Answer
The Pure Word Bible (PWB) is a questionable version of the New Testament produced by One Path Publishing and Brent Miller, Sr. It is promoted by Prophecy Watchers, a group that focuses on biblical prophecy.
The publishers of the Pure Word Bible make several radical statements in the promotion of their New Testament. For example, this is from their official website: “There are over 450 English New Testament translations; all riddled with inaccuracies that never referenced the original Greek scriptures. The Pure Word research project was started to fix this problem.” But are we to believe that none of the other English translations of the Bible were based on the original Greek? That all of them are “riddled with inaccuracies”? The claim that the PWB translation is the only one that gets it right should raise red flags.
Also, the publishers of the Pure Word Bible describe it as “the world’s first and only hermeneutics-based monadic Greek to English translation,” one that “reveals the original Koine-Greek depths-of-meaning from the time of Christ using breakthroughs in monadic-based hermeneutics.” These statements are scholarly sounding gobbledygook. By “monadic” hermeneutics, they mean that they translated individual Greek words according to each word’s “single definitive meaning.” The result is an often expanded translation that supposedly provides a “deeper” insight.
Compare Matthew 10:39 in the KJV with the same verse in the PWB:
“He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (KJV).
“He that found his soul shall lose it and he that loses his Living Soul for the cause of me shall find it” (PWB).
As can be seen, the Pure Word Bible “expands” the English text. In this case, it adds the word Living, which is not found in the original Greek text. It’s an unnecessary addition that doesn’t really help explain anything.
A basic problem with the Pure Word Bible is the so-called monadic method of translation. There is no “single definitive meaning” to most words, regardless of language. All languages are imprecise to a certain extent, and not every word can be confined to a single definition. Always translating a Greek word with the exact same English word will result in unclarity at best and outright mistakes at worst.
Credible Bible translations are the product of a committee of trained scholars. The Pure Word Bible is the work of one man, Brent Miller, Sr. The publishers make much of the “twenty years of research” Miller put into the Pure Word Bible, but none of his academic credentials are provided.
We recommend steering clear of the Pure Word Bible. There are much more accurate English Bible translations available.
Thank you to https://openoureyeslord.com/2018/08/04/beware-the-pure-word-new-testament/ for some of the information in this article.
