Well, here we are, all again, another round. And unlike the first time where we kind of did some more general ideas behind the translation, this time we want to go into a little bit more detail, kind of take people behind the scenes. They have a lot of questions. They're great questions.

And sometimes people just don't know all that goes behind a translation. And by giving them that information, it can be really clarifying and really edifying. And so that's kind of the goal of this time. I'm just going to ask you questions. This time I don't have to work as hard.

I can ask you guys the questions and you all can help us understand better the nature of translation and what we did in the Legacy Standard Bible. So with that in mind, kind of a first question, regards of fundamental framework kind of issue. Sometimes when people come to their translation, they're looking for what speaks to me, what sounds good to me.

It uses my kind of language. I like the way it sounds. And while that's not bad and those aren't wrong ideas, the question I would have is, is that the most fundamental question we should be asking when we think about the issue of translation? So Jason, help us to think through the notion of a window.

What is the purpose of a translation, specifically a Bible translation, a translation of the Scripture, the Word of God? And help us to have the right approach here as we begin. Yeah. I think one of the things that, as we approach the project in general, is that the fundamental aspect of what we're looking to accomplish is having a window for the reader to be able to peer into the original language.

We are, I would say, we are strong in holding to inspiration. We look at that every part, every word is inspired and the whole of Scripture is inspired. And so with that kind of a fundamental baseline as we approach the text, we're looking to replicate an author's word choice, a particular wordplay that he has decided to do.

And so our goal was not to simply kind of smooth it out and be stylistic and do different changes and things like that. Our goal was to be as close to the original so the reader could look into that window and see this is what the authorial intent accomplished.

This is how we looked at the text and worked hard to replicate what the original said into English as best we could so the reader could see the word plays, they could see the authorial flow and thought. One of the things that comes to mind is 2 Timothy 3.17 and the NASB has this, "so that the man of God may be adequate and equipped for every good work." But there's a wordplay there, "artos" and "exartos" and so you have this idea of being equipped and then we wanted to show that emphasis of that second term use, that perfect participle of being thoroughly equipped and that's kind of when you look at it and it may seem redundant but it's not redundant because as we really hold fast to what the author chose, inspired by the spirit, looking at and choosing that wordplay, we wanted to replicate that as best we could for the reader so they could follow along because the goal I think in all of it is to be that window to show what the author has written versus kind of the stylistic and smoothing it out.

- Yeah, so in other words, a translation is not necessarily what I'd like it to be but what the scripture says and that's kind of the standard and in this case, we're trying to make sure that when people read their Bible, in a sense, it's almost as if they're reading the Greek and Hebrew, what we would see when we read Greek and Hebrew and so if something's repeated there, we should repeat it.

If there's a wordplay there, we should read it and have it that way because we're trying to replicate, we're trying to be that window into the original. That's really helpful. - Yeah, and it goes into even levels of grammar so we talked about either repetition or as Jason said, trying to see the emphatic, the participle, the perfect but if you see a series of participles, sometimes in the NAS, it was translated as a verb or as an imperative.

We tried to demonstrate, no, there's actual parallelism that the author was trying to convey and we're going to capture that as much as possible for this translation. - Yeah, no, this is helpful. We are trying to replicate what is going on in the original text and so we're not really making decisions based upon what we would like.

We're making decisions based upon the standard which is what the original said and matching that. That's kind of determining us. - Yeah, because when you think of like Mark, right, and you look at Mark and we translated all the chi's in Mark because Mark specifically chose those chi's and so it might seem redundant at first, the ands, the ands, the ands in that but Mark specifically chose those things for a reason and so leaving it there for the reader to be able to follow and then also ask the question, why did Mark choose to structure his gospel that way?

- Yeah, this is helpful. Our choices are really determined by the Bible's choices in that way. - Let me, can I add one more example to this? I think it's helpful. - Please. - Especially in John. So John, in his gospel, tries to emphasize this eternality of eternal life and protection that we get from God and so I remember we had a long discussion about how to best capture this.

- I remember that. - So one example is from John chapter eight. It's a famous verse. I will give them eternal life and they will never perish but we added ever because in the original Greek, there is more emphasis just never perish and there's different ways to say that and so in order to show this to the reader, we did this in every single instance of that phrase.

- Yeah, there's a very emphatic negation or extension and there's several levels of it and this is the most intense and yeah, I remember we really wrestled with how to convey that and each of those distinctions properly and that's a great example. That's really helpful and all of this I think illustrates that I think earlier in our conversation, Pastor John, Dr.

MacArthur said, "Do you guys have a manual for these kinds of things?" and we said, "No, there's no written guidebook." I mean, sometimes I think we wish there was one that kind of said, "Step one, do this. Step two, do that," but that doesn't mean that there weren't carefully designed reasons and carefully designed principles that drove every single decision.

It wasn't done on a whim and so I think it's good to take people behind the scenes and show these are the decisions, these are the principles involved and they guided and they actually set the boundary lines and determine the decisions that we made and so I just like to walk through some of these big principles and it even helps people to know how we thought through this and it makes them better able to use a translation because they would know, "Oh, if the translators did this here, well, that's probably because of this so I need to be looking for something like that as I study the Bible," and so this kind of gives them that insider information in a good way.

So with that in mind, let's go through some rules. Here's the first one, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Paul, speak to us on the nature of that and the implications of that. So the one thing that I have tried to emphasize to folks as they've asked about the translation along the way is that we're building upon the preexisting NASB translation and oftentimes in our discussions, we would say that, "If it's not broken, then don't fix it.

We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here." The implication is if you're not familiar with the NASB as a translation, this is not going to read as radically different. I mean, it doesn't but that's the point. If you're very, very familiar with the NASB, you'll see the changes we've made and we're building on that foundation.

But in many senses, the aim of the project was to preserve and improve upon an already existing translation. Yeah. I think sometimes people wonder when new translations come out, is this undermining people's confidence in translation? And I would say that this project in a lot of ways is the opposite of that.

What it's trying to do is confirm for generations to come, they did it right. They did it right. They did it right over and over and over again. You can trust this. It stands the highest scrutiny. It stands multiple rounds of scrutiny. They did it right. And I think that's really important for us to emphasize to people, especially as translations are coming out and people are thinking, "Well, can anybody figure out what the Word of God says?

What was written?" And the answer is yes. They got it right and that's a legacy that we want to leave with people. When you read a psalm or you read any passage and it reads very much like you've read it and you read it and you compare it to NASB and you say, "You guys didn't change anything here." And that's because it was right.

It was done right. And we affirm NASB in that regard. I mean, I'm thinking of Psalm 23. It's going to read like it's been read, but then you get to verse six and there's going to be one word that is different because we could make that word more precise and the word is "follow" versus "pursue." God's loving kindness and goodness, usually it says, "We'll follow you all the days of your life." But we adjusted it to "pursue all the days of your life" because the word is "pursue" and it's the same word that is used when enemies pursue righteous people, like when the Egyptians were pursuing the Israelites in order to kill them.

Well, that's the word that is used in Psalm 23 and you're thinking, "Well, that's a bad word." Well, no, the point of it is that God's pursuit with His goodness and loving kindness is intense, but it's the good version of it. But you read the entire Psalm, Psalm 23, it's going to read very much the same until you get to that one word and that'll be the only difference.

But again, that affirms that NASB did it well. - But I would also add that if there is no change that's evident, it doesn't mean we skipped it. - That's right. - We haven't thought about it and we've ultimately decided, "No, this is the best way to say this." - That's right.

We went through everything. - Exactly. - Verse by verse, word by word, Old Testament to New Testament. And often it came out to be, "This is good. This is good. There's no need to change it. It's the way it should be and it's an affirmation that you can really trust your translation.

It's well done." - And the affirmation of the man who did the work. - That's right. - Years ago. - I grew up in the NASB since I was 10 years old. And so all my memorization, everything was done in the NASB. And having gone through this project, it was so reaffirming that this is a great translation of the English.

And I think for people who have loved the NASB translation, have used it, have memorized it, you should be reaffirmed in that commitment and affection. And this is going to take it to a different level in nuancing certain things like Joe just exemplified. - Yeah. And there were several times that we talked about changing something and we looked at trying to do it and then we would circle back and go, "No, actually, this is the best way that it could be rendered." - And even when we did make a change, I mean, one of the things people don't think about is when you have to swap a word, what word do you put there?

And we had to go through the vocabulary of NASB because you can't just insert a word that stands out from the normal diction of the New American Standard. You have to have something that blends in, that matches. And ultimately, I guess you could say this way for people, we just wanted to make the New American Standard more New American Standard in a lot of ways.

And we're not trying to deviate from that, we're trying to actually build upon what they always wanted it to be and we were given an opportunity to help make it further that way. Well, another kind of rule that we had along the lines that we've been just talking about is we'd only make a modification if there was an issue, for example, of accuracy, of accuracy.

And what do we mean by accuracy? One of the things might be bringing out a nuance of grammar. I know, Dr. Varner, you and I were talking earlier about something in Matthew 13. And why don't you share that with us? - Yeah, it's a very small thing, but it is significant.

It's in the parable of the soils and it says that others of the seed, as they were sown, fell on the rocky ground, others fell among thorns. But then the good seed fell on the good ground and instead of saying and yielded a crop, we put and were yielding a crop.

Well, why did we switch from simple past tense to this were yielding? In the Greek, it's the aorist tense and the imperfect tense. And I think we did make a right decision by saying and were yielding a crop because there you see the process. Grow it down, it roots, and it grows, and then it's yielding a crop.

That's the process. Obviously, that yielding a crop would be over months. And the imperfect tense there has that what is called the imperfective aspect, the continuing, the process. Now, it's a very small thing. But other translations just say and yielded a crop. And they don't recognize, many of these translations, that there's a shift in the tense.

Well, why did the author shift the tense? He wanted to make a point. I want you to notice this, boy, the whole process of the crop developing there. Small thing, but I think it's more accurately reflecting the Greek. I think that just illustrates that the choices of the scriptures, going back to inspiration, they're deliberate.

And when we reflect those choices, it's not because we arbitrarily chose to do so. It's because the Bible told us to do so. And if Matthew changed his tense there, we ought to change the tense. That's right. That's right. So there's issues of accuracy relative to grammar. Joe, did you have something on the Old Testament?

Well, there's a accuracy with respect to meanings of words, again, with the new ones. You can think about Jonah, where Jonah is fleeing from God in the beginning of Jonah chapter 1. And he goes into the ship, and God sends a storm on the sea. And it describes the ship as typically the texts would say that the ship was about to break apart in the storm.

But the Hebrew says that the ship was thinking to break apart. And you look at that nuance, and you're thinking the ship was thinking. What was the ship thinking, right? But that nuance is deliberately put into the text because it's putting in line what the ship was doing with all of the other inanimate objects, right?

God sends wind, inanimate object, and it submits to God. God sends a worm, and it submits to God. God sends a fish to swallow Jonah. It submits to God. And so all of these inanimate objects are submitting to God. And now the ship is also thinking in a way that aligns with all of these other elements that are submitting to God, which is in contrast to what Jonah is doing, right?

And so it brings out this nuance, this detail brings out a theological point that even the inanimate objects are submitting to God. And yet Jonah, who is created in the image of God and who is a prophet of God, is refusing to submit to God. It comes out just from the fact that the word is "think." And just like the imperfect was yielding, it has theological implications on the believer's life.

Absolutely. Process of growing and bearing fruit. All of these are theologically significant because the Scripture is theologically significant. Thinking through accuracy, it's not just word choice or grammar. It can even be because we're wanting to be a window into what was originally written. Well, that gets into textual criticism, upholding what was originally written, making sure we safeguard that and affirm that carefully.

So on the New Testament side, Dr. Varner, help us to think through what was the process of that like and give us some examples. Yes. Well, in case people don't realize it, we're working from Greek text in the New Testament and Hebrew and Aramaic text in the Old Testament.

We didn't just look at the NASB's English and said, "How can we improve it?" That's right. We're looking underneath the NASB at these Greek texts. Now, what Greek text do you translate? Erasmus, great scholar, and did us a great service by bringing together the first printed Greek New Testament, worked from only six manuscripts.

That's all he had. And all of them were later than the 12th century AD. And he produced a great New Testament that became the basis for Tyndale and the Geneva Bible and the authorized version, the King Jimmy's version. Wonderful. But in the succeeding centuries, other manuscripts much, much earlier than the 12th century were discovered, some of them huge, some of them on papyri.

And they had earlier readings that may have been changed through the years. And it's not Erasmus' fault. He just worked with what he had. Now we work with what we have, and text critics are saying maybe there's a few changes because the earliest manuscripts support a different reading. Now it's not radical, but it is important.

One of my favorites is Jude 5. In Jude 5, we read, I want to remind you, though you know all things, the King James and many translations have that the Lord, having once saved a people out of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. Our translation has Jesus having once saved a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

And that might come shocking to the reader, Jesus saved the Israelites out of Egypt? But the earliest and best manuscripts have Jesus, not Lord. And maybe later scribes say, "Wow, that's a little bit shocking to see Jesus in the Old Testament." But it's not unbiblical. First Corinthians 10 says, "They drank of the rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." So, and we believe in Jesus' pre-existence.

So the earliest and best manuscripts have Jesus there. But we don't just do that on our own. We looked at other editions of the Greek New Testament, and the Nestle-Alan 28th edition has Jesus. The SBL Greek New Testament has Jesus. The Tyndale House Greek New Testament, the last two of those editions done by evangelicals, has Jesus.

So we didn't just go out on our own and say, "Well, early manuscripts have it, but we don't care what anybody else says." The published Greek New Testaments today all have Jesus. And I'm surprised that more translations haven't really gone to that. It's theologically sound, and it's supported by the earliest and best manuscripts.

Now, but also, we don't want to make changes too radically. We realize that there's tradition, and we realize that there's support for some readings that may be questionable that is earlier. I think of Acts 8 37. This is the incident of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, and verse 36 says, "He's ready to get baptized." The eunuch says, "Look, water.

What prevents me from being baptized?" And the next verse says, "And Philip said, 'If you believe with all your heart, you may.'" And he answered, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." And he ordered the chariot to stop, and they went down, and they were baptized.

The problem is the earliest manuscripts don't have verse 37, where Philip says, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." Now, there's nothing wrong with that text. That is speaking the truth, but maybe some later scribes said, "This jumped from what prevents me from being baptized," and he ordered the chariot to stop, and they went down to the water, and he baptized them.

Well, we require a confession of faith, don't we? Yes. Well, he must have required a confession of faith, so they put that in there. And of course, the question comes up, if it was original, why would anybody drop that out? Why would anybody drop that out? Because it's theologically sound.

But if it wasn't in there, you can see how some later scribes say, "Let's make sure that people understand that the Ethiopian believed." But notice the transition without the verse. "Look, water, what prevents me from being baptized?" And he ordered the chariot to stop, and they went down in the water, and Philip baptized him.

So now, with all due understanding of the earliest manuscripts not having it, there's a tradition here, and we don't want to just run roughshod over the tradition, and so we have included that verse, but in brackets. And there's nothing theologically wrong in the content of the verse, but we put it in brackets, and future editions will have a note, "The earliest manuscripts do not have this verse." But that takes some work.

We don't want to do things on our own, but we have other texts that support, like the Jude 5, and other texts do not have Acts 8:37, and some texts have it with brackets around it. And that's what we've chose to do. Not run roughshod over tradition, but respect it, but also make decisions not just on tradition, but on the earliest and the best manuscripts.

- That's really helpful, and by putting things in brackets and in footnotes, just like the New American Standard did, I mean, we're not reinventing the wheel there, we're just adopting their philosophy, and it's a good one, because our job is to give people the resources to understand what's going on, to make informed decisions, and this provides them the opportunity to do so, and that's kind of been our goal.

This is good for accuracy. Another aspect of accuracy on textual criticism is not just the New Testament side, but on the Old Testament side. Joe, help us out here. - Yeah, the rigor that goes into looking at the textual critical matters in the Old Testament is just as rigorous as in the New Testament, and I think in that regard, I would just affirm what we said earlier, that NASB did a great job, and we consulted various questions that arose, but we worked with the BHS, so the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, and they have excellent notes for us in a textual critical apparatus.

There's also Masoretic notes on the sides which sometimes relate to textual critical matters. We consulted those, then there's also the Biblia Hebraica Quinta that's coming out. It's partially out, not all of it, but those are also available for consideration, and of course, there's the versions, the translations. There's the Septuagint, there are the Targums, which are in Aramaic.

