Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) - Round Table Discussion with John MacArthur - Pt. 1
Chapters
0:00:22 Why Do We Need another English Translation of the Bible
14:1 Reduce Footnotes
35:29 A Translation of the Legacy Standard Bible
00:00:00.000 | I think the basic question that we're going to be asked on this effort is, we already
00:00:16.800 | have maybe as many as 25 English translations that are in circulation.
00:00:23.320 | Why do we need another English translation of the Bible?
00:00:28.560 | Why have we taken on this project?
00:00:31.120 | And how urgent is it to have another one?
00:00:34.040 | I think fundamentally one of the things we wanted to do with this translation wasn't
00:00:38.780 | to produce something new in a brand new sense, but to preserve something old.
00:00:45.240 | A lot of what we did in the Legacy Standard Bible was to uphold what we already have in
00:00:51.560 | the 95 to make sure that that translation remains extant in the next generations.
00:00:57.120 | And it also pulled from the 1977, which has kind of gone away a little bit, not necessarily
00:01:03.860 | in popularity, but in availability.
00:01:06.240 | So we wanted to bring some of those things together and preserve it.
00:01:10.520 | So it's not just about getting something new to the people, but having them tie with what
00:01:16.200 | they've always had and having their children tie with what they've had.
00:01:20.600 | On top of that, and I think the rest of you all can kind of speak to this, one of the
00:01:24.680 | goals that we wanted to advance was the idea of consistency.
00:01:31.380 | Any of you all want to talk about that kind of notion in translation?
00:01:35.680 | But backing up a little bit, preserving a translation, and in this case the NAS, New
00:01:43.160 | American Standard 95, collectively we felt that that was the best of the current English
00:01:50.520 | translations.
00:01:51.520 | We all felt that way.
00:01:53.040 | But we could see trends that were going to replace that in the future, and we wanted
00:01:59.000 | to rescue it while we had the time.
00:02:01.680 | So if you're working with an existing translation, are you working with the English, or did you
00:02:08.280 | take it all the way back to the Hebrew and the Greek?
00:02:11.840 | - Yeah.
00:02:12.840 | Why don't we have these guys answer for us here?
00:02:14.920 | - Well, in the Old Testament, we absolutely went to the Hebrew and just going word by
00:02:21.120 | word from the very beginning.
00:02:23.000 | We started with the New Testament, of course, and then the Psalms and the Proverbs, that
00:02:25.760 | was the first part that we did.
00:02:27.800 | And when we were doing the Hebrew, we just went word by word, verse by verse, all the
00:02:33.180 | way through, looking at every single translation that NASB had, the New American Standard Bible
00:02:38.240 | had, and where the translation was good and we affirmed it, which was the majority of
00:02:43.920 | the cases, of course, then we retained it.
00:02:46.480 | And where there needed to be some refinement or some kind of an adjustment, that's where
00:02:50.980 | we adjusted the text, and I think other men can speak to the New Testament.
00:02:54.920 | - Yeah.
00:02:55.920 | Dr. Varner, how did you kind of go through the Greek?
00:02:59.720 | - So I looked at the Greek, and I looked at what's available in the English language,
00:03:04.640 | and what are the best words to convey what's in the Greek?
00:03:10.960 | That's not rocket science.
00:03:12.960 | That's what we all ought to have been doing all along.
00:03:16.680 | But the more the emphasis got on readability, if you don't mind my saying, I've always viewed
00:03:24.680 | the history of English translations as moving from elegance with the King James down to
00:03:31.600 | the 1881 British Revised Version, then the emphasis on accuracy from the British Revised
00:03:37.880 | Version to the NASB in 1977, and since then, the emphasis is on readability.
00:03:45.480 | And I think we're trying to make an effort, okay, it still needs to be readable, but we
00:03:50.200 | need to get back in that second movement of accuracy.
00:03:53.520 | We don't want to sacrifice accuracy for the sake of readability.
00:03:59.100 | And I think that's what's driven me in translating the New Testament.
00:04:03.040 | - And one of the things with that, I think we were trying to be consistent.
00:04:06.000 | I think the word has already been mentioned, and an example of that is in John.
00:04:10.800 | So as much as possible across books of the New Testament and within the New Testament
00:04:15.480 | itself, we wanted to translate the same word, if at all possible, within the context with
00:04:20.240 | the same word across the board.
00:04:21.940 | So in John 19, 28 through verse 30, we know the famous verse, "It is finished," and the
00:04:28.680 | word "finished," but it appears twice before verse 30, where it says, "Scripture was fulfilled
00:04:35.000 | in the Nazbe, it said that, and we took it back to finished," because it's the same root.
00:04:40.280 | And all the things that Jesus had done were finished, and we took it back to finished.
00:04:44.520 | So now you have three words that are the same in the Greek, translated as finished, as opposed
00:04:49.080 | to three different ways.
00:04:50.880 | And that kind of consistency helps the preacher, but of course the reader, to see that there's
00:04:55.840 | the same vocabulary behind the scenes that the author's trying to convey.
00:05:00.600 | And I think that's where the accuracy comes into picture, as Dr. Varner just described,
00:05:04.320 | this consistency was a big factor.
00:05:05.880 | So you generally felt that the NAS was what you thought it was, a sound, reliable translation,
00:05:15.640 | and tightening it up in some places to make it more precise, using the same translation
00:05:25.240 | of the same word so that people can connect the dots, were things that would make it better.
00:05:33.440 | And then maybe occasionally, you were thinking about the communication side of it.
00:05:37.720 | Would that be fair to some?
00:05:40.080 | - Yeah.
00:05:41.080 | - Sorry.
00:05:42.080 | - No, go ahead.
00:05:43.080 | - So one of the principles that we kept coming back to was, if it's not broken, don't fix
00:05:47.240 | it.
00:05:48.240 | And that goes to what Abner was saying, we were trying to preserve what is already a
00:05:51.480 | very good translation, where there was room for improvement, changes were made, and often
00:05:57.440 | that came about through drawing out consistency in the use of a word.
00:06:03.880 | And I really appreciate that, because I think it helps with the holistic grasp of what's
00:06:08.760 | going on throughout the Scriptures, and just showing the English Bible reader how interwoven
00:06:15.480 | the Scriptures are.
00:06:17.520 | - And I think from the very beginning, that's what we talked about, is that since the Bible
00:06:23.160 | is its own best interpreter, right, since Scripture interprets Scripture, you help the
00:06:29.120 | student if the connections are more visible by using the same word, even connecting the
00:06:37.560 | New Testament passages with themselves.
00:06:40.560 | So and that would be, what, say, percent of the effort that you did would be that kind
00:06:48.560 | of connection?
00:06:49.560 | - Substantial.
00:06:50.560 | - Substantial.
00:06:51.560 | - Substantial, yeah.
00:06:52.600 | - So that would have been a major effort in getting the NAS to where it needed to be was
00:06:58.680 | in using consistent translations of similar or the same words, so you connected all those
00:07:04.000 | things together.
00:07:05.000 | - And even across Testaments.
00:07:06.000 | So for example, seed, you know, it appears in various English forms, but we used seed
00:07:10.600 | across the New and the Old Testament to make sure the New Testament reader can connect
00:07:14.960 | it back to the promise of the seed in the Old Testament.
00:07:17.280 | - And that was very crucial so that we can understand that this is one book, there's
00:07:23.280 | one flow, and that the New Testament is picking up on the Old Testament, and you can see that
00:07:28.640 | in the English because the same kind of vocabulary is used, even something as simple as "now
00:07:34.520 | it happened," and making sure that the way the New Testament translates that kind of
00:07:40.320 | phraseology is the way the Old Testament translates that phraseology, so you have the understanding,
00:07:45.240 | "Hey, this is one book," yes, with many authors, one divine author, but one book, and it flows
00:07:51.880 | and it fits together.
00:07:52.880 | - And it would seem to me, since we are utterly and totally committed to God being the divine
00:07:59.500 | author of every part of Scripture, that this is a way to honor the single author.
00:08:08.480 | So that there's clarity that in many cases wouldn't exist if you didn't do that.
00:08:14.320 | - Yeah.
00:08:15.320 | No, that's right.
00:08:16.320 | - And I would just say one thing.
00:08:17.320 | When it was difficult to make a decision like that, consistency, accuracy, clarity, we left
00:08:22.840 | it as is, in thinking that the preacher is responsible to explain the text to the audience,
00:08:29.040 | as opposed to us as translators being responsible for the interpretation element.
00:08:33.640 | So I think we all hold each other accountable to that line, that we're not going to become
00:08:38.240 | interpreters but translators.
00:08:40.200 | - Yeah, and I think that is a definitive characteristic of this effort, that it is not an interpretation
00:08:48.920 | of the Scripture.
00:08:50.600 | It is the Scripture.
00:08:52.120 | - Yeah, that's what we're trying to deliver to the student of the Bible, to the believer,
00:08:59.120 | to the discipler, to the teacher, to the pastor, what the Bible says, and leave the decision
00:09:04.480 | of what it means and what stems from that to them.
00:09:09.200 | - So you wanted to give them in English what would be the closest thing to the original
00:09:15.080 | source as you could get.
00:09:17.240 | - That's right.
00:09:18.240 | And that's actually the genius, I think, of the New American Standard originally, was
00:09:23.640 | that they put things in italics to tell you this wasn't part of the original text.
00:09:28.860 | They put things in footnotes, whether that be extensive cross-references or translator
00:09:32.520 | notes to help explain what was going on behind the scenes in the text.
00:09:37.480 | There's a lot of resources that are packed into just one translation.
00:09:42.800 | It's a valuable tool, and that goes back to why we wanted to uphold it and why it was
00:09:47.500 | so wonderful to use.
00:09:49.240 | - It might be interesting for people to know that the two, I think, dominant translators
00:09:57.040 | on the original NAS77 were my teachers, Dr. Thomas and Dr. Feinberg.
