Do you recommend a Greek and Hebrew concordance to help study? I have the impression that Bibles in the English language don't always translate well and sometimes you can come away from a scripture with a less than accurate understanding of what it actually meant.
If you use something like e-sword and download the free commentaries and as many free Bible translations as you can find you'll go a long way. You're right about the way English doesn't always provide all the nuances of a situation. One classic example I like to reference is in John 21 where we see Jesus and Peter going back and forth with "Peter, do you love me?" and "You know I love you". On the face of it the repeated question-and-answer makes no sense, but looking at the Greek makes things clearer. The first time Jesus asks he uses the Greek ἀγαπάω and Peter replies using the Greek φιλέω The second time Jesus asks he once again uses the Greek ἀγαπάω and again Peter replies using the Greek φιλέω The third time Jesus asks he uses the Greek φιλέω, and Peter replies in kind. The Greek ἀγαπάω, agapao, refers to an unconditional love. On the other hand φιλέω, phileo, refers to a brotherly love. Peter had learned from his "I'll never deny you" episode not to promise more than he could deliver, and after two rounds of asking Jesus shifted to meet Peter where he was, accepting what he could offer rather than hoping for something Peter wasn't going to promise. Yet in English we just see "love, love, love"
Aaron, language tools are helpful. Tango gave a good example where Greek might clarify what's going on. I say might because not all Greek scholars agree with the interpretation Tango offered. Edwin Blum, who was the head of the editorial team of the HCSB, wrote about this passage... In Jesus’ three questions of love (agapas, agapas, and phileis) and His three commands of duty (boske, “tend”; poimaine, “herd, lead to pasture”; boske) various Greek synonyms are used. Since it is difficult to see any consistent distinctions that John intended, most scholars see these as stylistic variations. That being said we can put a heavyweight in for what Tango shared. A.T. Robertson wrote..... Lovest thou me? (φιλεις με; [phileis me?]). This time Jesus picks up the word φιλεω [phileō] used by Peter and challenges that. These two words are often interchanged in the N. T., but here the distinction is preserved. But another interesting question. Where Jesus and Peter speaking Greek? Probably not. Most likely Aramaic. Does Aramaic make such distinctions for love? I honestly don't know. Dr. James White is pretty sharp with Greek and was a consultant for the 1995 NASB update. On the one hand, I've heard him encourage people to turn off their televisions for a show every night and spend some time learning biblical languages. On the other hand I've heard him say more than once (most recently last week) "People will often ask me 'what does this mean in Greek?' And I'll say to them, 'The same thing it means in English.' My point isn't to completely confuse the issue (though I may have accomplished that). My point is don't underestimate your English Bible. Especially if you compare a couple or more. There's four I highly recommend: NASB, ESV, NIV & HCSB (or the new CSB). NASB and/or ESV are very formal (closer to the idea of being word-for-word though no translation is truly word-for-word). Then you have extremely functional translations. The Message and The Living Bible being the most obvious where the idea is "how would we say this in English?" This is why I recommend studying along with a formal using either or both an NIV or HCSB/CSB. These two try to walk the middle road between highly formal and highly functional. When being formal can actually lose meaning in translation, they go a little more functional. Seeking has been reading the NET Bible lately. Group that with NIV & HCSB/CSB as another option in that middle-of-the-road category. When I'm just reading, I'll more often use a mediating version. When I'm digging into a passage, then I want my NASB or ESV and language tools.
I'm surprised you recommend the NIV. I've heard that many people consider it a bad translation, even corrupted. I've heard it leaves out things in scripture that most other Bibles don't. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what I need to do to correctly get a grasp of God's Word. I mean, if we don't understand correctly what God wants us to get out of His Word there's no point in even studying it. If we understand it incorrectly, with nothing or nobody ever correcting us, we're just as bad off as somebody who's never read it. As far as the original topic of bibliomancy goes, if I now understand it correctly I would say I suppose that it wouldn't be a method God uses to communicate with His people.
That's a common misconception. Especially from a certain crowd. But there are very highly respected Bible scholars who use the NIV and have endorsed it publicly. I'm sure TrustGzus can give you Waaaaaaaaaaaay more info on this topic. Though you might want to start another thread for that. It'll certainly get interesting.
Our church also has the NIV as the official translation. Including the Bibles they give away to new believers.