There's the Syriac Peshitta, in Syriac, of course, the Latin, so all of those were, when questions arose, we could consult those and make decisions, and for the most part, we affirmed what NASB did. But there were some parts that we made adjustments to, but with footnotes and recognition that there was a change made.

Now, just as an example of what we affirmed, in Ruth chapter 4, verse 5, there's a textual critical matter when Boaz is talking to Polonium Moni, and the elders. He says to him that, you know, the moment that you acquire the field from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth. And there's a question, does he say, "You acquire Ruth," or, "I acquire Ruth?" The text could go either way.

I mean, so after considering the Hebrew, the internal evidence, the logic of the text, consulting the various translations, the Aramaic, the Greek, we decided that the NASB did it right. That you will acquire Ruth with the property, and so we left that as is, with the footnote explaining that there is a question there.

But a smaller textual critical question appears in Deuteronomy chapter 11, verses 13, 14, and 15, and there the context is that Moses is speaking to the people, and he's saying to them that he's reciting God's commandments to them, and he's saying that, "If you obey me, you will be blessed." Right?

He's saying, "If you obey the commandments that I'm giving you," and this is Moses speaking, then verse 14 continues to say that, "Then he will send you rain." Now, "he" is a reference to God, but the Hebrew says, "I will send you rain." And so there is a rough transition in the Hebrew where Moses says, "If you obey the commandments that I am giving you, then I will give you rain." It sounds as if Moses is the one who's sending the rain.

Well, after considering the external evidence and the internal evidence, we came to the conclusion that it has to be "I." But that's what the Hebrew text says, and there's no evidence, strong evidence to suggest that it should be otherwise. And so then we looked at the rest of the Old Testament, and we searched and saw, does the Old Testament do this anywhere else, where there's this sharp, if you will, transition from one speaker to another speaker, and it's actually, there's plenty of examples.

Zechariah 12, verses 8, 9, and 10, Zechariah is speaking, and then there's an immediate switch to Yahweh speaking. And so because of that, we adjusted the NASB, and we put "I" in the text, and we put "he" in the footnote, and then we have a small comment explaining that there is a question there.

- And even in that case, I think we put "I, Yahweh," so that people would know it's not Moses, it's Yahweh Himself giving these exhortations, these conclusions, just for the sake of clarity. And that's in italics. - And it's in italics, so that it's clear that this is a clarification.

- Yes, it's us helping the reader just to make sure that they don't confuse it. But that's the drama of the text. That's the drama of the text. - Another note on the italics, I was thinking a little bit earlier that some of the criticism against the NASB has been there's too many words in italics.

And people have sent us suggestions, "Can you please minimize that in your translation?" And we took that for consideration, and we did, I think, our best to minimize the italics. But if it's still in there, it's really the smoothest way to read the English. - Yeah, and that's what readers have said when they've turned drafts back to us.

Having read it, they said, "This is really smooth. It reads nicely. I don't see anything abrasive." And I think that's just the right balance of having enough italics to help make grammatical sense, but not having too much that it's unnecessary. And sometimes readers will come back and say, "I think we could drop that one, too." And we're saying, "Oh, that's great.

We'll do it." Because we're for that, absolutely. Another aspect of accuracy is allusions, recognizing allusions. The NASB had things in small caps when they alluded back to the Old Testament. That's a great marker, and we tried to look at different resources to help us do that. Jason, do you have any examples of that?

- Yeah, one of those allusions in the small caps for the Old Testament is in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 8. And that reads that, "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth." And that's really pointing back to Isaiah 11, 4, and making that connection of the righteous Messiah, the righteous branch who will rule in Isaiah 11.

And so there's this pointing back to the Old Testament that Paul does in the context of Jesus coming and slaying the lawless one with his breath that's linking it back to Isaiah chapter 11. There's a couple that, you know, as we work through it, we wanted to make sure that as best we could, we could help the reader kind of be able to trace back when the author was alluding to an Old Testament text so they could go back and deepen their study.

One was that really, I think, those that read Philippians that maybe even caught them off guard is Paul actually alludes to Job 13. In Philippians 1, 19, he says this, "For I know that this will turn out for my salvation." And so you go back to Job 13, and then that context, Job 13, 16.