00:10:06.800 | And if ever there lived an originalist, those two guys were originalists, and you all, you
00:10:13.240 | know Dr. Thomas, you didn't know Dr. Feinberg.
00:10:16.080 | But they had a lockdown mentality on the scripture, finding the scripture in its most accurate
00:10:24.520 | original sense.
00:10:26.600 | So the goal that you had in mind was to stay true to the original text, to make connections
00:10:33.200 | that might not have been visible in the past because the words were changed in English
00:10:37.560 | when they could have gone back to the same word and that would have made those ties clear.
00:10:42.680 | And occasionally you updated maybe the language a little bit, but I don't think you did a
00:10:48.920 | lot with, say, archaic language, because there wasn't a lot of archaic language in the NAS95.
00:10:56.760 | Most of it was taken out between '77 and '95, is that not correct?
00:11:01.880 | - Yeah.
00:11:02.880 | - So the these and those.
00:11:04.360 | - Yeah.
00:11:05.360 | - Yeah.
00:11:06.360 | So you weren't working with those.
00:11:07.360 | - No.
00:11:08.360 | - Well, that's incredible.
00:11:11.240 | You did have an appreciation for the NAS and the work that was done.
00:11:14.640 | - Yeah, absolutely.
00:11:15.640 | - Yeah.
00:11:16.640 | - There are many times Joe and I would talk after translating one of our sessions, how
00:11:21.160 | much we respect the NAS even more.
00:11:23.280 | We heard you say many times it is the most literal translation there is.
00:11:27.880 | And you know, growing up in this church, you hear that often, but now having been part
00:11:30.600 | of this project, it was reaffirmed by experience and through translation.
00:11:36.080 | Go ahead, Joe.
00:11:37.080 | - And this literal commitment to the original languages expresses itself in the word choice,
00:11:43.320 | but also in the word order.
00:11:46.600 | And then we were just talking before we started this, it spills over even into the punctuation.
00:11:52.280 | And this commitment to the order of the punctuation is apparent both in the Old Testament and
00:11:58.320 | in the New Testament.
00:11:59.320 | So you can see it across the board that they were really committed to getting it exactly
00:12:04.040 | as the original languages had it.
00:12:06.640 | - And sometimes, and it's not just that you have all this commitment across, the way they
00:12:12.000 | did it had reasons.
00:12:14.280 | And sometimes you couldn't figure that out at first, or sometimes I would write in my
00:12:17.880 | notes, "I think we can change this.
00:12:20.200 | I think we can increase the accuracy here.
00:12:21.960 | I think we can reorder it."
00:12:23.760 | And then a verse later, I'd say, "Nope, doesn't work.
00:12:26.240 | And we could do it this way.
00:12:27.240 | We could do it this way.
00:12:28.240 | We could do this way."
00:12:29.240 | Or we could just actually have it as is because that's actually the right way to do it, and
00:12:33.440 | we have no other choice.
00:12:35.320 | And we're kind of reinventing the wheel.
00:12:37.200 | But in reinventing the wheel in that sense, we realized they did a fantastic job.
00:12:41.600 | They really did a fantastic job.
00:12:43.040 | - Go ahead, Paul.
00:12:44.440 | - One of the implications that spills out of that that I wasn't anticipating, but it
00:12:48.480 | just kept impressing itself upon me is how much our reading and our interpretation of
00:12:53.880 | the Bible is to be in the local church.
00:12:57.920 | So there were so many times when we wanted to go beyond essentially what was there literally
00:13:03.160 | because it would make it that much clearer.
00:13:05.000 | - You wanted to help the preacher.
00:13:06.520 | - You want to help the reader, but we're not the one explaining.
00:13:11.280 | We're there as translators.
00:13:13.400 | So we're bound by what the text says.
00:13:15.280 | And then as we've already mentioned today in our discussions, time and time again, we'd
00:13:18.680 | say we trust that the preacher is going to explain.
00:13:22.360 | - So you had to exercise some restraint because you are all preachers.
00:13:26.860 | And the inclination is add an explanatory comment, but we're translators in this project.
00:13:31.800 | - So you were stifling one gift to make the most of it.
00:13:35.880 | - But it really does emphasize the importance of the local church in the act of reading
00:13:41.240 | and understanding the Bible and the role of the preacher, the responsibility that he has.
00:13:45.200 | - Well, that went down all the way to the footnote level.
00:13:48.080 | We wanted to minimize footnotes.
00:13:49.600 | - Yeah.
00:13:50.600 | So that was the next question.
00:13:51.600 | - Sure.
00:13:52.600 | - So how frequently did you put a footnote in?
00:13:54.320 | How often did you kind of face that challenge?
00:13:57.020 | - I think one of the things that we right off the bat were looking to do is to reduce
00:14:01.960 | footnotes.
00:14:02.960 | And that was always the kind of the go-to.
00:14:05.260 | Can we reduce, can we make this, take the footnote and actually stick it up into the
00:14:09.320 | text?
00:14:10.320 | And there were times that we had to maybe add a footnote or change one.
00:14:13.620 | But I think that was at least our goal is to make it less footnote oriented.
00:14:20.260 | But there were footnotes that we did add because of the uniqueness of the translation decisions
00:14:26.540 | we made.
00:14:27.820 | Some of the footnotes point out a wordplay that we couldn't articulate in the text without
00:14:33.620 | difficulty.
00:14:35.140 | And so you'll see literally this word cross-reference another passage, and that helps the reader
00:14:42.520 | to know, oh, there's a connection there.
00:14:45.700 | There's a correlation there.
00:14:47.740 | Another one, which I think was a very wise move since we did do Yahweh in the Old Testament.
00:14:53.780 | But what do you do with the word Lord in the New Testament?
00:14:56.680 | What we did is we put a footnote there every time it was translating the word Yahweh so
00:15:01.940 | that the reader can say, yes, the Greek is translating it Lord.
00:15:07.100 | And it should be that way because that's what our Greek New Testament says.
00:15:10.500 | That's what they wrote originally under the inspiration of the Spirit.
00:15:14.820 | But it's also going back to the Old Testament and saying Yahweh.
00:15:19.580 | And I think that really helps even to anchor and amplify the deity of Christ because so
00:15:25.180 | many passages using Kyrios, Lord, refer to Him.
00:15:28.780 | Use Yahweh in the Old Testament.
00:15:30.660 | That's a connection that most people would miss.
00:15:34.700 | So there's not an overt effort to give alternative translations.
00:15:40.980 | That's a disturbing trend in some newer translations where you get the feeling that the translators
00:15:47.020 | couldn't make up their mind or there wasn't enough information to make a decision.
00:15:51.940 | And when too many alternate translations are put in the margin, people lose confidence
00:15:57.420 | in what they're reading.
00:15:59.620 | So you fought those battles so that you didn't have to do that very often.
00:16:03.940 | Yeah.
00:16:04.940 | You helped us fight those battles because whenever we had a question, we couldn't solve
00:16:08.780 | it.
00:16:09.780 | We just said, "Well, let me talk to Dr. MacArthur."
00:16:12.540 | Were you leaning on my authority or my scholarship?
00:16:16.300 | We were leaning on your years of wisdom.
00:16:20.620 | And in all seriousness, that's the truth.
00:16:23.300 | I think I appreciated Dr. MacArthur so much that every time we would talk, you would insist
00:16:29.140 | what is the right thing to do.
00:16:31.200 | Not what is expedient, not what is comfortable, but what is right.
00:16:36.860 | And you kept bringing us back to that.
00:16:38.340 | And I think that provided clarity for a lot of our discussions.
00:16:40.500 | What makes sense, and not just in that one paragraph, but in the whole book.
00:16:44.180 | So an example I'm thinking of is we had a hard time deciding on maturity versus perfection
00:16:49.140 | in the book of Hebrews.
00:16:50.620 | And after going around for probably almost an hour, we finally said, "Okay, we have to
00:16:54.380 | go to Pastor John and see what he thinks."
00:16:57.180 | And you stepped in and helped us navigate that, but ultimately make the decision.
00:17:01.740 | Perfection was the right word, which is also in the NASB, but it's still in the LSB.
00:17:06.780 | Yeah, and just in the case of Hebrews, that's a very important word because one of my first
00:17:12.360 | courses in seminary was from Dr. Feinberg, and he pounded that term into us as to its
00:17:17.460 | meaning in the book of Hebrews.
00:17:18.720 | So you called me on the right question.
00:17:22.980 | You know, occasionally we would move what was in a footnote in the NASB to the text
00:17:29.780 | and switch what was in the text into a footnote.
00:17:32.080 | We didn't do that a lot, but we did it occasionally.
00:17:35.220 | I think of one time that I really had to have a little conversation with Dr. MacArthur twice.
00:17:42.580 | The name for Peter is not Simon, it's Simeon.
00:17:47.340 | You know, it's in 2 Peter 1.1 and also in Acts 15.14.
00:17:52.260 | And I thought that we should, like, bring that out.
00:17:55.560 | It's a little more Hebraic, Simeon, than Simon.
00:17:58.740 | It reflects the Shemaon a little bit better.
00:18:03.820 | And yet the NASB had Simon even in those two places.
00:18:07.980 | James refers to him as Simeon in Acts 15.14, but then he refers to himself as Simeon in
00:18:16.380 | 2 Peter 1.1.
00:18:18.380 | And we were going back and forth on that, and I actually wrote a long email, Dr. MacArthur.
00:18:23.580 | I just want you to know that I was convinced after the first sentence.
00:18:26.620 | Oh my, thanks for the rest.
00:18:29.820 | But you know, when Peter calls himself Simeon, he's calling himself that.
00:18:37.540 | You know, the liberals think that 2 Peter is a forgery that somebody in the second century
00:18:43.180 | wrote it.
00:18:44.360 | But no forger would use Simeon in 2 Peter 1.1.
00:18:49.780 | It's like a personal touch that Peter is giving.
00:18:52.620 | This is my name, guys, you know.
00:18:55.820 | And yeah, he was convinced.
00:18:58.620 | And I think this shows us that when we try to just say what it says, there's significance
00:19:07.180 | to that.
00:19:08.180 | We don't need to improve on anything.
00:19:11.860 | And when you go back to it, there's always a significance to it.
00:19:15.420 | You would assume, wouldn't you, that God is far more nuanced than we are, and that there's
00:19:21.780 | purpose in all of those?
00:19:23.740 | Yeah, that's wonderful.
00:19:25.500 | So a personal question from the spiritual standpoint and from the standpoint of looking
00:19:32.180 | at your life and ministry in the future.
00:19:35.380 | What value does this exercise have for you to go through so fastidiously every single
00:19:44.420 | word in the Bible and translate it?
00:19:48.740 | Who was the pilgrim's pastor, the guy in Holland, I forgot.
00:19:52.980 | But he was famous for saying, "I am convinced that there are yet fresh things to come out
00:19:58.240 | of the Word of God."
00:19:59.500 | Well, this old guy here, you know, at 72, and I became 73 during the process, still
00:20:07.260 | saw some fresh things coming out of the Word of God.
00:20:11.980 | And I can just say, you know, personally, it was a good spiritual experience for me
00:20:19.140 | working through every single word of the New Testament.
00:20:22.580 | And now, with a little bit at a distance, the Old Testament, it was a great spiritual
00:20:28.140 | experience.
00:20:29.140 | And I think the process also works to strengthen your doctrinal conviction, because you're
00:20:36.020 | finding other places that's being supported that you maybe hadn't thought of or discovered.
00:20:42.060 | - Yeah, the depth of verbal plenary inspiration.
00:20:45.460 | I was telling my students this.
00:20:47.540 | I told them, "We don't even know how far that goes."
00:20:51.540 | Because all of a sudden, you start to realize, well, that word choice mattered, because it
00:20:56.380 | was linked with that word over there, which was linked with that word over there, and
00:21:00.580 | all of that was there.
00:21:02.460 | And then you have alliteration here.
00:21:05.340 | Sometimes we try to bring that out into the translation.
00:21:07.780 | When they alliterated, we alliterated.
00:21:09.980 | But sometimes you just can't, because it's English, and that's Greek or Hebrew, and you
00:21:14.340 | can't make it work.
00:21:15.340 | But you just realize how precise and exacting and exhaustive is God's inspiration of His
00:21:23.060 | Word.
00:21:24.060 | It's amazing.
00:21:25.060 | - You know, just kind of thinking through a message for this coming Sunday, Jesus says
00:21:29.260 | to Nicodemus, "How can you be the teacher in Israel and not understand the new birth?"
00:21:37.020 | Somebody might say, "Well, that's a New Testament truth."
00:21:39.300 | No, how could you be the teacher in Israel and not know the Old Testament doctrine of
00:21:47.060 | regeneration?
00:21:48.060 | You know, Ezekiel and, yeah, so that ability, I mean, basically in my whole life, from the
00:21:58.140 | time I was a student, connecting the Bible became everything to me.
00:22:04.900 | People who have come to our church recently, haven't been here, have said to me, "We've
00:22:08.780 | never heard so many Bible verses in a sermon.
00:22:11.140 | Oh, you have so many Bible verses."
00:22:12.900 | But all I'm doing is connecting all the dots, and the more the translation enables you to
00:22:19.620 | do that, the richer, and not only the richer, but the more authority is built into the message.
00:22:30.140 | And I can't imagine a greater benefit for a believer like you guys than to absorb more
00:22:37.660 | of the Word of God, just more and more.
00:22:39.780 | I mean, I've always said that I'm the beneficiary of my sermons far more than anybody else because
00:22:45.260 | just getting to that point was intense and many more hours than you're preaching, you're
00:22:51.020 | preparing, so.
00:22:52.020 | Yeah, I think back to those Wednesday morning Zoom calls that, you know, would go on for
00:22:56.180 | four or five hours, and they were mentally taxing, but they were just so edifying.
00:23:01.620 | And we weren't looking at each other's faces, we were all looking at one screen with the
00:23:05.180 | text on it, and it was just constant dialogue about what is the right translation here.
00:23:11.080 | And for me personally, every single time, my eyes were just being opened more and more
00:23:15.100 | to all that is going on in Scripture, and you just see how wonderfully rich it is and
00:23:19.460 | how much more there is to explore.
00:23:21.540 | Could make your sermons longer.
00:23:25.980 | Just a couple of other questions.
00:23:28.620 | You did some things to point out tense in the Greek, which sometimes get overlooked.
00:23:34.980 | What would happen in those kinds of descriptions?
00:23:38.180 | Oftentimes the imperfect tense is overlooked, and some translations would just translate
00:23:44.740 | it as a simple past.
00:23:47.100 | But there's an imperfective continuous aspect going on there in the past with the imperfect
00:23:54.120 | and a continuous action in the present.
00:23:57.060 | And that's easily overlooked in a translation.
00:24:01.620 | It's like the imperfect, he lifted up his eyes and he was praying.
00:24:08.100 | It shifts to the imperfect.
00:24:09.860 | So it's like he lifted up his eyes, that's just a, you know, an action.
00:24:13.620 | But when the writer wants us to focus in closer on it, he was praying.
00:24:19.160 | You know, it's like, and we tried to bring that out in the imperfect, or he continued
00:24:24.380 | praying.
00:24:25.380 | You know, the imperfect can have an inceptive imperfect, he began praying, or a continuation,
00:24:32.020 | he continued praying.
00:24:33.360 | We tried to bring that out without, you know, being overly crazy about it.
00:24:39.980 | But I think that brings you up closer with the present and the imperfect tense.
00:24:44.700 | You see the action, it's going on, it's more dynamic, is what I'm trying to say.
00:24:51.140 | And that's because God put it there, you're recognizing that.
00:24:56.980 | And I mean, it wasn't just the imperfects, it was also participles.
00:24:59.620 | Jason, I know that you had some favorite examples of that.
00:25:02.780 | Just Romans 12, even just a few years ago, trying to work through that, and it just sometimes
00:25:10.300 | it seems like Paul is giving, like, several different things that are disconnected, a
00:25:17.380 | way that sometimes it's translated.
00:25:19.260 | So like, for instance, in verse 9 of chapter 12, "Let love be without hypocrisy."
00:25:24.100 | And then there's several participles that all connect back to show what this sincere
00:25:29.700 | genuine love without hypocrisy looks like.
00:25:32.780 | And so we tried to really work at helping the reader see that, and then see how all
00:25:39.500 | of the various participles connect back to that idea.
00:25:42.780 | So rather than a list of equal things, they're simply describing loving without hypocrisy.
00:25:49.060 | Yeah.
00:25:50.060 | Here are all these books that tell you how to do something when actually the Bible does.
00:25:55.020 | So you can just read your Bible and find out how to love without hypocrisy.
00:25:58.860 | Did you need to do this translation with some kind of a manual?
00:26:02.780 | Not exactly.
00:26:03.780 | I think we've been trained by you.
00:26:06.820 | But I mean, there is no manual on that.
00:26:08.940 | You're just dealing with the original.
00:26:11.180 | Well, I was trained by you and you.
00:26:15.540 | But our chairman didn't give us a book that said, "You've got to do it this way.
00:26:20.220 | You've got to do it this way.
00:26:21.220 | You've got to do it this way."
00:26:22.220 | No, no.
00:26:23.220 | He trusted us, under God, he trusted us to have our understanding of the original language.
00:26:30.060 | And then also we met together.
00:26:32.420 | You know, these 450 translations, you know why there's so many?
00:26:36.700 | Many of them are done by one guy, okay?
00:26:39.620 | That should not be done.
00:26:41.260 | One guy should not do a translation.
00:26:43.900 | You know, from the King James, you know, group on, there was a team because I might make
00:26:50.000 | a mistake.
00:26:52.460 | And a brother can correct me and say, "You know, I think you're going in the wrong direction
00:26:56.100 | there."
00:26:57.100 | And we helped each other in that regard, whereas if it's just one guy, he's going to do it
00:27:01.260 | and that's it.
00:27:02.260 | And he answers to no one.
00:27:04.020 | I like the team concept.
00:27:05.900 | And the fact that you were operating not only from a scholastic level and a level of conviction,
00:27:12.140 | but alive in the spirit, whereas there were guys in the original King James who were definitely
00:27:19.720 | not even converted.
00:27:21.660 | So, but maybe being a little closer to the original by a few hundred years.
00:27:27.260 | Well, I mean, we didn't have a manual, but we knew some principles and some goals.
00:27:32.340 | Agreed upon.
00:27:33.340 | Yeah.
00:27:34.340 | And it was about what the text said as opposed to why it said what it said or making sure
00:27:39.740 | we focused on bringing the words over or consistency and upholding the translation where we could.
00:27:46.260 | And we had to hold each other to those principles.
00:27:49.180 | So there was no manual.
00:27:51.500 | I wish sometimes there was a manual to make things easier, but we had to state some very
00:27:57.220 | core principles and then trust the Lord and trust each other.
00:28:02.180 | And we're very like-minded and it was beautiful to see.
00:28:05.260 | Sometimes we would come with a problem and that's where the team dynamic comes because
00:28:09.660 | then we work to solve it.
00:28:11.340 | That was always the trajectory.
00:28:12.340 | It was always work to solve the problem.
00:28:14.580 | And the solution was always better than the options originally given.
00:28:18.340 | And if I get outvoted four to one, maybe that's telling me something that my idea may not
00:28:23.280 | be the correct one.
00:28:24.280 | You know, one of the things along that line that happens in a translation is it's made
00:28:27.900 | up of a committee of people from different theologies and different categories.
00:28:32.900 | And you've got to sort of play the game of I got my deal.
00:28:35.980 | So in chapter five, you get your deal in chapter six.
00:28:40.180 | And you didn't have any of that because you guys are on the same page.
00:28:44.020 | So you feel that all of you can affirm this translation.
00:28:49.860 | Nobody felt like he gave up something because he got something somewhere else.
00:28:53.580 | And I think one of the really cool features of it too is, you know, you have these translations
00:28:58.500 | where they kind of parcel out either books or sections to a variety of different guys.
00:29:04.900 | And so you get different flows and they translate something different in one than another book.
00:29:11.860 | And the way we did it, I really was encouraged because all six of us are going through all
00:29:18.260 | of it.
00:29:19.260 | We're not parceling it out.
00:29:20.660 | And that was really, I think, just fun to see the camaraderie build and also to have
00:29:27.580 | six eyes on it, but yet have a consistency across the board.
00:29:32.220 | >> Yeah, there's a continuity to that.
00:29:33.900 | >> And we also had a few external reviewers as well, outside our group of six.
00:29:37.980 | >> That was my next question.
00:29:39.460 | So you guys care about each other and you love each other and you work together.
00:29:45.620 | So you might be a little more amiable than people who aren't so connected.
00:29:51.740 | So you did consult some other people.
00:29:54.460 | You ran these things by people in the outside group for some validation.
00:29:58.780 | How did that go?
00:29:59.780 | How did that process work?
00:30:01.600 | >> So after we finished New Testament Psalms and Proverbs, we had a list of people, external
00:30:08.940 | reviewers is what we called them.
00:30:10.900 | And we really appreciated them.
00:30:11.980 | They gave sacrificially of their time to really look at the text carefully, to give us a lot
00:30:17.900 | of helpful notes.
00:30:21.340 | And we sent copies of different books that they requested or parts of books that they
00:30:27.340 | requested for them to look over in that way.
00:30:29.900 | And they would provide us feedback.
00:30:32.140 | And because of the lockdown, the way we often did it was we would write their comments anonymous.
00:30:40.700 | So no one knew who was saying what in a Google Doc, in an online spreadsheet.
00:30:46.260 | And everyone had the opportunity to kind of interact and think through it.
00:30:50.100 | And at one point, I remember because I'm filling out the spreadsheet, I think it was about
00:30:54.420 | a thousand comments a day.
00:30:56.180 | >> A thousand comments a day from external readers.
00:31:00.180 | Out of that thousand comments, did you find some?
00:31:03.700 | >> They were really good.
00:31:05.540 | They were really good.
00:31:06.540 | They were very helpful.
00:31:07.540 | >> So some of it was affirmation?
00:31:08.540 | >> Some of it was affirmation, but actually the thousand were issues we needed to think
00:31:12.180 | through.
00:31:13.180 | >> Wow.
00:31:14.180 | >> And it's very significant.
00:31:15.420 | >> And sometimes it would come out, "No, we made the right choice."
00:31:18.540 | And they didn't have the whole picture.
00:31:19.820 | And that's not their fault.
00:31:20.820 | We didn't give them the whole picture.
00:31:23.180 | >> But just running your translation against that is very, very important for that external
00:31:29.500 | reader.
00:31:30.500 | >> Yeah.
00:31:31.500 | There were different types of people.
00:31:32.500 | We had some language experts reading, but also some pastors.
00:31:34.420 | And so both types of comments were coming at us, so we can think from both elements.
00:31:38.340 | >> Yeah, and even some like long-term NAS readers that, you know, they love this translation
00:31:46.500 | and just being able to --
00:31:47.500 | >> Was that the general consensus of the people that read it, that they liked it, that they
00:31:52.540 | appreciated what you have done?
00:31:54.140 | >> I think so.
00:31:55.140 | >> Yeah.
00:31:56.140 | There was deep appreciation.
00:31:57.140 | And there would be a lot of comments.
00:31:58.820 | And I didn't always share it with the guys because my hands got tired typing.
00:32:04.300 | But they would be, "Thank you for doing that.
00:32:06.460 | Thank you for doing that.
00:32:07.540 | Thank you for doing that."
00:32:08.540 | >> And they were talking about something specific.
00:32:09.540 | >> That's right.
00:32:10.540 | They, you know, in 1 John, "Thank you for translating it that way.
00:32:13.380 | Thank you for doing that."
00:32:14.380 | You know, "Oh, thank you for doing that in Proverbs."
00:32:16.180 | >> So while this is your project at the heart, there's a consensus of guys on the outside.
00:32:21.340 | >> Absolutely.
00:32:22.340 | >> But this is a worthy effort.
00:32:23.340 | >> Yeah.
00:32:24.340 | And it's not just within America.
00:32:25.340 | It's going to be spread out outside of America to the broader English-speaking world because
00:32:29.100 | this isn't just going to be for Americans, we hope.
00:32:31.780 | We hope it goes and reaches the world.
00:32:35.180 | And so we wanted to make sure it connects.
00:32:36.620 | >> Which is why it's not called the New New American.
00:32:40.140 | >> Right, Paul?
00:32:41.740 | >> Amen.
00:32:42.740 | >> Well, we got a few Russians and we got a UK guy.
00:32:48.780 | I need to thank you all.
00:32:49.860 | I mean, I can't even calculate the hours.
00:32:52.700 | I know it's taken over your life and the rest of you as well.
00:32:59.920 | I think the Lord will put His stamp on this in the end and we'll know.
00:33:06.740 | The question that might be a good wrap-up is, does this translation have the potential
00:33:13.440 | to last a while?
00:33:15.660 | Everybody seems to be chasing the vernacular.
00:33:18.180 | You get a translation, two years later they want to do an update, and two years later
00:33:21.820 | they want to do an update as they chase vernacular.
00:33:25.580 | What do you think?
00:33:26.580 | Now, having said that the NAS-95 is what this is based on, and that's a quarter of a century
00:33:32.540 | ago, you didn't make dramatic vernacular changes even in this from that one.
00:33:40.140 | So do you feel this has lasting value, readability?
00:33:44.820 | >> I think, yeah, fundamentally it does.
00:33:47.860 | And I think the philosophy behind it is what gives it long-lasting value.
00:33:53.300 | Because if you make a translation in order to accommodate or to appease or to chase after
00:33:59.540 | the vernacular, well, you've already set up the translation to be replaced when vernacular
00:34:05.640 | changes and society changes.
00:34:07.240 | But our translation philosophy was to do what they were doing before, like Dr. Varner mentioned,
00:34:13.660 | which was to move it back to accuracy.
00:34:17.340 | And that was always the goal.
00:34:18.880 | And for people who are inclined that way, then they don't want it to change because
00:34:23.980 | the Word of God doesn't change.
00:34:25.300 | >> You know, and I'm sort of a living illustration of that.
00:34:27.880 | Having preached for over half a century, I never felt any inclination to need something
00:34:34.940 | other than the NAS I was using, and I could make the adjustments I needed to make.
00:34:41.220 | But I'm thrilled about this, not because it's driven by a new vernacular, but because it's
00:34:46.620 | driven by a desire to be more correct.
00:34:51.180 | And so it will have a long, long life, and that's important.
00:34:55.660 | I also remind everybody that when we started this, we said we're concerned with the author
00:35:03.940 | and not the reader.
00:35:06.940 | That communicates that this is not about what a reader needs to read, but what the writer
00:35:12.860 | intended to say.
00:35:15.260 | So that's the uniqueness of this.
00:35:16.740 | So thank you.
00:35:19.200 | And your work is not done?
00:35:20.740 | >> Not nearly.
00:35:22.740 | >> But we're persevering, and they're doing a great job.
00:35:26.660 | >> So when will the people see a translation of the Legacy Standard Bible that they can
00:35:36.260 | read?
00:35:37.780 | Will the first appearance of that be online?
00:35:40.620 | >> I think it'll be at Shepherd's Conference.
00:35:42.620 | >> In March.
00:35:43.620 | >> In March at Shepherd's Conference.
00:35:44.620 | >> And they'll have that Psalms, New Testament, and Proverbs volume.
00:35:48.820 | >> We're going to call that the Legacy Testament, I think.
00:35:51.620 | Is that right?
00:35:52.620 | >> Legacy Standard Bible, New Testament, with Psalms and Proverbs.
00:35:55.620 | >> Okay.
00:35:56.620 | The full treatment.
00:35:57.620 | >> And that'll be the first thing.
00:35:59.060 | It's like a four by six?
00:36:01.060 | >> Yep.
00:36:02.060 | We have a mock-up.
00:36:03.060 | >> Then, yeah, that—I asked for that because for years and years and years, I've used one
00:36:09.580 | of these in my shepherding ministry, and there it is, Legacy Standard Bible, New Testament,
00:36:17.660 | Psalms, and Proverbs.
00:36:18.660 | Had you seen that before?
00:36:19.660 | >> It's a small one.
00:36:20.660 | It's great.
00:36:21.660 | It's beautiful.
00:36:22.660 | >> But I've carried one of those for years in hospital visits and home calls and on the
00:36:29.340 | planes and wherever I go, and I want to have a tool that's easily transportable.
00:36:36.340 | It's a whole lot more portable than a MacArthur study plane, which I have so that I know what
00:36:42.780 | I believe.
00:36:43.780 | But anyway, that's actually the cover, isn't it?
00:36:47.540 | That's going to be a real—the pastors at Shepherds Convention are going to love that.
00:36:51.740 | We opened the registration, right?
00:36:53.940 | >> We did.
00:36:54.940 | >> And 750 signed up the first day?
00:36:57.500 | >> First week, yeah.
00:36:58.500 | >> First week.
00:36:59.500 | >> They heard they were getting a free Bible.
00:37:01.180 | >> You probably heard this.
00:37:02.620 | This is beautiful.
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