Why More Translations?

I've often wondered why we need more translations of the Bible in English. It seems like almost every year there is a new version that comes out promising to be the most accurate, most readable and most profitable for the publishers.

Yet, it seems to me that many are not accurate in some details. For example, the Contemporary English Version is a good version for reading, but woefully ignorant about the working of the Holy Spirit- it uses very poor language to describe the activities of the Holy spirit in the life of the believer.

Now I know that translating is a very difficult business. Translators have to choose between varying shades of meaning, try and convey the meaning of the original across languages that are very different in form and syntax to the original and then come up with something that is readable in English. I understand that this is very difficult.

But still, after over a century of the Pentecostal movement, now considered to be the biggest single stream within Christianity, you would think that we could have a translation of the Bible that incorporates the unique insight of the Pentecostal movement into the working and activities of the Holy Spirit.

Apparently not.

So tonight, in order to prepare a message on 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 next Sunday, I found myself up to my eyeballs in Greek New Testament, various English translations and a Greek-English lexicon, preparing my own translation of one of the central passages about the Holy Spirit.

While I don't appreciate having to do this, it's a good discipline for getting right into the text and stretching the old brain cells. I got some new insights from doing this, so it's all god.

Here is my fairly literal translation of this passage without any attempt to make it more than moderately easy to read.

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

[1] Concerning spirituals {spiritual things}, brothers, I do not wish you to be unknowing. [agnostic]
[2] You know that you were once ethnics/gentiles and you worshipped speechless idols, being led astray.
[3] So I am making known {cf “unknowing” in 1.} to you that nobody speaking by the Spirit of God says “Jesus is cursed [lit. anathema], and nobody is empowered/ enabled [dunamis] to say “Lord Jesus [or, Jesus is Lord]” except by the Holy Spirit.
[4] The gifts are allotted or shared out by the same Spirit,
[5] and the services are shared out by the same Lord
[6] and the energies/ workings/ empowerments [energematon] are shared out by the same God who works out all things in all people.
[7] To each is given the manifestation [lit. announcement or disclosure] of the spirit for the advantage.
[8] To one by/through the Spirit is given a word of wisdom and to another a word of knowledge by the same Spirit,
[9] to yet another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the same Spirit,
[10] to another working of power, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits (good vs. evil), to another a kind of tongues/ language, to another the interpretation of tongues.
[11] All of these are the work of the one and the same Spirit giving them to each one just as He wishes.