Picking a Bible Translation with Mark Strauss

Why does the Bible even need to be translated? What principles should be considered when we look at translation theories? What about gender preferences in translation? Dr. Mark Strauss takes about an hour to discuss his new book - 40 Questions About Bible Translation.

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Transcript

Welcome to the more to the story. Podcast. I'm so glad that you have come along. And one of the questions that comes up regularly for people who send me emails at Via Andy Miller, the third.com has to do with Bible translations, and people are often wondering what type of Bible translation they should use. And so today, I have expert coming on to talk about that. But before we do that, I want you to know, this podcast comes to you from Wesley

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Andy Miller III: Biblical Seminary, where we are developing trusted leaders for faithful churches, we have close to 500 students. We've just had an influx students that have come to us from the global Methodist church. We do that through. We serve students through bachelor's master's doctoral degrees, in addition to several lay initiatives that we'd love for you to learn about@wbs.edu.

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Andy Miller III: I'm also thankful to Wpo development. There are a group of leaders who come alongside churches.

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Andy Miller III: academic institutions, nonprofits and help them with strategic planning and capital campaign pains. I've worked with them in the past, and incredibly thankful for them. Their CEO, CEO, Keith Water says if you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there, and he's really accurate with that, and they do such a good job coming alongside of groups like, I think of some of the churches that have disaffiliated from the 9 Methodist Church, and now are kind of

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Andy Miller III: restarting themselves. Working with Keith and his team would be a great resource for you, so you can find out more about them in my show notes. And finally.

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Andy Miller III: and I love for people to sign up for my email list at Andy Miller, the third.com. That's Andy Miller. iii.com.

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Andy Miller III: and if you sign up for my list I'll send you regular regular content. But also I'll send you a free tool called 5 Steps to deeper teaching and preaching.

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Andy Miller III: It is kind of a slim, down version of the hermeneutical method we use here at Wbs called the Inductive Bible study method, and and also has some creative inputs in it that you could use as you're thinking about preaching, or you're thinking about teaching as a 45 min video from me, and then an 8 page Pdf document. So I'll send that to you if you sign up for my email list at Andy Miller. third.com. And I'd love for you to subscribe like.

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Andy Miller III: leave a review on apple podcasts. Those are those are all things that help us as we're getting this message out. And in general, like the kind of audience that I'm serving are people often in the Pan Westland world those who are kind of like evangelical Methodist tradition. And we're so delighted to be able. I'm I'm delighted to be able to serve that group, and today I'm glad to bring to you Dr. Mark Strauss.

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Andy Miller III: who serves as a university professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary. He lives in San Diego. He also interesting enough, and many of you probably will interact with his work whether you know it or not, and that is he is the Vice chair for the Translation Committee for the new international version. Mark welcome to the Podcast.

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Mark Strauss: Great to be with you, Andy. Thanks for having me.

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Andy Miller III: Absolutely. And we're here to and talk about your book. 40 questions about Bible translations, and how appropriate to have somebody who's work on the Niv Translation Committee that before we get there, Mark, I just love to hear a little about you, and maybe that learning about you would help us know why you are working in translations, but I'd love to just hear a little bit of your story.

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Mark Strauss: Sure. Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: Well, I've been at Bethel for most of my career. I've been in San Diego for actually, most of my career. Bethel used to have a campus in San Diego. It was closed in 2,019. So I'm still teaching on online. I was raised in, mostly in California. We moved to California when I was about 12 years old. My father was a pastor. My grandfather was actually a pastor and a traveling conference speaker for much of his life.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: I went to Westmont College, then on to Talbot School of theology, and then finally over to Aberdeen in Scotland to do my doctoral work.

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Mark Strauss: always been fascinated by language, and one of the reasons I got into

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Mark Strauss: Biblical studies, and New Testament in particular, was my love for language. I loved studying Hebrew, and then and then studying Greek. And

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Mark Strauss: it's always been kind of a passion of mine, and I got into the world of translation almost by accident.

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Mark Strauss: In some ways I was

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Mark Strauss: teaching a class on

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Mark Strauss: Philippians, actually. And I always taught my students certain principles about how language works. And one of those principles

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Mark Strauss: is that words don't have a single literal meaning. They have a semantic range, a range of possible meanings.

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Mark Strauss: and one of my students at 1 point asked, if that's the case, why does the NIV. Translate the Greek word Adelphoi as brothers instead of brothers and sisters.

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Mark Strauss: Doesn't brothers and sisters sound inclusive to you like it includes men and women, I mean, doesn't brothers sound inclusive?

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah.

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Mark Strauss: And and everyone in the classroom said, No, so that's that's interesting. So I wrote a little article on that and it was called gender bias in Bible translation. I gave it at a Regional Ets Evangelical Theological Society Meeting. It made no stir or had provoked very little interest at that point.

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Mark Strauss: But the very next year a controversy exploded in in the Us. About gender, inclusive or gender accurate sometimes called language.

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Mark Strauss: and I happen to be poised at that point, having written that article, and then midway through writing a book to jump into that fray. That's another long story. We can pursue that if you'd like.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, interesting!

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Mark Strauss: Resulted in me joining the Niv. Committee because the Niv like so many versions, was adopting a moderate use of Gen. What we would call gender accurate language.

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Mark Strauss: and it became extremely controversial at the time. Now it's almost a yawn. Because all versions that were opposing it have now adopted the same thing we did 20 years ago in the Niv. But so that's that's how I got into translation. Actually.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, interesting. Okay. I wanna follow that. I wanna pull that

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Andy Miller III: piece of thread yarn, whatever a little a little bit here to me. But, Mark, I've realized as I started to hear you speak, I've heard you before, and maybe I'm wrong. Okay? And this might be way out. But I did you do videos in a 90 for Lee struggles case for Christ?

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Mark Strauss: Yes.

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Andy Miller III: Okay? Yes.

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Andy Miller III: alright. Yeah. I remember you on that. Were so. Were you one of the people who we interviewed for case for Christ in.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah, yeah, I wasn't in the book. That was a little before my time.

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Andy Miller III: Okay. Okay.

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Mark Strauss: I had just been writing. I actually did something on the Da Vinci code with him.

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Mark Strauss: Jacku hatch from Zondov recommended me to Lee.

