God's Word is Not Limited by Earthly Language
God's Word always produces fruit and accomplishes exactly what He intends.
In Genesis 1:3, the Bible reads, “3 Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (NLT).
God says it, and — boom! — it’s reality. That is power.
The Language of the Bible
Have you ever wondered what language God used when he spoke creation into existence?
Surely, it wasn’t English. Or Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Hindi, or any other human language. At that point, there weren’t humans around to hear him speak, so I’m guessing it was a heavenly language, not an earthly one. Maybe when I’m standing in God’s presence, he’ll use the same language to communicate with me, which would be good because my high school French is pretty rusty.
Sometimes, in a church sermon, a pastor will say that “This verse uses the Hebrew/Greek word X, and that word has this particular nuanced definition…” That’s helpful to get your mind around a subtle Biblical point. But it has the tendency to suggest that the real version of God’s Word is written in Hebrew or Greek.
Surely, the oldest copies of the Old Testament are written in Hebrew, and the oldest copies of the New Testament are written in Greek. But neither of those two languages are particularly special in the grand scheme of things.
Jesus and his disciples spent most of their time speaking Aramaic, for instance. Bits of that still slip through into today’s English Bible. For instance, Matthew and Mark both record Jesus as saying “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” as he dies, quoting the first half of Psalm 22:1 (“1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?” (NIV)).
Notably, Jesus didn’t say it in Greek or even quote the original Hebrew. In that deepest, darkest moment, just before his life is extinguished, Jesus asks God why he has been abandoned, and he does it in Aramaic.
So, really, there’s nothing special about Greek or Hebrew other than they are the languages used in the oldest manuscripts. I think the use of Greek for the New Testament was one of God’s divine arrangements because Greek was the language of international business at the time of the gospels, and it allowed the New Testament to travel far and wide and spread quickly.
Later, the Bible was translated from the original Hebrew and Greek into Latin as Rome adopted Christianity as the state religion. For a long time, things stayed that way. The Church resisted translation of the Bible into other local languages, “the vernacular.” Many people in the middle ages would sit in church and listen to priests reading from Latin Bibles which the people simply could not understand. Ironically, the Latin Vulgate was just such a translation into the vernacular of Rome.
In the 1300s, in England, John Wycliff believed that God’s Word should be read by the common man in his own language, and he produced a translation in English. In return for his trouble, Parliament and the Church declared his Bible a heresy and agitated for King Richard II to remove him from his post at Oxford, which the king did.
Two-hundred twenty years after Wycliff’s death, in 1604, King James commissioned his own Bible in English. It was published in 1611. When many people think of The Bible, they think of the King James Version (KJV). Because of the language in use in 1611, the KJV sounds “religious” to our modern ears. Or rather, “religion” came to sound a lot like the King James Bible. Lots of “thee” and “thou” and “verily” in the KJV.
Some Christian sects and denominations to this day accept only the King James Version as the true word of God.
This, of course, is a bit of nonsense. Surely, the KJV remains quite a good translation, particularly when evaluated against the time period it was produced and the available source manuscripts at that time. But there’s nothing particularly special about the KJV when you get right down to it.
Nobody in the Bible spoke any English, ever. England “wasn’t even a thing,” as the kids say, when the Bible was being written. So, there’s no particular reason to read a Bible written in an archaic version of English versus a modern English translation, other than personal preference. I still have lots of Bible verses committed to memory in the KJV, for instance, and so I will sometimes read the KJV for those verses.
But I personally prefer the New Living Translation (NLT) as my everyday reading Bible, with the New American Standard Bible (NASB) as my super-accurate, word-for-word translation when I need it. I also regularly read from the New International Version (NIV) and even the Message paraphrase. All of these are excellent, and not a “thee” or “thou” or “verily” among them.
In fact, it’s remarkable when you think that orthodox Christianity doesn’t really recognize any particular translation of the Bible as being The One. Again, the oldest manuscripts that we have are written in Hebrew and Greek, but that’s just a happenstance.
In contrast, Islamic tradition says that Allah has a master copy of the Quran in heaven, written (of course) in Arabic. Consequently, while translations of the Quran into other languages are available, many Muslims to this day hear and memorize the Quran only in Arabic, a language that they don’t otherwise understand.