But even in 15, "Though He slay me, I will trust in Him, hope in Him. And then this will turn out for my deliverance." And Paul actually draws off of that language. And there's a depth there that I think if you didn't see that, you'd miss it. Same thing with chapter 2, right?

There's the whole "Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess" in chapter 2, verses 10 and 11. And I think that the NAS had those in capitals, but one of the things that I think that, you know, for us, especially with this translation, is we put in small caps "LORD." And I think that, because as I was paying attention to people talking, you're like, "Well, how are they going to translate 'LORD' in the New Testament?

Are they going to superimpose 'Yahweh'?" Because it's kurios, and all those questions. And I think what we tried to do is, if we could footnote it. But then if there was a quotation like Isaiah 45, where God says, "I am Yahweh, I am the only one. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess." And Paul draws that, and he actually applies that to Jesus.

And so we, in our small caps in "LORD" there, are pointing the reader back to Isaiah 45 and showing this clear deity of Christ, where Paul is saying, "All will bow the knee and Jesus will be worshipped because He is God." And I think those things, those little things, really deepen the study for the reader.

- Yeah, no, that's very helpful. That's very helpful. I think in our notes, we made a footnote for every one of those small caps kind of passage that directs the reader back to the Old Testament to know, "Yeah, this is where that quote is coming from. This is where that information is coming from." That's very helpful.

So we've been talking about different principles. One of them we said was, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Another one we emphasized was accuracy. And another big one is consistency. Mark help us to think through the issue of consistency. - Sure, yeah. I have a couple examples that I think will help.

So in the Gospel of John, there's a word, "parasia" in the Greek that is translated multiple ways in the English. Sometimes open, sometimes frank, sometimes not in secret, sometimes public, but it's the same word in the Greek. And so we work quite a bit actually to try to come up with one word that would capture all the different passages with that Greek word.

And one example is John 7, verse 13. This is in the context of Jesus going to Jerusalem. His brothers are trying to send him there. And he said, "Look, if you are truly the Messiah, why are you hiding?" And so in the middle of that, Jesus does end up there.

And it says that the people were so afraid of the Jewish leadership because of what the consequences could be for professing Jesus to be the Christ. It says in verse 13, "No one was speaking openly about him for the fear of the Jews." And so you have this open and then multiple passages later in John 16, the disciples after trying to understand Jesus' prophecies about the future, finally say, "Okay, now you're now speaking openly to us," whereas in a few other places in Nazby has different synonyms.

And so when you look at the legacy standard, you'll see this word appear repeatedly. It's because it is the same exact word. And I think our struggle was that finding the right English word that would capture the meaning and not sound awkward in the English. And I think of another example in Philippians, Philippians chapter 2, now many of us have memorized that verse who just, you know, love the Bible.

But it's because it's so Christ-oriented, that whole passage, the first 11 verses of chapter 2. And something, another nuance different than what Jason was highlighting is that there's a call to humility and unity and single-mindedness. And in verse 2, it says, "Think the same way, maintain the same love, think on the same purpose." And then in verse 5, "Have this way of thinking." Well, the Nazby said, "Have this mindset," but it's the same word in the Greek.

And so if you're following along this whole paragraph, you see, "Think, think, think," going back to Christ. So the whole point is, "Think like Christ thinks." And so you're not thrown off by a synonym in English. You keep, see the argument develop that ultimately we have the mind of Christ from 1 Corinthians chapter 2, and now this is what it looks like in real life as you spend time with people and the humility that you're to exemplify.

- Mark, I think you're exemplifying something else that we tried to do as well. Mindset and way of thinking, it sort of means the same thing, okay? It's not wicked, that other translation. It means the same thing, but we're trying to see the similarities and use that word and that word group consistently through the passage.

So using thinking, there's a reason by it. You know, there's in the modern view of translation, you want to be more readable, more readable, more readable. Well, we're not against that at all. But if we could put the arrow back a little bit towards accuracy and if it's still readable, and that is have this way of thinking, I think we're on the right track.

And so we're just trying to be consistent with the use of the word within the passage. - I think it serves two purposes. One is what we're alluding to here. You see a consistency of thought within the immediate context, so you can follow the argument more closely, I think.

