Is The Amplified Bible A Word For Word Translation

A while dorsum I was working on a project, and I needed help. I was looking for insights Bible readers take gained into Scripture by comparing English Bible translations. The alone dominion was that yous couldn't know Greek or Hebrew.

I mentioned this request to an acute friend and diligent Bible student, a grandmother who works total fourth dimension as a author-editor. Super abrupt. A mean solar day subsequently I received this:

I read a passage this morning time that might fit your search for translations that clarify text for me without my cognition of the original languages. I'm non certain if this is the type of matter you are looking for, but it is a verse I would non have understood otherwise.

In Exodus 4:19 the Lord tells Moses to become to Egypt and gives directions, but in verse 24 I read that the Lord "sought to kill him." So why would the Lord requite an instruction followed by seeking his death?

The Amplified Bible adds text in brackets that helped me: "Now it happened at the lodging place, that the Lord met Moses and sought to impale him [making him deathly ill because he had non circumcised one of his sons]." Of all the versions I went to, this was the only one that added the reason. Accurate, you call back?

I felt so honored that she would have time to answer to my request that I almost turned off my disquisitional thinking skills and wrote dorsum, "Awesome!" Only—stupid critical thinking skills—I couldn't. I had to probe.

Something seemed a little off. I remembered that passage in Exodus well; I've puzzled over information technology many times. Information technology seemed to me, and I confirmed this with a quick cheque of a few translations and my Lexham English-Hebrew interlinear, that the Amplified Bible was calculation its own ideas to the text.

Now in that location'due south cypher wrong with speculation and interpolation every bit long as information technology's clearly marked off (equally the Amplified Bible does) and understood by the reader to exist speculation and interpolation. It's the latter I'm concerned most: I fearfulness that some readers may assume that the things in brackets are sort of "hidden" in the Greek and Hebrew, waiting for the Amplified Bible to come along and unearth them for English language readers who've been stuck with other, junior translations. I believe this is what I idea as an 18-yr-quondam picking up the Amplified for the first time.

Simply the things the Amplified Bible interpolates into Exodus iv:19 aren't hidden in the Greek and Hebrew; they're interpretive and explanatory glosses.

I asked my editor friend, "Then . . . Equally an exceptionally acute reader yourself, did you lot feel information technology was clear to you lot where they were getting the ane idea they added (the sickness) and the i they strengthened (the reason for the Lord'south desire to kill Moses)?"

My astute friend replied,

The brackets tell me this is added thought, but I did not know where the idea originated.

Uh-oh.

The preface to the Amplified Bible

This substitution got me thinking almost the Amplified Bible. I bought a copy of this translation back in 1998. Equally a young college student, I didn't quite know what to brand of the Amplified. I didn't quite empathise what it was trying to do. Information technology was but weird to read,

For God and so greatly loved and dearly prized the globe that He [even] gave up His just begotten (unique) Son, and so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to devastation, exist lost) simply accept eternal (everlasting) life. (John three:16)

It seemed to me that the Amplified was racking upwardly synonyms from the English language thesaurus. I gauge that wouldn't be so bad. The additions are, once again, conspicuously marked off.

But information technology turns out the Amplified is shooting at a higher target.

What is the Amplified Bible?

The preface explains the Bible's fulsome parenthetical interpolations:

[The Amplified Bible's] genius lies in its rigorous endeavor to go beyond the traditional "word-for-discussion" concept of translation to bring out the richness of the Hebrew and Greek languages. Its purpose is to reveal, together with the single English discussion equivalent to each key Hebrew and Greek word, any other clarifying meanings that may exist curtained by the traditional translation method. Possibly for the offset time in an English version of the Bible, the full pregnant of the primal words in the original text is available for the reader. In a sense, the creative apply of the amplification only helps the reader comprehend what the Hebrew and Greek listener instinctively understood. (preface)

This, I'm afraid, is bad. Let me tell you why.

A linguistic warning nearly the Amplified Bible

In 1998 I hadn't taken any linguistics courses, any Greek, or any Hebrew. If I read this preface, I don't recall it raising any red flags. Just now, subsequently years of studying and compulsively thinking nearly language—specially Greek, Hebrew, and English, and their relationship in Bible translation—I'm afraid the red flags moving ridge madly when I read the Amplified Bible'south explanation of itself. Every line shows linguistic misunderstandings, and my critical thinking skills won't permit me say it more than nicely.

Traditional translation methods aren't "concealing" meaning except at very subtle levels—places in which, for instance, the number of a 2d-person pronoun simply can't be expressed except through context (because you can be singular or plural in English). In particular, "the key words in the original text" don't have "full meanings" that our modern translations are somehow obscuring. The word "muffle" vastly overstates the limitations of traditional Bible translations.

Linguists such as James Barr have told usa that the bones unit of meaning in language is not the word anyway. Information technology hovers somewhere betwixt the sentence and the paragraph. Therefore the Amplified's preface is loading upwardly Greek and Hebrew words with more meaning than they are meant to carry. Hither it is once again:

Take as an instance the Greek word pisteuo, which the vast majority of versions render "believe." That simple translation, notwithstanding hardly does justice to the many meanings contained in the Greek pisteuo: "to adhere to, cleave to; to trust, to take organized religion in; to rely on, to depend on." Consequently, the reader gains understanding through the use of amplification, equally in John 11:25: "Jesus said to her, I am [Myself] the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in (adheres to, trusts in, and relies on) Me, although he may dice, yet he shall live."

This really isn't right. "Believes in" is the correct translation. Jesus could have said "adhered to" or "trusts in" or "relied on," and he didn't. Adhering, trusting, and relying are non ideas hidden in pisteuo (πιστεύω) but curtained past the ESV, NASB, NIV, CSB, etc. The Greek and Hebrew words for believe aren't any richer than the English, French, Castilian, or German ones. Now, the give-and-take pisteuo (πιστεύω) may be used in contexts which highlight its affinity with "relying on" or "trusting in," but so can the English give-and-take "believe." It'south context which flavors a discussion.

I'm non saying that words can mean simply one thing; words tin can indeed have various senses. I'm proverb what respected evangelical linguist Moisés Silva says (quoting another scholar): "The all-time meaning is the least meaning." Silva recommends that Bible interpreters (here he again quotes another scholar) ascertain a word "in such way as to make it contribute least to the total message derivable from the passage where information technology is at home." (Biblical Words and Their Pregnant, 153–154).

In other words, if your translation of a Greek or Hebrew give-and-take radically changes the meaning of the passage from what the standard translations say, go back and check again until it doesn't.

The Amplified, when used according to its stated blueprint, invites readers to deny this interpretive truism. It makes them call back, "Ah, now I know what the Greek discussion hither really means"—and then to Choose Their Own Adventure, picking the meaning they similar most. This kind of thinking undermines our first-class Bible translations. Who doesn't desire a Bible that tells y'all what really happened to Moses in that obscure, even troubling passage in Exodus 4? And if that information is hidden in the Hebrew, why not bring information technology out?

Considering it isn't in that location. Our conventional translations have already told us what Exodus 4:nineteen says.

Better in practice than in theory

Thankfully, still, the Amplified—like a off-white amount of Bible didactics out there—is meliorate in practice than in theory, and you should still own it. The fact is that Exodus 4:19 is obscure, and the Amplified's guess at what was going on is a good one—a very skilful one that is attentive to the hints within the passage. Essentially, the Amplified Bible is a study Bible with very brief notes that are brought from the margins of the page into the text.

Not infrequently, the Amplified Bible uses a traditional translation of an obscure give-and-take such every bit "firmament" but and then offers a rendering that will exist easier for modernistic readers to grasp: "[expanse]" (Gen 1:vii). That'due south helpful.

The interpretive glosses it adds tin can likewise exist downright insightful:

Allow at that place be lights in the area of the heavens to separate the 24-hour interval from the dark, and allow them exist signs and tokens [of God'due south provident care]. (Gen 1:14)

I don't think I e'er stopped to ask myself in Genesis 1:fourteen, "Signs and tokens of what?" The Amplified Bible forces me to ask that question past answering it: the sun, moon, and stars are signs and tokens of God'southward providential care. And that looks to me like a skillful answer. Even if that answer is in no way hidden in the Hebrew, it'south a genuine Bible study assistance.

Even when the interpretive glosses are controversial, they're still worth having for sure readers:

God said, Let Us [Male parent, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image (Gen 1:26).

Bible readers throughout church history have argued about whether the Trinity is meant here. I don't think the question can exist answered definitively until we know fifty-fifty as besides we are known (1 Cor 13:12). Only inserting one position into the text is helpful for readers who, like me as a young person, never stopped to ask, "Who's the 'u.s.'?" Once once again, the Amplified forces y'all to inquire an of import interpretive question by answering it.

The editor(south) of the Amplified knew they were guessing sometimes:

The gilded of that land is of high quality; bdellium (pearl?) and onyx stone are there. (Gen 2:12)

They had an eye for metaphors that might demand a footling explanation. In this sense, the Amplified tends to combine the value of formal (literal) and functional (dynamic) Bible translations:

The optics of all look for You [looking, watching, and expecting] and Yous give them their food in due flavour. (Ps 145:fifteen)

It is maximally efficient for a report Bible to stick little clarifications right in the text rather than forcing readers to follow a footnote down to the bottom of the page. If you don't know who Cephas is, the Amplified helps you:

When Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I protested. (Gal ii:11)

All of the examples I've just given are good things the Amplified does despite, not because of, the theory stated in its preface.

Conclusion

Someone in your Bible report grouping sitting effectually your living room should take the Amplified Bible up on his or her iPad. Only skip the preface. I suggest that you view the Amplified every bit an efficient report Bible, the fruit of deep dedication to the text of Scripture, an interesting oddity of American evangelicalism that puts one of the movement's healthiest impulses on full brandish: the desire to understand Scripture.