What is involved

For the New Testament (written in Greek) we have over 5,000 manuscripts of various portions of the text. And they are not identical. In addition to that we have early translations into other languages and quotations of the biblical text in early church documents. There is an entire sphere of scholarship that is devoted to determining what the original documents most likely said.

Now I don’t want to create the false impression that we are uncertain about the basic text of the New Testament. (There is a whole different set of issues with the Old Testament.) As our understanding of the language and culture deepens and as we discover older and better manuscripts, we are arriving at a greater and greater degree of certainty about the original text.

But there are still choices made in this process, choices that could affect the ultimate interpretation of the passage.

Now we have the Greek text. Translating that into English, or any other language, is both a science and an art. There is nothing straightforward about this. Many naïve students of language think that one word in the first language should always be translated by the same word in the second language.

But anyone who has gained fluency in a modern foreign language knows that this is not true. In fact, sometimes a single word will need to be translated by an entire phrase in the second language.

So there are more choices to be made in the translation into English.

Now we have the English text, one that was done by a broad group of scholars and has gained acceptance within the Church. In other words, we can trust this translation to be generally reliable. This is important since we don’t all have the time or inclination to become Greek and Hebrew scholars.