The Modern Literal Version Preface, Appendix, others

In order to highlight some of the issues we have found with translation accuracy in various bibles, we have compiled a chart that compares the amount of English words translated from the Greek words. We have picked some of Strong's numbers randomly between 1 & 5624, (using a number generator), and added the worst Greek verb we know (1096). We hope this will illustrate our faithfulness to our own guidelines in making the MLV as literal as possible:

1. To translate the original languages, word for word into English. Then to further boost the accuracy of the MLV, translate the same Greek word into as few different English words as possible. The same with English words– not to use them for different Greek words.

Specifically, we compare the MLV to the KJV and the NASB. This is simply because they are the only bibles that have an easily accessible English to Greek Lexicon and a Greek to English concordance that we need to compile this chart, not because they are "the most" inaccurate. We are in the process of making a similar concordance for the MLV (God willing.)

Modern bibles claim to be accurate, but most do not even italicize, or otherwise highlight, supplied words, (words that are not in the Greek, but are implied by context). The reader should be able to decide for him or herself, whether or not to include the words of man in the Word of God. The reader is unable to do this in any so-called "accurate" bible translation that does not highlight supplied words.

We believe that the translators should translate the Greek into English as literally as possible (within the scope of readability) and should not commentate, that is, insert the translator's opinion on what the verse means. For example,

For^* God so loved^* the world, that he gave his Son, the only begotten, in order that everyone who is believing in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. (MLV)

"For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. (Holman Christian Study Bible)

The translators of the HCSB made a conditional statement into a 'proof positive' statement by a simple verb tense change and they are not the only ones to have done this (NASB, NIV, etc.).

To keep the chart below simple, only one of the main base words have been kept; not the various tenses or plurals or leading verbs. (For example, BE for all of the: be, is, was, were, and being.)

