Working for the Word - a Bible translation podcast

Have you ever read the letters that went back and forth between St. Augustine and Jerome about Bible translation? If you haven’t, this is going to be a surprising and maybe even shocking episode for you. It turns out that the strong tendency to claim that your favorite traditional translation of the Bible isn’t new at all, and was happening all the way back in the fourth century. This was a type of KJV-onlyism at an epic scale, because it involved arguments between church fathers. This podcast quotes at length from Jerome and the Jews: Innovative Supersessionism by William Krewson. my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline

Recently Justin Taylor shared some quotes from three different men that reflect on a biblical view of success in ministry. Those three men are Mark Driscoll, Francis Schaeffer, and J.I. Packer. I wanted to share this in light of Bible translation, which can often be measured by numbers. Its success is often judged based on the quantity of output: how many NTs were finished this year, how many complete bibles, how many copies have been sold or used, how many people have been impacted or saved as a result of Bible translations, etc. Whether we’re a massive organization like Wycliffe or a single person working out in the middle of nowhere, there’s always a temptation towards ambition, and to evaluate whether or not we are successful by the world’s wisdom and by leaning on our own understanding. Although the following quotes have to do with churches and pastoring, I’d like to suggest that we ask ourselves as we listen: how can we guard our hearts in this regard when it comes to the world of Bible translation? Justin Taylor's article Liberating Ministry from Success Syndrome my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline

I want to share with you a wonderfully articulate and insightful book review done by my friend Mark Ward. Mark has been on this podcast before talking about the problems with KJV-onlyism, and when he released a video reviewing Robert Alter’s book The Art of Bible Translation, I couldn’t help but want to share it with all of you here on the podcast. Check out Mark's book: Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible  Mark's infotainment documentary: Authorized. Watch Mark's Fifty False Friends in the KJV series here. Mark's review originally appeared in the Puritan Reformed Journal, 12:1, pages 207–212—with a bit of an addition about KJV-Onlyism in the 11th minute or so. my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline

We take a deep dive on the state of the text of Samuel and 2 Samuel 22:26 in particular, and hopefully gain a broader, better, more nuanced understanding of what can make Bible translation a bit slow at times.  my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline

A while back I featured Jordon Monson on my podcast who presented a particular view of Satan or "the satan" in the book of Job. This view has been widely promoted by Michael Heiser, who some of you may be familiar with because of his hugely influential and successful book The Unseen Realm. But his view is only one perspective on how to think about "the satan" and how to translate it in Job. The more traditional position deserves a thorough representation and defense, which I believe is compelling. So to present this view, I asked Dr. Ken Berding to record an article he wrote on the matter.  Links referenced: Dr. Berding's original article BibleFluency.com My talk at the Bible Literacy Coalition my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline

There are still a lot of notes that we haven’t discussed from my time spent checking 2 Samuel, so we’re going to tackle a couple more in this episode. We’re going to see how maintaining important plays on words in translation might sometimes seem impossible, but with some creativity there may be some workable solutions. We’re also going to see how important it is to understand the interplay between all the languages involved in checking a translation of Scripture. Statement of Faith referenced my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline

In the last episode I left you hanging on the question as to why it’s possible to translate Isaiah 55:3 referring to David as the subject of acts of covenantal love. And this runs contrary to all the major English versions, which interpret David as the object of acts of covenantal love. This was not an idea that originated with me, but with Dr. Peter Gentry. So I invited him to share with us his arguments that appear in his book Kingdom through Covenant, and he kindly agreed. This may be a more technical episode than usual, but never fear: Gentry has also written a far more accessible, less technical volume of Kingdom through Covenant that’s called God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants. So definitely grab a copy of that for Christmas when you finish listening. my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline

It’s been a while since we got into some nitty-gritty, concrete examples of my daily workflow in translation consulting. So in this episode we’re going to see how many issues we can walk through, and hopefully we’ll all learn something useful or fascinating from the experience. You’ll definitely want to stick around for the discussion of 2 Samuel 7:19. Kingdom through Covenant by Gentry & Wellum Critique textuelle de l’ancien Testament for Free Download my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook

Make sure you listen to the first part of this conversation in the previous episode. You can check out Nat's blog at https://ntgreeketal.com/. my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook

Have you ever heard anyone say that God chose to write the NT in Greek because it’s such an incredibly precise language? I’ve heard plenty of people make this claim, including pastors and professors of Greek exalting it as having an almost supernatural precision. Can this be true, or is Greek just a language like every other language, with its own idiosyncrasies, ambiguities, strengths, and weaknesses? This is an issue we need to explore, because it gets at the heart of Bible translation, raising the question, “If Greek is magically precise, more than all other languages, aren’t we losing that precision in translation?” I invited Nat Erickson to walk us through the answer to this question, and I was so pleased with how well he prepared, and how detailed and articulate his presentation was. So who is Nat? Well, he’s on the tail end of completing a Ph.D. in New Testament at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And he’s researching how information structure affects constituent order in 'periphrastic' constructions in Koine Greek, focusing on non-New Testament Jewish and Christian writings. He blogs regularly about Greek and aspects of New Testament study at https://ntgreeketal.com/. my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook