Text (Genre, Literary units and text hierarchy, Text-criticism)
Observation (Clause and text grammar, Argument-tracing, Word and concept studies)
Context (Historical and Literary context)
Meaning (Biblical and Systematic theology)
Application (Practical theology)

Once you have established your text, made accurate observations, and discerned your passage’s contexts, it is time to determine your text’s meaning. To do this, it is critical to understand biblical theology, the discipline that considers how the whole Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in Jesus. Here you ask, “How does my passage connect to the Bible’s overall storyline and point to Christ?”

Four Guiding Presuppositions

The discipline of biblical theology assumes at least four key principles about the Bible:

1. The Bible is the locus of God’s special revelation.

Every line, word, phrase, clause, and paragraph in Scripture is God’s word. No other book is like the Bible, for it alone is God’s special revelation. Therefore, biblical theology is a textual discipline, such that the author’s intent guides the connections we make both backward and forward within every text. Historical context informs and supports the study but never trumps it.

2. The Bible demands that we submit to it and engage it in constructive ways.

We must see God’s word in its final canonical form as our primary and decisive authority in all matters of faith and practice. Furthermore, our interpretation should never deconstruct the biblical text, misinterpret the text, contradict the biblical author’s intentions, or fail to evaluate fairly the claims of the text in accordance with its nature.

3. The Bible is prescriptive.

Because the Bible is God’s word, it has the authority to prescribe a certain lifestyle and worldview for its readers and to confront alternatives. God’s purpose in having us grasp his purposes in salvation history is to move us to worship and surrender to the living God through Christ.

4. The Bible expresses a coherent, unified theology.

God is the ultimate author of Scripture, and he is the ultimate unified and coherent thinker. Thus, we must push to grasp the unified theology of the whole Bible. Every passage contributes in some way to the whole.

Definition and Nature of Biblical Theology

 The whole Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in Christ, and every passage contributes in some way to Scripture’s message that God reigns, saves, and satisfies through covenant for his glory in Jesus. Central to determining a passage’s meaning is not only considering what it proclaims but how this message relates to and informs the greater message of Scripture culminating in Christ.

Biblical theology is a way of analyzing and synthesizing what the Bible reveals about God and his relations with the world that makes organic salvation-historical and literary-canonical connections with the whole of Scripture on its own terms, especially with respect to how the Old and New Testaments progress, integrate, and climax in Christ. Let me unpack this extended definition under six headings.

1. The Task, Part 1: Biblical theology analyzes and synthesizes what the Old and New Testaments reveal about God and his relations with the world.

Biblical theology seeks to interpret the final form of the Christian Bible––to analyze and synthesize God’s special revelation embodied in the Old and New Testaments. That God’s special revelation comes through Old and New Testaments highlights both Scripture’s unity and diversity. The one Bible has two necessary parts, each of which we must read in view of the other. The Old Testament provides foundation for what Jesus fulfills in the New Testament.

2. The Task, Part 2: Biblical theology makes organic connections with the whole of Scripture on its own terms.

Biblical theology is about making natural, unforced connections within Scripture. In the process, it recognizes growth or progress in a thought or concept and lets the Bible speak in accordance with its own contours, structures, language, and flow.

3. Salvation-Historical Connections: Biblical theology makes salvation-historical connections with the whole of Scripture on its own terms.

Salvation history is the progressive narrative unfolding of God’s kingdom plan through the various covenants, events, people, and institutions, all climaxing in the person and work of Jesus. Redemptive history moves from creation to the fall to redemption to consummation. It’s the true story of God’s purposes climaxing in Christ that frames all of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. One way to summarize his-story is through the acronym KINGDOM, as represented in the following chart:

Scripture declares the story of God’s glory in Christ. Within this framework, we can make salvation-historical connections in at least five different ways:

