Bible, Computers, and Translations

This morning, I was reading Joel during my devotions. I couldn’t remember the setting and background for Joel. So, I did a quick web search and discovered the NIV Study Bible has all its introductory material for every book in the Bible on the web. That is very handy. It got me thinking about all the helpful resources for people like me who use their computers to study the ancient texts of the Bible. Here are a few.

Bible Gateway. -- This site has just about every Bible translation you can think of in just about every language. It is completely searchable as well. So, next time you are trying to find that story about Elijah on Mount Carmel, you can just enter it into the search and it will pop up for you.

Besides having the Bible on the web, I recommend that everyone have it on his or her computer. That way, you can have it, even when you don’t have access to the web.

You can get the New International Version , which is what we use on Sunday mornings at UPC, for only $7.99.

Even better, though is The NIV Study Bible .It has very helpful, easy to read notes.

Also, many people use PDA’s such as Palm’s. Having the Bible on your Palm is very convenient. You can get it the NIV for Palm Pilot here.

I use BibleWorks , but it is very expensive and, unless you know something of the original languages, it wouldn’t be very helpful.

By the way, for geeks who love Greek (or Latin), you have to check out www.perseus.tufts.edu. It is an amazing online library of ancient texts. I went there and saw immediately that, without the cheats of BibleWorks, I don’t know Greek anymore. Works that I translated in college were, well, Greek to me. It is still fun, in a geeky sort of way.

Bible Versions

While we use the NIV at UPC, there are a number of other translations available. The NIV isn't necessarily the best, just the most popular. If you are looking for a translation with excellent readability, then The New Living Translation is good choice. Eugene Peterson's The Message is a good paraphrase. Just be aware that with a paraphrase, you have more of the interpretive spin of the translator than you do with a more literal translation.

If you are looking for a more word-for-word translation, the New English Version is very good. Personally, I still love the New American Standard Version. In my opinion, both of these translations more accurately reflect the ancient words, but they do it at the expense of readability. The New King James Version isn't bad either.

You may wonder why there are so many different English translations of the Bible. Some see it as a bad thing. I think it is helpful because, by comparing different translations, we can gain a better understanding of the original text. The reason there are so many different translations is because different translators have different goals for their BIble. When translating anything from one language to another, the translator is always torn between giving a smooth translation or a literal translation. If one tries to translate exactly word for word from any language into English, then it will sound broken and choppy. It just wouldn't be easy to read or listen to. So, the translator must often decide if he is going to communicate the sense of what the speaker or writer said, or give an more precise word-for-word translation. So, The Message goes to the extreme in trying to be readable while The New American Standard strives to be more literal.

Here is an example that would be familiar to most people. In Spanish, when you say Gracias (thank you) to someone, the usual reply is de nada (you are welcome). However, neither gracias nor de nada literally mean "Thank you" and "You are welcome". De nada, if translated literally means "of nothing". However, that doesn't make sense in English. What the speaker is saying, though not word-for-word, is teh same thing as "you are welcome" in English.

The other problem in translation is that words themselves do not have precise meanings and there usually is not a one-to-one correspondence between a word in one language and its equivalent in another language. I won't get into that any more, but if you are interested in knowing more about this, Moises Silva wrote a great little book called Biblical Words and Their Meaning that explains this further. It is must reading for anyone who wants to do "Word studies".