Using Interlinear Bibles

Over the past 30 years the combination of the growth of the internet, cell phones, and the development of Christians as a distinct end market for publishers has led to an overwhelming flood of Bible study materials. Although general Bible knowledge is decreasing, those who are interested can now freely access materials that would have been available only to scholars and specialists (if at all) only a generation ago. One of the tools that have increased in popularity are interlinear Bibles. They can be a very useful tool when used properly, but can also create confusion when they are not.

Interlinear Bibles have the Greek and/or Hebrew text of the Bible with additional information appearing in between the lines of original language text (thus the name interlinear). The amount of additional information varies but there is a standard format that is typically used. Also, these tools are now increasingly used by people who do not have any training in Greek or Hebrew but knowing a few basic things about the translation process is needed to get the most out of the tool.

I have been asked a few times through the years if I could explain why a translation differs from what is in the interlinear. Recently, I was asked if I could help someone explain why English Bibles show John 1:1 as

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

While the interlinear says:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.”

Obviously, these two are vastly different in meaning and implication. So, what is going on in this verse?

The first thing we need to understand is that interlinear Bibles are not translations. Many include a translation but the “interlinear” data that causes confusion are usually not the translations. Let’s look at our example from the second half of John 1:1. It probably looks something like the following in your interlinear although it might be arranged in a slightly different order.

Line 1:     καὶ		θεὸς		ἦν		ὁ		λόγος
Line 2:      καί		θεός		εἰμί		ὁ		λόγος
Line 3:      CLN		NNSM		VIAI3S		DNSM		NNSM
Line 4:      kai Line 5:      and		theos God		eimi to be		ho the		logos word
Line 6:      and		God4		was3		the1		word2
Line 7:      89.92		12.1		58.67		92.24		33.100

Let’s walk through what we have here…

Line 1: This is the actual Greek text of John 1:1b

Line 2:  This is the “lemma” or dictionary form of the Greek words. Since Greek words change

depending upon how they are used, adding this lexical form allows the reader to quickly locate them in a Greek lexicon or other reference tools.

Line 3:  This line provides codes that explain the part of speech and grammatical

function of the word. The “CLN” under the first word (the Greek word for “and”) tells us that it is a Conjunction-Logical-coNnective. Interlinear’s that includes this kind of information will have a key that explains what the codes mean.

Line 4:  This line is a transliteration of the Lemma or dictionary form. This is simply changing the

 lexical/dictionary form of the word from the Greek alphabet to the English alphabet.

Line 5:  This line is the lexical value of the dictionary form found in line 2. It is not a

translation of the verse. It is just providing an English equivalent for the dictionary form of the word. Notice, for example, that the verb “to be” appears in the present tense whereas John used the past tense in the actual Greek text.

Line 6:  This is where the trouble usually starts. This line is often referred to as a “word for

word” translation so people assume that this is somehow more accurate than their English translation. This is really only a translation in that it gives an English rendering of each word in the Greek text but it is not a completed translation and is not more accurate than what you have in any good English Bible. Since Greek functions differently than English you cannot simply translate the words themselves. If you look closely, you will notice there are small numbers below several of the words in this line. Those numbers indicate the order the words need to be in for it to convey in English the same meaning that is in the Greek. If you are using the interlinear properly you will see that it is actually telling you the same thing as the English translation. There is no conflict whatsoever.

Line 7: This line includes cross references. In this case, it is to the Louw-Nida Greek-English

lexicon. You will often see Strong’s numbers or cross references to other well-known lexicons and translation tools.

Your interlinear may have more or less information but what we have looked at here is typical of what you are likely to see. An interlinear is a very helpful tool once you understand how they work. If not used properly, however, they can lead to confusion. In English we use word order to convey meaning. For example; we know that the sentence “Jack gave the teacher an apple” is not the same as “the teacher gave Jack an apple” even though the same words are used. In Greek, however, the word order does not determine who is doing what to whom. In Greek, you could say “an apple the teacher Jack gave”, “gave Jack an apple the teacher”, or any other variation. Rather than word order Greek uses changes to the form of the words themselves and the use of other indicators such as the article to show the reader their function in the sentence.

In our example from John 1:1b even though the word order in Greek is “and God was the Word”, that sentence does not communicate what we would mean by the same word order in English. When we look at the way John wrote this sentence we know for certain that a Greek speaker would understand the sentence to mean “and the Word was God”. In this case the words God (θεὸς) and word (λόγος) are both written in the form they would have if they were the subject (nominative case). You can also see this indicated in the interlinear by the “NN” indicating they are nouns in the nominative case. Even though this is the case, we know that God is not the subject because of the way John uses the Greek article (ὁ). The fact that the word for “God” does not have the article but the word for “Word” does tells us right away that the subject of the sentence is “Word” rather than “God”. To express this in English we have to change the order and put “Word” before the verb in the sentence.

Just like any other tool an interlinear can be very helpful if used properly. If you plan to use an interlinear in your studies be sure to read the introduction and “how to use” sections so you can get the most out of them. Growing in knowledge of the original languages can be very beneficial for picking up on emphasis and nuance in the text but the greatest Bible study tool for the vast majority of people is going to be a good translation of the Bible into whatever language they can read most fluently because there is no substitute for time in the Word.