Blind Bible Translation Comparisons 1 - Romans 3:25

This is Romans 3:25(a). As mentioned many times before, I like retaining the word propitiation, and the translation of the underlying Greek word is the subject of the comparisons. It’s a tricky subject in many ways. Here are wide variety of examples.

Interestingly, mercy seat is used in a recent translation shown below.

1. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,

2. God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

3. whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.

4. whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.

5. God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith.

6. whom God offered as a place where atonement by the Messiah’s blood would occur through faith.

7. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us.

8. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.

Strong
ἱλαστήριον
hilastērion
hil-as-tay’-ree-on
Neuter of a derivative of G2433; an expiatory (place or thing), that is, (concretely) an atoning victim, or (specifically) the lid of the Ark (in the Temple): - mercyseat, propitiation.

Thayer
1) relating to an appeasing or expiating, having placating or expiating force, expiatory; a means of appeasing or expiating, a propitiation

1a) used of the cover of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, which was sprinkled with the blood of the expiatory victim on the annual day of atonement (this rite signifying that the life of the people, the loss of which they had merited by their sins, was offered to God in the blood as the life of the victim, and that God by this ceremony was appeased and their sins expiated); hence the lid of expiation, the propitiatory
1b) an expiatory sacrifice
1c) a expiatory victim

7 Responses to “Blind Translation Comparisons 1 - Romans 3:25a”

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1 Nathan Stitt
September 13 at 10:09 PM

honestly, i don’t know what propitiation or expiation mean. i could probably guess pretty close but they mean nothing to me. i do understand the concept of the mercy seat though (i think).
2 Scripture Zealot
September 13 at 10:46 PM

I think #7 “explains” propitiation pretty well. I don’t want to give away any hints yet.
Jeff
3 Jonathan Wiebe
September 14 at 12:09 AM

One more translation:God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood — to be received by faith.
4 David Ker
September 14 at 12:11 AM

1-6 Gibberish. In fact some of them sound like these weird SPAMs I keep getting with a string of unrelated words in them. Just because people bring a lot of theology to their Bible doesn’t mean we need to pack our translations with theology.Even so, I’m not quite happy with 7-8…
5 Scripture Zealot
September 14 at 12:33 AM

Thanks Jonathon. I purposely left some of our favorites out like TNIV, ESV, REB and HCSB (mine).

I wanted to get a good cross section with most of the various terms that are used without any cheerleading for our fave.

#8 is the later revision of #7.
Jeff
6 Nathan Stitt
September 14 at 2:14 PM

Hmm, I definitely like the last half of the list better than the first. I’m having trouble getting the point of things with the verses out of context though. Based just on these snippets, 7 and 8 seem to be the most understandable without the surrounding verses.