You'll get quite some different responses from the leaders here. Our beloved leader, Tim (The Parson), likes the King James. He's not even a fan of the NKJV. I think the NIV is great. A wonderful expositor who used the NIV in his verse-by-verse teaching was Dr. James Montgomery Boice till he went to be with the LORD in 2000. Another heavy hitter that has always preferred the NIV family is Dr. D.A. Carson. Carson is a scholar's scholar. First thing to realize is it isn't a paraphrase. Nor is it probably accurate to call it a thought-for-thought translation. It has a mediating position where when trying to be functional like the NASB, ESV, KJV or NKJV a passage loses accuracy in English the NIV will go towards the "what does this passage mean?" kind of thinking. Because if we can't understand a passage, the what good is the translation? Being too literal is bad if we can't understand it. Does it do that where it wasn't needed at times? Yeah probably. But so do the NASB, ESV and KJV. I can show passages where they are not literal but could have been. It really blew out of proportion when the TNIV was released which was an update to the NIV. The big concern of the time was gender-sensitive translating. This was already going on in the NRSV and now it was happening to the NIV. What it wasn't: it wasn't doing anything to God's "gender". All God's pronouns were still male pronouns. What they did was things such as where the Greek word ἀδελφός was translated as brothers but clearly meant not just the males but all Christians, they translated it as brothers and sisters. Example: Galatians 1:11 in the 1984 NIV 11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. Is Paul trying to talk to just the males here? It doesn't matter if the women know that the gospel he preached is not something that man made up? Obviously he's talking to the whole church. Brothers includes both men and women. Here's the TNIV... 11I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. That's what the gender-sensitive translating did. The reaction against it was so blown out of proportion. Even the KJV did the same kind of stuff. The word for sons in Hebrew is translated children in the KJV over 1500 times!!!! No one is screamed about the gender sensitivity and the KJV. Why? You'll notice a second change in the TNIV at Gataians 1:11. The end of the verse in the 1984 read.... that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. The TNIV had... that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. Why? Because the TNIV in most of its updates became more literal or formal! Places where they had been more free but really didn't need to be they tightened up. The Greek there is two words: κατὰ ἄνθρωπον. Literally it is by man. In 2011 they quit making the TNIV and the 1984 NIV and made a new revision. So if you go to a store today and buy an NIV, it will be a 2011 revision. What did they do there? Tightened it up more. Got a little more literal. In reaction to the gender-sensitivity two translations came out holding the masculine line: the ESV and the HCSB. Here's something interesting. The HCSB just got revised and released in January 201 as the CSB. I was reading it today. Look at Galatians 1:11 in the "old" HCSB... 11 Now I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel preached by me is not based on human thought. Look at the brand new CSB... 11 For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel preached by me is not of human origin. Sounds a lot like the TNIV and 2011 NIV. DOH! I think some people owe the TNIV and NIV translators some apologies.
And here is Galatians 1:11 in the NET 11 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin.
I'll have to look into it more, but the complaints I've heard about the NIV were, if I recall correctly, in regards to things more serious than merely how to use pronouns.
Glad to talk about any of them with you, Aaron. But like I said at the beginning of the post, there are Spirit-filled scholarly heavyweights that are for the NIV. D.A. Carson, William Mounce, Bruce Waltke, Gordon Fee, Mark Straus, et al. Like all translations, it's not perfect. But it's deficiencies are highly exaggerated by its detractors.
Ok. Cool. I'll look more into the criticisms about the NIV and discuss them here later to see what people have to say about it...
Just checking in with you Aaron, to see if you have put together a list of what others say about the NIV.
Well, here's a few things I've heard or read about the NIV that kind of bother me... In John 3:16 they take out the word "begotten" when describing Jesus. Why did they do that? The following words have also been removed in various places: fornication, trucebreakers, winebibbers, carnal, slothful, unthankful, effeminate, backbiting, vanity, lasciviousness, whoredom, devils, Lucifer, damnation, brimstone, and the bottomless pit. More words that have been removed are: regeneration, mercyseat, Calvary, remission, Jehovah, immutable, omnipotent, Comforter, Holy Ghost, Messiah, quickened, infallible. I believe "Godhead" has been, too. Apparently, Acts 8:37, where a eunich wanting to be baptized acknowledges Jesus is the Son of God before being baptized by water, has been removed. I've heard about some controversy about some people that helped create the NIV translation being homosexuals and concerns that there were attempts to make the Old Testament and New Testament more "gay friendly" in the NIV.
Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλʼ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον. That is John 3:16. The word in question from which some English versions have the words only begotten is the Greek word μονογενῆ. There is no question about the word only. That is μονο part of the word (mono in English). The part where some versions have begotten comes from the back half of the word, γενῆ. The NET translation has extensive notes that explain many of these things well. The notes for this word state.... Although this word is often translated “only begotten,” such a translation is misleading, since in English it appears to express a metaphysical relationship. The word in Greek was used of an only child (a son [Luke 7:12, 9:38] or a daughter [Luke 8:42]). It was also used of something unique (only one of its kind) such as the mythological Phoenix (1 Clement 25:2). From here it passes easily to a description of Isaac (Heb 11:17 and Josephus, Ant. 1.13.1 [1.222]) who was not Abraham’s only son, but was one-of-a-kind because he was the child of the promise. Thus the word means “one-of-a-kind” and is reserved for Jesus in the Johannine literature of the NT. While all Christians are children of God (τέκνα θεοῦ, tekna theou), Jesus is God’s Son in a unique, one-of-a-kind sense. The word is used in this way in all its uses in the Gospel of John (1:14, 1:18, 3:16, and 3:18). The quote they mention from 1 Clement 25:2 reads... There is a certain bird which is called a phœnix. This is the only one of its kind, and lives five hundred years. Only one of its/his kind is what I think is best. This is what the footnote of the NASB has. Jesus was the only one of a kind. Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology has an explanation to round out the commentary here. For many years it was thought to be derived from two Greek terms, μόνος (G3668), meaning “only,” and γεννάω (G1164), meaning “beget,” or “bear.” ...But linguistic study in the twentieth century has shown that the second half of the word is not closely related to the verb γεννάω (beget, bear), but rather to the term γένος (G1169, class, kind). Thus the word means rather the “one-of-a-kind” Son or the “unique” Son. (See BAGD, p. 527; D. Moody, “The Translation of John 3:16 in the Revised Standard Version,” JBL 72 [1953], 213–219.) The idea of “only-begotten” in Greek would have been not μονογενής but μονογέννητος. Aaron, I hope that helps. Most modern versions do not have begotten. This isn't an NIV exclusivity. Look at the NET, the HCSB/CSB and the ESV for some reputable examples.