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The next step was to render the resultant critical text into Contemporary American English. Accurate translation of the meaning of the original text is a vital and important goal. Nonetheless, however accurate the translation may be, if it is not accessible to the reader all is lost. Thus, readability is a paramount and overriding consideration. For this purpose, the following changes have been silently made during translation:
Spelling and punctuation are modernized.
Obsolete words are replaced with contemporary synonyms.
Words that may not be obsolete, but whose common or contemporary meaning is often unknown or differs from that of the text, are likewise replaced with contemporary synonyms or defined.
Occasionally, words, especially those with a precise theological meaning, are explained in footnotes.
Overly long and run-on sentences (by contemporary standards) are broken up into multiple sentences. The subject or verb may be repeated in such cases for clarity.
Embedded lists are sometimes bulleted or ordered (numbered), particularly where the structure is complex, the list long, or the list items are complex phrases, clauses, or sentences.
In some cases, the order of phrases is altered for clarification or ease of reading.
Other small changes are often made that make the text easier to read, such as substituting the antecedent for a pronoun.
Footnotes give explanations of terms or concepts so that the reader may more fully understand the text. Because the Sum is directed at those not yet Christians, as well as present believers, such footnotes are rather extensive in this case.
There are places in which this Sum quotes or references Bible texts whose reading is substantially different from one or more major modern Bible translations. Thus modern readers of certain Bible versions may be at a loss to compare their modern Bible text to that of the Sum. In such cases, the editor has included footnotes to explain the matter.
Also, there are a couple of places in this Sum that the editor believes to be in error; the editor has been conscience-bound to use footnotes to correct the error. Let the readers be as the Bereans and search the Scriptures for themselves.
The contemporary text generally follows American usage per the Chicago Manual of Style.90
In the few places where a Greek or Hebrew word used, the pronunciation given is that in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.91
Godly men and women of the time thoroughly and equally included women with men as human beings made in the image of God. They understood references to “men,” “mankind,” and so on, as completely including both sexes. Use of masculine pronouns to include both sexes was not at all considered sexist. This understanding and usage is also that of the Holy Scriptures. The editor has generally, where possible, reasonable, and feasible without violence to the text, used language that includes both sexes. However, in many cases, the editor has seen fit to retain the language, pronouns, and constructions of the original in order to avoid undue violence to the original. In particular, the use of they as if it were a singular pronoun is avoided; one is left wondering who are the “other” people referenced. The use of he or him to refer to one indefinite person of either sex has millennia of usage with no hint of sexism.
The editor welcomes constructive feedback and corrections at the email address given below. (The address is a graphic to foil harvesting by spammers.)
90 The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), 2017.
91 This work is published widely in both paper and electronic form. This book uses the version supplied by the Crosswire Project (http://www2.crosswire.org/sword/modules/ModDisp.jsp?modType=Dictionaries). For software with which to access it and to obtain the latest versions, start with http://www.crosswire.org/applications.
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