Comparing Translations

Luke's portrait of the Bereans has become a byword, and it is worth reading closely, because it describes the very skill this lesson teaches. The SBLGNT says the Bereans ἦσαν εὐγενέστεροι (ēsan eugenesteroi, were more noble) than the Jews of Thessalonica. The adjective is the comparative of εὐγενής (eugenēs, well-born), which in Luke 19:12 describes 'A man of noble birth' and in 1 Corinthians 1:26 the few who 'were of noble birth'. In Acts 17:11 nobody thinks Luke is comparing family trees. The word has moved from birth to character, as English 'noble' has, and the BSB says so with 'more noble-minded'. Notice that you have already met the lesson's main idea: a word whose use has shifted, and two good translations handling the shift differently. The KJV keeps 'more noble' and trusts the reader to hear character; the BSB spells it out.

Luke says what their nobility consisted of. They ἐδέξαντο τὸν λόγον μετὰ πάσης προθυμίας (edexanto ton logon meta pasēs prothymias, received the word with all eagerness), and they were τὸ καθ’ ἡμέραν ἀνακρίνοντες τὰς γραφὰς (to kath’ hēmeran anakrinontes tas graphas, examining the Scriptures daily). The participle ἀνακρίνοντες, coded V-PAP-NPM in the Robinson system from lesson 3, is present tense, which fits the 'every day'. Its verb is the one Luke uses of Pilate examining Jesus (Luke 23:14) and of the apostles 'being examined' before the council (Acts 4:9). It describes careful inquiry, often a hearing in which evidence is tested. And what they were testing appears in a short clause with an unusual mood: εἰ ἔχοι ταῦτα οὕτως (ei echoi tauta houtōs, whether these things were so). The verb ἔχοι is an optative, V-PAO-3S, a mood that had become uncommon in the first century but which Luke, whose Greek is among the most literary in the New Testament, uses in indirect questions like this one.

The Bereans had a preacher, and they had the Scriptures, and they put the preacher's words beside the Scriptures to see whether they matched. That is exactly the relation this lesson asks you to set up between a translation and the Greek. A translation is a preacher in written form: it tells you what the text says, and it is usually right. The Greek is what it must be tested against. Comparing translations is the first and simplest way to find where the testing is most needed, because where good translators agree, the Greek is usually plain, and where they disagree, something in the Greek is making them choose.

Lesson 2 of the Hermeneutics module The Toolbox, 'Translation Is Interpretation', has already set out the spectrum of translation, from formal equivalence, which keeps as close as English allows to the wording and structure of the original, to functional equivalence, which restructures the sentence to carry the meaning and effect into natural English. It also gave a method for students without Greek: read two translations from opposite ends of the spectrum and treat every disagreement as a flag. If you have not worked that lesson, work it now; this one builds on it and does not repeat it.

One name is worth adding for a Greek student. The modern theory behind functional translation is chiefly the work of Eugene A. Nida, a linguist with the American Bible Society, whose Toward a Science of Translating (1964) introduced the term dynamic equivalence; he later preferred functional equivalence, which is the term now usual. Nida's concern was missionary and practical: a translation for a people meeting the Bible for the first time must say what the original means in words they understand, not reproduce Greek grammar in their language. Critics of his approach have argued that it hands the reader the translator's interpretation where the original was open, and that it can hide features of the text, such as a repeated word, that a reader needs to see. Both concerns are serious, and both are met by the same practice: use more than one translation.

For this lesson, what matters about the spectrum is what it tells you when translations differ. A formal translation will often keep a Greek construction as it stands, even when it is awkward in English, and so it will show you that something is there. A functional translation will often decide what the construction means and say that, and so it will show you one interpretation of what is there. Laid side by side, the two tell you where the decision was made. Then the tools from this module let you look at the Greek and see what the decision was about.

You need at least three translations, and they need to be free. The BSB, the house translation of this school, sits toward the formal side of the middle. The KJV is formal, and is useful precisely because it often keeps the Greek structure where modern translations smooth it out, though its English is four centuries old. The American Standard Version of 1901 and the World English Bible are also free and also near the formal end. The NET Bible, available free at netbible.org, sits nearer the middle and comes with many thousands of translators' notes that explain, verse by verse, why its translators chose what they did and what the alternatives were. Those notes are one of the most useful free resources a student can have. Other translations, such as the NIV, NLT, NASB and CSB, can be read free on many sites and are often useful to consult, though this school does not quote them.

On Blue Letter Bible, the Tools button beside a verse opens a set of tabs, and one of them, labelled Bibles, shows the same verse in many translations stacked one above another. That is the quickest way to compare a single verse. On STEP Bible you can add more than one version to the search, and STEP will display them together so you can read them in parallel. If you are comparing a whole paragraph rather than a verse, you may find it easier to read each translation through on its own first, then compare verse by verse.

Keep what this course calls a divergence log. Rule four columns in your notebook: the verse, the phrase where the translations differ, what each translation says, and what in the Greek explains the difference. The last column starts empty. You fill it by going to the interlinear, finding the Greek words behind the phrase, and reading their lexicon entries and codes. Over time, you will find that the explanations fall into a small number of kinds, and that recognising the kind is half the work.

