Page 43 - Bible Doctrine Survey I - Student Textbook (3)

for-word identity in more than 95 percent of the cases, and the 5 percent variation consists mostly of
slips of the pen and spelling” (Geisler and Nix, p. 382). As F. F. Bruce says, “The new evidence confirms
what we had already good reason to believe—that the Jewish scribes of the early Christian centuries
copied and recopied the text of the Hebrew Bible with the utmost fidelity” (F. F. Bruce, Second Thoughts
on the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 61-62).
Methods of Translating the Bible

There are many versions or translations of the Bible today. Why so many? Is one better than the other?
Is there only one true and faithful translation? Let’s look into the difficulties that translators encounter.

Translating from one language to another is not as simple as it may sound. You don’t just look at the
word in one language, and match it up with the other language. Why?

1. Sometimes there is no match between languages. Example, love in English Language.

There is no unambiguous one-to-one correspondence between two languages, especially in the
idiomatic sense (real meaning). Vocabulary can also be difficult if not, at times, impossible to yield
appropriate receptor words. There are four different words for love in Greek while the English language
offers only one - love. STERGEIN is rooted in one's own nature. ERAN is the love of passion and sex.
PHILEIN is based on a pleasurable response from something. AGAPAN is a love that is evoked from a
sense of value found in an object which causes one to highly prize that object. English is unprepared to
adequately reproduce these shades of meaning.

Stergein is rooted in obligatory affection for objects of similar nature. It is the natural affection
that human parents have for their children and similarly, the protective devotion of animals for
their offspring. This word is not found in its root form in the Greek New Testament but does
appear twice with an “alpha” prefix which negates the original meaning. Thus, “unnatural
affection” is the usual translation of Romans 1:31 and 2 Timothy 3:3. It is also found with
PHILEIN in Romans 12:10 to produce a compound meaning “kindly affection.” Stergein is
obligatory love.

Eran is not found in the Greek New Testament in any word variant. It was used by pagan writers
to describe sexual passion, the dynamic enveloping of the conscious mind, to the near disregard
of surroundings. Eran is passionate love.

Philein is used about forty times and is the pleasure love that returns from a person or object. It
is often a very normal, “unimpassioned” friendship of one person for another. For example, put
two motorcycle riders in the same room at some event and when they discover their mutual
interest, they will most likely be lost in their own private world of conversation about chrome
and rubber. Put two graduates of the same college in the same work place and they will develop
a unique friendship because of the pleasurable memories of life at that college. In each
situation, the affection developed because of pleasure, in spite of no other commonality. In the
first case, it was the PLEASURE of motorcycles: the roar of hot exhaust, the danger of taking
curves too fast, the brilliance of polished chrome, the thrill of aerated freedom that drew these
riders together. Philein is a pleasure responsive love (not a love for pleasure).

Agapan is used in its verb, noun, and adjective forms over three hundred times. It is evoked by
an “awakened sense” of value for a person or object. Agapan goes beyond the pleasurable

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