• Thematic developments: We can trace a theme through the story of salvation, noting how it culminates in Christ. Some of the main themes are kingdom, law, temple, people of God, exile and exodus, atonement, holiness, and missions.
• Covenantal continuity and discontinuity: We should consider how the progress of the biblical covenants maintains, transforms, alters, or escalates various elements in God’s relations with his people and the world.
• Type and anti-type: Both Old and New Testament authors regularly identify predictive thematic anticipations or types rooted in the progressive development of Scripture’s historical record (e.g., Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 10:6, 11; Col. 2:16–17). By God’s design, specific persons (e.g., Adam, Moses), events (e.g., creation, exodus), and institutions (e.g., temple, sacrifice) establish patterns that culminate in the life and work of Christ Jesus. These types are prophetic and prospective from their inception, even when interpreters only discover them retrospectively.
• Promise and fulfillment: We must track specific promises and then identify their partial, progressive, and/or ultimate fulfillment at various stages in salvation history, ever remembering Paul’s declaration that “all the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ]” (2 Cor. 1:20). An example here would be how Micah 5:2 declares that the royal deliver would rise out of Bethlehem, and Matthew declares this fulfilled (Matt. 2:5–6).
• Use of the Old Testament in the Old and New Testaments: Here, we assess how later biblical writers interpret and/or apply earlier canonical revelation, especially with a view to understanding Christ Jesus.

4. Literary-Canonical Connections: Biblical theology makes organize literary-canonical connections with the whole of Scripture on its own terms.

Biblical theology arises out of the narrative framework of salvation history, but we cannot restrict the discipline to redemptive historical connections because the Bible includes more than the story of God’s glory in Christ. As seen below, Scripture includes groupings of narrative books that frame commentary books. We must consider every passage in light of its placement and role within the canon as a whole, which contains two Testaments, each with corresponding narrative and commentary sections and each with a potentially-corresponding three-part structure. The chart arranges the Old Testament in alignment with the order in Jesus’s Bible (see Luke 24:44) and the New Testament in accordance with the earliest canonical evidence.

Along with final-form composition and structure, literary-canonical connections include the historical details that tie the canon together. Here I refer to information regarding authorship, date, or provenance of a given passage. Where God reveals such information, it is fair and appropriate to use it to consider how books or passages that are united historically address various themes or contribute to our knowledge of a given topic. Because Moses was the substantial author of both Exodus and Leviticus, we can use each book as an interpretive lens for the other. Because Samuel–Kings and Chronicles address similar time-periods from different perspectives, we can compare the two to help clarify the distinctive theology of each corpus.

Finally, literary-canonical connections also include accounting for our passage’s biblical corpus or genre. Studying the teaching in Ecclesiastes should naturally be related to that of Proverbs not only because Solomon is likely the same author but also because both are wisdom books. Similarly, one should interpret Zephaniah in view of its placement in and contribution to both the Book of the Twelve and the Latter Prophets as a whole.

5. Relationship of the Testaments: Biblical theology wrestles with how the Old and New Testaments progress and integrate.

The relationship of the Testaments is perhaps the biggest question faced in biblical theology. Scripture was not shaped in a day. God produced it over time, progressively disclosing his kingdom purposes climaxing in Christ and pointing ultimately to the consummation. Biblical theology gives significant effort to tracking this progression and to considering how the various covenants and Testaments integrate in God’s overarching kingdom plan.

6. The Centrality of Christ: Biblical theology wrestles with how the Old and New Testaments climax in Christ.

The ultimate end of biblical theology is Jesus. The salvation history that frames Scripture all points and progresses to Christ, and all fulfillment flows from and through him. All laws, history, laws, prophecy, and promises find their end-times realization in Jesus (Matt 5:17–18; Mark 1:15; Acts 3:18; 2 Cor. 1:20). Therefore, we can rightly assert that the Old Testament is a messianic document written to instill messianic hope (see Rom. 1:1–3; 3:21; 10:4). Indeed, the apostles recognized that Yahweh foretold by the mouth of all the prophets from Moses forward the tribulation and triumph of the Christ and the subsequent glories (Acts 3:18, 24; 10:43; 1 Peter 1:10–11), and God revealed to those prophets that “they were serving not themselves but you” when they wrote their words (1 Peter 1:12). If we fail to appreciate that the Old Testament is Christian Scripture, we do not approach it like Jesus and his apostles, and we have no basis to call our interpretation “Christian.” 