Here is one entry worked on the anchor verse. The KJV of Acts 17:11 reads: 'These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so' (KJV). Set it beside the BSB and three phrases differ. 'Readiness of mind' and 'great eagerness' both render προθυμίας (prothymias, eagerness, willingness); the KJV is closer to the shape of the word, the BSB to how it sounds in English today, and the meaning is the same. 'Searched' and 'examined' render the same participle; the BSB's word is closer to the verb's use for a hearing, but neither is wrong. 'Whether those things were so' and 'to see if these teachings were true' both render the optative clause; the BSB has supplied 'teachings' to say what 'these things' were. None of the three is a disagreement about the Greek. In your log, the fourth column for each would read: same Greek, different English, no decision at stake. Writing that down is not wasted effort. It is how you learn to tell a real divergence from a difference of style.

The first reason is a compressed phrase, in which the Greek says very little and the translator must decide how much to unpack. Romans 1:17 is the classic case. Paul writes that in the gospel God's righteousness is revealed ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν (ek pisteōs eis pistin, from faith to faith). The KJV keeps it exactly: 'For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith' (KJV). The BSB unpacks it: 'the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish.' Notice two things. The BSB has also replaced the pronoun 'in it', ἐν αὐτῷ (en autō), with 'the gospel', which is almost certainly right but is a decision. And it has taken 'from faith to faith' as an idiom of intensity, faith all the way through, like the psalm's 'They go from strength to strength' (Psalm 84:7). Other readers take the phrase as moving from God's faithfulness to human faith, or from the faith of the preacher to the faith of the hearer, or from the faith of the old covenant to the faith of the new. Each reading has able defenders and has to argue from Paul's usage. The KJV leaves you all the options; the BSB has chosen one. Neither is dishonest. Only the comparison shows you that the choice exists.

The second reason is a genitive. Greek often joins two nouns with the genitive case, the case of 'of', and leaves the relationship between them unstated. In 1 Thessalonians 1:3 Paul remembers the Thessalonians' τῆς ὑπομονῆς τῆς ἐλπίδος (tēs hypomonēs tēs elpidos, the endurance of the hope). The KJV keeps the form, 'patience of hope'. The BSB makes hope the main idea and the endurance a description of it, and turns the pair into 'your enduring hope'. Other translations take hope as the source of the endurance: endurance that hope produces. All three are possible, and the same verse has two more such pairs, work of faith and labour of love. Module 3 of this track has a whole lesson on the genitive. For now, whenever translations disagree over a phrase with 'of' in it, look at the codes: two nouns tagged with G in the case slot are a strong sign you have found one.

The third reason is an ambiguous form, which you met in lesson 3. In John 5:39 the same Greek spelling can be a command or a statement, and the KJV and BSB chose differently. When translations differ between a command and a statement, or between active and passive, or between 'you' singular and 'you' plural, check the code in both tools and ask whether the form allows both.

The fourth reason is a word whose use has shifted, either in Greek or in English. The Bereans' 'more noble' is a Greek word that had moved from birth to character. The KJV's 'Study' in 2 Timothy 2:15 and its 'Suffer little children' in Matthew 19:14 are English words that have moved since 1611. Many differences between the KJV and modern translations are of this kind: the Greek has not changed, and the translations agree about what it means, but English has changed underneath the older one. Recognising this saves a great deal of misplaced argument.

The fifth reason is a difference in the Greek text itself. Sometimes translations differ because they are translating different Greek, since the manuscripts differ at that point. The BSB and other modern translations usually mark such places with a footnote, and Blue Letter Bible lets you switch between the Textus Receptus and the mGNT to see the difference. Module 8 of this track deals with how such differences are weighed, and Apologetics treats the wider question of whether the text has been changed. In a divergence log, the rule is simple: before you explain a difference by grammar, check whether the translations are reading the same words.

Comparing translations finds the places where a decision was made. It does not make the decision for you, and it is easy to slide from one to the other. Two errors are common. The first is counting translations, as if a reading that five translations follow must be right and one that two follow must be wrong. Translations borrow from one another and share committees, traditions and assumptions; five that agree may be one decision repeated. The second error is choosing the translation that says what you hoped. A student who searches through translations until he finds the wording that suits his sermon has not compared translations. He has shopped for one.

The honest use of comparison is to turn each difference into a question and then answer the question from the Greek and its context, using the tools of this module and the grammar of those that follow. Sometimes the answer will be clear, and you will be able to say why one translation is better at this point. Sometimes the answer will be that the Greek is open, and that good translators have chosen differently for good reasons; then the right thing to do, in a sermon or a study, is to say so, briefly, and to show what difference the choice makes.

There is also a limit in the other direction. Most of the time, most translations agree, and where they agree you should not invent a difficulty. A student newly able to read an interlinear sometimes treats every verse as a puzzle and every translation as suspect. The Bereans did not distrust Paul; they received his message eagerly and checked it. Treat translations the same way. They are the work of careful scholars who knew more Greek than you do now, and they deserve both your gratitude and your testing.

Return to the passage you chose in lesson 1. Read it in at least three free translations: the BSB, the KJV and one more, such as the NET Bible, ASV or WEB. If you can, read the NET Bible's notes for your passage as well. Use Blue Letter Bible's Bibles tab, or STEP Bible's parallel display, or simply read each through in turn.

Rule a divergence log of four columns in your notebook, as described in section 3. Record every place where the translations differ in a way that seems to matter, not merely in spelling or in the order of a list. Aim for at least three entries, and do not worry if you find many more.

For each entry, go to the interlinear and your parsing notes from lesson 3, find the Greek behind the phrase, and write in the fourth column which of the five reasons it is: a compressed phrase, a genitive, an ambiguous form, a shifted word, or a difference in the text. If you cannot tell, write a question mark and the Greek words involved; later modules will give you the grammar to come back and answer it. Finish with one sentence naming the difference in your passage that matters most for what you would preach or teach, and why.