When someone else's Bible is different from your's, which one is right? You can be fairly sure the NET Bible can tell you. Every time the translators faced different possible translations, they noted the issue. Their thinking was distilled into notes, so we can read their minds.
The only Bibles that could be freely used in this new electronic world were old ones - written in old language and translated without the latest advances in ancient manuscripts and dictionaries. Two Bible projects set out to fill this gap: the WEB and the NET. It seems they both tried to predict what this new electronic space would be called, and the WEB guessed better.
The World English Bible was created by a missionary, Michael Paul Johnson. He updated the English in the ASV then conformed the NT to the Byzantine text (very similar to the text behind the KJV), and added Apocryphal books from the RV and Brenton's translation of the Septuagint. He made this available on a very open licence that allowed anyone to make changes and publish it, and even sell it if they wished. It has spawned a family of Bibles which individuals have lightly edited to match their thoughts about how God's name should be expressed and other minor differences.
The NET Bible was a much more ambitious project, that produced a valuable style of Bible never seen before. Dallas decided to translate from scratch - something that Michael rejected because he said it would take him 150 years. The best available scholars were commissioned and given the task of not only translating, but also recording what they could have translated. Their decisions and the possible alternatives were summarised as 63,000 notes - an average of two per page. Some notes comment on the meaning - often a nuance that can't be expressed in English. Others comment on other translations that are possible, because the Hebrew or Greek is ambiguous. And some point out when ancient manuscripts vary in a way that affects the translation.
The notes are always useful, but sometimes they are too abbreviated or obscure - here's an easy solution to that. For example, when translating Psa.23.2 they change the familiar "He makes me lie down..." to "He takes me to lush pastures". The translator explains his thinking in a note:
Heb “he makes me lie down in lush pastures.” The Hiphil verb יַרְבִּיצֵנִי (yarbitseni) has a causative-modal nuance here (see IBHS 445-46 §27.5 on this use of the Hiphil), meaning “allows me to lie down” (see also Jer 33:12). The point is that the shepherd takes the sheep to lush pastures and lets them eat and rest there. Both imperfect verbal forms in v. 2 are generalizing and highlight the psalmist’s typical experience."
When you find something like this, copy & paste it into an AI. Tell it this is a note from Psa.23.2 and ask for version reworded in simpler terms. I tried it here - and got an answer that could kindle an inspiring meditation or even a sermon.
The new edition (NET2) is also tagged to the underlying Hebrew and Greek, so you can click on a word and find out about the original that it translated. You can do this at NETBible.org (click on "Greek" to see these details).
This NET2 tagging really shines at STEPBible.org where it integrates with a whole world of information. Click on a word there and you get not only the basic meaning, but also extended information about that word in ancient literature, and the whole grammar is parsed for you. See the video here {THIS SHOULD LINK TO THE NEW VIDEO ON MORPHOLOGY} to discover how this grammar can reveal more about Psalm 23 than even the NET Bible notes.
In STEPBible, you can also click on a word then click to list how that same Hebrew or Greek word is translated in the rest of the Bible. This can be an eye-opener. Hovering over words helps in other ways too. For example, John's gospel starts by describing the Word bringing light into the world, and says "the darkness has not mastered it" or (in other Bibles) "not comprehended", "not apprehended", "not extinguished" - see many more here. The NET Bible discusses the possible meanings, but STEPBible lets you see what only a Greek reader would spot: the links between the words translated "receive" in v.11-12.
When you hover over a word in STEPBible, you discover details about it's original in the green box - and you get much more information if you click on it. You can also see related words which are half-highlighted. The word translated "mastered" is katalambanō, which is related to lambanō and to paralambanō which are translated "received" and "receive" in v.12 and 11 respectively. To someone reading this in Greek the link is as obvious as between "take over" and "take in" or "take up". These highlights help us see the deliberate ambiguity - that the darkness is both opposed to the light and also rejecting it. Like those who reject the truth and end up being opposed to it.
There are many other features to explore in STEPBible, which hosts hundreds of Bibles, and has features that allow you to drill down into their translation - though NET Bible is arguably the best.
STEPBible with NETBible helps you view the translated Bible with total transparency.
David Instone-Brewer,
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