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Mark Strauss: and Lee sent his came down and interviewed me at Bethel, and I guess they liked what happened on the case for cry, I mean, what happened on the Da Vinci code. So then, the next year, when he was filming the case for Christ, he came down and interviewed me as well. Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: Interesting. I I think I saw that many years ago. But then, Sunday school class, I'm in use that. And you know, if you see it again. Now, there are some very dated things from like I don't know what it is early 2 thousands like Chicago that but it it's, you know, just everything about it, like even the graphics. But I remember remember you on there. And so that that's fun.

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Mark Strauss: Look like a kid on there, too. I've you do.

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Andy Miller III: You look very young there, and you look pretty good now, too, I have to say 20 years later, 20 or 30 years later. So. So I ate. How about this for a compliment? I I recognize you as consistent from that young looking person in that video. How about that?

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Mark Strauss: Very good, thank you.

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Andy Miller III: That's good. Okay. So back to this, brothers and sisters.

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Andy Miller III: this. This was when the T. And Iv came out. I feel like that was the first time that happened, and I and and I know now that was a big controversy. Now you say it's a yawn, and that's probably a good thing, but there wasn't like you change too much. But but the were you there for the T. And Iv. Then? Were you on the committee?

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Mark Strauss: And it started before the T. And Iv. With a version called, Now the NIVI.

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Mark Strauss: What happened was the Evangelicals in Great Britain were really demanding a revision of the Niv. The niv was so male focus, so male oriented

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Mark Strauss: inaccurately, they would say, using man for person when it clearly was men and women

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Mark Strauss: that they really insisted. And so the niv went ahead and produced a British edition. There's always been a separate British edition.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, I didn't even know that. Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: And it's called it. It became known as the Nivi. That is, the niv inclusive language edition.

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Mark Strauss: Well, world magazine

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Mark Strauss: in the US. Got a hold of this news

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Mark Strauss: and and wrote this, expose called the Stealth Bible big picture of a stealth fighter plane on the.

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Andy Miller III: Goodness, saying this, and I.

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Mark Strauss: The Niv. Was quietly going gender neutral, and that this was a plot by feminism really, to, you know, to to destroy evangelical Christianity by producing a feminist or unisex. Some people even said Bible. Well.

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Mark Strauss: almost everything they said was wrong in terms of in terms of linguistics in terms of what the Niv. Was doing, but because they they had produced that in Britain. And we're planning to make some of the same changes in the Us. This became a huge thing.

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Mark Strauss: And it just exploded.

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Mark Strauss: there! There were, there were attacks, constant attacks against the International Bible Society, who produce who has the copyright against Zondarvan who publishes it.

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Mark Strauss: The Southern Baptist Convention got involved. James Dobson eventually got involved trying to trying to mediate this. There were a series of guidelines called the Colorado Screen, Colorado Springs, guidelines that were developed to try to show how to do gender accurate language. Don Carson wrote a book on it. I wrote a book on it.

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Mark Strauss: Wayne, Grudem, and Vernon Poithras wrote a book. Their their book really opposed what Don Carson and I did. And so this was a huge controversy.

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Mark Strauss: And and then so what happened was the NIV.

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Mark Strauss: The the International Bible Society, who owns the copyright to the Niv. Decided to freeze the Niv. The 1,984. They were going to make no changes.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, wow! Okay.

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Mark Strauss: Well, that broke the mandate of the Niv. Which was to revise periodically.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, okay.

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Mark Strauss: They. After freezing the Niv. 1,984, they decided they had to do something.

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Mark Strauss: So they produced the T. And IV.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: Really, and I would say they made 2 catastrophic mistakes. First of all, they froze the Niv. 84, which breaks its mandate of being contemporary periodically revised. Secondly, they launched a competitor to the Niv. Their own product.

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Andy Miller III: Oh!

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Mark Strauss: Well, the 1080 never got off the ground. It was either unknown or hated one or the other.

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Andy Miller III: Right.

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Mark Strauss: Because, you know, the Niv. Had established the brand. And so, 10 years later.

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Mark Strauss: Zondov and the International Bible Society, now known as Biblica

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Mark Strauss: canceled the T. And Iv. And we did a instead, and by now I joined the committee. I had nothing to do with the Nivi or the Tniv. By now I had been asked to to join the committee, and we then went through every gender use in the whole Bible, and produced the 2,011 Niv. Which replace both the 84 plus the T. And Iv. It became the single Niv. So that's that's a long story.

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Andy Miller III: No, it's great. I'm so glad to know this. And and and I've I've just generally got in part I of 15 years in local church be before coming to the Academy? I

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Andy Miller III: and like being in theological education, I I generally just found it to be the what people had the most in their hands, but also of the the continual process, and not even knowing any of what you just said, there not really being connected that, but knowing that it had revised, and just knowing, watching the names that had been on the committee. I I just felt I I felt good about now. Of course, I mean, I imagine there, but some parts of

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Andy Miller III: you would like to see different, too, like every now and then, like you think, okay, I lean here or like my own translation here. Whatever it is. I I I've I've appreciated. I've just found it like

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Andy Miller III: I find the most it to be the most helpful in communicating clearly, but then also that that people have in their hands, and I would just assume us all be on the same page. Literally we can.

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Andy Miller III: What do you think? I know? That's a huge. This is a huge question. But behind that controversy I mean, so some people are maybe afraid that we're gonna take away the the gendered language connected to God. Maybe it may be it's like making something. I'm just trying to imagine what people are thinking. Why, the controversy came something that's not there. That, we're we're we're kind of writing the Bible ourselves.

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Mark Strauss: Great.

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Andy Miller III: Me a little bit more about the main issues in that debate.

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Mark Strauss: Sure. Sure. And there is, you know, there is some concern among some that you're gonna change God language and those kinds of things. None of these versions touch God, language, none of these versions that have gradually adopted this gender inclusive language, and their goal has been to make the text as accurate as possible. When it refers to men and women, they want to use an inclusive term. So instead of translating anthropos, which means human being in most cases as man. They translate it as person.

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Mark Strauss: or something like something like that. But they haven't touched God, God, language, and they never. They never did. Now there are a few versions that do that do change God language. Those are extreme, you know, sort of extreme versions that no one no one in your audience would have ever heard of, in fact.

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Mark Strauss: But but there there is that. But that has nothing to do really with this this controversy.

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Andy Miller III: Okay, okay, Gotcha, that's helpful.

