"Accurate" Bible translations
Helmut Richter wrote a helpful essay, Comments on "accurate" Bible translations, a number of years ago. I re-read it every once in awhile and continue to appreciate it. You might find it helpful also.
posted by Wayne Leman at 8:47 AM
8 Comments:
Matthew said, I have actually seen people who bring a small "duffle" (sp?) bag of different Bibles to the meetings every week due to advice such as this. I feel for them, because I understand the confusion they go through. Most of them I have talked to either a) don't know why they bring a whole duffle bag full of Bibles or b)say that they don't which to trust and therefore bring more than one.
You should see the bag I carry to church on Sunday! It's not full of multiple translations though. I study with multiple translations, although a lot of that is done with Accordance these days.
If only they made parallel Bibles with wide-margins! I guest THAT'S asking for too much.
I do carry a bag to church on Sunday mornings, but it's only because I'm teaching. The contents of my bag contain the following: (1) One wide-margin Bible which I will use for teaching. These days its the HCSB Minister's Bible. (2) My Greek New Testament (my Hebrew is so shoddy these days, I leave the BHS at home so I won't embarrass myself). (3) A legal-size binder with my teaching notes (I print my notes on legal paper so that I have to turn the pages less often). A master for my handout is stuck in the binder, too. (4) Two or three extra Sunday School books for the slackers. (5) My notebook in case I feel the inspiration to take a few notes during the service. And (6) whiteboard markers and an eraser because I'm certainly not going to assume that any will be in the room.
My normal custom since we have our worship service first, is to drop the bag by the Sunday School room and just take my Bible, Greek NT, and notebook into the service.
Matthew lamented:
However, it only adds fuel to the fact that, for myself, I still cannot decide if a functional or a formal translation represents more "accuracy".
Matthew, I don't think we can find the answer to your question on the basis of overall translation approach. Rather, I think, the answer comes by studying how accurate individual passages are translated. After awhile we can build up a sense (or is we don't have any sense(!), we can use a log or spreedsheat) of which version has a higher rate of accuracy.
There are a variety of ways that people have used to determine accuracy, one of which is to observe which translations match up word-for-word most closely with the biblical language texts. Of course, if one starts with the presupposition that such word matching is *the* primary way that accuracy is indicated, the exercise is a practice in circular reasoning.
For myself, I prefer to use a communicative model to determine accuracy for specific audiences. I like the audience of myself for a lot of testing!!
I examine a particular biblical text. I try to determine (often with exegetical helps of various kinds) what is its meaning. I then examine various English versions to discover which ones communicate the meaning accurately to me.
Let's say the biblical text would literally be translated, "Is the Lord's hand shortened?" (there is such a verse). Let's assume that I do not know that that is an idiom and so I only understand such a translation literally. But I learn from my exegetical resources that the biblical text is an idiom which means, "Is God's power lessened?" I then comb through English versions to see which ones give me that idiomatic meaning. For me, those are the versions which accurately communicate the actual meaning of the biblical text. For me, those are the only versions which translate accurately. Now, please remember that this is an audience-oriented approach to accuracy. It is not a one-size-fits-all approach. For an audience which already knows all the biblical idioms, translating biblical idioms literally may be just as accurate as translating their idiomatic meaning directly to English.
Matthew lamented:
However, it only adds fuel to the fact that, for myself, I still cannot decide if a functional or a formal translation represents more "accuracy".
That's a key question for so many people, isn't it, Matthew. I'm glad you asked it. It's a difficult question to answer, especially in the climate of some of today's Bible translation debates.
I personally don't think we can find the answer to your question on the basis of any overall translation approach. Rather, I think, the answer comes by studying how accurately individual passages are translated for special audiences. Specific, specific, specific, is this getting repetitious yet or not?!!
After awhile we can build up a sense (or is we don't have any sense(!), we can use a log or spreedsheat) of which version has a higher rate of accuracy.
There are a variety of ways that people have used to determine accuracy, one of which is to observe which translations match up word-for-word most closely with the biblical language texts. Of course, if one starts with the presupposition that such word matching is *the* primary way that accuracy is indicated, the exercise is a practice in circular reasoning.
For myself, I prefer to use a communicative model to determine accuracy for specific audiences. I like the audience of myself for a lot of testing!!
I examine a particular biblical text. I try to determine (often with exegetical helps of various kinds) what is its meaning. I then examine various English versions to discover which ones communicate the meaning accurately to me.
Let's say the biblical text would literally be translated, "Is the Lord's hand shortened?" (there is such a verse). Let's assume that I do not know that that is an idiom and so I only understand such a translation literally. But I learn from my exegetical resources that the biblical text is an idiom which means, "Is God's power lessened?" I then comb through English versions to see which ones give me that idiomatic meaning. For me, those are the versions which accurately communicate the actual meaning of the biblical text. For me, those are the only versions which translate accurately.
Now, please remember that this is an audience-oriented approach to accuracy. It is not a one-size-fits-all approach. For an audience which already knows all the biblical idioms, translating biblical idioms literally may be just as accurate as translating their idiomatic meaning directly to English.
Matthew suggested:
Martin Luthers words must continue to haunt translators when they are doing the work of translating.
It might haunt some translators, Matthew. I myself find Luther's words inspiring. He has set a wonderful goal for translation into any language.
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Anonymous (is it Larry?) wrote:
Of course, some combinations of audience and purposes appear simply incompatible.
So true. And there are likely even other parameters that could be considered, which you may have subsumed under those two. These could include language register, reading level, presence or absence of study notes, etc. etc.
This suggests to me that the barrier for many people in learning the Bible is not an issue of translation but a broader issue of pedagogy.
Yes, pedagogy will obviously help. But some people don't like to be stretched much further. I would like to see the Bible accessible to them also. Many English speakers today are nearly functionally illiterate. Oh, sure, they can read road signs and the newspaper, but do they? And do they want to read more? It's a great loss but sometimes we just have to meet people where they are and hope for better days (besides Better Bibles!).
There are a number of people dealing with issues of biblical literacy who are suggesting that for some people today non-print media may be the only way that they will gain access to the Bible.
We could do worse: many of the original audiences of the Bible did not read the biblical texts as individuals, but rather listened as groups while they were read by an individual.
I appreciate your wrestling with the issues. They are complex.
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anon aka Ishmael aka Larry,
Call me...with me
That's a wonderful paragraph.
"Anonymous" works for me. Plus you get to take credit for some of the greatest unattributed quotes in history.
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