The Significance of Translations
The story of Bible translations begins in Alexandria, Egypt about 250 years before Jesus came to earth. The king of Egypt at that time was Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 BC) and Philadelphus was building a library in Alexandria. Among the books Philadelphus wanted in his library was the Bible of the Jews, the Old Testament as we call it. So, he asked the high priest of the temple in Jerusalem to send scribes with copies of the Law of Moses to Alexandria (to translate it).
The story says that this priest sent six men from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, 72 translators, to the king in Alexandria, Egypt. The 72 men were taken to an island just off the coast of Alexandria and for 72 days, they worked on translating the Law of Moses from Hebrew (its original language) into Greek, the language of the world at that time. Thus began the translating of God’s word from its original language into the language of the common people.
This translation is called today the Septuagint and is often abbreviated by the Latin number for 70: LXX. Over the next 200 years, the rest of the Old Testament would be translated into Greek, so there is no single “Septuagint” translation. By the time Jesus enters the world, the LXX is the most commonly used version of the Old Testament among the Jews and, subsequently, it is the most common translation or version of the Old Testament used by the New Testament writers. The vast majority of Bible quotations in the NT come from the LXX translation.
That is significant in this light – even though Moses, for example, wrote in Hebrew, there was never a view among Jews or Christians that Hebrew was an “inspired language.” The fact that the NT writers wrote in common Greek also shows that biblical writers believed that the TRUTH could be understood through translations and that it MUST be understood in other languages.
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The miraculous gift of “speaking in tongues,” speaking in foreign languages one has never studied, shows that same point. God wants all men to understand the truth and have the knowledge and the freedom to obey that truth. “Interpretation” was also a miraculous gift (1 Cor. 12:30).
I mention this in contrast to the official Muslim attitude towards translations of their own holy book, the Qur’an. The official position is that the Qur’an was revealed by God in the Arabic language and you cannot have an official translation of the Qur’an. But that’s not the biblical view of God’s revelation. Islam is not a religion motivated by love, intended for the obedience of all nations.
God intends for His message to be understood. Therefore modern translations, as literal as possible but colloquial as necessary, will always be needed.
–Paul Holland