The Bible’s Frame, Form, Focus, and Fulcrum

Thus far, we have learned something about what the Bible is about, how it is transmitted, why it was given, and around whom it is centered. That is, the Bible has a frame, a form, a focus, and a fulcrum.

1. The Frame = The Content: What?

The Bible is the revelation of God, who reigns over all and who saves and satisfies all who look to him. In short, Scripture is about his kingdom and how he builds it through covenant for his glory in Christ. We could say that Scripture’s content relates to God’s reign over God’s people in God’s land for God’s glory (Luke 4:43; Acts 1:3; 20:25; 28:23, 31).

2. The Form = The Means: How?

Throughout salvation history, God has maintained his relationship with the world through a series of covenants. The most dominant of these are the Mosaic (old) covenant and the new covenant in Christ. The old covenant bore a ministry of condemnation and brought forth an age of death; the new covenant bore a ministry of righteousness and brought with it life (2 Cor. 3:9). Moses recognized Israel’s stubbornness and predicted the old covenant’s failure (Deut. 9:6–7; 31:16–18, 27–29). But he also envisioned that God would mercifully overcome the curse with restoration blessing (4:30–31) in what we now know as the new covenant (Jer. 31:31). A prophetic, new covenant mediator would facilitate this era of blessing (Deut. 18:15), which would include God’s transforming the hearts of covenant members in a way that would generate love and obedience (30:6, 8–14). God would curse all his enemies (30:7) and broaden the makeup of his people to include some from the nations (32:21, 43; cf. Gen. 17:4–5). Christ is the mediator of the new covenant (Gen. 22:17–18; 1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 9:15; 12:24), which has superseded the old (Gal. 3:24–25; Rom. 10:4), made every promise “Yes” (2 Cor. 1:20), and secured for us every spiritual blessing (Eph. 1:3) and “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Peter 1:4).

3. The Focus = The Purpose: Why?

The chief goal of all God’s actions is the preservation and display of his glory, and it is to this end that all Scripture points. Because all things are from him, through him, and to him, God’s glory is exalted over all things (Rom. 11:36) and should be the goal of our lives (1 Cor. 10:31).

4. The Fulcrum = Sphere: Whom?

Jesus Christ is the one to whom all salvation history points, and the one who fulfills all the Old Testament anticipates. The entire Bible centers on this promised messianic Deliverer who secures reconciliation with God for all who believe in him as the divine, crucified, resurrected Messiah. His ministry produces a universal call to repentance and whole-life surrender to him as King.

We can synthesis Scripture’s as God reigns, saves, and satisfies through covenant for his glory in Christ. Put another way, the Bible calls Jews and Gentiles alike to magnify God as the supreme Sovereign, Savior, and Satisfier of the world through Messiah Jesus. The Old Testament provides the foundation for this message; the New Testament fulfills all Old Testament hopes.[1] 

Conclusion

Scripture is self-interpreting, for the God who never changes is the author of it all. To determine the full meaning of a passage, we must always ponder how your passage contributes and relates to the rest of Scripture culminating in Christ. The whole Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in Jesus, so we must consider how every passage in the Old Testament relates to this overarching flow and message.

[1]  For two examples of biblical theology at work, see Jason S. DeRouchie, “Why the Third Day?: The Promise of Resurrection in All of Scripture,” Desiring God, 11 June 2019, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/why-the-third-day; Jason S. DeRouchie, “God Always Wanted the Whole World: Global Mission from Genesis to Revelation,” Desiring God, 5 December 2019, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-always-wanted-the-whole-world.

This article originally appeared at FTC.co.

What is Systematic Theology?

Systematic theology is the study of the Bible’s doctrine designed to help us shape a proper worldview. Systematic theology presupposes that the Bible gets reality right, and it assumes Scripture’s overarching unity while affirming the progress of revelation and the development of redemptive history. In Systematic Theology, we seek to answer the question, “What does the whole Bible say about X?”

In the interpretive process, the stage considering Systematic Theology is asking more specifically, “How does our passage theologically cohere with the whole Bible?” Or, “How does our passage contribute to our understanding of certain doctrines?”

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God gave us his word in a book that is made up of multiple books. Whereas biblical theology (step 10) looks more at Scripture as a whole, literary context focuses on the individual parts as they come to us within their overall canonical context. It’s the difference between appreciating a whole quilt and looking carefully at one of its single squares, which itself has its own color, texture, and story.

The question in literary context is, “How does the passage contribute to the book’s overall story or argument?” To answer this, we need to have a solid grasp of the book’s thought-flow, which is best initiated by reading the whole book several times on your own, each in a single sitting, and while comparing several book outlines drafted by those who have spent far more time in the book than you have. As you examine your passage in view of the whole book, there are at least three areas you want to keep in mind: literary placement, literary function, and literary details.

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Step 8 of the interpretive process moves us from “Observation” to “Context” as we consider, “Where does the passage fit?” This post considers the historical context, and the next will consider the literary context.

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In God’s wisdom, he chose to give us his Word in a book shaped by words. Words often carry a range of meanings, dependent on the context. If I say “trunk,” many different images may come to mind: (1) the main woody stem of a tree, (2) the torso of a person or animal’s body, (3) the extended nose of an elephant, (4) a large box with hinged lid, or (5) the storage compartment located at the rear of a vehicle. It is important to note that a word will not bear all of its possible meanings each time it occurs.

Because word-meanings can overlap, in any given context an author could choose different words to communicate the same reality. Even when a certain word is not used, the concept may still be present. Because the message of every passage of Scripture is dependent on the meaning of words, phrases, and concepts, knowing how to grasp such meaning is vitally important for interpretation. This post will overview the key tools, principles, and process for doing word and concept studies in the Old Testament for those without knowledge of Hebrew.

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When interpreting Scripture, we observe carefully by considering how a passage is communicated. We have already established the literary units and text hierarchy (step 2) and assessed clause and text grammar (step 5). So, we are ready to finish tracing the literary argument and to create a message-driven outline that is tied to the passage’s main point. “Argument-tracing” is step 6 in understanding and apply the Old Testament. Perhaps more than any other step in the exegetical process, this one helps us grasp a passage’s message. In this post, I will show how to trace the argument of a passage by using an argument-diagram.

Create an Argument Diagram

To understand a passage’s structure, we must evaluate the relationship of every proposition, clause, and larger text unit. This type of appraisal is most natural when the argument is chronologically or logically linear (A-B-C-D-E) as opposed to parallel (A-B-C-A’-B’-C’) or symmetric (A-B-C-B’-A’). Regardless, in each structure, every proposition contributes in its own way to developing the passage’s main idea. The relationships between propositions can either be coordinate or subordinate.

1. Coordinate relationships are those that stand side-by-side. These elements could operate independently in series, in progression pointing to a climax, as alternate possibilities of a given situation, or as both true or both
2. Subordinate relationships always have a main clause or text unit and then another that either restates, stands distinct from, or stands contrary to the main clause or text.

a. Restatement exists:

i. Where a stated action is followed by the manner for fulfilling that action,

ii. Where a comparison between two or more entities exists,

iii. Where the same thing is stated both negatively and positively,

iv. Where there is a question and an answer,

v. Where an idea is then explained

vi. Where a general statement is then specified, or

vii. Where a fact is then interpreted.

b. Distinct statements are evident:

i. Where one statement provides a ground or reason for another statement,

ii. Where one statement draws an inference from another.

iii. Where a single statement bilaterally grounds two different statements that frame it,

iv. Where there is an action and its result or an action and its purpose,

v. Where there is a condition for meeting a greater end,

vi. Where there is a specific temporal or locative marker, or

vii. Where anticipation through promise is accompanied by its fulfillment.

c. Contrary statements exist:

i. Where a concessive relationship is marked through a term like “although,” or

ii. Where a stated situation is followed by a response.

The following chart further clarifies these relationships and uses abbreviations or symbols to represent each.

All of these relationships are helpfully defined and overviewed at https://BibleArc.com. This is one of the best online-resources for personal Bible-study, and it’s my favorite tool for doing the actual brain-work of analyzing a passage’s thought-flow and propositional relationships. Here you can create a text-hierarchy through the “phrasing” module. Then, in the “discourse” module, you can identify the logical relationships of the various parts of your passage through “arcing” or “bracketing.”

Five Ways Arcing or Bracketing Assist Interpretation

The process of arcing or bracketing a passage assists our interpretation in at least five ways:

1. It pushes us to recognize that the Bible presents profound and often complex arguments and not bullet points of unrelated truths;
2. It forces us to take every connecting word seriously;
3. It helps us to ensure that we do not leave any clause or proposition unexamined;
4. It causes us to ask many questions that we may have otherwise not considered;
5. It moves us to the main point of the passage.

Naturally, the best way to be certain you are tracing an Old Testament argument correctly is to use the Hebrew (or Aramaic), but a form-equivalent translation like the New American Standard Bible (NASB) works very well. As an example of the approach in English, let’s consider Habakkuk 3:17–19. These verses represent one of the great Old Testament expressions of persevering faith and hope for the age of the new covenant. I want to walk through my text hierarchy, and then we will track the logical relationships through an arc and bracket. The translation here is my own.

Text-Hierarchy of Habakkuk 3:17–19

Reading the translation, you can see that the passage has two parts––the concessive protasis beginning with “even if” in verse 17, and the adversative apodosis starting in verse 18 with the explicit inference particle “then” and the first common singular pronoun “I.” The protasis by nature modifies the apodosis, so I have indented 17a–f to the right. The protasis itself has two parts: agricultural devastation in 17a–d and the ruin of the livestock in 17ef. The apodosis opens in 18a with a statement, “Yet I will triumph in the LORD,” which is then explained in 18b, “I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.” Asyndeton (i.e., lack of a connector) marks the explanation. Then what follows in verse 19 is a further inner-paragraph comment, also signaled by asyndeton, which appears to express the reason why Habakkuk commits to celebrate his God––he will do so because “The Lord GOD is my strength” (19a), and because God has empowered him to rise above his adversities through faith (19bc).

With this basic thought-flow in hand, let us now create an argument-diagram, considering the logical relationships evident in the text. Below I use what is called “arcing” but an equivalent tool is “bracketing.” Look back at the above chart to identify all the abbreviations.

Arc of Habakkuk 3:17–19

First, we must distinguish the concessive protasis in 17a–f (signaled by “Even if” in 17a) from the adversative apodosis in 18a–19c (signaled by “Yet”). I use the symbol “Csv” to mark the Concessive nature of the protasis. The concessive unit distinguishes between God’s curse on crops in 17a–d and his curse on domesticated animals in 17e–f, so I put arcs over the various sections. Note that each unit bears a parallel structure: a clause with action verb in 17a (“blossom”) and 17e (“disappears”) is followed by an existential clause beginning with the negative expression “there is not” in 17b and 17f. These two groupings are coordinate and interchangeable, so I mark the relationship as Series with the symbol “S.” Within the first of these units, I have also treated 17cd as an Explication (Exp) of the Idea (Id) presented in 17ab. The second pair of clauses build on the content of the initial two clauses, developing the concept of agricultural devastation. We could rephrase it, “Even if the fig tree does not blossom, and there is no fruit on the vines––that is, if the yield of the olive fails, and the fields produce no food.”

