Legacy Standard Bible - Italics, Capitalization, and John 3:16

00:00:00.000 | Hi, I'm Abner Chow, one of the translators for the Legacy Standard Bible.

00:00:05.680 | We've been laboring and praying over this translation, and we've been encouraged because

00:00:10.000 | the Lord has graciously even begun to answer our prayers through you because of your response,

00:00:17.040 | and we've been encouraged by your heart and love for the Word of God and the God of the

00:00:22.560 | Word.

00:00:23.560 | And along with your responses, you've raised some really good questions, and we're very

00:00:28.400 | thankful for that because it reflects the heart that seeks after the Word of God, and

00:00:32.480 | it provides us some opportunity for edification, and that's what we like to do at this time.

00:00:38.200 | I've been asked to answer some of these questions in a little bit more casual, a little bit

00:00:42.440 | more personal environment, and so I'm in my office right now, one of the locations where

00:00:48.320 | I have worked on this translation to deal with and to respond to some of your questions,

00:00:54.880 | and I hope that this time will be one of great edification and learning.

00:01:00.460 | So without further ado, let's walk through four questions that you all have posed to

00:01:06.040 | us.

00:01:07.440 | Here's the first one.

00:01:08.920 | Why does the Legacy Standard Bible italicize certain words?

00:01:14.960 | Well, that's a really important question.

00:01:18.600 | That's a very, very vital question because any translation, including the Legacy Standard

00:01:23.560 | Bible, it's a tool.

00:01:26.080 | It's an instrument that we use to study God's Word more, and so we want to know how to use

00:01:32.560 | it.

00:01:33.560 | And in light of that, the whole purpose, the whole design of the tool of the Legacy Standard

00:01:38.800 | Bible is to understand what was originally written in Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew.

00:01:47.640 | It is supposed to be a window into the original languages, and so the words and the phrases

00:01:54.080 | found in the Legacy Standard Bible are designed to correspond exactly with the words and grammatical

00:02:00.720 | features of the original languages, and that's where italics comes in.

00:02:06.360 | Words that are in italics are telling you that while this word is inferred by the original

00:02:11.560 | text and needed to make sense of things in English, the word itself in italics does not

00:02:18.620 | inherently correspond to a word found in the original language or grammatical feature therein.

00:02:27.080 | That's what italicized words indicate, something that is there and has a function to help make

00:02:32.960 | sense of something in English but not found in the original.

00:02:37.920 | And that's important for Bible study because we don't want to base our theology or make

00:02:42.000 | a huge point on italicized words.

00:02:44.560 | They have a purpose, but it's not that.

00:02:47.960 | Here's a second question that has come across my desk, and that is, "Why does the Legacy

00:02:53.040 | Standard Bible put Old Testament quotations in small caps?"

00:02:58.340 | That's another really excellent question because, again, it helps us to understand how to use

00:03:03.920 | this resource, the Legacy Standard Bible, better.

00:03:08.300 | As you probably know, the Legacy Standard Bible, even by its name, is designed to preserve

00:03:13.640 | the New American Standard Bible, and that translation upheld the notion of putting Old

00:03:20.160 | Testament quotes in small caps because in Greek New Testaments that modern-day scholars

00:03:25.880 | use, we designate and delineate Old Testament quotations in one way or another, and so the

00:03:32.600 | New American Standard, and by extension, the Legacy Standard Bible, brings that over to

00:03:37.840 | the English reader.

00:03:39.740 | And that really has two benefits.

00:03:42.000 | Fundamentally, it has the benefit of alerting us as readers when the Old Testament is being

00:03:48.200 | quoted by the New Testament so that we catch some very important cross-references and connections

00:03:53.600 | and we see how the new is connected with the old and importing the theology from old to

00:03:58.480 | new.

00:03:59.480 | We might not be able to detect these normally otherwise, and so this is just a helpful tool

00:04:04.080 | for us to make those important and vital associations.

00:04:08.640 | And secondly, what we call "typography," the different typesetting, helps us to quickly

00:04:16.520 | locate certain passages.

00:04:18.000 | You might think, "Oh yeah, I was looking for this one verse and I remember there's this

00:04:21.240 | Old Testament quote nearby, it's in small caps," and that helps us to find texts faster.

00:04:27.260 | So those are some tools and tips for you.

00:04:30.880 | Here's a third question.

00:04:32.480 | Why does the Legacy Standard Bible capitalize pronouns referring to deity?

00:04:38.920 | That's another great question, and again, it goes back to preserving what the New American

00:04:44.020 | Standard Bible did.

00:04:45.120 | The Legacy Standard Bible is not the only translation that does this, and it does this

00:04:50.120 | for two reasons.

00:04:51.820 | One is because we want to show honor, in at least a very small way, we want to show honor

00:04:57.160 | to our God, who is far greater than man.

00:05:01.240 | And second, it helps you to track along with what the original author intended.

00:05:06.740 | The author might have, and does often, clearly delineate grammatically that a pronoun refers

00:05:13.000 | to God, and so we wanted to show that so you know when this pronoun is talking about God,

00:05:18.400 | and when a pronoun is not talking about God, it's talking about man.

00:05:22.620 | So when it was grammatically clear and unambiguous, we capitalized pronouns that referred to deity.

00:05:29.220 | When there was any debate or possibility otherwise, we wanted to be safer than sorry, so we left

00:05:34.320 | it lowercase but designated it by a footnote.

00:05:38.460 | A final question, the fourth and final question, and this is a longer and more involved question,

00:05:45.100 | but it's an excellent question, and it's this.

00:05:48.060 | Why does the Legacy Standard Bible retain "only begotten" in its translation of John 3:16?

00:05:55.800 | Like I said, this is a really great question, and I empathize with it, because we know how

00:06:00.700 | the cults have abused and misused the phraseology of "only begotten" to wrongly insinuate that

00:06:07.820 | Jesus is created or made.

00:06:10.200 | That is completely false.

00:06:12.400 | And so I can understand our desire to want to translate it something like "one and only"

00:06:17.080 | or "the only one."

00:06:18.840 | That's a quick and clear conclusion that you can draw from a translation, and there's definitely

00:06:23.580 | room for that for that very reason.

00:06:26.220 | But part of what is in translation, and particularly with the Legacy Standard Bible, is to communicate

00:06:31.840 | what the text says, and also through that to be a window into why it says fully what

00:06:39.600 | it says.

00:06:40.600 | It's a platform for theology in that way.

00:06:44.240 | And to be clear, research has demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that the word

00:06:50.480 | "only begotten" in Greek does not inherently and certainly does not always denote creation

00:06:57.020 | or being made.

00:06:58.660 | There are plenty of times when the Greek Old Testament translates using this word for "only

00:07:04.740 | begotten" a Hebrew word which means "only one," "exclusive," "one and only."

00:07:10.520 | And so to be sure, the Greek word does not necessarily or inherently mean creation at

00:07:17.840 | all.

00:07:18.840 | That's a false implication.

00:07:20.600 | It does move toward uniqueness.

00:07:23.480 | But it's not just good enough to say what a word does not imply or does not mean.

00:07:28.200 | We need to know what it does mean and means fully.

00:07:31.740 | And recent research, say in the last five to ten years, has really brought this forth

00:07:36.860 | once again.

00:07:38.240 | For instance, we know that in John, he makes a big deal about birth.

00:07:42.840 | John chapter 3, "born again."

00:07:45.200 | That's the very context of John 3, 16.

00:07:48.560 | And in 1 John, we have the language of "having been born of God."

00:07:53.200 | John really does, as the apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, emphasize

00:07:59.080 | the notion of birth.

00:08:01.080 | And that matters because that ties into the notion of begotten.

00:08:05.080 | And we need to recover this notion.

