A few weeks ago, I spoke with a friend’s granddaughter, a youth leader in her church. She was starting to process big questions about what she reads in the bible and was unsure where to turn. I suggested that a commentary may be a good start. In-depth commentaries are works of biblical scholarship.

We often confuse translation with interpretation, which can be two different things. When studying scriptures for informing preachers and teachers, linguistic background is very important. Reliable commentary will usually include the history of a particular passage, its attributed authorship, the general dating of the original text and the historical/cultural context at the time of its writing.

Writers of commentary usually turn to specialists in ancient texts to address the details of translation so that they might offer a more truthful interpretation of the text to the preacher or teacher. At the same time, the translation must also make sense to the reader. (For an informative and entertaining read on the history of biblical translations, I found the History of Biblical Translations at historyworld.net.)

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