Parableman evaluates a TNIV passage

In yesterday's post on his Parableman blog, Jeremy Pierce analyzes the translation of 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 in several recent English versions, including the TNIV. Although he is not an advocate for the TNIV, nor am I, his conclusion is most informative:

My conclusion is that the TNIV does the best job with these verses, at least with respect to these pronouns. There are other places of difference here that I'm not talking about at all. On this decision, the TNIV is actually the most accurate of all these translations, and it achieves this by paying more attention than the others to the form of the original. Yet in doing so, it somehow violates whatever intuition lies behind the popular conception of translating literally. I say that's just a good argument against using the popular conception of translating literally and sticking with more precise goals of preserving the meaning that the form conveys while also trying to preserve as much as you can of the sense of the original without losing equally important aspects of the meaning that come with the form, all the while sounding like English.

There's food for thought about what it means to translate accurately. You might also want to read what I wrote some time ago, "When literal is not accurate." A literal translation can be accurate. But sometimes a literal translation is not the most accurate. In my opinion, the highest goal for any Bible translation is communicative accuracy, which is ensuring that a translation is done so well that its readers can accurately understand the the original meaning of the source text. Oh, yes, I am old-fashioned enough to advocate for original meaning and authorial intent.

What do you think?

Category: TNIV