Meaning over mechanical replication

1. The Apostolic Precedent: Functional Equivalence

The most significant influence the disciples have on modern translation is the validation of Functional (or Dynamic) Equivalence. This is the theory that a translation should convey the thought and impact of the original text, even if it requires changing grammatical structures or specific words.

• Contextual Adaptation: Just as Matthew 12 smoothed out Isaiah’s "Servant Song" to make it cleaner and more idiomatic for Greek readers, modern translators are justified in smoothing out Hebrew or Greek syntax to make it readable for English (or Spanish, Chinese, etc.) speakers.

• Clarification of Meaning: Mark 5:41 provides a literal sound ("Talitha koum") but immediately follows it with a meaningful translation. This influences modern Bibles to use footnotes or inline explanations to ensure the reader understands cultural context, rather than leaving them confused by a literalism.

2. Theology Over Rigid Syntax

Paul in (Ephesians 4:8) changed a verb from "received" (in Psalm 68) to "gave" to make a theological point about Christ.¹

• Influence on Modern Translation: This teaches modern translators that the theological intent of a passage is paramount. A "word-for-word" translation that obscures the theology is actually a worse translation than a paraphrase that clarifies the theology. The Apostles demonstrated that Scripture is a living revelation, not a static artifact.

3. The Rejection of "Verbal Plenary Preservation" as Rigidity

Strict adherence to exact wording (as demanded by some strict "King James Only" or VPP proponents) is historically inconsistent with how the Bible was written.

• Influence on Modern Translation: This liberates modern translators from the pressure of maintaining the sentence structure of the King James Version (the "17th-century English committee" mentioned). It suggests that "faithfulness" to the text means being faithful to the message the Holy Spirit intended, just as Matthew applied Hosea’s "Out of Egypt" text to Jesus rather than historical Israel.

Conclusion 

The New Testament writers were the first "Dynamic Equivalent" translators.

The Apostles and Evangelists did not view Scripture as a fragile list of words that would break if rearranged. Instead, they viewed it as a robust source of truth that could be reshaped, remixed, and paraphrased to reveal Christ.

• When Matthew compressed Hosea to apply it to Jesus, he prioritized typology over chronology.

• When Paul fused two Isaiah passages in Romans, he prioritized theological impact over textual preservation.

• When Mark translated Aramaic, he prioritized audience comprehension over linguistic purity.

Therefore, modern translation methodologies which prioritize "meaning-driven" renderings are not liberal deviations; they are, in fact, apostolic.

If the very authors of the New Testament—under divine inspiration—felt free to modify the wording of the Old Testament to ensure the sense was clear and the Christology was accurate, then modern translators are standing on firm biblical ground when they do the same. To demand a strict, word-for-word freezing of the text is to hold the Bible to a standard that the Apostles themselves never practiced. The disciples proved that the power of Scripture lies not in the "exact syllables of a previous manuscript," but in the living, communicative message of God.

Paraphrasing

The New Testament writers really do handle Israel’s Scriptures with a kind of interpretive agility that focuses on meaning rather than exact replication of wording. This is easy to show with actual OT–NT comparisons, and the text itself does the heavy lifting.

Here are the clearest examples from both Testaments where you can see the Apostles and Evangelists paraphrasing, adapting, or reshaping Old Testament wording for theological purposes.

Matthew 2:15 vs. Hosea 11:1

Matthew uses Hosea in a way that is recognizably not a word-for-word citation.

Matthew 2:15 (NT)

“Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Hosea 11:1 (OT)

“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.”

Matthew compresses, removes the temporal framing, and applies a historical text about Israel to Christ. He treats Hosea typologically, not as a direct predictive prophecy. The shift is obvious: Hosea speaks of Israel in the past; Matthew applies the same line to Jesus in the present. This is precisely the phenomenon Jerome noticed.

Matthew 12:17–21 vs. Isaiah 42:1–4

Matthew does not reproduce Isaiah’s Servant Song verbatim; instead he reshapes phrases and smooths them for Greek readers. Compare how different the wording is even in English translation.

Matthew 12:19–20

“He will not quarrel or cry aloud… a bruised reed he will not break…”

Isaiah 42:2–3

“He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard… a bruised reed shall he not break…”

The broad thought is retained, but the phrasing is absolutely not identical. Matthew’s Greek is cleaner and more idiomatic, signaling paraphrase rather than quotation-by-dictation.

Mark’s retention and translation of Aramaic (Talitha koum)

Jerome’s observation about Mark is directly supported by the text.

Mark 5:41

“He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha koum,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise.’”

