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BY THE NUMBERS

  • The Bible is more like a ‘library’ than a ‘book.’
    • It is a collection of 66 ancient documents.
    • Thirty-nine (39) are contained in the Old Testament — written before Jesus was born.
    • Twenty-seven (27) are contained in the New Testament — written after Jesus was born
  • The ‘sections’ of this ‘library’ include:
    • The Law (Genesis - Deuteronomy)
    • History of Israel (Joshua - Esther)
    • Poetry & Wisdom (Job - Song of Solomon)
    • Major Prophets (Isaiah - Daniel)
    • Minor Prophets (Hosea - Malachi)
    • The Gospels (Matthew - John)
    • History of The Church (Acts)
    • Paul’s Letters to Churches (Romans - 2 Thessalonians)
    • Paul’s Letters to Friends (1 Timothy - Philemon)
    • General Letters (Hebrews - Revelation)
These documents were written between 1400 BC (Moses) to around AD 95 (John's Revelation) — approximately 1,500–1,600 years of composition. God used approximately 40 different authors — including kings, fishermen, ranchers, tent-makers, doctors — to write these documents. These authors lived on 3 continents — Asia, Africa and Europe. Some wrote in Hebrew, some in Aramaic, and some in Greek.
Amazingly, it is one, unified story that leads to Jesus!

HELPFUL TOOLS

(for reading, studying, memorizing, understanding and applying the Bible)

UNDERSTANDING BIBLE TRANSLATIONS

We take for granted the incredible gift of having multiple English translations of the Bible. Imagine having to learn to read and understand Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic before you could engage with the Bible?!
However, with so many English translations, which one should you choose to read from?
Here’s a story to help answer that question, using an analogy that maps perfectly onto the three approaches to translating from one language to another:
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Imagine you're translating a ‘French recipe’ for an American audience. As you approach this project, you soon discover that you really have only 3 translation choices: Word-for-Word, Thought-for-Thought, and Paraphrase.
1. Word-for-Word [aka: Formal Equivalence]
You translate each word as literally as possible — for instance, ‘crème fraîche’ in French becomes — literally — ‘cream fresh.’ The recipe is extremely faithful to the original words, but requires more work from the reader, because the recipe is not made correctly with fresh cream.
Word-for-Word Translations include:
NASB = New American Standard Bible
ESV = English Standard Version
KJV = King James Version
2. Thought-for-Thought [aka Dynamic Equivalence]
You translate the ‘meaning’ — in other words, ‘crème fraîche’ becomes ‘sour cream.’ The reader gets the right idea and can act on it immediately, but something subtle about the original words is lost.
Thought-for-Thought translations include:
NIV = New International Version
NLT = New Living Translation
CSB = Christian Standard Bible
3. Paraphrase [aka Interpretation]
You rewrite the whole recipe in a way that's extremely readable and accessible — in other words, ‘crème fraîche’ becomes ‘use a tangy dairy topping.’ The ‘spirit’ of the recipe is there, but the reader is getting your interpretation of the recipe more than the recipe’s words.
Paraphrase translations include:
MSG = The Message
TLB = The Living Bible
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The bottom line about translations is this: As readability goes up, precision goes down — and vice versa. No translation sits perfectly at either extreme; they all land somewhere on that spectrum. So, a wise and proven practice is to keep at least one translation from each category handy. That way, you have a formal translation as the ‘anchor’, a dynamic one for ‘clarity’, and a paraphrase occasionally for ‘fresh perspective.’