But secondarily, you start to see a consistency of thought across a corpus. So now you get to see this one idea encapsulated by a single word throughout the Johannine corpus or throughout the Pauline corpus. And that, again, just affirms the consistency of the Scriptures, the unity of the Scriptures, and will be helpful not just as people study individual texts, but as people read through the Scriptures, I hope.

- Right. Yeah. So, you know, I think katsumi work out. And when we use that word in a specific nuance, we have to recognize that words have multiple nuances. And sometimes there's a reason that there's a distinction between the two, and you've got to maintain that. So our consistency wasn't just, hey, there's a word, plug in over there, the same word, no matter what.

It was, we have to understand that words have different nuances, different categories within themselves, and we want to match each thing according to those categories. But as we did that, the word worked out. And I remember one of the reviewers reading it and saying, "Hey, is that the same word in Philippians 2?

I see it in Romans. Is that the same thing going on?" And I said, "Yeah." He goes, "I just knew that because I saw the word." You mean you can actually do that. You can actually see a word and just make the correlation across it. So that's the design of the Legacy Standard Bible.

And that helps people to even think about a word study better, and a pastor to access and explain word studies better from the pulpit because everything is nicely correlated in these ways. That is very, very helpful. Yeah, and I think those who read the Greek regularly, those who studied it, they read it, it comes to mind.

The more you read the New Testament, the more you remember, oh, this phrase or this word appeared elsewhere. Well, now the people reading the Legacy Standard can do something similar. And I think we've gone as far as we possibly could to accomplish this goal. Yeah, and that's, again, goes back to the whole notion of window.

Yeah, window and accuracy of Dr. Vonnepot. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, and the beauty of this is that it happens across the board. Paul was saying it happens within the passage, then within the corpus, within the book and, you know, within, between books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, and Jason referred to some references from the New Testament to the Old Testament.

And just some of the smaller examples that we've discussed happen in a similar way in the Old Testament as well. You can think to Daniel chapter 2 and 3, where you have Nebuchadnezzar having a dream about a statue. In the Nazareth, he says that he had a dream about a statue.

And then in chapter 3, it says that he built the image of that statue, evidently that he had. Well, the word for statue and for image is actually the same word in chapter 2 and chapter 3. So we translated it as image, all of them. And in that case, it becomes immediately clear that what he's building is exactly what he saw in his dream.

Now that's not the end of the story because he builds that image and then he has the entire nation come and worship that image as a command that he gives to the nation, to the people. Well, there are three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who refused to bow to that image.

And the text says that when they refused, the translation in chapter 3 verse 19 says that the expression of his face changed. But the expression of his face is the exact same word for image. The image of his face changed. So what the text is doing is it's saying that he had a dream of an image.

He built that image. He himself is that image. And so when he has the nation come and bow down to that image, he's actually requiring worship of himself. That's a big deal because the image is now representing him. But when we think about the Bible on a bigger scale, we remember another passage where somebody creates somebody in their image or in his image, I should say, right?

In Genesis chapter 1, God is creating man in his image. And when we make that connection across the books, we see that what Nebuchadnezzar is doing is he's really trying to fill the place of God, creating somebody in his own image, and then requiring worship from those people of himself, of his image.

And you make that connection because we now translate the words in a consistent manner. - And you can cross the Testament. - That's right. - So as he's speaking, I'm thinking of Romans 1, they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in likeness of corruptible man.

And so now you have Paul writing against, you know, unsaved humanity saying now they are bowing down to creation. And it's all, again, another attempt at creating some form of an image and to worship that image, whether it's you make an image of yourself and calling people to worship yourself or you're worshiping other images.

But again, all this speaks to man rebelling against God. And then the wrath of God is revealed because of that exact practice that Nebuchadnezzar essentially illustrates for us. - That's right. - What's in the heart of man. - Yeah, and then... Go ahead. - Yeah, I was thinking, and if a layman says, "Well, I don't understand Hebrew and Greek, you know what you're talking about," that's okay.

We do, and that's why we're trying to translate this consistently so you can see what the Hebrew and Greek says. It says image, image, image. You don't have to know Hebrew and Greek. - That's right. - But then take it a step further. He is the image of the invisible God.