The bias toward Latin in the Middle Ages aside, neither Judaism nor Christianity have any similar tradition. The Bible doesn’t say or even suggest that a “master copy” of God’s Word exists in written form or that it would be written in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English, Chinese, Arabic, or anything else even if it did exist.
God’s Word is Bigger than Language
I think that’s really important because it means that God’s Word is not identical to the language in which we capture God’s Word on the page.
God’s Word is something much bigger and more important than human language and the words and sounds that we use to communicate and the letters on a printed page. The words and letters communicate God’s Word, but God’s Word is somehow more.
You get some sense of how mysterious, how much more God’s Word is in John 1.
1 In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He existed in the beginning with God.
3 God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.…
14 So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
This is one of the most beautiful and powerful pieces of scripture in the whole Bible. Nobody can ever say that John was afraid to lay out the big ideas. Think about these phrases:
“In the beginning the Word already existed.”
“The Word was with God.”
“The Word was God.”
“God created everything through him.”
“The Word gave life to everything that was created.”
“The Word became human and made his home among us.”
So: Word = Eternal = God = Jesus = Creator
It’s interesting to note that in John 1, God’s Word is active. It creates. It gives life. It becomes human in the form of Jesus Christ.
This reminds me a bit of what God says about his Word in Isaiah 55:
10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavens
and stay on the ground to water the earth.
They cause the grain to grow,
producing seed for the farmer
and bread for the hungry.
11 It is the same with my word.
I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
The way God speaks of his Word here is similar to the way that John writes about it. God sends it, but the Word itself produces fruit, accomplishes all that He wants it to, and prospers everywhere. God’s Word is active. It causes things to happen.
So, I think it’s safe to say that God’s Word is not strictly equivalent to the paper, the ink, and the little glyphs on the page that correspond to noises made by humans. That’s one way that God’s Word is communicated to people, but God’s Word also transcends those things. Neither John (writing in Greek) nor Isaiah (writing in Hebrew) mention paper and ink in their descriptions of God’s Word.
And thus, no translation can lay claim to being The One and Only True Translation.
Here’s the big idea for this article: I’ll claim that all faithful translations of the Bible (not heretical, making an effort to be accurate) capture all the power of God’s Word, even while they are written in different languages by different people across time. If you’re reading the Bible in English or Korean or Bulgarian, you don’t have to worry that you’re somehow getting a second-class version of God’s Word. I don’t know how he does it, but God ensures that his Word is transmitted through all these different words on paper.
In fact, I don’t think God’s Word even requires a written document at all, though that’s helpful. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus chose 12 blue-collar guys, likely with limited educations, to start the spread of his Kingdom to the ends of the earth. Mostly, they did that orally. They certainly didn’t each have their own copy of the Old Testament scriptures as that would have been insanely expensive at the time because scriptures were hand-copied, and the New Testament didn’t exist until they wrote it.
In the same way, today’s persecuted Christians, in countries such as Iran where spreading the gospel or possessing a Bible might result in death, have brought the Kingdom of God to more people and made more disciples than most western Christians will do in a lifetime, all through telling Bible stories in their own words, orally.
Bluntly: God doesn’t need literate people and printed books to expand his Kingdom; he just needs obedient people, willing to step up to the Great Commission with whatever skills and tools they possess. God’s Word will move and establish his Kingdom as He wills.
Before I get accused of heresy here, let me be clear that I’m a firm believer in the doctrine of sola scriptura. The written scriptures are critically important as a plumb line for Christian doctrine. They serve as a stable reference for what is true. We should test everything against the scriptures. If something comports with scripture, it’s probably true. If not, then it’s definitely false. Nothing I’ve said in this article should be taken to suggest otherwise.
If you don’t believe me…
… I’ll leave you with an example.
Several years ago, a friend of mine was going off to be a missionary. He was doing so with Wycliff Bible Translators, an organization named after good ol’ John Wycliff who got Parliament and the Church so angry with his English Bible translation back in the 1300s. The Wycliff organization’s goal is to ensure the Bible is translated into the native language of every single people group in the world. Yes, it’s a big task, but they and other groups with similar missions are getting close to achieving this goal.
Before he left, my friend showed me some of the interesting translations that exist. In one case, he pointed me to the Hawai’i Pidgin translation (HWP), which is limited to the New Testament. You can find it both on Bible Gateway and YouVersion (aka “the Bible app”). It’s close enough to English that you’ll be able to understand it with some effort (hint: pronounce everything phonetically as written). I love this translation because it’s the complete opposite of the King James translation that sounds so “religious” to our ears. It has the sound of the street. I’ve quoted from John 8, the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, which I think is one of the most beautiful stories of forgiveness in the whole of scripture. This translation makes it even more poignant, I think.
8 But Jesus wen go Olive Ridge. 2 Nex day he go inside da Temple yard early. Everybody come wea he stay. Den he sit down dea fo teach dem. 3 Da guys dat teach Godʼs Rules an da Pharisee guys wen find one wahine fooling aroun wit one guy dat not her husban. So dey bring her in front Jesus an all da peopo. 4 Dey tell him, “Teacha, we wen find dis wahine fooling aroun wit anodda guy dat not her husban! 5 Now, Moses wen tell us in da Rules, ‘Whoeva fool aroun behind da oddaʼs back, gotta throw big kine stones at um fo kill um.’ But you, wat you say?” 6 Dey say dat fo see wat he goin say, cuz dey like catch him fo bus him.
But Jesus wen bend ova an write someting wit his finga on top da dirt. 7 So wen dey stay aks him ova an ova, he stand up strait an tell um, “If get one a you guys dat neva do bad kine stuff, he can throw da first stone at her.”8 Den he bend ova one mo time, an write some mo on top da dirt.
9 Wen dey hear dat, dey wen come shame cuz dey know dey do bad kine stuff too. So dey all go way, one afta da odda, da older guys first, an den da younga guys. Den get ony Jesus an da wahine standing dea. 10 Jesus stand up again an say, “Sista, wea everybody stay? No mo nobody hea fo say you gotta mahke?”
11 She say, “No mo, Mista.”
Jesus say, “You can go now, cuz I no say you gotta mahke. But no go do da bad kine stuff no moa.”]
While it may sound funny to your ear, that’s the Word of God right there. It has power. It does everything that God intends for it. And it changes people’s lives forever.
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Thank you David. This brought a smile to my face.
My sister gave me a Bible for Christmas. It's the New International Version. Easy for me to understand. I have so much to learn! Grateful that our pastor teaches from both the new and old testaments each Sunday.
If angels were standing by when God spoke the command, then something along the lines of "the tongues of angels" might be a good guess for the language.
We don't know how creation was accomplished beyond what the text says. I can tell you from looking deep within the creation, though, that it was engineered. Somehow, sometime. Or maybe time doesn't enter into it. I like to reflect upon Job 38:7, although there is so much more in that chapter, if you join in with the vision.
Aramaic was the local language of the Jews in Jesus' time and place. They called it "Hebrew". OT Hebrew, OT Aramaic, and Greek were the "distribution" languages. Israel wasn't terribly keen on its mission as a "light to the nations", and Greek seems to have played a bigger role in getting the word out. It was the lingua franca in that part of the world for a long time, thanks to Alexander, and the Septuagint was and is available as a Greek OT. All part of the plan. This is meant to mirror or complement what you wrote. I hope it does.
The 1611 AV text is not our present-day KJV Bible. KJVO adherents would for the most part be hard pressed to read from it in the original typeface, although it is available with a modern one along with a promise that nothing else was changed. I think what we have dates from the 18th century or so, but I haven't given it a lot of attention, and I am forgetting what I knew. The version we use matches well with the Greek that we have (I'm not far enough along with Hebrew to comment on the OT Hebrew let alone OT Aramaic but I would be surprised if it wasn't also a good match.)
I like the NLT for its readability, but I've had a number of experiences with reading from it and then having to ask "is that actually in the Bible?" That can be a little unnerving, and I like to double-check the translation before quoting it to others. Another interesting one is the New English Translation (NET), which I learned about through Bill Mounce.
I'm a bit leery of The Message, but there are places where it comes through best. Peterson was not at all concerned about not sounding like the KJV, and that was his strength at times. I do like the sound of the HWP!
There is more to the Word of God that written scripture, as John 1 suggests. The Word speaks to us when we pray, as well as when we study (or both at once), for our understanding. What language? The language of our minds, perhaps.