FAQs

2. In the passion history Jesus twice says, “Who are you looking for?” Isn’t that bad grammar?

In our project we will try to use language that is both correct and alive and to observe the distinction between written communication and conversation (even conversation recorded in writing).

7. Why do you capitalize the Devil? Isn’t that honoring the devil?

No, it simply recognizes that the Devil has become a title of Satan.  All titles are capitalized even if they are evil figures like Satan, the Devil, Belial, Lucifer, Antichrist, etc.

17. The spelling of personal names and place names in various Bibles is very inconsistent. Is the EHV going to have a consistent system of spelling?

The problem of the spelling of personal and geographic names is a nightmare for translators, and arises because some letters of the Hebrew alphabet do not always have a good correspondence with one specific letter of the English alphabet.

20. Does Jesus use bad grammar?

1. Why does Jesus say, “Amen, Amen, I tell you”?

In most recent English translations of the Gospels Jesus frequently says, “Truly I say to you” or “I tell you the truth.” This conveys a clear meaning, but the problem is that in the Greek text Jesus does not use the Greek word for “truly” or “truth.”

3. Why don’t you capitalize the pronouns that refer to God? That seems to give more honor to God.

It has been a recent convention of English usage to capitalize nouns and pronouns which refer to God. However, it was not the practice of early English translations such as the KJV and also was not the practice of Luther’s German Bible.

23. How does EHV deal with so-called “gender inclusive” or “gender accurate” language?

28. Why does the EHV read “walk” where some other modern translations say “live”? What does it mean to “walk with God”?

12. In Psalm 110:1 “The decree of the LORD to my lord,” why is the second occurrence of “lord” not capitalized? It refers to Christ, the Son of God.

The second lord does indeed refer to Christ, but capitalization does not depend on whether or not a word refers to God, but on whether it is a title (then it is capitalized) or it is a common noun or adjective (it is not capitalized).

14. Why do you use the terms “inn,” “manger” and “swaddling cloths” in Luke chapter 2? Aren’t these terms outdated?

In some cases, terms that are allegedly outdated are really not outdated. Sometimes this can be rather surprising. We have learned more about each of these terms since we started working on this translation.

18. Why do you sometimes say “John the Baptizer” and sometimes “John the Baptist”?

Both versions are correct. The reason is that there are two different Greek words used here in the original Greek.

9. In certain passages of the New Testament some translations have the term “Messiah” where your translation has “Christ.” Why the difference?

22. Why does the EHV use the term “mammon”?

32. Isn’t the term “aliens” confusing or offensive?

37. In Isaiah 55:1 the EHV says, “Hey, all of you who are thirsty, come to the water.” Isn’t "hey" too slangy?

86. What is the most accurate Bible translation?

106. Artificial Intelligence and the Evangelical Heritage Version

AI is very good at the machine aspects of translation. What it is not good at is the human aspects of translation.