two words there.

00:08:11.860 There's also two.

00:08:13.020 So you have the Old Testament, you have the New Testament, Hebrew, Greek.

00:08:15.560 Then you have two other books that are important in Bible translation history.

00:08:20.660 The first is the Septuagint.

00:08:23.080 And the Septuagint is the Old Testament written in Greek.

00:08:28.040 And actually, many of the New Testament writers probably read the Septuagint.

00:08:34.520 And so that's something that's important.

00:08:36.240 It's the Old Testament translated from Hebrew into Greek.

00:08:39.400 Then there's another translation of a book called the Latin Vulgate, and the Latin Vulgate is the Old Testament, New Testament translated into Latin, which actually became the main translation that the Catholic Church used for many, many centuries, all the way up, and it actually formalized it around the 16th century.

00:09:03.620 So, I want to talk about the years from about 400 AD to about 1380.

00:09:09.860 And I'm going to give you just a quick overview real quick.

00:09:12.700 Because everything was copied by hand by scribes prior to the Bible really having the printing press,

00:09:22.960 to have a canonized Bible like Genesis to Revelation was incredibly rare.

00:09:29.160 imagine copying you know it's it's in the english it's around 750 000 words so it's just a regular

00:09:39.000 book is about 50 000 words so you're talking this is a huge piece of literature and so it's very

00:09:44.480 rare they were incredibly expensive so the roman catholic church in 1350 only read from the latin

00:09:53.160 bible but the people didn't speak latin they were the the clergy actually created this divide with

00:10:02.580 the laity which is the the congregation it's called the clergy laity divide and this was

00:10:07.540 actually a problem this is actually the cause in the beginning of the reformation and that that

00:10:14.160 the clergy was preaching out of this bible it would be like us going english-speaking people

00:10:19.180 going and listening to a German Bible.

00:10:20.740 It's like, it does no good for us. 0.99

00:10:22.240 We don't know.

00:10:22.920 The common man didn't know what it meant.

00:10:25.140 John Wycliffe.

00:10:26.160 And so Wycliffe, there's a Wycliffe Hall at Oxford University.

00:10:29.340 It's named after this man.

00:10:30.760 John Wycliffe in 1380, he could read the Greek manuscripts

00:10:34.520 and he actually saw the gap between what the Catholic Church was doing

00:10:43.980 and what the actual manuscripts were saying.

00:10:46.640 And he started translating the English Bible in 1406.

00:10:50.780 It's called the Wycliffe Bible.

00:10:52.800 And it was made illegal by the Catholic Church.

00:10:55.280 He was convicted of heresy by the Catholic Church.

00:10:57.840 He had death by fire.

00:10:59.780 The Catholic Church hated this guy so much for translating the Bible into English for the common man

00:11:06.380 that they dug up his body later and burned his bones.

00:11:10.980 Okay, this is crazy stuff that's going on between the Catholic and the Protestant breaking off church.

00:11:17.400 1525, William Tyndale, right?

00:11:19.120 So the Tyndale Publishing Company, William Tyndale.

00:11:22.580 He created the first English New Testament from the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts,

00:11:27.620 which actually started off the beginning of the Reformation movement with Martin Luther.

00:11:33.620 And the Reformation, again, is just the Catholic and Protestant break off.

00:11:38.560 And the difference is that Protestants believe sola scriptura, right? 0.52

00:11:43.780 It's by scripture alone.

00:11:45.640 And the Catholics believe in scripture, tradition, and the writings of the popacy.

00:11:51.760 And so there's a big difference there.

00:11:54.440 But again, at age 42, William Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake by the Catholic Church for doing so.

00:12:02.520 So this is translation.

00:12:03.880 A lot of people, a lot of blood has been paid for us to read the Bible that we have.

00:12:10.060 Miles Cloverdale put the first entire Bible together with the help of Tyndale's New Testament in 1535.

00:12:17.020 And then we had the Reformation years that are coming.

00:12:19.420 And then we had King Henry VII.

00:12:21.280 He was Catholic, and he really pushed us back in the Protestant movement.

00:12:25.740 King Henry VIII was Protestant and really kind of let that thing go forward.

00:12:30.360 Then you had Queen Mary, which is also known as Bloody Mary.

00:12:33.880 That's where we get the name of the drink, right? 0.77

00:12:35.780 And why she was called Bloody Mary is because she killed Protestants for the Reformation.

00:12:41.980 King James then came, and this was the beginning of the King James Bible.

00:12:47.700 1611, the King James Bible, which is called the Authorized Version, came around at 1611.

00:12:54.380 So we've had the King James Version for hundreds of years.

00:12:57.360 Now, everybody was desperate for a copy of the Bible.

00:13:02.340 but now everyone has one and nobody reads it it collects dust it collects dust yeah then

00:13:10.840 translation was about access now translation is about comfort readability and profit

00:13:18.100 and so this is important stuff guys yeah dell and i believe that it's really important that you

00:13:25.580 know how the book that you base your life upon is translated yeah if you call yourself a christian

00:13:31.580 that is what you base your life upon upon yeah you should want to know this stuff yeah because

00:13:35.820 the bible is not an english book it's a hebrew and a greek book um so over the last 20 years

00:13:43.220 there have been over a hundred new bible translations released and what does that do

00:13:47.940 to people what does that cause them to do yeah it makes people doubt it makes them question the

00:13:52.740 reliability of the bible yeah and um if every year there's a new translation then apparently

00:13:58.780 the previous one must have not been good enough or must have not been accurate um and the previous

00:14:05.020 ones were inadequate um so what reason is there to believe that any future translations will be

00:14:12.200 better yeah we've we finally you know every year there's multiple ones that are coming out which

00:14:16.380 again it makes every all the other ones seem obsolete did you not translate it correctly and

00:14:20.880 they all claim if you actually read the front page of their translation they all claim to be

00:14:25.500 the most accurate version you know and it's like well was the one that i just read not accurate

00:14:30.500 well do you want to talk just quick note on um copyright laws oh yeah so in order to come out

00:14:35.920 with a new yeah and in the united states the copyright laws mean that you have to actually

00:14:40.180 have your works have to be 10 different from each other and so these bibles are really 10

00:14:46.100 different they're all 10 different from each other imagine if we had different constitutions

00:14:51.540 of america that were 10 different the mess that we would have and so the only non-copyrighted

00:15:02.000 public domain version of the bible is the king james version and again we read the new king

00:15:08.260 james esv we have king james but we'll explain this in more detail here in a second originally

00:15:15.300 accuracy of translation took precedence over literary style so the accuracy was was like the

00:15:24.260 core that took precedence over literary style but now we live in this super narcissistic

00:15:32.200 entitled generation that elevates the reader above the author and caters to the experience

00:15:39.920 of the reader instead of the authenticity of the text you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings

00:15:44.180 Yeah. And I want to make, I want to, it's all about you. Like it's all about the reader. How does, you know, and we even have this, this, this question that comes out all the time in Bible studies. What does this text mean to you? I don't care what it means to me. I want one meaning. There's only one meaning in the author. And what's the author intended meaning? It doesn't matter what it means to me. And this, again, it's the centralized idea that it's about the reader instead of the author and the word author. You get the word authority. They're the ones that create the authority.

00:16:14.180 So basically, there's two types of Bible translation theories, the way that like processes.

00:16:21.620 And the first is the dynamic equivalent translation style.

00:16:27.380 And this is the thought for thought idea.

00:16:31.580 So instead of taking every word, looking for the best English word, which is word for word, which is the next one we're going to talk about, they do thought for thought.

00:16:40.440 So, there's a lot of interpretation involved in the translation process for dynamic equivalent Bibles.

00:16:48.720 Now, most modern Bibles are dynamic equivalent Bibles.

00:16:53.080 The NLT, the NIV, the Message, of course, the Passion Translation that just came out not too long ago.

00:17:01.540 These are dynamic equivalent Bibles.

00:17:07.080 The other type of Bible translation theory is essentially literal or functionally equivalent.

00:17:14.820 This idea is word for word.

00:17:18.900 So instead of thought for thought, man, they're going word for word.

00:17:21.380 they're not worried about it actually sounding beautiful or worried about, yeah, catering to the culture's desires or the reader level.

00:17:37.480 They just want the most accurate translation word for word.

00:17:42.760 And sometimes there's not the, it's essentially literal because you can't always take a Greek word and turn it into an English word.

00:17:50.260 and so it's not perfectly literal because it's two different languages and there's what's called

00:17:56.040 the native language and the receptor language so the native language is you know for the new

00:18:00.760 testament is greek the receptor language for us is english and so they're essentially literal

00:18:06.460 so there's two translations dynamic equivalent and essentially literal translations thought for

00:18:12.220 thought word for word and um we veronica and i we subscribe to a thought for thought or sorry

00:18:20.200 look at me we subscribe to a word for word translation theory and those translations are

00:18:27.020 esv new king james king james nasb and there's some other ones that are older but those are the

00:18:35.620 more popular ones today that most people generally have yeah or know of yeah so so if you read an esv

00:18:42.080 bible you'll notice that it's actually kind of like chunky and hard to read sometimes because

00:18:46.860 they're just concerned with it being literal new king james is actually a little bit less

00:18:54.300 um it's a little more poetic it's a little more poetic they give a little bit of grace there

00:18:58.820 um where the niv is actually probably a pretty conservative dynamic equivalent translation

00:19:05.500 but it's still thought for thought and there's a lot of problems with it which we'll talk about

00:19:10.160 but it's still it's not a terrible um i i will sometimes still reference it i will never teach

00:19:16.620 out of it but i'd sometimes reference it where the passion translation man that is just like

00:19:22.620 i don't it's i it's i struggle to even call it a translation all right i'm going to read you a

00:19:27.680 quote from a theologian we're going to talk about the passion translation because i think this has

00:19:30.980 become pretty popular today so a theologian from the uk he actually translates bibles um he's on

00:19:37.080 the translation committee and uh he was asked to review the passion translation he puts it puts it

00:19:44.160 in quotes um and he says the passion translation inserts all kinds of concepts words and ideas

00:19:51.280 of which the original gives no hint whatsoever my main expertise is on paul so i'll use a few

00:19:58.420 examples from him the first example comes from galatians 2 19 it says hina theos zesso

00:20:05.660 which simply means that I might live for God.

00:20:10.680 And in the Passion Translation, it's translated as

00:20:15.080 so that I can live for God and heaven's freedom.

00:20:18.600 To be clear, there is no indication whatsoever in the Greek of that sentence

00:20:23.880 or the rest of the chapter

00:20:25.280 that either heaven or its freedom are in view in this text.

00:20:29.980 The passage is not translated.

00:20:31.660 It is interpreted, or glossed over, or more bluntly, an addition. 0.89

00:20:37.440 I don't want to play the Revelation 22 card, but Christians really shouldn't do this.

00:20:43.280 Okay, this is someone kind of, I don't want to say rebuking, but he's calling out, man, you don't add words to God's word. 1.00

00:20:57.300 There's actually, when he says, I want to play the Revelation 22 card,

00:21:00.940 he's referencing this passage of Scripture at the end of Revelation.

00:21:05.380 I'm going to read it.

00:21:06.740 It's verse 18 and 19.

00:21:09.960 And it says,

00:21:10.560 For I testify that everyone who hears the words of prophecy of this book,

00:21:14.380 if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book.

00:21:19.300 And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy,

00:21:23.120 God shall take away his part from the book of life,

00:21:25.880 from the holy city and from the things which are written in this book.

00:21:29.240 Now, that is a reference for sure to the book of Revelation,

00:21:32.680 but that's how serious God is about messing with his words.

00:21:39.120 So that's just kind of, we're going to go through some of these passion translations

00:21:43.420 just to give you, to illustrate an example of some of the license and liberty

00:21:52.600 that people can take with some of these dynamic equivalent translations yeah so i know um when

00:22:00.080 some of these new translations comes out i know dale likes to look at how they render against the

00:22:06.920 controversial passages of scripture like issues on sin or homosexuality women in the church etc

00:22:12.440 um so let's look at how the passion translation renders to first timothy 2 which is a passage on

00:22:18.720 women in the church yeah so this is going to the first is uh new king james version first timothy

00:22:25.000 2 11 through 12 let a woman learn in silence with all submission and i do not permit a woman to

00:22:30.740 teach or to have authority over a man but to be in silence so yes yeah so that was the new king 0.98

00:22:38.480 james and we're going to read the esv and we're also going to read the nasb and look listen how

00:22:45.380 these three are essentially literal translations yeah and they're like 90 the same so listen so 0.95

00:22:50.260 esb let a woman learn quietly with all submission or with all submissiveness i do not permit a woman

00:22:55.980 to teach or to exercise authority over a man rather she is to remain quiet okay that was esb 0.98

00:23:01.640 now nasb a woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness but i do not allow a 0.75

00:23:08.720 woman to teach or exercise authority over a man but to remain quiet yeah now let's read uh first 0.87

00:23:15.260 timothy the same verse in the passion translation 11 through 12 let the let the women who are new

00:23:22.220 converts be willing to learn with all submission to their leaders and not speak out of turn i don't

00:23:28.100 advocate that the newly converted woman be teachers of the church assuming authority over the man but

00:23:35.580 to live in peace okay let's just look at this for a second there's just it's so interesting the new 0.85

00:23:42.920 king james the esv the nasb are 90 the same and they're saying the exact same thing let a woman

00:23:48.660 learn in silence which guys if you're panicking over here listening to us talk about this passage

00:23:53.380 we're going to do a podcast on women in the church at some point in the next probably four to six

00:23:58.940 weeks but there's there's these these parallels between the the new king james the esv and the

00:24:07.400 NASB. They all come to the same conclusion. But somehow the Passion Translation comes to a

00:24:13.820 different conclusion. Let the women who are new converts be willing to learn with all submission

00:24:21.040 to their leaders and not speak out of turn. Like that, I've looked at the Greek on this,

00:24:27.800 that doesn't exist. The new converts, that has nothing to do with anything that's in the

00:24:34.000 original text that was added in by the translation committee which is a big deal because this changes

00:24:40.740 an entire doctrine and then it says i don't advocate that the newly converted women be the

00:24:47.560 teachers in the church so implying that the not newly converted women can definitely be teachers

00:24:52.720 in the church assuming authority which means that they're not if they're not newly converted they

00:24:57.740 can assume authority over the men and it says but to live in peace the it's actually the exact

00:25:04.560 opposite of what the other three translations are teaching it offers these massive loopholes what's

00:25:13.120 a newly converted woman there's not a lot of clarity on what that means if she's been a believer

00:25:17.380 for a year is she newly converted six months five years like what and again it doesn't give any

00:25:22.560 access for a woman at all it just says let a woman learn in silence with all submission and i do not 0.65

00:25:28.440 permit a woman to teach her to have authority over a man but to be in silence that's what that passage 0.73

00:25:31.740 says but somehow the esv committees the nasb committees the new king james committees all

00:25:39.760 have gotten this wrong according to the passion translation people there's only one person that

00:25:45.940 wrote the Passion Translation. It's a one-guy team in comparison to these committees. So it's a

00:25:52.220 big translation, and it's actually advocated by big-name pastors. I know Bill Johnson from Bethel

00:26:03.120 absolutely advocates for this translation. And is the entire thing bad? No. But the difference is 0.98

00:26:13.700 that you don't know where it's bad and you don't know where it's good, unless you're a Bible

00:26:17.240 scholar. And so we got to remember that translators are not co-authors, editors, or interpreters.

