A WORD ABOUT
THE PASSION TRANSLATION
The message of God’s story is timeless; the Word of God doesn’t change. While the methods by which that story is communicated should be timely, the vessels that steward God’s Word can and should change.
One of those timely methods and vessels is Bible translation. Bible translations are both a gift and a problem. They give us the words God spoke through his servants, but words can become poor containers for revelation because they leak! Words change from one generation to the next. Meaning is influenced by culture, background, and many other details.
There is no such thing as a truly literal translation of the Bible, for there is not an equivalent language that perfectly conveys the meaning of the biblical text as it was understood in its original cultural and linguistic setting. Therefore, translation can be a problem. The problem, however, is solved when we seek to transfer meaning, not merely words, from the original text to the receptor language.
The Passion Translation is a groundbreaking attempt to reintroduce the passion and fire of the Bible to the English reader. It doesn’t merely convey the original, literal meaning of words. It expresses God’s passion for people and his world by translating the original, life-changing message of God’s Word for modern readers.
You will notice at times we’ve italicized certain words or phrases. These highlighted portions are not in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts but are implied from the context. We’ve made these implications explicit for the sake of narrative clarity and to better convey the meaning of God’s Word. This is a common practice used by mainstream translations, including the New American Standard Bible and the King James Version.
We’ve also chosen to translate certain names in their original Hebrew or Greek form to better convey their cultural meaning and significance. For instance, some translations of the Bible have substituted Miriam with Mary and Jacob with James. Both Greek and Aramaic leave the Hebrew names in their original form. Therefore, this translation uses their correct cultural names throughout.
God longs to have his Word expressed in every language in a way that would unlock the passion of his heart. Our goal is to trigger inside every English speaker an overwhelming response to the truth of the Bible. This is a heart-level translation, from the passion of God’s heart to the passion of your heart.
We pray and trust this version of God’s Word will kindle in you a burning, passionate desire for him and his heart, while impacting the church for years to come!