I have always said there is always a reason for any one specific translation. For all the versions out there, and all the different verses, there always seems to be a specific reason why the translators did what they did in every verse; there are no random translations.

That’s why I am stuck on this one. In the NIV we read, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38). The disciples are on their way across the lake, Jesus is sleeping in the back, and the storm hits. They are frightened when they realize the size of the storm, and surprised that Jesus apparently is not concerned. “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

I was reading through Mark 5 this weekend in preparation for Sunday school, and it was interesting to watch the prepositions. It illustrates how you have to watch context carefully in choosing just the right translation. I will be using the NIV to illustrate.

One of the strange literary characteristics of the gospel of Mark is the apparently inordinate use of εὐθύς. It is an adverb I memorized as meaning “immediately.”

It occurs 59 times in the NT, 41 being in Mark, 11 of them in chapter 1. The explanation I have always heard is that Mark was written for the Roman church, and part of the Roman psyche is an admiration for being a person of action. So Jesus does this, and then immediately rushes off to do that. It is exhausting just reading Mark 1.

First class conditional sentences are formed with a protasis (the “if” clause) with εἰ and the indicative (any tense). Their basic meaning is to say that if such-and-such is true (and we will accept the truth of the protasis for the sake of the argument), then such-and-such will occur.

Of course, that does not mean the protasis actually is true. It could be a lie, or it could just not be true. In fact, the second class conditional sentence (“condition contrary to fact” it is also called) is identical in form to the first (except that the verb in the protasis is past time) and the protasis is clearly false. “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me” (Jn 5:46). They clearly do not believe Moses.

I am back from Asia, safe and sound. I discovered, among many things, that the native language has four tones, and the differentiation in tones is as significant to them as a change in consonants would be to us. I was trying to say “Thank you” and almost no one recognized my feeble attempt. But when I changed the tone just a tad, their eyes lit up.

It is kind of like slurring the end of a German word. It doesn’t mean much in English since most of the meaning is front-loaded in English, but for German it is significant how a word ends.

This is one of the most frustrating passages in the Bible. I think that every time I taught Romans, I changed my mind on what this verse means.

Paul is arguing that “it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be declared righteous” (v 13). Everyone agrees that the following two verses are an illustration of this truth, and the declaration of righteousness picks up at v 16 where Paul concludes that this will happen “on the day when God judges  the secrets of everyone according to  my gospel through Christ Jesus.” This is why the NIV puts vv 14-15 in parentheses. So far no problem.

I was trying to make sense of Revelation 12 yesterday in my quiet time.

John has covered his second cycle of events (chapters 8 – 9) and the Interlude (chapters 10 – 11). Now comes a focused part on Satan, the two beasts, and the destruction they bring (chapters 12 – 14).

In 12:1-6 we see the Messianic community (a woman) giving birth to Jesus, and the appearance of the red dragon. The woman flees to the wilderness where she is protected by God for 1,260 days.

In the Pastorals, Paul talks about “healthy (ὑγιαινούσῃ) teaching.” ὑγιαίνω has a range of meaning that is impossible to bring into English and provides an interesting study in semantic range.

ὑγιαίνειν, “to be healthy,” occurs twelve times in the NT, all but four in the PE (Luke 5:31; 7:10; 15:27; 3 John 2, all denoting physical health). This corresponds with BDAG’s first meaning: “to be in good physical health, be healthy.”

The other meaning of ὑγιαίνω, according to BDAG, is “to be sound or free from error, be correct,” and this is where BDAG and many translation see the word’s meaning in the Pastorals, using a term like “sound” (ESV, NIV, NASB, HCSB, NRSV, KJV, NET).

I have been playing around with word meanings lately. How do words get meaning? We understand that words have a semantic range, a bundle of meanings, and it is the context of the passage and not the word’s etymology that is determinative of meaning.

And of course there is the dreaded "Etymological Fallacy,” the idea that a word’s meaning in any context is determined by the morphemes that make up the word itself. In fact, all you have to do is suggest that perhaps a word’s etymology still has some affect on its meanings in any context, and you can hear the ridicule in the blogs.

