Hearing Jesus: Daily Bible Study, Christian Affirmations, Hearing God, Prayer, Holy Spirit, Daily Devotional
Bible Study 101: What Bible Translation is Best? Hearing Jesus, Bible Study, Daily Affirmations
Bible Study 101: What Bible Translation is Best? Hearing Jesus, Bible Study, Daily Affirmations Hey friend, welcome to part three of Bible Study 101. Today Rachael tackles Bible translation: why your English Bible is already an interpretation of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, why so many different translations exist, and how a translator's own theology can shape a single word choice, using the real example of Phoebe in Romans 16. She also makes the case, using some sobering global statistics, for why the "one true translation" debate falls apart pretty quickly once you zoom out. Join the email list at rachaelgroll.com/newsletter to be entered in the Bible Study 101 giveaway. ☆Sign up for Rachael's newsletter here: RachaelGroll.com/Newsletter ☆Send Rachael a voicemail with any questions at her SpeakPipe here: SpeakPipe Voicemail ☆Go on a trip with Rachael: Bible Study Live ☆Get Ad-Free Episodes, Bonus Content, and more here: patreon.com/HearingJesus ☆Pick up a copy of my latest book: Bible Study and Devotional ☆If you would like to give to Hearing Jesus and financially support the podcast, you can do so here! ➤ Give Here ☆Facebook ➤ https://www.facebook.com/SheHears.org/ ☆Instagram ➤ https://www.instagram.com/rachael.d.groll/ ☆Website ➤ Hearing Jesus Is the English Bible I'm reading "the original Bible"? Not literally. Unless you're reading Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, you're reading a translation, a careful, prayerful rendering of the original text. The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew (with some Aramaic), and the New Testament in Koine Greek, the everyday language of merchants and dock workers, not the polished Greek of philosophers. God chose the language of ordinary people on purpose. Is translating Scripture even a biblical idea? Yes, and there's a real example of it happening inside Scripture itself. After the exile, when the Israelites had lost fluency in the Hebrew their grandparents spoke, Ezra stood before the whole assembly at the Water Gate and read the Law aloud from early morning until midday, while the Levites moved through the crowd explaining it as they went (Nehemiah 8:1-8). Scripture describes exactly what they were doing: translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading (Nehemiah 8:8, NASB). Translating Scripture so people can understand it is straight out of the Bible, and the result, in that moment, was worship: the people lifted their hands, bowed low, and wept. Why is Bible translation genuinely hard? Because languages don't line up word for word. Rachael shares a story from mission work in the Dominican Republic, where a translator corrected her: "I'm not a translator, I'm an interpreter," because he had to capture what she meant, not just her exact words. Translate "it's raining cats and dogs" literally into another language, and people will picture actual animals falling from the sky. Every translator has to choose, on every line, between preserving exact wording and preserving meaning. What's the difference between all these translations? Think of it as a spectrum. Word-for-word translations like the NASB and ESV stay as close as possible to the original structure, even when the English feels stiffer. Thought-for-thought translations like the NLT and NIV work out what a passage means and say it in natural English. Paraphrases, like The Message, retell Scripture in someone's own words, which can be beautifully fresh but isn't built for serious study. Rachael also flags that the Passion Translation, which she used to reference, has since run into enough credibility issues that it's been pulled from many online translation databases. Why do new Bible translations keep coming out? Four honest reasons. Older manuscripts keep being discovered (like the Dead Sea Scrolls), giving translators better evidence than what earlier committees had access to. English itself drifts, so a phrase like "suffer the children" meant "let them come" 400 years ago and means something completely different now. Translation is a series of judgment calls, so different committees land in different places. And, less comfortably, Bibles are also a business, and a new edition is a product. How can a translator's own theology shape a single word? Rachael points to Romans 16, where Paul introduces a woman named Phoebe using the Greek word diakonos. That same word is translated "deacon" when it describes men elsewhere in the New Testament, but for Phoebe, some translations choose "servant" instead, a decision that reflects what that translation committee believed about women in ministry, not a different underlying Greek word. She also notes that adelphoi, literally "brothers," was commonly used in everyday Greek to address a mixed group, similar to saying "hey guys" to a room with both men and women, which is why some translations render it "brothers and sisters" and others don't. How do I check a confusing verse against the original language? You don't need Hebrew or Greek training anymore. Free tools like the Blue Letter Bible app offer an interlinear view that shows you the original word and its root right next to the English. The YouVersion Bible app also lets you compare multiple translations side by side for free, which Rachael recommends whenever two solid translations word something differently enough to change the meaning. Is the King James Version the one "true" translation? No, and even its own translators wouldn't have claimed that. The KJV was itself a revision built on earlier English translations, produced by a committee under royal authority, and it included marginal notes acknowledging uncertainty about how certain words could be translated. It was also initially met with suspicion as the new, unfamiliar version. On top of that, North America is home to only around 10 percent of the world's Christians, which means the vast majority of believers globally have never read Scripture in English at all. Rachael also shares that of roughly 7,400 living languages, only 795 currently have a complete Bible, and more than 1,600 have no Scripture translated at all. So which Bible translation should I actually use? The one you will actually open and understand. A word-for-word Bible sitting closed on your nightstand does nothing for you. Rachael herself uses different translations for different purposes: NASB for serious study, NLT for teaching kids, and NIV when teaching internationally. Her practical challenge: read a familiar verse like John 3:16 in four or five different translations back to back and notice what changes. Where can I compare Bible translations side by side for free? The YouVersion Bible app lets you view multiple translations next to each other, and the Blue Letter Bible app shows an interlinear view with the original Hebrew or Greek and its root word. Where can I learn more about the global Bible translation gap Rachael mentioned? She has a video on this topic on her Instagram page, covering the roughly 1,600 languages with no Scripture translated and the added gap for sign language Bibles. How do I enter the Bible Study 101 giveaway? Join the email list at rachaelgroll.com/newsletter. Entry is automatic, no extra steps, and there are three separate giveaways over three weeks. Chapters 0:01 Welcome back: picking up where we left off on Bible translation 0:31 Is the English Bible I'm reading "the real Bible"? 2:36 Nehemiah 8: an ancient example of Scripture being translated live 7:24 Why the goal of translation has always been "make it clear" 9:15 Why translation is genuinely hard, an interpreter's story 11:33 The translation spectrum: word-for-word vs. thought-for-thought vs. paraphrase 14:26 A caution about newer translations like the Passion Translation 15:51 Why new Bible translations keep coming out 19:48 How a translator's theology can shape a single word: Phoebe and "deacon" 21:26 Why "brothers" sometimes means "brothers and sisters" 22:57 Free tools for comparing translations yourself 25:22 Only 10 percent of the world's Christians are American 27:11 How many languages still have no Bible at all 30:33 Setting the record straight on the King James Version 34:46 So which translation should you actually use? 38:33 A simple exercise: compare John 3:16 across versions 39:19 Closing prayer 40:44 The Bible Study 101 giveaway Learn more about your ad choices. 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