- Yeah, that's right. - And it's Christ. - That's right. - And so now there is a command that we should be worshiping to speak, you know, lexically here, an image. But it's Jesus Christ. So he's the only one worthy of worshiping. So in that New Testament, whether it's John 1 or Colossians 2 or Colossians 1 as well, and then you have Hebrews 1, you know, kind of repeating that same idea that Jesus Christ represents God perfectly, and we are to worship him now.

- And it connects, yeah, like you said, the whole Testament. - And the word is the image. - Testament together. - And another example I thought, because I'm writing this devotional based on the Legacy Standard Bible and I was sharing with Joe, that we had made this decision earlier throughout these different scenes of women at the well.

You have Moses interacting, you have Abraham's servant interacting, you have Jacob interacting, and there's a certain verb, and there are different ways to translate it. You could legitimately translate it in multiple ways, but we wanted to standardize the translation to instead of watering or giving a drink of water or whatever, just simply give a drink, give a drink, just to give a drink of water, cause the animals to drink, something of that nature.

And it was consistent and consistent, and I wanted to draw out the connection between all these women at the well scenes and how they're interconnected and why that mattered, and ultimately tie it to the woman at the well scene, John 4. And it's fascinating. When I got to John 4, I just sat there and I thought, "Wow, did we do that on purpose?

Or what happened?" And Jesus says to the woman, "What? Give me a drink." And all of a sudden you just see the repetition, and you realize this is not by accident. This is not by accident. This is by God's design, both in the event and in His Word, to link it all together and to show the climax of what He's been doing through the Old Testament into the New Testament.

And these are just kinds of the insights that you can have when you have consistency. It is really marvelous, marvelous to see. - But it also speaks into the mind of the author. God used John to write that gospel as He knew His Old Testament. And so He's now trying to make these connections, and it gives us, I think, a lesson, especially those who are teachers of the Bible, that use Scripture to interpret Scripture, because that's what they were doing.

They were leaning on previous revelation as they were writing and preaching and so on. We see so many quotes, as Jason pointed out a few minutes ago, whether it's in Acts or in other Pauline literature, that the Old Testament was being used by first Christians to that effect. - And one thing we try to do to ensure this, and Jason and Paul can attest to this particularly, is double-check everything.

Yeah, Paul, I always inflict you with these kinds of things. Thank you for bearing up with this. - And the truth of the matter is, with all of the technology we have, there are no shortcuts. - Correct. - So it was just sitting there, having worked through the translation and come up with, I guess, a first draft, and now we have to proofread it and double-check everything.

And it would be not just making sure that the English makes sense and is readable, but have we attained the standard that we've set in terms of consistency? And you were commenting one time we met that how you've just memorized all of the numbers that are attached to these words, because you're just in them all the time to make sure that this word here, that is the same in the original, we've maintained that consistency as we've gone across.

And it does take a long time, but it's necessary and hopefully worth the effort. - Well, what all of this demonstrates is that it's just a lot of work. And I want to thank all of you, because you sacrificially gave your time and invested. And sometimes people say, you know, "Is this for you?" And in a sense, I think it is for us in the sense we learn so much.

And is it for us in the sense that we'll read it, yes, but we'll still read our Greek and Hebrew Bibles. I know that for sure. But I know for you guys, it was for people you'll never meet until heaven. And you are striving to give them a translation that would minister to the church for years and years to come, and it was your labor of love.

So thank you. Thank you for that. And just hearing the insights that we have and can be attained through just that consistency and tying the whole Scripture together within a passage, it just shows how much we can go in depth in our Bible. - And thank you, Abner, again, for being a taskmaster, but a genial taskmaster.

- And a genius. - You smiled as you cracked the whip. - We reflected behind your back that we love you as our leader, since you were the perfect leader. - You guys are so kind. - It was a delight of a project, I know that. While it was hard work, and Paul, I mean, did a lot of the review and we're so grateful for that, but it was a delightful project.

- Yeah. Praise God. And I think it's our prayer then that this would be used by the church for years and years to come, and that people would use this in their ministry, and they'd use it to see great and wonderful things in God's Word, and may the Lord then just establish the work of His hands through this.

- Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen.