of the Bible into our language. It is not a simple and easy task.

Indeed, it is
not fully possible, and that is why ministers are taught the biblical languages
in seminary.

Against the Theory of Dynamic Equivalence

by Michael Marlowe
Revised and expanded, January 2012

It is easy to get carried away with fine distinctions. Scholars are often
accused of losing their common sense in a multitude of hair-splitting
distinctions, and of using foreign words and difficult terminology merely to
impress the unlearned. In some cases this undoubtedly happens. We also
must be on guard against the elitist attitude taken by many in the Roman
Catholic tradition, which in its extreme form caused the Roman Catholic
Church to oppose the translation of the Bible into English in the first place.
But I want to suggest here that those who are not used to careful study of
the Bible may easily fall into an opposite error: the error of despising many
distinctions which really do make an important difference in our
understanding of the Bible, despising the role of trained teachers in the
Church, and generally failing to recognize the bad effects that arise from
vague and loose words on any important subject. The Bible is a very
important book, and it deserves our utmost care. And if we believe that
every word of the Bible is inspired by God, how can we be careless of these
words?

Introduction
Among Bible scholars there is a school which is always inquiring into the
genres or rhetorical forms of speech represented in any given passage of
the Bible, and also the social settings which are supposed to be connected
with these forms. This approach is called form criticism, and it was
developed largely by German scholars in the early twentieth century.
Among these scholars, whether they be German or English-speaking, one
constantly hears German phrases. The social setting is called the Sitz im
Leben. The oracle of salvation introduced by Fear not is the Heilszusage,
and so on. When I was in the seminary learning about all this, I at first
wondered why it should be necessary to use these German words; but then
I learned that the German words are used because they are recognized as
technical terms, and the English equivalents are not. Students were
expected to learn the terminology of the field, just as in any other field of
study.

I also mention form criticism, with its emphasis on the texts situation in life,
for another reason: I believe that a translation of the Bible must take
account of the sociological setting in which the Bible came to be, and in
which it belongs: namely, the Church of Jesus Christ. The translator must
remember that this book was given to the Church and it belongs to her. And
this fact, this Sitz im Leben of the Bible as a whole, is not without some
consequences for our methods of translation.

Likewise, there were many Greek and Hebrew words to be learned. These
were the technical terms of the Bible itself. The professors often warned
us students about the important semantic differences between various
Greek and Hebrew words and their closest English equivalents. The Hebrew
word ( torah), for instance, was not always equivalent to the Greek
(nomos) or the English law, and the Hebrew ( nephesh) did not
always refer to the soul, etc. Anyone who has been to a theological school
knows very well how often points like this are emphasized by scholars.

1. The Bible in the Church

And all the people gathered as one man into the square and Ezra the
scribe stood on a wooden platform and Ezra opened the book in the sight
of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the
people stood. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people
answered, Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads
and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also Jeshua, Bani,
Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah,

I mention this at the beginning of this book on Bible translation because I

want the reader who has not been exposed to this kind of study to know
how much is made of words and their precise usage in theological schools.
Ministers in training cannot go through three years of seminary without
being impressed with the undeniable differences between Hebrew, Greek,
and English, and with the delicate problems of translating many key words
1

Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the
Law, while the people remained in their places. They read from the book,
from the law of God, clearly 1 and they gave the sense, 2 so that the people
understood the reading. Nehemiah 8:1-8 (ESV).

He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;

And as a lamb before his shearer is dumb,
So he openeth not his mouth:
In his humiliation his judgment was taken away:
His generation who shall declare?
For his life is taken from the earth.

LecternThis passage from Nehemiah gives an account of the day when Ezra
and his fellow-ministers of the Word gathered the people together and
began to teach them the contents of the Book of the Law of Moses. It says
that they read from it distinctly, and that they caused the people to
understand the meaning of the words. Jewish tradition says that this was
the beginning of those translations into Aramaic called Targums, free
renderings of the Hebrew which were used by Jews in later times to explain
the meaning of the archaic Hebrew text. But it is unlikely that such a
translation is referred to here, because farther on in the book we read of
Nehemiahs indignation when he discovered that some of the children of
the Jews who had married foreign women could not understand the
Judean language. 3 Nehemiah was not inclined to provide a translation
for such, but rather, turning to their fathers, he contended with them, and
cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and
made them swear by God (13:25) Hebrew was not forgotten by the Jews
so quickly during their short captivity in Babylon. At a later time they did
forget their mother tongue, but in the days of Nehemiah this had not yet
come to pass. This passage therefore describes a situation which is very
familiar to us as Christians. The people come together. The Scripture is read
to them in portions, followed by explanatory comments. We would call it
expository preaching. This is how most Christians in all ages have acquired
a knowledge and an understanding of the Bible. But there are other ways:

And the eunuch said to Philip, About whom, I ask you, does the prophet
say this, about himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his
mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about
Jesus. (Acts 8:27-35.)
Here is a situation which is also familiar to many of us. The man is alone and
reading his Bible. Probably he is reading the Septuagint version, because the
passage cited from Isaiah 53:7-8 in Acts 8:32-33 is according to that version.
In any case, he is having a problem understanding the passage that he is
reading. When Philip comes along he asks the man if he understands the
passage, and the man readily admits that he is in need of help. It is for this
purpose that the Lord has sent Philip to him, who explains the passage he is
reading and several others besides.
What do these two situations have in common? Both of them involve a
Bible, an audience or reader, and a teacher appointed for the purpose of
explaining the Bible. It is taken for granted that the Bible is not selfexplanatory, and that the common reader or hearer stands in need of a
teacher. The prologue to Lukes Gospel states that it was written that you
may have certainty concerning the things () you have been taught.
The word translated you have been taught here (, katchths)
pertains to a course of instruction in religious matters, ,
katchsis. The Gospel is thus presented not as a substitute for catechesis,
but for the further education and confirmation of one who has already been
catechized. 4 This is true of all the books of the New Testament, which were
written, collected, and used for the edification of Christians. One scholar has
briefly described the ecclesiastical setting of our New Testament in these
terms:

And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of

the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to
Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was
reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, Go over and join
this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet
and asked, Do you understand what you are reading? And he said, How
can I, unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit
with him. Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:

When we remember how slowly the disciples assimilated the teaching of

their Master, and what patient and careful labour it needed to perfect their
2

faith, we shall realize the work which was involved in the instruction of new
converts when the numbers of the Church were counted by thousands. And
if this is true with regard to Jews, how much greater must have been the
labour when the community included pure Gentiles, who had scarcely any
knowledge of Jewish scriptures, and lacked the sound foundation of Jewish
monotheism. The labour of watering was not less than the toil of
planting. The instruction cannot have been confined to the discourse of the
services, or the teaching of the apostle in person or by letter. Such a
knowledge of the OT as St. Paul presupposes in Gentile converts (e.g. Rom.
7:1; 1 Cor. 6:16; 9:13; 10:1ff; Gal. 4:21ff) could only be the fruit of long and
systematic instruction. This was the main work of men like Aquila and
Apollos. There was a special gift of teaching, and a special class of men in
the Christian Church who were called teachers from the exercise of this
gift. Of the content of this teaching we can only say on a priori grounds that
it must have embraced the historical facts on which Christianity is based,
together with their doctrinal significance, and the practical rule of life
directly grounded on the doctrine. A systematic instruction in the OT
writings must have been necessary for Gentiles to understand the very
frequent allusions to them and interpretations of them which occur in the
Pauline Epistles (e.g. Rom. 9:6ff; 1 Cor. 10:1-11; 2 Cor. 3:7-15; Gal. 4:21-31,
cf. also 2 Tim. 3:16). This last passage shows how the doctrinal and
hortatory elements are inextricably interwoven with instruction in a
narrower sense. The historical facts of the OT and of Christs life are
regarded as facts of doctrinal significance (e.g. Gal. 4:21-31), and from
doctrinal truths practical injunctions are drawn as their consequences (cf.
the therefore in 1 Cor. 15:58, Eph. 4:17; Col. 3:5, 12). The instruction
proceeded on the Jewish method of repeated oral teaching (cf. the word
, Luke 1:4; Acts 18:25; 1 Cor. 14:19; Gal. 6:6). In the NT a convert
was baptized as soon as he declared his belief in Christ (Acts 2:41 and
often), but later the practice arose of deferring baptism until the convert
had been instructed in the rudiments of the faith, and during this period he
was called a catechumen (). The content of the teaching had
for its kernel first and foremost sayings of the Lord which were remembered
and treasured up by those who had known Him (cf. 1 Cor. 7:10, 12, 25; 9:14;
11:23; 14:37; 1 Thess. 4:2; 1 Tim. 5:18). These floating sayings were at an
early date collected into a book of the oracles of the Lord (Papias ap. Eus.
iii. 39), which was one of the main sources of the Gospels of Matthew and
Luke. To these sayings of Christ were added the divinely inspired teaching of

the apostles and prophets. So there arose gradually a fixed body of teaching
bearing the stamp of Christs authority (1 Tim. 6:3; 2 John 9) or the apostolic
approval (Gal. 1:6-9; 1 Thess. 4:1-2; 2 Thess. 2:15; 2 Tim. 1:13; 2:2; 3:14;
Titus 1:9). The danger arising from the free activity of the teacher was thus
lessened by this firm and unalterable foundation of tradition, ,
the faith handed on from one to another (2 Thess. 2:15; 3:6; Rom. 6:17; 1
Cor. 15:3; 11:23; Luke 1:2), and guarded by each as a sacred deposit
(, 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:14; 2:2). This accredited teaching is also
expressed by phrases such (Rom. 6:17),
(2 Tim. 1:13; cf. 2 Tim. 2:2), (1 Tim.
4:6). The especial frequency of such expressions in the Pastoral Epistles
illustrates the more stereotyped form which this teaching assumed when
death and imprisonment were removing the apostles from personal contact
with their churches. The frequent recurrence of isolated dicta with the
introduction (1 Tim. 1:15; 3:1; 4:9; 2 Tim. 2:11; Titus 3:8),
shows that such sayings were highly valued and carefully preserved. Finally,
after the death of the apostles we have a specimen of the way in which
their teachings were collected, in a work which has been preserved to us
under the title The Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles (Did.
1:1). 5
In addition to this teaching ministry in the Church we encounter several
statements in the Bible declaring that the Bible cannot be rightly
understood by those who lack the Spirit of God. In John 8:43 Jesus says to
his questioners, Why do you not understand my speech ()? It is
because you cannot hear my word (). The number of those who
understood and accepted his teaching was so small that John says, no one
receives his testimony (John 3:32). Paul declares, these things God has
revealed to us through the Spirit we have received not the spirit of the
world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things
freely given us by God connecting spiritual things with spiritual. (1 Cor.
2:10-13, a passage which we will have more to say about below). In several
places the Gospel writers mention that the words of Christ were not
understood by his own disciples (Mark 6:52; 7:18; 9:32; Matt. 15:16; 16:11;
Luke 9:45; 18:34; John 12:16; 16:18), or by his own family (Luke 2:50). Some
things in the Bible require much patient reflection to be understood.

In the writings of John we even find things that seem deliberately

mystifying. In the eighth chapter of his Gospel, the whole point of the
dialogue between Jesus and the Jews is to show how incapable they are of
understanding his sayings. Over and over again they did not understand
what he was talking about (John 8:27). When he says, the Truth shall set
you free, they answer that they have never been slaves to any man. When
he denies that they are sons of Abraham, they protest that they were not
born of fornication (8:41). When he says if a man keep my word, he will
never see death, they think that he is speaking of physical death (8:52).
Because their minds are stuck on the level of this world (8:23), they take
everything in a worldly literal sense, and they cannot understand his
metaphorical language. They are unregenerate, born from below, and
not of God (8:47). Many other passages make this same point in both the
Old and the New Testament.

the seminal theorist behind it. Nida was for more than thirty years (19461980) the Executive Secretary of the Translations Department of the
American Bible Society, and during this time he published a number of
books and articles explaining and promoting this approach. 1 But in fact
there is little that can be called original in Nidas books. His contributions
were more on the practical side than on the theoretical. He gathered up a
number of ideas about language that were current among linguists in his
time, he applied them to the task of Bible translation, and he presented
these ideas in a very engaging and understandable way. He was essentially a
popularizer of theoretical ideas and principles that might serve to bring
some methodological discipline into the pioneering efforts of missionaries
translating the Scriptures for remote, primitive tribes. 2 His books are
packed with examples of translation problems drawn from the experience
of missionary translators who were trying to put the Bible into the local
languages of South-American and African tribes (most of which lacked even
a system of writing at the time), and his examples show very plainly that if
people were to have the Bible in these languages, in versions that were to
be immediately intelligible to the uneducated, the only practical approach
to the task was to use a paraphrastic method. Reading his books, one gets a
vivid impression of how difficult the task is, and how wrong it is to think that
an essentially literal translation could be produced in these languages in
their present state of development.

The relationship, then, between the Bible and its intended readers is not
simple and direct. It is conditioned by the readers relationship to Christ and
to his Church. The Bible itself declares that it is not easy to be understood by
all.
2. The Bible apart from the Church
My own mind is my own church
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

For our purposes, it is important to notice that Nida was not primarily
concerned with English translations. He was preoccupied with the problems
of translating the Bible into the tongues of primitive tribes who were at that
time being reached for the first time by Christian missionaries, and with the
need for new approaches to deal with the kind of linguistic constraints that
made translations into these languages so difficult. This missionary
orientation is conspicuous in Nidas writings on the subject. But it should
also be noticed that in addition to the purely linguistic constraints that he
discusses, Nida also imposes some constraints which are non-linguistic in
nature. These come from his philosophy of ministry, in particular his
conception of the task of the missionary translator. Nida believed that these
missionaries should be unaffiliated with churches, and not at all concerned
with the planting of churches, or with the perpetuation of any tradition of
biblical interpretation.

Our observation that the Bible is a difficult book to those who are outside
the church does not sit well with many people these days. On the
contrary, they say, the Bible is really quite simple: it is all a matter of
translation. The old literal method of translation, which makes for such hard
reading, is to blame. But if we will only put the Bible in simpler and more
idiomatic English it will need no explanation. People who are unfamiliar with
church jargon might then read and understand it with ease. This is the
basic presupposition of the method of translation called dynamic
equivalence.
Eugene NidaThe name of Eugene Nida, an American linguist, is usually
mentioned in connection with this method of translation, because it was he
who coined the phrase dynamic equivalence. He is generally regarded as
4

Our communication is primarily sowing the seed, not transplanting

churches. It is lighting a spark, not establishing an institution. This does not
mean that the communication of the full revelation of God is unconcerned
with the church; but the indigenous church we are committed to, whether
in central Africa or central Kansas, is not the church we have structured, but
one raised up by the Spirit of God. It is not enough for us merely to
indigenize our own structures, by trying to insist on the superficial criteria
of self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating. Many churches
have these characteristics but still do not fit within the society where they
exist. The development of an indigenous church will always be the living
response of people to the life demands of the message. The source of the
information, unless he is a full participating member of the society in
question, is never more than a catalyst, but as such he is nevertheless an
indispensable factor in the divine process. 3

A great deal of Bible translation work has been tied to missionary

movements. This is less true, of course, where Bibles are being produced to
meet the needs of established ecclesiastical bodies. Still, it is very largely
true, and from a Christian perspective this is a good thing.
What is perhaps overlooked is that this reality in turn influences the way
translators think of their task. Translators commissioned by the National
Council of the Churches of Christ to produce the NRSV will not see their role
in exactly the same way as will translators struggling to produce the first
New Testament for a remote tribe in Papua New Guinea, precisely because
the envisioned readers are so different. I do not mean that the respective
cultures of the two reader groups are very different. I mean that one
translation effort is overtly and immediately interested in evangelism, and
cannot think of its task apart from that goal, while the other serves a more
established constituency. Internationally, however, a far greater proportion
of translators immediately serve the missionary and evangelistic task than
otherwise, and so the preponderance of thought and research and
publication in the area is inevitably shaped to serve this large group. When
we delve into this literature on Bible translation theory, and try to
understand the way it works out in new Bibles, we are being influenced to
think of the priorities of translation in a certain way.

From this and other similar statements we can see that Nida was concerned
with producing versions of the Bible which might even be useful outside the
context of any established churchoutside of or prior to any teaching
ministry, that is. Obviously, such a version could not be one which required
explanations or any introductory preparation of the readers; the versions
would have to be made as simple and idiomatic as possible not only
because of the nature of the languages into which it is being translated, and
not only because of the primitive cultural state of the people who spoke
these languages, but because the teaching ministry of the Church was
simply left out of the equation. Nida asserted that the real test of the
translation is its intelligibility to the non-Christian, and he even maintained
that there certainly must be something wrong with the translation if
phrases in it are misunderstood by illiterates who have not been under the
influence of the missionarys teaching. 4 The Bible is simply delivered into
the midst of a society, in such a form that it may be immediately understood
by the common people. Here Nida is making statements as a missiologist,
not as a linguist; and he is using a particular philosophy of ministry as the
basis for his philosophy of translation.

I wonder if Bible translation theory has been shifted a little too far in the
direction of simplification and clarity (even when the source text is obscure),
precisely because the unstated assumption is that the only evangelistic
agent for the particular target group will be the Bible itself. Indeed, for all
of its history the Wycliffe Bible Translators has adopted the policy of not
sending out pastors or more traditional missionaries, of not setting up
schools and hospitals and the like. Traditional missionary endeavor has been
left to other organizations. This single-eyed commitment to Bible translation
has been remarkably productive. However, it may slightly skew the vision of
the translators themselves. We cannot help noting that when Paul
established churches in highly diverse centers of the Roman Empire, he
quickly appointed elders in every place. He did not simply distribute copies
of the Septuagint. The New Testament that translators are putting into the
vernacular frequently describes and mandates the tasks of pastors and
teachers and evangelists. Of course, this does not rule out a place for
specialized ministry, in this case the work of translation. But unless such

The influence of this rather questionable missiology on translation theory is

noticed by D.A. Carson, who also suggests that an institutional bias is at
work:
5

work is coordinated with other work, it may take on a disproportionate

importance. And it may establish a certain expectation of what all
translations ought to be. 5

From the standpoint of an educated pastor the situation described here

must seem absurd. How can a translation do justice to theologically
important details of the text, when the translator himself is ignorant of
biblical theology, having no education in the subject? Native speakers of the
language who can read English have been recruited to translate the Bible
(from a simplified English version provided by the ABS or Wycliffe
consultant) because the native speakers are the best judges of what will be
idiomatic and clear in their language. But their education is so deficient that
they have no idea why John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God. This
is what we have in translation projects set up by the missionary Bible
translation agencies today, in accordance with their priorities and in line
with Nidas view of missions. Naturally, the books and articles on translation
theory that have been published by these agencies are designed to justify
these methods.

I would not minimize the problem by using the words little and slightly,
as Carson does, because it must be said that many inaccuracies in the new
versions are not so little, and the thinking behind them must be more than
slightly wrong. Carson does not seem to be aware of how deep-rooted the
theoretical problems are. But I think he has caught sight of one of them
here. In a passage we have quoted above, Nida said that establishing an
institution is not the purpose of our communication. But this our
cannot include pastors, because obviously the founding of churches is a
primary concern of the missionary pastor. A pastor does not merely come to
strike a spark and then depart. Nida is speaking as a representative of the
American Bible Society, and perhaps for other similar parachurch
organizations, such as the Wycliffe Bible Translators, whose interests and
goals are not coextensive with those of the Church. They have their own
agenda, and their own institutional interests. One Wycliffe official states
that theological education has not typically been a part of the curriculum
of Wycliffe-sponsored translators, who were not supposed to become too
involved in local church affairs, and especially in its duties to teach, baptize,
and theologize. 6 Nidas theories are designed to serve those interests
and goals. The question is whether those institutionally-defined goals are
fully compatible with the interests of the Church. It may not be in the best
interests of anyone to hurry forward with a translation project before
anyone who speaks the language has acquired a decent theological
education, or before anyone who does have such an education has learned
the language well enough to do the translating. One translation consultant
working in the Far East reports:

The problems here are more than theoretical. At bottom they are
theological. They stem from a defective ecclesiology. We note that the most
prominent advocates of dynamic equivalence come from Baptist and
Anabaptist backgrounds, where a minimalist ecclesiology tends to downplay
the role of ordained ministers and blur the distinction between churches
and parachurch ministries. Nida himself was an American Baptist, of the
moderate type, and he surrounded himself with like-minded people. At
the Summer Institute of Linguistics, where Nida served as co-director, his
colleagues were mostly Baptists. 8 They included Kenneth Pike (who served
with Nida as co-director), John Beekman, and John Callow (authors of
Translating the Word of God). Charles R. Taber, Nidas co-author for the
book The Theory and Practice of Translation, started out in the Grace
Brethren church and ended up in a Campbellite association, whose
restoration movement ecclesiology is more like an anti-ecclesiology. The
chief translators of the Mexican Spanish Versin Popular (1966) and the
Good News Bible, with whom Nida worked closely, were Baptists. The same
is true of the chief translator of the Contemporary English Version. The New
Living Translation is a revision of a paraphrase done by a Baptist, Ken Taylor.
The paraphrase was made popular by a Baptist evangelist, Billy Graham, and
the revision was done by editors in the Baptist-dominated publishing
company founded by Taylor. We are aware of the fact that not everyone
involved in the production and promotion of these version was a Baptist,
and that some of the most strident critics of these versions have also been

it has been the authors experience, while conducting training workshops

for mother-tongue translators in various countries, that the translators
themselves generally do not understand why John the Baptist called Jesus a
lamb. Those who are more aware of the background of the Bible often guess
that the point of similarity is gentleness, which is not the intended point
of similarity in this metaphor. 7

Baptists, but nevertheless we do notice that the initiators and major figures
in this movement are mostly Baptists. Probably this has something to do
with the tendency of Baptists to become preoccupied with evangelism and
numerical growth, often by the use of innovative but questionable methods.
But we are also reminded of the populist streak in the Baptist heritage,
which includes much preaching about the evils of clericalism, the futility of
head knowledge, and the sufficiency of the Bible alone.

As this psychology took root certain predictable characteristics began to

emerge. First, in all of these movements, the distinction between clergy and
laity was erased and with it the deference toward leaned opinion.
Leadership was redefined on the basis of new democratic assumptions In
place of the old respect for learning, which the clergy had embodied, was a
new confidence in personal intuitions of the unlearned, untrained person
about what is right and true. Second, the ability to judge doctrine, even to
formulate it, was therefore assumed to be part of a common rather than a
privileged inheritance, something that inherently belonged to the people. It
was not a matter for which great learning was necessary but for which
common instincts were sufficient. 11

The Bible alone in this modern Baptist context does not mean what the
early Protestants meant by sola scriptura in the sixteenth century. In the
theology of the Reformers the slogan sola scriptura referred to their
teaching that only the Scriptures could be relied upon as absolutely
authoritative, as distinguished from the merely human traditions or
inventions that had come to dominate religious life in the Middle Ages. It
was not an assertion of the autonomy of the vernacular Bible, with the
implication that commentaries should be rejected as superfluous props,
as one modern missiologist puts it. 9 It pertained only to the original text in
Hebrew and Greek. Of course Luther and others did aim to provide
vernacular translations which would faithfully represent the original, but
their translations of the Bible included a good deal of explanatory material
in prefaces and marginal notes. It is said that Tyndale once claimed that he
would make the boy who drives the plough know Scripture better than his
Popish adversaries did, 10 but to this end he supplied the ploughboys with
prefaces and footnotes. His preface to the Epistle to the Romans (which was
for the most part a translation of Luthers) was longer than the epistle itself!
The makers of the Geneva Bible included thousands of explanatory marginal
notes. These early versions were in fact study Bibles. Luther and Calvin
gave much of their time to writing commentaries, catechisms, and
theological treatises. The Bible alone idea of modern American
evangelicalism derives not from the venerable Reformers of the sixteenth
century, but from American sectarians and revivalists of the early
nineteenth century, who discarded everything in the Protestant heritage
that was not congenial to American libertarianism, individualism and
egalitarianism. David F. Wells describes the egalitarian mentality that
prevailed among Baptists, Methodists, Campbellites, and other movements
that began to reshape Christianity in America after 1820:

In this indigenization of Christianity the assertion that the meaning of the

Bible is (or ought to be) clear to the common man was actually more
important than any particular determination of the meaning. No matter
how discordant the interpretations grew, the one thing that could not be
questioned was the idea that the right interpretation was obvious.
Within the subculture of a long-established church it is possible to maintain
the illusion that the Bible does not need to be explained, because people
who have been raised in the church forget how many explanations they
have absorbed over the years; but when the Bible is taken outside the
church, the error of this notion becomes painfully obvious. At that point, the
modern Bible alone idea, which insists that the common man can
understand everything in the Bible without any help from an educated class
of teachers, can be maintained only by the use of a highly interpretive and
simplified Bible version. If we were to follow the example of the early
Protestants, we would solve the comprehension problem by placing
explanatory notes in the margin, but this would only undermine the idea
that no explanations are needed. We might then expect a movement in the
direction of paraphrase wherever there is a reluctance to acknowledge the
explanatory role of pastors, teachers, and interpretive tradition in general.
However, if the Bible is going to be separated from the church ministry and
sent forth to speak for itself, we had better be very careful about what is
being presented as the Bible alone. If the translation is grossly inaccurate
or biased, it cannot go unchallenged. If we find that a body of theory has
been designed to justify such treatment of the text, and its proponents
7

deploy it in the defense of every bad and biased rendering, then that whole
body of theory cannot go unchallenged either.

Greeks and others were asking the right questions, at least. The most
serious communication problems that ministers have today are usually
connected with a lack of such preparation. The good news of Gods mercy
means nothing to impious people who feel no need for it, and it is often
misconstrued by the superficially religious, who take it for granted. This
problem is not caused by church jargon in Bible versions. It makes no
difference whether we translate with forgiveness or remission if
the hearer does not even accept the idea that he is a sinner. The ministry of
the Law therefore is a necessary preparation for the ministry of the gospel
(Romans 3:20; 7:7). Although Pauls mission was to the Gentiles, his gospel
was most readily received by those Gentiles who had been prepared to hear
it by attending worship services in the synagogues of the Jews, as persons
who fear God (Acts 10:2, 13:16, 26, etc.).

I would first of all challenge one of the theological presuppositions of the

theory: the idea that the Bible precedes the Church. This is an alluring idea
for us Protestants, because it agrees with our idea that the Church is
founded on the Scriptures, not the other way around, as in Catholicism; but
in fact Nidas idea represents an extreme position which does not comport
with other elements of Protestant ecclesiology. Strictly speaking, the Bible
as we have it did not precede the Church. The Church was founded by the
oral ministry of the prophets and the apostles, which is incorporated in the
Bible; but the writings which we have in the Bible in their present form are
addressed to the Church as already founded. As S.C. Carpenter says, S. Paul
and others wrote their letters, and the Evangelists wrote their records, for
the benefit of the Church or some part of it. They wrote as Churchmen to
Churchmen about things with which Churchmen are concerned. 12 This is
evident even on a superficial level, in the forms of address used throughout
the Scriptures; and it is true at much deeper levels also, in the many things
that go unspoken or unexplained in the Bible. There is much in the
Scriptures which cannot be appreciated rightly or even understoodnot
even in a dynamic equivalence versionwithout preparation of some
kind.

Even where such preparation is not lacking, Protestants have never

supposed that people could be converted to Christ merely by giving them
copies of the Bible. Everyone knows that the gospel must first be preached,
and that people must be introduced to the Christian faith and the Bible by
various summaries and explanations, whether they be written out in the
form of catechisms, or conveyed from the pulpit, or included in editions of
the Bible. The Protestant Reformation came about through much more than
the mere circulation of copies of the Bible. The Church does not spring from
the Scriptures in the simple manner that Nida envisions, and God did not
intend for it to do so. The Bible is much more than a spark. It is not a rack
of cartoonish tracts, to be picked up willy-nilly by mildly interested
individuals who are unwilling to give time and effort to understanding it.

At the first verse of Genesis, one popular study Bible notes that the Bible
begins with God, not with philosophic arguments for His existence. This is
well said. The ministry of Moses and the prophets was to Israel, not to
modern agnostics, and so their writings take much religious preparation for
granted. The first sentence of the Bible assumes that the reader believes in
God. In New Testament times the apostles enjoyed the advantage of what
theologians have called the preparatio evangelica, preparation for the
gospel. This groundwork was laid not only by the writings of the Old
Testament and the influence of Judaism, but also by parallel religious
developments of the ancient Mediterranean world. To give just one
example, when Paul arrived in Greece he did not have to teach anyone that
after death a person might pass into a blessed afterlife. The idea of paradise
was already familiar to the common people, as an element of their own
religious culture. 13 The great question to be answered by Paul was, how
could a person attain this blessedness? On many subjects the inquiring

The focus on individual Bible-reading that we see in Nida and other

champions of dynamic equivalence does not even make much sense in the
context of tribal missions. Private book-reading is rare enough among the
common people even in civilized countries. It would be very unwise to make
evangelism or discipleship depend much on independent Bible-reading. A
strong teaching ministry, conducted by educated pastors, is absolutely
necessary. A theory of translation that assumes the absence of this ministry
is expecting us to eliminate the one thing that cannot be missing. There is
no biblical warrant or apostolic precedent for the idea of a merely literary
mission; and as John Wesley said, The Bible knows nothing of solitary
religion. In the days of the Apostles very few people could possess copies
8

of the Scriptures. Most could not read, 14 and they would never have heard
the Scriptures read aloud without a teachers comments. There was no such
thing as the Bible alone. Only in our era could a private Bible-reading
scenario become the focus of attention, and predictably enough this is the
focus in a publishing organization based in America, where a rampant spirit
of individualism has been destroying all sense of community for the past
century. People are assumed to be reading the Bible at home alone, in their
leisure time. And so of course the idea comes that the translation of the
Bible must be made free of difficulties, easily understood throughout. It
should be unambiguous, simple, and clear even to the first-time reader
who has not so much as set his foot in a church. But however much these
versions may smooth the way for such a lonely reader on the sentence level,
they cannot solve the larger questions of interpretation which must press
upon the mind of any thoughtful reader, such as question asked by the
Ethiopian in Acts 8:34. After all the simplification that can be done by a
translator is done, there is still the need of a teacher.

