>In a previous post, I criticized a new translation of the Bible, The Ancient Roots Translinear Bible (ARTB). My colleague Blake Water, commenting on what I wrote, called my attention to the first 11 verses of Genesis. To show how awful this translation is, I am quoting Genesis 1:1-11 from the The Ancient Roots Translinear Bible.
The title of this post is taken from Genesis 1:10:
Gen 1:1 First, God created the heaven and the land.
Gen 1:2 The land was a chaotic abyss, with darkness over the face of the abyss. The Spirit-wind of God fluttered over the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 God said, “Light, be!” And light was.
Gen 1:4 God saw the light was-good. God separated between the light and the darkness.
Gen 1:5 God called the light “Day”, and he called the darkness “Night”. Evening was and morning was; day one.
Gen 1:6 God said, “Expanse, be amidst the waters! Be the separation between the ||waters||!”
Gen 1:7 God made the expanse to separate between the waters with waters under the expanse and above the expanse. So it was.
Gen 1:8 God called the expanse ‘Heaven’. Evening was and morning was the second day.
Gen 1:9 God said, “Waters under the heaven: Wait at one place, to see the dry-land!” So it was.
Gen 1:10 God called the dry-land “Land”, and the pool of waters he called “Seas”. God saw good.
Gen 1:11 God said, “Land, spring-up grass! Cereals, sow seed! Fruit trees, make the kinds of fruit with seed in it over the land!” So it was.
Maybe “God saw good” (v. 10) but I doubt he is very happy with this translation.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Bible, Strong’s Concordance, Translation
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Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 
>I’d like to congratulate the ARTB team for producing a text that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike English.
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>D. P.,It is just amazing that someone would publish a translation of the Bible in an English that makes no sense to English speaking people. I wonder who will be interested in buying this Bible for personal use.Claude Mariottini
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>”Bad” doesn’t seem an adequate word. Is there such a thing as purposeful incompetence?
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>Chris,This is what happens when people without the knowledge of the original languages try to translate the Bible into English. Translation is much more than just translating word for word.Claude Mariottini
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>I think this Bible translation would be useful in a study setting, though not necessarily for a daily devotional setting. I recently finished a very long in-depth study of the book of Genesis, and based on what I learned in that study, this translation of this passage is actually comfortable to me. I could understand it, and I actually appreciated it. It seems both majestic and to-the-point.
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>Melvyn,Any translation that can motivate people to study the Bible in-depth is a good translation. The only problem I have with this translation is that it may not provide the right meaning of what the text is trying to communicate to its readers.Thank you for visiting my blog.Claude Mariottini
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