The Christian Bible was designed to be the most scientifically produced — the most systematically and analytically translated “New Testament” ever!  As a result, the Christian Bible is the most accurate and literal “New Testament” in plain English, translated in the past 450 years.

In translating the original words of God’s Pure Spirit, the translators of the Christian Bible have taken great care to find those exact English words that tell God’s Message both simply and precisely.  Also, because most traditional “religious” words are not literal and do not teach the true meanings of the original Greek text, a special effort was made to translate these Koine Greek terms into exact expressions which can be understood by everyone, especially by those who have never read the Bible.

The Christian Bible may seem quite revolutionary and radical because of the “multiplier effect” of its many improvements over the KJV Bible and the other translations of the Bible; and yet, when these numerous improvements are taken individually, they each have overriding support among reliable Greek scholars who have thoroughly researched these individual items.  Now, while there will be “experts” who will hold to their traditions from the “Dark Ages,” and who would disagree with some of these improvements, absolutely none of these improvements are far-out ideas which have been dreamed up by a group of misguided scatterbrains.

While it is true that translating from one language to another is not a pure science, but also an art, that doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t try to do it as scientifically or analytically as possible!  A purely artistic translator is most concerned with what is beautiful and tasteful to him, as he produces what he has preconceived in his mind.  As he merrily translates along, he will continually paraphrase or interpret the original to meet his preconceived notions.  If, while translating, he should come across the exact same sentence separated by several pages, he will likely translate the two slightly different.  Now, keep in mind too, that all of the currently popular Bible translations are definitely, far more artistic, than they are scientific, with the New American Standard Bible (NASB) probably being the most scientifically translated.

On the other hand, a purely scientific translator is most concerned with following rules and procedures to systematically and analytically produce an accurate translation of the original. Unlike the artistic translator, he is not certain beforehand what the result will say.  His work is much more difficult, than that of the artistic translator, because it is methodical, tedious, and monotonous.  It takes very little research to discover that it is an obvious fact, and no idle boast, that the Christian Bible is the most scientifically produced translation of the New Contract Writings (“New Testament”) portion of the Bible into English.

To complete a good translation, the scientific translator must be able to artistically polish his work with a light touch.  Phrases and sentences that are rough, awkward, stiff, or confusing in English, but which were smooth, clear, and distinct in the Greek, must be cautiously reworked, so as to make them understandable, without losing their literalness.

Without retreating to the cryptic woodenness of an overly literal translation, translators must disclose the obvious ambiguities of the original, and then let the reader decide for himself between the possible meanings.  Translators must make sure that their translations are plain where the text is plain, and ambiguous where the text is ambiguous.  Occasionally, translators are driven into what appears to be a paraphrase, simply because an absolutely literal translation of the original Greek ends up being unintelligible.  However, in the few places where this has proved necessary, the translators of the Christian Bible have always been careful to avoid giving any slant or flavor, which is purely of their own making.

Translators must be thoroughly in touch with the lives and language of the people for whom they are translating.  Scholars who have hidden themselves away in “ivory towers,” and whose closest friends are other stuffy scholars, often find it difficult to locate everyday expressions that accurately translate the “fish-market” Greek in which the New Contract Writings (“New Testament”) portion of the Bible was written.

Unfortunately, most translators of the Bible don’t even try to do their work scientifically, and so, in the end, whether on purpose or not, provide you with the translators’ own “truth,” rather than revealing for you God’s Truth. However, the translators of the Christian Bible had no interest in trying to indoctrinate you with what they believed; rather, these translators wanted to discover, for sure, what God was truly telling us in His Word (“the Bible”). Because of this attitude, the translators of the Christian Bible discovered many things that they had not previously believed!  One crime of humanity down through the centuries has been to serve ourselves, rather than God, as though we were ourselves, God.  But this, of course, is futile; for in the end God will have His way!  God is the Master, and we humans are to be the slaves; and being well aware of this, the translators of the Christian Bible had a fiercely strong desire to know exactly what God was saying in His Word (“the Bible”), so that they might know Truth and be able to serve Him well.

After the translators of the Christian Bible had laid out a number of rules and goals that they would follow and work towards, their first step was to determine the most uncorrupted Greek texts of the Word (“the Bible”), and to put the resultant text into a form that they could easily use.

Now, it says in the Bible, “...‘every declaration must be established by the mouths of two or three witnesses’ [Deu. 19:15]!” – Matthew 18:16 (CB).  So, to determine the true “Declaration (Word) of God,” the three oldest, most reliable “witnesses” were used:  the Alexandrian, Vatican, and Sinaitic manuscripts.  All three were necessary, since each had missing leaves (pages) or leaves with unreadable letters or words at the edges, etc. from age and “wear and tear.” Wherever two or more agreed, that was what was used.  Realize, too, that none of these three manuscripts was available when the King James Version was produced in 1611.

You see, the translators were afraid to use any of the recent Greek text compilations (e.g., Westcott-Hort text [1881 A.D.], etc.) and put too much faith in humanity, so they did it the hard way — they went back and duplicated the work of others, by researching and analyzing these three oldest manuscripts.

Some people fervently and religiously demand that only the “Textus Recepticus” (on which the King James Version is based) is blessed by God.  However, these same people would also probably hold that much of modern Christianity is better than ancient, “First Century” Christianity.  When the “Textus Recepticus” is compared to the combined Alexandrian, Vatican, and Sinaitic manuscripts, it becomes oh, so obvious that the “Textus Recepticus” is tainted by years of copying and modifications, and that the oldest texts are not deviant, but rather — the best!

However, while a big deal is made by some about which Greek text is best and should be used, the translators of the Christian Bible believe that a literal, accurate translation of any of these texts would correctly reveal God's Truth — more truthfully than Church Leaders would find acceptable.  However, before they had concluded this, they had already worked long and hard to compile what they still believe is the most reliable, accurate, original, and complete Greek Word of God.

The next step that the translators of the Christian Bible did, was to develop a dictionary of the 5,312 Greek words used in the New Contract Writings (“New Testament”) portion of the Bible.  Then, for each Greek word they developed what they called a “Literal English” word or phrase.  Now, these Literal English words weren’t meant to form the final translation; but rather, were just one minor step in the total process.  These words would allow them to classify the Greek words into word families.  So, the Greek word “HOMU” became “aLIKE”; the related Greek noun form “HOMOIOS” became “LIKE”; “HOMOITES” became “LIKEness”; while “HOMOIOSIS” became “LIKening”; “HOMOIOHMA” became “LIKE-effect”; the related verb form “HOMOIOOH” became “be-LIKening”; and the related adverb form “HOMOIOHS” became “LIKE-as.”  Of course, these word families can become quite complex, since many words are also prefixes and suffixes to still other words.

Next, for each Greek word, these translators developed what they called a “Precise English” word or phrase.  Using the most authoritative lexicons of the best Greek scholars, they worked to find the one best English word (or phrase) that would match a particular Greek word in most or all of its uses.  If one English word (or phrase) wouldn’t cover the total meaning of the Greek word, then secondary English words were developed.  While the translators wanted all of the words to be plain English words, they also wanted to use a particular English word for only one Greek word, so that the reader in English might be able to accurately determine when a particular Greek word had been written; and except in the case of a very few Greek words (because of English limitations), they were able to give each Greek word a precise and distinct English word.

Next, using this dictionary that they had developed, the translators then replaced each Greek word in the New Contract Writings (“New Testament”) portion of the Bible with its primary Precise English word using the properly indicated tense, person, number, gender, etc.  But notice now, once again, this was only meant to be yet another minor step, since the translators were only making sense of each Greek word as they came to it.  They weren’t trying to force any phrase or sentence to make any sense at all, and everything was still in Greek word order, and there was still no punctuation.

Up to this point everything had been done in a totally scientific manner, since no art, at all, had been involved.  With this solid base to work from, the translators now moved to cautiously polish the work with an ever so light touch, as they worked to consistently add punctuation, to consistently reorder the words, where it was necessary, so as to produce understandable English sentences, and to replace the primary English words with secondary ones, where the context demanded it.  This scientific translating approach, which is so obviously necessary, but unfortunately, so unique to Bible translating, caused fantastic results!  Yes, the final results amazed the translators, even shocked them, since the final results were so much better than they had expected!  Plus, the true meaning of verses, that they had previously not really understood, now became obvious.  It has changed their lives!

To achieve the clarity found in the original Greek text, the translators had to, at times, supply extra words, which didn’t have counterparts in the original, but which were required by the context.  These extra words (i.e., translators’ “explanations”) occur wherever there is something that was obvious to “First Century” Christians reading the original Greek, which might not be obvious to you, as you read God’s Word (“the Bible”) today in English.  However, with only minor exceptions, these translators’ explanations, all 2,833 of them (over 6 per page), have been differentiated from the regular text, by printing them in italics within brackets (“[explanations]”).

It must be noted, too, that, unlike most of the other translations of the Bible, verb tenses have been handled very carefully and consistently.  To change a verb’s tense from what was originally written, would open up the possibility of mistranslating and distorting the original meaning.  Because of this literal translating, you will find many instances where it says things like “is doing,” instead of “do,” and “must be continually doing,” instead of “must do.”

Also, the English language no longer has a separate word for the singular “you” to differentiate it from the plural “you.”  However, so that you might know the whole truth, whenever the Greek uses a plural “you,” the translators have put a small plus sign ( ⁺ ) after the final letter of these three words:  you⁺, your⁺, and yours⁺.

Because of the exacting, precise, perfectionistic attitude of these translators and their attention to details, they also were very demanding about the final printed form of the Christian Bible and its Companion Reference Guide, so the following desirable qualities exist with these two beautiful books: