free 2 think
free 2 think is a podcast hosted by Cody Davis and Jacob Cady, exploring faith, culture, politics, and the ideas shaping our world. Through thoughtful conversation, respectful disagreement, and a commitment to curiosity, we tackle hard topics without the outrage. Think deeply. Listen carefully. Stay free to think.
free 2 think
Ep. 5 | Should Christians Read the Passion Translation?
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The Passion Translation has become one of the most popular modern "Bible" versions—but is it actually a translation? We explore the evidence, examine the claims, and discuss why many evangelical scholars warn against relying on it. Whether you're a fan, a skeptic, or just curious, this conversation is worth hearing.
Minor Prophets and Mike Winger Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9--owgBjtA&t=250s
Brian Simmons on the Passion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T13LynG6SHU
Link to petition you version to remove the Passion Translation from use - https://www.change.org/p/an-appeal-to-youversion-to-remove-the-passion-translation
Really? Here we go. What's up, Campus? I'm company. And I'm Jacob. And I just cut that off too early. Yep. You did? I did. I'm terrible at this.
SPEAKER_01Didn't you learn anything from last week?
SPEAKER_02No, I don't. I never learn anything. But that's the problem when you get me mixing while we're trying to do this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I'd probably do the same mistakes. So anyways. No judgment here. Welcome back to another podcast of Free to Think. Haven't seen you in a while. You look good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, man. Hey, nice shirt.
SPEAKER_01Anyways. Yeah, I like this one. Yeah. One of my favorites.
SPEAKER_02We're trying to get it.
SPEAKER_01Also, my coffee mug is one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_02It's beautiful. I have the same coffee mug with some of the same coffee in it. Anyways, we're trying to shorten up our podcast a little bit because we realize an hour and a half, hour 40 is probably a tad bit long. Yeah. So we're trying to get more concise, more focused. So our goal is about 45 minutes on these puppies. So our last podcast was about 49. Yeah. And this one's going to be close to 45. So check out our last podcast on socialism. It's a doozy. It's a doozy.
SPEAKER_01So we covered a lot of ground, shared a few laughs.
SPEAKER_02We did. Made a lot of progress. Oh, so we're progressive. I said progress, not progressive. What there's nothing wrong with progress. Like I am a progressive in that sense. Like I like to see technology progress. Did I trigger you? You did because you called me a progressive. But I think you were just rage baiting me.
SPEAKER_01A little bit. And you fail for it.
SPEAKER_02Do your kids use the modern day lingo?
SPEAKER_01Uh, I'm I'm sure they do. It's usually when I stop understanding them. Like, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_02Like, we didn't make this, we didn't make up words when we were growing up. It was like, dude, that's so rad, tubular. I mean, you know, you kind of glom onto like some of the cultural stuff that happens in California, and you know, ninja turtles were kind of like that. But nowadays they just make up terms. I was talking to my daughter last night, and she says, she was talking about this couple that goes to our church, and she's like, Oh, I ship them so much. And I thought she was cussing. I said, What? What'd you do? What you're saying? Oh, I ship them. I was like, ship as in like relationship a vessel on the ocean? Ship. She's like, Well, yeah, but a different word. She goes, I was like, and it took me a while to get to it. I was like, what's the base word? She goes, Well, it comes from relationship. And I was like, So you want this person and that person to be in a relationship? So you said you ship them. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And then I tried yes. She shipped them somewhere? She shipped them.
SPEAKER_02And then so I tried to use it later. And she gives me this. She goes, You're too old to use it.
SPEAKER_01And then I just told her I was I think that concept has been around forever of the next generation not understanding the or the previous generation not understanding the next one.
SPEAKER_02But they just have to put it in a different term. It's like we can't say I I wish they would get in a relationship.
SPEAKER_01You just said that you like progress. This is the progress of the English language.
SPEAKER_02That's not progress, that's degradation of the English language.
SPEAKER_01So now you're a conservative. You want to conserve the integrity of the English language.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we conserve things, but we move into the future with new technologies and cool stuff like AI and nuclear energy and spaceships to Nuclear energy has been around since the beginning of time.
SPEAKER_01The nucleus. But we've never been hardness it until the 20th century. Oh, that's true. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah, you bet. Just like electrons have been around, but electrical energy.
SPEAKER_02I'm just over here aura farming. Emanating Aura. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Now you've rage baited me. Okay. Aura farming. I'm full of aura. Isn't that a problem of like big aura farm? Like the companies that are just out to profit from aura farming?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Social media.
SPEAKER_01Pharmacopeia. We are getting off topic here.
SPEAKER_02Do we have a topic today?
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah. But we're not quite ready to go into it, right? I didn't think so. So what's something actually useful that we could talk about? Like a pre-topic topic.
SPEAKER_02Well, I I wanted to talk about aura farming or shipping.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, just to describe what it is then. Remember that word I made up? No. Transmodifiable post-exterior expressionism. Yeah. And it's just a And you know what you remember what you told me at the end we did make up words. I made up words all the time when I was a kid.
SPEAKER_02Transmodifiable post-exterior expressionism. I still remember it. And you used to tell me it what it meant like how words progressed over time. Yeah. Semantic shift is the actual term. So it's an actual term?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's I mean it's a phenomenon. That's why it was so convincing.
SPEAKER_02Because you just put a bunch of posts and prefixes and postfixes and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01It was just a contrived word and it convinced people it was real. And those were the days. Man, it was a good idea. You know what?
SPEAKER_02This is gonna be an interesting experiment. You're gonna have to talk because I'm gonna type in post.
SPEAKER_01Transmodifiable, post exterior, expressionism. What was again? Transmodifiable, post, post, exterior, exterior, expressionism. Expressionism. It turns out to be a word after all these years. That'd be funny.
SPEAKER_02What does this word mean? You're putting that into the chat. GPT. I'm seeing what old chat boy has to say about this.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02So it's not a real English word, believe it or not. It does not appear in the uh English um vocabulary. It looks like several words have been mashed together, broken apart. It might mean something like trans, across, beyond, through, modifiable, capable of being changed post after, exterior, outside, or external expressionism, not recognized word, perhaps intended to be expansionism. So if someone intentionally coined it, they might have been trying to describe something that a theory or philosophy involved involving change that occurs beyond external forms that have after some transformation. But that's just an educated guess.
SPEAKER_01That is very apt. That is surprising. Yeah. What if this is like the seed that eventually that word will make it into the dictionary and it'll be like on this day in history, transmodifiable post-exterior expressionism? July 17th. Dude, you said you weren't gonna say the date. Oh, my bad. If we post it next week, it's gonna be a week old. I guess we're gonna have to post it today then. I guess. Or we could we could post this one and then then the previous one we could post next week because we kind of teased it in this one.
SPEAKER_02I uh I'm really good at editing. Not really, but I could edit that out. You said no editing. I'm not gonna tell it.
SPEAKER_01I like sneezed the other day and you're like, that stays in. It stays in. It's like the blood stays on the knife.
SPEAKER_02It's transparency. Yeah. There's no edits on these things. So you know, we're just being real here. We are. We're just aura farming.
SPEAKER_01So what does that even mean? Does it actually have a meaning?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. If if I took a stab at it and then my daughter listened to it, she's gonna be like, wow, you were so far off. But like we all emit.
SPEAKER_01Put it in your magic box.
SPEAKER_02We all emit an aura. I'm gonna take a stab at it, and then I'll put it in my magic box. But we all emit some type of aura, if you will. Some type of this is who I am. Am I emitting an aura right now? You're always admitting it. You're you're emitting more than an aura, but um, we all admit some form of like uh what does that even mean?
SPEAKER_01You're emitting more than an aura. Take it for what you want. Um I'm insulted.
SPEAKER_02I'm sorry, I interrupted. No, you're good. Um I'm just cueing up chat for this one. Um but yeah, like if you see someone who's who's got kind of a a gait to their walk, like they're they're they're emitting some type of aura. And then you've got like the professional with a suit and tie on walking down the street, they're emitting their own type of of aura. They're different. Um and then so to aura farm, I guess, for for me is to intentionally emit a specific type of aura to make people think something uh about you.
SPEAKER_01But so it's a combination of behavior and and affectation and and you know, clothes that you wear and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02So, but here let's uh let's see what Chad has to say about it. Um, Aura farming is a Gen Z alpha slang for doing things that make you seem effortlessly cool, charismatic, or mysterious.
SPEAKER_01Oh, oh. In this room, it's to the max. We're aura farming maxing.
SPEAKER_02Or some sometimes trying a little too hard to look that way. The phrase combines aura and farming, blah, blah, blah. A presence of vibe, cool factor. Vibe. So here's here's an example of aura farming walking away from an explosion without looking back, bro, is aura farming. Oh man. Bruh. Putting on sunglasses dramatically before saying one sentence, maximum aura farming.
SPEAKER_01I actually thought about wearing some sunglasses for this one. Should I go get them? Put them on? Yes, you probably should. Are you being serious?
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_01Dang it. I have them in the car.
SPEAKER_02So next next week, your assignment is to come back and tell me how you aura farmed this week.
SPEAKER_01But if you try, then you're overdoing it. It said. I mean, if you're just trying too hard, you're just trying too hard, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think sometimes you can try too hard, but then I don't think you're aura farming. Like aura farming is like it has to be natural, it has to come off as natural.
SPEAKER_01So I'll just kind of keep an eye on stuff, and then at the end of the week it'd be like, you know what? In that moment, I wasn't trying, but I was super cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like true aura farming just comes off naturally. Like people are naturals at aura farming.
SPEAKER_01When you put out the Riz.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't know what that means. Charisma. It seems like all these Gen Z Gen Alpha is just taking words and shortening them. They are. And I don't know if that's the same with like vibe, vibration, the vibes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we've I guess we've done it a little bit. Nothing you put into the device.
SPEAKER_01That's the vibe. I don't know what that vibe is. Thank you. Or far me. That's on camera now. That is. Forever. Not gonna edit it out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Can you think of any other words that we've shortened?
SPEAKER_01Well, now that I'm trying to, I can't, but that'll probably pop up. Yeah. Cool.
unknownCool.
SPEAKER_01What is it short for coolant? Cool. Nope. Yeah. It's on its own. Fridge. Refrigerator. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Are you just saying random words?
SPEAKER_01Oh, a fridge? You've never said the word fridge, and it's short for refrigerator. You just asked me if I knew any other words that had been shortened.
SPEAKER_02But it wasn't a cultural shortening that provides some type of vibe or oh, so it was an invented slang. It wasn't like bro, nice fridge. It's like bro, go get some fridge. Brother, brother, bro. Yeah. Sis. Mm-hmm. Like you shorten it to make it cool.
SPEAKER_01I was never cool. I don't I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but you're uh you're a student of history. That's true. We'll have to think about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And now it's gonna pop up all over the place. We're gonna see it and be like, oh, now I got a million examples.
SPEAKER_02We'll have a million examples next week.
SPEAKER_01And that's what we'll just do. We'll recite all these examples. Just one after another. 45 minutes of words. 80s and 90s shortenings that are cool. Yeah. Cool. I like it. Cool. Shortening of cool. Cool.
SPEAKER_02Cool.
SPEAKER_01You're right. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
SPEAKER_02Well, any other any other topics off the top of mind if um before we launch into our what I think is a really cool topic today. I'd say uh pertinent. Pertinent. Poignant. Dangerous.
SPEAKER_01Dangerous.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a little dangerous. I think this one can you loggins? I think this one uh yeah, danger zone. No, I think this topic today is borderline dangerous. No, it's not borderline, it's playing with fire.
SPEAKER_01Inflammatory.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. We're gonna talk about a translation of the Bible today. Different trans issue. Different trans issue, that's right. We love the trans issues.
SPEAKER_01Not in our cars. Transmission issues are the worst.
SPEAKER_02They are costly too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, I got nothing. You can launch in. It seems like we are at a a dead end here in terms of like natural topics just coming to mind.
SPEAKER_01But this conversation needs to be rejuvenated.
SPEAKER_02Let me ask you this. What's your favorite Bible translation?
SPEAKER_01The Darby.
SPEAKER_02The Darby. Tell me about the Derby.
SPEAKER_01I know nothing about the Derby other than the name. Except it's like the King James only harder to read. Yeah. So if I'm actually being serious. The Derby. I like the New King James. Okay. Because it just, you know, King James is often hard to read, but the New King James kind of maintains the translational quality and makes the prose a little easier to read.
SPEAKER_02So the remind me, the King James was translated using the Latin Vulgate, right?
SPEAKER_01I believe the King James was when the Greek and the Latin Vulgate came together, and it was, you know, a work of translation that took advantage of both of the manuscripts. Yeah. Well both of the language manuscripts no, because there wasn't only just two.
SPEAKER_02Have you seen those people out there that say the King James is the only Bible translation you can use? It's the only inspired English translation. Yeah. I was I was actually looking up the Darby, the Darby translation to see if there's a um let's try John 3.16 in the Darby. Alright. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, whoever believes in him sh may not perish, but have eternal life.
SPEAKER_01So the difference is may. Because other translations have like shall or should may. Yeah. That one seems to be like so tenuous. May not may not perish. May not perish. But have eternal life. Yeah, really. I like the one that says shall not perish.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's interesting. I don't want to perish. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him, I bet you may back in the day had probably a different connotation. That could be too. Um but that but thanks to transmodifiable post-hysteric expressionism. Um because yeah, reading that in in modern day understanding the the uh the term may, I don't like that. So I accept Jesus Christ and I may not perish. Yeah. I like will not perish.
SPEAKER_01That kind of leads into like works. It's like what else do I have to do so that I don't perish? No, thanks. But I don't like uh, you know, we're saved through faith by grace, yeah, which is a free gift of God.
SPEAKER_02Is faith a works?
SPEAKER_01A work? That's a good question. I've always wondered like what is faith because it has many facets. I would say is it just belief in something?
SPEAKER_02But is that belief in something an actual work? Hey. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll let you go. Go for it. I interrupted you.
SPEAKER_01I'll drink my coffee. I liken it to a rope. If I if if if I see a rope, I believe in that rope. That rope exists, right? Or you could say, I need that rope because my car is stuck, and I'm gonna hook that rope to two cars and I'm gonna pull one car out with the other, you know. Then I trust that rope to function as because if I didn't trust it, I wouldn't hook it up, right? Sure. But if I have faith in that rope, it's like I'm gonna dangle myself off of a bridge with that rope, then I have faith in that rope, you know. So I always thought with faith is it goes beyond belief in, it goes beyond kind of trust, and it goes into the realm of relationship, right? Because if if you if you need something, you you have a need that you can't fulfill on your own. Who are you gonna call? Not Ghostbusters, but you're gonna call somebody that you have a relationship with.
SPEAKER_02You ship in with them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're you're in a relationship, not romantic, maybe, I don't know. Maybe I ship that. I I have faith in my wife because of our relationship. Sure. You know, we have a relationship. I've depended on you for many things, you know. And it's because I believe you exist, I trust you, I have faith in you, right? And so I think that faith goes beyond just because the Bible says that even the demons believe in Jesus, sure, and they do so with fear and trembling. So is it just belief in something? No, I think it's when you when you have that relationship that you trust this person so completely that you will literally hang your salvation, your eternal destiny on this person and say, for good, for better, I'm gonna put my faith in you. I think it's the that relationship, you know? I uh so the stronger the relationship, yeah, the stronger the faith.
SPEAKER_02I like it. When we were when I was in youth group back in my high school days, like 80 years ago, in in the 90s, early, early aughts, if you will, um, we went to youth camp and they wanted us to practice faith, belief, trust. So we do these trust falls, and uh it's where you close your eyes and you get up on this little platform and then you fall back into a a group of four or five people and they catch you.
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02I didn't have good friends in high school.
SPEAKER_01Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02Because I was the last one to go and we all caught everybody and they thought it would be funny. Old Cody's getting up there. Let's play a prank on him. Yeah, so I close my eyes and I do the trust fall and I land flat on my back on the floor. Oh, ouch. And all my so-called friends started laughing and running off.
SPEAKER_03Nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Name them. Who were they? I can't do that to you. I can't do that to them. To me? I don't think I was in that group. I can remember three of them off the top of my head, but I'm not gonna expose them on live. Dox them. Yeah, I'm not gonna dox them. Okay. Maybe maybe next week I'll give them their address, give the addresses and send it out in the comments. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But anyways, yeah. Have you seen it? The reason I was laughing is because it reminds me of that video of the guy doing the trust fall, and everybody's lined up behind him, but then he falls forward. Yeah. User error. Whoopsie.
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, that's what you put bam. Yeah. What's the analogy there? It's not who you put your trust in, but how? Following simple instructions. Yeah, following simple instructions. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good one. So funny. Uh, because you're totally not expecting it. Yeah. When I saw that one, I was expecting them to let it go like they did to me back in high school. Yeah. Yeah. Yard of expectation. So the the translation that we're going to get into today is the the passion translation. And I've heard about the passion translation for years. Um, I've never really read it. Um, but as of recent, there's been some real controversy around the passion translation. I shouldn't even say the recent. It's for for over a decade, people have questioned whether this is a real translation. Because it first came out in like 2009, right? It did, and and they're not even done with it yet. They haven't even translated the entire Bible. I think their their projected date to finish the Old Testament is 2029 or 2030. Oh, really? Yeah. So I think I think they're they're still working on it.
SPEAKER_01So if you go buy a passion translation from Barnes and Noble, what do you get?
SPEAKER_02Well, the first one that came out was like Letters from Heaven, which was like the first it was ten of Paul's letters. Um I don't know what you exactly would get if you bought a passion translation today, like off the bookshelf. Maybe we should have done that. Probably should have done that, but the uh but yeah, started a long time ago, and it's it's a it's a gentleman by the name of Brian Simmons who um said he was commissioned by God, by Jesus Himself, to translate the Bible. And well, do we need another translation? Maybe. I mean, there's there's translations, there's paraphrases, and um, so there's different types of translations, but I think there's value in continually translating the word of God because as we've already talked about, with words like ship and vibe, the English language progresses. It it changes. Words mean different things. Like in the Darby translation, I bet you may probably meant something a bit different back when the Darby translation happened.
SPEAKER_01Like if you may do something, you you get permission to do something. So suddenly you're not prevented from your salvation, but you can you can freely enter your salvation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so ling linguistic study of language within that time are very important. Like the message is a paraphrase, meaning the the guy who translated or paraphrased the Bible, he he was a Greek and Hebrew scholar. Yeah. So he read directly from the Hebrew um and the Greek, and he translated it to a He translated the idea that would most likely be. Accept, not accepted, but understood by his audience. He didn't go word for word. It wasn't a direct thought for thought. He was just trying to convey the overall idea. So we call it a paraphrase. It was just him. And he recognized that. He came out and says, this is a paraphrase. Like this is not the not scripture. This is an expression of the word of God. This is not scripture. Like if you're going to study scripture, don't study the mech the message. Like use it to edify your soul. Let me stop you right there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Something totally unrelated.
SPEAKER_02You have something on your glasses. I know. It's uh it's actually the the line that holds the frameless thing in. I I can't take it out. I have to reset the glass. And I need to do it because people keep saying I have something on my glasses. You're talking about the string? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Well, if you're gonna fix your glasses, don't use a sledgehammer.
SPEAKER_02Oh, great. Go watch our socialism podcast from last week. Hit that like button. Subscribe. Yeah, right. Gosh, I don't even know where I was now.