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Andy Miller III: Well, the with the Niv. It's helpful for you to hear like I did. I didn't know that at its inception, or almost a part of its charter. Was this, occasional update. So you had 2,011. The committee has it? Has there been a new update since then. When is the next one coming? What's happening?

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Mark Strauss: Yeah, that's a good question.

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Mark Strauss: 2,011 is the latest. And there there is not a specific date that's been set

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Mark Strauss: Biblica. Who owns the copyright to the Niv. Will ultimately make that decision. We, as the committee, I can tell you a little bit about the Committee. The Niv. Was originally translated by about a hundred scholars in the 1960 S. Is when it first was produced.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: Came out in the early seventies, the New Testament and the Old Testament. Shortly after that

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Mark Strauss: a major revision in in 1984,

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Mark Strauss: and then at 2,011. So those have been the only 2 major revisions.

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Mark Strauss: Now we meet every year the the Committee on Bible translation. The Cbt. Meets every year.

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Mark Strauss: and we examine proposals. So you mentioned earlier. You and we all do this. You come across a passage in any version you say. I don't think that's quite right. Well, it! You could submit that, and we would bring it to the to the committee and discuss it, and it has to be brought and then seconded. But then we would discuss it.

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Mark Strauss: Debate it potentially and then eventually vote on it.

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Mark Strauss: It takes a super majority of 70% of the committee to actually change the text. So we don't need.

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Andy Miller III: Change, the.

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Mark Strauss: If it's not broke, we say, don't don't change it. But every year we make changes. Those changes will not be instituted, actually placed in the text until the next edition comes out.

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Andy Miller III: Gotcha, but.

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Mark Strauss: The next edition will incorporate all of the changes since 2,011 that we've been looking at each year and voting on proposing, and then and then voting on.

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Andy Miller III: Hmm, interesting. How many member? How many members are there on the committee.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah, there's 15 members on the committee. It's a the committee. Perpet is not controlled by any external

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Mark Strauss: denomination. We're paid to do our work by Biblica, but.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: Does not tell us how to translate, nor do they have any control over the translation.

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Mark Strauss: The committee is made up. Diversity is an important part of the Committee. Since it's the new international version. We have English speakers from Great Britain.

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Mark Strauss: from Canada, from Australia, from India.

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Mark Strauss: Anglophone, Africa.

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Mark Strauss: So there's that diversity. There's denominational diversity, a wide range of denominations.

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Mark Strauss: All evangelicals. We all have a high view of Scripture on the committee gender diversity, not as much as we should have. But we do have 3 women on the committee

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Mark Strauss: and hopefully looking for more in the future. So that's that's the the committee. When a a vacancy comes along, if someone leaves, or

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Mark Strauss: if someone goes to be with the Lord, then we together we discuss

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Mark Strauss: possible names, and then we eventually invite someone to come in for a year. Get to know us. We get to know them, and if it's a fit, then we would vote that person in to the committee. So.

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Andy Miller III: Interesting. Some some people my audience will definitely know. Sandy Richter used to teach here at Wesley Biblical Seminary serves in that Committee. I. I had her on the Podcast at 1 point, and she was talking about one of the suggestions. It's one of the proposals that that she had made, too. So just so, my audience knows, in case you didn't know that little bit of information but you mentioned that they are all Evangelicals that now talk about a a controversial term right.

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Mark Strauss: I can't use that term anymore. Can you? Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: But I mean we I I just go ahead and you know I've led myself with the I his as as historian, thinking. David Bevington, kind of quadrilateral piece. And then you even said how to have a high view of Scripture. I. I know this is a podcast in itself. But how do you you? How do you work through that? I mean? And just to give you tell you where we are at Wbs. Every professor signs on to Chicago, statement on inerrancy. But do you use the word inerrancy for everybody on the committee or.

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Mark Strauss: We would, we would say, you have to sign a statement. What the Chicago statement or a similar statement, you know whether that's Westminster Confession of Faith, or or some something like that, but but it would be generally accepted. Evangelical. I I know that's too political a term these days, but.

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Andy Miller III: I know, I know.

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Mark Strauss: View that that would demonstrate

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Mark Strauss: the full authority and inspiration of Scripture. Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, that's great. Thanks. So much for dealing with those issues. I am still am thankful to for you. Right? This book, obviously, we won't cover all 40 questions, but the very first question to answer it you ask, and then, or is ask, and then you answer is, why do we need Bible translation. I mean, it might seem like an obvious fact, but I think that there's a important thing for us just to keep in mind. I remember serving my very first church, a savage army congregation

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Andy Miller III: in Madisonville, Kentucky, and I realized that there were people in the congregation who I I honestly didn't know it was real that people thought that, like the King James, was handed down and was the actual like inspired word, and so that there are people who don't understand the Bible wasn't written in English, so every. But why do we need bibble translations.

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Andy Miller III: Bible translations.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah. And I think,

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Mark Strauss: it's because the Bible, almost virtually all people in the world read the Bible in translation, I mean, scholars do know Hebrew and Greek, of course, but even scholars tend to read the Bible first in their in their own translation. I start the book off with a little story that

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Mark Strauss: I had a colleague. I I professor at Bethel Seminary. Bethel's roots are in the Swedish Baptist tradition. I had a colleague who was from Swedish ancestry and he was in his Swedish Baptist church growing up, and in Sunday school they would be struggling with a passage, and his old Swedish Sunday school teacher would say, Well, let me check the original, and he'd pull out his Swedish Bible.

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Andy Miller III: Ha! Ha!

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Mark Strauss: You say? Oh, this is what it means when they are struggling with the passage, you know. And and that's the way we think we think this is, you know, for those of us who grew up on the King James version, that's the real Bible, but, in fact, the real Bible, or the at least the original Bible.

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Mark Strauss: We're that. We're books written in Hebrew and in Greek. And so we we need translation because most of us don't read Hebrew and Greek, at least not well enough to to to understand and so

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Mark Strauss: we need a a good translation. The goals of translation. Really, I, I think, are twofold. There is accuracy, and readability. Those are the 2 2 things that a translation, and in the book I I give a whole list of of prefaces to different translations, and whether it's the most literal translation, the most idiomatic, it seems to be. Their goal is always the same accuracy and readability, accuracy to what the original text meant

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Mark Strauss: readability in terms of good English. In in this case English idiom, so that the person can understand

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Mark Strauss: what it says.

