The Central Asian Russian Scriptures, also known as “CARS,” is a twenty-first century Russian language translation of the Holy Scriptures specially prepared for those among the indigenous peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia who read best in Russian. CARS follows the principle that terminology employed by the intended audience in their own spiritual tradition should be prioritized, and spiritual vocabulary foreign to their tradition should be avoided, so that a reader understands that God’s Word is intended specifically for him or her.
CARS is a meaning-based translation which aims to accurately convey the meaning of the original in natural style. Achieving this requires some limited deviation from strict literalism. In passages where the meaning is disputed by the best scholars, alternative or literal renderings are given in footnotes.
CARS uses “The Most High” as its main rendering of both elohim and theos, distinguishing it from CARS-A, which uses “Allah.” CARS differs from CARS-T, only in that CARS-T transliterates about forty names in a fashion more in line with Tajik tradition.