Bible Translations at Barabbas Road Church in San Diego

At Barabbas Road Church in San Diego, the Bible translation that the church uses primarily is the English Standard Version. Otherchurches may use different translations and may not focus on one particular translation; however, at Barabbas Road Church the elders believe that Bible translations are important and should be understood by Christians. It’s important to know that God has given us his word literally with actual verbs, nouns and adjectives. This is important because the way that we approach the Bible dictates the way we read it.

One of the more popular Christian questions in the church is which Bible translation should we use? Before we can answer this question it is important for us to first understand that the Word of God is a reliable document. Cults and other religions will claim that the Bible is made up of different versions and claim that it has been changed many times; therefore, insinuating that the Bible is false. This is wrong, however, because we do not have many different versions of the Bible. What we have are many manuscripts of the same document. In the New Testament we have a document that is in Greek and in the Old Testament it is in Hebrew with a few portions in Aramaic. It is from these documents that we translate the Bible into the English language.

Another important thing to understand is that a translation is still the Word of God. A great example to prove this is the fact that we see in the New Testament that Jesus translated Hebrew to Greek. We see Jesus quoting from the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew. Jesus quoted it as the Word of God; therefore, yes, a translation is definitely still the Word of God. We have been blessed with so many scholars that have been very honest about the earliest manuscripts that we know and can be certain that the Bible is really the Bible that had been written down originally. The truth is that we have more certainty that this is true more than any other book from antiquity.

Now that we can better understand that the Word of God is reliable and that a translation is still the Word of God, we can talk about which translation is best to use for an English Bible.We do have many translations of the Bible which is a blessing for Christians. The best thing to know about translations is that they can be divided up into three different groups. One group can be called the literal translation, also known as the word-for-word translation. A literal translation Bible is a Bible that a person or committee, to the best of their ability, translated the Bible into English trying to keep the words as close as possible to the original language. The English Standard Version (ESV), New American Standard Bible (NASB), King James Version (KJV) and New King James Version (NKJV) are all examples of literal translation Bibles.

The second group can be called a thought-for thought translation. Examples of this type of translation are the New International Version (NIV) and New Living Translation (NLT)Bibles. This translation’s purpose is to give the reader more thoughts on the meaning of the text. This means that there is a lot more interpretation being done with this type of translation. This type of translation can be helpful; however, it is much different from the literal translation. In the literal translation the interpretation is being done by the reader, meaning the reader has to actually study the text and interpret it. In the thought-for-thought translation the work is already done for the reader. Again, this can be a great resource, but the reader is not necessarily reading the Word of God in its best form.

The third group can be called the paraphrased translation. An example of this type of translation would be the Message Bible. The purpose of a paraphrased Bible is to not actually try to capture the words of the Bible, but rather retell the story of the Bible that is absolutely understandable in our context. This type of translation is often grossly wrong in capturing what the text is actually saying; however, it can sometimes be helpful as an interpretive device.

Therefore, this is why at Barabbas Road Church in San Diego the church uses a literal translation of the Bible, in particularly the ESV. This literal translation can sometimes be alittle more difficult to read, but it’s actually only at about the 7th grade reading level. Since we believe that scripture is breathed out by God and is his actual Word, it is important to read and hear the Bible at its best form. We are truly blessed to have so many resources when it comes to reading and studying the Bible. For Christians it is important that we know and understand the different translations of the Bible, so that we can do our best to connect with the God’s Word the best way we possibly can.