Because this is the beginning The purpose in preparing this translation is to faithfully update the American Standard Version of Mark into contemporary spoken American English as used by those who don’t already know anything of the Bible, have no theology background, and are generally unfamiliar with church culture.

If you do not have a technical background in Bible translation and are still interested, read on. I will do my best to remain understandable for you too but some of the following will necessarily use scholarly language in order to communicate as clearly as possible with scholars.

More technically… The Beginning of Life is an updated translation of the book of Mark. It is a direct derivative work of the American Standard Version and the World English Bible (WEB) translations of the Bible. The WEB is itself a partial update of the American Standard Version translation.

Overall principles of translation In preparing this translation, I have drawn on the underlying Greek and/or Hebrew, the rest of the Bible, other modern English translations of the Bible, and scholarly input.

The translation is heavily biased toward formal equivalance in vocabulary, resorting to dynamic equivalence when necessary. When dynamic equivalence is used to translate a technical term, the formal equivalent and/or traditional translation is preserved as a side note next to the text. I have used this and other typographical conventions to help with readability while maintaining accuracy.

Formally-equivalent word orderings are preferred but this is heavily in tension with this work’s readability goals. I have included detailed explanations about various ways I resolve this tension below.

Typographical conventions Here is an exhaustive list of these conventions: [^{-} These owe a great debt to the work of Edward Tufte]

Here is some text⊕This is a study note with context helpful for understanding the text. that might benefit from additional context.

A theme from this thing.Describes what happens in the text immediately following. Typeset as a header (in a lighter typeface than the text).

Translation note.Traditional, alternative, or more literal ways to translate a word or phrase. (Avoids textual criticism because of the audience.) Used especially when the translation resorts to dynamic equivalence in order to keep itself honest.

¹ Verse 1, etc.

Cross reference,Jhn 1:1-14 hyperlinked to the NLT translation on bible.com. Used to:

• Link to Old Testament passages when they are quoted or alluded to.
• Link to other Bible passages that further explain what Mark is saying and/or offer context regarding the current topic in the text.

Typographical challenges The underlying text is maintained in plain text files using an extended Markdown-derived markup language.

Currently the only drawback of this format is that it offers no way to properly typeset poetry, render “acolon” and “bcolon” lines, etc. These are currently typeset as a blockquote using line breaks to separate poetry sections from each other.

Principles of English style This work seeks to render Mark’s gospel in modern spoken English in a colloquial and yet reverent style. Here are some examples of what this means to this author:

• Shorter sentences, fragments.
• It’s okay to start a sentence with a connector.
• And contractions are okay too.

I am currently targeting a 9th or 10th grade (US) reading level.

Word ordering and formal vs. dynamic equivalence

At best, Greek word ordering is bad English style to native English speakers and is confusing to understand at worst. This reworking should respect principles of excellent English style while retaining the academic rigor present in the original ASV text.

The result should be immediately understandable by unchurched or lightly-churched individuals without eliminating challenges faced by all faithful interpreters of the Bible.

Offensive or confusing things Jesus said and did are retained and not explained. Metaphors that Jesus or Mark used are retained because these add depth and dimension to their context that otherwise would be lost. Also, many symbols and metaphors appear in a remarkably consistent way throughout the Bible so this author believes that retaining the symbols and metaphors is important to developing a cohesive understanding of the entire Bible.

Detailed notes on formal versus dynamic equivalence The ASV is a formal equivalence translation. Retain this rigor in the update within the structure of what would be considered excellent (if colloquial, spoken) English style. On the other hand, all translation work necessarily has an element of interpretation–particularly when a word in the source language does not have a direct equivalent in the target language. In these situations, switch to dynamic equivalence while remaining as close to formal equivalence as possible.

These goals can be in tension with each other. The following principles guide how I have resolved these tensions. I’ve included specific examples where needed to clearly explain a thought.

• Retain Mark’s “overuse” of the word “immediately”. It is this author’s belief that Mark is intentionally using repetition to make a point.
• When a global mechanical search-and-replace update works, use it to retain continuity with the underlying Greek when possible. For example: Behold → Look!, wilderness → desert, multitude → large crowd; great multitude → very large crowd., etc.
• When appropriate, change to active voice. For example, in 1:26: “The unclean spirit convulsed the man, shrieked loudly, and came out of him.”
• Simplify wording of lists to modern spoken English standards. 1:26 above is an example of this.
• A single thought gets a single sentence. Closely-related thoughts or those utilizing parallelism get a single sentence with semicolons separating each thought.
• Break up excessively long sentances. But be careful to retain relative emphasis among thoughts present in the original.
• Used sparingly, sometimes sentance fragments can be effective as long as they don’t change the relative emphasis between the idea in the fragment and the run-on sentance being broken up.
• Many times the English is confusing because Mark used pronouns excessively or the referent of an expression is unclear without carefully studying the grammar of the context. While this may be the way Mark wrote, this is not considered high-quality spoken or written English. Resolve pronouns and other referents to their antecedents when doing this yields a clearer and equally-accurate reading.
• Use parentheses and hyphens (as appropriate) when a thought is interrupted by another one. Prefer using punctuation over rearranging word order.
• Rearrange word order only judiciously and being careful to preserve the emphases each individual idea in a sentence receives.
• If a direct or indirect object is separated from its referent, rearrange the word order to bring them together.
• For example, 2:14: As he passed by the tax office, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus working there. Here the ASV (and the Greek) separates “passed by” from its indirect object “the tax office” with an interjection about Jesus meeting Levi there. Putting the IO next to its verb makes the sentence immediately more comprehensible to a modern reader and also clarifies the fact that Levi was a tax collector. This also clarifies the following story beginning in verse 18, without adding or removing from what was said.
• Don’t translate symbols or metaphors. The Bible expects a lot of its reader and that’s ok. See above.
• If a thing would be obvious to one of Mark’s original readers but not to a modern reader, clarify it using rewording, a parenthetical comment, hyphens, etc. Add a sidenote to preserve accountability.
• Translate technical theological terms whenever necessary for comprehension among today’s largely-unchurched youth.
• Start with the Greek literal translation. Sometimes this directly offers an excellent substitute. For example in 1:4, baptize → ceremonially immerse [in water].
• Consider the immediate context. For example, Mark uses the word baptize in two ways: the ceremonial way described above and also when preaching baptism [of repentance for the forgiveness of sins]. This latter case can borrow from the context immediately preceeding combined with appropriate translation sidenotes: need to immerse their affections[^ *a baptism] in God’s straight paths instead of their ownof repentance.* See below for more examples.
• Consider the weight of Scripture. Sometimes another scripture provides an excellent explanation or definition. Continuing in verse 4, “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Here “sins” is used in general sense, so we need a concise, faithful expression describing “sin” in the general sense. Here we can still let Scripture interpret Scripture by rendering this as “forgiven for preferring selfish pleasure (and the hurt that this causes) instead” along with a cross-reference to James 4:1-3 from where this idea was directly lifted.

More discussion about translating technical theological terms Repent / repentance: These words aren’t used at all in modern spoken English and especially not among our unchurched youth.

Sin: In colloquial English, this word simply means “a bad thing” or “a bad person”. But in common use today when the word is used at all it is frequently used in an ironic or sarcastic way. The effect is to change “sin” from an undesirable to a desirable thing—and sometimes even makes fun of the whole concept of sin to begin with.

Theologically this is beyond inaccurate. Further, we would rarely-to-never refer to someone as a “sinner” in spoken English in the Bible sense of the word outside a church (or even inside most churches). As a result, this author believes the word “sin” has completely lost its meaning in spoken English.

Other concerns happen because different parts of languages change differently over time so some English words’ meaning may still be largely faithful but need elaboration or careful adjustment.

In some of these cases I have felt it more appropriate to include the theological term used in the text, but with a (usually parenthetical) elaboration or explanation in the context. Sometimes I’ve used a sidenote to clarify the original authorial intent when retaining a traditional rendering.

In other cases, I have found that an English word that is closely related to or derived from the original word that hasn’t yet lost its Bible meaning and connotation.

For example, our culture’s understanding of faith is more-or-less accurate–but only if one disregards that atheists and many scientists believe that faith is fundamentally an irrational or unscientific thing.

Consequently, I believe that perhaps the word faith itself may not be wise to use in a modern English translation. However, in common use words derived from faith remain faithful to the Bible meaning, and in many cases we can faithfully use those to substitute for and/or to clarify in situations where faith is called for.