THEFORMERTREATISEHAVEIMADEOTHEOPHILUSOFALLTHATJESUSBEGANBOTHTO DOANDTEACHUNTILTHEDAYINWHICHHEWASTAKENUPAFTERTHATHETHROUGHTHE HOLYGHOSTHADGIVENCOMMANDMENTSUNTOTHEAPOSTLESWHOMHEHADCHOSEN

Nevertheless, I am aware of no other English version that is more literal than this one. Indeed, I translated some words that are virtually always left untranslated; others simply transliterated them. Perhaps the two most noticeable ones are the words BAPTISMA (baptism), which means submersion or immersion, and AGGELOS (angel), which means messenger, envoy, or agent.

A common liberty translators take is substituting English nouns for Greek verbs and vice versa, or using English nouns where the Greek has adjectives, and other such changes in the grammar of words. It is an old practice, and they justify themselves in so doing. However, I adhered as closely as possible to the true grammar of the Greek words. For example, there is no Greek noun that means “saint.” What the New Testament authors used was an adjective meaning “sanctified,” and that is how I translated it. Therefore, my critics can honestly accuse me of “not even having the word saint in the version.” That is because there is no such Greek word in the New Testament, just as there never was a female AGGELOS.

There were also some words that I translated differently in some contexts because the traditional ones were misleading. For example, the Greek word MISEI is commonly translated “hate” in Luke 14:26 (as well as some other places), so that other versions say Jesus commanded us to hate our fathers, our mothers, our children, and others dear to us. However, that contradicts his other teachings. Therefore, I chose instead to translate MISEI to “regard inferior,” which is equally faithful to the meaning of the Greek word. Hence, the ACV more accurately says that Jesus simply commanded us to regard our fathers, our mothers, our children, and others dear to us, as inferior to him.

Regarding the creation of Bible translations, it is commonly believed that the best ones are made by committees. However, I believe such translations are actually inferior in some ways. First, compromises must be made to satisfy the majority of committee members. Second, regardless of denials to the contrary, there is pressure on committees to make their translation popular and marketable. Such reasons are why, for example, the KJV committee would not translate the Greek word BAPTISMA, but transliterated it to baptism. Moreover, there is no evidence a committee was ever used to write any part of the Bible itself.

Regarding the text of the Old Testament, I began with the American Standard Version, which is no longer under copyright. Then I primarily made minor word changes in order to make it more readable for our generation. In some cases I also utilized the texts of the KJV and Young’s translation. There were a few places where I was dissatisfied with all of those versions. In those cases I utilized the texts of the Masoretic Hebrew, the Septuagint Greek (LXX), and a translation of the Hebrew text of the Dead Sea scrolls (DSS). You can read the Old Testament of the ACV at my web site. You can also download the entire Bible there.

By far, however, most of the three years I spent translating the Bible was with the New Testament, because I soon began translating all of it directly from the Greek itself. And I did not use the same Greek edition that was used by the translators of the ASV, because I consider that edition to be based upon inferior manuscripts. Since there are currently over 5000 surviving manuscripts of the New Testament books, and they do not all agree perfectly, scholars of Bible Greek must necessarily pick and choose in order to create a usable Greek New Testament. The edition I chose was compiled by Maurice A. Robinson and William G. Pierpont. That text is of the Textus Receptus tradition.

You can see the reasons for my choice of that text in the appendix. Every Christian should be aware of the issues addressed there. For our great spiritual adversary knows that the Bible is our guiding light, and he continually tries to extinguish it.

There are many excellent resources and tools that are now available for Bible study and research, for which I am grateful to God. I especially relied upon the computer program BibleWorks. Of course, I also utilized many books. And I relied very much on Maurice Robinson’s electronic document that contains the Greek text plus grammar aids. I found his material so helpful that I decided to combine the words of my own English translation with that information to create the Greek-English Study New Testament, which has integrated aids for those of you who want to examine the Greek text without having to become skilled with that language. You can download the entire document from my web site.

The format I used in the Greek-English Study New Testament involved repeating each verse three times. The first part of each verse-triad is my English translation. The third part is the Greek text in its original word order. The middle part is a combination of the English and the Greek, plus study aids. In that material each Greek word is preceded by its English translation and followed by its vocabulary number (Strong’s) and grammar code. Below is one verse triad from that study New Testament:

Mat 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was this way. For his mother Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found having in her womb from the Holy Spirit.

1:18 NOW DE 1161 {CONJ} THA H 3588 {T/NSF} BIRTH GENNHSIS 1083 {N/NSF} OF THO TOU 3588 {T/GSM} JEHOSHUA IHSOU 2424 {N/GSM} ANOINTED CRISTOU 5547 {N/GSM} WAS HN 2258 {V/IXI/3S} THIS WAY OUTWS 3779 {ADV} FOR GAR 1063 {CONJ} THA THS 3588 {T/GSF} MOTHER MHTROS 3384 {N/GSF} OF HIM AUTOU 846 {PP/GSM} MARIAM MARIAS 3137 {N/GSF} WHO WAS BETROTHED MNHSTEUQEISHS 3423 {V/APP/GSF} TO THO TW 3588 {T/DSM} JOSEPH IWSHF 2501 {N/PRI} BEFORE PRIN 4250 {ADV} THAN H 2228 {PRT} THEM AUTOUS 846 {PP/APM} TO COME TO-GETHER SUNELQEIN 4905 {V/2AAN} SHE WAS FOUND EUREQH 2147 {V/API/3S} HAVING ECOUSA 2192 {V/PAP/NSF} IN EN 1722 {PREP} WOMB GASTRI 1064 {N/DSF} FROM EK 1537 {PREP} HOLY AGIOU 40 {A/GSN} SPIRIT PNEUMATOS 4151 {N/GSN}

1:18 TOU DE IHSOU CRISTOU H GENNHSIS OUTWS HN MNHSTEUQEISHS GAR THS MHTROS AUTOU MARIAS TW IWSHF PRIN H SUNELQEIN AUTOUS EUREQH EN GASTRI ECOUSA EK PNEUMATOS AGIOU

In that middle section I sacrificed readability to make the English text more literal. Nevertheless, I did change the order of some of the text to conform with English syntax. Here is the middle part with the English text only:

NOW THA BIRTH OF THO JEHOSHUA ANOINTED WAS THIS WAY FOR THA MOTHER OF HIM MARIAM WHO WAS BETROTHED TO THO JOSEPH BEFORE THAN THEM TO COME TOGETHER SHE WAS FOUND HAVING IN WOMB FROM HOLY SPIRIT

To illustrate the need for some changes in word order in an English translation, here is how that verse reads adhering to the word order of the Greek:

OF THO NOW JEHOSHUA ANOINTED THA BIRTH THIS WAY WAS WHO WAS BETROTHED FOR THA MOTHER OF HIM MARIAM TO THO JOSEPH BEFORE THAN TO COME TOGETHER THEM SHE WAS FOUND IN WOMB HAVING FROM SPIRIT HOLY.

Since Greek is an inflected language word order is less important, because how the words are spelled reveals the necessary grammar for understanding. For those of you who desire a deeper study of the New Testament, by using the Greek-English Study New Testament you can compare the original Greek with my translation or any other.

Regarding the names Jehoshua and Mariam, they are considered more accurate pronunciations of the names of our Lord and his mother. Nevertheless, I chose to use the familiar words Jesus and Mary in my version. Actually, how his name was pronounced is debated. Some of those that have been suggested include Joshua, Yeshua, and Jehoshua, which are transliterated from the Hebrew, for that was their native language (although Aramaic was apparently commonly used during his time). Another is Iesous, which is a transliteration from the Greek IHSOUS. That seems to be the most popular variant now.

The important thing, in my judgment, is to know that his name means “savior,” and not precisely how it was pronounced. For we all pronounce our words uniquely to some degree. That is how we can recognize persons by their voices. Nevertheless, I will not quarrel about the issue, for I consider it to be quibbling and fits in the category of what Paul said was “doting about disputes and word controversies” (1Ti. 6:4). Let every man decide such things for himself within the bounds of reverence and propriety.

Regarding the words “tho,” “thos,” “tha,” “thas,” and “thes” in the Greek-English Study New Testament they are not misspellings. They are words I coined in order to compensate for the lack of an English equivalent. You see, the Greek language has seventeen words that are classified as definite articles, while English has only the word “the.” As I use them, “tho” is a masculine singular article, “tha” is feminine singular, and “the” is neuter singular. Adding an “s” makes them plural. I had originally used this kind of modification to create many other English words that are more comparable with Greek (e.g., “thiso” for the masculine “this”), but I decided for the study New Testament to limit such new words to just these five definite articles: tho, thos, tha, thas, thes. When English speaking men become motivated to improve the language this way, it can easily be done.

In order to help conserve the style of the original New Testament writing, I retained its use of “the historical present.” That is when historical narration is written in the present tense. One example is the following passage from Matthew: “Then Jesus comes from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be immersed by him” (Mat. 3:13).

One thing I did not conserve in my New Testament translation was the tradition of bracketing or italicizing words that were only inferred from the Greek text. Not every translation does so, and those that do are not consistent, including the KJV and the ASV. To be completely consistent would have added considerable distracting clutter to the text. All English translations must add some inferred words. For example, there are many sentences in the Greek New Testament that have no verb. In such cases the word “is” is most commonly added. I did my best to keep the number of such additions minimal. Nevertheless, if there is any question in your mind, the Greek-English Study New Testament will make clear when such things were or were not done.

I also conserved use of the old English pronouns because they provide more information than the ambiguous word “you.” The words “thee,” “thou,” “thy,” and “thine” are all singular pronouns. The words “you,” “ye,” and “your” are plural. A good rule of thumb to use while learning these words is that if the word begins with the letter “t” it is singular. Here is some other information they contain that the modern word “you” does not. “Thee” is in the objective case, while “thou” is nominative. “Thy” and “thine” are possessive. For example, “for thine is the kingdom,” or, “thine heir.” “Ye” is nominative and plural, while “you” is in the objective case, equivalent to “thee,” but always plural in the old English. “Your” is also possessive, but always plural in the old English. Incidentally, “thine” is used in place of “thy” before a word that begins with a vowel or an unaspirated “h”; e.g., “for thine is the kingdom,” and “thine heir.” Some other Christians on the internet brought these things to my attention. The internet is a wonderful new tool for sharing information.

Regarding the old English pronouns I have wondered why our language has been weakened by forsaking those more informative words. Is it because the enemies of Christ want to discard and discredit everything that reminds us of our Christian heritage, like the classic wording of the KJV Bible? Language is often manipulated in order to manipulate thinking, either for good or for evil. It is naïve to deny Satan’s continuous active hostility. When speaking of dates, modern scholars, being dominated by the spirit of secularism, have substituted the expressions BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) for BC and AD so as to remove any reference to Christ our Lord. Did you know that the ancient Egyptians were so successful in destroying any record of the Israelites ever being there, that the only way we know is from the Bible?

I also utilized the English language in its pre-feminism form. For example, I used the words “man” and “men” in their original sense, meaning both gender-specific and generic; the context of the word reveals which is the case. That helped conserve the original masculine emphasis of the Bible text, which has been suppressed to a greater or lesser degree in every other English translation from the beginning. As an example of the masculine emphasis, the male pronouns of the original manuscripts outnumber the female ones more than nine to one. And no such expressions as “he or she” are found there. Such things offend many people these days. Nevertheless, I chose to follow the example of the apostle Paul, who said, “For do I now trust men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I were still pleasing men I would not be a bondman of Christ” (Gal. 1:10).

A word of warning about “modern language” translations. Most of them pervert the original text of the Bible with many changes. They use the so-called “dynamic equivalent” method of translation, which is simply a flattering euphemism for loose translating. The only thing dynamic about the method is to aggressively corrupt the original text with their opinions instead of faithful translation. The authors of them make many guesses about what the scriptures mean, then they choose words to make it easy to read. Such versions are very popular because they have chosen the wide path, which Jesus condemned when he said, “Enter ye in by the narrow gate, because wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many are they who enter through it. How narrow is the gate, and restricted the way, that leads to life, and few are those who find it” (Mat. 7:13-14).

Those kinds of versions vary in how loosely they translate, but none of them are trustworthy. They are all corrupted, more or less, with interpretation masquerading as translation. The greatest offenders are the “easy-to-read” style versions. Consider just one example of how loosely they translate. Below are translations of Romans 7:9 from three legitimate versions:

For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died (King James Version).

I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died (New King James Version).

I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died (New American Standard Version).

Here is how the Living Bible translates that passage: “That is why I felt fine so long as I did not understand what the law really demanded. But when I learned the truth, I realized that I had broken the law and was a sinner, doomed to die.” Can you not see how different it reads? It is not what the Bible says, it is what the author thinks it means.

The Holy Bible translated properly does not read like contemporary English. Neither is it easy to read throughout because it is too deep and rich with meaning. It is wrong to paraphrase the holy scriptures or reword them to make the text seem modern and always easy to read. It perverts and debases the message. (The same is true of virtually all Bible story books.) The original languages of its text may have been what were commonly used during their times, but the content of what they wrote was not. And all of it is of the highest scholarly quality. If you want the truth of God’s word, shun all those efforts to popularize the holy scriptures, for they seek to please men instead of God. They tempt readers to purchase them with claims that they will draw more souls to God. The truth is, they are deceptive in many ways about what God and his word are like, and they lead souls astray.

Since I emphasized accuracy of translation over readability, tradition, and other things popular, some familiar expressions or passages may seem strange to you. If that happens, I beseech you to reconsider your previous understanding, and be noble like the brothers in Berea: “But these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, who received the word with all willingness, examining the Scriptures daily, if it has these things this way” (Acts 17:11). For that purpose I created the Greek-English Study New Testament, which anybody can use to verify the validity of any part of this translation, whether they have studied Greek or not.

I also encourage you to read my essay Preserving the Word of God. That essay contains important information about the original Greek manuscripts and how they are used in translations. It also exposes the deceit and hypocrisy of modern scholars who criticize the Bible.

I made the text of this version non-copyrighted. The Holy Bible is a priceless treasure given to us freely by God. Certainly publishers have the right to sell what they print, and translators have a right to be paid for their labor, but the words themselves represent the universal message of God. Therefore, this version is placed in the public domain.

And may God bless you in every way for seeking the truth of his Holy Word. “Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, alone wise, to God is honor and glory into the ages of the ages. Truly” (First Timothy 1:17).