Hebrew idioms and all carried straight over into Greek. 1 And why?
Undoubtedly they believed that there was something significant in every
word of the Scripture, as do some of us today. In any case, the Bible was
certainly not written in idiomatic and colloquial Greek, as some defenders of
dynamic equivalence have claimed. A truer estimate is made by E.C.
Hoskyns:
The New Testament documents were, no doubt, written in a language
intelligible to the generality of Greek-speaking people; yet to suppose that
they emerged from the background of Greek thought and experience would
be to misunderstand them completely. There is a strange and awkward
element in the language which not only affects the meanings of words, not
only disturbs the grammar and syntax, but lurks everywhere in a maze of
literary allusions which no ordinary Greek man or woman could conceivably
have understood or even detected. The truth is that behind these writings
there lies an intractable Hebraic, Aramaic, Palestinian material. It is this
foreign matter that complicates New Testament Greek The tension
between the Jewish heritage and the Greek world vitally affects the
language of the New Testament. 2

3. The Language of the Bible

Now as we have chiefly observed the sense, and labored always to restore it
to all integrity, so have we most reverently kept the propriety of the words,
considering that the Apostles who spake and wrote to the Gentiles in the
Greek tongue, rather constrained them to the lively phrase of the Hebrew
than enterprised far by mollifying their language to speak as the Gentiles
did. And for this and other causes we have in many places reserved the
Hebrew phrases, notwithstanding that they may seem somewhat hard in
their ears that are not well practiced and also delight in the sweet-sounding
phrases of the Holy Scriptures. Preface to the Geneva Bible (1560).

I do not think that the promoters of simple everyday language in Bible

translation have any appreciation for the important conceptual differences
which uncommon biblical phrases and words often serve to convey. In the
Good News Bible at 2 Cor.12:2 we read, I know a certain Christian man.
The expression in Christ is often rendered Christian in this
version. But they are not really equivalent expressions. The phrase in
Christ conveys a whole package of meaning. It implicitly teaches the
relationship of the man to Christ, and emphasizes Christ himself over the
man. It makes a metaphysical statement: the man is in Christ. They are in
vital union with one another. 3 The man is not merely one of a category of
people who go by the name of Christian as a descriptive adjective. This is
important. It is not trivial. The language teaches us something that cannot
be translated into banal newspaper language. This is the kind of thing that is
always being discarded in dynamic equivalence, and the cumulative effect
of so many changes like this is that it prevents us from entering fully into the
concepts that are unique to the Scriptures. We are allowed to remain in the
newspaper-world of twenty-first century America, and this is not for our
benefit.

So said the makers of the Geneva Bible in their preface. It is very interesting
that the Puritans who gave us this version would find in Scripture itself their
guidance for a method of translation. The Apostles themselves were
translators, after all. They did not give us a complete translation of the Old
Testament, choosing rather to use the familiar Septuagint in their ministry
to the Greek-speaking nations; but in a number of places where they quote
from the Old Testament they do not use the Septuagint, and give us their
own rendering. From these examples we can see readily enough that the
inspired authors of the New Testament favored literal translation, with
9

have been inserted quite arbitrarily. In both versions the distortion of

meaning is caused by forcing the statement into something that sounds
more idiomatic in everyday English.

The Scriptures say in several places that God spoke his words through or by
means of the prophets. For example, in Matthew 1:22 we read that the Lord
spoke through the prophet, and in Hebrews 1:1,
by means of the prophets. This manner of speaking is
meaningful. It is not equivalent to the expression, Gods prophets spoke his
message to our ancestors as in the Contemporary English Version at
Hebrews 1:1, or the Lords promise came true just as the prophet had said
at Matthew 1:22. These renderings do not convey to the reader the
emphasis on God as the initiator and author of the prophetic message, and
it does not convey the concept of mere instrumentality on the part of the
prophets. The word through is a little preposition which carries a lot of
meaning here.4 But the literal translation was avoided by the CEV
translators because they thought it too difficult. Barclay M. Newman
explains, The use of through with persons or abstract nouns has been
rejected by the CEV translators because doing something through
someone is an extremely difficult linguistic concept for many people to
process. 5 Indeed this manner of speaking may seem strange to someone
who is unfamiliar with the concept of inspiration which it expresses, but in
such a case would not this verse and several others like it, as literally
translated, serve well as a means of explaining inspiration?

In the passage quoted from E.C. Hoskyns above, he mentions the presence
of literary allusions in the Bible. In literary criticism, an allusion is an
indirect reference to something written by another author, as distinguished
from a direct quotation. One standard handbook of literary terms defines
allusion as follows:
A figure of speech that makes brief, often casual reference to a historical or
literary figure, event, or object. Biblical allusions are frequent in English
literature Strictly speaking, allusion is always indirect. It attempts to tap
the knowledge and memory of the reader and by so doing to secure a
resonant emotional effect from the associations already existing in the
readers mind The effectiveness of allusion depends on there being a
common body of knowledge shared by writer and reader. 7
It is perhaps misleading to talk about the allusions in the Bible as a literary
phenomenon, however, because the allusions in the Bible are not just
artistic literary touches to be appreciated by those who read the Bible as
literature. In Edmund Spensers Faerie Queen and John Miltons Paradise
Lost there are many allusions to the epic literature of pagan antiquity, but
these literary allusions do not carry the same religious significance as their
allusions to the Bible. They did not believe the pagan myths and legends to
which they allude. In the same manner some authors of the Victorian Era
allude to the Bible without any serious religious purpose. Their allusions are
merely literary.

A similar case is in John 3:21, But he who does what is true comes to the
light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God
(RSV). In his commentary on Johns Gospel, Westcott explains that the
phrase wrought in God ( ) means that the
works of a believer are produced in union with him, and therefore by his
power. The order [of the Greek words] lays the emphasis on God: that it is
in God, and not by the mans own strength, they have been wrought. 6
Compare this with the New Living Translation: But those who do what is
right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what
God wants. This is indeed simpler and more natural-sounding than any
literal rendering could be; but the meaning of the Greek, as explained by
Westcott, is completely hidden by it. Instead of the believer working with
and through God ( ) to bear the fruit of righteousness, he simply does
what God wants. Even worse is the rendering of Todays New
International Version: so that it may be seen plainly that what they have
done has been done in the sight of God in which the words sight of

A more serious purpose is served by allusions when an author uses them to

signal the tradition of thought to which he belongs, and within which he
wants to be understood. In my reading on the subject of translation theory,
I recently encountered a fine example of this kind of allusion in the second
paragraph of Werner Winters essay The Impossibilities of Translation. 8
Winter begins:
It seems to me that we may compare the work of a translator with that of
an artist who is asked to create an exact replica of a marble statue, but who
10

cannot secure any marble. He may find some other stone or some wood, or
he may have to model in clay or work in bronze, or he may have to use a
brush or a pencil and a sheet of paper. Whatever his material, if he is a good
craftsman, his work may be good or even great; it may indeed surpass the
original, but it will never be what he set out to produce, an exact replica of
the original.

thoughts expressed the stamp of divine authority. 10 Likewise C.S. Lewis

observed, For three centuries, the Bible was so well known that hardly any
word or phrase, except those which it shared with all English books
whatever, could be borrowed without recognition. If you echoed the Bible
everyone knew that you were echoing the Bible. And certain associations
were called up in every readers mindsacred associations. 11 The effect
described here is not only literary, it is found in all communication that
depends upon a shared culture. 12 The specifically Christian culture that
Spurgeon depends upon is part of the heritage of all the European
countries. If someone were translating Spurgeons sermon into German and
used Kirche or Gemeinde instead of Lager here, so as to make the meaning
clear, he would not be making the meaning clear at all. There is no way of
making Spurgeons meaning clear to a German reader who would not
understand what is meant by im Lager des Herrn. The elimination of such
biblical allusions in Spurgeons sermons would impoverish the meaning, not
only of words and phrases here and there, but in general, by failing to
convey any sense of the religious solidarity of the speaker with his audience.
If an author assumes and depends upon a shared body of religious
knowledge in his writing, then that is part of the meaning of his writing.

In a nutshell, we seem to have here all the challenge and all the frustration
that goes with our endeavors to do the ultimately impossible. We know
from the outset that we are doomed to fail; but we have the chance, the
great opportunity to fail in a manner that has its own splendor and its own
promise.
The word splendor in the last sentence is certainly an allusion to the
classic essay in translation theory by Jos Ortega y Gasset: the Misery and
the Splendor of Translation. 9 Winter, who is writing for an audience of
scholars who would be familiar with Ortegas essay, effectively brings it to
mind by using the unusual word splendor in this context. We notice then
how Winters essay takes up, confirms, and develops the ideas about
translation expressed earlier by Ortega.

This is what we find in the writings of the Apostles. They are immersed
together with their readers in a religious culture. They speak as the oracles
of God (1 Peter 4:11). Their language is thoroughly imbued with images
and verbal reminiscences of the Old Testament. They habitually draw upon
Scriptural models and patterns as they apply the Word of God to their
situation. The modern reader of a modern translation can never be like one
of the original readers if the translation fails to convey these allusions.

Allusions to Scripture in sermons often greatly deepen the meaning. An

example of this kind of allusion may be seen in the first words of Charles
Spurgeons sermon Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats? which begins with
the clause, An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord The word
camp is used here instead of church because Spurgeon is comparing the
Christian church to the camp of the Israelites before they came into
possession of the Promised Land. In particular, he would bring to mind the
story of the sin of Achan (Joshua 7), which brought a curse on the whole
camp and prevented the Israelites from prevailing against their enemies as
they were coming into the land. It was necessary to eliminate the sin in the
camp before proceeding. For those who are familiar with the story, this is all
brought to mind by the phrase evil in the camp. Communication like this
can take place only in the context of a highly developed religious culture. As
one Jewish historian has observed, after the rise of Puritanism in England a
whole complex of images and metaphors which were understood and
recognized could be invoked merely by the use of a partial biblical phrase,
a sanctified word or two, and such phrases and words may even give to the

Some of the allusions in the New Testament are so obvious that very little
knowledge of the Old Testament is required to perceive their meaning.
When John the Baptist says Behold the Lamb of God (John 1:29, 36), this is
an allusion to something in the Old Testament, and the meaning of it would
have been clear to any Jew of the first century. It expresses the atoning
purpose of God in Christ, by comparing him with the sacrificial lambs of the
Mosaic Law. This does however require some knowledge of the Old
Testament to be understood. The New Testament contains hundreds of
such allusions to the Old Testament, some of them more obvious than
others. Some depend upon just a word or two, when an unusual expression
11

or combination of words serves to bring to the readers mind something in

the Old Testament. They often consist of verbal echoes that are muffled if
not completely suppressed in English translations. When John the apostle
says that (John 1:14) his use of
the uncommon word suggests much more than the reader
might suppose from the common English rendering dwelt among us. The
word means tabernacled, and it has some important Old Testament
associations. 13 To the original Greek readerswho would have been
familiar with the traditional Greek version of the Old Testamentthis would
probably have brought to mind how God had promised to tabernacle in
the midst of his people ( Joel 3:17, Zechariah
2:10, Ezekiel 43:7, comp. in Revelation 7:15, 21:3).
The allusion thus further emphasizes the divinity of Christ, which is one of
Johns main purposes in the Prologue.

Words that are unremarkable, bland and ordinary can never be very
allusive. In order to be allusive, words must somehow stand out and point
to a special context elsewhere. Translators who are more interested in
making the text idiomatic for the reader than in preserving significant
verbal connections like this have practically erased most of them from the
New Testament in recent Bible versions.
Consider Acts 5:30, which in the New Living Translation is rendered, The
God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed him by
crucifying him. 16 Literally Peters words are, The God of our fathers
raised up Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. This expression
as literally translated ought to give some pause to the reader. Why does
Peter say hanging him on a tree ( ) instead of crucifying him?
Anyone who has read Galatians will know where the unusual phrase comes
from, and what it means. It is from Deuteronomy 21:22-23, quoted in
Galatians 3:13-14, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by
becoming a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged
on a tree. See also 1 Peter 2:24 and Acts 13:29. And so by this phrase
hanging him on a tree Peter evokes the whole theology of the cross! But
apparently the translators missed it, or found this to be unimportant. By
flattening out and simplifying the language they have caused the reader to
miss this thought-provoking allusion.

In Galatians 1:15 most scholars are likely to agree that there is an allusion to
Jeremiah 1:5. 14 When Paul says that God set him apart even from the
womb of his mother, and called him to preach among the Gentiles (or,
nations), one is reminded of the word of the Lord to Jeremiah: Before I
formed you in the belly I knew you, and before you came forth from the
womb I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet unto the nations.
The allusion is signaled here by the use of the Hebraic expression from the
womb ( , comp. or )in connection with being sent to
the nations, and the effect of this allusion is to suggest that Paul conceived
of his calling as being like the prophet Jeremiahs. But the allusion is
weakened if the words that constitute the verbal link are not translated
literally. In modern versions we have in Galatians 1:15 the renderings
before I was born and from birth instead of from the womb. These
renderings expresses the sense in a general way, but the very generality of
them weakens the allusion, which depends upon distinct verbal cues. In
many cases this loss is wholly unnecessary. Readers who are not very
familiar with the Old Testament would of course fail to recognize the
allusion in cases like this, and we admit that the literal rendering from the
womb may seem rather odd or unusually graphic for modern Americans;
but few readers will fail to see that it means from birth or from before
birth, 15 and if the verbal correspondence with Jeremiah 1:5 is preserved,
the allusion may be noticed in due time.

In 1 Peter 1:13 the expression girding up the loins of your mind was
rendered prepare your minds for action in the 1978 New International
Version, and with minds that are alert in the 2011 revision. Nida claims
that this expression would surely be meaningless if rendered literally. 17
We grant that Peters use of the peculiar girding up the loins of your mind
may at first sight seem clumsy and even a little weird to many people. It
certainly is not idiomatic in English. But neither was it idiomatic in Greek.
Peter deliberately uses this Hebraic expression as a way of bringing to his
readers minds the words spoken to Israel concerning the Passover: and
thus you shall eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and
your staff in your hand (Exodus 12:11). This would have been one of the
most familiar passages of the Old Testament to a Jew like Peter, because it
was recited every year at the Passover holiday. One commentary on the
Greek text here states that the reference is unmistakable. 18 But readers
of the NIV (and most other modern versions as well) will miss it entirely.
12

Instead of an accurately translated verbal allusion, they are given an

equivalent expression.

here really hinders the readers ability to discern the correct meaning. As
Dennis Johnson points out, a proper application of the principle of context
in word studies must give attention not only to the words immediate
literary context but also to more distant literary contexts to which the
author may be making conscious allusion, 20 and he convincingly shows
that there is an allusion here to Malachi 3:2-6, he is like a refiners fire
and he shall purify the sons of Levi that they may offer unto the Lord an
offering in righteousness. The reader who is familiar with this passage from
Malachi will catch the allusion to it in 1 Peter 4 when the phrases fiery
ordeal and house of God are in the translation before him, but who
would perceive it in the NIV? The phrase house of God may refer to the
family of God in some contexts, that is true, but here we see that it is
probably an allusion to the Temple, with which the Church is being
compared.

Someone may ask, What exactly is gained when we see an allusion to the
Passover here? Isnt Peters main purpose here to exhort his readers to be
prepared, and doesnt prepare your minds for action serve this purpose
well enough, without an allusion to some ancient Jewish commemoration?
In answer to this, we must concede that those who have never identified
with the Israelites will gain little. But for a Jew who has been taught to
identify with them, 19 and for all those who are able to identify with Israel
on that night, it can make a very great difference when an allusion invites
them to do it. The effect of an allusion like thiswhen it is recognized as an
allusionis to add a whole new dimension of meaning. The few words of
the allusion are invested with all the historical and religious associations of
the passage alluded to, and so the amount of meaning gained by allusions
can be very large. We might compare a sentence without allusions to a
house built up in the usual way, with individual boards, bricks, and panels
being fasten together on site. These pieces correspond to the words of a
sentence under construction. But when an allusion is introduced, the
construction goes modular. A prefabricated living room arrives on the
truck, and at one stroke, a large and complex module of meaning is added
to the sentence. The same meaning might perhaps be built on the
construction site, but it would require several chapters of additional text to
build it there, and there is no reason to do that if the prefabricated unit
already exists in the readers mind, to be summoned by an allusion. Of
course the reader must have the module in his head, or else the allusion
fails; but the writers of the New Testament assume that their readers
minds are stocked with the usual modules of popular Hellenistic Judaism.

An extreme example of this erasure of allusions is found in Isaiah 31:5 in the

Good News Bible. In the last clause of this verse, Isaiah uses the Hebrew
verb , lit. pass over, which occurs elsewhere only in the Passover
narrative of Exodus, chap. 12. The allusion may be seen in a literal
rendering:
As birds flying, so will the LORD of Hosts defend Jerusalem;
Defending also he will deliver it;
And passing over, he will make it escape.
When Isaiah says that the Lord will cause Jerusalem to escape (that is the
proper meaning of the hiphil of )from destruction by passing over it,
he is of course alluding to that great deliverance of the children of Israel,
when he passed over their houses while slaying all the firstborn of the
Egyptians, allowing them to escape from death. But apparently the
translator of the Good News Bible regarded this last clause as a mere
repetition, adding nothing meaningful to the preceding one. Therefore,
being warned by Nida that in most parts of the world receptors are often
irked by what they regard as obnoxious repetition and tautology in Semitic
poetic forms, and following his counsel that synonymous expressions in
adjacent lines may be deleted if they serve only to impart emphasis, 21 he
left out the whole clause:

Another allusion in 1 Peter which will be missed by readers of some modern

versions is in 4:12-19. Here the 1978 NIV renders the Greek word
in verse 12 as painful trial instead of the more literal fiery ordeal, and in
verse 17 the word is rendered family instead of house. These
renderings are defensible enough in the immediate context, and we grant
that some readers may be helped by a translation which explains that
house often means family in Scripture, but it may be doubted whether
any considerable number of Bible-readers really need this explanation, and,
as so often happens in paraphrastic renderings, the helpful interpretation
13

Just as a bird hovers over its nest to protect its young, so I, the LORD
Almighty, will protect Jerusalem and defend it.

in English: the Spirit sent him out into the desert. Here the Greek
, lit. pushed him out, is translated as sent him out; but this is
unsatisfactory, because the Greek word carries a connotation of command
and compulsion, which is why more literal versions try to express the
meaning with drove him out (ESV), impelled him to go out (NASB), etc.
One of the NIV translators later recalled that this expression was the subject
of irreverent levity at the committees meeting, with some of the editors
facetiously wondering what kind of a car the Spirit used to drive Jesus
into the wilderness. 26 But Marks word is no joke. Commentators have
often observed that it is a strong word, descriptive of our Lords sense of
urgency (Meyer) his intense preoccupation of mind (A.B. Bruce), and the
dynamistic working of the Spirit in Him (F.C. Grant). 27

The translators of some other versions use the word spare instead of
pass over for here, and translate the hiphil form of as rescue
(RSV, NRSV, ESV), which is better than nothing, but still inadequate for the
purpose of conveying the allusion. 22 The NIV gets bonus points here for
putting the words pass over in quotation marks, drawing the readers
attention to the allusion.
In all of these examples of lost allusions, the loss is caused by a philosophy
of translation which seeks to eliminate anything unusual in the diction.
Because allusions depend upon relatively uncommon expressions that stand
out from the immediate context and point to another, they are bound to
suffer this fate in a version that systematically normalizes the style and
diction.

Words that are normal and ordinary for the average modern reader
inevitably convey only thoughts that are ordinary for such readers. But what
if the things expressed in the original are not ordinary for modern American
readers?

This tendency to normalize anything that strays from the beaten path of
everyday language affects not only allusions, but all sorts of interesting
linguistic features of the text.

Recently while giving a lesson on the topic of modesty I referred to 1

Timothy 2:9, where the Greek text has the phrase
. These are words that ancient authors commonly used in their
teachings about personal virtues, and they describe attitudes or states of
mind, not merely (or even primarily) outward actions. The first noun here,
, denotes a capacity to feel shame, in a good sense, as opposed to
shamelessness or impudence. In modern English versions it is usually
translated modesty, but bashfulness may sometimes be a more
adequate way of expressing its connotations. John Wyclifs shamefastness
is nearly perfect, and would still be the best rendering if that word had not
become obsolete. 28 The second noun, , denotes an habitual
self-regulation or moderation of desires and thoughts, as opposed to mania,
self-indulgence and excess, and it is usually translated with sobriety or
self-control. My purpose in referring to these words was to emphasize
that modesty in the Bible is not merely outward compliance with some
dress code, but a state of mind characterized by a capacity for shame and
self-inhibition, and that the biblical authors connect this cultivated sense of
shame with virtue and honor, especially in the case of women. This is a
commonplace of exegetical writings, and it needs to be emphasized,
because it is so foreign to the modern liberal ethos that dominates our

In Isaiah 57:15 there is a striking expression in the Hebrew text:

(shokeyn ad), lit. he who inhabits eternity, which theologians commonly
point to as an expression of Gods transcendence. God is not bound by time,
nor does he live within time; rather, he transcends time and space. He
inhabits eternity. 23 D.A. Carson calls this memorable phrase one of
Isaiahs fine expressions that stretch the imagination of readers, as they
ponder the transcendence of God. 24 Unfortunately, the reader of the NIV
will not encounter Isaiahs expression here. Instead of he who inhabits
eternity the NIV has a rather unsatisfactory and prosaic rendering, he who
lives forever. This is certainly easier to understand, but it is not equivalent
to the original. It would be better to translate literally, and advise the reader
that one should never expect that what is sublime, immense, and
extraordinary in the original language will be easily and immediately
comprehensible in the translation. 25
In Mark 1:12 we find a typical example of the NIVs tendency to turn what is
semantically sharp and colorful in the Greek text into something very bland
14

society. 29 My students on that occasion had copies of the NIV translation,

and so I asked them to turn to that place, expecting to find something close
enough to build the lesson on. But to my surprise, I found that
was translated with decency and propriety. Evidently the
translators felt that these prissy words would be in some manner equivalent
to the original. 30 I suppose they are the sort of words that a modern
American would fall back on when recommending clothing that is suitable
for Christians. But they do not begin to convey the meaning of Pauls words.
People associate decency with conformity to minimum standards of social
behavior, and propriety with things like proper etiquette, but Paul speaks
of something much more personal a virtuous sense of shame, coupled
with self-control. The problem here is not just about an archaic word that
needs to be updated, it has to do with an ancient moral concept that has no
name in the modern idiom. I am not sure what should be done in this case.
Even modesty seems very inadequate. Perhaps we need to reclaim the
word shamefastness. But there is no use pretending that decency will
convey the meaning of . The inadequacy of colloquial modern English
in this instance brings to mind an observation of J.D. Michaelis:

is under such influence d. An individual virtue or excellence, divine in its

origin.
All of these theological senses of the word are quite old, dating from the
period of Middle English (c. 1150-1450), and are well-established in our
language. None of them is obsolete. Nevertheless, certain linguists who
think that readers cannot understand what is meant by grace in the Bible
have urged translators to use kindness and favor instead, and so that is
what we find in the Good News Bible, the Gods Word version, and the New
Living Translation. But the of God is much more than kindness or
favor. As James Dunn says, In Paul is never merely an attitude or
disposition of God (Gods character as gracious); consistently it denotes
something much more dynamicthe wholly generous act of God. Like
Spirit, with which it overlaps in meaning (cf., e.g., [Rom] 6:14 and Gal 5:18),
it denotes effective divine power in the experience of men. 32 Again, Louis
Berkhof says it ordinarily denotes the operation of God in the heart of man,
affected through the agency of the Holy Spirit. 33 It is probably true that
many non-Christian readers will not understand grace in this biblical
sense, and will think that it means graciousness. We do think, however,
that the biblical meaning of grace can be gathered easily enough from the
context in many places, even if the reader does not make use of an English
dictionary, or have the benefit of explanations. Substituting kindness for
grace only ensures that the reader will not understand what the biblical
authors mean by .

Some virtues are more sedulously inculcated by moralists and philosophers

when the language has fit names for indicating them; whereas they are but
superficially treated of, or rather neglected, in nations where such virtues
have not so much as a name. 31
Perhaps most serious of all is the normalizing treatment that (charis)
receives in some modern versions. This word lies at the heart of the gospel
message, and I think it is no exaggeration to say that its translation and
interpretation is crucial to a true understanding of Biblical theology in
general. The first English versions of the New Testament translated it
grace, and this English word has been used in most translations right up to
the present day. In English dictionaries the range of meanings for the word
in biblical and ecclesiastical contexts is given under the heading of
theological usages, as in the Oxford Universal Dictionary:

One gets the impression that the editors of the New Living Translation did
not understand it either: Acts 4:33, Gods great favor was upon them all;
11:23, he saw the proof of Gods favor; Romans 1:5, given us the
privilege and authority; 3:24, God in his gracious kindness; 5:17,
gracious gift of righteousness; 5:20, kindness became more abundant,
and so on, throughout the New Testament. We notice that in Romans 6:14
the word grace is used, but the translation ensures that the word will not
be understood as a divine influence: for you are no longer subject to the
law, which enslaves you to sin. Instead, you are free by Gods grace. This
makes good sense within the framework of a false interpretation of Pauls
gospel, and a popular one, to be sure; but it differs substantially from what
Paul means by ,
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are

6. Theol., etc. a. The free and unmerited favor of God b. The divine
influence which operates in men to regenerate and sanctify, and to impart
strength to endure trial and resist temptation c. The condition of one who
15

not under law, but under grace. By under grace he means not
freedom or forgiveness but a condition in which one is subjected ()
to the sanctifying influence () of the Holy Spirit, which breaks the
dominion of sin in the heart, more than the Law ever could. 34 The New
Living Translation, by injecting the word free, and using the word grace
in the sense of kindness, practically converts this into the opposite of
what Paul really said.

communicative event to the total cultural context in which it occurs. The

profusion of such terms in linguistics has led one linguist to explain:
Every discipline has its own technical vocabulary. Linguistics is no exception.
Most of the technical terms used by linguists arise in the course of their
work and are easily understood by those who approach the subject
sympathetically and without prejudice. The objection is sometimes made
that the terminology, or jargon, of linguistics is unnecessarily complex. Why
is the linguist so prone to the creation of new terms? Why is he not content
to talk about sounds, words and parts of speech, instead of inventing such
new technical terms as phoneme, morpheme, and form class? The
answer is that most of the everyday terms that are used with reference to
languagemany of which, incidentally, originated as technical terms of
traditional grammarare imprecise or ambiguous. This is not to say that the
linguist, like all specialists, may not be guilty at times of misplaced
terminological pedantry. In principle, however, the specialized vocabulary of
linguistics, if it is kept under control and properly used, serves to clarify,
rather than to mystify. It eliminates a good deal of ambiguity and possible
misunderstanding. 37

We should have thought that a long-established English word which

perfectly corresponds to the meaning of the Greek would be cherished by
translators, even if some readers might need help understanding its
theological sense. But no. Because the perfect word in this case is not
sufficiently ordinary, and hence might not be understood by everyone, a
more everyday word is used, as being the closest natural equivalent,
though it obviously fails to convey the true meaning in many places.
Our discussion of biblical words here might go on, to include remarks on
the biblical senses of justification, righteousness, redemption, atonement,
sanctification, covenant, gospel, repentance, and other key words that are
handled with care in theological writings. These are all dismissed as
gobbledygook by Barclay Newman in an argument on behalf of the
Contemporary English Version. 35 Newman shows no awareness of what
linguistic purpose is served by such terms, saying only that they are
cherished by believers who grew up reading traditional Bible translations,
as a sort of insiders jargon. It should be obvious enough to a linguist that
these words are especially valued because they have special religious
meanings which are not conveyed by the everyday, secular words that he
prefers. But Newman and other linguists of Nidas school seem strangely
obtuse in this matter, and seem to have no understanding of the need for
Christian terminology. In their own field of study they understand the need
for special terms quite well. We would not deny that the technical
vocabulary of linguistics serves a good purpose, although for the uninitiated
it must sometimes be more mystifying and anything found in Bible versions.
Why, for instance, does Nida feel a need to use such a barbarous term as
extraorganismic in his discussion of semantics? 36 It is hard for us to say,
but Nida believes that this term has the advantage of providing a much
more detailed and precise manner of describing the relationship of the

We can accept this explanation. But how is it that linguists like Nida and
Newman do not admit the need for a special religious vocabulary, even in
the translation of a religious text? It is hard to believe that persons with
their training would not understand the advantages of a specialized religious
vocabulary. We suspect that they are not really as obtuse as they seem to
be. Their failure to acknowledge the advantages of a special vocabulary is
probably due to the fact that, in the context of their theorizing about Bible
translations, any acknowledgement of this is just too inconvenient for a
theory which is designed to support only paraphrastic common language
versions. Nevertheless, the inadequacy is plain to see. A covenant is not
merely an agreement. The word good does not have the same religious
meaning as righteous. When we speak of repentance we mean more
than feeling sorry. To think rightly about such things, it is necessary to call
them by their right names. The versions that deliberately avoid Christian
words like this can hardly express the Christian meaning of the Greek words.
The reader of these versions has not been required to enter into the
conceptual framework of the Bible as it is expressed over and over again in
16

its terminology and phraseology; he has been deprived of the opportunity

to perceive the network of allusions and verbal associations which give the
Bible such richness of meaning; and he is protected from exposure to
anything very demanding or unusual. The reader is left in his own familiar
and everyday world of thinking. And this is the whole purposeand the
explicitly stated purposeof those who are promoting dynamic
equivalence in Bible translations. The whole idea is to present nothing to
the reader which is strange. Nothing foreign or offensive. Nothing
evocative. Nothing which requires a pause for reflection, orientation, and
discovery. Nothing that stretches the imagination. 38 I submit that this
theory of translation is not only unscriptural, but self-defeating and
perverse.

Since there are, properly speaking, no such things as identical equivalents

(Belloc, 1931a and b, p. 37), one must in translating seek to find the closest
possible equivalent. However, there are fundamentally two different types
of equivalence: one which may be called formal and another which is
primarily dynamic.
Formal equivalence focuses attention on the message itself, in both form
and content. In such a translation one is concerned with such
correspondences as poetry to poetry, sentence to sentence, and concept to
concept. Viewed from this formal orientation, one is concerned that the
message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the
different elements in the source language. This means, for example, that the
message in the receptor culture is constantly compared with the message in
the source culture to determine standards of accuracy and correctness.

4. Transculturation
Apologists for dynamic equivalence commonly make a distinction
between it and transculturation, which involves an adaptation of the text
not only to the language but also to the cultural and historical context of the
modern reader. Robert Bratcher, the chief translator of the Good News
Bible, makes this distinction while criticizing Eugene Petersons The
Message:

The type of translation which most completely typifies this structural

equivalence might be called a gloss translation, in which the translator
attempts to reproduce as literally and meaningfully as possible the form and
content of the original. Such a translation might be a rendering of some
Medieval French text into English, intended for students of certain aspects
of early French literature not requiring a knowledge of the original language
of the text. Their needs call for a relatively close approximation to the
structure of the early French text, both as to form (e.g. syntax and idioms)
and content (e.g. themes and concepts). Such a translation would require
numerous footnotes in order to make the text fully comprehensible.

Peterson goes beyond the acceptable bounds of dynamic equivalence in

that he will often divest passages from their first-century Jewish context, so
that Jesus, for example, sounds like a twentieth-century American. Look at
Mt 5.41-42: And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the
occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live
generously. No longer are we in first-century Judea, where the Roman
occupation troops had the right to require Jews to carry their packs. In Jn
2.4 the money changers in the Court of the Gentiles become loan sharks.
Besides indulging in transculturation, Peterson at times pads the text with
additional details for increased vividness and drama 1

A gloss translation of this type is designed to permit the reader to identify

himself as fully as possible with a person in the source-language context,
and to understand as much as he can of the customs, manner of thought,
and means of expression. For example, a phrase such as holy kiss (Romans
16:16) in a gloss translation would be rendered literally, and would probably
be supplemented with a footnote explaining that this was a customary
method of greeting in New Testament times.

It must be said, however, that Nidas own explanation of the goals and
characteristics of a dynamic equivalence version makes this distinction
somewhat questionable. In his book Toward a Science of Translating (1964),
he introduces the theory thus:

In contrast, a translation which attempts to produce a dynamic rather than

a formal equivalence is based upon the principle of equivalent effect (Rieu
and Phillips, 1954). In such a translation one is not so concerned with
matching the receptor-language message with the source-language
17

message, but with the dynamic relationship (mentioned in Chapter 7), that
the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the
same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message.

does not rule it out, but instead includes Phillips hearty handshake (as an
equivalent for holy kiss) under the term dynamic equivalence as a good
example of what the approach might entail in practice. And it is hard to see
how this could be approved on the same principles that would rule out
Petersons takes unfair advantage of you (as an equivalent for forces you
to go a mile). In fact it really seems to us that of these two, the former is
more of a transcultural rendering than the latter. Peterson at least
refrains from turning the original saying here into something specific to our
culture, and merely generalizes the thought. We might call this deculturation. But the hearty handshake is unquestionably an instance of
transculturation. It is a relatively unimportant instance, but in view of the
fact that Nida himself chose to illustrate his theory with it, one can hardly
claim that his theory rules out any kind of transculturation. And moreover,
his description of the methods goal even seems to require this kind of
adjustment. It aims to relate the receptor to modes of behavior relevant
within the context of his own culture. Other statements in the same
chapter show that this call for cultural accommodation is not a mere slip of
words:

A translation of dynamic equivalence aims at complete naturalness of

expression, and tries to relate the receptor to modes of behavior relevant
within the context of his own culture; it does not insist that he understand
the cultural patterns of the source-language context in order to
comprehend the message. Of course, there are varying degrees of such
dynamic-equivalence translations. One of the modern English translations
which, perhaps more than any other, seeks for equivalent effect is J.B.
Phillips rendering of the New Testament. In Romans 16:16 he quite
naturally translates greet one another with a holy kiss as give one
another a hearty handshake all around. (p. 159)
In connection with this last paragraph, we would also notice what Nida said
in an earlier book about the kind of interpretation conveyed in the example
from Phillips. In a chapter on Symbols and Their Meaning in Message and
Mission (1960) Nida describes one type of meaning thus:

In contrast with formal-equivalence translations others are oriented toward

dynamic equivalence. In such a translation the focus of attention is directed,
not so much toward the source message, as toward the receptor response.
A dynamic-equivalence (or D-E) translation may be described as one
concerning which a bilingual and bicultural person can justifiably say, That
is just the way we would say it. since a D-E translation is directed
primarily toward equivalence of response rather than equivalence of form,
it is important to define more fully the implications of the word natural as
applied to such translations. Basically, the word natural is applicable to
three areas of the communication process: for a natural rendering must fit
(1) the receptor language and culture as a whole, (2) the context of the
particular message, and (3) the receptor-language audience. The
conformance of a translation to the receptor language and culture as a
whole is an essential ingredient in any stylistically acceptable rendering. (pp.
166-7.)

What do authorities in circumstances later than the original communication

say that M [the message] ought to mean to R [the receptor], quite apart
from what S [the source] may have intended? Here can be treated the
exposition of the holy kiss and tongues in our present-day churches and
the meaning of the Constitution of the United States for present-day
American life. Few Biblical expositors interpret Pauls admonition of the holy
kiss as immediately applicable to our congregations. And the judges of the
Supreme Court know quite well that their interpretations have for many
years gone far beyond what the founding fathers intendedthough not
necessarily different from what some of them would have prescribed were
they living today. (p. 85)
We would prefer to see the word significance used rather than meaning
for this kind of pragmatic use or interpretation of the text, to avoid
theoretical confusion. 2 But Nida does not make such a clear distinction, and
regards the attempt to communicate this variety of meaning as a
legitimate part of the translators task. Although it may represent a
degree of dynamic equivalence which some may not wish to attempt, he

Here Nida twice repeats his dictum that a dynamic translation must be
adapted to the culture as a whole. If left unqualified, the practical
implications of this principle are enormous. But to be quite fair, we must
18

hasten to add that Nida also warned against attempts to completely

naturalize the text. He writes:

with resulting unfaithfulness to the content and the impact of the message.
(pp. 12-13.)

No translation that attempts to bridge a wide cultural gap can hope to

eliminate all traces of the foreign setting. For example, in Bible translating it
is quite impossible to remove such foreign objects as Pharisees,
Sadducees, Solomons temple, cities of refuge, or such Biblical themes as
anointing, adulterous generation, living sacrifice, and Lamb of God, for these
expressions are deeply imbedded in the very thought structure of the
message.

A conscientious translator will want the closest natural equivalent. It has

been argued, for example, that in present-day English a natural equivalent
of demon-possessed would be mentally distressed. This might be
regarded by some as a natural equivalent, but it is certainly not the closest
equivalent. Moreover, mentally distressed is a cultural reinterpretation
which does not take seriously the cultural outlook of the people of Biblical
times. (p. 13.)

It is inevitable also that when source and receptor languages represent very
different cultures there should be many basic themes and accounts which
cannot be naturalized by the process of translating. (pp. 167-8.)

There are situations, however, in which culturally strange objects must be

retained because of their symbolic values. For example, one cannot
dispense with a term for sheep or lambs, for these animals figure so largely
in the entire sacrificial system. Moreover, there are important analogies
employed in the New Testament, e.g., Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God.
Similarly, though crucifixion may not be known in the local culture, the use
of some expression for cross and crucifixion is essential, though it may
be necessary to provide some fuller explanation in a glossary or marginal
note. (p. 111.)

A key phrase here is all traces. The idea is that transculturation is

theoretically desirable and should be carried to a certain point for the sake
of dynamic equivalence, but unfortunately, not everything can be
naturalized for the modern reader without seriously compromising the
meaning of the text, and so the cultural accommodation cannot be perfect.
After giving some examples, Nida leaves it to the wisdom of translators to
discern what other foreign features of the text should be allowed to
remain in a Bible version.

We may then contrast a linguistic translation, which is legitimate, and a

cultural translation or adaptation, which is not. This is because we believe in
the significance of the historical events and situations just as they occurred.
It is the job of the pastor and teacher, not of the translator, to make the
cultural adaptation. (p. 134.)

In The Theory and Practice of Translation (1969), written by Nida and

Charles Taber, we find more warnings against cultural transformations of
the text that would involve major distortions or loss of meaning:

Probably these statements were prompted by criticism received from

persons who objected to Nidas statement in Toward a Science of
Translating that a Bible translation should be adapted to the culture as a
whole, and to his use of the Phillips paraphrase as a model. He uses now a
rendering from the Phillips paraphrase as a bad example: He says the
rendering in Luke 13:11, a woman who for eighteen years had been ill from
some psychological cause ( , lit. having a spirit
of infirmity) involves the introduction of information from some
nontextual source, and especially from some other cultural milieu. It shows
the introduction of cultural ideas which are at least absent, if not foreign,
to the culture of the text. (p. 134.) But these cautionary remarks are not

The best translation does not sound like a translation. Quite naturally one
cannot and should not make the Bible sound as if it happened in the next
town ten years ago, for the historical context of the Scriptures is important,
and one cannot remake the Pharisees and Sadducees into present-day
religious parties, nor does one want to, for one respects too much the
historical setting of the incarnation. In other words, a good translation of
the Bible must not be a cultural translation. Rather, it is a linguistic
translation. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it should exhibit in its
grammatical and stylistic forms any trace of awkwardness or strangeness.
That is to say, it should studiously avoid translationeseformal fidelity,
19

different in kind from the ones he made concerning foreign objects in his
earlier work. Although a thorough-going application of the principles of
dynamic equivalence actually requires transculturation, he recognizes that
in general this is not acceptable, and so he tries to define the limit of
legitimate application of his principles by drawing a line between linguistic
and cultural adjustments of the text.

This happens even if the translators do not intend for it to happen, because
culture will always have an effect on what is considered natural in any
language.
It seems that it was natural enough for a woman to call her husband her
lord in the days of Abraham, for we find in Genesis 18:12 that Sarah
laughed within herself, saying, After I am grown old shall I have pleasure, my
lord being old also? The Hebrew word translated lord here is
(adonai), and this definitely means lord, master, or owner. It is
unlikely that this noun would have been used merely in the sense
husband without the implication that the husband was in some sense the
owner or master of the wife. Someone might argue from the usage here
that husband should be recognized as a separate sense of the word
adonai, but the evidence for this is very weak, and so the KoehlerBaumgartner Lexicon does not give a sense of husband for it, and lists
Genesis 18:12 under the sense master. 4 Obviously this will not sit well
with some modern readers, because it is politically incorrect when
transferred to the modern context; but it is just the sort of thing we would
expect in the context of ancient Hebrew society. A scholar might even
dispute the genuineness of a text which does not contain such clear signs of
agreement with the historical context. We could almost date the modern
versions also, by their suitability in the modern context, when we find that
in several of them Sarah does not call Abraham lord, but only husband
(RSV, NEB, JB, TEV, CEV, NCV, NRSV). Perhaps the translators of these
versions feared that their readers would not understand that my lord is
Sarahs way of referring to her husband. Or perhaps they were guided by
the idea that the text should be translated the way we would say it, even
if they thought readers would probably be able to understand what Sarah
meant by my lord. But whatever reason might be given for it, this only
illustrates how the culture determines what is natural to the language of a
people. We grant that a literal translation of Sarahs words is not natural in
modern English. But her use of lord is meaningful, as Peter points out in 1
Peter 3:6. If it is not possible to convey the meaning of her words in
language which is natural to modern American readers, then it follows that
we must abandon that principle of translation. For the sake of the meaning
we must use language that is not natural for the receptors. And this is the
way it has to be, not because of some mindless literalism, but because of
the indissoluble connection between culture and semantics.

However, as Nida himself recognized and even emphasized in some places,

it is not really possible to draw a line between linguistic and cultural
matters. In an essay on lexicology published in 1958 he wrote:
Whatever we may personally think of structural analysis as divorced from
meaning or of the influence of grammatical categories on thought
processes, we must certainly admit the close relationship between language
and culture. Language cannot be properly treated except in terms of its
status and function as a part, a process, and, to some degree, a model of
culture, with a high degree of reciprocal reinforcement. Though one may
not wish to go all the way with Whorf, nevertheless, one cannot escape the
fact that language seems to provide the grooves for thought in the same
way that cultural patterns constitute the molds for more general modes of
behavior. 3
This means that in the realm of lexical semantics any attempt to enforce a
theoretical distinction between linguistic and cultural matters is
unrealistic and even fallacious. The meanings of words and sentences can
never be abstracted from their cultural setting and then conveyed in other
languages without loss or change of meaning. Translations can make the
meaning of the original accessible to people in other languages, but only if
the reader understands that it is a translation he is reading, and that
everything in the translation must be understood according to the context
of the original work. The reader cannot simply stay where he is in his own
culture, and have the meaning transferred to him there. He must enter into
the world of the text. In the previous chapter I gave several examples of
distorted meanings to illustrate this point, and many more will be given
below. I will also show repeatedly that the demand for complete
naturalness of expression (which continues to be characteristic of all
versions produced under the banner of dynamic equivalence) constantly
pushes the versions in the direction of deculturation if not transculturation.
20

People who are already familiar with the Bible and its background may not
realize the extent of the changes that would be necessary for a version
which really aspires to be dynamically equivalent for those who are
completely ignorant of the cultural setting. The problem here is not even
primarily verbal. For instance, in an old version of Judges 12:14 we read that
Abdon the son of Hillel judged Israel for eight years, and he had forty sons
and thirty sons sons, that rode on threescore and ten ass colts. The Good
News Bible modernizes this language by saying that he had forty sons and
thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys, but the meaning of this
will not be any clearer to modern readers if they do not know that having
many sons, and riding about on a donkey, were status symbols in Israel at
that time. The forty sons could not have been possible without multiple
wives, a sign of great wealth. We know that the infant mortality rate in
ancient times was more than 50 per cent, even among the wealthy. Ludwig
Khler informs us that Marcus Aurelius [Emperor of Rome] had thirteen
children, but the majority of them died young. Sultan Murad III (1574-95)
had one hundred and two children, but at the time of his death there were
only twenty sons and twenty-seven daughters still living. 5 Only when this
kind of information is provided can the reader really appreciate what the
text is designed to convey. American readers who are unfamiliar with status
symbols of the second millennium before Christ are likely to associate
donkey-riding with poor hillbillies and other rural folk of low degree. Having
many sons, by several wives, is not a sign of status in modern Western
society. So it cannot be taken for granted that uneducated readers will
intuitively understand that the purpose of the statement is to indicate how
wealthy, blessed, and prominent this man was. Implicit in this statement is
quite a bit of cultural information. It is not hard for a teacher to explicate it,
but what can a translator do with this verse to make explanations
unnecessary? If any reference to the donkeys is retained, the reader needs
to be brought into an ancient setting where riding on a donkey was a luxury.

But they know not the thoughts of the Lord,

Neither understand they his counsel:
For he hath gathered them as the sheaves to the threshingfloor.
Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion:
For I will make thine horn iron,
And I will make thy hoofs brass:
And thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples:
And thou shalt devote their gain unto the Lord,
And their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.
Why is the daughter of Zion (Jerusalem) suddenly transformed into a
beast with horns and hoofs in this passage? Because in ancient times, the
sheaves of the harvest were often threshed by driving oxen over them on
the threshingfloor. Thus the nations who know not God shall be threshed, as
the wheat is beaten from the chaff by the hoof of the farmers ox. Now, this
metaphor should be interpreted, and a Christian preacher would do well to
explain it in a spiritual sense, after the example of Edward Pusey:
The very image of the threshing implies that this is no mere destruction.
While the stubble is beaten or bruised to small pieces, and the chaff is far
more than the wheat, and is carried out of the floor, there yet remains the
seed-corn. So in the great judgments of God, while most is refuse, there yet
remains over, what is severed from the lost heap and wholly consecrated to
Him. (The Minor Prophets, 1885.)
But the translation of the passage cannot and should not be adapted to the
limits of someone who does not know anything about threshing. It is very
instructive to see how this passage is handled in some dynamic
equivalence versions. In the New Living Translation, instead of Arise and
thresh (), O daughter of Zion, we read Rise up and destroy the nations,
O Jerusalem. In the Good News Bible we find, People of Jerusalem, go and
punish your enemies! I will make you as strong as a bull with iron horns
Likewise in the Contemporary English Version, Smash them to pieces, Zion!
Ill let you be like a bull . These loose translations depart from the
threshing metaphor in the Hebrew text, presumably because the translators
felt that it would not be understood. Instead of a literal translation of ,
thresh, which implies the ox, two of them substitute the figure of a

Familiarity with ancient agriculture is necessary to understand many things

in the Bible. As just one example of this, consider the complex metaphor
used in Micah 4:11-13.
And now many nations are assembled against thee,
That say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye see its desire upon Zion.
21

rampaging bull. Although both figures involve an animal with horns and
hoofs, the meaning is quite altered. And in the rendering of the New Living
Translation we note how destroy the nations clashes with the observation
made by Pusey, that the very image of the threshing implies that this is no
mere destruction, and practically excludes it. Thus readers and preachers
alike are paying a high price for this pottage of equivalence, which is really
no equivalence at all.

places, symbolizes the desolation of the coming exile. But an English

translation cannot convey all that Jeremiah means by cut off your nezer.
Wilderness of JudeaNida has said that the relationship between receptor
and message should be substantially the same as that which existed
between the original receptors and the message. But how, exactly, can the
message of Jeremiah 7:29 be so translated? Let us try to imagine what could
be done to make this verse seem natural to a reader living now, in a
location like Ohio. This reader has never heard anyone speak to a whole city
as if it were a woman. He does not, of course, live in Jerusalem. He has
never heard of a woman cutting her hair in mourning, and he is not sure
what a lamentation might involve. Does it mean crying? He doesnt know
a Nazarite from a Jebusite. There are no barren heights in Ohio. And
perhaps he does not accept the idea that God sometimes gets angry. I think
this would describe the average person in my home town. Just how are we
supposed to make the message of Jeremiah here seem natural to him and
his culture, like something he hears every day, expressed just the way we
would say it, while also seeing to it that there is an equivalent effect
when he reads our translation?

The meaning of many expressions in the Hebrew Bible cannot be conveyed

in ordinary English without explanations. One literal translation of Jeremiah
7:29 reads,
Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away,
And take up a lamentation on the bare heights;
For the Lord hath rejected and forsaken
The generation of his wrath. (ERV)
Here the translators of the English Revised Version have done what they
could. The words O Jerusalem have been added to express the force of the
feminine singular forms used in the sentence. These forms are used because
Jeremiah is employing a common trope in which cities are figured as women
(cp. 6:23). When he tells Jerusalem to cut off her hair he is partly alluding to
an ancient mourning custom a form of self-humiliation practiced by
women in extreme demonstrations of mourning, like the tearing of
garments. 6 But a marginal note on thine hair indicates that a more literal
rendering of the Hebrew word ( nezer) is crown, which provides a clue
to even more meaning. Actually the primary meaning of is
consecration, as symbolized by a crown or by the uncut hair of one who
has made a Nazarite vow. When used in reference to the hair of the
Nazarite, it denotes the hair as a sign of consecration. 7 Only here does the
word seem to be used in reference to the long hair of a woman. The word
shephayim bare heights probably refers to the barren and windswept hills of the Judean Wilderness east of Jerusalem. We note that the
word is used here for poetic reasons, indicating not only a desolate location
away from Zion, but also one which is bare, like the head of the mourner. 8
Even casual readers of English versions might discern that the complex
figure used here, of a defiled and grieving Jerusalem crying out in waste

The impracticality of these goals should be obvious in this case. We can

modernize the language somewhat, using your and has instead of
thine and hath; and perhaps instead of take up a lamentation we
could have sing a funeral song, as in the Good News Bible. But this does
not bring us very far in the direction of Nidas goals. Our naive reader will
only wonder what is meant by a funeral song. At the last funeral I
attended we sang Jesus Loves Me, because it was the favorite song of the
deceased; but this is not the kind of song that Jeremiah has in mind. Few
people in America have ever heard anything like the ( kinah) to which
Jeremiah refers, a heart-rending elegy sung at funerals in ancient Israel.
There is nothing even remotely equivalent to it in modern American culture.
We cannot make this verse say things the way we would say them if it
says things that we never have any occasion to say. How can a distortion or
loss of meaning be avoided in the attempt to make all this seem natural to
our reader, when it is inherently not natural to him or his culture?
ShaphayimThe New Living Translation makes things easier here with its
weep alone on the mountains, but much of the meaning is lost in this
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paraphrastic rendering. Instead of the poetic bare heights we have

mountains as if the barrenness of the location were not an important
part of the meaning intended by Jeremiah. The articulate lamentation is
reduced to mere weeping alone. This reduction of meaning is typical of the
dynamic equivalence versions. While claiming to make the meaning
accessible, they make much of it inaccessible. In theory, the purpose is to
convey the meaning to everyone; but in practice, anything that requires an
explanation for the average reader is simply eliminated.

common expectations of naive readers, and it generates many problems for

them. Take, for example, the famous question about Cains wife. In Genesis
4:17 we read And Cain knew his wife, before the existence of any woman
(other than Eve) has been mentioned, and so the skeptic captiously asks,
Where did Cain get his wife? The answer is simple (he married a sister),
but many are temporarily baffled by the question, because they would have
expected at least some mention of the fact that daughters were born to
Adam and Eve before one is abruptly brought on the scene as Cains wife.
The reader has to reckon not only with the fact that the sons of Adam would
have only their own sisters to marry, but he must also get used to the fact
that the narrators of the Bible tend to omit things that we would certainly
not omit if we had composed the stories. The difficulty felt by readers here
arises from false expectations about the Bibles literary form, and it
disappears only when it is recognized that the biblical writers felt no need to
mention the birth of daughters, 9 or to explain the existence of Cains wife.
When these narratives were first written and compiled, they satisfied the
expectations of an ancient Near Eastern audience; but nothing short of a rewriting of the Bible, after the manner of Sholem Aschs The Apostle or
Walter Wangerins The Book of God, could bring them into line with modern
expectations. It is for this reason that works of biblical fiction like Aschs and
Wangerins have been written. They alone can satisfy the culturallydetermined expectations of modern readers.

The hard truth is, there is no easy and familiar form of colloquial language
that can express in English what Jeremiah says in the Hebrew. The use of
familiar words like song, weep, and mountains only prevents readers
from recognizing that Jeremiah is talking about something that is unfamiliar
to themsomething outside their experience, which they must learn about.
I do not think it is unrealistic to expect people to learn things about the
ancient culture and geography of Israel while reading the Bible. Ordinary
readers of the Bible will pick up items of knowledge like this from a properly
translated and annotated text. The word lamentation will convey the
meaning of kinah if readers infer its biblical meaning from other places in
which the word is used, as in the Book of Lamentations. The very
unusualness of the word will suggest to them that it refers to something
unusual or even foreign to their experience, and will facilitate the linguistic
process whereby English words acquire biblical senses in the mind of the
reader. The meaning of nezer is more difficult to convey, but it can be
explained in a footnote. The bare heights (shephayim) can be explained
with a map and a picture. The advocates of easy-going dynamic
equivalence will naturally scoff at this old-fashioned method, which
requires the reader to avail himself of the help provided in the margin, and
to learn through study. But the patronizing and reductionistic tendencies of
their own method are much too obvious to be denied. Instead of providing
an accurate translation which requires the reader to do some thinking and
learning, they would keep their readers in perpetual tutelage.

Modern readers who lack an education in literature sometimes fail to

understand the Bible correctly because of a natural tendency to interpret
things literally. I once attended an adult Bible-study class at a Baptist
church, led by a layman, who asserted that Sarah, the wife of Abraham, was
a Hittite. He referred to Ezekiel 16:3, your father was an Amorite and your
mother a Hittite. This man was not an idiot. In fact he was a dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences at the local university. But his background was
in engineering, and I suppose he must have had little exposure to literature,
for it did not occur to him that the prophet was speaking metaphorically.
Another convention of prophetic speech often misconstrued by the literalminded reader is hyperbolerhetorical exaggeration to make a point. A
typical example is when Ezekiel says that God will make the land of Egypt
an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of
Ethiopia; no foot of man shall pass through it, and no foot of beast shall pass
through it; it shall be uninhabited forty years. (29:10-11.) If we interpret

The impracticality of attempts at dynamic equivalence become even more

obvious if we turn our attention to units of discourse larger than the
sentence or paragraph. Readers of the Bible will find that in order to
understand it one must give up any expectations that the narratives will be
composed according to modern Western conventions. This is one of the
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this literally, we must say that it never happened. But that is not at all
necessary. Bible commentaries usually explain it along these lines:

seems that they commonly confused with , meaning

benevolent, and understood it as a name. 11 Despite this, we do not find
in the New Testament any explanation of the term, or any avoidance of it.
The writers simply required readers to know what Christ means.

Forty yearsanswering to the forty years in which the Israelites, their

former bondsmen, wandered in the wilderness. Jerome remarks the
number forty is one often connected with affliction and judgment. The rains
of the flood in forty days brought destruction on the world. Moses, Elias,
and the Saviour fasted forty days. The interval between Egypts overthrow
by Nebuchadnezzar and the deliverance by Cyrus, was about forty years.
The ideal forty years wilderness-state of social and political degradation,
rather than a literal non-passing of man or beast for that term, is mainly
intended. 10

The New Testament also assumes that the reader is familiar with many
aspects of ancient Jewish culture that cannot be learned from the Old
Testament. Lukes use of the phrase a sabbath days journey in Acts 1:12
assumes that the reader is familiar with the Jewish custom of limiting travel
on the Sabbath day to about two thirds of a mile (two thousand cubits, to
be exact). 12 And the knowledge assumed by the writers consists of far
more than isolated bits of information like this. Consider what the reader
must know to understand Matthew 12:38-41.

I am not aware of any Bible version that tries to prevent overly literal
interpretions of this and many other verses, and I do not think it would be
wise, because Christians disagree about what should be taken literally, and
any attempt to steer people away from literal interpretations woud require
quite a bit of tendentious paraphrasing. What can be done? If we want
people to understand the Bible, we can hardly ignore this problem. But it
cannot be solved by a translator. The only practical method of helping
uneducated people to recognize the use of symbolic numbers and
hyperbole in Scripture is to educate them about it.

Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we
would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be
given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet: for as Jonah was three days
and three nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall
stand up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for
they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, a greater than Jonah is
here.

The New Testament presents similar problems for the uninitiated. In his
preaching, Jesus often used exaggerated language to make his point, and
the modern reader who is not used to this rhetorical technique must learn
to recognize it. And all the writers of the New Testament assume that the
reader is familiar with the Old Testament, or at least with some important
elements of Jewish religion based on it. Pauls argument in Galatians 3 is
addressed to recently-converted Gentiles, but it would not have made much
sense to a reader who did not already know who Abraham was. Even the
title Christ would be confusing to Greeks who knew nothing about
the Old Testament, because the sense anointed one is a Hebraism
introduced by the Septuagint, used only in Jewish Greek, and the custom of
anointing kings was unknown outside of Judaism. In ordinary secular Greek
the word was an adjective meaning to be used as an ointment,
specifically a pharmaceutical ointment. So Jesus the Christ would have
meant the ointment Jesus, if it meant anything at all to the heathen. But it

In order to fully understand these three sentences, readers must know who
the scribes and Pharisees were, and what kind of sign they were asking
for. They must know the story of Jonah, and of Christs death and
resurrection. They must also know the meaning of the phrases Son of
Man, the judgment, adulterous generation, and heart of the earth
the last two being understood as figures of speech. If I were giving an
unhurried lesson on this passage, I would also like to explain that
generation does not express all that is meant by here, because
refers not only to a group of people born at about the same time, but
also to people of a common origin and nature (something like brood or
kindred). And I would think readers must have some explanation about
how Old Testament stories present types of the Messiah, in order to
understand why Christ focuses on the three days in the belly of the
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whale. Again, what can a dynamic equivalence version do to convey all

this?

those born of women used in reference to humanity. This is a Hebraism,

corresponding to the phrase used in Job 14:1, 15:14, and 25:4. The
expression used in these places is not idiomatic in secular Greek or English,
and doubtless many readers who are unfamiliar with idioms of Scripture will
fail to perceive its import, but it is not merely another way of saying all who
have ever lived, as the NLT translates it in the Gospels, or humanity,
human, or who in all the earth, as we find it translated in Job. In
Scripture the facts pertaining to the birth of a man are supposed to indicate
his nature. Therefore is not just a pleonastic way of saying
, mankind. It refers to man according to his condition from birth, or
even according to his inherited nature, which is often associated with
weakness and impurity in Scripture. The meaning of born of woman
includes the concept expressed elsewhere in Scripture by that which is
born of flesh (John 3:6, compare 1:13) and born according to the flesh
(Gal. 4:23, 29). 13 If we translate it simply as humanity, the most
interesting part of the meaning is neglected and made completely invisible
to the English reader.

