The Part of the Bible No One Reads

The KJV frequently calls God "The LORD of Hosts". The NIV never does. Why not? And why is "LORD" in all caps in some verses and not in others? Why does the ESV read so differently from the NIV at times and so similarly at others? Bible translations are the product of countless decisions by the translators. And there's a place in your Bible where they tell you what they are.

Every translation of the Bible begins with a goal. The translators use a philosophy of translation, certain texts, and certain conventions. And all of this is laid out in a preface or introduction. Every modern translation has one, and even the King James Version had one in the beginning (and it's worth looking up).

It's important to understand their translation philosophy. The preface to the CSB has a good explanation of the dominate philosophies.

Often called "word-for-word" (or "literal") translation, the principle of formal equivalence seeks as nearly as possible to preserve the structure of the original language. It seeks to represent each word of the original text with an exact equivalent word in the translation so that the reader can see word for word what the original human author wrote. 

Often called "thought-for-thought" translation, the principle of dynamic equivalence rejects as misguided the attempt to preserve the structure of the original language. It proceeds by extracting the meaning of a text from its form and then translating that meaning so that it makes the same impact on modern readers that the ancient text made on its original readers. 

The ESV's preface explains their philosophy of "essentially literal" translation and the reason for it:

A “thought-for-thought” translation is of necessity more inclined to reflect the interpretive views of the translator and the influences of contemporary culture. Every translation is at many points a trade-off between literal precision and readability, between “formal equivalence” in expression and “functional equivalence” in communication, and the ESV is no exception. Within this framework we have sought to be “as literal as possible” while maintaining clarity of expression and literary excellence.

The NIV, on the other hand, defends the second approach:

A second linguistic principle that feeds into the Committee's translation work is that meaning is found not in individual words, as vital as they are, but in larger clusters: phrases, clauses, sentences, discourses. Translation is not, as many people think, a matter of word substitution: English word x in place of Hebrew word y. Translators must first determine the meaning of the words of the biblical languages in the context of the passage and then select English words that accurately communicate that meaning to modern listeners and readers. This means that accurate translation will not always reflect the exact structure of the original language. To be sure, there is debate over the degree to which translators should try to preserve the "form" of the original text in English. From the beginning, the NIV has taken a mediating position on this issue.

So, both translations will strive for a word-for-word correspondence, and both will dip into "functional equivalence" as necessary. But the NIV will find it necessary more often than the ESV. The result is many verses where the two read almost exactly the same and many verses where there are striking differences. But not as striking as those translations that lean more heavily to the "thought-for-thought" approach. What about the CSB or the NASB? If you're interested in where various translations fall on the translation spectrum, this chart offers a pretty comprehensive list.

Another important decision translation committees have to make is how to render the names of God. The Hebrew scriptures contain many different names, none of which make sense to us unless they're translated.

The most important and common name is God's covenant name. We don't even know for certain how to pronounce it because the ancient manuscripts never supply the vowels for the consonants YHWH, known as the "Tetragrammaton". Most Bible translations will follow the convention of rendering this in "small caps" as "the LORD". A frequent title of God, Adonai, is translated "Lord" because that's a good English translation of the word. Sometimes the text calls God "Adonai YHWH". The NIV will render this "the Sovereign LORD", while the ESV will render it "the Lord GOD" with small caps in GOD.

A common name use for God in the prophets is YHWH Sabaoth, which the KJV rendered "the LORD of hosts". The ESV follows this tradition. The CSB updates "hosts" and reads "the LORD of armies". The NIV team, however, said,

Because for most readers today the phrases “the LORD of hosts” and “God of hosts” have little meaning, this version renders them “the LORD Almighty” and “God Almighty.” These renderings convey the sense of the Hebrew, namely, “he who is sovereign over all the ‘hosts’ (powers) in heaven and on earth, especially over the ‘hosts’ (armies) of Israel.”

Other topics may be addressed in the preface. The ESV's, for example, goes into a detailed explanation on how they chose to handle words that might be rendered "slave" in other versions.

So read the preface in your Bible. It will shine some light on what went on behind the scenes in making the text readable to modern day Christians. It might even clear up some mysteries for you.


Part of Bible 101

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