Something always gets lost in translation, and sometimes words just don’t have an equivalent translation in the target language. If you’ve studied another language, you know that it can be hard to translate ideas from one language into another. Number 2: Translating from one language to another involves trade-offs that yield different results. Many scholars agree that this verse is probably not original to the book of Acts, but was added later by someone who hoped to clarify Christian theology. Why? Well, the ESV is a translation of slightly different manuscripts than the KJV, and those manuscripts don’t include this verse. These differences do not alter Christian theology in the least, but they may result in translation differences and even some verses being left out of a translation because they don’t appear in some collections of manuscripts.įor example, Acts 8:37 doesn’t appear in the ESV but it does in the KJV. The famous King James Version and its revisions uses one collection of texts that is slightly different than the collection used by the New International Version. There are of course small differences in these texts which will lead to differences in translations. Most popular, modern, non-sectarian translations are referencing the same standard original language texts. These are collected and published in standard reference works which translators use to produce modern translations of the Bible in modern languages. What we have are reliable copies of those originals in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. No one knows where the original manuscripts of the texts that became the Bible are today. Number 1: Most popular, modern translations are faithful to the ancient manuscripts from which they were translated. The next time someone asks, “which is the right translation?”, here are 3 things to remember: Which one is the Word of God? Which one is the most accurate? Why are some Bibles harder to read than others? These versions are published in any number of formats like study Bibles, devotional Bibles, even specialty Bibles that appeal to a niche market. Which is the right one?'Ī trip to the bookstore will reveal a number of translations known by an alphabet soup of initials: KJV, ESV, NIV, RSV, or NET. You’re in a conversation and someone says, “there are so many translations of the Bible.

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