Coming to the adversative apodosis (i.e., “Yet” clause) in verses 18–19, we begin with an Idea-Explanation (Id/Exp) in 18ab. After declaring, “Yet I will triumph in the LORD,” Habakkuk clarifies that what he means is, “I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.” The explanation is signaled by asyndeton or lack of connector (Ø).

What follows in verse 19 unpacks further why the prophet will rejoice in God, and even though there is not a formal causal conjunction like “because” or “for,” the relationship between verses 18 and 19 appears to be a Ground [G]: “Because the Lord GOD is my strength and empowers me to rise above my challenges, therefore I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.” O, that we would continue to savor our Savior amid times of testing (Matthew 5:11–12; Romans 5:3; James 1:2)! Habakkuk’s last two clauses are tied together thematically and appear to express a Progression [P]: God first makes Habakkuk’s feet like the deer’s and then moves him to walk in the heights.

Some of the logical relationships that I identified when doing my text-hierarchy, I have now been able to concretize and display through arcing the passage. I hope that you can begin to see the benefit of identifying the coordinate and subordinate relationships. Engaging in arcing or bracketing forces us to ask all the right questions and allows us to visualize in an instant the way all the parts of a text relate to each other.

Main Idea and Exegetical Outline of Habakkuk 3:17–19

When a passage has a two-part syntactic construction as in Habakkuk 3:17–19, the weight of the passage’s meaning always falls on the apodosis side. These verses, therefore, seek to motivate believers to follow Habakkuk in rejoicing in his saving God, even when tasting the impact of covenant curse. Every believer should rejoice in the saving God amid trial because the Lord is both able and committed to strengthen and sustain. This is the main idea of Habakkuk 3:17–19. I outline the flow of thought as follows:

I. The Cursed Context for a Believers Joy in the Saving God (v. 17)

a. Lack of earthly provision: Crop devastation (v. 17a–d)

b. Lack of earthly provision: Livestock devastation (v. 17e–f)

II. The Believer’s Declaration of Sustained Joy in the Saving God (vv. 18–19)

a. The assertation of joy in the saving God (v. 18)

b. The basis of joy in the saving God: His ability and commitment to strengthen and sustain (v. 19)

This article originally appeared at FTC.co.

With step 5 of the interpretive process we move from “Text” to “Observation,” and we consider a series of issues related to how a passage is communicated. Our initial goal is to assess the makeup and relationship of words, phrases, clauses, and larger text units. In short, we need to study grammar.

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According to the Wycliffe Global Alliance, only 2,932 of the approximately 7,000 languages have at least some of the bible; this leaves 3,955 languages without access to Scripture. Because “faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17), the translated word of God is essential!

The Benefit of Multiple English Translations in Bible Study

With so many peoples globally having no Scripture in their heart language, English speakers should be deeply grateful to God for the plethora of solid Bible translations that we have. Whether you know the biblical languages or not, several good English translations will serve you well in studying the Bible and teaching. When studying Scripture, those who don’t know the original languages and who rely fully on translations are at the mercy of the translators, who themselves have made interpretive decisions about the meaning of the Hebrew or Greek text. If you only use one translation, you are even more limited in your ability to identify and evaluate interpretive options. With respect to teaching, your audience could be using over a dozen different contemporary English translations, many of which will differ to greater or lesser degrees. As such, the more you familiarize yourself with the various translations, the more confident you’ll be that you have made the best exegetical choices and the more prepared you’ll be to answer questions as they arise.

Consider, for example, some various renderings of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4.

A quick glimpse at these translations identifies some key questions that you probably would have missed had you only looked at a single translation. For example, how should we understand the structure of the Shema? Is it a verbless slogan (#1), a single sentence (##2, 3, 4), or two sentences (#5)? This decision affects our understanding of the whole. Also, what is the meaning of Yahweh’s oneness? Is this oneness bound up in God’s nature (##2, 3, 5), or does it address the nature of our allegiance (#4)? If you are slated to teach this passage, comparing the translations lets you know that you have some important exegetical work to do in order to rightly understand the text’s message. Had you only used the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) or New American Standard Bible (NASB), you would have never seen these options.[1]

For the purposes of Bible memorization and consistency in teaching, using a single quality translation is best. In my sphere of ministry, the most common are the New American Standard Bible (NASB), English Standard Version (ESV), New International Version (NIV), and Christian Standard Bible (CSB), but there are other solid options. For the purpose of Bible study, however, multiple well-chosen translations will supply the interpreter greater awareness of exegetical options and the greatest preparedness for ministry in the English-speaking world.

