Interlinears

How to use an interlinear Bible

An “interlinear” New Testament usually has three elements: 1) a line of Greek, 2) a line of English words under the Greek, and 3) a smoother English translation.

The Greek text is either 1) the Byzantine or Majority text, which was the basis of the King James translations, or 2) the Nestle-Aland/United Bible Societies text, which is based on older manuscripts.[1] Some interlinears also give Strong’s numbers for the Greek words.

Line #2 is a rough English translation – each Greek word has a rough equivalent in English underneath it. It is in Greek word order,[2] so it does not necessarily make sense in English. The English text may attempt to use the same English word for every occurrence of a particular Greek word, and will probably not take into account idiomatic meanings. They try to get you “closer” to the Greek text.

Most interlinears also present a smoother translation as well, often in a different column. This translation is sometimes noted in the title of the book – for example, Interlinear KJV-NIV Parallel New Testament in Greek and English has two translations, one on each side of the Greek-English interlinear. There are also interlinears with the NASB (close to literal), NKJV, NRSV, and others.

Let’s look at the English line of Acts 11:2: “were contending with him the ones of the circumcision, saying to men foreskin having you went in and ate with them.” It is difficult to make much sense out of this scrambled English, and that is why interlinears have a real translation as well.

I am not sure what people are supposed to do with “were contending with him the ones of the circumcision.” What information might these words give to the reader? It tells us that the English verb comes from the Greek word diekrinonto, but if you cannot read Greek, what good does that do you? You would have to take that word to an analytical lexicon to see what tense and mood it is in. Then you’d take the base form to a lexicon for a definition, try to discern which meaning is most appropriate for this context, and then you could put that meaning into the appropriate English tense and mood.

If you know a little Greek, you can see that “the ones of the circumcision” is in the nominative plural, so it is likely to be the subject of the verb. But you could also guess that from the ordinary translation.

In Acts 11:3, you can see that there is no English equivalent for the Greek word hoti. Have the translators left something important out? You can’t tell from the interlinear. You could look up hoti in a lexicon to find out that it is used to mark speech. In English, that is done with quote marks. That’s why there is no English word corresponding to it. So with work, we can see how the ordinary English version has come about from the Greek original.

This seems to me like we are trying to find our way through a forest at nighttime when we have a very dim flashlight. It is difficult to get an accurate description of the forest, it is a slow process, and we may take a wrong turn without knowing it.

I don’t mean to be totally negative about interlinear Bibles. I keep one, and I use it occasionally. What do I use it for? Usually, it is because I think of a verse in English, and I wonder, which Greek word does it use? I could use an all-Greek text and figure it out, but it’s easier to use an interlinear. I know enough Greek to guess that diekrinonto is probably a past-tense participle of diakrino, which is a combination of the preposition dia and the verb krino, meaning to make a judgment. That does not tell me much in itself, but it does make it easier for me to look it up in a lexicon.

So to use another analogy, the interlinear is a crutch that can’t take us very far. It has a purpose, but we shouldn’t overestimate what it can do. Crutches are good if you can’t walk well. Interlinears are better on the computer, because you can then click through to much more information than a printed book can present.

Literal translations

As noted above, the English words sometimes don’t make much sense when they are in Greek word order (word order is much more important in English than it is in Greek). But some have taken the “literal” meanings of the Greek words and rearranged them to provide somewhat better English sentences. Often the goal is to use the same English word for every occurrence of a particular Greek word, as if each word could have only one meaning. This may be called a literal translation. Young’s Literal Translation (done in 1862, revised in 1887) is one of the most common; there are some modern ones as well.

In my opinion, literal translations should rarely be used. Not only are they difficult to understand, they are also based on an erroneous concept of language, but give us a false sense that we know more about what the verse means. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between Greek words and English words, so the concept of a “literal” translation is a mirage. The “literal” meaning is not always the correct meaning, so the fact that the literal translation says something cannot prove anything. If we want to know what a Greek word means, we should use a lexicon.

A literal translation can be useful if we are trying to explain something about the original language to a person who does not know anything about the original language. But this is only as an intermediate device, and it should be used only if our understanding of the original language goes well beyond the literal translation. In other words, we should use a literal translation only if we have already researched the original language; only then will we know whether the literal translation is helpful.

[1] For more details on the difference between these two text types, see articles on textual criticism of the New Testament. For example, from the New Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04497a.htm. Or the article on Theopedia: http://www.theopedia.com/New_Testament_Textual_Criticism. Links verified Aug. 2, 2020.

[2] Exception: Mounce’s Reverse Interlinear, which presents the English text as primary, and corresponding Greek words underneath the English. The Greek text is therefore in English word order, not the order seen in Greek manuscripts. It is available on biblegateway.com. There is also a reverse interlinear available for the ESV.