God the creator calls mankind to follow Him. He transcends the creator-creature gap by speaking to His people through prophets, apostles, and His son. This means God wants to be heard and obeyed. Since God’s words are his primary way of communicating to humanity and they have been written down, it is necessary for people to intertwine the Scriptures with their common language to achieve clarity of understanding and submit to His authority. God and His people have always put His message into different languages for people to follow Him. Therefore, the Bible must be translated into languages that do not have access to it in their vernacular, a particular group’s natural informal speech.
The translators of the original KJV (1611) recognized this mandate and wrote in its preface: “But how shall men meditate in that, which they cannot understand? How shall they understand that which is kept close in an unknown tongue?” The KJV translators, John Wyclif, William Tyndale, and other Bible translators throughout history realized that allowing people to know God and follow Him meant translating His Word into their vernacular no matter the cost. This paper also argues from the biblical doctrines previous translators used which insist on translation and how they refuted the Catholic understanding of Scripture with them. This paper will also demonstrate how the biblical writers/translators thought about and practiced translating. Additionally, it will overview a case for the vernacular from a context of God’s mission. Finally, it will close with its importance in a believer’s life today
Scripture repeatedly claims the words in the Bible are God’s Word. For example, “thus says the LORD” appears 417 times in the Old Testament alone. Additional Old Testament passages claim God speaks through His prophets and the New Testament passages claim God speaks through His apostles. The Apostle Paul echoed the OT prophets by saying “All Scripture is God-breathed;” Peter furthermore clarifies that “no prophecy was ever made by the will of man, but men being moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Tim 3:16; 1 Pet 1:21, LSB). God ensured the words in the Bible are His words. This is why Jesus and the biblical writers saw the written word as God’s words.
Because the words in Scripture are God’s words, they are morally binding on humans. Or put another way, “all the words in Scripture are God’s words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.” An example is Jesus rebuking his disciples for not believing “all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25)! The Bible, on account of being God’s Words, alone has the right to establish morality and command conformity.
William Tyndale, the first English Bible translator to draw from the Greek and Hebrew texts, rightly saw the Bible as having ultimate authority in one’s life. This compelled him to complain about how the church shut up God’s Word and how the Clergy took “away the key of knowledge and beggared the people.” Hiding Scripture led people to remain children and unintentionally disobey God. This is why the KJV translators argued the only way to keep people from perpetually being helpless children is by translating God words “into the vulgar tongue.” In his letters to the reader of 1530, Tyndale likewise explains his motivation to translate the Scripture into the vernacular was that he “had perceived by experience how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth, except the scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue.” Later in the same letter, he claimed he would continue to translate the Bible until all those who “submit themselves unto the word of God, … be corrected of them.”
Tyndale made so much of the authority of God’s Word that one visitor blurted out “We were better to be without God’s law than the Pope’s.” In a bold move, Tyndale countered the guest by declaring “I defy the Pope and all his laws, and if God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow, shall know more of the scripture than thou dost.” Tyndale directly challenged the Catholic position.
The Catholic position throughout the centuries has been to limit the correct interpretation of God’s Word to the “church” as an institution. This means only those who have the teaching position of the church can truly understand Scripture. In fact, the Catholic Church Catechism states “the task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether [written or tradition], has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone…. This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.”
This view of authority explains why Catholics banned lay people from reading God’s Word in their mother tongue in certain periods (i.e. 1409 Constitutions against Wycliff, etc.). In Tyndale’s time (1530) all English Bibles were condemned because the Catholic church feared the translating of Scripture “would tend rather to people’s further confusion and destruction than to the edification of their souls.” However, the major point in the debate seems to be the sole right of the priest to correctly interpret the Bible for laypersons.
The Catholic position bars people from God’s authority and the truth. Jesus and the biblical writers never alluded to nor suggest needing special authority figures to rightly understand Scripture. For example, the Psalmist says Yahweh’s testimony makes “wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7). This Psalm claims a simple person will read God’s Word and become wise.
Tyndale saw the Catholic view of withholding lay people from reading the Bible as the church assuming the primary authority in believers’ lives and the Bible becoming a secondary (or worse) authority. That erroneous view of Scripture’s authority is ripe for spiritual abuse. This spiritual manipulation happened, and the Catholic church responded to any threat against their power by burning books, men, women, and so on by the most vicious way.
John Wycliffe, whose body was exhumed and bones burnt for allowing lay people to read God’s Word, countered the Catholics’ position by observing all people’s responsibility to obey God’s law. This called for them to study the Bible. Wycliffe’s theology of being personally responsible before God lead him to make the Wycliffe Bible which finally allowed lay people to interpret Scripture. This move challenged the supposed priest’s authority which claimed only they were allowed to preach and teach the Bible.
Desiderius Erasmus disassociated with any unwilling to allow Sacred Scripture in the common language. He questioned “if Christ had taught such subtle doctrines that they can with difficulty be understood by a very few theologians, or as if the strength of the Christian religion lay in men’s ignorance of it.” Rather, he continued, Christ desires “His mysteries to be published as widely as possible.” He reasoned that Scripture can be understood.
While emphasizing God enabling lay people to understanding Scripture, it does not mean Scripture is simplistic. Consider the Apostle Peter recognizing the effort needed to understand some of Paul’s writings; remember he said “hard to understand” and not “impossible to understand” (2 Pet 3:16). Scripture can be understood by anyone, but requires work and help from the Holy Spirit. Wayne Grudem precisely states “the Bible is written in such a way that it is able to be understood, but right understanding requires time, effort, the use of ordinary means, a willingness to obey, and the help of the Holy Spirit.” So unlike the Catholics who emphasis right interpretation only by Peter’s successors, believers today can understand Scripture through study and the Holy Spirit.
Churches and False Teachers
Jesus warned believers to “Beware of the false prophets” (Matt 7:15). Jesus and the biblical writers called Christians to use God’s Word to spot false teacher. This same reasoning led Wycliffe to call Christians to use Scripture as the standard from which the churches and priest (pastors) should be measured. Martin Luther also argued “the church was to be validated by the Bible … not the Bible by the Church” In other words, until people can read the Bible in a language they understand, the authority of teachers, pastors, and churches go relatively uncontested. However, for Wycliffe, Tyndale, and others to challenge the corrupt church by reference to scripture, scripture needs to be widely available. Believers today need access to the Bible for the same reason.
Koine Greek. Jesus’s disciples not only translated their Master’s words from Aramaic but also translated them into the common Greek language (Koine) instead of the formal/scholarly Greek (Classical/Attic). The common people used koine Greek to write wills, marriage contracts, private letters, shopping lists, and so on. This simplified Greek was the opposite of a special language (or a “Holy Ghost language as previously argued by some). This simple point from history reveals that God communicates the gospel through ordinary language. It also means the gospel does not belong to a special class of people; but rather, it belongs to all people of the world. And by extension, God does not see any dialect as too vulgar or barbaric to carry His message!
Septuagint. In the third or second century BC, some Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language. When the New Testament quotes or alludes to the Old Testament, it often quotes “the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew original.” Furthermore, since the Holy Spirit allowed the biblical authors to feel comfortable quoting a translation of the Bible and saw it as the authoritative Word of God, this should permit believers to see other accurate translations of God’s Word as authoritative.
Jesus’s incarnation was not glorious or perfect in any human way of thinking. Consider that the relational God has taken the necessary steps to reach out to humanity by becoming a human should come as a shock. This God—who walked with Adam and Eve, called Abraham, raised up Moses, and finally sent His Son—has always broken down barriers to communicate with people. God’s example of the incarnation explains why “He should be preached in a vulgar, prosaic and unliterary language. If you can stomach the one, you can stomach the other.”
The challenge is transferring God’s message into a language and culture that people can understand. Even though translations are imperfect and flawed, God still used translation to accomplish His purpose. He could have forced everyone to learn Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic to avoid the flaws in translation. However, God revealed himself as the living Word and spoke in a language a normal person on the street could understand. This fact alone should convince believers to translate Scripture into one’s common language.
Just as God through the incarnation transcended the creator-creature gap, Christians need to transcend their culture and language by translating the Bible into the language/culture of others. Like Jesus taking on human flesh, Christianity should be identifiable and not foreign. Christianity from its inception has never been a religion of cultural uniformity. Therefore, by putting God’s Words into other people’s languages, Christianity will be correctly portrayed as a part of their culture and less as a foreign religion. The vernacular translations allow people to visualize Jesus walking in their shoes, wearing their clothes, and resembling one of their people; this also enables them to gaze towards Jesus as their example to imitate.
In addition to contextualization, the author of “translating mission Dei” (the mission of God) demonstrates how Bible translation also remains important “to enhance accessibility, … and interreligious dialogue.” With the accessibility of Scripture in one’s everyday language, the local believer does not have to rely on someone, who knows a language which has a Bible translation, to access God. Although Tyndale wanted to rid the intentional clerical obstructions to scripture by translating, this same obstruction can unintentionally happen today when people do not have the Bible in their mother tongue. The reliance on others to handle God’s Word widens the possibility for misunderstanding Scripture.
Another point of accessibility which Missiologists understand and argue is that people form their finest thoughts in their native language. Thus, if the meaning of Scripture is only accessible in a foreign tongue, they will only dimly grasp the meaning. Or from another angle, a vernacular translation puts Scripture in the same language they use to express their desires, emotions, feelings, and thoughts. This allows God’s words to inform the way people express themselves and live their lives. Hence, people will never be properly fed unless they can access God’s Word in a language they grew up understanding.
Since God will indiscriminately use any human being who wants to participate in His mission, availing God’s Word into the vernaculars single-handedly opens the doors for everyday people to participate in God’s mission. The vernacular Bible empowers the local believers to then carry out the imperative to make disciples as found in Matthew 28:19. The accessibility, vividly seen when witnessing or debating with other locals, allows Scripture to be in a language that both parties can understand and understand how God speaks to the subject at hand. An example can be seen in how translating the written Word into local dialects hasten the establishing of “Christianity in African nomadic and other tribal cultures,” and how they would have died unless they retain access to God’s Word.
The Great Commission also commands Christians to teach others to obey all that God commanded. As people throughout history have noted, God works through His Word which loosens people from sin’s bondage and frees them to naturally bring forth fruit. Or stated differently, Scripture frees Christians to do that “which God commandeth to do, and not things of [their] own imagination.” Tyndale further exhorts his readers that “whatsoever is done without the word of God count idolatry.” Hence believers must have access to the what God commands in order not to violate God’s commands and commit idolatry because of their fallenness apart from God.
In the Great Commission and throughout Scripture, one can see God’s desire for people of all nations to worship Him. The apostle Paul states God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim 2:4). Since God desires all people to know Him and commands believers to make disciples, God calls for churches to be planted in every area of the world. And although there have been times when Bible translation has followed church planting, “the spread of Christianity and Bible translation has nevertheless always occurred simultaneously.”
William Careron Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, echoes the previous point and observes that people can only get to the marriage supper of the Lamb “if they hear the Word in a language they can understand.” Paul in Romans 10:14 has a similar thought in mind when he says, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” If God’s word is inaccessible because of language difficulties, then salvation will be diminished. Hence, taking the gospel to other nations and cultures “through Bible translations has always been seen as a key part of fulfilling the commission’s mandate.”
This paper argued the Bible is the believer’s highest authority and is the means to follow God. The logical outflowing from this belief means the Bible needs to be in a language people can understand. Furthermore, this paper argued this view started from the inception of Christianity by the gospel writers translating Jesus’ words and quoting a translation of the Hebrew Bible. The same reasons led Wycliffe and Tyndale to recognize the need for people to have the ability to understand the Bible in their own language. The question for believers then becomes “how can believers today not transcend the cultural and language gaps to share the Bible to those who cannot understand it?” The Bible must be translated so people can walk in the light!
[If you want the direct footnotes, reach out and we will send you the Word document with all the footnotes]
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