Genesis 11 Translation
1And (KJV) all the people
of the world spoke one language (NLT), and used one speech.(KJV)
2As the people migrated
to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babyloniaa and settled there.(NLT)
3And they said to one another (KJV), “Come, let’s make bricks and
bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. (NIV)
4Then they said, “Come,
let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky.
This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”(NLT)
5But the Lord came down to see the city and the
tower the people were building.(NIV)
6The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the
same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be
impossible for them.
7Come, let’s go down and confound their language, that they may
not understand one another's speech.
8So the Lord scattered them (NIV) all over the world,
and they stopped building the city. (NLT)
9That is why the city was called Babel,b because that is where the LORD confused the people
with different languages. (NLT) From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the
whole earth.(NIV)
10This is the account of Shem’s family line. Two years after the
flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the fatherd of Arphaxad. (NIV)
11After the birth ofd Arphaxad, Shem lived another 500 years
and had other sons and daughters. (NLT)
12When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of
Shelah. (NIV)
13After the birth of Shelah, Arphaxad lived another 403 years and
had other sons and daughters.e
14When Shelah was 30 years old, he became the father of
Eber.
15After the birth of Eber, Shelah lived another 403 years and had
other sons and daughters.
16When Eber was 34 years old, he became the father of Peleg.
17After the birth of Peleg, Eber lived another 430 years and had
other sons and daughters.
18When Peleg was 30 years old, he became the father of Reu.
19After the birth of Reu, Peleg lived another 209 years and had
other sons and daughters.
20When Reu was 32 years old, he became the father of Serug.
21After the birth of Serug, Reu lived another 207 years and had
other sons and daughters.
22When Serug was 30 years old, he became the father of
Nahor.
23After the birth of Nahor, Serug lived another 200 years and had
other sons and daughters.
24When Nahor was 29 years old, he became the father of
Terah.
25After the birth of Terah, Nahor lived another 119 years and had
other sons and daughters.
26After Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram,
Nahor, and Haran.
27This is the account of
Terah’s family. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was
the father of Lot. (NIV)
28But Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, the land of his birth,
while his father, Terah, was still living. (NLT)
29Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was
Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran,
the father of both Milkah and Iskah. (NIV)
30But Sarai was barren; she had no child. (KJV)
31One day Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai (his
son Abram’s wife), and his grandson Lot (his son Haran’s child) and (NLT) they
set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran,
they settled there. (NIV)
32Terah lived for 205 yearsf and died while still in Haran.
The reason why I chose to set up my translation this way is
because after completing the Reflection Paper I really enjoyed the way Eva Ruf
set up translation so copied off that idea. Because there were parts from each
translation that I enjoyed, switching from one translation to the other was
easily accomplished my using in-text citations. I mainly agreed with NIV or the
NLT translations because they got the message across while still being easily
understood. I rarely used King James Version translation because it was a
little too wordy and used words like begat to mean birth which I did not feel
added any extra meaning to the passage and only confused me more so I felt it
was unnecessary. I never used the Orthodox Jewish Bible translation
because it was much harder to read and I didn't think the message of this
passage was shown as clear as it was in the NLT and NIV versions. For
verses 1 through 8, I chose to use a mix of all the translations to make the
text sound more past tense then other versions made it. For example in verse
one I chose to use the word “And” to start the verse instead of “Now” like the
NIV version did. The message of the passage does not change but this separates
the past events from the current time and I think the only time a present tense
should be used is when there is dialog. For verses 10 through 26, I chose to
solely use the NIV version because a lot of it is just history or facts about
Abraham’s family so I chose the one that got the facts across clearly. Then, in
verse 27 I chose only to use the NIV version when it says “This is the account
of Terah’s family” instead of the KJV version which stated “Now these are the generations of Terah:” This once
again made it past tense and simplified the text without losing any meaning. The NLT translation,
which most people enjoy nowadays, simplified the text and just got the message
of the passage across. This usually meant less words and no researched involved
so I can understand why people would like this version over the other ones. The
NIV seemed to be a modern translation that also tried to implement some of
the older analogies or sayings to get the meaning of the passage even closer to
what they were in the early versions of the Bible. I think that a combination
of all of these translations helps us determine the message of this
passage. Even though this is necessary I do feel that once the message is determined
it can be simplified and written in a way more people understand. This is yet
another reason why I believe many people prefer the NIV translation because it
spreads the message of JESUS our lord and savior to as many people as possible
because they need to understand the “good news” of the gospel.
Sources:
“Genesis 11 New Living Translation (NLT)” Bible Gateway. Holy Bible. New Living Translation, 2013. Web. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+11&version=NLT
“Bereshis 11 Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB)” Bible Gateway. Artists for Israel International, 2010. Web. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+11&version=OJB
“Genesis 11 New International Version (NIV)” Bible Gateway. Holy Bible, New International
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