Strong	Part of Speech	MLV 2013:	King James Version (KJV):	New American Standard (NASB):
1096	Verb	become, happen, come, born, be, do, have. (7)	arise, assembled, become, befall, behave, brought, come to pass, continue, divided, draw, ended, fall, finished, follow, found, fulfilled, God forbid, grow, happen, have, kept, made, married, ordained to be, partake, pass, performed, published, require, seem, showed, soon as it was, sound, taken, turned, use, wax, will, would, wrought. (40)	accomplished, appeared, arise, arrived, become, be, brought, been done, been made, been...came, began, behaved, come into being, carried, born, breaking^, came, came to pass, comes to pass, dawn, decided^, developing, done, drawing, during, elapsed, existed^, falling, feeling, fell, finished, followed, formed, found, get, give, granted, grown^, had, happen, join^, made, occur, performed, prove, put, reached, realized, results, show, spent, split, spoken, starting, take place, taken, thundered^, took place, turns, would. (60)(sorry don’t know why the )*
2932	Verb	procure. (1)	possess, purchase, provide, obtain. (4)	acquire, gain, get, obtain, possess. (4)
69	Verb	watch. (1)	watch. (1)	alert, keep on the alert, keep watch. (4)
2872	Verb	fatigued, labor. (2)	(bestow) labour, toil, be wearied. (3)	diligently labor, grown weary, hard-working, labor, toil, weary, work hard, workers. (8)
3225		NA (not in Strong's System)
1803	Noun	NA (a number)
3701	Noun	vision. (1)	vision. (1)	vision. (1)
618	Verb	taken away from, receive again, receive. (3)	receive, take. (2)	receive, receive back, took...aside. (3)
3703		NA (only occurs once in N.T.)
1313	Adjective	different, excellent. (2)	differing, divers, more excellent. (3)	differ, more excellent, various. (3)
Our random number kept coming up with Greek words with only 1 or 2 occurrences, so had to change a little to only adopt words with 10 or more occurrences in the New Testament, which turned out to be a lot harder than you would think.
321	Verb	bring up, NAUTICAL: set sail. (2)	bring (again, forth, up again), depart, launch (forth), lead (up), loose, offer, sail, set forth, take up.(14?)	bring, launched, led, put out to sea, putting out to sea, set sail, setting sail. (7)
4815	Verb	take, conceive, help. (3)	catch, conceive, help, take. (4)	arrest, became pregnant, conceive, help, seized, taken. (6)
1448	Verb	draw near. (2)
1223	Preposition	by, through, +3956: always, +5101: why, because of. (5)	after, always, among, at, to avoid, because of, briefly, by, for (cause)... Fore, from, in, by occasion of, of, by reason of, for sake, that, thereby, therefore, though, throughout, to, wherefore, with, within. (24)	account, after, afterward, always^, because, between^, briefly^, charge^, constantly, continually^, during, forever^, gives, means, over, presence, reason, sake, sakes, since, so then^, so^, therefore^, this reason^, this^, though, through, through the agency, through^, view, way, what, why, why^*. (33)
314	Verb	read. (1)	read. (1)	read, reader. (2)
1247	Verb	minister, serve. (2)	administer, minister, serve, use the office of a deacon. (4)	administered, administration, cared, contributing...support, do...the serving, employ...in serving, minister, ministered, ministering, servant, serve, serve as deacons, served, served as deacons, serves, services...rendered, serving, take care, wait. (19)
5319	Verb	make manifest, manifest. (2)	appear, manifestly declare, make manifest, manifest, manifest forth, shew (self). (6)	appear, become visible, disclose, displayed, made...evident, made known, made manifest, make...clear, manifest, revealed, show. (11)
3586	Noun	wood, wood stocks, staffs, tree. (4)	staff, stocks, tree, wood. (4)	clubs, cross, stocks, tree, wood. (5)
1256	Verb	reason, reason with. (2)	dispute, preach, preach unto, reason, reason with, speak. (6)	addressed, argued, carrying on a discussion, discussed, discussing, reasoned, reasoning, talking. (8)
4762	Verb	turn. (1)	convert, turn again, turn back, turn again, turn self, turn self about. (6)	converted, returned, turn, turned away, turned back, turning. (6)
1994 (Ironic, this is a compound of 4762.)	Verb	turn, return. (2)	come, come again, go, go again, convert, return, turn, turn about, turn again. (9)	back, return, take back, turn, turn back, turned again, turned around, turning, turning around. (9)
3319	Adjective	in the middle, in the midst. (2)	among, X before them, between, + forth, mid(-day, -night), midst, way. (8?)	among, before^, between, center, forward^, midday^, middle, midnight^, midst, two, way, within^*. (12)
268	Noun	sinner. (1)	sinful, sinner. (2)	sinful, sinner. (2)
5368	Verb	love, kiss. (2)	kiss, love. (2)	kiss, love. (2)
4750	Noun	mouth, edge. (2)	edge, face, mouth. (3)	edge, face, lips, mouth, say^*, testimony, utterance, voice, words. (9)
1432	Adverb	freely. (1)	without a cause, freely, for naught, in vain. (4)	freely. (1)
TOTALS	24 words	49 renderings + 5 for error. 54 renderings.	150 renderings	214 renderings

Note: because the MLV concordance is not a finished work we have added a 10% error to the final MLV total.

If you have any other translation information to add to this chart please send it along to the email address below.

The King James Version uses almost 3 times as many words or phrases for the corresponding Greek words than the Modern Literal Version does and the New American Standard Bible 1995 uses over 4 times as many. So the Modern Literal Version does meet its claim to be the 'world's most accurate bible translation.'

The MLV is NOT under the control of any denomination or publishing company and is not the current work of any either. Remember the MLV is OPEN TO ALL who have "thus saith the Greek" fixes. Submit them to create an even more accurate MLV. Anyone who wants to help in various others ways is always welcome. To volunteer or to send corrections for the Modern Literal Version, please contact one of us at: mlvbible (at) gmail (dot) com

KJV & NASB stats were from concordances.org. MLV stats are from the prep work of the Modern Literal Version Concordance Cross Reference to Greek.