I came across an interesting situation this morning in Sunday School. (You remember Sunday School? That mid-level entry point into our mega churches?) The NIV translates Mark 3:21 as, “when his family heard about this… “?

"Family" is a translation of  οἱ παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ, which is to say, rather strange. In which sense are these people παρά him?

We often distinguish between two types of translations, a formal equivalent and a dynamic equivalent. Formal tries to stick to the Greek/Hebrew grammar as closely as possible while still making sense in English. Dynamic focuses more on meaning; as the NIV says in its preface, “we have sought to recreate as far as possible, the experience of the original audience.”

I wonder if we should actually think in terms of three categories, the third being “natural language.” A natural language like the NLT appears to give virtually no attention to “how” it was said in Greek and Hebrew; it focuses its attention fully on conveying the same meaning in English and using English vocabulary and grammar that is totally natural to English speakers.

Perhaps this is a little overstated, but it did get your attention.

I just got back from the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. One of the things I wanted to see is the new release of the standard Greek text of the New Testament, the NA28. I ran into a grinning Wayne Grudem, and he told me about Jude 5.

This is the only place I recall that the ESV diverged from the NA27 Greek text. The ESV reads, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus (᾽Ιηοῦς), who save a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” The NET and NLT also have “Jesus.”

Conjunctions are tricky things. In standard Greek style, sentences begin with conjunctions. The conjunction shows the connection with the preceding sentence.

We have a different system in English. We use punctuation, paragraph markers, and even headings in our Bibles, to show the connection with previous thoughts. To make it even more difficult, English style does not want to start a sentence with a conjunction.

Let's add to the difficulty. In English syntax, there is an implied relationship in a series. If I say “A” and then I say “B,” there is an implied, logical, sequential relationship between “A” and “B.” So why would we need a conjunction before “B”?

One of my students asked this rather fundamental question last week. Good question, and I hadn’t thought about it before, and I need your help to answer it.

BDAG says that the name Ἰακώβ (יַעֲקֹב) is “the un-Grecized form of the OT, is reserved for formal writing, and esp. for the patriarch. It is also spelled Ἰακούβ.

The Greek lexical form Ἰάκωβος, with an alternate spelling Ἰάκουβος, is the Hellenized form of Ἰακώβ. 

The normal English translation is “Jacob”; “James” does not appear in the OT (of the ESV). “Jacob” occurs in the NT 26x, always of the patriarch except for the two references to Jesus’ paternal grandfather (Matt 1:15f.).

Having been on the ESV and now on the NIV translation committee, I have met some amazing translators, men and women who love the Lord and his word.

But without diminishing my friends in any way, I have to tell you about the most amazing translator I have ever met.

Several years ago I was able to travel in Nepal and India, speaking at a several pastor conferences, and meeting people in their indigenous surroundings and asking what BiblicalTraining.org could do for them.

A friend of mine recently pointed out a blog by John Piper on some upcoming changes (more properly, clarifications, precision) to his book, Future Grace, Revised Edition: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God.

One of those clarifications is going to be on the nature of faith in Heb 11:1. As you know, this is one of the more important verses in the Bible as it helps to define what “faith” is. I am always looking for new and clearer ways to define Christian terminology so that people outside the Christian tradition can understand — and for that matter, people within the tradition who tend to repeat words they don’t always understand. That’s what caught my eye.

This passage also points out the challenges of finding just the right English word for a Greek word. Sometimes, there just isn’t a word.

This is one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to interpret, and especially to apply in a church situation. I have already written on this relative to elders, but I came across an interpretation the other day that just floored me.

I received a desperate email from a lady who was being told by her elders that she was not allowed to divorce her unfaithful husband. And the reason was that in the Greek (so they claimed), Jesus was really saying that “But I say to you that anyone who divorces  his wife, even including (παρεκτὸς) sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery” (Mt 5:32).

First of all, if someone claims that the Greek says something that none of the translations say, dismiss their idea and walk away. Perhaps if they are commentary writers or scholars, their argument might have some validity; but I am always suspect of someone who bases their interpretation on any basis that you are not able to check. An appeal to the Greek can be this type of baseless appeal.

