BSN: Ancient Writings

Capitalization and Punctuation

The Bible, having been written in ancient times, contained no upper/lower case distinctions. Generally speaking, it was all block letters…with no spaces between words…or even punctuation in the way we know it today. Therefore, a sentence like John 3:16 (neither, by the way, were there chapter and verse numbers!) would look something like this in an ancient text:

FORGODSOLOVEDTHEWORLDTHATHEGAVEHISONLYBEGOTTENSONTHATWHOEVERBELIEVESINHIMWOULDNOTPERISHBUTHAVEEVERYLASTINGLIFE

(And that’s how the Greek would appear; the Hebrew wouldn’t even have vowels in it.)

Papyrus and other writing materials were expensive and so a primary need was to conserve space.

Therefore, the decision of what to capitalize is made by modern translators of the ancient texts – not by the authors of the ancient texts.

How Translators Decide What to Capitalize

Translators can use upper/lower case distinctions in different ways. For example, there are two verses in the 1995 NASB that have both the word “heaven” and the word “Hades” in them (Matt 11:23 and Luke 10:15). I checked out Matt 11:23 at BibleGateway.com which hosts about 60 English versions. In all but two of them, heaven was lower case (and the two were capitalized); and in all but two of them, Hades was upper case (and the two were lower case) – but it was not the same two translations. And, of course, this was only the English translations. We might see even more variations if we knew all languages and had access to all Bible translations. Yes, it’s enough to make a person’s head swirl.

Some translations give an explanation of the principles they follow in capitalization; but something like the heaven/Hades distinction rarely gets mentioned.

In summary, having upper and lower case distinctions is a modern convenience that translators employ to help us read an ancient text. Therefore, having translators you can trust is very important, which is why I trust translations which attempt to keep closest to what the original authors wrote – like the NASB (New American Standard Bible, by the Lockman Foundation). But even when they capitalize or don’t capitalize words like HEAVEN or HADES, they are trying to help us read ancient writings the same way we read modern writings by making case distinctions. Just know that the original authors were writing HEAVEN and HADES and not making such distinctions. Therefore, if your daughters were ancient, they would have seen no difference in that respect between the two words.

I’ll add an opinion as to why I think most English translators render “heaven” and “earth” in lower case, but render words like “Hades” and “Sheol” in upper case. As we know, the goal of translators is to make the Bible – an ancient text – readable to modern readers. Modern readers are used to seeing the words “heaven” and “earth” in lower case wherever they appear in general literature – whether it be a novel, non-fiction, news report, or whatever. But those same modern readers are used seeing specific places – like Africa or England or Hawaii – in upper case letters. That, it seems to me, might account for why Bible translators don’t capitalize “heaven” and “earth” but do capitalize “Hades” and “Sheol.” That is, the translators are trying to make Bible read as much as possible like everything else reads, so that its ideas can be more readily grasped by the reader. We expect to find different ideas when we read the word of God, but we don’t want there to be different rules about capitalization, spelling, punctuation, syntax, grammar, and so on. Therefore, translators are seeking to bring the authors’ words to readers in forms that the readers understand.

Lengthy and Repetitive Descriptions

Without drawings, it takes many words to describe objects like Noah’s ark, Moses’ tabernacle and its furnishings, Ezekiel’s temple and so on. Ancient writers showed a preference for words, but modern readers are used to having such things illustrated. Thus modern readers can sometimes become fatigued with ancient texts. Learn to skim tedious passages until you have a productive way of perceiving them.

We also see here that the ancient preference for words over drawings makes the Bible much longer than it would otherwise be; this length is increased by the ancient practice using repetition to insure that information gets across since most people consumed written information by hearing it read in public rather that by having almost all-the-time, and everywhere access to the written form as we do. Again, if we notice and accept such differences we can make adjustments in our reading style as we move through the Bible and not just assume ancient writings weren’t meant for us.