I chose this last example (Matthew 12:38-41) because Nida himself, in a

sentence we have quoted above, mentioned the Pharisees and the
adulterous generation concept as examples of foreign elements which
cannot be converted into something more familiar to modern Americans
without a loss of meaning. To say that they are deeply imbedded in the
very thought structure of the message is a rather obscure way of putting it.
A better way of describing this linguistic situation would be to say that these
words have meaning within the context of first-century Judaism that they
cannot retain when taken outside the whole interconnected system of
people and ideas that constitutes the religious culture of the time. The
phrase adulterous generation serves to invoke a concept developed in the
writings of the prophets, that the people of Israel have violated the terms of
their covenant with God like an adulterous wife, and have estranged
themselves from the covenant, like the Gentiles who worship other gods.
Jesus, who speaks as a prophet here, describes the that desires a
sign in these terms because he is comparing them (unfavorably) to the
heathen people of old Nineveh. One cannot convert adulterous into
faithless, as in the New Living Translation, without losing important
culturally-specific content. The complex metaphorical concept represented
by the phrase adulterous generation is a cultural specialty for which there
is no ready-made equivalent in other cultures and languages. Again, Nida
recognizes this in the case of Pharisees and adulterous generation, in his
short list of foreign objects. But the point I would make now is this: the
same may be said for all of the things I mentioned in connection with
Matthew 12:38-41 above. None of the key words of the passage can retain
their meaning outside the total context of people and ideas to which they
belong. Acknowledging a few terms as exceptions really misrepresents the
situation, because the meaning of words and sentences in a discourse like
this cannot ordinarily be abstracted from the cultural context. The mind of
the reader must become acculturated to the world of the Bible to get the
meaning.

Someone may object that a more literal translation leaves the uninformed
reader in no better position, because the background information must be
supplied in either case. But it is only the promoters of the dynamic
approach who claim to remove the need for such a learning process, by
making the text immediately understandable to people of widely different
cultures. We grant that a smoother path is made for the reader when
awkward and foreign-sounding expressions like those born of women and
sons and sons sons are converted to something which flows better in our
ears. But even small adjustments like this, which might seem to be only a
matter of style to many, often leave out part of the meaning, or involve little
transculturations which distort the meaning in subtle ways. 14
In Matthew 1:19 the New Living Translation describes Joseph as Marys
fianc. But the Greek text calls him her man, the usual way
of referring to a womans husband. The Jews made no verbal distinction
between a husband and a fianc. In fact they would not even have
understood what we mean by fianc. They observed a custom more
accurately called betrothal, and they had no practical need for a verbal
distinction between a husband and a fianc because the betrothal in itself
established a state of marriage, and was legally binding. The only thing

Foreign objects that require some degree of linguistic acculturation are

especially abundant in the words of Christ. In the dominical saying recorded
in Matthew 11:11 and Luke 7:28 we find the expression
25

lacking in betrothal was the physical consummation of the marriage. The

NLTs use of fianc here is anachronistic and misleading, because it implies
that the relationship was like a modern engagement to be married. We
see the same thing in Luke 2:5, where Mary is described as Josephs fiance.
The word here denotes not a modern-style engagement
but a state of betrothal. This is a good example of why it is impractical to try
to translate the Bible into a form of English which is entirely natural for
todays readers while also accurately communicating the meaning and
content of the original biblical texts, as the versions preface claims. A
modern and familiar style is suitable for modern and familiar ideas. But very
often the ideas of the biblical text are not modern, and they are unfamiliar
to modern people who have not received any prior instruction in the
historical background of the text. It would be better to translate
accurately as her husband and as betrothed, and
to provide an explanation in a footnote.

The most important kind of cultural background information concerns items

of mental culture, which often cannot be conveyed in quick explanations.
Take for example the usage of the word (truth) in Johns Gospel.
This has been the subject of many discussions among scholars, and not all
agree in their conclusions; but one thing agreed upon by all is that Johns
usage is anything but modern or even common in its day. When John
quotes Christ saying I am the truth (14:6) he is not
just using some idiomatic Greek expression meaning I am truthful.
is no more idiomatic in Greek than I am the truth is in
English. In two places we find used as the object of (do the
truth, in John 3:21 and 1 John 1:6), apparently after the pattern of the
Hebrew expression , which means keep faith, i.e., act faithfully
(Genesis 32:10, 47:29, Nehemiah 9:33). 15 This may indicate that Johns
bears connotations, at least, derived from the Hebrew equivalent
. But the dualistic meaning attached to in Hellenistic
philosophical writings eternal spiritual reality as opposed to the
unsubstantial and temporary things of this world is clearly intended in
most places where the word is used.

There are other places in this version where the marriage customs have
been accidentally modernized through the use of modern expressions. In
ancient Israel, a girl was given to a husband by her father, usually when
the girl was about sixteen years old; and so in the Hebrew text of
Deuteronomy 7:3 Israelite fathers are instructed, You shall not give your
daughter to [a Canaanites] son, nor take his daughter for your son. But the
NLT paraphrases this sentence, Do not let your daughters and sons marry
their sons and daughters, as if the father had only to let a son or
daughter marry. Now, presumably the NLT translators had the Hebrew text
in front of them and were able to read it, and yet they chose not to translate
it literally. Why? Is it because they felt that modern readers would not be
able to understand what is meant by giving your daughter? This seems
unlikely, because we all know what it means when a father gives a
daughter in marriage, and we even make fathers go through a ritualistic
giving of the bride in our wedding ceremonies. The expression may be oldfashioned, but it is understood. It seems that the NLT translators avoided
the literal rendering here because they wanted to use a more modernsounding and idiomatic expression. Do not let your daughters and sons
marry is more idiomatic in modern English, to be sure, but there is a
cultural reason why this is more idiomatic today: it reflects modern Western
realities of courtship, engagement, and marriage.

My kingdom is not of this world You say that I am a King. For this I was
born and for this I have come into the worldto bear witness to the Truth.
Everyone who is of the Truth hears my voice. (John 18:37)
The meaning of these pregnant words, concerning a spiritual kingdom, to
which those who are of the truth belong, cannot be adequately conveyed
by any English translation if the reader is not familiar with the background
of Jewish-Hellenistic thought, in which truth and true
refer to the realm of pure and eternal reality, as distinct from this world of
transient phenomena. 16 We have no word or any stock phrases that could
evoke the Hellenistic concept of in modern colloquial English,
because it is mystical and foreign to anything that might be expressed in an
ordinary conversation. For most readers of the Bible, who lack this
background, an explanation is necessary. What we find in versions that try
to make explanations unnecessary, by use of equivalent expressions that
are easily understood by everyone, is something rather different from the
true meaning. For example, in John 18:37 the New Living Translation has, I
came to bring truth to the world. All who love the truth recognize that what
I say is true. This banality is the closest natural equivalent that the
26

translator could find in the conceptual scheme of uneducated modern

peoplebut it is not equivalent to the original, and it will only interfere with
a teachers efforts to convey what Jesus is really saying here. A true
understanding requires some study or instruction, in which the English word
truth receives a biblical sense borrowed from in its Hellenistic
milieu. Any English words used for this purpose must be adapted and bent
to the meaning of the ancient Greek. There is no possibility of conveying the
meaning in Common English.

a culturally-determined mentality that is incongruent with the teachings of

the Bible.
5. Giants and Windmills
Don QuixoteIn the famous story of Don Quixote, a Spanish nobleman who
has been reading legends about giant-slayers, among other things, goes
forth to live the life of romantic adventure. Coming upon some windmills on
a plain, he sees them as giants, and attacks them. One might say that the
windmills were the closest thing to giants in his environment. But what a
difference there is between giants and their closest equivalent! Still, he
goes from one adventure to the next, translating the stories he had read
into real life, using whatever equivalents he can find around him.

It sometimes happens that the common English requirement works

indirectly to avoid or suppress certain biblical attitudes and ideas. In most
versions of the Bible it will be noticed that the people of God are sometimes
called the saints. The words commonly translated thus are in
Hebrew, in Aramaic, and in Greek. When these words are used
in reference to people, they mean the people set apart and sanctified or
consecrated to God. Our word saint began as sanct, borrowed from
Latin (sanctus, holy one), as an exact equivalent for the original words. But
in the New Living Translation is translated with such phrases as the
Lords people (Psa. 34:9), and as his very own people (Rom. 1:7),
Gods children (Rom. 12:13), Gods people (Phil. 1:1), believers
(Rom. 8:27) Christians (Rom. 15:25), and so forth, in which the basic idea
of sanctification goes unexpressed. The same is true of the Good News
Bible, and of the 2011 revision of the New International Version. Clearly the
reason for this is that modern Christians do not usually call themselves the
saints or the sanctified ones. And a translation that adheres to habits of
common English must use words as they are commonly used today.

I would describe Nidas theory as Quixotic, in the sense that it leads to many
incongruous identifications. A translator should not be trying to bring the
original message into a present-day context to make it directly relevant, if
in fact it does not belong in the present. Cultural differences are not just an
inconvenient barrier to conveying the message to modern people. The
original message itself pertains to the original situation, and it cannot always
be abstracted from its situation and transferred to another setting, as if the
cultural context were just some accidental stage-scenery. The attempt to
naturalize a text that comes from so long ago, and so far away, is bound to
come to grief. Readers should instead be conscious of a distance between
themselves and the original receptors of the biblical writings, because an
awareness of the differences as well as the similarities is necessary for right
interpretation and application. Whether they realize it or not, all Biblereaders are interpreters of the Bible, and they must take into consideration
the historical context. This is one more reason why the Bible should not be
naturalized in a translation.

But why is it that we do not we call ourselves the saints or holy ones?
Probably because in our modern church culture it would be seen as
presumptuous, or perhaps we just dont feel that we deserve the name of
saints. It is a name that makes some uncomfortable demands upon us. This
same feeling, a thousand years ago, may be one reason why some began to
reserve the term sanct for only the holiest Christians, so that saint came
to have the ecclesiastical sense: persons who are formally recognized by
the Church as having by their exceptional holiness of life attained an exalted
station in heaven (Oxford English Dictionary). The history of this word
illustrates the fact that ordinary language is not always to be accepted as
theologically neutral. It is shaped by our culture, and it sometimes promotes

I do not want to discourage the natural impulse of Christians to apply the

teachings of the Bible to themselves personally, insofar as possible. This is
actually very important, and I think most people do not do enough of it. But
it must be recognized that not everything in the Bible is equally relevant for
everyone.

27

Consider, for example, Christs polemic against the Pharisees of his day. It
presupposes their dominance at the time, as the established authorities in a
very legalistic religious regime. In this context, his teachings often stand out
as relatively liberal. Certainly many of his sayings were designed to
promote an attitude more liberal than the prevailing one, concerning such
things as sabbath observance and fasting. So an equivalent response in
our own times would be for us to become more liberal than usual, and less
careful about the Sabbath, fasting, prayer vigils, and so forth. But is that
really appropriate for us, who are already so liberal, and so much at ease in
Zion? If Jesus were to return now, I doubt that his arraignment against our
generation would have much to do with excessive traditionalism, legalism,
and works-righteousness. He is more likely to convict it of complacency:
Remember then from what you have fallen, repent, and do the works you
did at first! (Rev. 2:5). In our effete times, harping on the evils of legalism,
and using the most rigorous or scrupulous people as bad examples, is like
sparring with shadows. The opponents are now absent and largely
imaginary. We cannot edit Scripture to suit our ideas of what needs to be
said today, of course; and in any case, different things need to be said to
different people within the same cultural setting; but a proper
interpretation and application of Christs polemic against the Pharisees
comes when the reader knows just who the Pharisees were, what the
religious culture of the Jews was like in the middle of the first century, and
how radically different it was from the culture of today. The dynamic
equivalence principle leads instead to the transformation of the Pharisees
into timeless bogeys, to be equated with anyone in the modern Church who
would criticize the prevailing complacency and lukewarmness. Or worse still,
it may lead to a facile equation of the Pharisees with modern-day Jews
who are more like modern Episcopalians than ancient Pharisees. Ultraobservant Jews who do resemble the Pharisees are today a marginal group
which does not represent modern Judaism any more than the Amish
represent Christianity, and they do not pose any threat to the Church.

themselves. How can the reader of a dynamic equivalence version avoid

equating the Jews who persecuted the early Church with the Jews of
their own time and place, when the whole purpose of the translation is to
produce an equivalent effect in the language of today? Burkes solution
to the problem is to eliminate the word Jews from Bible translations, so
that the reader will not think of modern Jews wherever Jews are criticized in
the Bible. He boasts that Bible versions produced by the ABS have been
most innovative in this regard, and criticizes more literal versions
(specifically the RSV and NRSV) for not being sensitive to this issue. But
Burke fails to recognize that the problem is created by dynamic
equivalence in the first place. A version that preserves the forms of
antiquity and does not try to force the Bible into modern molds does not
invite such anachronistic equations. But when Jesus and his apostles are
disguised as modern Americans, the reader can hardly be blamed for
interpreting them as if they were.
An outstanding example of inappropriate contemporization is the use of
Israelis instead of Israelites in the Living Bible (Exodus 9:4; 12:34; 14:20;
19:1; Judges 7:14; 1 Sam. 14:21; Isaiah 14:1, etc.). The use of Israelis in
these contexts equates the ancient people of Israel with the occupants of
the modern-day state of Israel.

But the Lord will have mercy on the Israelis; they are still his special ones.
He will bring them back to settle once again in the land of Israel. And many
nationalities will come and join them there and be their loyal allies. The
nations of the world will help them to return, and those coming to live in
their land will serve them. Those enslaving Israel will be enslavedIsrael
shall rule her enemies! (Living Bible, Isa. 14:1-2)
This is congenial to certain literalistic interpretations of prophecy, to be
sure; but it involves the same kind of cultural foreshortening that would
equate modern-day Jews with the scribes and Pharisees of ancient
Palestine. On the same principle, one might also translate ( King of
Babylon) as President of Iraq. But surely it is better to translate the text
in such a way that readers can sense the cultural and temporal gap that
intervenes between the ancient civilizations and our own. Whatever is
proper to the ancient world should not be domesticated.

David Burke, former Director of Translations for the American Bible Society,
has warned that poorly informed readers are likely to interpret the
polemic against the Jews in the New Testament as if Jews of all time are
somehow implicated. 1 His concern is well-founded, because for more than
forty years his organization has been promoting the idea that poorly
informed readers should be able to read (and thus interpret) the Bible for
28

Jesus himself certainly did not call upon the people of his day to believe in
him as the Son of God.

The general point made here is, not everyone should identify with the
original receptors in all respects, because these original receptors were
often addressed in situations radically different from our own. If the shoe
fits, we should by all means wear it. But in order to know whether it fits or
not, we must have knowledge of the original cultural context. In Scripture
there are many lessons that are always pertinent, for which the historical
setting makes little difference. But very often it does make some difference
when, where, how, why, and to whom something is said.

How much does a person have to know or believe in order to become a

Christian? Must one believe in the virgin birth, or in the bodily
resurrection? Must one affirm that Jesus is the Son of God in the full sense
of the later Christian confessions and creeds? Jesus himself certainly did not
call upon the people of his day to believe in him as the Son of God his
message was the proclamation of Gods Rule, not of himself as the Son of
God.

6. The Criterion of Acceptability

A few observations about the content and the original setting of Mark will
illustrate what we are trying to say. Although Mark does refer to Jesus as
the Son of God, the meaning that he gives to this term is far different from
what John calls upon his readers to believe about Jesus sonship. One of the
difficulties that we face is that Marks context, for example, is changed as
soon as we place it side by side with another Gospel. We immediately
understand Son of God in Mark in the light of the meaning that it has in the
other Gospel(s) to which it is joined in the NT collection. This is just as
serious an error as taking a verse out of its context and interpreting it freely,
without regard for its original contextual setting. It is in fact almost the same
as the translator who wanted to remove a verse from Romans and place it
in the Gospel of John, where he thought it was more fitting. Marks own
context is not the NT setting, but its historical context in the life of the
Christian community to which Mark wrote, long before it became a part of
the sacred collection. So then, if on the basis of Marks Gospel we say that a
person must believe in Jesus as the Son of God in the sense of any of the
other Gospels, we are demanding of that person a faith that Marks own
readers were not expected to have.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your

bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable [] to God, which is your
spiritual service [ ]. And be not conformed to this age
[], but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may
approve [ ] what is the will of Godgood and
acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2)
In this passage the Apostle Paul implies that people whose minds are
fashioned by the culture of the present are not acceptable to God, and
that they will not discern or approve what is acceptable to him. But many
Bible-translation pundits of our time seem to have a higher view of the
age. Some even advocate making the Word of God more acceptable to our
age by toning down or eliminating things that might offend modern readers.
In an article published in The Bible Translator, Arie de Kuiper and Barclay
Newman 1 inform us that literal renderings of Son of God and
similar expressions in the New Testament are so offensive to Muslims that
many refuse to read a text which contains them. In order to remove this
hindrance to Bible-reading among Muslims, they suggest the use of a
functional translation, like Gods Servant wherever such a rendering can
be justified on exegetical grounds. In an effort to provide an exegetical
justification for this rendering in the first three Gospels and in the Acts, they
argue that in those books son of God is a Messianic title which expresses
an adoptionist Christology, not the Christology of Johns Gospel or of the
later Christian confessions and creeds. Furthermore, they maintain that

It does not escape our notice that this involves the promotion of the
unitarian Christology favored by liberals, along with the whole critical
approach to the Bible that sets aside Johns Gospel as a spurious later
development, among other things ostensibly for the purpose of making
Bibles less offensive to Muslim readers.
One finds this same kind of advice in the writings of Nida. In From One
Language to Another (1986) Nida and his co-author Jan de Waard advise
29

translators to take care that their translations are not only readable and
intelligible, but also acceptable to prospective readers. This criterion of
acceptability refers very broadly to the readiness with which people are
happy to receive such a text and read it (p. 205). In an example of how this
principle should be applied, they suggest that something which is offensive
to the versions constituency should be eliminated if some additional
reason can be given for its elimination:

But in fact it was not well-received in the UBS, and the first translators who
followed this advice were advised by SIL and the Wycliffe Bible Translators.
One member of the SIL Board of Directors, D. Richard Brown, has published
a series of articles on the subject which largely agree with Newmans
arguments, and for many years has promoted these ideas in the Wycliffe
organization. 4 Brown maintains that Son of God is unacceptable because
it is misunderstood by Muslims, who think Christians believe that Jesus is
the Son of God because he was begotten by a physical union of God with
Mary. He also claims that the Arabic word for son (ibn) can only be
understood in this biological sense, and never metaphorically. And he insists
that even if Muslims are taught the true meaning of Son in Christian
theology, they still cannot accept the word, because they can never quite
get the unbiblical notion of its meaning out of their heads. We have good
reason to think, however, that at least two of these claims are false, and
that more than anything it is the true meaning of Son, in the doctrine of
the Trinity, which is the real cause of stumbling for Muslims, just as it has
always been for Jews. 5 We grant that this article of faith is not well
understood by those who lack competent teachers, and indeed it has been a
stumbling block for millions who could not believe. But the futility of
Browns arguments are manifest when we simply turn to 1 John 5:1-20 and
ask, Is it really possible to avoid words meaning Father and Son in a
translation of this passage, without changing its meaning? If such terms
cannot be avoided here, and in other places, what is the point of avoiding
them elsewhere? Acceptibility is improved only for the moment, by a device
which will eventually be seen as misleading, if the reader goes on to learn
Trinitarian interpretations of the New Testament. The acceptable
translation not only assumes, but also depends upon the readers continued
ignorance of Christianity, and it may even foster outright opposition to
Trinitarian teachings among converts who are influenced by it. Whatever
their professed motives may be, the organizations that support this
missionary tactic are sowing seeds of discord and heresy in the Church.

Readability is simply a measure of the ease with which people can read a
text. Intelligibility is a measure of the capacity of people to understand the
text correctly, and acceptability is a measure of the readiness with which
people are happy to receive such a text and read it. Acceptability of a text
depends very largely upon the style, but for certain constituencies some
texts of the Scriptures may be more acceptable than others. For example, in
the Muslim world the Gospel of Matthew is generally more acceptable than
the other Gospels. For one thing, it begins with a genealogy starting with
Abraham, and it contains a number of references to fulfilled prophecy cited
from the Old Testament. But for the Gospel of Mark, Muslim anathema is
waiting at the first verse when the variant reading Jesus, the Son of God
[sic] is put into the text. Since many scholars believe that there are strong
reasons for not considering this text as original, such a stumbling block
should not be introduced in the very first verse (Slomp, 1977, 143-50),
especially if the translation is being prepared primarily for an Islamic
constituency.
Subsequently Nida published an article on Intelligibility and Acceptability in
Bible Translating in which he again pointed out that a perfectly intelligible
translation of the Scriptures may not be acceptable, and emphasized the
need for paying greater attention to acceptability through increased
concern for more satisfactory stylistic features, or stylistic
appropriateness. 2 But here the main point seems to be that
acceptability is improved by avoiding things that are ideologically
offensive, or in some way objectionable on religious grounds. The primary
reason for the elimination of Son of God is to avoid offending Muslims.
The text-critical reason is secondary. 3

The goal of avoiding offense has led some translators to worry about how
their translations will be perceived by Jews also. One senior member of the
New Revised Standard Version committee has stated that a Jewish scholar
was included on the committee so as to provide an assurance that the
NRSV translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Christian Old Testament)
would contain nothing offensive to our Jewish neighbors. 6 Of course there

One might expect advice like this to be received most readily by translators
working under the auspices of the liberal-dominated United Bible Societies.
30

are many passages of the Old Testament that were especially designed to
offend those who imagined that they are the chosen people of God
merely because of their ethnicity, but we cannot suppose that the
elimination of these are in view. Probably offensive in this context refers
to distinctively Christian interpretations, which were in fact carefully
excluded from the NRSV Old Testament. Unfortunately for these revisers
and their readers, the principled exclusion of Christian interpretations
necessarily involved the adoption of an heretical Marcionite approach to the
interpretation of the Bible as a whole, 7 although it was not possible for
them to remove Christian interpretations of the Old Testament from the
New Testament, as Marcion did.

saying that he and the other authors of Scripture reflected (i.e. conformed
to) the age, and that we enlightened modern people, being more spiritual,
have good reason to be offended by the unfortunate cultural
patriarchalism of the biblical text.
An examination of the new inclusive edition of the NIV shows that most of
the forms of expression that are thought to deny the common human
dignity of all hearers and readers are perfectly ordinary expressions which
use various words meaning man ( and in the Hebrew,
and in the Greek) and masculine pronouns to express general truths.
For instance, we find that in Psalm 1:1 the NIV committee has changed
Blessed is the man [ ]who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
to Blessed are those who do not walk in the counsel of the wicked.
Apparently the revisers feared that the Psalms focus on a man here
would be seen as sexist. In 2005 this committee also produced another
revision of the NIV known as Todays New International Version (TNIV), in
which the same principles were followed. In this revision they have changed
the rendering brotherly love (, Romans 12:10) to love
removing brotherly from the text. We also find that in Isaiah 19:16, where
the prophet says ( Egypt shall be like women,
and shall tremble and fear), the revisers have changed the original NIVs
the Egyptians will be like women to the Egyptians will become
weaklings. We can only suppose this was designed to avoid giving offense
to readers who might object to Isaiahs use of a stereotype about women
(similarly Jeremiah 50:37, 51:30, and Nahum 3:13). Yet another inclusive
language revision of the NIV was published in 2011, and in this latest
edition we find the same kinds of neutered renderings that had been
adopted in 1996 and 2005. Over a thousand occurrences of man and
men were eliminated in these NIV revisions, along with several hundred
fathers, brothers and sons. Nearly three thousand personal pronouns
were neutralized. 9 In their efforts to avoid masculine pronouns, the
revisers have sometimes used a clumsy that person instead of a he, and
they have even resorted to using the colloquial singular theya
substandard usage never before seen in a Bible version. Thus the 2011
revision of Psalm 1:1-3 reads, Blessed is the one who does not walk in step
with the wicked ... That person is like a tree ... whatever they do prospers.
Proverbs 14:7 now reads, Stay away from a fool, for you will not find
knowledge on their lips. All this squirming to avoid he is necessary to

Another controversial application of this principle may be seen in some

recent Bible versions that aim to suppress the patriarchalism of the Bible
for readers who would find it offensive. In preparation for the Inclusive
Language Edition of the NIV published in Great Britain in 1996, the NIV
Committee on Bible Translation adopted a policy statement which included
the following paragraphs:
Authors of Biblical books, even while writing Scripture inspired by the Holy
Spirit, unconsciously reflected in many ways, the particular cultures in which
they wrote. Hence in the manner in which they articulate the Word of God,
they sometimes offend modern sensibilities. At such times, translators can
and may use non-offending renderings so as not to hinder the message of
the Spirit.
The patriarchalism (like other social patterns) of the ancient cultures in
which the Biblical books were composed is pervasively reflected in forms of
expression that appear, in the modern context, to deny the common human
dignity of all hearers and readers. For these forms, alternative modes of
expression can and may be used, though care must be taken not to distort
the intent of the original text. 8
The NIV committee also explained in the Preface of this revision that their
purpose was to mute the patriarchalism of the culture of the biblical
writers through gender-inclusive language, and claimed that this could be
done without compromising the message of the Spirit (p. vii). It is to be
noticed here how the NIV translators have turned the tables on St. Paul, by
31

protect the dignity of female readers, they insist, although obviously this
was no matter of concern for the biblical writers, and even in our culture
there are very few people who would pretend to be offended by it. Just
today I noticed in an Associated Press news article the following sentences:

Israelites gathered in Jerusalem; but the Contemporary English Version

translates the verse, It is truly wonderful when relatives live together in
peace. The problem is, relatives does not have the connotation of
closeness or the extended religious sense that brothers has in such
contexts. When is rendered relatives, the verse seems to be nothing
but a comment about the importance of friendly relationships between
cousins. The Good News Bible and Todays New International Version use
Gods people here, which is referentially more adequate, but fails to
convey the kinship connotation. Again, the editors have ruled out
brothers because they fear that it would be seen as a sexist expression;
but there is no other word which can convey the full meaning of in
English.

[After suffering brain damage] a person who used to find his way to work
just by instinct may come to rely on memorizing the route more formally.
A patient who has trouble remembering what he sees may compensate by
telling himself what hes looking at, bringing in his verbal memory circuitry.
10
This usage of his, he and himself to refer back to antecedents like a
person and a patient is quite normal, and it is familiar to everyone who
reads the newspaper. The idea that it must be eliminated from a Bible
version for the sake of the dignity of female readers is an idea that savours
of fanaticism. It could only have arisen in an academic environment, under
the influence of feminist ideology.

Taken in isolation, some of these changes may be seen as naive attempts to

make the text conform to the gender-neutral style that is now expected in
published books, merely because that is what many people now expect in
books. It must be said, however, that this style does not really reflect what
is normal in modern English, but has been arbitrarily imposed by editors for
political reasons. Recently I found the following sentences in a book
published in 1993: In common parlance, the term [professional] may
mean nothing more than skilled. One might observe, for example, that a
plumber did a tricky piece of repair work very professionally and mean
simply that he or she joined the pipes cleanly and successfully. 13 Here, by
a unflinching application of some academic inclusive language rule, the
words or she have been added, in reference to a hypothetical plumber.
The or she here is unnatural, obtrusive, irrelevant to the purpose of the
sentence, and gives the impression that the author is determined to be
politically correct, by plastering his prose with feminist bumper-stickers,
as one writer aptly puts it. 14

Quite aside from the gender issue, there is something distinctly modern
about a solicitude for human dignity in the translation of the Bible. 11
When the biblical authors speak of mankind in general they are so often
contrasting us with God, and emphasizing our unworthiness, that man
and men even acquire a negative connotation in Scripture. 12 What sort
of dignity is gained by women who are now expressly included in the
translation of adam in a passage like Isaiah 2:9-22? The whole point of it is
to destroy any sense of human dignity. Those who want people to be used
instead of man will only have to learn that people are sinful and have no
claim to dignity before God. We notice however that the gender-neutralized
versions tone down this severe teaching about humanity also, by avoiding
the words humanity, humans or people in contexts like this. The New
Revised Standard Version (NRSV) uses the quaint mortals. The revised NIV
and the New Living Translation add derogatory adjectives (e.g. mere
humans in Isaiah 2:22) to avoid a contemptuous use of the word human
itself.

Some writers have tried to represent this sort of thing as an attempt to

make the text more accurate in some sense. 15 This has led to some novel
claims about the meaning of Hebrew and Greek words. It has been claimed,
for instance, that the word (aner), which is the ordinary word for
man as opposed to woman in Greek, has a gender-neutral meaning in
some contexts, and therefore it may be translated person instead of
man. 16 Naturally, this questionable assertion about the meaning of the
word in some contexts is promptly used to justify a gender-neutral

Some of the gender-neutralized renderings that have appeared in recent

Bible versions completely obscure the main point of the writer. In Psalm
133:1 the word brethren is used to express the spiritual kinship of
32

rendering in all but a few places. No one who knows Greek is likely to be
fooled by this. It has also been claimed that the ordinary word for father
in Hebrew ( )has the gender-neutral sense of parent. 17 No one who
knows Hebrew will find this claim plausible, or fail to see the motive behind
it. We all recognize that such claims are designed to provide some
justification for gender-neutral renderings that are demanded for
ideological reasons. Liberal scholars can make claims like this without fear of
damaging their credibility among other liberal scholars, because they all
wink at it. But the statements quoted above show that most of the NIV
committee members were not prepared to sacrifice their credibility among
the more honest scholars by taking this route. They affirm what we have
observed above, that the usus loquendi of a society tends to reflect certain
attitudes; and, according to their own explanation, their purpose was to
suppress the signs of patriarchalism which offend modern sensibilities.
This is honest enough, but it goes far beyond the common-sense principle
that a translation should be intelligible. It involves a theory of translation
which requires the elimination of expressions which are potentially
offensive or perhaps simply unusual in the common speech of the
receptors, so that the text presents everything the way we would say it.
This way of thinking may be illustrated by the arguments presented by
Grant Osborne, who, in defense of gender-neutral revisions, invokes several
ideas belonging to dynamic equivalence theory (which he calls functional
equivalence):

thought-for-thought translation. The use of inclusive pronouns in

translations falls within the realm of dynamic translation theory. In the
ancient world it was common to say man or he when speaking of all
people. The influence of the KJV has made it common until recent years to
do the same. Within the last two decades, however, this is practiced less
and less, and those who have not grown up in the church can
misunderstand such male-oriented language. (You do hear it now and then
in newscasts, but normally by older commentators who grew up with the
idiom.) Even if the inclusive he is retained in some stylebooks, it is
impossible to deny that its occurrence is becoming rarer or that ultimately it
is on its way out in modern language. A basic principle of all translation
theory is to express the ancient text in the thoughts and idioms of the
receptor language. Let us remember Pauls principle in 1 Corinthians
9:22I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I
might save some (NIVI). This has become an important missiological
mandate. It means that, in any receptor culture that does not oppose the
gospel, the missionary/Christian must adapt to make the gospel
proclamation accessible to the people. The task is to be culturally relevant
without being culture bound. Whenever a detail within a culture is not
inimical to biblical Christianity, the church should adapt its proclamation to
that practice. Replacing man with people or he with they does not
contradict the meaning of the biblical text, while retaining them can be, at
worst, offensive and, at best, misleading to many modern people. The
American Heritage Book of English Usage states, It is undeniable that large
numbers of men and women are uncomfortable using constructions that
have been criticized for being sexist. Since there is little to be gained by
offending people in your audience, it makes sense to try to accommodate
at least some of these concerns. It is likely that Paul today would not use
such unnecessarily offensive language as man or he when it refers to men
and women. (For instance, see Psalm 32:1, Blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, which Paul quotes in Romans 4:7 as Blessed are
they whose transgressions are forgiven, NIV.) This is not capitulating to a
feminist agenda but exercising evangelistic sensitivity toward those
(including many evangelicals!) who can be offended by such. The difficulty
comes when men are being addressed in the ancient setting, but men and
women would be addressed in the modern setting. In many of those
instances, communication is better served by changing the pronouns lest
the modern reader mistakenly think only males are being addressed. 18

Whether or not to use inclusive language in Bible translation is not a gender

issue but a matter of translation theory. The true question is whether
formal equivalence or functional equivalence, as Bible translation theories,
produces the best translation for our day. Formal equivalence (sometimes
called literal translation) believes that the original wording, grammar, and
syntax should be retained so long as the resulting translation is
understandable (KJV, NASB, and RSV are examples). Functional equivalence
(also called dynamic translation) believes that the text should have the
same impact on the modern reader that the original had on the ancient
reader. According to this approach, it is not the original terms but the
meaning of the whole that is important, asking the question, How would
Isaiah or Paul say this today to get his meaning across? (the Good News
Bible and NLT are examples; NIV and NRSV are sometimes literal, sometimes
dynamic). The first is a word-for-word translation and the second a
33

second edition (1992). Clearly the translators do modernize the text,

because they are guided by Nidas prescription: the conformance of a
translation to the receptor language and culture as a whole is an essential
ingredient in any stylistically acceptable rendering. 19 And although they
do not admit it, this principle is not compatible with a faithful
representation of the cultural and historical features of the original. There
can be no dynamic equivalence, as Nida defines it, without transculturation
and modernization; and the acceptability principle is quite in keeping with
this goal. After all, if the original text was not offensive to its original
audience, then doesnt dynamic equivalence require the translation to be
inoffensive to the culture and ideology of its intended readers also? And if
we balk at this, as being manipulative and dishonest, what becomes of the
whole theory of dynamic equivalence?

As in the examples given above from De Kuiper, Newman, Nida and De

Waard, we see that Osborne does not apply the acceptability principle
purely and simply, without bringing in other considerations to help justify
the desired changes. He claims that using man as a translation for the
corresponding Hebrew and Greek words would be at best, misleading to
many modern people. But this claim appears rather weak when we look at
how man is used in the text. For example: Blessed is the man who does
not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Who could think that this verse is
saying that only men are blessed for godliness? Changing this to Blessed
are those is certainly not necessary to prevent misunderstandings, or to
make the gospel proclamation accessible. So in addition to these
statements he brings in several other concepts from dynamic equivalence
theory to help justify the revision. Here we wish to notice in particular the
demand for transculturation that is implicit in the missiological mandate
to be culturally relevant (i.e. conformed to this age) and the idea that an
equivalent impact might be achieved by adapting the text to thoughts of
the receptor language. There is much to disagree with here. But it can
hardly be doubted that his quotation of the style manual that says large
numbers of men and women are uncomfortable using constructions that
have been criticized for being sexist comes closest to the actual thinking of
the editors who have produced gender-neutral revisions of the Bible. In the
case of the NIV revision, the translators own explanations clearly indicate
that it was done mainly (if not exclusively) for this reason.

In any case, we are bound to maintain our integrity, and the ideas about the
Bibles relationship to culture that have brought us to these questions are
clearly incompatible with a high view of Scripture. Surely we must register a
protest when people are tinkering with the Bible to remove things that are
offensive to other religions or to the secular culture of our times.
7. Disintegration of Biblical Concepts
Language influences thought in several ways. When we have a word for
some object of thought, it focuses and clarifies the thought. When we
distinguish between things by making a distinction in words, it sharpens our
perception of the difference. When we use the same word for different
things, it tends to keep them together in the mind. The development of
multiple meanings for one word (called polysemy by linguists) usually
reflects a train of conceptual associations, and is commonly spoken of under
the figure of a branching tree. Various meanings diverge from a primary
root meaning which may contribute something to the extended meanings.
We should beware of the etymological fallacy, in which the branches are
mistaken for the root, 1 but below I will argue that polysemy does
sometimes establish conceptual bridges and connections between things.
When a single word is used in Scripture for things that we would ordinarily
distinguish by the use of different words, we ought to consider the
possibility that the original words establish or facilitate a conceptual
relationship that would be weakened if different words were used. A

Again, we observe that not all proponents of dynamic equivalence have

spoken like this. Probably they realize that a translation theory that wants to
eliminate things that are uncomfortable for modern people will not be
accepted without qualms by responsible Christian teachers, and would even
be rejected as intellectually dishonest by most non-Christians. The whole
principle of acceptability is indeed very questionable from a moral
standpoint, because it seems to promote what we would ordinarily call a
fraud. The original preface of the Good News Bible (1976) seemed to reject
this principle when it claimed that the translators were guided by a contrary
principle: Faithfulness in translation also includes a faithful representation
of the cultural and historical features of the original, without any attempt to
modernize the text, it said. But we note that the words without any
attempt to modernize the text are omitted in the revised preface to the
34

the fact that can mean either bride or daughter-in-law. 4 However,

it sometimes happens that the whole point of a verse may escape the notice
of the reader when verbal connections are broken in translation. An
example of this is in Ephesians 3:14-15, which in the KJV reads, For this
cause I bow my knees unto the Father of whom the whole family in
heaven and earth is named. The point of the relative clause in verse 15 is
more readily grasped when it is known that there is a play on words here.
The word translated family () also means clan, ethnic group and
fatherhood, being derived from the word translated father in verse 14
(). 5 In ancient thinking, a family or ethnic group is constituted and
defined by its fatherhood, and so the same word is used for both.

translator should not hastily or unnecessarily separate what the biblical

languages put together. The regular use of a certain English word to
translate a certain Greek or Hebrew word is desirable, within limits, because
it allows the English reader to see the verbal connections that exist in the
original.
The desirability of this has often been emphasized by biblical scholars who
have written on the subject of translation. For example, George Campbell:
I admit that it is impossible, in translating out of one language into another,
to find a distinction of words in one exactly correspondent to what obtains
in the other, and so to preserve uniformity, in rendering every different
word by a different word, and the same word by the same word. This is
what neither propriety nor perspicuity will admit. The rule, however, to
translate uniformly, when it can be done, in a consistency both with
propriety and perspicuity, is a good rule, and one of the simplest and surest
methods I know, of making us enter into the conceptions of the sacred
writers, and adopt their very turn of thinking. 2

One very important word in the Greek New Testament that cannot be
translated concordantly in English is the word (logos). This word
occurs often in the New Testament (about 300 times), and it is translated
several different ways in English versions. In the great majority of cases it is
translated word, but it ordinarily refers to a saying or statement that
expresses an idea or a series of connected thoughts, especially those which
involve reasoning. Some of the connotations of may be seen from the
fact that it has entered the English language as logic, and as part of the
words prologue, epilogue, and Decalogue (the ten statements inscribed
on the tables of the testimony). The suffix logy at the end of many English
words (biology, theology, psychology, etc.) reflects the meaning treatise
or reasoned discourse. may also refer to a calculation (hence our
word logistics), an accounting, a particular reason, etc. In at least two
places in the New Testament, it is used in a special metaphysical sense,
referring to the personified of God (John 1:1, 14, and in the
Johannine Comma). Although it is usually translated word, it does not
have the sense that word usually has in English: a speech sound or series
of speech sounds that symbolizes and communicates a meaning without
being divisible into smaller units capable of independent use. That it does
not refer to the mere sound of words, may be seen in John 8:43 Why do
you not understand my speech []? It is because you cannot hear my
. The here refers to the mental concept expressed by the
audible speech. Lattimore translates it reasoning in this place.

To prevent any misunderstanding of my meaning here, I would first

emphasize the limits of this concordant approach to translation.
As Campbell says, it is not always possible to translate concordantly, using
the same English word for all occurrences of a Hebrew or Greek word. For
example, both the Hebrew word ( kallah) and the Greek word
(nymf) mean bride in some contexts and daughter-in-law in others,
and we cannot consistently use only one English equivalent to translate
these words in every place, ignoring the demands of the context, because
we do not have a word that can refer to both. 3 Sometimes it is impossible
to translate a word concordantly even within the same context, as for
example in Romans 12:13-14, where Paul uses forms of the word in
two different senses, pursue, and persecute. The word-play here cannot
be fully reproduced in English. And it would be foolish to try to represent
the Hebrew idiom ( meaning slow of anger) with a rendering like
long of nostrils in order to preserve a verbal identity with other
occurrences of where it means long or where it means
nostrils. It is merely an accident of language that can mean anger or
nostrils/nose or face, and this has no more semantic importance than

Ironically enough, some versions misinterpret this saying, by failing to

distinguish the and the . The RSV (followed by the ESV) does
35

this, and tries to give point to the saying by interpreting hear as bear to
hear. (Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot
bear to hear my word.) The NEB effectively conveys the meaning with,
Why do you not understand my language? It is because my revelation is
beyond your grasp. The NLTs rendering provides an outstanding example
of how much meaning can be lost in a dynamically equivalent translation:
Why cant you understand what I am saying? It is because you are unable
to do so! Here is simply quashed, and the saying is reduced to an
empty tautology, losing virtually all of its meaning. 6

made rational [], they might be able to continue in blessedness,

living the true and only real life of the saints in paradise. 8

The semantic associations of are also inherited by words derived from

it, such as the adjective (borrowed into English as logical). Because
the word acquired spiritual significance through association with the
Word of God, the derived adjective can mean spiritual in addition to
reasonable. And thus in 1 Peter 2:2 the milk would be understood
as spiritual milk, but also suggests a connection with the living
and abiding of God which has just been mentioned. And hence we
find in some English versions milk of the word (KJV, NKJV, NASB). It is not
helpful to ask which of the alternative renderings gives the meaning; rather,
what needs to be seen is that no English rendering can be entirely adequate,
because we lack a word like which suggests both concepts, or
invokes the same cluster of associations. As one scholar observes, in this
context implies that the spiritual food the believers consume
comes to them verbally through the Word of God. 7

This is not a mere play on words. Athanasius (who is among the least playful
of authors) is linking ideas in a way already prepared by his language. He
makes these connections quite naturally in his language because he has a
set of terms that refer to reason, word, and the Logos of Johns Gospel.
It is really almost inevitable that a Greek theologian would connect the
image of God with the Logos, and the Logos with rationality in particular.
Anything created as a reflection of the divine Logos must first of all be
logikos, rational. The tendency of the Greek language to combine these
things is very evident here. But the connection fails in English, because we
habitually make a linguistic distinction between the internal reasoning and
the external speech, and so we have no word that refers to both. Someone
might say that the Greek vocabulary lends itself to the confusion of two
different things here, but from another point of view the Greek
represents a concept that disintegrates in English. In any case, the translator
who would bring the full meaning of this sentence across the language
barrier has no choice but to override the restrictions of the English language
and bring over the Greek words themselves, either in brackets or footnotes,
to exhibit the chain of thinking. Despite the fact that these same words have
already been adopted into English in several ways, expressing various
meanings belonging to them, we still do not have a word that means both
reason and word!

Again, it is important to bear in mind that a word often has different

meanings in different contexts. One should not try to find all of the senses
of a word in every context where it occurs. But, as I hope to illustrate with
this example, it sometimes happens that the sense-distinctions we would
make for the purpose of English translation are not so distinct in the original
word, which may represent a complex concept that combines ideas in ways
that English does not. Consider the following sentence from Athanasius
treatise On the Incarnation.

English translators have always sensed the inadequacy of their language

when faced with the problem of translating in the prologue of Johns
Gospel. There is no English equivalent for the metaphysical sense in which it
is used there. In such cases it may be best simply to borrow the word in a
transliterated form, as James Moffatt did in his Modern Speech version of
the New Testament (The Logos existed in the very beginning ), and allow
teachers to explain the meaning of it. It would not be the first time this
word has been borrowed.

He did not merely create men as he did the irrational [] living

creatures on the earth, but made them after his own image, imparting to
them a share even of the power of his own Word []; in order that,
possessing as it were certain reflections of the Word [], and being

If borrowing is ruled out, and the common English word continues to

stand in the place of , then an explanation is needed to establish a
particular biblical sense for word here. Explanations like this are often
given in expository preaching. For example, Augustine in his Homilies (or
36

stands for or , it should ordinarily be understood in the

theological sense of a conviction practically operative on the character and
will, and thus opposed to the mere intellectual assent to religious truth
(Oxford English Dictionary).

Tractates) on the Gospel according to St. John had to face the same problem
in Latin as we do in English, because Latin also lacks an entirely adequate
equivalent for . The Latin version uses Verbum (word) in John 1:1,
but Augustine explains that Verbum here does not mean what it ordinarily
means in Latin. The divine can be called a Verbum only if we
understand that this Verbum is really more like a cogitatio (thought) or a
consilium (purpose). It is like a word in the man himself which remains
within (in ipso homine, quod manet intus), not the spoken word, but that
which the sound signified, and was in the speaker as he thought of it (quod
autem significavit sonus, et in cogitante est qui dixit). For you can have a
word in your heart, as it were a design born in your mind, so that your mind
brings forth the design; and the design is, so to speak, the offspring of your
mind, the son of your heart (Si tu potes habere verbum in corde tuo,
tamquam consilium natum in mente tua, ut mens tua pariat consilium, et
insit consilium quasi proles mentis tuae, quasi filius cordis tui). With this
explanation he invests the common word Verbum with a special biblical
meaning that reflects the meaning of in Hellenistic Greek, although he
does not even mention the Greek word. Any preacher today could do the
same with an English translation that represents with word. Instead
of borrowing the Greek , the English word can be made serviceable
(if not entirely adequate) by explanations or by contextual indications which
give it a modified biblical meaning.

The vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew includes several important words that

resist translation. One prominent Old Testament scholar has complained
that when we try to translate the ancient Hebrew text into modern English,
we come up against the problem that the two languages belong to two
worlds of life and thought. The undertones and overtones of each written
wordall the associations it calls up to one who uses it familiarlyare
necessarily wanting in the foreign word that replaces it, often with a very
different set of associations. Therefore it is frequently impossible to find
an English word with content adequate to the corresponding Hebrew term,
and we must trust to the reader to put as much of the meaning as he
gathers from the context into the English equivalents. 11
The word ( chesed), for instance, combines the concepts covenant
obligation, loyalty, act of kindness and love in a way that no English
word can match. It denotes a kind of dutiful love, connected with promises,
family relations, and covenants; and also any action that is motivated by
such love. When attributed to God, implies much mercy within the
context of a covenant. The word thus has different shades of meaning in
different places; but it is not as if it meant kindness in one place, mercy
in another, and loyalty in another. It represents a complex concept which
cannot be reduced to just one of these English nouns in any of its
occurrences. The concept goes to pieces in English.

For the purpose of biblical translation, it is unfortunate that in modern nonliterary English the words faith and faithfulness have divided up the
senses that belong to the Greek word , and to the Hebrew word
. The fact that these biblical words mean both faith and faithfulness
(i.e. fidelity) obviously has great importance for an understanding of the
Bible. In the languages of the Bible it is not easy or natural to speak of a
faith without faithfulness, because the two concepts are bundled into
one word, and, as Sanday and Headlam put it, the one sense rather
suggests than excludes the other. 9 Dunn warns against the danger of
treating the meanings of as though they were sharply distinct (or
even polarized points), rather than a continuous spectrum where the
meaning faith merges into the meaning faithful; 10 but because we
commonly use different words for these things, English readers are very
prone to make this mistake. Here again it is necessary to teach people a
biblical meaning for the English word. In the Bible, where the word faith

The Hebrew word ( nephesh) refers to the soul of a human being, but
its connotations are not nearly so ghostly as the English words are in
modern usage. It denotes the soul as embodied, and so it is used in
reference to such primal bodily urges as the appetite, along with the
deepest emotions. A mans is what really motivates him, either
spiritually or carnally. 12 Being the name for an entity which causes a
creature to be alive, it came also to be used in the sense of life itself, as a
condition of the body; and by a synecdoche (the most important part
standing for the whole) it acquired also the sense living being. (It is
important to note that in the Bible, all animals have souls. The soul is what
37

makes any creature alive. Man is not set apart from the beasts by the
possession of a soul, he is set apart by being created in the image of God.)
All of this is also true of the Greek word (psyche), which was used to
translate in the Septuagint, and is used in all these senses in the Greek
New Testament. Concerning the translation of the BAGD Lexicon
rightly says, It is often impossible to draw hard and fast lines between the
meanings of this many-sided word (p. 893), because the different senses
blend into one another, producing ambiguity, and the concept of the soul
as an entity casts its shadow over all the various usages of and . As
an example of this linguistic chemistry in action, consider the following
words of Isaac to Esau in Genesis 27:4.

This important text briefly sets forth a theology of the atonement. The first
evidently refers to a person, but again, its function is not merely
referential, it is used for the sake of its soul connotations. Moreover we
note that the participle and pronouns connected with it are grammatically
feminine, which gives the impression that it is the soul (a feminine noun)
which eats and is cut off. In its second and fourth occurrences might
seem at first to mean vitality or life, but in the intervening atonement for
your it must be understood as souls or selves (the NRSVs
atonement for your lives makes no sense), and this reacts upon the
interpretation of the other occurrences, because the sentence clearly
equates the of the sacrificial victim with the of its presenter, for the
purpose of explaining how atonement is accomplished. If the word is
translated three different ways in these two verses, the connections which
are obviously being made in the mind of the author are dissolved. But that is
exactly what happens in many English versions. Some versions give no
indication that a soul is ever mentioned in this passage. The NLT renders it
thus:

Prepare a savory dish for me, such as I love, and bring it to me that I may
eat, so that my may bless you before I die.
Syntactically, the phrase my here is functionally equivalent to the
personal pronoun I, or to any other way of referring to oneself, but
semantically it is not just another way of saying I, because in addition to
serving the function of self-reference, it refers to the soul. And this is
generally true in cases where an expression with refers to persons. It is
used in contexts where the fact that they are living is pertinent, where a
matter of life and death is prominent, or where the most primal desires of
the person are in view. In this context, both the carnal appetite and the
impending death of Isaac have made a reference to his soul especially
appropriate. Obviously it means more than I, and so the NIVs that I may
give you my blessing fails to express the whole meaning. 13 The only way
to convey the whole meaning in a case like this is to translate literally, that
my soul may bless you, and to explain in a note that the word translated
soul may also refer to the appetite.

10 And I will turn against anyone, whether an Israelite or a foreigner living

among you, who eats or drinks blood in any form. I will cut off such a person
from the community. 11 For the life of any creature is in its blood. I have
given you the blood so you can make atonement for your sins.
Observe here that not only is the soul missing, but also the altar, and
any indication of the substitution of one life for another on the altar. The
substitutionary idea was expressed in the original by verbal connections
which are completely eliminated in the English translation.
No version can entirely avoid this phenomenon of translation, in which the
semantic connections of important words disintegrate in the passage from
one language to another, but the problem becomes most acute in versions
produced under the dynamic equivalence philosophy, which demands
complete naturalness of expression in the receptor language. This demand
is often incompatible with the requirements of an accurate translation. A
translator must sometimes employ the principle of concordant rendering,
even if it goes against the idiomatic grain of the receptor language, in order
to preserve the meaning. Some have argued that soul is a misleading

A more complex example is in Leviticus 17.

10 If any man of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among
them eats any blood, I will set my face against that who eats blood and
will cut it [i.e. the ] off from among its people. 11 For the of the
flesh is in the blood, and I have given it [i.e. the blood] for you on the altar
to make atonement for your [ plural], for it is the blood that makes
atonement by the .
38

translation for because in popular usage it does not have the range of
meaning that belongs to . But what is the alternative? If the translator
gives several different renderings, according to his ideas of what the word
means in each context, then the reader who relies upon his translation will
never acquire the knowledge of the general concept that represents.
Concepts without names are like souls without bodies. They become
invisible. And furthermore, avoiding the word soul has the effect of leaving
the naive readers concept of the soul undisturbed by Scripture. So we
cannot agree with Gerhard von Rad when he says, we should refrain from
translating this term as soul wherever possible. 14 Rather, we should
refrain from rendering it otherwise, and allow the context to indicate how
soul must be understood. In this way the readers concept of the soul will
be shaped and informed by Scripture.

But the NIV does not use flesh in that sense; it uses the word only where it
is thought to refer to the material of the body. Elsewhere it offers, as
translations of the word , such abstractions as sinful nature (Rom. 78, etc.), sinful mind (Rom. 8:7), human ancestry (Rom. 9:5), human
standards (1 Cor. 1:26), and human decision (John 1:13). In some places
the word is not translated at all (Rom. 4:1), or its place is filled with a mere
pronoun (Matt. 24:22, Rom. 3:20, 1 Cor. 1:29, etc.). One of the NIV
translators, Ronald Youngblood, has responded to criticism of its renderings
thus:
To render the Greek word sarx by flesh virtually every time it appears
does not require the services of a translator; all one needs is a dictionary
(or, better yet, a computer). But to recognize that sarx has differing
connotations in different contexts, that in addition to flesh it often means
human standards or earthly descent or sinful nature or sexual
impulse or person, etc., and therefore to translate sarx in a variety of
ways, is to understand that translation is not only a mechanical, word-forword process but also a nuanced thought-for-thought procedure 15

Fortunately, the defects of our language are not so numerous and serious
that we are unable to produce a serviceable, tolerably accurate translation
of the Bible. But the linguistic capacity we do enjoy is often owed to the
historic influence of Greek and Hebrew upon English, as mediated by literal
translations of the Bible. The English word grace owes its range of meaning
to the fact that for so many centuries it was used in English Bibles as a
translation of , and in this way had acquired all the meanings of the
Greek word. When such a process of linguistic preparation has occurred, it is
foolish not to use the especially prepared words. Our ability to produce a
fully adequate translation really depends upon them.

We do not deny that the word has this range of meaning. Our point is, when
the word is rendered in so many different ways, the reader cannot perceive
how these things are associated and sometimes even identified in the Greek
language. With regard to two of them Herman Ridderbos observes that it is
an indication of the universality of sin, in that flesh on the one hand is a
description of all that is man, and on the other of the sinful in man. 16 We
might also observe that the same word is used for corruptibility, sinful
tendencies, and biological descent, which suggests not only the universality
but also the inheritability of the sinful nature. The whole matrix of semantic
connections and connotations is destroyed when different words are used
for the different aspects of this complex concept.

One biblical concept that has suffered unnecessary disintegration in recent

versions is the concept expressed in Scripture by the Hebrew word and
the Greek word , traditionally rendered flesh in English versions.
These words refer not only to flesh in the narrow sense, but to creatures
made of flesh, humanity in distinction from God, and human nature in
general. Often the words are used in a pejorative sense, emphasizing the
mortality, corruptibility, and weakness (both physical and moral) of
mankind. This usage is not confined to musty old Bibles, it is a recognized
sense in common use. People do not assume that the flesh in a phrase like
the world, the flesh, and the devil refers only to skin and muscle tissue,
anymore than they would assume that the world refers simply to the
planet earth. They understand that flesh in such a context refers to the
impulses of the flesh, that is, the natural or instinctive desires of the body.

Youngblood apparently believes that Hebrew and Greek readers are able to
discern the intended meaning of the word in each context, but he does not
seem to recognize that the context will in the very same way indicate the
meaning to readers of English versions that translate consistently as
flesh. Why should the defining effect of the immediate context be
acknowledged for the one and not for the other? It is as if the constraints
and indications of the immediate context are not really thought to be
39

adequate. Readers are assumed to be incapable of inferring the meaning of

the term from the context. But is there really any basis for the idea that
readers cannot perceive what is meant by flesh in places where it means
something more than the physical substance? In some places it quite
obviously refers to unregenerate human nature in general (e.g. Galatians 5).

A careful reader of the Bible would no doubt eventually acquire a sense of

the significance of flesh in Romans. Yet, no matter what our hopes might
be, how many readers of the Bible today are that careful? If one is
translating for the well-read churchgoerthe person who goes to Bible
studies where the Bible is really studiedthen flesh is probably the best
rendering of sarx. But the unpalatable fact is that only a minority of
Christians anymore fall into that categoryto say nothing of non-Christians,
who, we hope, will pick up and read the Bible. For many readers, then,
translating Pauls sarx as flesh would not effectively communicate.

More recently Douglas Moo has explained that members of the committee
who revised the NIV in 2002 thought that the word flesh in contemporary
English would either connote the meat on our bones or (where context
rendered that particular meaning impossible) the sensual appetites, and
especially sexual lust. 17 But the special association of the flesh with
sensual desire is not just a quirk of contemporary English. The word
also had this connotation in first-century Greek. 18 It is no coincidence that
Paul in his list of works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19ff.) begins with three
items associated with sensuality. Martin Luther complained that the Latin
equivalent caro and the German das Fleisch were also commonly
understood as referring either to meat or to lust in his day. 19 But
notwithstanding this, Luther found such significance in the Bibles use of
flesh as a designation for humanity and human nature, that he preferred
to translate and literally as Fleisch. 20 The approach taken by
Luther may be illustrated by comments in his Preface to the Epistle of Paul
to the Romans.

Every indication is that the ability of people to read is steadily declining.

If we are to hope for a Bible that an entire congregation can use, the
readability of a more contextually nuanced translation such as the TNIV may
be the best option. 22
Moo agrees that a concordant and literal translation of is probably
best for the careful reader and for those who have received instruction,
but he assumes that the majority of Christian readers will not be careful and
will not receive instruction. So, careful readers are marginalized by the NIV,
while the careless readers are treated as normal. But we do not share such
low expectations. We object to the idea that the entire congregation should
be using a Bible version adapted to the limitations of those who will not
read it carefully, and who are expected to learn nothing from teachers.

To begin with we must have knowledge of the manner of speech and know
what St. Paul means by the words, law, sin, grace, faith, righteousness, flesh,
spirit, and so forth. Otherwise no reading of it has any value.

I wish to emphasize here that any discussion of what is thought to be best in

a translation must inevitably bring under consideration pedagogic and
ecclesiastical questions for which a biblical scholar may have no special
qualifications or wisdom. There is no reason for us to think that Moo, for
example, is a better judge of what people can understand, or of what
reading level is best for a Bible version to be used by the whole
congregation, or of how much explanation should be left to pastors and
teachers. These are questions that lie outside his area of expertise. I assume
that we are in agreement about the meaning of the word . At least I
find nothing in Moos remarks which causes me to think otherwise. My
disagreement with Moo is about his assumptions concerning the readers of
the English version, and what is best for a Christian congregation. Again, I
would point out that he admits that concordant renderings will benefit
careful readers in this case.

He goes on to define these key words for his readers. The difference
between Luther and the translators of the NIV is that Luther had higher
expectations of his readers, despite the fact that in his time illiteracy was
much more of a problem than it is today. 21 He did not believe that a Bible
version without explanatory notes and prefaces could convey the whole
meaning while making all misunderstandings impossible. He expected
readers of his translation to read his notes and prefaces, and he expected
preachers to explain the Bible in their sermons also. But the NIV is shaped
by much lower standards and expectations, as Moo explains:

40

mental associations that are taken for granted and seem only natural to
members of a linguistic community.

The desirability of concordant renderings may also be seen when we

consider the metaphorical relationship that often exists between different
senses of the same word. In Hebrew the word ( shamayim) means both
sky and heaven, and the same is true of the Greek word (ouranos).
It is by a metaphorical extension of meaning that the word for sky came
also to mean heaven, in the sense of Gods dwelling-place. The
metaphorical sense no doubt originated in the intuition that divinity must
be above our world, because power and authority is naturally associated
with being in a higher position. God is so high, he is above the clouds. This
is a way of expressing the transcendence of God, and it contrasts with
pantheistic conceptions that prefer an immanent world-spirit or nature
deity. Scripture often uses variations of this God is high metaphor, and
some events recorded in Scripture give sanction to it. At the Baptism of
Christ, the heavens were opened. When he ascended into heaven, he
quite literally went up into the sky. This must be understood as a symbolic
action, as Bruce Metzger explains:

Although it may seem poetic, until recently no one thought it would be hard
to understand if were translated heaven in places where it
denotes the sky. But it seems that many Bible translators now think that
heaven must be distinguished from the sky. Even the NASB reflects this,
by giving two different renderings for the same word in Acts 1:10-11, and
the Good News Bible consistently avoids calling the sky heaven or the
heavens even in poetic contexts (e.g. Psalm 19, the sky reveals Gods
glory). What is lost when the sky can no longer be called the heavens in
the Bible? We lose the power of a scriptural metaphor, which sets the
throne of the Most High God upon the stars, and also the symbolic meaning
of Christs ascension. 24
The teaching concerning death and resurrection is sometimes expressed in
Scripture by extended senses for words meaning sleep and awake. In
Daniel 12:2 we read, And many of those sleeping ( )in the dust of the
earth shall awake (), some to everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting abhorrence. The word translated sleeping here is an adjective
derived from ( sleep, BDB Lexicon p. 445). The word translated awake
is a form of ( awake, BDB p. 884). See also the use of these words in 2
Kings 4:31, Job 14:12, Psalm 13:3, Isaiah 26:19, and Jeremiah 51:39, 57. In
the New Testament, see the use of the verbs (sleep, BAGD
Lexicon p. 388) in Matt. 9:24 (= Mark 5:39, Luke 8:52), 1 Thes. 5:10; and
and its cognates (sleep, BAGD p. 437) in Matt. 27:52; John 11:11,
13; Acts 7:60, 13:36, 1 Cor. 7:39, 11:30, 15:6, 18, 20, 51; 1 Thes. 4:14; and 2
Pet. 3:4. I would also point out the parallelism in Ephesians 5:14. Surely it
means something that words which in their primary sense mean fall
asleep are also used in reference to the death of the body. To say that one
of the senses is fall asleep and the other is die is to miss the significance
that derives from the connection of the senses. 25 For if the dead sleep,
they will awake! As Louis Berkhof observes, it is likely that Scripture uses
this expression in order to suggest to believers the comforting hope of the
resurrection. 26 But the connection is lost in the NLT rendering of Daniel
12:2 (those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up), 2 Kings 4:31
(the child is still dead), Psalm 13:3 (I will die), 1 Thes. 5:10 (dead or
alive), Matt. 27:52 (who had died), Acts 7:60, 13:36 (he died), and in all

Though Jesus did not need to ascend in order to return to the immediate
presence of God, the book of Acts relates that he did in fact ascend a certain
distance into the sky, until a cloud received him out of sight (Acts 1:9). By
such a dramatic rising from their midst, he taught his disciples that this was
now the last time he would appear to them, and that henceforth they
should not sit about waiting for another appearance, but should understand
that the transitional period had come to an end. The didactic symbolism was
both natural and appropriate. That the lesson was learned by the primitive
church seems to be clear from the fact that the records of the early
centuries indicate that his followers suddenly ceased to look for any
manifestation of the risen Lord other than his second coming in glory. 23
This symbolism will seem natural and appropriate to people who
ordinarily associate the transcendent realm of heaven with the sky above,
and this association is facilitated by the linguistic fact that means
both sky and heaven. But when a language requires us to use different
words for these things, it works against the semantic association upon
which the scriptural symbolism depends. Polysemy often lays the
groundwork for symbolism, and it can play a large part in establishing
41

places where a word meaning sleep is used to speak of death in the

epistles. 27

Earlier in this book, under the heading of Transculturation, I discussed the

semantic range of the words and . The primary meaning is
brother, but in addition to referring to one who was born of the same
mother and father, they may also refer to a member of a religious
community, fellow countryman, neighbor, etc., and these various
senses are enumerated in the lexicons. Here again the meaning has been
extended metaphorically, and so the extended senses retain the
connotation of the primary sense, brother. It certainly means something
that a fellow-Christian is called an in Scripture. Therefore, in order
to preserve the meaning, a concordant rendering is desirable. We should
translate it as brother in all places. If we avoid the word brother and use
expressions like member of the church or fellow-Christian when
refers to someone who is not literally a brother, then the
metaphorical meaning is lost.

A memorable word used seven times in Jeremiah is ( hashekkem), lit.

set out early. In what appears to be a bold anthropomorphism, Jeremiah
represents God rising up early for the work of sending his prophets to
Israel (7:13, 25; 11:7; 25:4; 29:19; 32:33; 35:14). Lexicographers from
Gesenius on have supposed that in these places the word is used in an
extended sense of doing with a sense of urgency or something similar,
which is not unlikely. Less likely is the recent idea that it had also a sense
repeatedly. 28 But however that may be, everyone acknowledges that the
same word is used in the sense setting out early nearly everywhere else,
so it surely must have connoted early morning activity in Jeremiah also. In
the more literal versions of the Bible the word is consistently translated
rising up early. In the less literal versions we have the weakened
renderings repeatedly (NLT) and again and again (NIV) in Jeremiah.
Persistently (RSV and ESV) is scarcely better. Why not use urgently or
earnestly at least? We want a rendering that gives some indication of the
words proper meaning. The rendering rising up early may not be the
most perspicuous one for literal-minded readers of Jeremiah, but it certainly
does indicate the primary meaning of the word, and there is really no
compelling reason to think that it was not the only meaning of the word for
the biblical authors. Why should it not be understood as a lively and
metaphorical way of speaking in Jeremiah?

Apologists for dynamic equivalence typically ignore such considerations.

Some have even denied, on a theoretical level, the reality of the linguistic
phenomenon we have been talking about here. One new member of the
NIV committee, Mark Strauss, has written:
First, Greek and Hebrews words (called lexemes), like words in any
language, seldom have a single, all-encompassing meaning, but rather a
range of potential senses. This range of senses is called the lexemes
semantic range. The context and co-text in which the lexeme is used
determines which sense is intended by the author. Most words do not have
a single literal (core, basic) meaning, but rather a semantic range a range
of potential senses which are actualized by the utterance in which they
appear. Second, words normally have only one sense in any particular
context. While there may be some interplay between senses in various
contexts, these senses do not necessarily force their meanings on one other.
James Barr speaks of illegitimate totality transfer, the fallacy of assuming
that the whole of a lexemes semantic range is somehow contained in any
single occurrence. 29

When we compare English translations of James 1:3 and 1 Peter 1:7, we

sometimes find diverse renderings of the word . In the Revised
Standard Version, for instance, it is translated testing in James 1:3 and
genuineness in 1 Peter 1:7. We do not object to the idea that there is a
slight difference in the meaning of the word in these two places. However,
the difference in meaning is certainly exaggerated in the English here,
because the genuineness denoted by is that genuineness which
is discovered or proven by testing. This does not need to be explained to
anyone reading the Greek, because it is the same word used in James 1:3,
and it is very obvious that the two senses of the word are conceptually
related. Therefore it is better to translate more concordantly as
tested genuiness in 1 Peter 1:7 (ESV).

In an illustration of this, Strauss discusses various meanings of the Greek

verb (do, practice, make, cause, give, etc), and belabors the
rather obvious point that cannot always be translated the same way.
And so he concludes:
42

more blameworthy than a mere failure to achieve ones goals. To define

sin as a missing of the mark is deeply unbiblical, and the preacher who
defines it thus merely on the basis of the history of the word is
committing a serious error of interpretation, by something akin to the
etymological fallacy. 31 But the same cannot be said of any statement
that the primary meaning of is brother, because brother was
the ordinary meaning of the word at the time that the New Testament was
written.

The literal translator recognizes that often does not mean make,
but still argues that, inasmuch as possible, the same English word should be
used for each word in Hebrew and Greek. But what is the justification for
this? If the goal of translation is meaning, then the correct question is not, Is
make an adequate translation? but What is the meaning of in
this context? and What English word, expression or idiom best captures
this sense? It is irrelevant whether the same English word is used in any
particular case, or even whether a whole English phrase or idiom is
introduced. 30

It is often hard to prove beyond any doubt what connotations a word had in
ancient times. But it would be unwise to assume that the primary meaning
of a word does not indicate its associative connotations when the primary
meaning also happens to be the meaning that is most common.

The issue is thus framed by a refusal to acknowledge that the primary sense
of a word commonly gives connotations to the extended senses. A
semantically mercurial word like is offered as proof of this, as if it
were typical. After a little specious reasoning we then come to a point
where people are even claiming that member of the church is an entirely
adequate translation for , and anyone who thinks that it must still
connote brother when it refers to a member of the church is said to be
guilty of a linguistic fallacy.

Strauss is so contrary to our way of thinking that he will not even tolerate
footnotes that give the primary meanings of words. He objects to a footnote
in the ESV, in which the translators indicate that the Greek word
literally means flesh, though they have translated it as human being in
the text. He says that with this footnote they promote a false and
misleading view of language and translation. 32 Likewise he charges the
translators of the NRSV with a fallacy when they give a footnote indicating
that literally means brothers, though they have given the genderinclusive rendering brother and sisters in the text: This is a lexical fallacy.
First, the Greek word is not brothers; it is adelphoi. Second, adelphoi does
not have a literal meaning, but a range of possible senses. 33

We are not here ignoring the theoretical possibility that a word-meaning

which began as a metaphorical extension of the primary meaning may lose
its metaphorical liveliness after generations of frequent use. There is such a
thing as a dead metaphor, which has become merely referential in
meaning, having lost its original connotations; or if not entirely dead, the
metaphorical force may have become dormant. A good example of this
would be the meaning of the verb ordinarily used for sin in the New
Testament, , which in the Illiad of Homer sometimes has the
concrete sense of miss the mark (i.e. in archery). Most philologists think
this concrete sense is the original sense of the word, and that the meaning
sin arose as a metaphorical extension of the more concrete meaning. But
sin became the ordinary meaning of the word long before the writing of
the New Testament, by which time the meaning miss the mark was
archaic, and would probably never occur to readersunless of course they
were reading Homer. And so the assertion often made in sermons, that the
biblical word for sin meant literally miss the mark, is quite misleading. In
the Bible sin denotes a turning away from God, a disobedient and corrupt
state of mind, manifesting itself in attitudes and behaviors that are much

No one denies that Hebrew and Greek words usually have more than one
sense, and that the context indicates which sense is meant. Anyone who is
familiar with the languages knows that these senses often do not match up
very well with English words. But theorists like Strauss and Nida fail to
recognize the true extent of the problem. They assume that it can be solved
by sharply segregating the senses and giving different renderings in
different places. We, on the other hand, perceive that a variety in the
rendering sometimes creates other problems which they do not
acknowledge. When the senses of are severed from one another in the
contextually nuanced translation, much of the meaning is lost. The same is
true of and and many other words.
43

English often does have the words needed to express these meanings, but
not at the conversational Common Language level. Sometimes it is
necessary to use borrowed words (e.g. Hades), and sometimes we must
take advantage of the biblical senses acquired by English words through
their usage in literal translations (brother, flesh, heart, know,
sleep, and so forth). The earliest English versions established these senses
by using literal equivalents for the primary sense of the words, and allowing
the context to indicate the extended biblical senses.

used in the literature) is read into a particular case as its sense and
implication there, may be called illegitimate totality transfer.
We may briefly remark that this procedure has to be specially guarded
against in the climate of present-day biblical theology, for this climate is
very favorable to seeing the Bible as a whole and rather hostile to the
suggestion that something is meant in one place which is really
unreconcilable with what is said in another (the sort of suggestion which
under literary criticism led to a fragmentation of the understanding of the
Bible). There may be also some feeling that since Hebrew man or biblical
man thought in totalities we should do the same as interpreters. But a
moments thought should indicate that the habit of thinking about God or
man or sin as totalities is a different thing from obscuring the value of a
word in a context by imposing upon it the totality of its uses. We may add
that the small compass of the NT, both in literary bulk and in the duration of
the period which produced it, adds a plausibility to the endeavor to take it
as one piece, which could hardly be considered so likely for any literature of
greater bulk and spread over a longer time. (pp. 218-19)

8. Semantic Minimalism
The best meaning is the least meaning
Strausss emphasis on the range and diversity of the senses of words and his
use of the phrase illegitimate totality transfer reflect the influence of
James Barr, whose critique of unsound philological practices in biblical
studies has greatly influenced many scholars of our generation, especially in
America. In his book The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961) Barr coined
the phrase illegitimate totality transfer to describe a tendency which he
had often noticed in theological writings.

Barrs book does not concern translations, it concerns theological writings

which tend (in his opinion) to base their assertions on mere linguistic
fantasy (p. 44) through the use of speculative etymologies, and which tend
to see wildly improbable significance in biblical words. In my opinion, some
of his complaints were valid and necessary. I would even say that Barr did
not press his valid points far enough. 1 But not all of them were valid. His
writing on this subject is polemical in spirit, and he tends to overcorrect, and
veer to questionable positions on the other side. Like Adolf Deissmann (with
whom he has much in common), his views are distorted by an animus
against systematic theology as such, which I do not share. Most important
for the present discussion is the fact that he does not draw a line between
the fantastic conceits of the etymologizing method, as he calls it, and the
entirely reasonable idea that polysemy commonly establishes connotations.
His attack on the misuse of the etymologizing method is strong and
compelling; but his illegitimate totality transfer charge is not so
convincing. (In the paragraphs quoted above he does not even explain why
should not bring to mind a general conception of the Church in
Matthew 16:18.) But my purpose here is not to offer an evaluation of Barr. I
am only interested in how his illegitimate totality transfer concept has

A term may be used in a number of places. Let us take the example of

church in the NT. If we ask, What is the meaning of in
the NT?, the answer given may be an adding or a compounding of different
statements about the made in various passages. Thus we might
say (a) the Church is the body of Christ (b) the Church is the first
instalment of the Kingdom of God (c) the Church is the Bride of Christ, and
other such statements. The meaning of in the NT could then be
legitimately stated to be the totality of these relations. This is one sense of
meaning. But when we take an individual sentence, such as The Church is
the Body of Christ, and ask what is the meaning of the Church in this
sentence, we are asking something different. The semantic indication given
by the Church is now something much less than the NT conception of the
Church. The realization of this is of primary importance in dealing with
isolated or unusual cases; the obvious example is my in Matt.
16:18 (cf 18:17). In this case the TWNT article (K.L. Schmidt) gives separate
treatment to the particular passages. The error that arises, when the
meaning of a word (understood as the total series of relations in which it is
44

been used in the climate created by Nidas influencea climate which

differs substantially from the one in which Barr raised his protest.

despite the differences all the related meanings are still to be found
embedded in each usage. For the Greek root dik- one might possibly argue
for such a position, but surely with the Hebrew root kbd, which in different
contexts may carry such widely diverse meanings as heavy, much, many,
slow, dull, grievous, difficult, burdensome, wealth, riches, prestige, glory,
honor, it would be folly to support such a syncretistic view of semantic
structure. 2

Nida was of course interested in the implications for dynamic equivalence

translations. In an article on Implications of Contemporary Linguistics for
Biblical Scholarship Nida declared that the correct meaning of any term is
that which contributes least to the total context:
This process of maximizing the context is fully in accord with the soundest
principles of communication science. As has been clearly demonstrated by
mathematical techniques in decoding, the correct meaning of any term is
that which contributes least to the total context, or in other terms, that
which fits the context most perfectly. In contrast to this, many biblical
scholars want to read into every word in each of its occurrences all that can
possibly be derived from all of its occurrences, and as a result they violate
one of the fundamental principles of information theory. Perhaps this error
is in some measure related to the false notion that when words are put
together they always add their meanings one to another. The very opposite
is generally the case. For example, green may denote a color, a lack of
experience (he is green at the job), and unripe (green fruit); and house may
indicate a dwelling, a construction for storing objects (warehouse), a lineage
(the house of David), a legislative body and a business establishment; but in
the combination green house the meanings of both green and house are
restricted to only one each of these meanings. On the other hand, in the
compound greenhouse the meanings of both green and house are
somewhat different from what they are in green house. But in neither
instance does one add all the meanings of green to all the meanings of
house. In such instances there is a mutual restriction of meaning. Moreover,
in combinations such as green house and greenhouse one must not attempt
to see implied in the component parts all the related meanings which these
terms have in other combinations. That is to say, words do not carry with
them all the meanings which they may have in other sets of co-occurrences.
Unfortunately, however, this is precisely what some students of the Bible
would seem to imply by their treatments of meaning. For example, some
persons would like to think that in every occurrence of the root dik-, in such
forms as dikaios, dikaioo, and dikaiosyne, all of the diverse meanings are in
some way or other implicit. This would amount to saying that essentially
there are no differences between the Matthean and Pauline uses, or that

It certainly would be foolish to try to roll together all the various meanings
of words sharing the root ( which would include the verb , the
adjective , and the noun )and to assert that the resulting mlange
of meanings is intended whenever these words are used. But in fact no one
is doing this, and it can have no relevance to questions of translation. More
to the point would be some discussion of why, in the few places where the
noun appears to have the meaning abundance or riches (maybe
four times out of about two hundred occurrences), there can be no
overtones of the usual meaning of honor or glory. Because it is not
obviously contrary to the soundest principles of communication science to
think that even in these contexts the meaning of would probably have
this associative connotation, and therefore the meaning would probably be
expressed more adequately with a combination, wealth that brings honor,
or something similar. I can illustrate this point with the English word
honor, which in certain contexts has a specialized sense, in relation to
women, as in the following lines from Spensers Faerie Queene, Book IV,
canto 1:
For Amoret right fearefull was and faint,
Lest she with blame her honor should attaint,
That everie word did tremble as she spake,
And everie looke was coy, and wondrous quaint.
Honor in this context means virginity. The word acquired this
specialized meaning in relation to unmarried women because virginity was
held to be especially honorable for them. But the general sense of honor
is not so absent in these contexts that we may substitute virginity without
a loss of meaning, because it means virginity as a condition of honor.
Spenser even makes this connotation of the word stand out by the use of
the antonym blame in the same line. This description of the meaning does
45

not involve any fanciful etymologizing method, and it is the kind of

observation that even the most cautious philologist would make. It is no
illegitimate totality transfer when I merely point out that the connotations
of the word result from the blending of the specialized with the basic
meaning. I think we might need a term for the opposite error here, in which
a community or continuum of meaning is arbitrarily broken into segments
by analysis. Classical scholar Charles Martindale calls it the lexicographical
fallacy because of its connection with the work of lexicographers, who
often seem to be intent on distinguishing and listing as many senses as
possible:

Another path of influence for the same tendency has been the discussion of
semantic analysis in a book by Moiss Silva, one of Barrs students. In a
chapter on Determining Meaning in his book Biblical Words and their
Meaning (1983, revised 1994), Silva shows a tendency to treat words as if
they had no fixed or ordinary meanings.
the context does not merely help us understand meaningit virtually
makes meaning. A standard introduction to linguistic science informs us that
among the divers meanings a word possesses, the only one that will
emerge into consciousness is the one determined by the context. All others
are abolished, extinguished, non-existent. This is true even of words whose
significance appears to be firmly established.

Again the metaphrast [i.e. the literal translator] will try to avoid falling prey
to what might be called the lexicographical fallacy. Latin dictionaries (in
this they are like all dictionaries) habitually give the impression that many
common Latin words have numerous distinct meanings; in fact, like most
English words, most Latin words have one basic core of meaning, but can be
used in many contexts. A poet tends to use ordinary words in unfamiliar
contexts, no poet more so than Virgil. Translators compete with each other
in their efforts to conceal this fact from their readers by glossing over such
abnormal usages. A couple of examples 3

Dealing also with words that have multiple meanings, B. Siertsema asserts
that the final interpretation afforded by the context is what actually
matters in communication. She adds that only those meanings are called
up, activated, which are at that moment intended by the speaker or writer.
The other aspects of meaning simply do not occur to us, neither to the
speaker nor to the hearer. (pp. 139-40)
The importance that Silva attaches to the immediate literary context may be
seen in his discussion of the lexical ambiguity in Galatians 3:4.

As for , and , I do not believe that Matthean

and Pauline uses indicate that Paul and Matthew meant such different
things by them that they should be translated differently, or that it is
illegitimate for us to expect a shared concept of righteousness to be implicit
in the meaning of these words when we encounter them in the New
Testament. These are not like the word greenthey are important
religious terms. They refer not to physical objects but to ethical concepts,
and their relationship to one another is transparent. We may assume that in
the context of ancient Judaism and Christianity these words were packed
with meaning, and that the three of them formed a self-consistent and
integrated set of concepts for the apostles. In any case, the determination
of their meaning will have far-reaching consequences for the interpretation
of the New Testament, and I must say that I am not willing to give this
question over to translators who are very bold to insert their own
contextual interpretations.

A classic example of lexical ambiguity is Pauls question in Galatians 3:4,

We may take the verb in its usual negative sense,
Did you suffer so many things in vain? We may also translate it in a
neutral sense, experience, in which case the context would suggest a
positive idea, that is, the blessings brought about by the Spirit. This
ambiguity illustrates dramatically how two valid principles of interpretation
can be brought into conflict. On the one hand, we could insist on choosing
the predominant meaning of the verb. That is, since all other passages in the
New Testament use in malam partem, and since, with very few
exceptions, the same holds true for Hellenistic Greek in general, we should
presume this negative sense unless the context prohibits it. On the other
hand, the principle of contextual interpretation would lead us to emphasize
that nothing in the immediate context suggests suffering on the part of the
Galatiansindeed, that nowhere in the letter is there an explicit reference
to such suffering.
46

We are then at an exegetical impasse; no resolution is perhaps possible.

However, there is an additional consideration that may throw light on our
problem. In 1953 the prominent linguist Martin Joos delivered a paper,
Towards a First Theorem in Semantics. In it he suggested

Joos illustrates his point by referring to Websters Thirds definition of per

contra, which includes the supportive quotation, the female is generally
drab, the male, per contra, brilliant. Assuming the user of the dictionary
has an adequate grasp of

the rule of maximum redundancy, The best meaning is the least meaning,
as the explicators and defining lexicographers rule of thumb for deciding
what a hapax legomenon [i.e. a word of unknown meaning, which occurs
only once in a body of literature] most probably means: he defines it in such
a fashion as to make it contribute least to the total message derivable from
the passage where it is at home, rather than, e.g., defining it according to
some presumed etymology or semantic history.

the and is and generally as discursive English, plus adequate

background such as the ordinary or the technically biological and cultural
pair female and male, we imagine him to be in secure possession of
exactly two of these three: drab, per contra, brilliant. (That is, any two of
the three!) Then the third is obvious and the solution is childs play, both
literally and figuratively.
It is literally childs play, because as children we used precisely the method
of maximal redundancy to learn a respectable number of words; indeed,
that is the method that we continue to use when we are not consciously
thinking about building our vocabulary.

At first blush, this statement may appear strange or even unacceptable, for
we tend to assume that an odd word must have some odd sense, the
odder the better. However, a moments reflection on the redundancy of
natural language will persuade us that Jooss Law is eminently reasonable.

Now while Jooss article addressed the problem of hapax legomena and
other words whose meaning may be unknown, the principle is readily
applicable to polysemy. In the case of in Galatians 3:4, one could
argue that the neutral sense experience creates less disturbance in the
passage than does suffer because the former is more redundantit is
more supportive of, and more clearly supported by, the context. Such an
argument is reasonable and this author finds it quite persuasive. However,
the principle must not be absolutized (Joos himself calls it a rule of
thumb), nor can its application in Galatians 3:4 be regarded as conclusive.
These reservations do not imply that the context does not give us the
meaning; rather, as previously emphasized, it is that we are not fully
cognizant of the context. For example, it may be argued (perhaps on the
basis of Acts 14:22) that the Galatians had indeed undergone serious
tribulation, that their hope of avoiding persecution made them susceptible
to the Judaizers teachings (cf. Gal. 6:12), and that their conversations with
Paul often dealt with this concern. If we therefore imagine that the subject
was always in their mind, the sense suffer in Galatians 3:4 would not
create a disturbance in the (broader) context. Our uncertainty then is based
on our inability to identify that context. (pp. 153-56)

Research into communication engineering has had considerable impact

on our understanding of language. In particular, we have become aware of
the need for redundancy in communication. When any piece of information
is transmitted, considerable interference and distortion (noise) cannot be
avoided; if the means of communication is one hundred percent efficient,
the slightest interference will obliterate the information. In the course of a
normal conversation, the hearers reception is greatly distorted by a variety
of causes: grammatical lapses on the part of speaker, less than perfect
enunciation, physical noises in the surroundings, momentary daydreaming
on the part of the hearer. In the vast majority of cases, the hearers do
receive the information because of the built-in redundancy of the language.
Suppose, for example, that we hear a three-syllable word, but only
understand the last two syllables -terday; not only are we able to guess that
the word is yesterday, but we make the guess without any awareness that
we failed to hear the first syllable. Similarly, missing a complete word
seldom bothers us because the sentence as a whole normally discloses that
word. Even if we fail to hear a complete sentence when listening to a
speech, we are unlikely to miss anything that is not automatically deducible
from the rest of the speech.
47

Again, we would not want to deny the fact that the context really does have
a decisive effect on the meaning of words, and we would even admit that
sometimes this needs to be emphasized. But Silvas statement that the
context virtually makes meaning is extravagant. The additional
consideration he introduces by an inappropriate application of Jooss
Law really amounts to a denial of the validity of the first principle, that the
ordinary meaning of a word should be assumed in the absence of clear
indications of a different meaning in the immediate context. A familiar word
is here being treated as if it were hapaxa word occurring only once, whose
meaning is unknown. But words are not just blanks that acquire their
meaning from contexts on the fly. In our comprehension of language we are
not usually like children guessing at the meaning of words. Words have
persistent default meanings that we will think of first in contexts which do
not clearly indicate another meaning. 4 Jooss Law is itself rather onesided, as may be seen in his example of determining the meaning of per
contrabecause the word contra would probably be associated with
contrary by English readers, so that on the contrary would be the first
meaning tried in the context. People often assign meanings to unfamiliar
words by associating them with words that resemble them phonetically.
Etymological inferences are probably used just as often as contextual
clues in linguistic situations like this. In the realm of scholarly investigation
also this is quite proper and normal, as Barr says, the etymological
recognition may be used in conjunction with the context to give a good
semantic indication (Semantics, p. 158). But even if we grant the general
validity of Jooss rule of thumb, it concerns the determination of the
meaning of words which are unfamiliar to the reader, and it is not really
applicable to the determination of meaning in ordinary cases of polysemy.

efficiency may be restated thus: Other things being equal, the efficiency of
the translation can be judged in terms of the maximal reception for the
minimal effort in decoding. Because of the diversities in linguistic form and
cultural backgrounds, however, translations are more likely to be
overloaded (and hence inefficient in terms of effort) than so redundant that
boredom results.
Here it seems that the principle set forth by Joos for the determination of
the meaning of hapax legomena in a dead language is made into an
overarching first law of semantics, which is then supposed to have some
bearing on the representation of the meaning of ordinary words in a
translation, for the sake of minimum effort of decoding. But the logic of all
this is not very clear. Jooss law is a heuristic rule, to be used in rare cases
when the meaning is wholly unknown. Best in this context must mean
most probable. But in the context of Nidas prescriptions best means
easiest for the reader, quite apart from any determination of the meaning
of the original. How did we get from one best to the other? Nida does not
seem to care about that, and leaves it to his readers to figure it out; the
important thing is that his advice concerning what is best should be
associated somehow with a first law of semantics.
Many renderings that are found in modern versions exhibit a tendency to
treat Hebrew and Greek words as if they had no proper meaning at all, and
they seem to represent nothing more than someones notion of what the
context would indicate if the space occupied by the word had been left
blank. One finds this tendency even in the more literal versions sometimes,
when the translators are following the lead of liberal commentators and
lexicographers. For instance, in Isaiah 48:10 the theologically important
word is now commonly rendered tried (RSV, ESV) or tested (NASB,
NKJV) for no good reason. The New Living Translation simply repeats the
word refined here, as if the were semantically identical to the
earlier in the verse. We grant that a word with this same meaning is natural
enough in the context if we were playing fill in the blank. But this word
is quite common, and in every other place where the qal form of the
word occurs it clearly means chose. Only here do we find it translated
differently in some modern versions. The different rendering might be
justifiable if chose were nonsensical herebut that is not the case. 5
Liberal commentators and lexicographers justify it by saying that the word

An even less appropriate application of Jooss Law is to be found in Nidas

discussion of Criteria To Be Used in Judging Translations.
The efficiency of a translation can be judged in terms of the maximal
reception for the minimum effort of decoding. In a sense, efficiency is
closely related to Jooss first law of semantics (Joos, 1953), which may be
stated simply: That meaning is best which adds least to the total meaning
of the context. In other words, the maximizing of redundancy reduces the
work of decoding. At the same time, redundancy should not be so increased
that the noise factor of boredom cuts down efficiency. Perhaps the factor of
48

bears its later Aramaic meaning here, but this explanation becomes
plausible only on the supposition that the chapter was not written by Isaiah.
6 We would not like to think that conservative translators are blindly
following the lexicographical opinions of liberal scholars, without
understanding what role the liberal higher criticism has played in their
philology. 7 But without this critical supposition the rendering tested
could only be preferred because it gets rid of something unusual, and
maximizes the banality of the translation.

proverbial saying that Paul often uses to clinch his arguments. It is capable
of wide application, as for example in John Wesleys statement: I then
search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, comparing spiritual
things with spiritual. 1 But many translators have felt the need to make the
statement more specific to the context. The New Living Translation, for
example, has using the Spirits words to explain spiritual truths, and its
marginal note reads, Or, explaining spiritual truths in spiritual language, or
explaining spiritual truths to spiritual people. There are other
interpretations which might just as well have been added to the note. But
these different interpretations are not mutually exclusive, and it is likely
that Paul would endorse them all as implications of his statement. Why are
the translators not content with the general statement? Why not leave it at
that, and let the reader discern the implications, the way Paul left his own
readers? The urge to explain seems to get the better of them, when no
explanation is needed.

We should reject the idea that the best meaning is the least meaning. It is
not a principle that deserves any special status in the work of translation,
exegesis, or lexicology. None of the authors quoted here have
demonstrated that it has much validity apart from its usefulness as a
heuristic rule of thumb to be used in special cases.
9. Unnecessary Help

Perhaps the most common occasion for excessive interpretation is the

treatment of genitive constructions, in which nouns modify other nouns in
ways that are sometimes ambiguous. In many places we must be content to
say that the genitive merely indicates a connection, the nature of which
must be discerned from the context; but these genitive constructions are
often analyzed too closely in translation.

Several of the renderings discussed above may also be put in a large of class
of paraphrastic renderings which may be described as unnecessary help.
For example, the NIVs paraphrastic translation of in 1 Peter 4:1219. Obviously the NIV translators felt that they were helping the reader with
this rendering. But did they suppose that ordinary readers of the Bible are
so dense that they are incapable of understanding that fiery ordeal here
refers to painful trials?

In 2 Thessalonians 1:8 we read of the judgment that is coming upon those

who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus (
). Someone who demands to know if the
meaning of the genitive phrase here is subjective (i.e. the gospel preached
by Jesus) or objective (the gospel about Jesus) may already be on the wrong
track, because the question presupposes that Paul himself made such a
distinction, or would have cared about such a distinction. If in fact he never
made such a distinction, it will only result in a distortion of his meaning if we
import the idea that these are two different things. As one recent
introduction to biblical interpretation points out, this is not a case of
ambiguity where a choice between alternative interpretations is necessary,
but a case of inexactness, where the one meaning is not precise. 2 The
rendering of the Good News Bible here, those who do not obey the Good
News about our Lord Jesus, over-specifies the meaning of the genitive.

Many similar instances of unnecessary help could be mentioned. For

example, in 1 Corinthians 2:11-13 Paul writes:
for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who
among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which
is in him? Even so the things of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from
God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things
we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught
by the Spirit, combining spiritual things with spiritual.
The last clause here, , lit. matching
spiritual things to spiritual, looks like a general maximthe kind of pithy,
49

In a booklet posted on the website of the NIVs publisher, 3 Gordon Fee and
Mark Strauss find fault with literal renderings of genitive constructions in
several other versions, and maintain that these must be interpreted for the
reader as in the NIV:

therefore when the Holy Spirit was given, those who believed the word
were sealed; and those who have the Holy Spirit know that every promise
will be fulfilled to them. (Gnomon of the New Testament.)
Fee and Strauss ignore these other interpretations, and continue:

Clarity can be compromised by consistently translating a Hebrew or Greek

form with the same English form. One of the most problematic of these is
the Greek genitive case. Beginning Greek students are often told to
translate the genitive with the preposition of, as in the phrase the word
of God (ho logos tou theou). Here tou theou (of God) is a genitive
construction. The problem is that while many genitive constructions in the
New Testament can be translated with of + Noun, others cannot. Consider
these translations of genitive constructions (in italics) in formal equivalent
versions:

Similarly, in Hebrews 1:3 the ESVs word of his power is nonsensical (word
that his power possesses?). This is another attributive genitive, meaning his
powerful word (Todays NIV, NET, HCSB, GNT, NRSV). The NASBs hope of
His calling in Ephesians 1:18 seems to suggest that believers hope they will
be called by God. But believers are already called! The genitive here means
the hope to which you were called (Todays NIV, NRSV, ESV).
Word of his power may be understood as both a genitive of source and
an attributive genitive. The word proceeds from and shares the quality of
his power. This phrase is no more nonsensical than act of kindness. 5 If
it is understood as being only an attributive genitive, it is no more difficult to
understand than other attributive genitives in English, such as ring of gold,
matters of importance, men of valor, or pearl of great price. Although
such genitives are not very common in English, and belong mostly to formal
or poetic registers, they are readily understood by ordinary people. A false
impression of unintelligibility is given by Fee and Strauss by removing the
phrase from its context. As often happens in language, an interpretive
blinkering effect comes into play when an unusual or irregular construction
is put under a magnifying glass and looked at too closely, although its
meaning is not unclear when it is encountered in the flow of the text. 6
These attributive genitive constructions may be unusual, but they are by no
means unintelligible in their contexts, and rules of English grammar do not
require their elimination. Morever, the attributive genitive is not really
equivalent to the more colloquial adjective + noun construction, because it
places more emphasis on the quality. In English we sense that ring of gold
puts more emphasis on the gold than golden ring does. The quality is
emphasized by making it a noun. Word of his power likewise emphasizes
the power more than powerful word does. And this is also true of
Greek, as noted by the grammarians. 7

you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. (Eph. 1:13 NKJV)
he [Christ] upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Heb. 1:3 ESV)
I pray . . . that you will know what is the hope of His calling. (Eph. 1:18
NASB)
While in many cases the preposition of is a perfectly acceptable
translation, in these examples it results in an obscure or misleading
translation. What, for example, does the Holy Spirit of promise mean? The
meaning of this phrase is the Holy Spirit who was promised, or the
promised Holy Spirit (Todays NIV, NET, HCSB, NAB, ESV). We have here
what grammarians refer to as an attributive genitive.
Perhaps. But here, as very often, the interpretation offered by the
translators may not convey the true or entire meaning. Despite the number
of modern versions that can be cited for this interpretation, it is not the only
one found in commentaries. For the Holy Spirit of promise might also be
understood the Holy Spirit who made the promise, or who brings with
him a promise of salvation, with an eye on the following verse. It was thus
that Calvin, Beza, and F.F. Bruce understood it. 4 Or it could be taken in such
a general or plenary sense that we may include both ideas, with
Chrysostom: Thus here also he makes the things already bestowed a sure
token of the promise of those which are yet to come. (Homily 2 on
Ephesians.) Likewise Bengel: The Holy Spirit was promised by the word;

Regarding the hope of his calling in Ephesians 1:18, we doubt very much
that it means the hope to which you were called, as Fee and Strauss
50

confidently assert. Surely the genitive here is more naturally understood as

a genitive of source or instrumental cause, the hope that comes with (or
from) his calling, as H.A.W. Meyer explains: What a great and glorious
hope is given to the man, whom God has called to the kingdom of the
Messiah, by means of that calling. So once again, we must say that the
interpretation given in NIV is likely to be wrong, while the less helpful
literal translationwhich is not in fact difficult to understand in its
contextallows the English reader to interpret the phrase rightly.

translation, and gives instead a literal rendering, justitia Dei. The NIV
translators, like Luther, prefer to give a particular interpretation a
righteousness from God but unlike Luther, they interpret the
construction as a genitive of author or origin. 8 There are other possibilities
as well, such as understanding it as a subjective genitive denoting either a
quality or an action of God. Commentators of the past two centuries have
proposed an amazing variety of interpretations, 9 and the exegesis is further
complicated by the different meanings assigned to , which in
Jewish Greek had acquired the sense of covenant faithfulness. 10 The NLT
seems to be combining at least two interpretations with its highly
paraphrastic rendering, how God makes us right in his sight. But now I
would ask: why not simply accept the fact that the Greek genitive
construction does not always demand such an exact and specific analysis?
There is no good reason to suppose that at this point Paul is saying anything
more than that a (covenantal) divine righteousness is revealed in the
gospel, as opposed to a merely human righteousness. The phrase itself does
not express the specific ideas we find in the translations of Luther, the NIV,
or the NLT, and the immediate context does not require us to elaborate or
constrain the meaning to any one of them. If we want to know more about
this righteousness of God, we must read on! Not everything is said at
once. 11 The Greek language does not lack the means for saying specifically
a righteousness from God if that is what Paul had meant to express here.
He might have written here (as in Philippians 3:9), but
he did not. And when we get to 3:26, it appears that Paul means at least
two different things by the phrase righteousness of God to show his
righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier
of the one who has faith in Jesus. So here, as in many other places, the
dynamic translations seem to be presenting overly-specific
interpretations.

Fee and Strauss conclude:

Consistent use of the preposition of to translate the genitive case
represents a misguided attempt at literalism. Clarity in translation demands
that the translator consider carefully the meaning of the text in each
particular context. In these examples readers might be able to work out the
meaning of the genitive by reflecting on the sentence. The word of his
power is perhaps comprehensible, but it is far from clear.
As we have shown in these same examples, the representation of the Greek
genitive with a corresponding genitive construction in the more literal
English versions should not be dismissed as a mindless and misguided
attempt at literalism, done merely for the sake of a formal
correspondence. Rather, it is for the sake of the meaning that the form is
preserved in these versions. Fee and Strauss recommend the clarity of the
NIV, and clarity is certainly desirablebut it is not more important than
accuracy.
We could cite many other examples of this same tendency. One very
notable one is the treatment of the phrase righteousness
of God in Romans 1:17. Luther famously translated it, die Gerechtigkeit, die
vor Gott gilt, welche kommt aus Glauben the righteousness that is valid
in the sight of God, which comes from faith, etc., interpreting the genitive
in an objective sense. This interpretation, which seems rather forced,
reflects Luthers eagerness to introduce the doctrine of imputed
righteousness. Calvin explains it in the same way as Luther (Justitiam Dei
accipio, qu apud Dei tribunal approbatur I take the righteousness of
God to mean, that which is approved before his tribunal), but he cautiously
refrains from injecting this interpretation directly into the text of his Latin

In cases like this, where the meaning cannot be narrowed down without risk
of eliminating part of the intended meaning, it is best to translate the Greek
genitive construction with a correspondingly ambiguous English genitive. In
Romans 1:17, should be translated either righteousness
of God or Gods righteousness. 12
In the same verse, the phrase (lit. from faith to faith)
has received much analysis. The NIV interprets this rather cryptic saying as
51

a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, sparing readers the

burden of figuring it out for themselves. But here, as often, the difficulty in
the literal rendering is not created by the translators: it lies in the Greek
text. Many scholars do favor the NIVs interpretation, but many do not.
Some understand it quite differently, and others prefer to leave it an open
question. 13

about the need for explanations, because every explanatory note is really a
testimony to the failure of dynamic equivalence in the translation. In any
case it seems rather pointless to worry about whether or not we should say
the marginal notes add to the text when so much interpretation has
already been worked into the text itselfand that is our main concern here.
We would emphasize the need for marginal notes to indicate
interpretations which are at variance with the interpretations embodied in
the text.

10. Inadequate Marginal Notes

I want translations with copious footnotes, footnotes reaching up like
skyscrapers to the top of this or that page so as to leave only the gleam of
one textual line between commentary and eternity. I want such footnotes
and the absolute literal sense, with no emasculation and no padding.
Vladimir Nabokov 1

In his article, Nida says that such notes should not be given in versions
designed for people who are receiving the Scriptures in their language for
the first time, because they have no interest in and little appreciation of
the problems of alternative readings and renderings (p. 3) and do not
understand the use of footnotes. This seems rather patronizing, and it
ignores the possibility that the version will be used not only for private
reading but also for instruction, by pastors and teachers who are likely to
take an interest in these matters. But that does not concern him, because
the more proficient translators have incorporated into the text itself the
type of information which is required for intelligibility (p. 4). In editions
prepared for the average reading public he does recommend some few
notes for noteworthy instances of differences of rendering. The
determination of what is noteworthy he leaves to the translators. Of course
the problem here is that these translators may not be very eager to flag
their own interpretations as possibly wrong, by mentioning interpretations
contrary to their own in the margin. Our complaint is that the versions are
defective in this matter, because many noteworthy differences of
interpretation are not mentioned in the notes of highly interpretive
versions.

Theorists and translators of the dynamic equivalence school are not

opposed in principle to the use of marginal notes. Nida has published an
article on Marginal Helps for the Reader in The Bible Translator that
covers all aspects of this subject, and recommends several different kinds of
notes. 2 But the article shows that he is mainly interested in the possibility
of using the margin to add explanations to a translation which already
includes in itself a good deal of interpretation. His article is partly designed
to justify this use of the margin in view of the fact that his employer (the
American Bible Society) has stipulated that translations sponsored by the
Society must not contain doctrinal notes. 3 The article concludes:
Marginal helps are not designed to add to the text. They are nothing more
nor less than the inevitable means by which we permit the text to speak for
itself in some degree equivalent to the manner in which it spoke to those
who first received it. Helps which go beyond this are not justified, but those
which make it possible for the Scriptures to speak their message clearly and
effectively should have a place somewhere.

It is generally admitted by proponents of dynamic equivalence that

interpretive renderings can be risky, because they tend to foreclose
interpretive options that may be more correct. The standard reply to
objections based on this consideration is to point out that the translator can
always use marginal notes to indicate other possibilities. In one book coauthored by Nida and Jan de Waard, they write:

The reason for this strange manner of speaking, in which explanatory notes
are said to permit the text to speak for itself, is to be found somewhere in
the baggage of ideology that Nida brings to the subject, no doubt. Obviously
the text is not speaking for itself when it is annotated, and we wonder why
this could not be frankly admitted. Probably it reflects some embarrassment

The use of marginal notes (textual, exegetical, historical, and cultural),

glossaries, references, indices, and concordances can all be of help, but
52

rarely do they suffice to correct the meaning of an otherwise misleading

term. Rather than incorporate obscure, ambiguous, and potentially
misleading expressions into the text of a translation, it is far better to
provide receptors with a meaningful equivalent in the text and possible
alternatives in the margin, including, if necessary, literal renderings if this
will help the reader understand better the significance of the original. (From
One Language to Another, p. 34)

renderings of the biblical text. Any needed explanations would then be

taken care of by an informed clergy, who could instruct people as to the
correct interpretation. In general, however, such an approach has been
woefully inadequate. In Romans 1:17 practically all laymen and many of the
clergy understand the phrase the righteousness of God to be a statement
about Gods own personal character rather than a reference to what God
does, either in righting wrong or in putting people right with himself. (p. 34)

And again:

This is one of Nidas favorite examples. In an earlier work he wrote:

Most ambiguities in the original text are due to our own ignorance of the
cultural and historical backgrounds of the text. It is unfair to the original
writer and to the receptors to reproduce as ambiguities all those passages
which may be interpreted in more than one way the translator places a
very heavy burden on the receptor to determine which of two or more
meanings may be involved. The average reader is usually much less capable
of making correct judgments about such alternative meanings than is the
translator, who can make use of the best scholarly judgments on ambiguous
passages. Accordingly, the translator should place in the text the best
attested interpretation and provide in marginal notes the appropriate
alternatives. (p. 39)

When a high percentage of people misunderstand a rendering, it cannot be

regarded as a legitimate translation. For example, in Romans 1:17 most
traditional translations have the righteousness of God is revealed from
faith to faith, and most readers naturally assume that this is a reference to
Gods own personal righteousness. Most scholars are agreed, however, that
this is not Gods own righteousness, but the process by which God puts men
right with himself (cf. Todays English Version). It is the act of
justification (to use a technical, and generally misunderstood word) and
not the character of righteousness. But a translation which insists on
rendering the Greek literally as the righteousness of God is simply
violating the meaning for the sake of preserving a formal grammatical
correspondence. 4

Presumably the absence of a marginal note would indicate that the

translator is so sure of his interpretation that he does not think any other
representation of the meaning is worth mentioning. If this is the case, we
must conclude that many dynamic translators have a higher opinion of
their exegetical skill than they should. Nida unwittingly illustrates this in his
remarks on the expression righteousness of God in Romans 1:17, which
we have discussed above. Despite the fact that Paul himself practically
explains the expression in a double sense (that he might be just and the
justifier), Nida maintains that a translation must prevent readers from
interpreting this as a statement about Gods own personal character. He
claims that misunderstandings of this phrase cannot be prevented by an
informed clergy, because he believes that too many clergymen are
uninformed, and cannot be relied upon to give the correct interpretation.

We would not want to defend translations which are violating the meaning
for the sake of preserving a formal grammatical correspondence, of course,
but Nidas argument here is unfair, because it misrepresents the motives of
the translator. The literal translation is designed to preserve as much of the
exegetical potential of the original as possiblemaking the entire or correct
meaning accessible to readers. It is not given merely for the sake of
preserving a formal correspondence, but for the sake of the meaning. The
translation itself is not violating the meaning when it does not make
misinterpretations impossible. But the overly interpretive translation which
misinterprets or gives only half the meaning does not do justice to the
original. We notice that the Good News Bible (which Nida calls Todays
English Version) does not have a marginal note for in Romans
1:17. Nor does the New Living Translation, or the NIV.

Some church leaders have felt that translations should not attempt to
bridge any language-culture gaps but should stick to more or less literal
53

In choosing between alternatives the translator would do well to make use

of the best scholarly judgments, as Nida says, but this is easier said than
done. Scholars have argued with one another about the meaning of nearly
everything in the Bible. In the past century, especially, it seems that every
scholar tries to make his mark by inventing new interpretations. In these
circumstances the ability of translators and editors to sort out the best
scholarly judgments can hardly be taken for granted. One can usually find
scholarly support for interpretations found in paraphrastic translations, but
they are very often questionable, and represent only one side of a longstanding disagreement between scholars. Sometimes they represent fads of
interpretation that prevail only for a generation or two. Moreover, the best
scholarly minds in every generation are those who are able to see both sides
of a question, who are able to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty, and who
suspend judgment when the resolution of some issue is not absolutely
necessary. This attitude, which leads the scholar to keep saying on the one
hand but on the other hand, etc., can be rather frustrating for laymen
who are looking for simple and fast answers to everything, but scholarship
does not naturally produce simple and fast answers.

something he does? Seen as Gods meeting of the claims of his covenant

relationship, the answer is not a strict either-or, but both-and, with the
emphasis on the latter. 5
Now if Dunn is right, and the phrase means covenant faithfulness, then it
does refer to a quality of Gods character, as revealed in his saving purpose
and action. For faithfulness is certainly a quality or attribute. Ernst
Ksemann, writing in 1979, says that this interpretation now seems to be
predominant, and he quite properly says it is a variation of the older idea
of righteousness as a divine quality. 6 The increasing dominance of this
interpretation in recent decades is probably why the TNIV revision of the
NIV changed a righteousness from God to the righteousness of God. In a
recent article the Pauline scholar N.T. Wright describes the situation that
the translator faces with regard to :
For Paul, soaked in the Hebrew scriptures both in their original version and
in their Greek translation, the word resonated loudly with the hymns and
prophecies of ancient Israel, celebrating the fact that Israels God was
faithful to his ancient promises and therefore would deliver his people from
their enemies. We just do not have a single word, or even a single phrase,
which will convey all that Paul meant when he wrote dikaiosyne. The best
the translator can do is to set up signposts pointing in more or less the right
direction, and encourage readers to read on and glimpse the larger picture
within which the words will flesh themselves out and reveal more of the
freight they had all along been carrying. 7

Let us see what some prominent scholars say about the in

Romans 1:17. In his commentary James Dunn translates it the
righteousness of God and explains:
is a good example of the need to penetrate through
Pauls Greek language in order to understand it in the light of his Jewish
background and training God is righteous when he fulfills the obligations
he took upon himself to be Israels God, that is, to rescue Israel and punish
Israels enemies (e.g. Exod 9:27; 1 Sam 12:7; Dan 9:16; Mic 6:5)
righteousness as covenant faithfulness (3:3-5, 25; 10:3; also 9:6 and
15:8). It is clearly this concept of Gods righteousness which Paul takes
over here; the righteousness of God being his way of explicating the
power of God for salvation (v. 16; cf. Gyllenberg, 41; Hill, 156; NEB catches
only one side of it with the translation Gods way of righting wrong). It is
with this sense that the phrase provides a key to his exposition in Romans
(3:5, 21-22, 25-26; 10:3), as elsewhere in his theology (2 Cor 5:21; Phil 3:9).
This understanding of Pauls language largely removes two issues which
have troubled Christian theology for centuries. (1) is the righteousness of
God subjective genitive or objective genitive; is it an attitude of God or

Perhaps Nida is thinking of an earlier consensus. But if we consult the old

standard commentary on Romans by Sanday and Headlam (circa 1900) we
find remarks similar to Dunns:
For some time past it has seemed to be almost an accepted exegetical
tradition that the righteousness of God means here a righteousness of
which God is the author and man the recipient, a righteousness not so
much of God as from God, i.e. a state or condition of righteousness
bestowed by God upon man. But quite recently two protests have been
raised against this view. There can be little doubt that the protest is
justified; not so much that the current view is wrong as that it is partial and
incomplete. The righteousness of God is a great and comprehensive idea
54

which embraces in its range both God and man; and in this fundamental
passage of the Epistle neither side must be lost sight of. the very cogency
of the arguments on both sides is enough to show that the two views which
we have set over against each other are not mutually exclusive but rather
inclusive. The righteousness of which the Apostle is speaking not only
proceeds from God but is the righteousness of God Himself: it is this,
however, not as inherent in the Divine Essence but as going forth and
embracing the personalities of men. It is righteousness active and energizing
8

we should only gain a false clearness by attempting to remove. Such

expressions in the phraseology of philosophy necessarily involve subject and
object, a human soul in which they are made conscious, a Divine Being from
whom they proceed, and to whom they have reference. It is generally
confusing to ask to which of these they belong. 9
Here we see that toleration of ambiguity which is typical of scholarly
interpretation. In this case the scholars even insist upon the ambiguity. We
do not find here any support for Nidas demand for a simple and one-sided
interpretation. Instead, there is a refusal to comply with such demands.
Nida seems to have a wrong impression of the best scholarly judgments
on this particular question: the best judgment seems to be that the meaning
of the phrase is irreducibly ambiguous. In his showcase example Nida is
recommending what the scholars call one side of the meaning, a partial
and incomplete interpretation, and a false clearness.

Likewise Benjamin Jowett comments:

Viewing these words by the light of later controversy, interpreters have
asked whether the righteousness here spoken of, is to be regarded as
subjective or objective, inherent or imputed, as revealed by God or
accepted by man. These are the after-thoughts of theology, which have
no real place in the interpretation of Scripture. We cannot define what is
not defined by the Apostle himself. But if, leaving later controversies, we try
to gather from the connexion itself a more precise meaning, another
uncertainty remains. For the righteousness of God may either mean that
righteousness which existed always in the Divine nature, once hidden but
now revealed; or may be regarded as consisting in the very revelation of the
Gospel itself, in the world and in the heart of man. The first step to a right
consideration of the question, is to place ourselves within the circle of the
Apostles thoughts and language. The expression [the
righteousness of God] was familiar to the Israelite, who, without any
reference to St. Pauls distinction of faith and works, used it in a double
sense for an attribute of God and the fulfilment of the Divine law. Compare
James, i. 20.: [for the
wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God]. Rom. x. 3.:
, ,
[For being ignorant of Gods
righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject
themselves to the righteousness of God]. The law, the fulfilment of the law,
and the Divine Author of the law, pass into each other; the mind is carried
on imperceptibly from one to the other. The language of all religion,
consisting as it must in mediation between God and man, or in the
manifestation of God in man, is full of these and similar ambiguities, which

I could go on to discuss the similar of treatment of in

James 1:20 and other places, but I fear that I have already overtaxed the
patience of my readers by dwelling upon a subtle exegetical question at
such length. I feel it is necessary, however, to give a true impression of how
much careful thought scholars have given to questions of interpretation
which dynamic translators have suppressed and glossed over for the ease
of their readers. Those who are familiar with the literature in which these
questions are explored will also see readily enough that simplified
translations like the Good News Bible and the New Living Translation cannot
adequately represent the opinions of scholars, because the opinions of
scholars are not simple.
Nidas argument that alternative interpretations can be given in the margin
had better not be just a way of dismissing legitimate concerns about this
method of translation. Translators had better be careful to do it. But we find
time and again that they do not provide such marginal notes, even where
the most questionable interpretations are foisted into the text. In the very
nature of the case, one might suppose that translations of this type would
include more footnotes than the literal versions, in order to ensure that
interpretive options and nuances are not suppressed. But an examination of
the versions reveals an opposite tendency: the dynamic versions tend to
have far fewer footnotes than the literal ones. Editions of the Good News
55

for Modern Man New Testament published between 1966 and 1976 had
no footnotes at all. Some editions included an appendix of Other Readings
and Renderings at the back of the volume, but this only seems to show
how reluctant the editors were to put notes in the margins. The extent of
the difference between versions in this regard can be illustrated by the
number of footnotes in Job, a poetic book that is particularly rich in
ambiguous lines. The following table gives the total number of footnotes in
seven of todays most widely-used versions.

number of footnotes that would be required to do this consistently would

be overwhelming.

NASB NKJV RSV ESV NIV TEV NLT

474 247 127 103 102 84 31

Another advises against the inclusion of many notes in a dynamic

equivalence version because the notes which give more literal renderings
will collectively defeat the purpose of the whole translation.

When RSV makes some adjustments from the Hebrew text for the sake of
clarity or explication, a literal rendering of the Hebrew is sometimes
provided. Since GNB is a dynamic equivalent translation, such adjustments
are made in just about every sentence. Footnotes of this type would
consequently be too extensive for practical purposes. 11

We observe that one of the most literal versions, the NASB, has more than
fifteen times as many notes as the NLT in the Book of Job. The correlation is
not proportional, but in general we find that the more dynamic a version
is, the fewer footnotes it contains. What is the reason for this correlation? I
think a clue is given by Nida and de Waard in the same book quoted above,
when they state that for private devotional reading of the Scriptures
people normally prefer a text which is not encumbered with numerous
references and footnotes (p. 18). It would be more accurate to say,
however, that the editors of the more paraphrastic versions have in view a
class of readers who do not want their minds encumbered with the tricky
details, alternative renderings, and nuances that might have been provided
in the margin.

Similar questions arise with text which is not necessarily figurative but
which has traditionally been translated formally, and which translators are
unhappy to lose by translating any other way. They feel that they will at
least be accused of dropping familiar verses or expressions, or of giving a
different meaning, or of changing the Bible; at worst they may fear that
the translation will be rejected. So they pepper the pages with footnotes
containing the earlier literal translation of expressions and sentences, and
even whole verses which they have in fact restructured beautifully to bring
out the meaning. Such notes of course bring the whole background of the
translation project into question. 12
By background here the author apparently means the background of
translation theory. The concern is that a margin that gives too many
alternative interpretations and literal renderings will only damage the
credibility of the translation. The same fear is expressed in an article written
by translation consultants associated with the Wycliffe Bible Translators,
who explain that if marginal alternatives disagree with the text, readers
become distrustful of the translation. 13

The details and alternatives that are commonly neglected in the translation
of Job are not trivial. For example, in 13:15 we find the rendering God
might kill me, but I cannot wait in the NLT, without a footnote, and Ive
lost all hope, so what if God kills me? in the Good News Bible; whereas
other versions have Though he slay me, I will hope in him (NASB, ESV),
Though he slay me, yet will I trust him (KJV, NKJV), or something similar.
Who will say that this is unimportant? The translators could not have been
ignorant of it, and clearly a footnote here is in order. 10

We find then three basic reasons for the absence of marginal notes. It is said
that: (1) people who use the version will not appreciate the notes, and so
they are useless; (2) the systematic inclusion of notes such as we find in the
RSV, giving more literal renderings when the translators have hazarded
interpretations, would require a note on nearly every verse; and (3) the
presentation of many notes like this would tend to invite criticism of the

Searching through issues of The Bible Translator (a journal edited by Nida) I

found one article which explains that in a dynamic equivalence version it is
not practical to give more literal renderings in the margin because the
56

whole translation. These reasons combine to prevent the margin from

compensating for inadequate or wrong interpretations in the text.

value than the treasures of Egypt, and she wanted to know how a
determination to suffer for the sake of Christ could be attributed to Moses
(even before the ministry of the prophets), and why the Old Testament
failed to mention this motive in its account of Moses. The pastor was caught
flat-footed by this excellent question, and began to stumble. He looked at
me hopefully, but I could give no help, because I had never heard such a
statement being quoted as Scripture, and I had no better version of the
Bible with me to jog my memory of the verse. If Hebrews 11:26 had been
quoted in a more literal form, I might have explained the reproach of
Christ in the way that I have always understood it; but I could not explain
the NIVs disgrace for the sake of Christ. As happens far too often in
modern versions, the NIV here imposes a very questionable interpretation
on the text, currently favored in some circles, without providing readers
with a note giving the more literal rendering, or in any way indicating the
more likely traditional interpretation of the phrase. 15 In its defense, one
might argue that it is just possible to interpret the simple genitive
construction in this way, if we suppose that the author was being somewhat
lax in his style; but it cannot be said that the Greek genitive ever expresses
for the sake of. For that, a prepositional phrase is required, like with
the accusative. The simple genitive construction
is here more naturally understood as the same reproach that fell
upon Christ, and this meaning is not hard to discern from a literal rendering
like the reproach of Christ in this context. The question raised by the
woman in my friends Bible class would not have been raised if it were not
for the helpful NIV rendering, which made the true sense of the phrase
virtually inaccessible to the class; and it would not have been hard to
answer if a less interpretive rendering were given in the margin.

In Acts 19:21 it says (lit. Paul was settled

in the spirit) and many commentators say that this should be understood
as a statement that Pauls momentous decision to go to Jerusalem was
made by the influence of the Holy Spirit. 14 But the NIV has interpreted
as referring only to Pauls own spirit or mind, and so it says
that Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, without any mention of his spirit or
the Spirit. Up until the revision of 2011 there was no footnote here
informing readers of the other interpretation. Yet in 20:22 the same version
translates as compelled by the
Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, without giving a footnote indicating the
possibility that merely refers to Pauls mind, as they have
interpreted it in 19:21. A version should translate them alike, one would
think, but in any case a footnote is certainly appropriate. Perhaps the NIV
committee did not think it would matter much either way to laymen, who
have no interest in and little appreciation of the problems of alternative
readings and renderings, as Nida put it. But I actually had to deal with this
question once, many years ago, after a guest speaker at my church asserted
that Paul should not have gone to Jerusalem, because God never sent him
there. This speaker was not using the NIV, but he referred to the Darby
version, which says, Paul purposed in his spirit to go to Jerusalem in Acts
19:21, and bound in my spirit in 20:22 (emphasis added). Afterwards one
of the leading men of the congregation strongly objected to this teaching,
and sought my opinion. I remember that a copy of the NASB served me well
on that occasion; but what if we had only the NIV to consult? With its
interpretive renderings, and without the necessary footnotes, it would not
have been very helpful, to say the least.