00:26:26.260 They are translators. 1 Timothy 3, 16 through 17, I want to remind you this scripture. Please

00:26:32.640 memorize this. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for

00:26:37.140 doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of

00:26:40.680 god that word man is anthropos means that all men and women the man of god may be complete

00:26:45.760 thoroughly equipped for every good work work all scripture is given by inspiration of god the esv

00:26:52.320 says all scripture is breathed out by god he is the author be very careful to add or take away

00:27:00.340 satan's in the business of adding and take away from the word of god we're not here to create

00:27:06.000 translations and adjust God's vocabulary simply to meet the reading level or comfort level of a

00:27:12.960 target audience. And that's what these translation companies are doing. Think about when you write

00:27:20.600 your wedding vows, how careful you are with choosing your words. You're very careful. Think

00:27:27.580 about when you write poetry, how careful you are about choosing specific words. Think about when

00:27:34.060 you're writing a contract, how careful you are with choosing your words. See, words are the vehicles

00:27:41.640 to meaning. If you change the words, you change the meaning. And you don't see translators adding

00:27:49.040 or subtracting words from Shakespeare's, you know, Hamlet or Charles Dickens books. But for some

00:27:55.920 reason, we offer them a higher respect than we do actually the author of the Bible, which is the

00:28:00.220 holy spirit like you would be in the literary faux pas zone if you translated shakespeare's

00:28:07.520 hamlet incorrectly like but yet we just take all this license and liberty with the bible it's pretty

00:28:14.780 insane yeah so before we close let's also just look at the niv which is 64 000 words shorter

00:28:24.140 than the king james version that's about 10 of the text that's different um and dale's book is

00:28:30.260 people over profit is actually 35 000 words yeah just to give you like context my book that i wrote

00:28:34.780 it's 35 000 words like 64 000 words difference between the niv and the king james version

00:28:42.540 so i'm gonna go through some niv scriptures that are actually completely missing out of the bible

00:28:47.540 i mean and explain this more like so if i go to uh acts 837 in my new king james version bible

00:28:56.700 it will be there yes if you go to acts 837 in niv it'll go there acts 836 will be there and

00:29:05.960 acts 838 will be there but 37 will just be completely gone yeah so i'm going to read off

00:29:11.200 some of the scriptures um if you're driving or listen to this car you can just listen to it

00:29:14.500 later and we'll have the notes and stuff um but um acts 8 37 matthew 17 21 matthew 18 11 matthew 21

00:29:25.780 44 matthew 23 14 mark 7 16 mark 9 44 mark 9 46 mark 11 26 mark 15 28 mark 16 9 through 20

00:29:40.600 luke 17 36 luke 22 42 luke 22 43 luke 23 17 john 5 4 acts 15 34 acts 24 7 acts 28 29

00:29:58.660 romans 16 24 first john 5 7 which just so happens to be the passage on turn on the trinity yeah like

00:30:07.140 the number one passage on the trinity and again there's a reason for this what's happening all

00:30:12.660 these there's actually more that are missing than this but they're they're translated from two

00:30:19.080 different types of manuscripts um and the the king james version is actually the newer old

00:30:26.580 manuscripts and the niv is translated from the older old manuscripts and it's hard concept you'll

00:30:33.280 have to google it and look around at it but it is there i just want you to be i want to illuminate

00:30:38.220 to you the difference between translations and how you need to be careful about choosing a bible

00:30:44.400 yeah ultimately um you should desire to have an accurate translation of the bible and we want you

00:30:51.300 guys to be reading an accurate translation of the bible so um we suggest the essentially literal