Engaging Different Translations and Translation Theories

Bible translations differ on whether they are form-, sense-, or idea-driven and to what degree they are gender-inclusive. Different translation theories actually stand behind the various versions, creating a continuum of equivalence (displayed below) based on how they handle lexical, grammatical, and historical correspondences. Lexical correspondence relates to how closely translators attempt to render single words in the source text into individual words in the target language. Grammatical correspondence addresses how closely the translators align word-order and syntax in the original language with word-order and syntax in translation. Finally, historical correspondence concerns how closely the translators retain the factual and cultural elements connected with the biblical times. You may think that the more rigorously tied a translation is to lexical, grammatical, and historical correspondence, the more faithful the translation will be to the original. However, liberal-versus-conservative theology does not appear to play a role in which translation theory scholars prefer. Each of the various approaches have their own strengths and weaknesses, and often distinct purposes drive the choice of one approach to another.

Form-Equivalence

Versions that strive for form-equivalence try to retain correspondence of words, grammar, and history as much as possible between the original and receptor language. Some people refer to these as “literal” translations. Such terminology is a misnomer seeing as no two-languages enjoy one-to-one correspondence in everything, and[NM1]  often, the English equivalent requires a more dynamic rendering to actually capture the sense of the original in the receptor language. The older Young’s Literal Translation (YLT 1862) failed to recognize this point, assuming that complete grammatical and lexical equivalence was always possible. The result was that the translation regularly disregarded the normal structures of English, making the text almost nonsensical.

Two of the best form-driven translations are the New American Standard Bible (NASB 1995) and the English Standard Version (ESV 2016). The former is especially helpful when trying to track an author’s flow-of-thought because it renders almost all the connecting words, which serve as signals for text-structure. This type of translation is the least interpretive, and because of this, I choose a formally equivalent translation as my primary English version for Bible study. However, while form-driven translations can be understandable, they often use cumbersome English, which requires the teacher to clarify meaning more often. The ESV strikes a helpful balance between form and meaning, but in the Old Testament[NM2] it fails to translate many of the connectors, making it more difficult to use for tracing an argument.

Sense-Equivalence

Sense-equivalent translations like the New International Version (NIV 2011) and New Living Translation (NLT 2004) provide beautiful and meaningful contemporary English. They seek functional/dynamic correspondence, retaining the historical-factual features of the text and capturing the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek, while not hesitating to translate the words, grammar, and style into common English words, structures, and idioms. More interpretation takes place here, but if the translators do their job well, the result is a clear and faithful rendering of God’s word that can serve everyone, especially those who need more help in grasping the meaning of the Bible’s propositions.

Where there is greater interpretation in translation, however, there is also more opportunity for the preacher or teacher to disagree with the translator’s choices. Furthermore, translations that seek sense-equivalence often fail to represent important text features like connectors or discourse-markers. Without these structural signals, the interpreter cannot track the author’s argument as easily, so he is further distanced from the ancient book.

Idea-Equivalence

Translations that seek idea-equivalence include The Living Bible (TLB 1971) and The Message (MSG 2002). It is really better to call such versions paraphrases, since they only strive to convey the concepts of Scripture with little attempt to retain lexical, grammatical, or historical correspondence. These can contemporize God’s word, but they are less helpful for study or teaching because they have distanced themselves so far from the original.