00:08:06.920 | And a good illustration of that is found in Psalm chapter 2, Psalm 2.

00:08:13.440 | And that passage says, "Today I have begotten you."

00:08:19.080 | Now the background of that passage, the historical background of the whole text and the whole

00:08:23.200 | concept of begetting, comes from coronation, coronation, a son becoming king because he's

00:08:30.040 | begotten of his father.

00:08:32.080 | Now think about this with me.

00:08:33.480 | How do sons become kings?

00:08:35.160 | It's because their dad was a king.

00:08:37.480 | Because they share the same family heritage.

00:08:40.480 | Because they're of the same genealogical line.

00:08:43.360 | Because they have the same royal blood flowing through their veins.

00:08:47.320 | And so the declaration of begetting is a declaration, "Son, we share something together.

00:08:53.200 | We're united in something.

00:08:55.440 | And that's why you have the same status that I do, even though we're distinct persons,

00:09:00.680 | father and son."

00:09:02.000 | It's unity even though there is distinction.

00:09:06.000 | Well what makes then Jesus so unique, so exclusive in John 3:16?

00:09:11.400 | It is because he perfectly shares, he absolutely shares with his father the exact same nature

00:09:18.700 | and essence because they are one in nature and essence.

00:09:23.480 | That is what is going on with the idea of begetting even as they are distinct persons.

00:09:29.080 | They perfectly share, they are perfectly in union in their essence even as they are distinct

00:09:35.040 | persons.

00:09:36.520 | That is the notion of begetting and we need that.

00:09:39.860 | We need that.

00:09:41.120 | Remember, John talks a lot about the new birth, about birth.

00:09:45.520 | How are we born again?

00:09:47.040 | Why and how can we be changed so that we can share in God's holiness and commune with him?

00:09:55.120 | It is because God always, internal to himself, eternally, forever, has shared himself with

00:10:04.360 | his son.

00:10:05.360 | They are one in essence, one in nature, even as they are distinct persons.

00:10:12.920 | And it is because God has always done that internally and eternally to himself that you

00:10:18.800 | can have the conceptualization for why God can do that in a derivative way with those

00:10:25.480 | who are created actually and external to God.

00:10:30.040 | That would be like you and me.

00:10:32.120 | And so, only begotten, there is a lot of theology in there.

00:10:35.860 | It not only affirms wholeheartedly the deity of Christ, maybe counter to our first instinctive

00:10:42.080 | reactions, but that is what it says, union between the two even as distinct persons,

00:10:47.960 | the connection and union and sharing absolutely between Father and Son, but it also tells

00:10:54.560 | us why that matters, why we need it.

00:10:57.280 | Because if you don't have that Trinitarian interaction, then there's no platform, there's

00:11:01.480 | no foundation, no conceptualization for how we are saved and we can relate to the Father

00:11:09.800 | and the Son and the Holy Spirit and the entire Godhead.

00:11:13.240 | Put it simply, God's relationship eternally with his Son is the only reason why we can

00:11:19.600 | have a relationship with God himself.

00:11:23.600 | And so it shows us that every word of Scripture matters and your questions are great because

00:11:29.280 | they remind us of that.

00:11:31.600 | And so along that line, while we definitely encourage you to read the preface to the Legacy

00:11:36.620 | Standard Bible and visit our FAQs on the website, which can answer a bunch of questions.

00:11:42.060 | If you or your friends or a bunch of you have a question, please get in contact with us

00:11:47.800 | through the Contact Us part of the LSB website and send us your questions so that we can

00:11:54.560 | have more opportunities for edification.

00:11:57.000 | Well, I hope that's exactly what has happened.

00:11:59.760 | Thank you for your questions.

00:12:01.280 | Thank you for investing yourself in the Scripture and I hope to learn more with you all soon.

Legacy Standard Bible - Italics, Capitalization, and John 3:16 - Q&A #1 with Abner Chou

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