00:30:55.640 translations which we said earlier again they're king james version new king james esv and asb

00:31:01.360 and I know these translations might seem harder to read but remember that the King James version

00:31:08.780 is a 12th grade reading level while the NIV is a 7th grade reading level and NLT is a 5th grade

00:31:16.080 reading level and the message is a 4th grade reading level so would you really prefer to

00:31:21.960 dumb your Bible understanding and knowledge down or would you rather elevate yourself to the

00:31:29.080 literally literary caliber uh that god has intended it to be um and we have to remember 0.86

00:31:36.440 that from 1611 to 1950 nobody had a problem with reading the king james version um it wasn't an

00:31:44.380 issue there these um these are these are people without the internet and today with all the 0.87

00:31:49.980 information we have we need to be treated like children yeah like we need dumber versions of

00:31:54.980 bible like people go well isn't it okay to like just make these transitions that are easier to

00:32:00.660 read i go well you're talking about 400 years goes by almost you know that people are totally

00:32:06.840 capable read the same bible average people like yeah you're talking i'm talking like little house

00:32:11.940 in the prairie folk are reading the king james bible with no problem 12th grade reading level

00:32:17.980 you know in elementary school in elementary school yet today we go oh man you know what

00:32:23.880 I know I have a degree, but can you just give me my NLT fifth grade reading level Bible?

00:32:28.520 You know, no, we, we can go, we can go up, rise up to the literary status of the scriptures.

00:32:36.300 I know that was an adjustment for me when I first switched.

00:32:40.020 Yeah.

00:32:40.640 I had not the best education and so I always struggled with reading and so I really liked

00:32:45.480 the NLT.

00:32:46.920 And so when I switched, it was an adjustment, but that's like, I love the King, or New King

00:32:51.600 James now.

00:32:52.520 Yeah.

00:32:52.620 and it's it makes sense and there are some words in there propitiation oh my goodness what does

00:32:56.960 that mean look it up yeah look it up exactly you just get to learn some new words instead of just

00:33:02.200 being so concerned about your comfort and an easy reading experience the lord's got some big

00:33:08.780 concepts for us and we gotta we gotta rise up to those um so i'm gonna just kind of close with

00:33:14.160 this idea of why is it a problem to have so many different translations um i'm gonna make a few

00:33:21.540 points. And again, if you're an NIV reader, I'm not saying that it's a terrible Bible. I'm just

00:33:29.640 saying is that you should probably go to an essentially literal translation. The NIV is still

00:33:35.440 a pretty good translation for a thought for thought concept. The problem is it's the most

00:33:41.200 conservative while all those other ones are even more liberal and more liberal. And we're just

00:33:45.000 getting more liberal with translation. And the word of God is being changed. I want to make one

00:33:51.060 point real quick. Satan is a good student, and what he saw God do at the Tower of Babel is that

00:33:59.640 if you confuse language, you can confuse the culture. And that's exactly what God did. He 0.51

00:34:04.680 confused language, and he confused the culture. And now that we have the Tower of Babel inside

00:34:10.340 the Old Testament, he studied that. Satan studied that, and we now have the Tower of Bibles.

00:34:15.160 and you confuse the language and you confuse the church and that's exactly what's happening

00:34:22.000 today with all these translations so why is it a problem to have so many different translations

00:34:27.160 first there's a loss of reliability in the biblical text if all these translations are

00:34:34.860 different and you can kind of interpret this bible says this this bible says that this bible

00:34:40.140 says another thing like there's just like a a sense a growing sense of lack of reliability

00:34:47.080 of the scriptures in theology we call it the destabilization of the biblical text

00:34:53.500 it's become like shaky um just know this the quran man that is not translated into any other 0.64

00:35:01.720 languages man if you're a muslim the you need to learn how to read arabic it would be like all of

00:35:07.440 us learn how to read greek they are they they carefully care for that it's actually um you know

00:35:14.520 we know that satan doesn't attack his own and that's interesting that you can see that christianity

00:35:19.740 is the real faith because it's the one that's being attacked over and over and over and over

00:35:25.220 again and translated this way second uh reason why it's not good to have so many different

00:35:30.580 translations. These new translations, it's hard to know when the translation starts or ends and

00:35:39.280 the interpretation begins. There's lots of translators that are not translating. They're

00:35:44.180 interpreting the Greek and writing their own opinions as scripture for you to read.

00:35:50.160 That's scary. I want to interpret it myself through the power of the Holy Spirit. I don't

00:35:54.660 want some other guy interpreting it for me just so he could dumb it down so I could understand it 0.94

00:36:00.260 because i want my nlt bible third people are not more biblically literate as more of these english

00:36:09.100 translations are becoming available actually it's the opposite we're we're actually learning less

00:36:14.900 and we know less about the bible as more translations are produced so it's a bad experiment

00:36:20.700 the church knew way more when there was just the king james version compared to we have all these

00:36:27.940 translations and now we actually know less about the bible um it's produced confusion it's produced

00:36:34.600 confusion i'm actually going to close with a quote that's about that um lastly and i think

00:36:39.120 this is an interesting point that i found in a book um it's a book called and i'm going to

00:36:45.020 recommend you guys read it it's a really good book for remember we base our lives off this book

00:36:49.520 the bible and so the literary stylist for the esv his name is leland reichen and he wrote a book

00:36:58.960 called the word of god in english you can buy it on amazon um and it talks about this translation

00:37:06.320 theory and man is an eye-opener it's actually really well written because he's a literary

00:37:10.880 stylist and so it's an enjoyable read if you you don't even need to read the whole thing but if

00:37:16.380 you read the first 90 pages, you would really grasp the concept here. He makes this point.

00:37:23.400 The Christian community no longer speaks a universal biblical language. And with the loss

00:37:30.520 of a common Bible or a common translation, we've lost ease in the memorization of the Bible.

00:37:37.920 See, after all, he says, after all, when a common Bible exists, people hear it over and over and

00:37:44.260 over again and you actually memorize it without consciously doing so um but that is lost when

00:37:51.660 translations multiply when there's 40 different translations you can't memorize scripture because

00:37:57.440 like if you and your wife or husband have two different translations and you're memorizing

00:38:02.100 scripture it's confusing when they say the same scripture a different way um it's a pretty

00:38:09.380 fascinating point i thought oh it's so true um i'm gonna close with leland reichen's quote who

00:38:17.620 is the author of that book the author of that book yeah and so i can just pick it up on amazon

00:38:22.020 it's a cheap book um he says the fact is people have rightly become skeptical of the reliability

00:38:30.860 of the english bible the uncertainty that has been brought up there we go let me try this again

00:38:37.720 the uncertainty that has been brought about through the dynamic equivalent translation

00:38:41.880 has brought no more clarity to the scriptures but confusion

00:38:45.980 people pick up a essential little literal translation translation of the bible esv new

00:38:57.140 king james king james or nasb those are great translations and actually they're really good

00:39:03.480 translations i've i've taken some seminary classes that have taught about bible translation and

00:39:11.260 understanding some of these languages and it's pretty incredible the amount of work that goes

00:39:17.940 into a translation and like the esv team the new king james team um they're incredibly smart and

00:39:26.520 they're doing a great job those are good translations there's nothing like learning

00:39:30.380 the greek but they're great you can trust that they're good translations so on that note everything

00:39:39.020 else to say until next time veronica's stoked she's like man we need to go to bed we need to

00:39:44.300 go to bed all right guys we will see you guys next wednesday for another episode of real

00:39:49.200 christianity if you guys get a chance to leave a review we'd appreciate that we will see you guys

00:39:53.760 next time

Dale Partridge - February 28, 2019

Real Christianity #34： Is Your Bible Translation Accurate and Reliable？

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