Konami's Iconic Dating Sim Is Finally Being Translated Into English, Just Not The Version Everyone Wants - Kotaku - Translation

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Unfortunately, Tokimeki Memorial: Densetsu no Ki no Shita de is not the Tokimeki Memorial everyone was hoping to see localized. That would be 1995’s Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You for the PlayStation, an upgraded version of the original game released for the PC Engine’s Super CD-ROM² add-on (that’s the TurboGrafx-CD for those of us outside Japan) in 1994. No, Tokimeki Memorial: Densetsu no Ki no Shita de is the Super Famicom equivalent that arrived a year after the PlayStation version, a port many consider compromised for various reasons, most notably for the lack of voice acting.

“Playing Tokimeki Memorial for Super Famicom before playing it for Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Windows, or PC Engine would be like watching a movie for the first time with the TV muted and two lines of subtitles displaying both the movie’s dialogue and the director’s commentary,” Rogers told Kotaku via email. “It’s not a Full Film; it’s a DVD bonus feature you throw on while waiting for your laundry to finish while also waiting for an important phone call.”

As mentioned, the biggest problem with Tokimeki Memorial: Densetsu no Ki no Shita de, according to both Rogers and professional Japanese-to-English translator Tom James, is the lack of voice acting in the Super Famicom edition. Apart from its stunning pixel art, Tokimeki Memorial elevated the dating sim genre with the introduction of extensive voice clips for the game’s cast. This made the girls feel more real, and one could even listen to the inflections in their voices during conversations for clues as to how they felt about you. It may sound trivial by today’s standards, but this was big stuff in the early days of CD-ROM gaming.

A helpful metaphor

“Playing Tokimeki Memorial for Super Famicom before playing it for Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Windows, or PC Engine would be like watching a movie for the first time with the TV muted and two lines of subtitles displaying both the movie’s dialogue and the director’s commentary.”

Tim rogers

“[F]or a game where the end objective is to essentially get a girl to confess her feelings to you, the impact of that reward is diminished significantly when you can’t hear it actually articulated, let alone the progression leading up to that moment,” James explained to Kotaku via email. “Tokimeki Memorial is by no means the first Japanese game to have tried to build mechanics around the act of fostering relationships with people. The difference is that they were largely unvoiced and their writing wasn’t otherwise nearly strong enough to compensate, and Tokimeki Memorial faces a similar quandary without that voice acting.”

Kotaku tried several times to get in touch with RetroTranslator for this story but our attempts to include his perspective went unanswered.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t shortcomings with the Super Famicom version of Tokimeki Memorial. Less space on cartridges as opposed to CDs and the overall power deficit between Nintendo’s 16-bit console and Sony’s PlayStation meant that everything, from the music to the pixel art that made previous versions so enticing, required toning down. A clear example of this downgrade can be seen in the moving checkerboard pattern behind Tokimeki Memorial’s menus, which Rogers actually points out as one of his favorite parts of the game in his lengthy video. On PlayStation, the background scrolls at a smooth 60 frames per second, whereas the Super Famicom can only muster around 18.

It’s here that I feel I should assure everyone that neither I nor the folks I talked to for this article believe the Super Famicom version of Tokimeki Memorial shouldn’t be translated or that RetroTranslator doing so isn’t worthy of praise. Any project of this nature is a monumental undertaking, not only due to the issues in ensuring that Japanese nuances and references are accurately transposed to English in a way that English-speakers can understand and appreciate, but also because replacing video game text can be a programming nightmare. Rogers notes that the trouble isn’t in the translating but rather getting that work into the game that would represent the most obstinate hurdle.

“[T]he reason, I reckon, that all versions of Tokimeki Memorial remain untranslated is that the Good Versions are programmed in a way that makes the text notoriously difficult to access for any would-be, amateur localizers,” Rogers added. “The Super Famicom version, despite lacking this particular engineering obstacle, remained untranslated for these decades simply because people who knew and loved the game in its original language would never bother translating it except as a dessert exercise following a translation of The Real Game.”

That said, hardware restrictions haven’t always held ports of this important dating sim back. While making Tokimeki Memorial for the Game Boy Color—released Pokémon-style as two separate games, Tokimeki Memorial Pocket Sports Version and Tokimeki Memorial Pocket Culture Version—the developers at Konami were able to create an authentic experience by working with the handheld’s capabilities rather than trying to cram as much content from the original game into its less-powerful shell. It even has limited voice acting and exclusive girls to romance, some of whom require new courtship strategies.

“While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that someone looking to play Tokimeki Memorial for the first time should start with Pocket,” James said, “as a novelty version that looks and sounds impressively good for the hardware (it even runs on the original Game Boy, voice acting and all!) and has a great tempo, in many ways, it’s my personal favorite version. If someone playing it for the first time got hooked on it and wanted to explore the ports further, then I would absolutely recommend that they make the Pocket games their first stop as they’re both quite fun to play once you’re familiar with Tokimeki Memorial’s gameplay and have the most to uniquely offer compared to those other ports.”

The importance of Tokimeki Memorial’s voice acting

“[F]or a game where the end objective is to essentially get a girl to confess her feelings to you, the impact of that reward is diminished significantly when you can’t hear it actually articulated, let alone the progression leading up to that moment.”

Tom james

Konami ported the first Tokimeki Memorial to hell and back before eventually developing 1999’s Tokimeki Memorial 2 for the PlayStation. This was followed by two more sequels, the most recent being 2009’s Tokimeki Memorial 4 for the PlayStation Portable, as well as a grip of spin-offs that includes the highly regarded Tokimeki Memorial: Girl’s Side series, which reverses the traditional dating sim formula by introducing female protagonists and dateable dudes. In fact, Konami just released Tokimeki Memorial: Girl’s Side 4th Heart for the Nintendo Switch last October. But much like every other game in the franchise, it stands almost zero chance of being localized for English-speaking audiences.

As such, RetroTranslator’s impending Tokimeki Memorial: Densetsu no Ki no Shita de translation represents a significant undertaking in the world of independent localization even if it’s not the exact version everyone wanted. The game as it was released for the Super Famicom is undoubtedly lackluster compared to its big brothers, but that doesn’t mean translating it is a stupid or less meaningful endeavor. Anything that elevates this iconic franchise in the eyes of western audiences—not to mention preserves it for future generations—is a pretty good deal in my book.

And hey, maybe a less-regarded port of Tokimeki Memorial getting an English patch will inspire someone to continue the work of hacking its PlayStation predecessor. After seeing cult classics like Mizzurna Falls and Yakuza: Black Panther translated from Japanese, nothing can surprise me anymore.

 

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Norway Adds Inclusive Pronoun Hen to Dictionary | HYPEBAE - HYPEBAE - Dictionary

The language council in Norway has announced a possible inclusive change to the country’s dictionaries. Within a year, the country in Europe will add the term “hen” to accompany the feminine “hun” and masculine “han.”

The gender-neutral pronoun was believed to not be possible because it did not work with Norway’s speech patterns. Similar discourse has taken place in the U.S., where people have been utterly confused as to how to use the term “them.”

Carl-Oscar Vik, an 18 year old from Norway shared his perspective with The Guardian. He has hope that this change will give people like him more representation. “I think that a normal person on the street doesn’t know anyone who identifies as non-binary,” they said. “But I hope that by getting hen into the dictionary we can get the idea out there, because there are many people who don’t feel at home in certain pronouns but don’t have the words to describe it.”

Thankfully, public understanding is changing and gender-neutral terms are being accepted worldwide. France recently started acknowledging non-binary pronouns in their dictionaries as well. Le Petit Robert, a mainstream French dictionary, added “iel” and “iels” as official non-binary pronouns. In 2019, the U.S. also made the inclusive change to recognize “they” as a gender-neutral term.

Global recognition of identities outside of the gender binary is a great sign. Hopefully, these changes are a prerequisite to non-binary individuals being supported and recognized by law.

Norway is expected to make the official change anywhere between spring to autumn this year.

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German dictionary criticised over flagging 'Jew' as discriminatory - The Irish Times - Dictionary

Germany’s leading Duden dictionary has come under fire for flagging the word “Jew” – Jude in German – as potentially discriminatory.

The online edition of the dictionary warns that “because of its association with National Socialist parlance, the term ‘Jew’ is occasionally perceived as discriminatory”. It then lists alternatives: Jewish people, fellow Jewish citizens and fellow citizens of Jewish faith.

The Duden’s warning has prompted pushback from the Central Council of Jews in Germany, with its president Josef Schuster pointing to his organisation’s name as proof of the word’s acceptability.

“For me, the word ‘Jew’ is neither a swear word nor discriminatory,” said Mr Schuster. “The Duden editorial staff meant well, but everything should be done to avoid solidifying the term as discriminatory.”

He said the term “Jew” signalised people in a society were on a par with “Catholic” or “Protestant”.

‘Generous tolerance’

“This is better,” he added, “than terms based on a supposedly generous tolerance towards people from whom one ultimately wants to distance oneself.”

Others have been far less equanimous towards the dictionary’s warning, suggesting it compounds an already-burdened relationship in Germany, the land of the Nazis and the systemic persecution and murder of six million Jews.

Dr Elio Adler, head of a Jewish-German civil society group, told the Bild tabloid he had encountered people throughout his life in Germany who struggle to ask if he is a Jew.

“They think it is a swear word for which they have to be ashamed,” he said. “On the contrary, I’m a Jew and it’s a good thing.”

For Jalda Rebling, a Brandenburg-based cantor, the approach of the Duden dictionary company is telling, exposing a lingering problem in German society. “Some Germans are afraid of speaking the word ‘Jew’ because it reminds them of German history,” she said. “For them, it would be better there were no more Jews at all, then there’d be no problem.”

‘Term of abuse’

Switzerland’s Jewish Museum is currently running an exhibition over the contested history of the term “Jude” in the German language. Its director, Dr Naomi Lubrich, said the Duden’s warning was a response to the growing use of “Jew” as a term of abuse in schoolyards, and a concern that anti-Semites now controlled the interpretation of the word in German.

“Some Jews too have reservations about their own description, and not since the 20th century,” she told the Tagesspiegel daily. “But the Duden should not capitulate before schoolyard racists and concentrate instead on what Jews actually are: a group, a religion, a culture, an ethnicity and an experiential community.”

The head of the Duden editorial team, Kathrin Kunkel-Razum, said she took the criticism of their warning seriously – in particular that a discrimination disclaimer could itself be perceived as discriminatory. “I can understand that, but that’s not our intention in any way,” she said, promising to review soon the disclaimer, which was first devised in 2011.

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Nearly 1,000 English words added to official Dutch dictionary - The Brussels Times - Dictionary

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Nearly 1,000 English words added to official Dutch dictionary  The Brussels Times

Why Olga Tokarczuk Likes to Read T.S. Eliot in Translation - The New York Times - Translation

“It’s fascinating to read poetry in its original form,” says the Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, whose latest novel in English is “The Books of Jacob,” “but it’s just as fascinating to read it in a variety of translations. Suddenly the same text takes on new dimensions, as if it were growing in new directions.”

What books are on your night stand?

You really want to know? Currently: Mariana Leky’s “What You Can See From Here”; Sybille Bedford’s “A Legacy”; Sarah Bakewell’s “At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails”; Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder”; “Things Mushrooms Are Better at Than You Are,” by Marta Wrzosek and Karolina Głowacka; Monika Ptak’s “Ayurveda”; Roberto Calasso’s “Literature and the Gods”; Caspar Henderson’s “A New Map of Wonders”; Monika Libicka’s “Gela: Or, A Gem from the Ringelblum Archive”; Yaniv Iczkovits’s “The Slaughterman’s Daughter.”

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

I don’t think too many people have heard of Leonora Carrington’s “The Hearing Trumpet.” It’s an extraordinary surrealist tale — hilarious and terrifying — and one that everyone should read. I like surrealism and anarchism in art. I like provocations. Hers is a unique voice, full of light and gravitas at once, a truly revolutionary spirit. A bitter, dark sense of humor that perfectly suits our era, although this slim novel was published almost 50 years ago.

What do you read when you’re working on a book? And what kind of reading do you avoid while writing?

Above all, whatever helps me write — books related to the topic, the historical period, which could be scholarly works and novels, as well as poetry and art books. When I’m writing, I’m not really interested in anything else.

I used to avoid reading great novels, the kind that make a real impression, since I was afraid they’d influence my style too much — that I’d succumb to their influence. I don’t feel that way anymore.

What moves you most in a work of literature?

I think it’s the fact that literature is its own republic where people can live and work together and, maybe more than anything, communicate perfectly — in depth, empathetically, morally, intellectually and in a revolutionary spirit. Sometimes a knowing glance and a single phrase will suffice for that perfect communication. The constitution is made up of passages from great books, and the history of the republic is also the history of literature, all the classics and all the literary eras that preceded ours. The present day is a wild jumble of voices, all very different from one another, yet often unintentionally similar. Here trends prevail, sides are taken, elections occur in the form of literary prizes and best-seller lists. There is also an opposition, and even an underground. The strange thing is that fictional characters live alongside the citizens of this republic, where they have equal rights.

What genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?

I’ve always loved science fiction. You might say that’s what I was raised on. The most important authors for me were Lem, Dick, the Strugatsky brothers. I don’t like fantasy, with one exception: Ursula Le Guin, but she rises above genre. I’m not a huge fan of crime fiction and have read only Agatha Christie, nothing else, really. I don’t really read nonfiction, with the exception of biographies. I really think the best genre is just a good, solid novel.

Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Your favorite antihero or villain?

They’re always distinctive figures. Herr Doktor Peter Kien is a reclusive and eccentric bibliophile from a book I adore, Elias Canetti’s “Auto-da-Fé.” He’s a character who fascinates me, whom I find simultaneously alluring and repellent. I feel I have something of the oddball in me, too. Ijon Tichy is a character from the stories of Stanisław Lem, among the wildest works I’ve read. I grew up on the cosmic adventures of Iljon Tichy, who approaches the unlikeliest adventures in the cosmos any human mind has ever devised with prudent reserve. I think he was the first to survive a time loop, before Hollywood caught on to that idea. Everybody knows Pippi Longstocking, so I won’t describe her here. What an idol. She taught me courage and how to make my ideas a reality. Miss Marple is my idol for my later years. I adore her curiosity, her tenacity and her lovely self-deprecating sense of humor.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

I was a voracious reader. I taught myself to read quite early on, and from that point forward, I read everything that fell into my grasp. Interestingly they didn’t need to be fairy tales. I loved to read encyclopedias and dictionaries. Fairly quickly I started reading novels — Verne, Lem, but also “Anne of Green Gables.” I loved science fiction. I have always liked books of fairy tales from other countries. Later I became fascinated with mythology. When I was 10, I was a real expert on Greek mythology, which for a while was a true obsession for me. I’ll admit I still read fairy tales.

If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?

I’d have to say literature as a whole. I wouldn’t be able to specify one particular book like that. It wouldn’t be fair. Literature is a collective being, each of its parts — each book — complements the rest, threads in one presage threads in others, thoughts come up over and over again. I’d have to list at least a hundred titles.

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? And what would you want to know?

It seems to me that the author plays a kind of secondary role in this whole business of literature. Authors are generally less interesting than their books. After attentively reading a book you shouldn’t really have any questions for the author, aside from the most banal: Do they write in pen or on a laptop? Do they write in the morning or the evening? Do they prefer coffee or tea? Dogs or cats?

Do books serve a moral function, in your view? How so?

I don’t know if I would call it a moral function, but literature definitely teaches empathy and compassion and how to see the world from other points of view. This is a great skill, and a gift that means those who read are smarter, more aware, more capable of understanding complicated matters than those who don’t read.

What books do you find yourself returning to again and again?

I have a volume of T. S. Eliot to which I add different translations of his poems as I come across them. It’s fascinating to read poetry in its original form, but it’s just as fascinating to read it in a variety of translations. Suddenly the same text takes on new dimensions, as if it were growing in new directions.

I also often return to my favorite philosophers and psychologists: Jung, Hillman, Adler. I read classical philosophers (I find them relaxing!). I’m always happy to go back to the classics. Every few years I read Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain” — it’s interesting to see a book change with time, and that is one that must be read differently with age. I’ve done the same thing with Dostoyevsky and Flaubert. I’ve just started rereading Stendhal.

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Introducing The Complete Legal Tech-To-English Dictionary! - Above the Law - Dictionary

There’s a term for when attorneys use Latin words and arcane terminology to describe legal processes to consumers: “legalese.”

But there’s no similar term for when vendors use technical and other arcane terms to describe their legal software operations to lawyers.

True, this dynamic may seem unfair. But now we have The Legal Tech-to-English Dictionary to help us cope.

Adapted from a series of Above the Law articles by the legal technology expert Jared Correia, this free, tongue-in-cheek guide to the world of legal tech includes plain language explainers, dramatizations of key themes, and links to comparison resources.

We hope this dictionary brings you up to speed on all things technology, while providing a few laughs along the way.

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Bible Gateway Removes The Passion Translation | News & Reporting - ChristianityToday.com - Translation

A Bible version designed to “recapture the emotion of God’s Word” was removed from Bible Gateway last week. The Passion Translation (TPT) is listed as “no longer available” among the site’s 90 English-language Bible offerings.

First released as a New Testament in 2017, The Passion Translation includes additions that do not appear in the source manuscripts, phrases meant to draw out God’s “tone” and “heart” in each passage.

Translator Brian Simmons—a former missionary linguist and pastor who now leads Passion and Fire Ministries—sees his work in Bible translation as part of a divine calling on his life to bring a word, the Word, to the nations. His translation has been endorsed by a range of apostolic charismatic Christians, including The Call’s Lou Engle, Bethel’s Bill Johnson, and Hillsong’s Bobbie Houston.

TPT’s publisher, BroadStreet Publishing Group, confirmed that Bible Gateway “made the disappointing decision to discontinue their license for The Passion Translation” as of January 2022.

“While no explanation was given, BroadStreet Publishing accepts that Bible Gateway has the right to make decisions as they see fit with the platforms they manage,” BroadStreet said in a statement.

Bible Gateway’s parent company, HarperCollins Christian Publishing, told CT, “We periodically review our content, making changes as necessary, to align with our business goals.” The company declined to offer further details about its reason for the decision. TPT remains available on YouVersion and Logos Bible Software.

Screenshots from Simmons’s social media showed he initially responded to The Passion Translation’s removal from Bible Gateway by saying, “Cancel culture is alive in the church world” and asking followers to request the site restore the version. That February 2 post no longer appears on his Facebook page.

Simmons argues TPT’s additions and context “expand the essential meaning of the original language by highlighting the essence of God’s original message.”

“With The Passion Translation, we have a high goal to being accurate to the text, but accuracy involves the heart behind it,” Simmons said in an interview last month. “We’re trying to discover, communicate, and release God’s heart through the words we choose.”

Translation versus paraphrase

Simmons and his publisher describe TPT as a translation instead of a paraphrase because Simmons and his partners worked to develop the text from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic manuscripts rather than taking an existing English translation and putting it into his own words.

Simmons has repeatedly defended the translation label, saying that all Bible translations involve some paraphrase. He puts TPT in the same category as thought-for-thought translations like the New International Version (NIV).

But Bible scholars, including those who translated the NIV, use a more rigorous standard. A new version must closely adhere to the wording, syntax, and structure of its source. Critics of TPT say it doesn’t meet those standards and functions as a paraphrase while presenting itself as a translation.

If TPT’s removal from Bible Gateway was related to the concerns over its translation claims, “I think that’s a good thing,” said Andrew Wilson, a Reformed charismatic who pastors at King’s Church London and a columnist for CT. “There are just too many additions to the text that have no basis in the original—which is fine (sort of) if it’s self-consciously a paraphrase, but not if people think it’s a translation.”

Wilson first raised concerns in a 2016 blog post about TPT and continues to get asked about the version from fellow charismatics. He wrote that he doesn’t recommend it, objects to the publisher’s advice to use it from the pulpit, and urges leaders to clarify that it’s not a translation.

Certain passages in TPT are twice as long as in other translations such as the NIV. The Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11, for example, is printed in red as Jesus’ words and reads:

Our heavenly Father, may the glory of your name be the center on which our life turns. May your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us. Manifest your kingdom on earth. And give us our needed bread for the coming day. Forgive our sins as we ourselves release forgiveness to those who have wronged us. And rescue us every time we face tribulations.

A 2018 review in The Gospel Coalition journal Themelios critiqued Simmons’s translation process, specifically his overuse of “double translation,” bringing in multiple meanings of a word even if it wasn’t clear that wordplay was intended. It was written by a scholar on the NIV Committee on Bible Translation, who worried that Simmons’s own theology and favorite themes were driving his word choice.

Mike Winger, a Calvary Chapel–trained pastor who teaches through his online ministry Bible Thinker, has drawn in over one million YouTube views with a series examining The Passion Translation.

“Bible Gateway removing TPT after reviewing the work in more detail is a signal to everyone that the work may have issues,” he said. “When you add that to the growing number of scholars, pastors, and laymen who are raising the red flag about TPT, you have a loud and simple message: ‘TPT has enough issues that it is best to avoid it.’”

Translations and tribalism

Winger recruited evangelical scholars including Darrell Bock, Nijay Gupta, Douglas Moo, and Craig Bloomberg to critique specific TPT passages. Gupta repeated some of his reservations to CT, saying, if TPT were to appear on a site alongside established translations “it should have a warning label: ‘One of these is not like the other.’ … non-academics should know that TPT does not have the backing of accredited seminaries and linguistic organizations experienced in translation work.”

Winger has called out Simmons for bringing in “large amounts of material that really have no presence in the Greek or Hebrew … and the words he’s adding are particular words that are part of a hyper-charismatic, signs and wonders movement, words that are about imparting and triggering and unleashing and releasing.”

Mark Ward, editor of Bible Study Magazine, fears a trend of subsets of the church creating Bible translations of and for their own. In his book, Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, he urges against letting translations become tribal boundary markers.

“As Paul said of himself and Peter and Apollos, ‘All are yours.’ I hate seeing the Bible caught in Christian tugs of war,” he told CT. “The reason Luther and Tyndale translated alone is that nooses stood ready nearby. That’s no longer our problem. I think the best way to promote each other’s trust in our good Bible translations is to use—and expect—multi-denominational, committee-based works.”

There is a long history of single-author Bible translations, with Robert Alter, N. T. Wright, and D. B. Hart releasing recent versions. The number of Bible resources is growing, and they’re becoming more accessible to the average reader through digital platforms like Bible Gateway, YouVersion, and Logos.

Peter Gurry, New Testament professor at Phoenix Seminary, said it’s not surprising that any new Bible project would want to position itself as both trustworthy and better than what’s available already.

For Christians cracking open or tapping over to new translations, he suggests they consider the audience of a new resource, look for consistency within its own principles, and see how it lines up with the versions they know already.

“For readers who don’t know the original languages (which is, of course, most of them) … you can start to form a judgment of a new translation by comparing it with those other translations that have gained a trusted readership over the years,” he said. “In the case of evangelicals, this means something like KJV, NIV, ESV, NASB.”

Christians who care about reading reliable and accurate biblical texts have been wary and sometimes critical of paraphrases. Even The Message—among the top 10 best-selling Bible versions in the world—has gotten dinged over the years by pastors and scholars alike for what it adds, misses, or rewords.

But its author, Eugene Peterson, was clear that he was putting the Bible into his voice—describing the project as a paraphrase, not a translation. He even said he felt “uneasy” about its use in worship and personally still preferred the originals in his devotions. (The Message, along with paraphrases such as the J. B. Phillips New Testament and The Living Bible, are available on Bible Gateway.)

Passion and power in the text

“Once you know God’s word through a standard translation, I love how paraphrases can yank you out of your Bible-reading rut and provide fresh insight into Scripture. Single-author translations likewise,” said Ward. “The one thing I have liked the most about TPT were those moments when I felt like I got to read a familiar phrase again for the first time, because Simmons just put it a little differently.”

For dedicated TPT readers, the new phrasing and the emotive power of the text are major draws.

On Instagram, Jenn Johnson, known for her Bethel music hits like “Goodness of God,” regularly posts pictures of her daily reading from The Passion Translation, with whole passages underlined and phrases like “I spoke in faith” and “no wonder we never give up” (2 Corinthians 4) circled in pen.

Bill Johnson at Bethel Church still uses the New American Standard Bible (NASB) in most of his writing and preaching due to familiarity, he said in a clip from last year titled, “Is The Passion Translation Heresy?” He uses TPT for devotional reading, as he did with paraphrases before it. He believes they are particularly helpful for new believers, too, and Bethel sells a branded TPT in its bookstore.

“For inspiration, I love The Passion Translation,” the Bethel founder said. “Every time he (Simmons) deviates from what would be a traditional approach to a verse, he explains it so powerfully that even if you don’t agree with him, you at least understand where he’s coming from.”

Simmons is deliberate about making TPT passionate and readable. In a promotional video, he calls it “a dynamic new version of the Bible that is easy to read, unlocking the mystery of God’s heart, the passions he has for you, deep emotions that will evoke an overwhelming response of love as he unfolds the Scriptures before your very eyes.”

He describes how he has “uncovered” what he sees as “the love language of God that has been missing from many translations.”

“God’s love language is not hidden, or missing,” Wilson wrote as part of his critique from 2015. “It is in plain sight in the many excellent translations we have available.”

TPT translation continues

While serving as missionaries in the 1980s, Simmons and his wife helped develop a new Bible translation for an unreached people group in Central America. After returning to the US, planting a church, and leading their Bible-teaching ministry, he began to work on The Passion Translation using the skills he honed on the mission field.

The Passion Translation contrasts this approach—where translations are done by necessity by individuals or small teams, whose main goal is to transfer the essential meaning of the text—with traditional translation work, which involves a broader committee of experts.

Simmons is used to facing questions about his credentials. During a recent interview with Life Today Live, he said, “I get asked that a lot. People say, ‘Do you feel qualified?’ I say, ‘Who in the world is?’ … My qualifications are that I was told to do this from the Lord. Whatever he tells you to do, he will meet the need you have to finish it.”

While Simmons serves as lead translator, TPT lists seven scholars who oversee and review his work. They are currently working on the remaining books of the Old Testament and moving forward with plans to release a full Bible edition around 2027.

“An exhaustive and thorough review and update of the entire Bible will be undertaken ahead of its release in the next 5-6 years,” BroadStreet said in a statement. “The review of the text by our team of theologians and industry professionals will continue to address feedback, as has been our approach to-date.”

“We believe The Passion Translation will become one of the most widely read and beloved translations in the market for years to come,” the publisher said. “We hope this translation will help bring the Bible to life for this generation and through it, people will encounter Jesus and his love for them in new and exciting ways.”

Neither Bible Gateway nor YouVersion offered figures on its popularity; five years into publication, TPT does not currently rank among the top 25 best-selling Bibles in print.

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