For the translation itself, I was miraculously able to get free assistance from an expert in Greek (thanks, Dax!), who graciously went through my translation and the original Greek text with a fine-toothed comb and proposed several key changes, which brought the translation up to his considerably high standards. And so, without further ado, I am extremely pleased and proud to bring you the latest revision of the Millennial Translation of Acts 1a, edited by Dax Swanson.

Stay tuned for detailed translation notes, coming soon!

Let me know what you think!

Here’s a screenshot:

Peter says that we — even Christians — are walking around in the dark. And we would do well to drop our confidence and turn on a light:

Moreover, we have very strong confidence in the prophesies, to which you would do well to pay attention, like you would to a lamp shining in the darkness, until the day breaks the morning star rises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19)

Some guys had been saying that Jesus wasn’t coming back — you can live however you want because everything’s just going to keep on going on as it has for countless thousands of years. Worse, people were believing them. Peter, one of the last living apostles, is likely on death row at this point and sees the clock ticking down for his own life.

He’s just finished telling them he and his fellow apostles weren’t following cleverly invented stories when they spoke about the powerful future coming of Jesus Christ — they were eyewitnesses of His majesty. They saw the transfiguration, a vision of Jesus being chosen and appointed by God as the coming King and Judge.

Now he turns his attention to something he places even more confidence in than his own eyes: the scriptures. Specifically, he’s probably referring to Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1, two of the most popular Messianic prophesies, quoted at the transfiguration, that speak of the Messiah being chosen to come in judgment.

I love the way Peter understates his subtle rebuke here, you would do well to pay attention to the prophesies. Indeed they would do well — and so would we — to pay attention. Incredibly, we don’t have a silent, unknowable God. Our God spoke to us — first by the Prophets, then by His own Son. We would do well to take some initiative to read what He said and pay attention to it.

Then Peter gives this perfect analogy, that the prophecies are a lamp shining in the darkness. Most of the time we feel like we know what we’re doing in our decision-making and day-to-day living, but Peter says that really we’re in the darkness and we desperately need to turn on a lamp — the Scriptures. Sometimes we feel like we just need courage or strength or a change in our circumstances. We may not realize it, but our more basic need is light to see ourselves and our circumstances correctly — we need to dig into the Scriptures.

The final clause in the verse is the most beautiful as Peter turns his gaze to the future, the breaking of that final day when we don’t need the Scriptures anymore because Jesus Christ Himself, the morning star, will rise in our hearts, illuminating everything directly and brilliantly by His very presence. The Word Incarnate will supercede the Scriptures and our lives will no longer be like people finding their way through the darkness with a lamp, but rather like people walking in broad daylight. The best knowledge, of course, will be the knowledge of Him — we will know Him fully, just as we’ve been fully known (1 Cor 13:12).

Note: I will soon post my Translation Notes for this verse, especially since I took an uncommon route with the first phrase (“we have very strong confidence in the prophesies”) influenced by Bauckham’s commentary (Word Biblical Commentary).

(and yes, I will, in the near future, respond to criticism leveled at this translation project, though not exhaustively — the “literal” versus “dynamic” arguments have been waged for years by smarter guys than me.)

(click on the image above to view the whole thing)

For more details on the Millennial Translation project and what I’m trying to accomplish, I encourage you to watch this video. I also delve into a background of why Peter wrote the letter (starting at 6:45), difficulties with the letter and why I think it’s genuine (starting at 9:30), and a detailed overview of the passage at hand including explanations for the various word choices (starting at 23:00).

Here it is! To appease those of you dying to dig into a discussion on the Millennium Translation, I’m posting the above video, a 45 minute teaching I did at Teens For Christ on Oct 27, where I outline the ideas behind the translation in general, as well as some of the word choices and the heart/intent of 2 Peter 1a.

– in Christ, peter

Here it is: 2 Peter 1a (PDF).

FYI: As some of my close friends are skeptical of the value and validity of this project, I’ll be presenting their concerns and discussing them (with them and with all of you) over the next few weeks. I care a lot about this because translations are the primary tool we non-scholars use to interact with God’s Holy Word.

FYI 2: I’ll also be posting more details behind the word choices made here.

I still think there is some writing style that’s not as smooth as it could be and some words that are more technical/academic than they have to be: Do you have suggestions on how to make this more readable or cohesive without losing anything?

Lately I’ve been enjoying reading the Good News Translation of the Bible. I appreciate how they translate the Scriptures into Plain English — the kinds of words and sentences we use every day. This has not only helped me enjoy reading the Bible, it’s helped me read more of the Bible, follow the writer’s train of thought better and see things that I knew were there, but the meaning hadn’t really hit me before.

But the GNT isn’t always as “vernacular” as I’d like. Sometimes there are places where they use vocabulary that we just don’t use regularly. In other places, it seems like it flows too easily. The sentences are constructed so “easily readable” that it’s too easy to blaze by all the content instead of speeding up and slowing down as the writer’s train moves from station to station.

Writing The Millennial Translation

And so I decided to try my hand at writing a thought-for-thought translation. By no means do I think I’m the best person for the job, but I don’t know of any other effort underway and, even if it doesn’t turn out very well, it’ll be a good exercise.

The first step is to really get a handle on what the author is trying to say — the original intent — as well as the way in which the author’s trying to say it. Where is the author’s emphasis in the sentence and paragraph? What exactly are the connections between thoughts? As you probably know, I’m no Greek scholar. But perhaps this is a benefit. Instead of trusting my own ability with the Greek, I can stand on the shoulders of the top authors in the field. I can lean on Rosscup’s Commentaries for Biblical Expositors to find the top detailed exegetical commentaries on the book at hand, as well as on A.T. Robertson’s Word Studies (he’s regarded by many as the leading authority on New Testament Greek grammar).

So I began with this passage I’m teaching, the conclusion of Peter’s Second Letter, with the help of the resources mentioned above (specifically D. Edmond Hiebert’s exegetical commentary, #5 on Rosscup’s list — thanks, Timber!). Let me know what you think! (I’ll discuss some of the particular choices and some of the questions I had in a follow-up post).

2 Peter 3:14-18

Because of all this, dear loved ones, since you can’t wait for all these things, throw yourselves into being pure and without a trace of sin when you stand before Him – and at peace. See our Master’s patience as an opportunity for more people to be saved, just like our dear brother Paul, in line with the wisdom given him, wrote you.

He writes with the same wisdom in all his letters when he writes about these things, some of which are tough to understand. The untrained and unstable twist these, just like the rest of the Scriptures, to their own ruin.

You then, loved ones – knowing this in advance – constantly guard yourselves for fear that, being swept away with the deceptive influence of deviants, you fall from your own stability. Instead, keep growing in grace and in the understanding of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ. May all worship go to Him, both now and until eternity’s day. Amen.