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Why literal

We did not set out to make a translation that is hard to read. It came out this way from trying not to erase anything.

Translation is always a choice

The breadth of meaning in a single word of the source text is usually wider than any one rendering. So the translator chooses, every time. The choosing itself cannot be avoided.

The question is whether to erase the traces of the choice afterwards. A smooth translation erases them. It reads better, but the reader is left unaware that what they are reading has already been interpreted. The Yeshua Literal Version chose to leave the traces in.

Why the original words are left standing

As you read you will see words such as logos, psyche, exousia, and moed standing in the text beside the English rendering.

This is not a device for looking learned. The moment such a word is turned into a single English word, it becomes impossible to trace that word across the whole text. When one original word is rendered differently in each place, the reader cannot even know it was the same word. Leave the original standing, and the original-language analysis lets you follow for yourself where that word is used and how, across the whole Bible.

This one verse shows it. Render both psyche and pneuma as “spirit” and the sentence becomes “the division of spirit and spirit” and loses its sense. The text is saying that the two are divided.

Grammatical gender

Hebrew and Greek carry gender on nouns and pronouns. English carries it only on a few pronouns, and Korean not at all. So this is the information that disappears most quietly in translation.

But when gender goes, who is referring to whom goes blurry. Which word in the previous sentence a pronoun picks up is clear in the original from gender and number, while the translation can leave the same place open to several readings. In those places we follow what the original points to, and where it is needed we leave that fact visible in the text.

The directional he

Hebrew has a letter attached to the end of a word that marks direction or motion toward. In translation it is almost always erased, because there is no ready word for it.

Yet in some places that single letter turns the whole direction of a sentence. The Yeshua Literal Version marks those places instead of erasing them. The detail is in the “directional he” piece under Bible studies.

We do not translate names

Yeshua is not a translated name but the name as it was called. The same holds for Messiah, Shabbat, and moed. We took it as a principle that a name carries its sound across, not its meaning. For those reading for the first time, though, the familiar form is set beside it in parentheses.

So it is a little uncomfortable to read

We admit it. This translation does not read like a novel. Parentheses come often, and unfamiliar words stand where they are.

But the Bible is not a book to be read off quickly. Being brought to a stop in front of one verse is rather what this translation is trying to do. When you stop, open the original language right there. You will see where that word came from and where else it is used.

Where the text comes from

The Hebrew is the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB) and the Greek is the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform. We consulted no copyrighted translation, and every rendering is the original work of this organization. The details are on Text Sources & Copyright.