Page:The Holy Bible (LSV).pdf/7

 Justified typographic alignment, the caesura mark, and other formatting peculiarities

The LSV may be the only English translation of The Holy Bible entirely formatted with justified typographic alignment throughout. This same format is maintained in poetic literature. While some readers may prefer paragraph breaks in narrative and line breaks in poetic portions for the purpose of readability, it was the decision of the translators to mimic the style of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek autographs in presenting God's word as a continuous text block. This decision wasn't arbitrary. In formatting the text this way, the LSV sets itself against the modern push for more and more formatting within the text, in favor of simplicity. Furthermore, the modern trend even extended to differentiating the words of Christ in red letters, as if God's word should be divided in such a way. The LSV is the polar opposite, regarding the entirety of Scripture as God-breathed, with its different genres of literature resting on a level playing field.

In summary, this formatting decision was made to mimic the style of the original autographs, elevate the entirety of Scripture as God-breathed, exclude the possibility of formatting passages in a way contrary to the author's intended delivery, and finally: it was made for ease of sharing in an era where digital reading is as common as reading from paper. Whether it be a printed copy, an eBook, an app, or some other format, the LSV is the easiest translation to copy and share ever made. In addition, justified typographic alignment throughout reduces the overall length of the printed and digital editions by a substantial margin, offering considerable cost savings to publishers and distributors seeking to get God's word into as many hands as possible.

Like alignment, the LSV adopts a more ancient approach to handle quotations. Recent translations continue the trend of deeply-nested quotation marks, which many readers find confusing. The original biblical autographs contained no punctuation denoting the opening or closing of a quotation, whereas many modern translations use alternating double quotes (" ") and single quotes (' ') to nest quotes two, three, or even four levels deep. The LSV utilizes a middle approach between modern translations and the older English translations like the KJV, which didn't use quotation marks at all. The LSV uses double quotes to denote the outermost quotation within a single chapter (similar to recent translations), and a capitalized opening word of a nested quote (similar to the King James Version). This lends itself to a simpler, more elegant, and easier-to-follow text.

For ease of readability, the LSV includes the double pipe ("||") caesura mark to separate phrases within poetic portions of Scripture. The caesura mark was extensively used this way in ancient Greek, Latin, and English poetry. Verse numbers, periods, colons, semicolons, question marks, exclamation marks, and em dashes generally stand in for caesura marks in these passages if they are followed by a capital letter. Finally, clarifying, interpolated words are placed in unbolded brackets ("[ ]") to make clear that they do not form part of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek text. Bolded double brackets ("  ") are reserved for identifying words, phrases, and passages whose inclusion in the original text is disputed.

Definite articles and prepositions

The greatest flexibility in translation can be found in regard to definite articles and prepositions. The LSV is generally more literal with definite articles than the YLT. Definite articles are often surrounded by brackets when they are missing from the original text (although not always—when the use of the definite article in English is demanded). When the definite article's usage is flexible, the LSV generally defers to the original text in its absence or inclusion.

While the LSV doesn't use a single word to consistently translate each preposition, the LSV does strive to maintain consistency in semantic range (in other words, a certain set of English prepositions are matched to each Bible language preposition, and the consistency is maintained wherever possible). This consistency results in the LSV being equally literal and readable.

Church, repentance, baptism, and age

The LSV chooses a literal translation even for "theologically loaded" words like ἐκκλησία (LSV: "assembly"), μετάνοια (LSV: "conversion"), βάπτισμα (LSV: "immersion"), and ‫ עֹולָם‬and αἰών (LSV: "age" or "continuous," depending on the context). These decisions were not made to disparage the common translations and were not made lightly. They were made to give the reader the best sense of what the original words mean in English, without the use of words that are the result of centuries of theological tradition. The frequent translation of metanoia as "repentance" has been particularly troubling to scholars who emphasize the fundamental differences in their etymology and meaning, with the original Greek word referring to persuasion, conversion, or a change of mind or belief.