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Andy Miller III: That's helpful one of the things I've encouraged people to do when they have. These type of questions is to read the preface that is often included. Why might that be important? And what is what? What do you get when you read the preface to a Bible translation?

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Mark Strauss: Yeah, that's a great question.

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Mark Strauss: All kinds of things you get. You you get what? First and foremost, what's the philosophy of the translators.

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Mark Strauss: How are they producing their translation? What? What is the method of translation?

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Mark Strauss: And there's there's 2 basic methods of translation. They go back for centuries and centuries from from the beginning, when anyone was first translating anything, it's been a debate how best to translate

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Mark Strauss: one of those methods is called literal translation, or more technically, formal equivalent translation.

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Mark Strauss: The other is called functional equivalent, so.

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Andy Miller III: Hmm.

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Mark Strauss: Dynamic equivalent or idiomatic translation.

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Mark Strauss: And so do you translate by trying to replicate as much as possible the very words of the original?

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Mark Strauss: Or do you translate by seeking to replicate the meaning of the original? Whether or not you're following exactly the words of the original.

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Andy Miller III: Yes.

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Mark Strauss: Oh, intuitively, most of us would probably say, we wanna stay as close as possible to the original. We wanna stay as close as possible to the words. So whenever there's a Hebrew Greek word, we wanna try to s choose the same English word every time it appears to be consistent.

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Mark Strauss: But, in fact, if you've ever learned a second language, you learn that that really doesn't work, because no 2 languages are the same

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Mark Strauss: and the example I always I always give to start off to help help people understand. I live in San Diego. So a lot of Spanish spoken here. Most of us took Spanish in high school, and and Spanish phrase, Komosayama. There's a standard Spanish phrase, Komo sayama. If I say, what does that phrase mean?

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Mark Strauss: Most people would say that phrase means, What's your name? Koma Sayama? And I would say, Oh, no, no, that's not what that phrase mean. The phrase means, how yourself call.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, you're right!

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Mark Strauss: Call. So what's your name? Is a question word. What is a verb to be your? A possessive pronoun name is a noun. Okay? So those are the grammar. But but, in fact, in English, how do I? Or in in Spanish? It's a question word, Como, a reflexive pronoun, say, and a verb yama.

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Mark Strauss: You have changed every single grammatical form when you translate it as what's your name? And so you're not translating according to the form. If you did, you'd have what? How yourself call, which is a terrible translation.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: Translating according to the meeting and all languages. Idiomatic. It doesn't. It doesn't line up word for word. There's there's hardly a single verse or sentence in the Bible that is translated exactly word for word, because.

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Mark Strauss: Translation generally is.

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Mark Strauss: is poor translation.

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Mark Strauss: Rather the best translation is going to determine what the word words mean.

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Mark Strauss: The the words and the idioms mean, and then

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Mark Strauss: find the best equivalent meaning

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Mark Strauss: in the receptor or target language.

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Andy Miller III: Gotcha. So the the the formal and dynamic equivalents. So where does give us some examples at where? Where? How does the niv do that? And then maybe, what are some other where are some other versions? And where do they lean on those polls?

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Mark Strauss: Great great question. Well, there is a really a continuation. There's there's a spectrum of of versions from the the very literal to the very idiomatic

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Mark Strauss: and in terms of commonly available Bibles.

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Mark Strauss: the the more formal equivalent or literal would be translations like the new American standard Bible, the English standard version, the Revised standard version, the new King James version, the original King James, although, interestingly enough, that's not actually as literal as most of these other ones.

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Andy Miller III: Huh!

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Mark Strauss: On the more idiomatic or highly adiomatic would be translates, seems like the new living translation.

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Mark Strauss: the contemporary English version, the new Century version.

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Mark Strauss: And then there's what what I call mediating versions that are between the 2 that are somewhere in the middle, and the Niv. Would be one of those the new international version.

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Mark Strauss: the Christian standard Bible, the Csb. A. A

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Mark Strauss: Southern Baptist version would be in there. The Net Bible. New English translation would be somewhere in the middle so you could. It's there's a spectrum, you can, and in the book we we have a chart. We sort of place maybe 20 or so easily available English translations along that chart from very formal to very functional. And of course it sounds terrible, but the niv is right in the middle.

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Andy Miller III: And oh, there you go! You just got the perfect balance.

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Mark Strauss: That's right. That's right.

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Andy Miller III: That's what I'm saying. Like I I just you know I don't like to be Liberal or demo Conservative. I like to be in the middle. I believe I I affirm that as much as I can. And as I talk to people about the nib

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Andy Miller III: now, okay, if I don't ask this question. Somebody is, gonna get on to me. So you probably even know where I'm going. But paraphrases so the the message any other or even the old living. Paraphrase. Obviously, that's up. What what do what happens in a paraphrase compared to these.

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Mark Strauss: I talk about paraphrase of the book, and I I I think I'll just come right out and say, I think paraphrase is a terrible term, because it doesn't mean what most people think. It means.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: I mean the the word paraphrase used with reference to translation

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Mark Strauss: doesn't mean moving from one language to another. A paraphrase is when you take a complicated passage and you simplify it or clarify it. So a paraphrase is using other words to simplify or clarify a passage, and generally it's within the same language.

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Mark Strauss: So the original list.

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Andy Miller III: Okay, I.

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Mark Strauss: Was, in fact, a true paraphrase it. It's it said, paraphrase on it. And it was a true paraphrase, because what they did, what Ken Taylor, who did.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: Living Bible did is, he took the American standard version Asv, which is a very literal version, and he simplified it for his children so they could understand it. He took it to. In other words, he took an English version and simplified it. So it was easy to read and easy to understand.

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Mark Strauss: Well, most people

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Mark Strauss: we're using the King James version at the time, and many of us grew up with the King James memorized tons of it and didn't understand about half of what we memorized. So suddenly this Bible comes on the scene that everyone can understand. It's just amazing. Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: It's green. It's beautiful. Yeah, yeah.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah, exactly. The living Bible just took off. It sold millions. Billy Graham endorsed it, and they would give it away, you know, at Billy Graham Crusades, and

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Mark Strauss: and it was just for the first time people reading and understanding their Bible. That's a true paraphrase. The new living translation is a revision of the living Bible.

