This is a follow-up to my post Information or Conversation, and it would probably be a good idea to read that entry first. One element of God’s method of revealing himself to people is that he chooses specific people to accomplish specific missions. I want to look at the time of the exile, and three…
Introduction Genesis 5 continues the priestly account of origins. Now I don’t want us to get the idea that there are two separate messages here, because the two sources (priestly [P] and Yahwist [J]) have been brought together with their own message. Nonetheless, we can get some additional breadth and depth to this message by…
Now that we’ve looked at various critical issues about this passage, and I’ve discussed the dangers and difficulties involved with Biblical criticism, I’d like to summarize some of the things we can learn by examining the passage critically. We have identified a number of elements in the passage that have been strung together to form…
While Genesis 1:1-2:3 (or 4a) comes from the Priestly source and continues with Genesis 5, our first dose of the Yahwist begins with Genesis 2:4 and goes through the end of chapter 4. We have plenty of opportunity to see the difference between the two sources. The Yahwistic story will pick up with the description…
Now that we’ve looked over the text and found a set of transitions in it, we can start looking at how critical methologies will apply to this material. Will they help us interpret and apply the passage? This is a moment to look at some of the reasons I’ve been writing this series. Frequently, Bible…
I just completed drafting a translation of Genesis 3 for my Totally Free Bible Version project, which is simply where I make my personal translation work available free on the web for anyone who wants to use it within a very limited set of rules. I want to comment some on this story and its…
Form Criticism involves identifying smaller units in a composition that might have been transmitted separately, especially orally, prior to being included in the composition you are studying. There are quite a number of sections in our selection (Isaiah 24-27) that can be examined in this way. Since I am writing this series to help people…
Someone kindly e-mailed me a question about this Bible version, so I decided to take a look for myself. This is just a preliminary look, but you can find my notes at The Scriptures, and you can compare my results on this version with others using my Bible Translation Selection Tool. I would say that…
I’ve been reading Psalm 46 in my devotional time, and have gone through it numerous times now. I’ve blogged about some of the things I’ve been thinking about while working with this Psalm at Threads from Henry’s Web, in an article entitled Translating Psalm 46. Reading poetry is a bit different from reading prose, particularly…
One of the things I find difficult to present to lay audiences is the range of options that a translator has in dealing with any passage. In particular poetry offers may options. One is not presented with just a couple of binary yes/no choices; rather, one is presented with a huge range of options, each…
