In this episode we continue working our way through the 1877 book Suggestions for Translators, Editors, and Revisers of the Bible by the Reverend R.B. Girdlestone, who was a superintendent of the translating and editorial department of the British and Foreign Bible Society. We cover the following sections:
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This past week I presented two talks at Doreancon 2025 on the Stewardship of Scripture, where we launched a historic statement I would invite you to consider signing and sharing. This is the first talk that I presented. You can find an unfinished draft of the talk and others here.
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This past week I presented two talks at Doreancon 2025 on the Stewardship of Scripture, where we launched a historic statement I would invite you to consider signing and sharing. This is the second talk that I presented. You can find an unfinished draft of the talk and others here.
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What do you do when you’ve finished translating a portion of the Bible and want to print it? How do you typeset it? Do you have to pay an outside expert thousands of dollars to make it look beautiful and professional? Or is there another option? My guest in this episode explains how he has spent years of his life making this step painless and free for everyone–from the most low-tech person in a hurry to the most artistic and meticulous perfectionist.
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In this episode we continue working our way through the 1877 book Suggestions for Translators, Editors, and Revisers of the Bible by the Reverend R.B. Girdlestone, who was a superintendent of the translating and editorial department of the British and Foreign Bible Society. We cover the following sections:
website | books | twitter | music | Hebrew | articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline
In this episode we continue working our way through the 1877 book Suggestions for Translators, Editors, and Revisers of the Bible by the Reverend R.B. Girdlestone, who was a superintendent of the translating and editorial department of the British and Foreign Bible Society. We cover the following sections of chapter 1:
§ 2.- 0N METHODS OF TRANSLATING; WITH REMARKS ON SOME EXISTING VERSIONS.
§ 3. - THE RECEIVED TEXT TO BE FOLLOWED; ON THE USE OF
ALTERNATIVE READINGS.
§ 4. - 0N ACCURACY AND CONSISTENCY IN THE TRANSLATION OF RELIGIOUS TERMS.website | books | twitter | music | Hebrew | articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline
Watch this video to get the full story.
"Abolish the Jesus Trade": https://sellingJesus.org/book
It’s a dark day for Bible translation, and my heart is made heavy by a recent experience I had with one of the largest organizations in the movement. I posted a video about the whole thing which you’ll find linked in the description if you’re interested in finding out what happened.
In light of the sad reality I was made painfully aware of, I’d like to start a new series. I’ll be walking through translation principles so that this section of the podcast can be a place where people can get the fundamental training they need in the discipline and art of translation. But this will only come from sources that are either public domain or openly licensed. Because I highly value the past and those who have gone before, even when linguistics was a fledgling field of study compared to the present day, I want to begin with the 1877 book Suggestions for Translators, Editors, and Revisers of the Bible by the Reverend R.B. Girdlestone, who was a superintendent of the translating and editorial department of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
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It's a pleasure to feature the work of veteran Bible translator Nico Daams in this episode. In this paper he seeks to show that the name YHWH ’Elohim is used in rather unique contexts, and this in turn will suggest that the meaning of this name is more than just the sum total of the two parts YHWH and ’Elohim.
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An invitation to unite in one conviction: Scripture is the Word of God, and he has authorized his people to use, copy, distribute, and adapt it regardless of man’s consent.
Read the statement: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12DwWu4BZpAu-Ys0Pbg0jDrK7tthzVZFEfaxpZOWEA1c/edit?usp=sharingSend feedback: https://forms.gle/67jLjk6xecJP4QMU7https://www.doreancon.org/#doreancon 2025The Stewardship of ScriptureOctober 7-8Hosted at Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church, Sunnyvale, California
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The Solid Rock Hebrew Bible represents a significant step forward in the ongoing effort to recover the most accurate possible form of the biblical text. Unlike many standard editions in circulation today—which are largely based on a single medieval manuscript—this volume offers an eclectic Hebrew text informed by the insights of modern textual criticism. The goal: to move closer to the original wording of the Scriptures as they were first composed.
This edition moves beyond the limitations of diplomatic editions—texts that follow a single manuscript while relegating alternative readings to the margins. Instead, the Solid Rock Hebrew Bible integrates thousands of textual decisions directly into the text, reflecting the editor’s judgment regarding the most probable original forms.
That said, this is not a critical edition in the traditional sense. Readers will not find an exhaustive apparatus detailing the textual variants or the evidence behind each decision. Rather, this is a curated edition, transparently offered as the editor’s best effort, subject to revision and open to critique. It is a scholarly but accessible resource that welcomes engagement from others in the field.
Another notable feature is the adoption of the Tiberian vocalization system—commonly used in medieval manuscripts—while also making reasoned deviations where warranted by linguistic, exegetical, or historical considerations. The divine name, for instance, is presented as יַהְוֶה (Yahweh) throughout, except in Chronicles, reflecting both historical pronunciation and sensitivity to textual tradition.
Importantly, this edition is also open-access. It’s freely available in electronic format and released under a Creative Commons license, making it a valuable tool for students, teachers, pastors, and scholars around the world, regardless of institutional access or financial means.
Download the SRHB and view the notes.
Explore other projects from Stephen.
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What if Mother Teresa or Billy Graham lived and worked — and nobody knew their names? What if one of the church’s most influential missionaries went almost unnoticed?
Meet Katharine (Katy) Barnwell. Within Bible translation, she’s a legend. Outside of Bible translation, few have heard of her. But not even Billy Graham holds a candle to what God did through Katy.
From hiding as a child from Nazi bombing raids, fleeing civil wars, and remaining calm under terrorist attacks and armed gunmen, to utterly revolutionizing every field she touched, Barnwell’s life proves there is no need to treat the missionary hall of fame as if its ranks are closed. On the contrary, her kingdom labor reveals that God is still in the business of raising up contemporary “greats” who are willing to face danger, go the distance, lift up God’s Word in unprecedented ways, and see the lost turn to Christ in droves.
In fact, there may be no “great” in all of church history who matches Barnwell’s level of influence.
All around the world, hundreds of millions of new believers read and hear Scripture in their own language because of Barnwell’s work, books, and language training. By some estimates, about 3,000 completed or in-process Bible translations swim directly downstream of her work. Since she rebuilt The Jesus Film Project’s methods, more than 300 million viewers around the world have become followers of Jesus.
Author Jordan Monson joins us in this episode to talk about his new book on Barnwell's life. You can get your copy here.website | books | twitter | music | Hebrew | articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for offline
In this episode, we dive into the captivating and complex history of Bible translation in Thailand. Our guest, Doug Liao, has spent a lot of time studying the history of Bible translation into Thai, and helps introduce us to the pioneers who brought the Scriptures to this unique cultural landscape. In this lesson from history we'll be reminded of how messy and controversial Bible translation can be, in spite of the best intentions.
Doug Liao is a PhD Candidate at Fuller Seminary, studying the history of the first translations of the New Testament into Siamese in the nineteenth century. However, in the last year, he has written several articles about the history of the 1971 revision of the Thai Bible, including one for the Bible Translator journal, which we’ll be discussing in this interview. Doug lives on the west coast of Canada with his wife, Joy.
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After hearing the panel discussion on AI a couple episodes back, some of you may be wondering what exactly it might look like for you to explore using AI for your translation project. I myself was curious as well. So I reached out to James, who led the panel discussion, and he connected me to Jeff Webster with Seed Company who has a good deal of experience helping teams evaluate and use AI for drafting. After sharing a little about himself, Jeff will walk us through the details of what would be involved for anyone wanting to try out AI drafting and see if it’s something that could help with their translation project. A big thanks to Jeff for taking the time to do this, and I hope it’s useful for many teams around the world.
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One of the common misconceptions about the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is that it is a universally public domain work—something many tout as a feature of its superiority to modern copyrighted translations. But most don’t realize that it is still under a special perpetual copyright of the Crown in the United Kingdom.
Unlike the KJV, some modern translations such as the Berean Standard Bible are public domain worldwide. So while it’s important for a Bible translation to be in the public domain, there are modern translations that fulfill that better than the KJV does.
sellingjesus.org | thedoreanprinciple.org | copy.church
As AI gains more and more momentum, I believe that Christians should be compelled to think biblically and carefully about the technology. Are there redemptive uses for it, and what are the dangers? Is it all a doomsday scenario, or are there ways in which it can be used for God’s glory in a responsible way that promotes human flourishing and the spread of the gospel and the edification of the Church?
In this episode I want to share two things I came across recently that I hope will aid us in cultivating intelligent, humble, clearer thinking about AI from a Christian perspective, especially as it relates to the task of Bible translation. Organizations like Seed Company and SIL are pouring massive amounts of money into the space, each with their own specialized AI department. So what kinds of things are they saying and doing? That’s what this episode is meant to help with. A month ago the ETEN innovation lab posted a panel discussion with four men from different BT orgs talking about AI and how it is currently being used as a tool in more than 300 BT projects around the world. For some reason the video was unlisted, and I got permission from them to post the entirety of the audio in this episode so that more people can benefit from the conversation.
But before that discussion, I want to frame it with an excellent article by Andy Crouch entitled “A Redemptive Thesis for Artificial Intelligence.”
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The Spoken English Bible is a new translation of the Bible that is intended to be heard and told, not read. It is being produced from the original languages and is intended to maximize retention while still being faithful to the meaning. The SEB is owned and produced by SIL International, and is licensed under the open CC BY-SA license.
In this episode I’m joined by Josh Frost who is a member of the SEB team and will be giving us an insider’s perspective on the process and development of this new translation. Josh is a graduate of the University of Missouri where he studied linguistics and classical languages.
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Links:
How to Self-Publish a Free Book That Is Truly Freely Given
Video version of the psalm at the end of the episode
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It’s an incredible time to be alive, especially getting to watch the advances of AI in various fields. While I realize that there’s probably a sizeable percentage of this audience that thinks AI is the opposite of progress, I want to introduce you to a tool that you might find useful. It’s called NotebookLM by Google, and it’s free for you to start using today. You can create notebooks and fill them with source material of all kinds: links, videos, PDFs, pasted text, and other docs. The AI will then digest all the material and you’ll be able to interact with it in a chat, ask questions about it, ask it to summarize things, etc. But the most magical and impressive thing about it is that you can ask it to generate an audio conversation, podcast-style, about the material. A man and a woman will have a down to earth, natural sounding discussion about the content, and you can listen to it and learn some of the main points of what you didn’t have time to read. Perhaps there’s a 100-page thesis you don’t have time to read. Drop it into NotebookLM, and then listen to a 15 minute conversation about it while you wash the dishes or go for a run. If you haven’t heard a demo of this, prepare yourself for a level of realism that you’ve never encountered before. While it’s not perfect, and many of you may never use it and think it’s gimmicky, for a nascent technology, it’s an incredible demonstration of what possibilities the future might hold. Keep in mind that this is the worst this tech will ever get. What you’re about to hear is a series of conversations I generated based on source material from my research on the Reina Valera Spanish Bible translation. This was a fun experiment for me during my paternity leave after the birth of our new baby boy.
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I co-wrote this article with Conley Owens for sellingJesus.org. It was originally published on the Selling Jesus podcast.
"For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ" (2 Cor. 2:17, ESV).
This highly technical discussion is not an easy listen, and it's recommended that you complement it with the visuals in the written version of the article. That said, the primary source of interest in this verse is the word translated by the ESV as “peddlers” (καπηλεύοντες, from καπηλεύω). Commentators and translations divide over recognizing this word as indicating an adulteration or commercialization of the gospel. Furthermore, they differ on whether or not this word necessarily implies a motive of profit. Thus, as we will see below, some translations add “for profit” to the verse because they believe it to be implicit information from the context that needs to be made explicit to the reader, even though the words “for profit” are not found in the Greek.
This matters because there are those who would argue that 2 Corinthians 2:17 does not confront the commercialization of Bible translations, but rather speaks merely of those who make too much profit from selling them. Or they claim that this verse has nothing to do with selling, but rather with "corrupting" God's Word. Is there really a loophole here for Bible publishers who claim ownership of God's Word, lock it down from being spread freely, and enrich themselves in the process? Can this verse be translated in such a way as to help them avoid Paul's condemnation, or does it simply mean: "we are not commercializing God’s Word like so many others"?
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An important decision a translator makes is whether or not to domesticate/contextualize/localize the foreign elements of a text. In this episode, we will discuss the concepts of domestication and foreignization in Bible translation, and explore some of the factors that translators should consider when making this decision. As we’ll see, foreignness in translation demands a delicate balance between fidelity to the source text and accessibility to the target audience.
Here's the full text of the article. It's free to read, modify, copy, share, or translate.
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