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Bible Translations

Deciding on which Bible version is best isn't as simple as we might hope. Different Bibles have different translation styles. But, let's take a look and compare.

The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek.  When translating from those languages into English, different styles of translation can be used. Some Bible translators attempt to produce as literal a translation as possible. Others try to carry the meaning from the original into English. However, because the original languages are so different than English, a direct translation sometimes sounds a bit "wooden" and not as smooth as native English might sound.  Also, certain phrases in the original language just don’t make sense in the English, so an equivalent phrase is used to carry the meaning.    

Translators are aware of these issues, and most try to keep the original intent and the original wording as accurate as possible.  So, they try and make it smooth and accurate.  For the most part, this is easy to do, and relatively few passages present any real translating challenge.

Okay, so which Bible translations are the best?  Depends on what you are looking for.  If you want a more literal translation, then go with the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the King James Version (KJV), and the English Standard Version (ESV).  A more “flowing” translation is the New International Version (NIV), and even more loose is the Phillips Translation and the Living Bible. - via CARM

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This is a clip of a show called: “X-Men: The Animated Series”. It aired back in the early 90s. It was targeted towards children and was on during the morning and afternoon hours. This video appeared on my news feed and was interesting to see how heavy the focus was on God and the bible in this particular episode. I remember the X-men cartoons as a child but never saw this episode before. The blue mutant who’s talking in the clip is referred to as “Nightcrawler” and it appears that he is a Christian. His view of God is similar to that of a universalist (sort of)… but the video did have some good things and some things that were worth raising the red flag. Pros: i. He mentiones…man struggles with sin: This is true. As noted: Every Christian who reads Romans 7:14-25 should immediately identify with Paul’s expression of frustration and agony due to the weakness of his fleshly body: “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24). We are confronted with a dilemma as we try to live righteously. ii. The Heart is made known to God. He does not judge by appearance: 1 Samuel 16:7 - “But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Proverbs 16:2 - “All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the LORD weighs the motives.” 1 Chronicles 28:9 -“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.” Psalm 139:1 - “O LORD, You have searched me and known me.” Psalm 44:21 - “Would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.” iii. God allows evil to happen in this world: iv. Letting “The Word speak for itself: Towards the end we see Logan with a bible open, kneeling in front of the alter and what looks like repentance and prayer just by conviction of reading. Its not clear in the episode what book of the Bible he’s reading from but just by listening… its a butchered/short version of Isaiah 12:1,2 In the ESV it says: “Then you will say on that day, “I will give thanks to You, O LORD; For although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, And You comfort me. "Behold,God is my salvation,I will trust and not be afraid; For the LORD GOD is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.” Cons: i. Man doesn’t like to be reminded of his sin: "Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts.” - Proverbs 21:2 ii. There is mention that “People of all faiths believe there is a God who loves them.” - Yes, there might be people who believe this but does it make it right? And if so, this would mean everyone is okay to believe what they want without any real consequences of sinning against God. What do they do with guilt? What do they do when sin comes into the picture? Every religion handles that differently. It’s like the same argument as the the parable of the Elephant and the Blind Men which is a well-known story that resonates in a culture where diversity is valued and multiple perspectives are promoted. This is where the universalist idea kicks in… that everyone ideally, is okay with whatever they believe in and all go to the same heavenly place. But we know that all religions are different from one another and not all believe the same thing. Truth is, by nature, intolerant of falsehood. If Christianity is not true (and every religion leads to God and there’s no right or wrong religion), then that would conclude that Jesus was not God, Jesus did not do miracles,Jesus did not heal the sick, Jesus did not walk on water, Jesus did not die and rise from the dead after three days. But, if He did do these things, then Christianity alone is true since in all the religions in the world, only Christianity has the person of Jesus and Jesus said that He alone was the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). iii. There was an assumption in the video that everyone is Gods children: God does bring blessings to his children. But its unbiblcal to say that everyone is Gods children. We are made in His image (Gen. 1:27) but that does not mean everyones a child of God. Matt Slick sums it up best: “While we all have one maker to whom we owe our gratitude, allegiance, and exclusive worship, God is not inherently the Father of every man and woman. We are not His literal, biological children, and we are not guaranteed any special relationship to Him merely by right of birth. If anything, our sinful hearts make us, by nature, children of wrath, of our false gods, and indeed, of the devil. It is only by God’s grace through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ received by faith alone that we are blessed with the opportunity to become children of God by adoption.” OVERALL: I think it was a unique video clip to see. Normally I wouldn’t care for things like this but in today’s society… we see that superheroes are looked up to (not only as idols) but even as holding good moral standards. It’s very rare to see something like this in a cartoon today, despite of some of the universalism found in the clip… it was very bold to put anything like this in an episode and I’m surprised it even aired. Things are a bit different today with cartoons and tv shows. The superheros in this clip (even if it’s fiction) ultimately found that they were flawed and in need of God. Arent we all in need of God? Psalm 37:3-5 - “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”

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#tbt - Remember where we come from? In the NT- “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.” - 1 Corinthians 15:47 “When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up-for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground- then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” - Genesis 2:5-7

These verses concentrate on God’s creation of a human male, amplifying Gen1:26–31 in particular. The main action here is God’s “forming” of the man (Gen2:7); vv. 5–6 describe the conditions as the action took place. The term land (Hb. ’erets) can refer to the whole earth (esv footnote), to dry land (Gen1:10), or to a specific region (Gen2:11–13). To show the continuity with chapter 1, and in view of the mention of rain, the esvrendering (“land”) is best. The location of this land is some unnamed place, just as the rainy season was about to begin, and thus when the ground was still dry, and without any bush of the field. These conditions prevailed before the creation of man, suggesting that the lack of growth was related to the absence of a man to irrigate the land (which would be the normal way in dry conditions to bring about growth).

"then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground "(v. 7). The verb “formed” (Hb. yatsar) conveys the picture of a potter’s fashioning clay into a particular shape. The close relationship between the man and the ground is reflected in the Hebrew words used to denote them, ’adam and ’adamah, respectively. "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (v. 7). Here God breathes life—physical, mental, and spiritual—into the one created to bear his image. living creature. The same term in Hebrew is used in Gen1:20, 24 to denote sea and land creatures. While human beings have much in common with other living beings, God gives humans alone a royal and priestly status and makes them alone “in his own image” (Gen1:27). (See Paul’s quotation of this passage in 1 Cor. 15:45.) God has life in himself and imparts life to his creatures. The impartation of physical life anticipates the impartation of spiritual life (John 1:4; see 1 Cor. 15:45). Life is in the Son (John 5:21, 26; 1 John 5:12) and comes to us through the Spirit (John 3:5).