Originally published at crisis magazine
When I was a senior in college, one of my professors told me, “If you want to find a good translation of the Bible in English, you can find it in one that contains the word ‘verily.’” Of course, that was back in 1982, when it would have taken a fair bit of legwork on my part to even identify the various biblical translations that contain the word “verily.” It would have taken even more effort to ascertain whether, individually or collectively, those translations were superior to others.
Jump ahead a few decades, and, thanks to the miracle of search engines, it would be a trifle to pull together a list of Bible translations containing the word “verily.” Nonetheless, I would still have to put in the effort to ascertain the merits of such translations, assuming that I was capable of making such judgments. Nowadays, however, thanks to the emergence of artificial intelligence, I can make a request for both the list and the evaluation of translations with and without “verily” and have all the work done for me in almost no time at all. What progress!
I mention these things to make a point—namely, that not even artificial intelligence can
