HCSB Gospel of John Preface

Bible study is the road God’s people take to hear and obey our Creator and Savior. The Holman Christian Standard Bible™ offers believers in the third millennium an up-to-date translation designed specifically for the needs of students of Scripture. It seeks to provide a translation as close to the words of the Hebrew and Greek texts as possible while still maintaining the literary quality and ease of reading that invite and enable people to read, study, and obey God’s Word. To reach God’s people effectively, a translation must provide a reverent, exalted text that is also reader friendly.

Translating the Bible into English offers a double challenge. First, each language has its own vocabulary, grammar, and syntax that cannot be exactly rendered into another language. Second, contemporary culture so honors relativism and individual freedom that it distrusts claims to absolute authority.

The first challenge means that English translators must avoid creating a special form of the language that does not communicate well to modern readers. For example John 1:6 in the original Greek reads, “was a man having been sent from God, name to him John.” The English translator must provide a word order and syntax that follow the dynamics of the English language and that are familiar to English readers. In this instance, the Holman Christian Standard Bible™ reads, “There was a man named John who was sent from God.” This accurately represents the original Greek text but also presents it in a form readers should find inviting and natural.

The second challenge means translators must hold firm to traditional beliefs about the authority of Scripture and avoid modern temptations to rewrite the Bible to say what modern readers want to hear. Translators must remember that the divine Author of the Bible inspired His Word for people today and for all time just as much as for the original audience. Translators who bow to modern relativism and change the text because of this perspective do so to their own spiritual detriment. The Holman Christian Standard Bible™ stands on the authority of God and has attempted to provide an accurate and readable translation of the Greek text of John’s Gospel. The mission of the Holman Christian Standard Bible™ is to produce as precise a translation of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Scriptures as possible with the use of newly published lexicons, grammars, and computer programs. The goal of this kind of translation is to encourage in-depth Bible study, but this translation also seeks to be highly readable (for public and private use) and also useful for personal memorization.

With these goals in view, an international and interdenominational team of more than seventy scholars has been formed to translate the Scriptures from the original languages. This translation project is being undertaken by Holman Bible Publishers, the oldest Bible publisher in America. Its origin can be traced back to a Philadelphia firm founded by Christopher Sower in 1743. Holman is spiritually grounded in the belief that the Bible is inerrant and is the sole authority for faith and practice in the life of a Christian.

In order to produce this translation, Holman Bible Publishers entered into a partnership with Dr. Art Farstad, former General Editor of the New King James Version. Art had been working on a new translation of the Bible for several years when in the Spring of 1998 he agreed to contract with Holman to complete the project. Art served as General Editor of this translation project until his death on September 1, 1998. His Assistant Editor and coworker, Dr. Ed Blum, former professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, picked up the mantle of leadership that Art left behind and now serves as General Editor of the Holman Christian Standard Bible™. This edition of the Gospel of John contains several helpful features of the Holman Christian Standard Bible™. Notes immediately beneath the text of the translation refer to some of the variants in Greek manuscripts. Notes at the bottom of the page provide in significant places a literal rendering of the Greek text, other possible translations, explanations of biblical customs, places, and activities, and cross references to other passages. Word studies in the margins explain the precise meaning and application of prominent Greek words that appear in John’s Gospel. The pronunciation of the Greek word for each Word Study is given in brackets. (See the Code for Pronunciation on page 62.)

As a further aid to understanding and incorporating the Bible into the reader’s life, Dr. Henry Blackaby has provided spiritual insights that explain and apply truths from the Gospel of John that are related to knowing and doing God’s will through “Experiencing the Word.”