Testimonials

Conrad Gren loves words. Hebrew words. Aramaic words. Greek Words.

His Mission: Translate the Septuagint--itself a translation from the Biblical Hebrew--into English.

Westbow Press has already published Conrad's one-volume, 700-page Greek/Hebrew parallel translation of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Ruth, Jonah, and Habakkuk.

Now he has completed Daniel and added a bonus. To the Old Greek of the Septuagint and the Masoretic Hebrew of the Tanakh, Conrad (M.A. in Exegetical Theology from Western Seminary) has added a third column: the work of Theodotion--important because the infant Christian church apparently preferred Theodotion's Daniel over the LXX.

Daniel is, of course, vital to any consideration of apocalyptic themes in the Bible. Scholars see the prophet's visions as reaching across the centuries to the present and beyond. One who purports to render Daniel's twelve chapters in English must be prepared to answer the critics: Is your translation honest or just imaginative?

Conrad Gren's unyielding commitment to translation accuracy is evident in the 310 [320] explanatory notes to his Daniel. While you may choose to merely glance at the detailed citations from multiple lexical sources, do slow down and enjoy with him his obvious delight in the discovery of words from the past--and what they mean. He actually converses with you. It's fun. Really.

Accuracy matters. Words matter. When it comes to the ministry of Bible translation, word-love counts.

Conrad Gren's new translation of Daniel demonstrates exactly that.

— Richard Lee Fenn

When asked if I would do a review of Conrad’s translation of Daniel, I approached it with trepidation from 2 distinct areas. First, I am not a scholar, so any review I give will have no scholarly value to this piece of work. Second, since I worked hard in assisting Conrad with some of the editing, this could appear to be self serving. So, let me address both concerns.

Not being a scholar, does not mean I cannot appreciate work well done. Also for the lay reader this can assure that reader that this work is approachable. Conrad worked very hard on this translation from both of the Septuagint texts and from the Masoretic text, putting them in parallel columns as you the reader will note. His insistence on being faithful to original languages at time frustrated me, when I felt that the English would either be better understood if he resorted to a freer style of translating, or the language itself left a confusing collection of words that didn’t seem to make any sense in English.

Yet together we were generally able to work through these issues and find a way to keep to his faithfulness, sometimes by my encouraging him to write new or more extensive notes about why he did what he did. My role, as one of his editors, was merely to try and get him to use the most modern English possible. I do not read or write any of the ancient languages, and do not claim any expertise in understanding them. I do read and enjoy English, so felt my limited help could improve the outcome. On occasion I had to remind him this was a translation, not a commentary, and he always took that to heart.

As to the second issue, I get no financial or other remuneration for the little bit of work I have done assisting Conrad in editing his translations. Nor have I sought any such thing. For both Conrad and myself, it is love of the Bible that brings us to this project.

It is deep respect for what the books of the Bible have to offer the modern reader that drives us to help make it more accessible to the reader. The purpose of this translation is to allow the lay reader to see the richness of the history, and the challenges of dealing with a text that is several thousand years old. This includes the fact that it is unknown what the original may have been like, since transmission of the text was often as much of an oral tradition as a written one, and since we don’t have access to the original texts, we rely on often defective copies of those.

Thus the comparison side by side of the two Greek texts with the Hebrew text allows the reader to begin to appreciate some of the complexities inherent in trying to find the “most accurate” text.

I believe Conrad has done a real service in doing this translation, and I hope those who read it will enjoy and appreciate the work he put into it.

— Dave Reynolds