Mark preserves the Aramaic phrase but immediately adds a dynamic translation. That habit reveals the Evangelists’ willingness to adapt language for comprehension rather than strict literalism. The very phrase “which means…” shows an awareness that translation is interpretive and flexible.

Paul’s flexible citation practice

Paul is the clearest example of “meaning over words.” His letters almost never contain strict verbatim quotations of the Hebrew text. They drift between the Septuagint, paraphrase, and his own theological adaptation.

Romans 9:33 vs. Isaiah 8:14 + 28:16

Paul actually combines two different passages and modifies the language.

Romans 9:33

“Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Isaiah 8:14 says Israel will stumble on Yahweh himself. Isaiah 28:16 says the cornerstone is laid in Zion and the believer will not be ashamed. Paul fuses the two, alters wording, removes Hebrew parallelism, and adds Christological meaning. It’s a theological remix, not a verbatim citation.

Ephesians 4:8 vs. Psalm 68:18

Here Paul alters the verb completely.

Ephesians 4:8

“When he ascended up on high, he gave gifts to men.”

Psalm 68:18

“You have ascended on high; you have received gifts for men.”

Paul reverses the verb to make a theological point about Christ giving gifts to the church. That is not a slip—it's interpretive reframing. The meaning matters more to Paul than sticking perfectly to the lexical form of Psalm 68.

The Apostles’ own statement about their method

Jerome’s summary—“They strove not for words but for the meaning”—is not theological embroidery. It’s just an honest reading of how the Apostolic writers interact with their Scriptures. Their practice is clearly meaning-driven, contextual, and often midrashic (interpretive and expansive).

What this does to strict Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP)

If VPP requires that every biblical quotation must retain every original word in exact form to count as “preserved,” the New Testament immediately destroys that requirement.

Matthew alters wording.

Mark translates freely.

Luke smooths Greek idiom for clarity.

Paul paraphrases, fuses texts, and modifies verbs.

The very people through whom inspiration came were not bound to a “word-perfect” citation standard. They treated the sense of Scripture as the inspired unit, not the exact syllables of a previous manuscript tradition. This does not weaken inspiration; it reveals the dynamic nature of it.

If the Apostles did not consider themselves chained to exact reproductions of earlier wording, then binding the modern church to the wording decisions of a single 17th-century English committee has no biblical justification. Their method simply wasn’t built on that kind of textual rigidity.

The interesting part is that this flexibility didn’t make the text weaker. It made it powerful, communicative, alive—always aimed at meaning, not mechanical replication. That approach opens all sorts of fruitful paths for thinking about how Scripture speaks across languages and centuries.

The Spirit Over the Letter: Jerome’s Refutation of Rigid Textual Absolutism

The ideology of King James Onlyism (KJVO) and the strict interpretation of Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP) rests on the premise that God’s Word is preserved only through a specific lineage of manuscripts (the Textus Receptus) and culminated in a single, unchangeable English translation in 1611. This view asserts that changing a word breaks the preservation of Scripture. However, this rigid philosophy is entirely foreign to the early Church fathers who laid the groundwork for biblical scholarship.

St. Jerome, arguably the greatest translator in Church history, addressed these very issues in his Letter to Pammachius (Epistle 57). Defending his own translation methods against critics who accused him of changing the text, Jerome provides a historical and theological framework that dismantles the core tenets of KJVO: that "word-for-word" accuracy is the standard of truth.

1. The "Sense for Sense" Principle vs. Verbal Rigidity

The foundational argument of VPP often suggests that for the Bible to be the Bible, the exact words must correspond one-to-one with the original (or the KJV translators' choice). Jerome explicitly rejects this "literalist" shackles, arguing that a fixation on words often obscures the divine meaning.

In his most famous declaration from the letter, Jerome writes:

"I not only admit but freely announce that in translating from the Greek—except of course in the case of the Holy Scripture, where even the syntax contains a mystery— I render not word for word, but sense for sense."

While Jerome treats Scripture with high reverence, his subsequent examples in the letter clarify that "mystery in the syntax" does not demand a robotic literalism. He argues that trying to preserve every single word results in absurdity:

"If I translate word for word, it sounds absurd; if I am compelled by necessity to change something in the order or style, I shall seem to have failed in the duty of a translator."

Refutation: KJVO proponents often demonize modern translations (like the ESV or NIV) for altering sentence structure or word choice to clarify meaning. Jerome classifies this flexibility not as a corruption, but as a necessity to avoid absurdity. To Jerome, preserving the "sense" (the theological truth) is the true preservation of Scripture; preserving the "word" at the cost of meaning is a failure.

2. Apostolic Precedent: The Apostles Were Not "KJV Onlyists"

Jerome’s most powerful argument comes from the Bible itself. He points out that the Apostles and Evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul), when quoting the Old Testament, rarely quoted it word-for-word. They frequently paraphrased, combined texts, or focused on the meaning rather than the exact phrasing of the Hebrew or the Septuagint.

Jerome cites Matthew 2:15 ("Out of Egypt have I called my son") and compares it to the original Hosea text, noting the differences in the Hebrew and Septuagint manuscripts available at the time. He notes:

"The Evangelist chose to follow the Hebrew, though he did not care to translate word for word."

He continues by examining how St. Mark quotes Jesus's words "Talitha cumi." Jerome notes that Mark adds "which is translated..." to explain the phrase, proving that the Evangelists were constantly engaged in the act of dynamic translation for their audience. Jerome summarizes the Apostolic method:

"[The Apostles] strove not for words but for the meaning, and ... they have not been afraid of the taunt that in the citation of the Old Testament they have somewhat altered the words."

Refutation: If the Apostles themselves "altered the words" of the Old Testament to convey the sense of the prophecy in the New Testament, then the strict definition of Verbal Plenary Preservation (that every word must remain static to be inspired) collapses. If St. Paul was not bound to a "word-perfect" citation standard, the modern church should not bind itself to the 1611 textual decisions as the only "preserved" Word.

3. The "Cacoethes" (Itch) of Inexperienced Critics

Jerome was writing to defend himself against a monk named Rufinus and others who criticized his translations for not being literal enough. He characterizes these critics as lacking education and understanding of how language works. He scolds those who nitpick over syllables while missing the substance:

"A literal translation from one language into another obscures the sense... It is difficult when you are following the lines laid down by others not to diverge anywhere."

Jerome creates a distinction between the "content" of the faith and the "container" of the language. He argues that by clinging to the container (the specific words/syntax), one loses the content.

Refutation: KJV Onlyism essentially canonizes a "container"—the Early Modern English of the 17th century. By insisting that valid Christianity is bound to this container, they commit the error Jerome warned against: they allow the literalism of a specific translation to "obscure the sense" for a modern audience that no longer speaks that dialect.

Conclusion

St. Jerome’s Letter to Pammachius serves as a mirror to modern controversies. The critics of Jerome’s day were the "Traditionalists" who felt that changing the wording of the old Latin texts was heresy. Jerome—the innovative translator—argued that loyalty to God means loyalty to the truth of the text, not the mechanics of the grammar.

To uphold the King James Bible as the only valid version, or to claim that Scripture is only preserved if the words never change, is to oppose the very logic used by the Church Fathers to give us the Bible in the first place. As Jerome concludes:

"Let those who will, keep their old books with their gold and silver letters on purple skins... so long as they leave to me and mine our poor pages and copies which are less remarkable for beauty than for accuracy."

Jerome’s Perspective on KJV-Only and VPP

The concepts of KJV-Only and Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP) are modern theological positions. Jerome (342–347 AD), living in the 4th century, could not have addressed them directly, but we can analyze his work in light of these ideas.

1. KJV-Only from Jerome's Perspective

• KJV-Only is the belief that the King James Version (1611 AD) is the only reliable or inspired English translation.

• Jerome's Stance: Jerome would have been the ultimate anti-KJV-Only advocate.

  • Prioritizing Originals: He abandoned the revered Old Latin texts and the universally accepted Greek Septuagint (LXX) to go back to the original Hebrew text for the Old Testament. This action is the essence of modern textual criticism: to get back to the earliest and best source text, regardless of a translation's tradition or popularity.

  • Against Monopolies: His work was a challenge to the "Old Latin Only" tradition of his day. He argued that if there are errors in an existing, popular translation, a scholar must seek to correct it by turning to the original sources. This principle directly opposes the KJV-Only belief that one translation is final.

2. Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP) from Jerome's Perspective

• VPP is the belief that God has perfectly preserved every word (Verbal) of the whole Bible (Plenary) in a specific line of copies/texts (usually identified with the Textus Receptus and/or the Majority Text which undergird the KJV).

• Jerome's Stance: Jerome's work suggests he did not hold a view equivalent to modern VPP regarding existing translations:

• The Need for Correction: He was commissioned because the Vetus Latina (the current "preserved" Latin Bible) was full of errors and variations, which he sought to correct by consulting the Greek originals. This implies he believed the transmission of existing copies was not perfectly preserved.

• The "Hebraica Veritas": His most radical move was asserting the superiority of the Hebrew text over the Greek Septuagint, which was seen as the divinely preserved Old Testament by most Christians. By seeking the Hebrew, he implicitly acknowledged that the common Christian text of his day (LXX) was an imperfect translation that did not perfectly preserve the originals.

• Conclusion: While Jerome undoubtedly believed in the preservation of God's Word in principle (hence the need to translate it), his methodology was based on a recognition of textual corruption and the necessity of returning to the oldest and most reliable manuscripts (the Hebrew and Greek originals) to establish the true text, a position that is at odds with the modern, uncritical acceptance of a single, later textual tradition like VPP.

3. The Vulgate's Enduring Influence

Jerome's Latin Vulgate became the standard Bible of the Western Church for over a thousand years, until the Protestant Reformation. Its influence permeated Western culture, theology, and language.

English Translation, Influence of the Vulgate

Wycliffe Bible (c. 1382),"This was the first complete English translation, and it was translated directly from the Latin Vulgate, not from the Greek or Hebrew."

Tyndale/KJV Tradition,"Even though William Tyndale and the KJV translators worked from Greek and Hebrew originals, they were also heavily influenced by the Vulgate's established Latin terminology. They often chose Latin-derived words (like ""justification"" instead of an Anglo-Saxon equivalent) because they were the standard terms of theology established by Jerome."

4. Conclusion

Jerome emerges as a scholar who refused to let any translation—no matter how beloved—stand in the place of the earliest recoverable text. His instincts run in the opposite direction of both modern KJV-Only and VPP positions. He lived in a world where the biblical text already showed signs of drift, and instead of defending the status quo, he pressed back toward the deepest roots he could reach: Hebrew for the Old Testament, the best Greek he could gather for the New. That decision makes sense only if he believed translations can err, that popular traditions can mislead, and that the task of the church is to keep returning to the sources rather than canonizing a particular version.

His legacy in the Latin Vulgate further illustrates the point. It became authoritative not because Jerome sacralized a translation, but because the Western Church found his attempt at textual correction and clarity compelling. Later English translations—including Wycliffe’s, Tyndale’s, and ultimately the KJV—absorbed the linguistic and theological vocabulary shaped by Jerome’s work, even while moving beyond it to the original languages he prized.

The picture that remains is of a man more aligned with ongoing textual investigation than with any claim that a single translation represents a final, perfectly preserved form of Scripture. Jerome’s commitment was to the text behind the text, and his life’s work reminds later generations that faithfulness sometimes means revising what was previously assumed to be fixed.

Jerome’s Letter to Pammachius (342–347 AD)

 “On the Best Method of Translating”

I present here Jerome’s letter to Pammachius in Latin and English. The Latin text is from the edition of J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 22 (Paris, 1859), which I have corrected in one place. In § 5 Migne’s edition has the typographical error κακοξηλίαν for κακοζηλίαν in the sentence “Quam vos veritatem interpretationis, hanc eruditi κακοζηλίαν nuncupant.” It does not otherwise purport to be a critically emended text. The English translation and notes are by W.H. Fremantle, from A Select Library of Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, second series, vol. 6 (New York, 1893). For a discussion of the relationship between this letter and Jerome’s work on the Latin translation of the Bible see my article on the Literal Character of the Vulgate.

Michael Marlowe
September 2010

See link below:

https://www.bible-researcher.com/jerome.pammachius.html

St. Jerome's major contribution to the field of translation is his introduction of the terms word-for-word and sense-for-sense. These two terms were later to be adopted by many translators, opening the heated debates in the coming centuries. Though the terms dated back to Cicero and Horace, St. Jerome is still credited for kindling the argument.

https://biblehub.com/library/jerome/the_principal_works_of_st_jerome/letter_lvii_to_pammachius_on.htm

Here are the exact words from the Jerome's letter that directly express Jerome’s “sense-for-sense” translation principle. 

1. The key statement itself (§5):
“I render sense for sense and not word for word.”

2. Jerome citing Cicero’s same principle:
“I have not deemed it necessary to render word for word but I have reproduced the general style and emphasis. I have not supposed myself bound to pay the words out one by one to the reader but only to give him an equivalent in value.”

3. Jerome on the impossibility of literal translation:
“If I render word for word, the result will sound uncouth…”

4. Jerome in his earlier preface to Eusebius’ Chronicle (quoted here):
“It is difficult… to preserve in a translation the charm of expressions which in another language are most felicitous… If I render word for word, the result will sound ridiculous.”

5. Jerome on his translation of the Life of Antony:
“My version always preserves the sense although it does not invariably keep the words of the original. Leave others to catch at syllables and letters, do you for your part look for the meaning.”

The earliest stages of the Bible's transmission

The period between the deaths of the Apostles (roughly the end of the 1st century AD) and the formal finalization of the New Testament canon (late 4th century AD, specifically AD 367 by Athanasius, and later ratified by councils) saw the rise of essential New Testament translations. These were crucial because, as Christianity spread beyond the Greek-speaking Roman East, the writings needed to be accessible to local populations.

Here is a detailed look at the major early translations and the controversies surrounding them, especially regarding accuracy to the Greek autographs:

Earliest New Testament Translations (Before the Canon)

The New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek. As the message spread, the texts were translated into the common languages of the Roman Empire and its neighboring territories. The most significant early translations include:

Old Latin (Vetus Latina) (Late 2nd Century AD onwards):

Origin: The earliest Latin translations emerged organically, not through a single official project, in places like North Africa and possibly Gaul. As Latin replaced Greek as the primary language in the Western Church, Christians needed a version they could read.

Nature: This was not a single, unified translation but a family of diverse Latin texts. Different communities or even individuals made translations from the available Greek manuscripts.

Old Syriac (Peshitta and Vetus Syra) (Late 2nd/Early 3rd Century AD onwards):

Origin: These translations originated in the Syriac-speaking regions of the Eastern Church (such as Edessa).

Nature: The Old Syriac (Vetus Syra), evidenced by manuscripts like the Curetonian and Sinaitic Syriac, represents an early and important textual tradition. The Peshitta (meaning "simple" or "straight") is the most widely adopted Syriac version and became the standard for the Syriac churches, compiled slightly later than the earliest Old Latin.

Coptic Translations (3rd and 4th Centuries AD):

Origin: As Christianity took hold in Egypt, translations were needed for the native Coptic population.

Nature: These were translated from the Greek into various Coptic dialects, most notably Sahidic (Upper Egypt) and Bohairic (Lower Egypt). These translations are incredibly valuable for textual critics as they often reflect early Greek textual traditions.

Were They Attacked for Lack of Fidelity to the Autographs?

The primary controversy surrounding these early translations was not a widespread, organized "attack" on them for failing to meet the standard of Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP), which is a modern theological concept. Instead, the issues stemmed from two main problems: textual divergence and stylistic inconsistency.

1. Internal Criticism and Textual Divergence (The "Old Latin" Problem)

The most direct criticism focused on the lack of uniformity within the Old Latin tradition.

The Problem: Because the Old Latin translations were unofficial, they varied wildly. Copyists and translators freely corrected, revised, or simply mistranslated passages based on their local Greek copies, their own Latin literacy, or theological understanding. This led to a plethora of diverging and corrupted texts.

The Response: The most famous response to this chaotic situation came from Jerome in the late 4th century (c. AD 382). Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome to standardize and revise the Latin Scriptures because, in Jerome’s own words, the Latin versions were riddled with "error."

Detail: Jerome’s revision of the Old Latin Gospels was explicitly undertaken to achieve greater accuracy by comparing the Latin against the best Greek manuscripts he could find. His work eventually formed the core of the Latin Vulgate. Thus, the older, pre-canonical Old Latin was heavily criticized because of its poor translation quality and corruption over time, which often departed from the Greek original (the "autographs," or at least the earliest available copies).

2. Translation Philosophy and Linguistic Purity

While Jerome’s work was aimed at accuracy, his own translation methodology spurred debate, demonstrating that fidelity was indeed a concern, but sometimes in tension with readability:

Jerome's Struggle: Jerome himself acknowledged the tension inherent in translation. In his famous letter to Pammachius (c. AD 395), he stated that in secular literature he preferred to translate meaning for meaning (sense-for-sense), but for Scripture, which he viewed as divinely inspired down to the very words, he felt compelled to translate word for word (formal equivalence).

The Old Latin’s Literalness: Ironically, the Old Latin translations were often too literal, retaining Greek grammatical structures and idioms that made the Latin awkward and unintelligible—a direct consequence of trying to be too faithful to the form. The need for clarity was a major impetus for Jerome's later revision.

In summary, the early Church's concern, much like Paul’s vision for Gentile readers, was that the message must be understood while retaining its divine truth. The Old Latin was internally criticized and ultimately superseded by Jerome's revisions because its inconsistent and error-ridden nature obscured the original meaning of the Greek—a clear effort to return to the best available Greek sources to ensure the translation was accurate.