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Mark Strauss: But it's a true translation. It's not a paraphrase

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Mark Strauss: in that they're not. They didn't

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Mark Strauss: take it from another English version. In fact, they went back to the Hebrew and Greek, and confirmed that this is what the Hebrew Greek meant. So now, when we use the word paraphrase, it's almost always in a derogatory manner with reference to Bible translation. We say, that's just a paraphrase.

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Mark Strauss: And what people mean by that is that it's it's loose and inaccurate and doesn't capture the meaning.

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Mark Strauss: Well, something that's loose and accurate and doesn't capture. The meaning is not a paraphrase. It's a bad translation. That's.

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Andy Miller III: So like it's a bad translation.

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Mark Strauss: Right, because any good translation is gonna capture. The meaning.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah.

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Mark Strauss: Translation captures the meaning, then it's a it's a translation. It's not a paraphrase, because that's what all good translation is to be. So we should throw that word away. Okay.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, right.

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Mark Strauss: Cause it's so badly misunderstood.

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Andy Miller III: You got it, it will never come out of my lips again. Well, I'll try. I'll try. Okay.

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Mark Strauss: Now the the message is something else, and then that that's that's another question.

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Andy Miller III: Okay. Okay.

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Mark Strauss: Message of paraphrase, I would say, no, that's not a good term for the message.

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Mark Strauss: I I like to call the message a translation as opposed to a translation.

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Andy Miller III: Okay, in.

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Mark Strauss: What do I mean by that? A translation.

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Andy Miller III: Tell me.

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Mark Strauss: The goal of a translation is to take the reader and bring them back into the world of the text

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Mark Strauss: so that they hear it the way it was originally heard, but they hear it in their own language, the way it was originally heard.

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Andy Miller III: Hmm.

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Mark Strauss: So let me give you an illustration of this. Jesus says.

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Mark Strauss: he's referring to the Pharisees, and how they make a show of things. He says they make their factories large.

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Mark Strauss: make their flatteries large. Well, what is? What does that mean? Well, the new living translation says something like they make their boxes with verses inside. Really big.

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Mark Strauss: Okay, well, that's exactly what it means. So.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: It's still taking the reader and bringing them back into the first century. You're just doing in a way that they understand someone who might not understand what the word flactory means. So that's a true translation. You're still bringing the reader back. Now.

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Mark Strauss: Peterson, the the message, and he doesn't do this here, but I'll do it by way of illustration, would say something like they they carry really big Bibles to church.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, interesting!

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Mark Strauss: To church. And so that's not. You've lost the cultural context. There's no longer black trees boxes with verses inside. But what you've done is, you've retained the same basic message in a way that's relevant to our culture. So we're taking the message and bringing it to us rather than taking us back into the world of the tech.

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Mark Strauss: Transculturating you're bringing. So you you miss the cultural context in many ways. But you capture the relevance for today.

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Mark Strauss: And so this is why pastors love it

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Mark Strauss: when they're it's relevant. And so they could say, This is what, how it would sound to us if Paul was speaking today. How would he sound to us today? So that that's a lot I know. But that.

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Andy Miller III: No, that's great. Thank you so much. That's very helpful. And I I I really appreciate transculturation. I I think it's helpful cause. Oh, I I I would. I really challenge people to particularly preaching. And like students. And I I teach preaching and theology courses. To not bring that in, because sometimes what you'll hear people say, even pastors, I'm sorry to say, well, I wanna go see what it means.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, like, well, that's already. It's already happened in the other translation.

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Mark Strauss: It's.

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Andy Miller III: But like, but it's almost like okay, and and giving him all the credit a good good credit I can. Eugene Peterson was a pastor, and he went and did his work. He did his his work in the original languages, his work probably trying to figure out various cultural things so that he could bring this passage to his people, and hence he transculturated it. He did the work.

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Andy Miller III: and there's a way, forgive me, and that

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Andy Miller III: you're kind of just taking his work that you should do. That's what I think.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's I think that's true. Now, it's I think it's okay to do that at times, if especially.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah.

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Mark Strauss: Not. We're not always as creative as Peterson, and he was such a master of the English language, you know.

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Andy Miller III: Yes.

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Mark Strauss: So, so I don't. I don't have any problem with using him. But even Peterson would say, Don't make this your only Bible, even your primary Bible, he would say, and I think he would say, I wrote a book with Gordon Fee on Bible translation, and Gordon knew Eugene Re really well, and he, he would say he would say something like, You know, this is a great supplement to a real Bible.

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Andy Miller III: And wow.

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Mark Strauss: Did not replace. Replace that real Bible. Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: Wow! That's high. That's interesting to hear that from them. Okay, so you work. Tell, tell, tell me about Gordon feet your interaction with him like I love. I so appreciate him like. Did you have? Do you have a story or something about.

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Mark Strauss: Well he was. He was on the Niv Committee.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: For years, and so just just being in his presence for me, I was always in awe of of Gordon, and then in the midst of this controversy, related to gender language, I had written my book on gender language, and Zondov approached Gordon about writing a book on translation in general

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Mark Strauss: and and he approached me and asked if I would co-write it with him, because I had been writing a lot in translation. So that was just for me. That was an incredible honor to be able to do that. It's got how to choose a translation for all it's worth might sound familiar, because he wrote together with with Douglas Stewart, he wrote, how to read the Bible for all it's worth.

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Mark Strauss: probably probably the most widely used little hermeneutics text. In the world right now. And so we a series of other books sort of mimic that title, and this one on Bible translation was how to choose a translation for all it's worth. And we we wrote it together. Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, that's great. Yeah. Well, you know, I just

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Andy Miller III: in.

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Andy Miller III: I when I was in seminary he gave a lectureship. I didn't get a chance to meet him or anything. But I I'm just so glad that I gotta hear him speak. And that, you know, there's a couple of those people of of that generation scholars of that generation that I got to hear at that point, I mean, and just so thankful that I was able to see be in the room with about some point. And and

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Andy Miller III: anyway. So yeah, thanks for sharing that. I I'm curious, like some of the history of interpretation. Sorry? Well, it is interpretation translation like, what? When? When did we? Obviously we had the Vulgate? Was there something that came before the Latin translation of Vulgate or what other translations are kind of in the history of the translations.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: Well, the oldest translation we know of certainly is the Septuagint. The Greek translation

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Mark Strauss: done in the third century BC.

