Which Bible Translation Is Best? – What Does This Mean?

That’s kind of a tough question. Different translations have different attributes, which make them good. The one thing leading to different translations is the simple fact that translation is absolutely necessary.

The Bible comes to us in a few languages. The Old Testament is primarily written in Hebrew with some Aramaic near the end. The New Testament is written in Greek. There are also two ancient translations that can help us understand God’s Word in its time frame. The Septuagint (LXX) is an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament from around 325 BC. And the Vulgate is a Latin translation of the Old and New Testaments from 405 AD.

The LXX can help us by way of its translation methodology. The pre-Christian Jewish scribes who translated the LXX made conceptual decisions from their understanding of their native tongue into the Greek. That reveals understandings that may have otherwise been lost through the loss of a Hebrew culture. It’s also worth noting that all of the Old Testament quotations by Jesus, the Apostles, including St. Paul, and the Evangelists appear to come from LXX.

The Vulgate was written very close to the close of the canon. The Bible as we received it is called the canon of scripture. At the council of Nicaea in 325 AD, we determined which books were to be included and excluded from the Bible.

The Vulgate gives us a view of translation from a native Greek speaker. St. Jerome finished translating within 80 years of the first time many Christians had seen all of the books of the New Testament together. In a 2000 year old church, that’s a significantly narrow window for understanding. That’s akin to hearing firsthand about the struggles of the great depression from one of those surviving folks, who were alive to see it.

In the LCMS, we are currently using the English Standard Bible (ESV) as our altar Bible. We have used other translations including: the New International Version (NIV), the Revised Standard Version (RSV), and King James Version (KJV). These are all good translations in their own way.

I will frequently use those and other translations in my studies and preaching. I will also stumble through some of my own translation. The process of struggling with the source languages helps us to understand conceptually rather than only in a word-by-word sense.

Sometimes you will hear Christians say things like, “our Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation going back for centuries.” And then, there will be some claim place upon that statement. None of the claims are valid, because the basis is untrue. We have the Bible in its original languages. Our English translations come from the original source, Our English Bibles have only been translated once.

That’s true of most Bibles available throughout the world. Lutheran Bible Translators (LBT) and other organizations have spent over a century translating the same Bible from its Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek sources into the languages with which they’ve come in contact.

So, let’s compare a few translations concerning just one passage of the Bible. Ephesians 2:8-10 in our altar bible (ESV) reads, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

This passage is central to our Lutheran understanding of how grace and faith work. In the life of a Christian, grace and faith are given to us by God. They are not works we do. Nor can they be earned in any way.

Now, how else have we heard this text? The older English of the King James Version (KJV) reads, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

In the KJV, the works we do sound as if they are ordered by God in our modern ears. In the ESV, the works are prepared for us by God. The ESV is more faithful to the Greek in this case. It gets at the sense of who’s doing the doing here. And, it’s not us.

Compare those with the RSV, NIV, and New King James Version (NKJV)

RSV: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God— not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

NIV: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

NKJV: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

You’ll notice they are all very similar. In particular, the NKJV has moved in the same direction as the ESV regarding that verb concerning our works. They are “prepared” rather than “ordained.”

Now there are some Bibles called translations that are not. The New Living Translation (NLT), The Message and The Voice are not translations. They are paraphrases — a restatement of the Bible from English into English is a paraphrase. Calling those a translation implies that we can translate from English into English. Since, there is no consultation with the source text. These Bibles are nothing more than a what-this-says-to-me scribbling by the authors.

You’ll notice The Message sounds very little like those texts above: “Ephesians 2 7-10 “Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”

These paraphrases aren’t useless for Christians. But, they also aren’t the Bible in any sense. A best, they are like a study guide. The study guides are written by non-Lutherans and will contain different interpretations than we might use.

I would suggest the following translations on your shelf at home. If you can only get one, start with the first. Then add them in sequence from there. In your studies, start from the top and work through the others. These are they: ESV, NKJV, OSB (Orthodox Study Bible – we’ll discuss the attributes of that one another time), KJV, RSV, NIV, and then others. Please avoid paraphrases in general. Most of us spend so little time in God’s Word. An interpretive reading isn’t as good as a plain, clear translation.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX