During the past two to three years, the matter that I have been most concerned with and that has required a great deal of consideration has been the translation work regarding the Chinese New Testament Recovery Version. In Taiwan, the United States, and Southeast Asia, there has been an urgent and pressing call for a better translation of the New Testament. However, this matter, because it is related to the wording of the Bible, cannot be done in an ordinary way. This is not an easy matter that we are undertaking. Even someone who is knowledgeable and well-versed in Chinese, English, and Greek may not necessarily do a good job. When I was in Southeast Asia recently, I met a group of saints who were familiar with both Chinese and English and were serving specifically in the translation of the literature for the churches. They translated the outlines of my Chinese messages into English. I did not think that there would be any problem with this. However, before I was about to release the messages in English, I read the English outlines and realized that there were major differences between the two versions. The problem was not that the translators had a poor command of English or Chinese but that they did not understand the terms used in the Lord’s recovery. Therefore, I was reminded all the more that I cannot be careless in this matter.
To translate the Bible requires a substantial knowledge of the truth and also a great deal of careful consideration. Bible translators throughout the ages have not been able to accurately grasp the original meaning of the Bible or fully understand the principles of the Bible, even though many of them were highly educated people. We cannot understand the Bible or even the text of a verse according to its words alone. Although the words are important—without words, everything is vague—what is more important is that we understand the spiritual matters and be familiar with the principles of the Bible itself. If we are short of the knowledge concerning spiritual matters, have an inadequate understanding of the biblical principles and their interrelationships, are unable to grasp the basic truths of the Bible, and understand the Bible merely according to the letter, then it will be easy for us to make mistakes.
Concerning the letter of the Bible, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek. Even though these two written languages have been developing for thousands of years, the meanings of the words themselves are still very hard to understand. In Greek one word alone sometimes has more than ten different meanings and many different usages. The biblical truths in the Old Testament are not hard to understand, but those in the New Testament are altogether in the heavenly realm. Therefore, to decide on the meaning of a word in a verse is not an easy matter.
After I was saved, I began to love studying the Bible, especially the New Testament. During the past twelve years I had to write the footnotes for the New Testament Recovery Version in order to release the life-study messages. This forced me to touch each crucial word in the Bible in a thorough way.
Nearly all the crucial points in the Bible are now within me. Therefore, having further examined the publications put out by our bookroom, I am deeply concerned that if those who are involved in the translation of the Bible do not have an accurate understanding of the original meanings of the words in the Bible, then their translation will surely contain mistakes. Hence, after careful consideration I have decided to labor on this personally by taking the lead in the translation of the New Testament Recovery Version, and I hope that we can complete this project as soon as possible.
Since you are being trained to be useful for the work of the Lord’s recovery, you need to be familiar with at least two languages—your mother tongue, Chinese, and the universal language, English. Learning these languages will require you to spend time and energy. In order to learn the English language, you can practice studying not only the New Testament Recovery Version but also the King James Version, which does not contain too many new words or sophisticated phrases. Most people appreciate the depth of its English. Those who are pursuing to learn the English language cannot bypass the King James Version. Many have tried to replace it with other English versions because its history is over three hundred years old and because it contains some phrases or terms that are somewhat out of date. However, no version has been able to replace it. When we were working on the English New Testament Recovery Version, we did not depart too much from the King James Version. We did our best to preserve its style and use its phrases, clauses, and words, unless they did not match the meaning of the original text. Therefore, the language of the English New Testament Recovery Version is not too sophisticated and should be easy for you to get into. This will be a great help to you.