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Mark Strauss: Jews were in the Diaspora. The scattering of the Jews, Jews were all over the Mediterranean region.

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Mark Strauss: And the Jews of Alexandria in Egypt no longer spoke Hebrew for the most part, and there's a myth as to a legend as to how it all came came about. But the librarian at the the library of Alexandria.

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Mark Strauss: sent to Jerusalem under the auspices of the Pharaoh Ptolemy, to bring Jewish scribes from Jerusalem to come to Alexandria and translate the he sacred Hebrew Scriptures into Greek

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Mark Strauss: and there's a letter called the Letter of Eristias that

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Mark Strauss: talks about this, and much of the letter is probably legendary. It's meant to defend the Septuagint as an authoritative translation. But it tells the story of how this took place, and these scholars produced the Greek translation. It became the standard Bible for Greek speakers around the Mediterranean. Most of the passages in the New Testament that are quotes from the Old Testament come from the Septuagint, or very close to the Septuagint.

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Mark Strauss: A few seem to be direct translations from the Hebrew, but for the most of them, particularly certain readers certain writers in the New Testament.

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Mark Strauss: quote from the Septuagint. So that would be the earliest

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Mark Strauss: translation of the of the Hebrew Scriptures.

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Mark Strauss: the New Testament, jumping forward, the New Testament translate into many languages quite quickly.

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Mark Strauss: Because Christiani was a missionary religion. And so they were moving. So we've got all kinds of translations.

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Mark Strauss: Georgian, Armenian, Coptic, you know a whole range of different translations of the New Testament that come from the second and third century Ad.

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Andy Miller III: Okay, and what about English translations? When was there? The first English translation.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah. The first English translation was done by

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Mark Strauss: John Wycliffe in the 13 hundreds. Actually

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Mark Strauss: and he got into trouble for doing it. It was illegal at the time to translate the Bible into vernacular languages. The Latin was the only official translation

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Mark Strauss: the Roman Catholic Church feared really feared that

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Mark Strauss: If the common people could read the Bible in their own language, they might come up with ideas that were contrary to the Church's teaching.

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Mark Strauss: The Roman Catholic Church is teaching, and so it was forbidden. Wycliffe was powerful enough as a as a person and a scholar, that he he did not suffer personally persecution, but some of his followers were arrested and executed eventually, after his death, his bones were

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Mark Strauss: dug up and burned, and

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Mark Strauss: so he was condemned as a heretic after his death.

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Mark Strauss: That was the first English translation. We don't know how much of the work Wickliff did. He probably didn't do much of it. He had other

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Mark Strauss: good scholars who were doing most of the work, but it was a translation from the Latin actually.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: Rather than from the original Hebrew and Greek. The first

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Mark Strauss: English translation directly from the Greek, was by William Tyndale.

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Mark Strauss: And very famous translation, Wimton eventually gave up. It gave his life for that translation. He was. He was seized, kidnapped, and eventually executed for producing that translation. So those 2 names. People sometimes know those names because there's a Wycliffe Bible translators named after Wycliffe, and of course Tyndale publishers that produce the living Bible and the new living translation, are

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Mark Strauss: named after William Tyndale. So 2 of the most famous names in English Bible translation would be John Wycliffe and William Tyndale.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. It's when you think about this and think about William Tyndale given his life. And you think about the work of somebody like Mark, and we've already talked about generations of people going back to Gordon Fee contemporary people here scribes for the years to. And I'm just holding my Bible up here for those on Youtube, and to to bring us this Scripture. And and you think about all of the text, the the text that come together to form the New Testament, and then, like

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Andy Miller III: you, will, we get to? We all have the opportunity to sit down and read this and enter into the world of Scripture. And guys revealed Himself to us in space and time in a way that we can sit down and read this and

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Andy Miller III: have a cup of coffee in the morning. And like, you know, it's it's just, oh, just think about. I wanna encourage people.

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Andy Miller III: It's a miracle. It is a wonderful thing that God has done. And just think of all the generations and years and dedication, somebody like Mark, who's who's given his life to scholarship, his, you know, professional life to scholarship, to do this. So thank I'm not trying to close this off too early. I just a little overwhelmed here, just thinking about as you told that story. I mean, tell me about your own reading of the Bible, I mean, how do? How do you read the Bible? Mark.

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Mark Strauss: Well, let me let me say first, I think the true heroes are the ones who are now doing this around the world in languages that have never seen Scripture yet.

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Andy Miller III: Amen!

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Mark Strauss: And so we've got hundreds of English translations. But there are ground breaking people, men and women in jungles and Irania, and throughout the world who are trying to get God's Word into languages that have never heard it so.

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Andy Miller III: Amen!

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Mark Strauss: They're they're real heroes. Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: Who should? Where do you know, do you like of of us? Maybe even supporting those type of groups? What what type of groups. do you? Yeah, I'm just curious like, tell us, I mean you. You had something very specific in mind there. And so we and and I described it very passionately about English. But, like Mark's right, this is, this is the real frontier. So tell us what we should do, and how we should pray, and.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah. And there, there are

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Mark Strauss: many translation groups. In fact, the last third of the book is actually on international translation. We make it clear at the beginning of the book that it's mostly English translation that we're talking about. The principles mostly apply to other other languages. But then there's one

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Mark Strauss: section of about 6 questions that are related to international Bible translation will tell you. Give you a list of hundreds of different translation societies, for example. And then it'll give you the history of some of the most famous of those the Wycliffe Bible translators the the United Bible societies.

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Mark Strauss: of which the American Bible Society is another one. Biblica is an international translation agency as well as the the

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Mark Strauss: organization that the nonprofit that owns the Niv also is an international translation agency.

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Mark Strauss: So there's a lot of people, a lot of different groups doing translation with the passion and goal of trying to get God's Word into every every language of humanity. So.

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Andy Miller III: I love it. Oh, thank you so much for sharing that mark. I wanted to. I just since the word King James has a very, is it?

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Andy Miller III: It had carries weight. It's on the title of some churches, and a lot of times. The word only is connected to it, which is. But there's a there was a lot of good that came obviously from the King James, and there's some things that are just incredibly beautiful for what it did for the English language as a whole. So I I don't want to. It's easy to pick on pick on that. And but I just love for you to tell us what what would regular person in the pew what would be good for them to know about the King James version.

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Mark Strauss: And there's about 5 questions that deal with the King James is history and what's right with it? What's potentially wrong with it? I wanna be careful.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: I see that, and you mentioned only cause there. There are some people who are King James, only people, and what they mean by that is, they would argue that the King James version is the only legitimate English version, some would say, is the only version. Period is place. It even higher authority than the Greek or Hebrew.

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Andy Miller III: So I've heard that.

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Mark Strauss: So so what is the King James version? There's a long history of how it came to be. It wasn't the first English translation, and certainly wasn't the last.

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Mark Strauss: A a English translation, those who produce the King James version. In fact, if you read the preface to the original King James version, which is interesting. It's about 30 or

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Mark Strauss: 35 pages long or so. They don't publish it in in present editions, so most people don't read it. But if you read that you'll be amazed because they basically say we are just one link in the long chain. There's been great translations before us.

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Andy Miller III: Wow!

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Mark Strauss: Great translations after us. What we've done is not perfect, but we're doing the best we can basically.

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Andy Miller III: Wow!

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Mark Strauss: As you well know, people have now to taken that to mean it's the only translation, and should never be changed when iota should never be changed, that the King James only crowd

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Mark Strauss: says that this is the only correct translation that King James version was translated was published first published in 1,611

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Mark Strauss: and it was authorized by King James the First of

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Mark Strauss: Formerly King James of Scotland, became the king of all of England.

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Mark Strauss: and that was part of the impetus to actually produce the King James version. We can go back to the history. Let me talk a little bit about the present translations.

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Andy Miller III: Sure, sure.

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Mark Strauss: Commercial stuff. First, that if we want to go back and talk about any of the history of the Kj. That that'd be fine. Is is the King James version the only one you should read and use? Is it the most accurate?

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Mark Strauss: An analogy I love to use for for computer geeks is especially relevant is the King James version is the greatest translation of all time.

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Mark Strauss: Greatest English translation of all time, I should make that that clarification English translation of all time in the same way that my Macintosh, 5 12 K. Was the greatest computer of all time.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: Now, that was the first computer I bought. So for me, it was the greatest of all time. I don't know if you've ever seen a macintosh 5, 12 K. If you if you're watching Seinfeld, look at the background cause he's got one on his desk normally

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Mark Strauss: in Seinfeld, Ok.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: Box. It's a beige box about this big.

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Andy Miller III: Yes.

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Mark Strauss: It's got one screen, that's maybe you know, 8 by 5, and it's monochrome screen. So there's no color in it.

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Mark Strauss: My macintosh 5 12 K. Had no hard drive.

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Mark Strauss: It had only one floppy drive. Now some of us old enough to remember what a floppy drive is. A floppy little floppy disk held about 1 MB of memory. That's about enough for one photograph.

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Andy Miller III: Wow!

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Mark Strauss: And so that was the bare box. With that that no hard drive inside, just only that one floppy. I purchased one at the Ucla bookstore.

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Mark Strauss: And I said to the guy who was selling it to me, I said, I've heard that I should get not just

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Mark Strauss: my Macintosh 5 to okay, I I should get an external drive, so I can put one floppy in that with my data and one floppy in the other. With my program. Microsoft word. 1 point. O, you know at at that.

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Andy Miller III: Wow!

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Mark Strauss: Right, and you know what he said to me, he said. You'll never need that much memory.

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Andy Miller III: Wow!

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Mark Strauss: Of course we know that's absurd. None of us could ever use a macintosh 5 12 k. Today, cause it's it's archaic. It's it's it'd be useless to have just 1 MB. My, my iphone has 250,000 times as much memory as that Macintosh 512 K.

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Mark Strauss: Now, why is it the greatest computer of all time cause it was revolutionary. No one had desktop computers back then. It was. It basically invented the mouse right, and it was one of the first computers to use a mouse. It had this windows format where you had little icons, and it was intuitive, and you could just grab something and drag it along. It was absolutely revolutionary for what it was.

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Mark Strauss: So the greatest computer of all time. But it's so dated today, we wouldn't possibly be able to use it now. We could still use the King James version. But in the same way the King James version is dated. It's it's it's dated in 2 main ways. It's dated in terms of its language.

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Mark Strauss: Much of its language is archaic. The meaning of words have changed so that

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Mark Strauss: reading the King James, sometimes we just

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Mark Strauss: don't understand it.

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Mark Strauss: Other times it's actually wrong. It's something that the the English doesn't no longer means that.

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Andy Miller III: It's a state.

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Mark Strauss: In terms of its archaic language. Secondly, it's it's native in terms of its Greek text.

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Andy Miller III: Hmm.

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Mark Strauss: On only a few Greek manuscripts that were available to the translators. Today we have much older, much earlier, much more accurate, more reliable Greek trend, Greek manuscripts for for the New Testament text.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, I I think that's one of the key thing. And and and it's significant. A significant number. More text that we have to work from now. Is that

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Andy Miller III: correct? So.

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Mark Strauss: Absolutely. Yeah, we have something like 6,000 or so different Greek manuscripts of the Greek, New Testament. And and it's those early ones that are particularly important, the ones much closer to the original

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Mark Strauss: the original author, and so virtually all Biblical scholars would argue that our texts are much better today than they had available to them. In 1,611 Gotcha.

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Andy Miller III: Mark, I'm you mentioned the international scene? I just want to get one of these questions in here, and we really encourage people to get this book? 40 questions about Bible translations. But you know, W. What are some of the challenges that are still faced by Bob Bible translators in on the international scene.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah, there's lots. There's lots of challenge. There's obviously

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Mark Strauss: logistic challenges in terms of, you know, some of these tribal groups live in really remote areas.

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Mark Strauss: Some of them are hostile because they don't, you know, know, outsiders, or they're they fear outsiders.

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Mark Strauss: So we've you know, many of us have heard stories of of the danger involved in actually doing it.

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Mark Strauss: The cost involved

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Mark Strauss: picking up and and and moving your whole family into a jungle kind of a context can be a huge challenge.

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Mark Strauss: In terms of training.

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Mark Strauss: we expect them to know something about the original languages. If they're going to understand the text.

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Mark Strauss: And then oftentimes these tribal languages have never

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Mark Strauss: been even written. There's no written form. They're they're merely oral. So so these missionaries. Translators have to be anthropologists. They have to understand the nature of this tribe. They have to know how to take a spoken language, turn it into a written language.

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Mark Strauss: Literacy is one of the key areas that these international translators do sometimes have to produce an out, an a an alphabet. Because there's sounds that we don't.

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Mark Strauss: You know we don't have an English. So you have to use some kind of a symbol for that. There's a whole linguistic alphabet that they they can use

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Mark Strauss: and and then teach the people to read and write and then produce a translation. In a language that they? They're just learning. And so you need native language consultants because you can say

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Mark Strauss: you know.

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Mark Strauss: this seems like how I would say it. But is that how you would say it?

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah.

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Mark Strauss: I had a good friend

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Mark Strauss: who is working in a tribal language in Central America.

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Mark Strauss: and he would have these these native

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Mark Strauss: translators helping him, and and he would say to them, he said, Does this work to say it this way in your language? And they would say, Yes, that works. And then he'd say, But is that how you would say it? And they would laugh and say, No, no, no, we'd never say that. We never say we'd say it like this, you know. And so that fluency aspect, you know where where it's it sounds stilted. It sounds awkward, but you can get it, you know, that's the way. Sometimes we read some of our more literal versions. It's like, Well, nobody would ever say it that way. But I get it.

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Mark Strauss: Yeah. And so that's there's a there's a great challenge is becoming fluent in language is a huge challenge to be able to think or dream. They say.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: In that language can be a huge challenge. Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: Mark, thank you so much for for Ryan, this book for help. Is it for your scholarly work through the years and for working on this committee. It's a real blessing to be able to talk to somebody who's right in this process and that and also for the the sensitivity towards being aware of what's happening globally. I I

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Andy Miller III: I think I might ask this earlier. And then I went into another question. But tell us about your own pattern for reading the Bible.

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Mark Strauss: I think I distracted you. I took you someplace, else.

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Andy Miller III: Okay. Okay, well, it's good. Thank you for being. That's nice, you to say. But that's fine. I.

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Mark Strauss: Well, you know, it's funny, because

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Mark Strauss: that

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Mark Strauss: may sound like a bit of a heretic here. But I don't PE people say you know. How do you have a quiet time? I don't usually read the Bible as a quiet time, a as my time of, because I'm too easily distracted. It doesn't always. The Bible is always a source of academic activity or preparation for ministry. I I I preached in churches for 30 years, you know. When I when I read the Bible, the first thing I'm doing is I'm analyzing and thinking. You know.

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Andy Miller III: Okay. Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: I. Wanna you know, I wanna go back and look at the commentary, find out what it means. So it's it's always about study. So I ha! I have to say for me personally. It's a challenge to read the Bible devotionally.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Mark Strauss: And partly because I do it.

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Mark Strauss: I read the Bible professionally.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Mark Strauss: Bible in terms of my ministry, and so I tend to keep that separate from

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Mark Strauss: more focus, worship, and quiet time. If that.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, interest. No thanks for sharing. I mean that it's it's almost like across the bear for you like in this sense, like you by by entering in, by giving your professional life and ministry life to being an interpreter. Translator. An interpreter. It presents a challenge to like

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Andy Miller III: step out of that. Like, I, yeah. So thank you for for taking that on

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Andy Miller III: cool. Well, I always ask a question, my, podcast called more to the story. And that's you know. Obviously, we wanna learn more about Bible translations. And you've helped us with some of that. There's we also think of in theological sense that there's more than just getting our sins forgiven. And and Wbs is in the holiness tradition

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Andy Miller III: that emphasizes sanctification. So there's that side to why I have the title, but also I'm curious. Is there more to the story of Mark Strauss? Is there something that you probably done a lot of interviews through the years but something that you don't get to talk about very much, something kind of fun about you.

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Mark Strauss: It's a great question. I, I'm I'm a New Testament professor, and I teach Greek. And we actually have a Greek club. We do online every every week. So Greek has always been my thing. But I actually started in Hebrew. My first love was Hebrew.

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Andy Miller III: 'kay.

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Mark Strauss: And I actually took modern Hebrew before taking Biblical Hebrew. I was at San Diego State for a couple of years, and I there was a wonderful Jewish professor who taught Hebrew. He thought I was. He thought I was Jewish. I think it's it's probably the nose and name.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah.

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Mark Strauss: And but just had a wonderful experience there learning Hebrew. And then I went to Israel. My father was leading the trip to Israel and went to Israel, and I had. I remember.

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Mark Strauss: going through. This is when they actually searched all your bags, and I remember the the Israeli soldier, open my bag and popped open. Here's these Hebrew grammars right right there in front of in in my bag. And he said.

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Mark Strauss: and he said, What are these? And I saw, I'm learning Hebrew. I want to speak this language. And and he said, You are always welcome in Israel. And so it was definitely. It was just that just just a wonderful encouragement to continue on in that study. And then, when I got into Seminary, I found that because I knew the modern Hebrew enough. I could just

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Mark Strauss: I could do it intuitively. I learned, learn the.

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Andy Miller III: Oh!

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Mark Strauss: He grew a little bit more intuitively. So.

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Mark Strauss: So really Hebrew was my first love back. Then.

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Andy Miller III: Interesting. I when I was taking Hebrew in Seminary with Bill Arnold, maybe some of you know. He he I I finally said to, Well, Dr. Arnold, have you ever been in in in Israel? And you know it tried to speak in Hebrew and you and it may. He didn't really know modern Hebrew, though he went to Hebrew Union

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Andy Miller III: College or University, and and he said, Yeah, on my on my honeymoon. I I think I don't know sometime, but I wanna say maybe his honeymoon. He tried to impress his wife, and and and he asked like to bring if they could bring the car and the person, the taxi driver, or whoever it was, at the hotel, just laughed at him and just laugh. He said, Well, what it? And he said, you just said, You know, bring me my chariot, or something like that, so

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Andy Miller III: you never know.

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Mark Strauss: Biblical world. That's the word he knew. Right? That's right.

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Andy Miller III: That's right, that's what he knew how to do. So that's how it works. Well, Mark, thank you so much for your work, and I. And I hope people, as they listen to this, will have more respect whenever the new version of the Niv. Comes out and and be connected to you and your story and your commitment to God's Word is certainly a blessing to us. So thank you for your time, thanks for being on the podcast today.

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Mark Strauss: My privilege. Thanks, Andy, for having me.