Better Bibles Blog

9 Comments

1. 

   flute4jc

   Posted September 28, 2007 at 3:02 pm | Permalink

   I know this is an old post, so I don’t know if my comment will be read.
   The fact that this is a paraphrase isn’t what bothers me. What bothers me is that very important ideas are often oversimplified and therefore, the meaning completely changes. For example, the verse in which Peter affirms Jesus’ deity is completely glossed over! Jesus was far more than just a bearer of good news. This rendering implies that He is not God’s son, just a prophet. Even Muslims believe that. I would at least add, “You are God’s son.” And baptized being called “rinsed” sounds a bit cheap to me. Even the Message doesn’t “dumb it down” that much.
2. 

   Peter Kirk

   Posted September 28, 2007 at 4:08 pm | Permalink

   Flute, one or two of us read comments on old posts. I will send a link to this one to Dan Sindlinger for him to comment further if he wishes.
3. 

   Dan Sindlinger

   Posted October 1, 2007 at 12:43 am | Permalink

   Flute4jc, Thanks for your post. Please indicate which verse you’re referring to so I can respond appropriately.

   The term “baptize” is a very familiar term to Christians but not to people who have never attended a church. Since it is an expression used almost exclusively in church circles, it carries little or no meaning for unchurched people. It is actually a transliteration (writing a foreign word with English letters) of the Greek term BAPTIZW which refers to washing and/or rinsing something with water. Most Bible versions use the term “baptize,” but since The Better Life Bible is geared to people with little or no knowledge of the Bible, I decided to use the expression “symbolically rinse.” I welcome other suggestions to convey that concept in a meaningful way.

   Thanks for your thoughts.
4. 

   flute4jc

   Posted October 25, 2007 at 2:08 pm | Permalink

   Thanks for responding, Dan. Ok, maybe “cheap” and “dumb it down” were a poor choice of words. I actually can understand the use of rinse in that context. Still, I think that simply calling Jesus “God’s special messenger” completely misses the mark on why Jesus came. The passage I was referring to is in Matthew 16 (if verse numbers were used, it would be verse 16). Some parts of the Bible are just hard, no matter how easy we try to make it. So to me, there’s no use watering down those parts, unless you (referring to anybody) just don’t believe Jesus IS God’s Son and think that “Son” is merely symbolic. That’s something that little kids/non-Christians just have to come to understand over time, like I did.
5. 

   Dan Sindlinger

   Posted October 26, 2007 at 1:30 am | Permalink

   Flute4jc, Thanks for indicating the verse. Here’s some of my rationale for translating as I did.

   When I initially translated Matthew and Mark, I used the expression “God in human form” to convey the meaning of “Son of God”. Since then, I’ve noticed that “Son of God” is often used in connection with “Christ” (Messiah):

   Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16 – NIV)

   The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God!” (Matthew 26:63 – NIV)

   “She [Martha] told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” (John 11:27 – NIV)

   But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31 – NIV)

   Simon Peter, the high priest, Martha, and John all used “Son of God” in apposition to “Christ”, suggesting a close association in meaning. Luke appears to use the two terms synonymously:

   Demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ. (Luke 4:41 – NIV)

   The only occurrence of “Son of God” in the entire Old Testament is in Daniel 3:25 where it conveys the idea of “God’s special messenger”. That meaning relates well with “Christ” (Messiah), the one whom God promised would help people enjoy a better life, and it makes good sense in many other New Testament contexts where the term “Son of God” occurs. So instead of keeping the expression “God in human form” in my translation of Matthew 16:16, I decided to revise it to the following:

   “You’re God’s special messenger, who God promised would help people enjoy a better life.”
6. 

   joshyouthmin1

   Posted September 8, 2009 at 4:16 am | Permalink

   Dan, I really appreciate your desire to tranlate the Bible into words that unchurched people can understand. Thank you for your time and effort put into this. I’m actually very unfamiliar with the BLB but interested in it and will look some more into it. Is the tranliteration “baptize” that you wrote about better tranlated “rinsed” or “immersed”? That may be a possibility if you are looking for another choice. I will need to look into it some more, but my understanding of why BAPTIZW was transliterated instead of translated in the original KJV was because people were already sprinkling as baptism and to translate the word “immerse” would cause problems with how things were being done at that time. I would appreciate your comments on this as I’m sure that you’ve done more study on it. Most of my information is second hand.
   thanks.
7. 

   Dan Sindlinger

   Posted September 8, 2009 at 8:48 pm | Permalink

   joshyouthmin1,

   You may be correct about the reason that BAPTIZW was transliterated, if the translators felt their only choices were “sprinkle” or “immerse”. My understanding is that the mode is irrelevant, or at least insignificant, so I searched for a term that was more generic/neutral, or at least less divisive. It seems to me that the focus in the NT is on the cleansing component, which outwardly symbolizes an internal transformation in a person’s attitude with the intent to improve/align their behavior as a follower of Jesus.
8. 

   joshyouthmin1

   Posted September 10, 2009 at 5:31 pm | Permalink

   Dan,
   I agree, the issue of baptism has become a very divisive issue and that is very discouraging for all of us. I also agree that baptism is a symbol, but that it is a necessary symbol. Also, because it is a symbol of what is happening in our lives, I think that makes the importance of using the right symbol that much greater. I’m probably not being very clear,…I think Paul worded it well in Romans 6. “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized intoc Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead throught the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rom. 6:3-4 – NASB)

   That to me is the beauty of baptism. It mimicks the burial of Christ. As Jesus died and was buried and then was raised from the dead, we, at conversion, die to ourselves and are symbolically buried under the water and when we are raised up we are raised up to walk “in newness of life.” With that passage and the examples of baptism in the gospels and Acts, it seems that we would be missing out on an incredibly beautiful picture of what God does for us through grace.

   Like I said before, though, it pains me that this has become a divisive issue. My prayer is that we will be able to talk about things like this more and more across Christianity in a Christ-like manner. Thanks so much for begin willing to do that. It’s been an encouragement to me.
9. 

   joshyouthmin1

   Posted September 10, 2009 at 5:38 pm | Permalink

   sorry about the typos above…i should probably proof read before I post…