Africa Study Bible Sampler - Flipbook - Page 37
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by the United Bible Societies (fourth revised
edition, 1993, often referred to as the UBS4
edition), and Novum Testamentum Graece,
edited by Nestle and Aland (twenty-seventh
edition, 1993, often referred to as the NA27
edition). These two editions, which have the
same text but differ in punctuation and textual notes, represent the best in recent textual
scholarship. The scholars who compiled and
edited them have painstakingly studied the
early manuscripts to reconstruct a New Testament Greek text as close to the original as
possible. (As mentioned above, the NLT translators sometimes differed from the UBS and NA
Greek texts, but only very rarely.)
The most significant and commonly noted
extra or expanded verses in the KJV are as follows: Matthew 6:13b; 17:21; 18:11; 23:14; 27:35b;
Mark 7:16; 9:44, 46; 11:26; 15:28; Luke 9:55b-56a;
17:36; 23:17; John 5:3b-4; Acts 8:37; 15:34; 24:
6b-8a; 28:29; Romans 16:24; 1 John 5:7b. Since
these verses or verse portions were included in
the KJV, the NLT translators felt that readers familiar with the KJV would find it helpful to have
the extra verses and verse portions included in
the NLT footnotes. So at each of the places listed above, the NLT has a footnote that provides
the expanded text of the Textus Receptus.
Bible Translation Issues
The translators of the NLT have made a conscious effort to provide a text that can be easily understood by the typical reader of modern
English. To this end, we sought to use only vocabulary and language structures in common
use today. We avoided using language likely
to become quickly dated or that reflects only a
narrow subdialect of English, with the goal of
making the New Living Translation as broadly
useful and timeless as possible.
But our concern for readability goes beyond
the concerns of vocabulary and sentence
structure. We are also concerned about historical and cultural barriers to understanding the
Bible, and we have sought to translate terms
shrouded in history and culture in ways that
can be immediately understood. To this end:
We have converted ancient weights and
measures (for example, “ephah” [a unit of
dry volume] or “cubit” [a unit of length]) to
modern metric equivalents, since the ancient measures are not generally meaningful to today’s readers. Then in the textual footnotes we offer the literal Hebrew,
Aramaic, or Greek measures, along with modern English (American) equivalents.
Instead of translating ancient currency
values literally, we have expressed them in
common terms that communicate the message. For example, in the Old Testament, “ten
shekels of silver” becomes “ten pieces of silver” to convey the intended message. In the
New Testament, we have often translated the
“denarius” as “the normal daily wage” to facilitate understanding. Then a footnote offers:
“Greek a denarius, the payment for a full day’s
labor.” In general, we give a clear English rendering and then state the literal Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek in a textual footnote.
Since the names of Hebrew months are unknown to most contemporary readers, and
since the Hebrew lunar calendar fluctuates from
year to year in relation to the solar calendar used
today, we have looked for clear ways to communicate the time of year the Hebrew months
(such as Abib) refer to. When an expanded or interpretive rendering is given in the text, a textual
note gives the literal rendering. Where it is possible to define a specific ancient date in terms of
our modern calendar, we use modern dates in
the text. A textual footnote then gives the literal Hebrew date and states the rationale for our
rendering. For example, Ezra 6:15 pinpoints the
date when the postexilic Temple was completed
in Jerusalem: “the third day of the month Adar.”
This was during the sixth year of King Darius’s
reign (that is, 515 bc). We have translated that
date as March 12, with a footnote giving the
Hebrew and identifying the year as 515 bc.
Since ancient references to the time of day
differ from our modern methods of denoting
time, we have used renderings that are instantly
understandable to the modern reader. Accordingly, we have rendered specific times of day by
using approximate equivalents in terms of our
common “o’clock” system. On occasion, translations such as “at dawn the next morning” or
“as the sun was setting” have been used when
the biblical reference is more general.
When the meaning of a proper name (or a
wordplay inherent in a proper name) is relevant to the message of the text, its meaning is
often illuminated with a textual footnote. For
example, in Exodus 2:10 the text reads: “The
princess named him Moses, for she explained,
‘I lifted him out of the water.’ ” The accompanying footnote reads: “Moses sounds like a Hebrew term that means ‘to lift out.’ ”