Last week I raised the issue of anger, and whether it is ever appropriate. The Greek is in Eph 4:26 where Paul writes, ὀργίζεσθε καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε.

ὀργίζεσθε is, I think, clearly an imperative, although techniclly it could be an indicative. We are told to get angry. The other side of the coin, and a necessary side — have you ever seen a coin with only one side? — is that anger is to be balanced with not sinning.

I have been thinking about anger lately. I was raised in a traditional Christian home and church, and like many people believed that anger was wrong. Period. Anger was the response of people who who weren’t mature in their faith and had not experienced the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. I don’t remember being taught this explicitly, but I suspect it was part of our cultural environment.

Every once in a while you will see an inflected form that can be parsed two different ways. If all you are looking at is the Greek word, you can get tricked.

In 1 John 4:7 John says, “Dear friends, let us love (ἀγαπῶμεν) one another, because  love is from  God.” In 1 John 4:19 we read, “We love (ἀγαπῶμεν) because he first loved us.”

Both forms are identical, and the question I received was why is one translated with “let us love” in all the translations and the other as “we love.”

This verse hit me pretty hard this morning: “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless” (James 1:26).

I have often said that gossip is the native tongue of the church, and what this means is that a large number of people who attend religious services Sunday morning need to be told that their “religion is worthless.” But what does that mean?

I was going to take one more week off for a short summer break, but someone challenged me on one of my decisions in my commentary, so I thought I would enter back into the fray, so to speak.

In 1 Tim 3:1, Paul writes, “Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task” (NIV). The ESV shows the exegetical issue; “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” Which is it, the overseer or the office?

We all know by now that it is often impossible to bring the full meaning of a word into English. Languages do not have equivalent vocabularies. But that does not mean we stop trying.

One of the areas where this is especially difficult is when there is a specific figure of speech, a specific image or nuance in a word.

For example, in Heb 10:29 we read, “How much greater punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was made holy, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” 

My dad is working on a new translation of the gospel of Mark for the Discipleship:Foundation Track on BiblicalTraining.org. I thought you might enjoy looking in on the types of conversations we often have. Ah, the joys of being in the same field as your father!

Jay asked, “How do you know that this sentence is interrogative?” (speaking of Gal 1:10). I love it when I get question that is so basic that I have forgotten to deal with it. Good question.

I was asked why John 12:32 is always translated as “when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all (people or men) to myself” rather than simply I will draw “all” to myself.

This is a common issue in translation. The Greek uses the simple adjective πᾶς. “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people (πάντας) to myself” (NIV). All translations add “people” (or “men” if it is an older translation) because to just say “all” leaves the reader asking, “All what?” All things? All people? It is poor English to make the reader work to understand your meaning.

Someone asked, “I am curious why Gal 2:16; 3:22, and Rom 3:22, 26, are translated as ‘faith in Christ’ when the genitive case is used.” Good question.

Gal 2:16 reads, “yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but through faith (διὰ πίστεως) in Jesus Christ (Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ).” The other verses are quite similar in their use of πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

When Jesus’ parents finally realized they had left Jesus in Jerusalem, returned, and finally found him, Jesus’ response is surprising to all parents.

“Why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I would have to be in my Father’s house?”

This is certainly the traditional understanding of the passage (cf. ESV, NRSV, NIV, NET, HCSB, NLT). But what is interesting is that the NASB puts “house” in italics (indicating that the word is not explicitly there), and the KJV reads, “I must be about my Father’s business.”

Someone sent me a blog post that says, “You don't need to be a Greek scholar to know that the Greek grammar of John 10:33 is the way one would say ‘make yourself a god’ in Greek.” (The writer does not believe in the deity of Christ, seeing “make” to mean something like “pretend.”) But the statement disproves itself; you apparently need at least a little Greek not to make an erroneous statement like this.

I was a bit surprised to find that this is an issue of some debate: who is doing the groaning in Rom 8:26, the believer or the Holy Spirit?

The Greek seems so straight forward. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness;  for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself (αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα) intercedes (ὑπερεντυγχάνει) for us with groaning (στεναγμοῖς) too deep for words” (ἀλαλήτοις).