SPEAKER_01You were talking about Eugene Peterson doing the uh the paraphrase called the message. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so he he didn't project that he was doing anything other than a paraphrase, right? Um, I wanna I'm gonna try to do this thing. And again, I'm I hope I can get this right because I'm I'm probably gonna mess it up, but um, I want to show Brian Simmons in kind of in his own words why he started the passion translation. So this is a video online that we're gonna run real quick. So watch this.
SPEAKER_00And he promised that he would help me and he would give me secrets and he would show me things and he would give me divine supernatural help for eight, almost eight years, a little over seven years. He has helped us as we've traveled and ministered. Uh, we take our laptop and we we work on this translation. I did two verses today. When you get first John, I did some of 1 John here in Reading.
SPEAKER_02Uh so that's Brian Timmons in own words, you know. Um, he was commissioned by by God, and he said that he's had visions and and dreams of Jesus coming and touching him on the forehead and expanding his his his knowledge, expanding his capacity for languages and and stuff like that. And I mean, on the face, like, and and one of the reasons why this passion translation has sold millions and millions of copies. Um but so on its face, it's like, okay, this is a new translation. Um, Dr. Simmons is the one that's translating it. Um, so so what's wrong with this? Well, first of all, I think you know, you look into the credentials of a guy like Brian Simmons, and he is he is a doctor, right? Um, but he he doesn't hold a PhD in biblical studies, he's not a doctorate in Hebrew or Greek, he's not a linguistic um doesn't have a linguistic doctorate. So what is his degree then? Well, his his degree is actually an honorary degree um from the Wagner Institute. So he he doesn't even have a what we would call a real doctorate, but but rather an honorary kind of um earned degree from this um ministry institution. So from the start, the guy who is translating this um may have a may have a rudimentary understanding of the Hebrew and the Greek. And here's here's the other thing, too. He also translates from the quote-unquote Aramaic manuscripts, which is like a head scratcher to begin with, because for those of you who are not uh aware of the Bible, the Old Testament is written, the original manuscript is written in Hebrew, and then the New Testament is is written in Greek. Aramaic manuscripts don't come until centuries later where they translate from the Greek into the Aramaic.
SPEAKER_01So I I thought Aramaic was like one of those kind of combinatorial languages, like commerging. So it is it its own individual language, or does it derive from other languages?
SPEAKER_02It's a conglomeration of different um, you know, I believe Arabic and different languages. And it was also the spoken language of Jesus. Like that's the that's the language they spoke in. But thanks to Alexander the Great, um, in the 300s BC, rather, um, kind of taking over, the written language of the day was Greek. So the New Testament manuscripts are written in Greek and then translated into a plethora of different languages, including the English language. And it was in the 400, 500 ADs that it was it was translated into um Arabic. And so the earliest um quote unquote Arabic manuscripts that we have are you're saying Arabic, but you're meaning Aramaic? I meant Aramaic. I'm sorry. Aramaic. If I do that in the future, I mean Aramaic. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So what is the writing system of Aramaic? Because obviously in the Roman Empire, they did they not speak Latin? But Greek, the alphabet?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're talking about what type of alphabet do they use to write the Arabic? I don't know. Oh, okay. But he he relies heavily on the Aramaic um manuscripts. Um and he actually believes in this thing called Aramaic supremacy, meaning that very there's this is almost kind of French um conspiratorial thinking, but many believe that the New Testament was written completely in Aramaic and then translated into the Greek, and so there were missing manuscripts or something like that.
SPEAKER_01And but the the earliest manuscripts come from the first century, correct? In Greek, yeah. Yeah. I mean, not immediately after Jesus, but like Mark and John in the Gospels, they were like 80, 90, AD.
SPEAKER_02Correct. Yeah. Um, and then and then um, you know, Paul's writings a little later, but the idea that it was written in Aramaic versus Greek is is almost preposterous, and most scholars, secular and um Christian scholars, you know, 99.999% confidence that you know the the New Testament was written in Greek. Um so he but he says he translates from the the Aramaic um he also says he he receives revelations.
SPEAKER_01Um so even the Latin manuscripts are are derived probably from the original Greek manuscripts. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And I think there's benefit in looking at the Aramaic or the Latin Vulgate or even English translations and how it happened. Even the Hebrew, right? Or in the Hebrew, or even the the Septuagint, which is the Old Testament translated from the Hebrew into the Greek and how they did that, because it it educates you as to how they thought, how words worked back in the day. Again, it's it's pertinent to how words were used and understood in the day and age. That's why it's so important that we get this right, because we don't want to express what Jesus said differently, because then we're not reading the word of God. We're reading something completely different. And and I guess we should probably touch just slightly on you know the differences between um translations, right? Like there's there's word for word, which sometimes doesn't quite get the the meaning through, right? Like I used to read a lot from the NASB when I was um going to college and a little bit from the ESV as well. And that is a like a true word-for-word um document. I'm actually gonna, I've got a I've got a little chart that I wanted to pull up. Um you you can see it back there. Um, but like the blue is more uh is is a more literal translation. Um so you got the LSB, the NASB, ESV, and the and the New King James Version, where they they look at the word and it's you see that top blue line, it says it's that's a formal equivalence, a word for word. Um and the the idea is to preserve the original wording, grammar, and sentence structure as closely as humanly possible. The problem, the the problem with a word-to-word is a lot of times it doesn't express the same idea that the original language was trying to express if you're just going from word to word. So, in a sense, you almost compromise something by going from word to word. Yeah. But when you go pure thought to thought, you also might be compromising on something as well. So there's word for word to words, and then there's you know, thought for thought, which a thought for thought is technically called a dynamic equivalence. And then there's just a pure paraphrase. I'm just I'm just gonna read it and I'm just gonna give it what I feel like. Yeah, but as long as people are being honest about what they're putting forth, there's no problem.
SPEAKER_01So you have the syntax, and so if you're doing a word for word, you're trying to go from the syntax of Greek to the syntax of English. And then if you have a dynamic equivalent, you're trying to take the semantics of the Greek into the semantics of English.
SPEAKER_02You're trying to take that exact thought that either Paul or Jesus put forth and express it in modern day English. Yeah. Now you stay, you try to stay as close as you can for a word for word, use the same words, same ideas, translate those properly, all those things to say, to have a fidelity towards the scripture and the original scripture and the word of God. Because again, we're we're not we're not dealing with the the Odyssey or the Hobbit or anything like that. You know, it's like um the original Greek hobbit. Yeah, the original Greek Hobbit. Um what we want to do is we want to translate this properly, and because this is the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01Well, if I could back you up a little bit, I mean, if we're talking about translating from Hebrew or Greek or Latin into English, I mean, it it would make absolute sense that whoever is doing this translation would need a thorough command of both languages. Correct. Or five languages.
