One of the issues that has always been a part of our work is the issue of Bible translations. The problem is that no translation is perfect. Anytime you translate from one language into another, there are cultural understandings that have to be included. A classic example of this is the use of the word "gay" in American culture in the past 50 years ago. Saying someone was gay in 1950 would have indicated a happy carefree person. Saying someone is gay in 2001 would most likely be interpreted as an indication of the person's sexual preference.

In our articles, lectures, materials, and studies we have always gone back to the original language and made our discussion come from that standpoint. This is not hard to do. With a good concordance you can always tell what the words were intended to convey, but it can be enormously time consuming. For many years in studies in the New Testament I have used a book that was published by Zondervan many years ago that was called The New Testament in 26 Translations. It contained the leading 26 translations if they were different in any significant way from the King James Version. You might think such a book would be huge, but it really is not. In fact our book for this month is a modernized version of the 26 translations, but it contains the whole Bible. Each verse is given and then any dissimilar versions are written right underneath it so that the reader can see how they vary. I personally find it to be a great tool for Bible study groups as well as personal study and recommend it highly.

Back to Contents Does God Exist?, SepOct01.