Translation Theories at Work

As an example of the equivalence continuum at work, compare the following renderings of Psalm 119:105 in Youngs Literal Translation (YLT), New American Standard Bible (NASB), English Standard Version (ESV), New Living Translation (NLT), New International Version (NIV), The Living Bible (TLB), and the Message (MSG). The right-hand columns identify how closely the translation corresponds to the Hebrew with respect to lexical (“L”), grammatical (“G”), and historical (“H”) features. The number “5” represents the highest level of correspondence, and “1” represents the least.

Surveying the translations shows that some vary drastically, but others not so much. With respect to the form-equivalent translations, with the word “Nun” YLT notes upfront that Psalm 119:105 is part of an alphabetical acrostic and falls in the section where the poetic lines begin with the Hebrew letter נ (“Nun”). It identifies the verse as a verbless clause, placing “is” in brackets, and it retains the singular Hebrew “foot.” It maintains Hebrew word order and offers an equivalent for every Hebrew linguistic form, but it does so at the cost of making the English rough. The NASB and ESV, while having smoother English, still preserve the conjunction “and” (וְ) and the repeated preposition “to” (לְ). But they also reverse the word order at the front of the first clause, allowing for more natural English, and they read the singular “foot” collectively as “feet.” While they fully maintain historical correspondence, they somewhat minimize lexical and grammatical correspondence in order to communicate more effectively in English.

As sense-driven translations, the NLT and NIV attempt to make the English even more flowing. The NIV also renders “foot” as “feet,” but it drops the conjunction and changes the second preposition, probably for stylistic variation. The NLT retains the conjunction, alters the second preposition, and then adds the dynamic infinitive “to guide” for clearer comprehension. Both the NIV and NLT retain full historical correspondence, but both are even more willing than the ESV to drop lexical and grammatical correspondence to be readable. Whether they sacrifice literalness is debatable.

The mere fact that both TLB and MSG have more words identifies that these idea-equivalent translations are rendering concepts, not words or phrases. The TLB is a complete paraphrase that bears little if any lexical, grammatical, or historical correspondence. Was there a “flashlight” in the Old Testament period? It changes God’s “word” to “words,” and it transforms both clause-structure and word-order. As for the MSG, it too is a complete paraphrase that creates two independent clauses and loses nearly all lexical and grammatical correspondence, while retaining historical equivalence.

Every theory of Bible translation has strengths and challenges. We must judge the quality of a translation not simply on its faithfulness to the Hebrew or Greek original but also in light of its target audience and communicative purpose. A more sense-driven translation like the NLT may benefit more the public reading of Scripture since it often captures the meaning of the original in fresh, evocative ways. Idea-equivalent versions can be helpful for those who have little to no exposure to the Bible and/or have a limited understanding of English (e.g., children and individuals learning English).

For personal study and lesson preparation, I encourage you to interact with at least three versions that stand at different points along the equivalence-continuum. My preferences are the NASB, ESV, and NIV. If you don’t know Hebrew, the more form-based translations will ensure that you spot more of the connectors and discourse-markers so as to better track the author’s intended thought-flow. But engaging more dynamically equivalent translations can also help you better grasp the sense of given clauses and phrases. In teaching situations, be sure to know the main translation your audience is using.

Note: This post adapts material from “Chapter 4: Translation” in DeRouchie’s How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament, 157–77.

[1]  In chapter five of my book, I discuss some reasons for why I prefer option three above. See Jason S. DeRouchie, How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2017), 215–20.

This article originally appeared at FTC.co.

For all their care and attention to detail, the scribes who copied and recopied the Hebrew Bible were not perfect. Errors in copying did occur. Poor memory, impaired judgment, mishearing, and errors of sight or misunderstanding caused the best-intentioned scribes to omit, substitute, or repeat letters or words. At times, scribes made matters worse by deliberately altering the text to correct a perceived problem. The ultimate result was a series of accidental corruptions or intended improvements that departed from the original text. Most modern translators engage in the science of text criticism in order to establish the original readings, and most modern translations use footnotes to inform readers where the text is difficult or where scribal variants may exist.

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