SPEAKER_02Well, and even in that, even if you have one person who has a thorough command of both the Hebrew and the Greek, they're still gonna have a tendency to translate based on their own personal beliefs about the scripture. That's why most translations have a host of different scholars, all with biblical languages, who agree.
SPEAKER_01How many scholars translated the New King James or the King James?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. Do you not?
SPEAKER_01I think it was like 70.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So usually you have a host of people, and most modern-day um translations, translations, not paraphrases, paraphrases are generally done by one person, but the message, right? Eugene Peterson. Yeah. He translated by himself. But he he recognized that. He raised his hand, pure transparency.
SPEAKER_01This is me, all me. Because he's basically translating it from whatever language into Eugene Peterson-ish. Yep, right, because he's just translating it into how he thinks.
SPEAKER_02Correct. Whereas when you have a host of translators, and one translator says, I think it should be this way, well, you have to defend that against all the others, and there's almost kind of a vote to where it keeps it, and you do, you kind of want a flavor of different um theologies translating that so that you don't get um one particular set of ideas drawn out of a text that wasn't there.
SPEAKER_01And so So you're saying that if there's a religious group that is all centered around one person, one human being, one man, that's problematic.
SPEAKER_02Super problematic.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I mean, Jesus was one person, one man. Was there anything different about Jesus?
SPEAKER_02Well, he was the Messiah and he proved it. Okay. He literally died and rose again. Gotcha. He created performed miracles and stuff like that, and people witnessed it. It wasn't everybody taking the word of one man, like a whole host of people in a community experienced God. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there were twelve disciples and then hundreds of other sort of subdecies.
SPEAKER_02Well, thousands of other people who experienced the ministry of Jesus. Whereas um a reference to um probably Joseph Smith, his revelation from God, you had to just trust his revelation from God. You didn't you couldn't verify it, you couldn't do anything else. And we're not getting into Mormonism today. But the the the parallels between this translation, the Passion Bible, the Pansion translation, and Joseph Smith are eerily similar.
SPEAKER_01And even Islam.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it it came from one man, he was um, you know, Jesus touched him on the forehead, and and if Jesus really did, and to to commission this uh this translation, then so be it. But I I think the problems, and we'll get into it a little bit, I think the problem is and we'll find this out. There's a lot of plagiarism in this in this Bible. He clearly didn't translate it. Um he used a lot of other resources, English resources, um, not to translate, quote unquote, translate, but to essentially um copy and paste.
SPEAKER_01But let me let me uh So he was referencing without citing.
SPEAKER_02He did a lot of referencing without citing. I just want to read real quick the governing philosophy, and we're cooking through this this uh episode already, but we're cooking with fire. Um the governing philosophy behind the passion translation, and this is directly from the translation website, the Passion Translation website, is to transfer the essential meaning of God's original message found in the biblical languages into modern English. The Passion Translation is an essential equivalence translation. And again, that's not really in that chart that I give you, but uh it's I think he's trying to communicate basically a dynamic equivalent, taking um the function of the original text and and translating it into today's words. And he also says, we agree with Fee, Gordon Fee, and Mark Strauss. Accuracy and translation relates to equivalent meaning. So these two guys, these two um giants um in both theology and translation, say that they lean towards the equivalence, not the word for word. So they they lean more towards a thought to thought because they say if you translate from word to word, but you miss communicating the idea, you miscommunicating the word of God, you completely miss out on the entire point of this. So they lean more towards a thought to thought. Um but the problem with this is that he references The and Strauss quite a bit, but and there's many videos out on online, but if you go and listen to Strauss, he thinks the work of the translation passion is abhorrent and and people shouldn't read it.
SPEAKER_01So he himself has disowned it. Oh yeah, he but he he wasn't did he participate in the Passion Translation? Mark Strauss had nothing to do with it. So Brian Simms is just kind of referencing him.
SPEAKER_02It's an appeal to kind of name dropping. It's kind of an appeal to authority. Like here's what we're we're doing, the same thing that Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss are doing, who are translators in their own right, and they wrote a book about translations.
SPEAKER_01And do they have a certain translation that they are responsible for?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they were both, I don't know which ones, but they were both involved in translations and updates to translations. So they they serve on like multiple translation committees. Correct. Okay. Whereas um and so it's an appeal to authority to say we're doing it much like these guys, but these guys disown, they have nothing to do with Brian. Don't don't at home work. Now, if Brian would have started out and said, I'm doing a paraphrase, I think we'd be in a completely different phrase, slightly, because now it's coming out that he obviously copied um a bunch of these things.
SPEAKER_01Well, let me ask you this, just you know, from a theological perspective, if if what he says is true, that he was visited by Jesus, Jesus basically touched his mind and expanded his consciousness, and that he received this revelation, you know, that abled him to re-translate the word of God. Does that process itself is that refuted by scripture?
SPEAKER_02Give me that question one more time.
SPEAKER_01If if somebody received if if if he was assuming everything he says about the process is true, he was visited by Jesus, Jesus expanded his consciousness, and then he was commissioned to retranslate a new translation. Is there anything in scripture that refutes that? That says, no, this is this this ain't allowed.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, Paul in Galatians said, if if we or an angel should preach you a gospel other than the one that we've already preached to you, a curse be on him. Um so now, if he translated it and it didn't change a single yod or tittle or you know, any any meaning, then, but expresses it more purely in English language. I mean, that's the whole idea of a translation, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and I don't think there's anything wrong with Jesus revealing that to him and guiding him, but at the same time, I don't think Jesus is going to commission him to plagiarize works that are already around and lie about it. I mean, I I that that's the biggest issue right here is the pure plagiarism and the projection that he is translating from the original language when he's clearly just in many instances copying, pasting. And there's a there's a video out there. It's it's a four and a half hour video, and I'll I'll link to it in the notes here, but it's a four and a half hour video of the minor prophets, which is um John Mark Baker and David Fish, two guys, um theologians. Um, the minor prophets, that's the name of their podcast. That's the name of the podcast, is the minor prophets. In addition to Mike Winger, who is from the podcast The Bible thinker, they go through for four and a half hours and they just detail and they do a phenomenal job of showing where he is just copy and pasted. And you can see that once you start seeing the pattern, like, and he doesn't just do it from one translation, he's constantly changing translations, but like in one chapter it'll all be from like the the living Bible, and the next one will be from the message, and and he even uses some some errant um translations, like there's one translation that's called the mirror, which is just the mirror bible?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know a lot about it, but I've heard of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's just a bad translation. Um and he uses references from the Mirror Bible.
SPEAKER_01Well, could I take a moment just to see my red flags? Yeah. From my layman's perspective.
SPEAKER_02Mine's layman as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So, you know, here we have this person that A claims to have sort of the secret knowledge, which that sounds like Gnostic heresy to me, which was kind of dealt with in the early church, right? With the whole Gnostic gospels and Gnostic heresy. The the second one is just the the lone translator issue of just, you know, because even the early church just wasn't one man, it was Jesus who was the God man, and then disciples, apostles, other church leaders, you know, so there was that committee. You know, so the because that echoes back to Mohammed or Joseph Smith saying that I alone have received this revelation. The third one is just this, you know, the fact that he says that Jesus came to him individually and touched him, that that kind of screams of new apostolic reformation, NAR, right? Which seems heretical in my mind because although I am a firm believer in the the work of the Holy Spirit continuing, yeah, I also believe that apostolic authority was limited to the early church. Um and then, you know, just with all of these sort of continuing revelation, you know, because we had the original Greek manuscripts, right?
SPEAKER_02We don't have the originals like the autographs, but we have well copies of that copy, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I mean, regardless, they came from the first and second century, right? Very close to the original, very, very early. With these, whenever you get somebody who says, I have been commissioned by an angel or Jesus to retranslate, why wouldn't that angel or Jesus just say, No, go back and understand the original Greek, go back to that? Because if it's been mistranslated, because that seems to be what they claim is that it's a victim of the telephone game, yeah, and it's been retranslated so many times. Why is another retranslation going to fix it? Why don't we just go back to the original? And that kind of screams of Gnosticism, too, because then they would say, Well, maybe those are those Greek manuscripts, maybe those weren't the truth. The truth was lost, and and I have I and I alone have this divine revelation to regain the truth. Because that's essentially what Joseph Smith was saying. Yeah. Like the truth went from the Middle East to America, and then through, you know, it's this whole story. They say that it was put underground for thousands of years or something, and then it was discovered by Joseph Smith, and this is the truth.
SPEAKER_02Which doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So so the the truth that went through Europe is basically irrelevant, and and I and I alone, again, it's the sole translator, sole arbiter of of the truth. How convenient. There's, you know, I see things in scripture that it seems like it should prohibit this, or it seems at least someone who believes that they are an arbiter of the word of God should do so with so much fear and trepidation that it would just destroy a normal man. Because imagine, if you will, as we all will stand before our Creator and give a report of our lives here on earth. Imagine the person that says or God says to them, You mutilated my word, my holy word, the truth. You took the truth and you mutilated it.
SPEAKER_02There's some stern warnings in the Bible about modifying the word of God.
SPEAKER_01So it's like if someone just says they stand up on stage and they seem so I mean, he seems confident and he seems genuine, but But in no way, shape, or form does he seem afraid or has any trepidation for what he's doing. Yeah. You know, so it it seems like he truly believes, but in my humble opinion, it seems like he's truly deceived with that rhymes. He he he is.
SPEAKER_02And all this is coming out, and he is backpedaling. He has modified the passion translation a number of times. Um, if you have access to a earlier version versus what is today, he's taking a lot of that stuff out. And he takes stuff out as it's identified. He doesn't just go through wholesale and fix it. He just kind of takes it out as which goes to say, were you really commissioned by Jesus? It's kind of like continuing derevelation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, it's like you got to go back and fix things.
SPEAKER_02If you take him at his word, Jesus touched me, expanded my capacity to understand languages, different things like this. I was commissioned by this. Jesus has helped me, he's giving me the tools to do this. I'm a linguistic expert. And someone says, You translated this wrong, are you not gonna say, are you not gonna combat that and say, no, this is a proper translation because this, this, and that. He doesn't do that in almost in nearly any case. It's he just changes it or takes it out. Um and I want to I want to give one example, and this comes from Galatians, or not Galatians, Ephesians chapter two, um, verses five. And it's verse five says I should say, uh let me let me read this in a uh I had it up here and I changed it because I was looking up the Darby Bible. I don't know why I did that, but um Ephesians chapter two five, and we're not gonna read it in the Darby translation. Holy might. We two being dead in offenses has quickened us with Christ. Let me put this in a different version. So let's go with the uh ESV, which is a good word-for-word translation. Um it says in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 5, it says, even when we were dead in our trespasses. That's just the first part of it. And then you go to the Passion Translation and it says, even when we were dead and doomed in our many sins. It's interesting because if you and I did this, I did this um in a you go to uh Bible Gateway. Bible Gateway, by the way, does not have the Passion Translation because they think it's a um faulty document and they will not put it on their site. But Bible Gateway, if you go there and type in Ephesians chapter two, verse five, and then you can go down and you can put all translations, and you go down through all the translations, and it's dead in sins, dead in trespasses, dead and sins. Every single one of these translations basically says dead in sins. Um except for the living Bible, which again is a which is a paraphrase. Is a paraphrase. It says, even though we were spiritually dead and doomed by our sin. And several other places within Galatians chapter, not Galatians, I say Galatians, Ephesians chapter two, you find other conspicuous translations that match up to the living Bible.
SPEAKER_01So just for the sake of argument, when was the living Bible quote unquote translated?
SPEAKER_02That was from the 70s, right?
SPEAKER_01Um seems like something that would come out of the Jesus Revolution.
SPEAKER_02The Living Bible was translated in 1962, Living Letters. Oh. Um, additional Old Testament books released in the 70s. It was published in 1971. Um they again, and that's a paraphrase. So they're they're taking the scripture and they're projecting. So they're saying you were dead in your sins, but we also know you're doomed in your sins as well, because we know the totality of scripture. So they're trying to teach and preach within this paraphrase. Yeah, they're trying to like emphasize. Emphasize things because we know we know the totality of scripture. But if you're trying to, if you're maintaining your fidelity to scripture, a word for word or even a thought for thought, you're not gonna use the word doomed. You're gonna say dead in your sins. And it is incredibly convenient or conspicuous that he used the words doomed, and it's used in another paraphrase. And this is just one example, but it's also existent in his footnotes. He copies footnotes as well. Um, and you got to watch this podcast um from the Minor Prophets and Mike Winger, but they go through it all and they have it side by side where they've got it highlighted in the Passion Translation and highlighted in the translation that he copied. And they only do that when it's when it's not existent in a bunch of different um now. If if you said dead in your dead in your trespasses or dead in your sin, there's gonna be multiple translations that have that because it's a good translation from the original.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But when it says dead and doomed in your sin, and there's only one other translation that says that, and in that same chapter there are other references that you could say he copied from the living Bible, yeah, you start to scratch your head. Now, if it was only one example, that entire translation, you'd be like, uh, coincidence. But it's not coincidence, it is replete. The entire passion translation is replete with what looks like plagiarism. And many people are calling it plagiarism. And you're seeing actually pastors who preach from the Passion Translation are coming out and asking for forgiveness. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01They're saying, I let me let me ask you this. If Brian Simmons was to do something that you you you would say, okay, well, all this can be put behind this now, what would that be?
SPEAKER_02Well, at first I used to think this needs to be called a paraphrase. Like come out and just say it's the living, not the living, but it's the passion paraphrase. Passion paraphrase. It goes well together. But now I don't think that anymore. You can't even call it a paraphrase. It's a copy. It's a conglomeration. Maybe call it the passion conglomeration. And and when you copy something, say, hey, this is copied from the living translation, or this is copied from the new living, new living translation, or the King James, or whatnot, you know? And so, but he doesn't even reference where it came from. He just puts it in there and owns it as his own, which is pure plagiarism. And so not only is he plagiarizing, he's also claiming that he's getting all this from God, which he is, I just he's in dangerous waters. And there are a lot of people who are pulling back from this translation. Yeah. Um, and the reason it got so popular is you know, Bill Johnson from Bethel Church, who's kind of part of that NAR new apostolic reformation movement, yeah, owned this and said, Hey, this is a godly translation. Um, but it is it is it is on sinking sand right now.
SPEAKER_01So it's not so much that the passion translation translation exists, it's just it seems like Brian Simmons' behavior regarding the whole thing, if he was just to be honest about what it is. Yeah. But but then wouldn't he have to kind of recant all this story about Jesus visiting him?
SPEAKER_02And I mean you'd think so, because if Jesus really visited him and commissioned him to write this thing, that's just not who what God would why would God do that? Why would God guide commission somebody to copy a bunch of stuff and claim it as their own and plagiarize and create all this controversy around the word of like so you the only the really only clue conclusion you can make is that Brian Simmons is just lying and he's making millions from it because his Bible is selling like hotcakes still today.
SPEAKER_01So either he's deceived or he's deceiving purposely it's the Joseph Smith dilemma.
SPEAKER_02Is Joseph Smith dil dil is he delusional or is he deceiving? Is he deceiving or is he being deceived? Yeah, you know, and that's the question. And I don't know that. I kind of think he probably actually did see an angel because it's hard to be genuine. Um I I believe he did actually see an angel, and that angels are based on that very short dark, it seems I mean he's very convincing.
SPEAKER_01He is. It seems like he's convinced and he's convincing. So, you know, I I I would lean towards he got a visitation from someone.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, I I don't I don't know. I just I don't see how you can do that and then copy and paste all this stuff. Yeah, or maybe he felt the liberty to do so because God was inspiring him and oh, that's a good translation, I'll do this. Yeah, but then he needs to footnote it, he needs to give credit to where credit is due for this translation and why you did it. And he also translates from the um the Aramaic version of the Bible as well, and he uses um those translations as well, which again, if you're gonna do that, great, but it's like at least tell us, tell us that. Yeah, and let's be honest about where that comes from. And let's be honest that you don't really understand the Greek and Hebrew like you should. Like I took three years of Greek in in college, coinate Greek, and I would never say I'm a translator. Like, it takes decades to get to that point where you are so proficient in a language that you understand the nuance, you understand where it else is in scripture and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um and that and that goes back to the King James, I think. You know, I can't remember the exact duration, but it was like a decade, 70 people working for a decade to to make this translation.
SPEAKER_02So and if people have issues with the King James, those scholars who aren't alive anymore, obviously, um, maybe for the new King James, but they're gonna defend their work. They're gonna say, no, here's our body of work. And if we ever were gonna change this translation, it would be it would be this massive lift that hey, we feel like we got this wrong, or we need to improve, or we need to update. It's this massive lift and this massive work where Brian Simmons work is just updated, updating the dead at night. And if people weren't like downloading it as we go, you'd never see the progression of what things are going. There's no transparency. Yeah. Um, he's just he's just trying to put out the fire.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because it seems like there's a bit of scholastic integrity and scholastic humility to say, if you if you have truly done the hard work of translating, then you could point to a specific verse and you could say, here's the how here's the work of translation that was done. Here's the original Greek, here's how I understood it, here's the words, here's the syntax, the grammar, the punctuation, everything, and this is how it has been translated into this modern, this modern sentence. And if that's truly wrong, I mean that goes back to why it's committee, right? Yeah, it's like, okay, if if one person did this translation of this one specific verse, and then the committee takes a look at that and says, Well, we you know, we we think that this particular Hebrew word or this particular Greek word or whatever, you know, there's a way that you can kind of correct it and distill it down to the truest form, you know. So that that requires that integrity and that humility on the part of the translator. Sure. But that's what I I, you know, with what you described and with what I saw, it's like that seems to be missing of it. Seems like there's no humility and then no, you know, that humility allows you to have the integrity of saying, no, I I think I got this wrong.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and some would say there's also theological issues with this, and we're not gonna we don't have time to get into theological issues uh um today, but there's also theological issues. He's obviously even even in the uh the Passion Translation website, you're frequently asked questions and our philosophy and everything, they have a statement of faith. And it's like there's nothing wrong with a statement of faith, but why is a translator giving a statement of faith? Like, isn't a translator just supposed to say, here's the word of God, I'm translating for it, and you can trust it. But what he's saying is he's giving his priors, and maybe maybe that's transparency. I don't know, he's giving his priors, but there's a lot of there's a lot of verses um in the Passion Translation that you can clearly see are translated to kind of propagate um a certain theology, which you shouldn't use the the prism of your theology to to uh to translate a text. Um and so he does add stuff that it's problematic just theologically, but now um kind of everything is in question.
SPEAKER_01And I I wanted to I wanted to finish with this, but uh well maybe I can just throw this out there, but why wouldn't Jesus commission him to translate into one of the many languages that the Word of God has not been translated into? It's like why commission another English translation or paraphrase or whatever when there's literally dozens, you know? Why not translate it into some heart of darkness in Africa native language?
SPEAKER_02Well, and he actually claims to have been part of the the Payakuna New Testament translation, um, which I b I believe was in in Africa, but um as as part of his credentials. Yeah. But the controversy of it, um, which the Whitecliffe Bible was involved in that Payakuna translation, and they have since come out and said he was not a translator. He says he was a translator. Oh. Um, and they've come out and said he was not a translator. Um according to them, his role was primarily reading the translated, completed translated text to the people and giving feedback onto their response and understanding. So he was taking the already translated text that he had nothing to do with and going and reading it to the community and s and seeing if they understood it. Whereas he says, I was involved um directly translating from the Hebrew and Greek. And Wycliffe is saying no, he was not.
SPEAKER_01And so even in that, it's like But it seems like okay, uh assuming Wycliffe is is saying the right thing and and he acted as sort of an intermediary, yeah. That seems like very beneficial and very critical work to the gospel spreading. Why doesn't he just keep doing that? Yeah, we already have lots of English. Why do we need another English Bible? We need another Swahili Bible or something else, you know? Yeah, it's like if he was already in that vein, why not just continue in that vein? Yeah. And then people that literally have never heard the gospel in their own language. 100%. I mean, we we've seen these videos where people get the Bible in their own language and it's like a jubilant celebration. Yeah, it's like you could not this this probably goes on for a week because they're just so happy to have their own the good news in their own language. Why not do that?
SPEAKER_02100%.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that sounds like an amazing calling.
SPEAKER_02I mean, the cynic in me, um, because I'm not I'm not a big fan of the the the gnar new apostolic reformation. Isn't that's one of those words that's been shortened? The gnar from gnarly. Gnarly, that's right. Yeah, the gnarly transition translation. I'm I'm not a fan of that movement. Um, because I think it's some of those things they're doing is unbiblical. They're trying to create new apostles, which I think is dangerous, because then they start taking authority over certain things like the word and adding things to scripture.
SPEAKER_01And that sounds like Mormonism because the president of the Mormon church has that authority. 100%. And so they're trying to, in the sort of more proper Christendom, yeah, say, no, we're gonna we're gonna install an office and a person in that office that has like prophetic and apostolic authority. And I agree that's very dangerous.
SPEAKER_02It's very dangerous. And unfortunately, they I you know, I I come from the charismatic um movement, the Assemblies of God, and uh I'm a continuationist. Um, but they they give charismatics a really bad name, and that's what people think of when they think of Pentecost and charismatics is kind of this fringy Kenneth Copeland. Yeah, and that's not the case. There's a lot of good, really good charismatics out there and Pentecostals who have a fidelity to scripture. Yeah. And that it doesn't represent that movement. And so from the start, I'm a skeptic about the passion translation coming from Brian Simmons, who has a very professed theology, um, and who is the he wouldn't say he's the sole translator. He is the sole translator, but he had a bunch of checks and balances and had people review him. They've talked to those reviewers and they said we had no authority, we just reviewed it and gave thoughts. But it's not like we could say, nope, that's an improper and we had authority over that. Whereas in a true translation, there's people who have veto power and say, no, that is not a correct translation. And so, and there's a process. So if he really wanted to create a process where it was like a true translation and it was transformative, he should have done it right. But it's clearly, I don't know what his, I'm not about to assume anything about him. If you listen to him, he's very convincing, he's he's contrite, he seems humble, he he seems all those things. But um I'm sure J Joseph Smith was the same same way. Very humble and contrite and just a servant of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01Never met the guy, but maybe. Hey, can I read this uh real quick? Absolutely. So, yeah, as I was doing my evening reading, I just came upon this verse. It's kind of hard to read from a book while you're talking to the microphone. Uh, this is uh 2 Corinthians chapter 4, and this is the New International Version, by the way. But Paul is saying, uh, rather we have renounced secret and shameful ways, we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. That's good. And I don't know, maybe it is providence that I came upon that. But it seems like there's just so much surrounding this passion translation, as little as I know about it and as little as I'm aware of it, but it seems like there's a lot of things about the passion translation that kind of violate that that statement from scripture. And so, I mean, the last thing I would want to do is stand before my creator and do something that distorted his holy word that should just send shivers down the spine of every good Christian, I think. And so to take that upon yourself or to believe that without any reservation, you know, it's either either you're being deceived or you're deceiving somebody else. And yeah, either way, it's very, very dangerous waters.
SPEAKER_02It is. And I'll uh I'll plug this in the notes as well. But Bible Gateway, um, the online Bible does not have the passion. The uh Bible hub has gotten rid of the passion. But UVersion, which I believe is probably the most popular app for the Bible, which most people have on their phone, still has the passion. And there's a petition you can sign online to get rid of the tran translation. Um the passion translation. Um again, and not that we are opposed to I I think there was a pastor online who preached from the passion, and he has since got rid of it. He's apologized to his and he's he's asked for forgiveness. Um but he says this is not to to say that people haven't gotten value out of the passion translation, they haven't been touched by it, they haven't been encouraged by it. That's not to say anything like that. Um, but it is to say that the process and the foundation and um the way Brian Simmons has gone about this is not extremely questionable. And that's being that's being um generous to him.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_02Um I think it's more than that, but uh, and I think things are gonna continue to come out, and I think there's um copyright lawsuits that could come out, plagiarism lawsuits that could come out around this. I know it's people probably don't want that because then it's just kind of this controversy around the Bible, but we should have this controversy. When there's errant theology, when there's errant translations of the Word of God, we should be out there saying, no, this is bad. You know, we should call the the Book of Mormon bad. Like it's it's a it's not it's not a Book of Mormon, obviously it's not a translation. I mean, in fact, Joseph Smith actually tr started translating his own his own Bible. Um regardless. That's that's another topic for another day. But uh, anyways, just go to say if you're reading the Passion Translation, um, I really encourage you to go watch this uh four and a half hour video that I'll post. Um, it goes through a lot of it. And I and I'm not trying to shake people's faith or belief in God. I want to make it stronger, and I want to make sure that we're working from the right sources and that we genuinely understand what the Word of God says. Yeah. I think that's the core of it and all of it.
SPEAKER_01Because I mean, we've both gone through this, right? Is like I think there's this hesitation when you start as a Christian being more scholarly. There might be a hesitation of, well, maybe I find something that just shakes my belief. And you know, we're not we're not doing that, but I think, and I'm a very strong believer that you know, the more, the more sort of scholastic honesty and scrutiny that you apply to the Bible, I think the stronger and the truer it becomes. 100%. And so I would encourage everybody to just know, go ahead, read the Passion paraphrase, but know exactly what you're reading as you read it. Yeah. Read the NIV, but know what the NIV is and where it came from. Read the King James, but know what it is and where it came from. Yep. And so don't be afraid to just dig in, you know, even if it seems boring or if it seems like something you're disinterested in. I think it's probably the duty of every Christian to have a, you know, a command of your faith. Yeah, 100%. And yeah. Because because as you dive in, the truth will reveal itself and the lies will also reveal themselves. And then you don't have to be afraid of believing erroneously.
SPEAKER_02Perfectly said. Great play to end, huh?
SPEAKER_01All right, cool. As we always say, as we always say.