Monday with Mounce

Paul tells the Colossian church to “Stop lying to one another, since you have put off the old man (τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον) with its practices, and have put on the new man (τὸν νέον), which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator”( 3:9–10).

This morning in church the pastor read Acts 27 out of the NLT, and I was bothered. I understand that the NLT’s policy to to make the text readable and understandable, and I applaud the desire.

In the words of Iron Man, “It’s good to be back.” I had a good session with the CBT on the NIV, except that a good friend dropped dead at 42 years of age and I left early to do the funeral.

No matter how word-for-word a translation tries to be, there will always be some confusing sentence that requires interpretation. Sometimes, the more word-for-word translations just leave it confusing, but other times even the NASB and ESV (for example) feel the need to interpret.

A friend asked me this question the other day, and I thought I would take this opportunity to flesh out what I think the answer is.