Now I admit that experiences like this do not happen every day, but in my
line of work a version that causes such embarrassment more than once a
year does not exactly commend itself. And we cannot always be carrying a
stack of Bibles and reference works around with us. So a minister needs to
have a version that can be relied upon for all practical purposes.

When interpretive translators fail to indicate viable alternatives in the

margin, they sometimes cause serious difficulties for teachers, even for
those who are well versed in Scripture. I once visited an adult Bible class
being taught by a young seminary-trained pastor, in which one woman
asked a question about Hebrews 11:26, which says that Moses counted the
reproach of Christ ( ) greater riches than the
treasures of Egypt. Unfortunately everyone there was using the NIV, which
states that Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater

Sometimes we find in modern versions dynamic renderings that are

exegetically impossible, without any alternative renderings given in the
margin. An example of this is Matthew 12:33 in the NIV, Make a tree good
and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a
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tree is recognized by its fruit. The Greek verb translated make here is an
imperative (), and so it cannot be interpreted as if it were merely
posing a hypothetical condition, meaning if you make then. The Greek
imperative cannot function like that. It is difficult to imagine how a group of
conscientious scholars could have decided to put this in the text without a
marginal note. 16 The rendering usually found in more literal versions
Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and
its fruit bad is indeed not very helpful, and likely to be misunderstood;
but at least it allows a teacher to bring out the meaning clearly and deftly by
explaining the word make in the sense of consider. The NIVs very loose
rendering, on the other hand, is so unlike the Greek that it cannot even be
used as a starting point for the explanation of the verse. It is necessary to
reject the whole sentence as a mistranslation, and offer in its place a
rendering quite unlike it in form. Again, this would not be so bad if the
version had included a footnote that could be used as the basis for the
explanation.

11. Needless Limitations of the Vocabulary

In one of the examples cited above, I used the word reproach to translate
the Greek . This English word, reproach, is today rarely heard in
conversation. In colloquial speech its use is practically confined to the
phrase above reproach, and the word has a distinctly literary if not biblical
flavor to it. For some time now, many translators who adhere to principles
of dynamic equivalence have been avoiding words like this, because they
suppose that words rarely used in conversation are liable to be
misunderstood. Therefore instead of reproach, we see disgrace in
several modern versions, in places like Hebrews 11:26 and 13:13. But the
word disgrace does not have quite the same meaning as reproach. The
two words are very close in meaning, but disgrace implies some fault,
giving sufficient cause for dishonor, whereas reproach does not.
Reproach has reference to public reputation only. A righteous man might
be said to suffer reproach (e.g. by public insults and ridicule for his
unpopular views), but we do not speak of a mans disgrace without
implying that his reputation is deserved. This illustrates one of the great
advantages of the English language: its relatively large stock of words, which
puts at our disposal many synonyms that enable us to make such fine
distinctions. If, however, we choose to artificially limit this vocabulary, using
only those words which are commonly used in conversation, our ability to
express ourselves is greatly diminished. Translators who avoid words rarely
used in conversation, though they are generally understood by English
speakers, are limiting their own ability to convey shades of meaning in the
original, and for no good reason. It is not necessary to limit the vocabulary
of a Bible version to words that are commonly used in conversation,
because, as Robert Bratcher acknowledges, even a common language
version must present the text in the style of written, not spoken, English
and any theorist who would demand such an artificially restricted
vocabulary is overlooking the fact that people can understand more words
than they themselves ordinarily use. 1

All of which goes to show how empty is Nidas statement that a translator
can always provide in marginal notes the appropriate alternatives. The
whole ethos of dynamic equivalence frowns at the kind of carefulness that
would supply details and alternatives in the margin, while encouraging
translators to take unprecedented liberties with the text.
In this chapter I have argued that a more frequent use of marginal notes,
indicating alternative renderings, would be an improvement to these
interpretive versions. But a better solution to this whole problem would be
to refrain from using needlessly interpretive renderings in the first place.
These versions have got the relationship of text to margin backwards. The
text should try to present to the reader what the original writer actually
wrote, with as little interpretation as possible; and the margin should
provide the interpretations that the translator thinks are necessary for a
right understanding of the text. We acknowledge the need for
interpretation in many places where literal renderings leave the meaning
uncertain; but as one old writer has said: No doubt it is better to deal
faithfully and truly with the Scripture, and leave the difficulty as we find it,
than to force the text, and impose our own conjectures upon it. 17

The distinction drawn here between language use and comprehension is

recognized by the common language advocate William Wonderly, who
speaks of it as a difference between producer and consumer language;
but Wonderly still maintains that a translator should try to confine himself
to the producer vocabulary. He writes:
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that can only be assigned to a translation quite aside from the purpose of
the original. Against all of this, we would maintain that the entire purpose of
a translation is to present accurately in another language what was said in
the original. If this requires words and expressions that the reader does not
use every day, then so be it. As Vern Poythress says,

The degree to which a writer will keep within the producer level will also
depend upon the purpose of the reading material itself. Since the primary
purpose of a Bible translation is to communicate basic information, the
surest way to accomplish this is to keep as nearly as possible within the
producer language; on the other hand, when one is dealing with literature
whose main purpose is to give the reader added experience and to raise his
level of reading ability and use of the language, he will naturally introduce
words and expressions that will serve this purpose, while still keeping within
the bounds of tolerance of the horizon of difficulty of the intended readers.
2

we can distinguish between active and passive language competence.

Active and passive competence have to do with language production and
reception, respectively. Active competence means ability to produce
sentences and use vocabulary and grammatical constructions of particular
types. Passive competence means ability to understand sentences and
vocabulary and grammatical constructions, when other people present such
pieces of language to someones eye or ear. Passive competence is the
broader category. People can recognize vocabulary items that they never
use in their own speech. They can read and understand sentences that they
themselves would never think of producing. In Bible translation, passive
competence on the part of potential readers is the important factor. The
translators must consider whether readers will understand what the
translators write, not primarily whether readers use the very same language
in their own speech. Constructions that are less common, but still natural
and intelligible, can safely be employed in communication. And then the
conclusion follows: these less common constructions need to be employed
whenever their employment results in greater accuracy. 4

We note that as nearly as possible provides a loophole big enough to

make this statement practically meaningless if an objection is raised against
it, but there are a number of problems with it. For one thing, it assumes that
whatever is basic in the Bible must have some special affinity with what is
basic in the daily vocabulary of the reader. This is not at all likely to be
true. But the main problem is, it smuggles in the idea that the very nature of
a Bible translation is such that it has this primary purpose to
communicate basic information. I have already pointed out, in a previous
chapter, that we have catechisms and other literature especially designed to
serve this purpose, not to mention oral instruction, which is the usual
means of conveying basic information about Christianity and the teachings
of the Bible. For it is obvious enough that the communication of basic
information is not usually the primary purpose of the biblical text. In fact
the purpose of the text often has little to do with information, and when it
does aim primarily to convey information, it usually assumes that the reader
already has a knowledge of basic information, and deals with things that can
in no way be called basic for uninitiated modern readers. 3 Hence the need
for instruction. It is totally impractical to imagine that the purpose of
conveying basic information could be better served by setting aside all the
literature that has been written for that purpose, and inducing people to
read entire Bibles instead. Because very few people will ever do that. And it
will only lead to an alteration or reduction of the meaning of the biblical text
if it is forced to serve a primary purpose that is foreign to its own nature.
As for literature whose main purpose is to give the reader added
experience and to raise his level of reading ability and use of the language,
this can hardly be called the purpose of anything in the Bible. It is a purpose

I think every Greek scholar will agree that the word in Acts 7:38, Rom.
3:2, Heb. 5:12, and 1 Pet. 4:11 means oracles, and that if the writers had
meant simply words, as we find it rendered in the NIV, they would have
written or instead. The meaning of as distinct from
these other words can be expressed precisely in English if we are willing to
make use of the word oracles, and so that is what we have in most English
versions. But evidently the editors of the NIV rejected this traditional
rendering as being too unusual for their readers, and so they are left with no
means of expressing the special sense of .
In Acts 9:22 it seems impossible to express the meaning of
concisely in English without using either the word confounded or
discomfited. Both words combine the sense defeat with throw into
confusion, and that is just what the Greek word means here. Paul
59

confounded the Jews of Damascus with his powerful arguments. The

rendering confounded goes back to Wycliffe, and its fitness is so obvious
that it was used by all subsequent translators up to the twentieth century. It
continues to be used in several recent versions. If it is rejected now as being
too unusual for the modern reader, what equivalent can be found in
common English? We end up with such renderings as the NIVs baffled
and the CEVs confused, which express only half the meaning; or the NEBs
silenced, or such paraphrastic treatments as the NLTs the Jews in
Damascus couldnt refute his proofs, which expresses only the other half of
the meaning. This is what happens when translators are prevented from
using all the resources of the language. When the range of words allowed in
a translation decreases, inaccuracy must increase.

These, shedding round the sacred volume the reverence of age, removing it
from the ignoble associations which will often cleave to the language of the
day, should on no account be touched, but rather thankfully accepted and
carefully preserved. The dignity resulting from archaisms, in Bishop
Horsleys words, is not to be too readily given up. For, indeed, it is good
that the phraseology of Scripture should not be exactly that of our common
life; that it should be removed from the vulgarities, and even the
familiarities, of this; just as there is a sense of fitness which dictates that the
architecture of a church should be different from that of a house. 6
Dynamic equivalence proponents tend to neglect this distinction between
archaic and obsolete words, and their rejection of archaic words seems to
be based more on stylistic preferences than any requirements of
intelligibility. One Bible publisher explains, Words like behold and shall
are no longer commonly used. Most people dont speak that way, just as
most people dont use thee and thou. We certainly know what they
mean, but the formality they convey isnt standard for us any longer. 7
Here formality or dignity of style is itself being rejected as undesirable in a
Bible version, quite aside from any considerations of intelligibility. Likewise
Nida is eager to get rid of anything that seems formal and old-fashioned. He
pays no attention to the difference of intelligibility between archaic and
obsolete words, and calls words that are merely old-fashioned dead terms
of a previous age.

In this connection, we are told that the use of archaic language in the older
Bible versions presents problems for many people, and this is true to some
extent. I once met a man who had been reading the KJV Bible nearly every
day for more than 30 years, but he did not know that meat in that version
means food. We can do without confusion like that. And who today would
want to keep the unfortunate superfluity of naughtiness in James 1:21?
But in my experience as a teacher, archaic words and expressions are much
less of a problem than some would have us believe, and I think we need to
make a distinction between obsolete words that are not understood and
archaic words that are just old-fashioned sounding. As Richard Weymouth
points out in the Preface to his New Testament in Modern Speech, there
may be good reasons for retaining antiquated words that are not
obsolete:

Users of the King James Version are sufficiently familiar with problems of
antiquated words. Terms such as anon, begat, wax (old) are either no
longer used or are fast passing out of use. All languages are strewn with
such fossil words, but a book such as the Bible, which has a living message
for people of the present day, should not depend for its meaning upon dead
terms of a previous age. 8

But again, a modern translation does this imply that no words or phrases
in any degree antiquated are to be admitted? Not so, for great numbers of
such words and phrases are still in constant use. To be antiquated is not the
same thing as to be obsolete or even obsolescent, and without at least a
tinge of antiquity it is scarcely possible that there should be that dignity of
style that befits the sacred themes with which the Evangelists and Apostles
deal. 5

This rhetoric pushes beyond the commonsense point that the translation
should be intelligible, to suggest that archaic words are unacceptable
because a living message for people of the present day should not seem
to be old. But why? Obviously the Bible is very old, from a a previous age,
and in fact ancient. There is not much hope of understanding it if we come
to it with a hatred of things that seem old. And I do not think ordinary

Likewise R.C. Trench, in speaking of words which, while they are felt by our
people to be old and unusual, are yet perfectly understood by them, by
wise and simple, educated and uneducated alike, writes:
60

people have this attitude. Rather, it seems that most people are intrigued by
things that are very old, and value them highly just because they are old. If
we go to the bookstore and look at the currently popular novels on the
shelves there, we find that most of them are set in some previous age. The
same is true of the most popular movies. Why does Star Wars have
princesses, men in armor, sword fights, wizards, and medieval costumes?
There is a kind of mysterious archetypical glory on things that are ancient.
There is a tendency to associate a modern style with things that are light
and ephemeral, and the archaic style with things that are weighty,
permanent and sure. Certainly the Bible associates eternity with high
antiquity. Daniel calls the true God the Ancient of Days (7:9, 13, 22). John
says that his message concerns that which was from the
beginning (1 John 1:1). Whatever is eternal must be very ancient. It was
there at the beginning of all things. So we would not agree with the basic
idea that Nida is trying to promote, and would even call it unbiblical. The
word of God is both living and abiding (1 Peter 1:23). There is something
deeply inappropriate about changing every twenty years the words of the
Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of change, or of
the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Testament, in many recent versions. A translator who cannot bear to use

any biblical-sounding word like behold sometimes ventures to use see
or look as an equivalent, but with results that are even less natural to
spoken English than behold. For example, the NIV in Matthew 24:15 reads
See, I have told you, and in 26:45, Look, the hour is near. Is Jesus
pointing to a clock here? When there is nothing to look at or see with the
eyes, English-speaking people do not naturally use the words look and
see as emphasizing interjections, in the same way that the biblical authors
use and . The NIV translators evidently felt the oddity of using
see and look like this in most places, but having ruled out behold, they
found no way of conveying the meaning at all; and so they simply left the
Greek and Hebrew words untranslated in hundreds of places (e.g., 1 Sam.
30:3, Luke 1:48). 9 Other nuances of Greek words for seeing which might in
some places have been expressed by behold have quite disappeared in
the NIV. The verb in 1 John 1:1, for instance, is translated we
have looked at, but means something more than the reader will
get from such a flatly prosaic rendering. As one scholar explains, this term
has a certain loftiness and even solemnity (cf. to behold and to see). It is
thus used for visionary seeing, where the reference is to a spiritual and
even visionary apprehension of higher reality. 10 The KJVs looked upon
is certainly better than the NIVs looked at, because upon conveys a
notion of dwelling upon the object of sight, with some kind of mental
activity; but again, the NIV translators have preferred a more colloquial
expression, with at instead of upon, simply because it is more usual in
current speech. We grant that, all other things being equal, it is usually good
to use words and expressions of the common sort, rather than needlessly
archaic or stilted ones. But translators should not reject words that are
understood by virtually everyone just because they are not currently
popular in colloquial speech. A translator who needlessly hobbles himself
with such a stylistic principle will often find that he simply cannot express
the meaning.

We do not argue for the retention of any obsolete words in English versions.
We will not defend anon as a translation for , because this word
(which was used only twice in the King James version) is not only archaic,
but clearly obsolete. Not many people know that it means immediately.
However, it is not true that people have difficulty with the word begat in
the genealogies. This is easily recognized as the past tense of beget, a
word that is by no means obsolete. Modern versions usually have was the
father of instead, for purely stylistic reasons; but it so happens that begat
(or its rival begot) is a more accurate translation of . If begat
and begot are refused because they seem obtrusively quaint, then the
verb fathered is available. There is no problem of intelligibility with any of
these words. The real issue here is whether a modern and colloquial style is
so important that accuracy should be sacrificed for its sake.

Sometimes the advocates of dynamic equivalence exaggerate the

supposed need for common language so much that it seems they think
ordinary people are stupid. For instance, Nida in one of his books explained
that in Psalm 23 the old-fashioned rendering, The Lord is my shepherd, I
shall not want, was unacceptable because many persons understand this
traditional rendering to mean: The Lord is my shepherd whom I shall not

Is the purpose of accurate translation met when Hebrew and Greek words
for which the dynamic translator can find no modern-sounding equivalent
are left untranslated? This has been the case with the Hebrew interjections
and ( behold, lo), and the corresponding in the New
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want. 11 This is the kind of ridiculous misunderstanding that many

people fall into when the language of colloquial speech is not used, we are
told. But perhaps we are entitled to a higher opinion of peoples
intelligence. As for those few who really do have such problems, we wonder
if it would be wise to encourage them to think they could understand much
of anything in the Bible without constant help from teachers.

In defense of the NLT rendering it might be claimed that some people who
have never heard anyone use a third-person imperative in conversation will
think that let him hear in this context means allow him to hear, and so
the rendering prevents a misunderstanding. But I think that is hardly likely.
This construction is not rare in Scripture: Let him that stole steal no more:
but rather let him labour (Ephesians 4:28); He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear (Matt. 11:15); If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself (Matt. 16:24); whoever reads, let him understand (Matt. 24:15);
let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord (James
1:7); Let not then your good be evil spoken of (Rom. 14:16); Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27); let him glory in the
Lord (1 Cor. 1:31); let her be covered (1 Cor. 11:6); let him be accursed
(1 Cor. 16:22); and so forth. It just isnt true that people fail to understand
the third-person imperatives in these renderings. In the NLT we still read in
Genesis 1:3, Let there be light. In Hebrew the verb here is a jussive, which
has the same function as our third-person imperative with let. The
command is not addressed to any second person, it is rather a performative
speech act in which the light is indirectly commanded to be. As Paul says,
he calleth the things that are not, as though they were (Romans 4:17), and
thus the light is summoned into being by the word of his command. This is
not difficult. No one will think that God is telling someone to allow light to
shine.

12. Needless Limitations of the Grammar

The ability of translators to express the meaning of the original is hindered
not only by limitations of the vocabulary but also by restrictions of English
grammar. The restricted use of the English genitive, which I have discussed
at some length already in chapter 9, is an example of this tendency. Another
obvious example is the reluctance of some modern versions to employ the
third-person imperative, as in Revelation 2:7, He who has an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit says to the churches. In this sentence let him hear
does not, of course, mean allow him to hear. When let is placed at the
beginning of the clause like this, it is not the verb; it is an auxiliary word
used with the third-person imperative verb that follows. Its function is
modal. The imperative force belongs to the verb (in this case hear) not to
the auxiliary let. No one is being addressed in the second person in this
statement, either expressly or by implication. It is a command, given
indirectly, in which the one who is being commanded is referred to in the
third person. In our language, this manner of speaking has an especially
authoritative and impersonal connotation; we would associate it with
something like a royal edict. It is not often used in casual conversation. At
home I do not say, Whoever left the door open, let him shut it. Instead I
say, Whoever left the door open should go shut it. In line with this less
formal manner of speaking, then, the New Living Translation avoids the
formality of the third-person imperative and transforms Revelation 2:7 into
a statement about the obligations of the listeners: Anyone who is willing to
hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to
the churches. The formality and force of the saying is scaled down
considerably here. It can be called the closest equivalent only if we are
working under the assumption that it must be an equivalent expression in
daily household talk; but the trouble is, Revelation 2:7 is not household talk:
it is a command issued from heaven. The connotations of a royal edict are
quite appropriate here, because in fact it is a royal edict.

Nevertheless, we find in modern versions some really desperate attempts to

avoid the third-person imperative. In Galatians 6:17 Paul says, Let no man
trouble me, but the NLT says, dont let anyone trouble me as if the
sentence contained a second-person imperative of let as the main verb.
This rendering is obviously wrong, and I can only suppose that it is here
because some editor was going through the text and trying to eliminate let
not expressions for stylistic reasons.
The restriction of English grammar even causes some confusion about this in
Daniel Wallaces Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics. In a section on
prohibitive imperatives, Wallace translates 1 Timothy 5:16 Do no let the
church be burdened. He does recognize, however, that in such an English
sentence the let can only mean allow, and so he explains that this is not
the sense of the Greek: In English this looks as if the author is saying I
62

dont permit the church to be burdened. But the Greek is stronger: it is as if

he is saying I order the church not to be burdened. 1 Strangely, he gives
the reader no idea of what is really wrong with the rendering. It is not that
the Greek is stronger, it is just that the Greek verb be
burdened is a passive imperative in the third person, and there is nothing
in the Greek that corresponds in meaning with the active second-person
imperative let that we have in the mistaken English rendering. All the
confusion is dispelled, however, if we only translate it correctly: put the
auxiliary let in its proper position and leave out the do which makes it
into a verb. Let not the church be burdened. There is no need to
paraphrase it as Wallace does in his explanation. I suppose that Wallace has
avoided let not the church be burdened as a rendering because it seems
stilted or archaic-sounding, and he wants to give renderings in modern
colloquial style, so as to help translators who are doing the same. But this
restriction is totally unnecessary; and evidently he cannot find another way
to express the sense accurately in English translation. The self-imposed
restriction even prevents him from giving a clear and accurate explanation
of the grammatical facts here. It is impossible for us even to talk about a
third-person imperative without using the English construction that has
always expressed it in the past.

One important characteristic of modern dynamic equivalence versions is

their tendency to restrict hypotaxis in general. Hypotaxis (from hypotassein,
to arrange under) includes all methods of syntactic subordination or
embedding: it is most often seen in the use of relative phrases and
subordinate clauses. For example, the Epistle of Paul to the Romans begins
with an elaborately hypotactic salutation that includes several subordinate
clauses:
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the
gospel of God, 2 which he promised afore through his prophets in the holy
scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David
according to the flesh, 4 who was declared [Gr. determined] to be the Son
of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection
from the dead; even Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we received
grace and apostleship, unto obedience of faith among all the nations, for his
names sake; 6 among whom are ye also called to be Jesus Christs: 7 To all
that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This rendering, from the American Standard Version, does not perfectly
express everything in the original, but it does mirror the structure of the
Greek very well. The opposite tendency of modern dynamic equivalence
versions is seen in the following rendering from the Common English Bible:

Likewise the Hebrew jussive tense (see Gesenius Hebrew Grammar, 48)
expresses a command or plea in the second or third person, with an
imperative and not a permissive sense. Here again the English equivalent
is an expression beginning with the auxiliary let, as in Genesis 1:3, Let
there be light, or Exodus 20:19, Let not God speak to us. But the meaning
of the jussive in Exodus 20:19 cannot be represented with the NLTs dont
let God speak or do not let God speak to us (NRSV, ESV), because these
renderings inject an idea of allowing or not allowing something (as if God
required Moses permission to speak!) which is not present in the Hebrew.

From Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for
Gods good news. God promised this good news about his Son ahead of
time through his prophets in the holy scriptures. His Son was descended
from David. He was publicly identified as Gods Son with power through his
resurrection from the dead, which was based on the Spirit of holiness. This
Son is Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we have received Gods grace and
our appointment to be apostles. This was to bring all Gentiles to faithful
obedience for his names sake. You who are called by Jesus Christ are also
included among these Gentiles. To those in Rome who are dearly loved by
God and called to be Gods people. Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

At this point a theorist of Nidas school may protest that not all languages
are capable of expressing third-person imperatives and jussives accurately,
and so their elimination is justifiable in theory. They should say, rather, that
it is justifiable when it is necessary. For it is not justifiable when a language
does have the equivalent of third-person imperatives or jussives in its
grammar. 2

Much of the hypotaxis of the original Greek is eliminated here, by splitting

up the long and complex Greek sentence and converting several of its
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relative clauses into short and grammatically simple sentences. We may

suppose this was done because the versions editors believed that ordinary
readers are not able to take in all the thoughts of the author when they are
expressed in such a long and complex sentence as we have in the original.
And so we are given this series of disjointed sentences instead. But the
problem here is not just that short sentences can make for choppy
reading, as one writer says. 3 The CEB rendering is not only inferior in point
of style; it also falls short as an expression of the thinking of the author,
because it eliminates the subordinating and coordinating connections that
indicate what relationship those thoughts have in the mind of the author.
Leland Ryken explains:

sentence. We may also note that within the framework of this sentence the
word obedience in obedience of faith resonates with the servant (or
slave) at the beginning, and the phrase called to be saints is parallel to
according to the Spirit of holiness. Such connection or association of ideas
is one of the functions of hypotaxis. It facilitates a combination of related
ideas within a unifying syntactic structure. But when the components of the
sentence are dissolved and set forth as independent propositions, as in the
Common English Bible, it is not easy to see the purpose of the individual
statements in this context, because the disjointed syntax fails to bring them
together. One only sees Paul saying several unrelated things about this and
that.

What are the effects of assuming that Bible readers can handle only short
sentences? The most obvious quality that is at once diminished is the unity
and coherence of a writers line of thought. Also lost is the ability to show
the subordination of parts of a writers thought to the whole. With
subordination removed from sight, all thoughts become coordinate, placed
on the same plane even when the writer clearly placed them into a
hierarchy of primary and secondary. This necessarily results in a distortion
of the nuances of an authors intended meaning. 4

13. A False View of Linguistic Development

One should not underestimate the abilities of ordinary people to learn
words, or new meanings for existing words. This was brought home to me in
an interesting way recently, when one of my children asked me to get a
thing of pop at the grocery store. Without even thinking about it, I knew
that he meant a two-litre bottle, because not long ago I had heard my wife
casually refer to one of those large bottles as a thing of pop. My son had
immediately picked up the usage, and he correctly perceived that this was
her way of indicating a large bottle, as distinguished from the smaller ones
we usually think of when we say bottle. So now in my family the word
thing has acquired a new and highly specific sense when referring to liquid
containers. By the age of eight all my children knew the usual English words
for liquid containers in our house: cups, glasses, mugs, bottles, cans,
cartons, jugs, canteens, pitchers, etc. Their knowledge of what these words
specifically refer to was gained without effort, merely by example and
inference, without anyone stating definitions.

It goes somewhat beyond nuances, however, when we can see in the more
literal translation of Romans 1:1-7 why Paul says that Christ was declared
(ASV) or determined (ASV margin) Son of God. The word here is
, which ordinarily means determined or appointed, as may
be seen from the usage of the word in Acts 2:23, 10:42, 11:29, 17:26, and
17:31. Some liberal scholars have wrongly imagined that this indicates an
adoptionist Christology, in which Jesus was thought to become the Son of
God at his resurrection, rather than being the incarnation of the Son who
has existed from all eternity. 5 But this is not an isolated proposition in the
Greek, it is only a clause in a larger sentence; and when the sentence is read
as a whole, it may be seen that the true reason for the use of
here is really rhetorical. The thought of Gods designating him comes as
an echo or instance of the calling and setting apart theme of the
sentence as a wholean idea which appears at the beginning and end of
the salutation. When the Greek sentence is translated as a single sentence
in English, the reader can readily see the connection of the thoughts,
because these thoughts are closely associated by being included in one

One word they all knew by the age of five was ark, as in Noahs Ark. I
dont remember ever being asked what an ark is. It was just accepted as
the name of that huge vessel that Noah built. The word is not common in
speech, and, like tabernacle, it is one of those biblical words that people
must learn from the contexts in which it is used. But this is no different from
my sons learning that when his mother says a thing of pop she means a
two-litre bottleit is no trouble at all. And it turns out that this unusual
word ark is worth learning, because it represents an unusual Hebrew
64

word: ( teivah), which means not really a boat but a box-like

container or vessel. Interestingly enough, this Hebrew word occurs in only
one other place in the Bible: in the infancy narrative of Moses, where his
mother builds an ark to float him on the Nile. Like a second Noah, Moses
is thus preserved from death by means of an ark on the water. Probably
Moses used the word here, in the story of his own deliverance, with
Noahs ark in mind. Of course this allusion, like all the others mentioned
above, is lost in some modern versions, because they will not use such an
unusual word as ark.

hard to find examples which seem to support this idea. We would not argue
that fraternal is equal to brotherly in expressive force, or that paternal
has the same power as fatherly, but the greater meaningfulness of
brotherly and fatherly does not come from any inherent virtue of AngloSaxon words; it arises from the fact that these words are charged with
metaphorical meaning, drawn from their cognates brother and father in
our language. Conversely, the Latin-derived fraternal and paternal are
weaker in meaning because they are etymologically and morphologically
remote from brother and father. 1 As in every other language, English
words derive connotative power from their associations. But many Latinderived words also have associations in our language. Consider the word
disciple (from the Latin discipulus, meaning pupil, apprentice). Is this
just a fancy Latinate way of saying follower? We rather think that
disciple is the stronger word, more definite in meaning. A follower does
not always know his leader personally, or necessarily learn much from him;
but the word disciple suggests a closer relationship, and also conveys the
idea that the relationship is that of a learner with his teacher. Probably the
word disciple has this stronger meaning in English because it is less
common, being especially associated with the Bible and religion, and having
acquired from its biblical usage all the meaning of the Greek .
Below I will elaborate more on this point, and argue that the most common
words in a language do not usually have more meaning or force than
uncommon words, but less. Here I am only concerned with the
unreasonable prejudice against English words inherited from Latin.

It is true that some words that children may hear every day need to be
explained to them. Recently I found that my sons (who are 11 and 9 years
old) did not know the meaning of the word allegiance, despite the fact
that they had recited the pledge of allegiance hundreds of times at school
and at Boy Scouts. The meanings of the words republic and indivisible
were also unclear to them. They told me that no one had ever explained to
them what these words meant. Words like this need explanation because
they refer to concepts rather than objects. Republic even requires a little
history lesson to be understood; but the word often appears in newspapers
and magazines, and it is really indispensable for any worthwhile discussion
of political history and ideology. I would expect any decent school to teach
its students the meaning of this word by the ninth grade. The case is similar
with conceptual terms like righteousness and redemption in the Bible.
Children should not be expected to just pick up the meaning of these words
without instruction. But I would expect any Christian Education program to
provide such instruction for children before they reach the age of 15, and I
would not expect children younger than that to do any independent Bible
reading. In any case, trying to explain Christian theology without the use of
such words is like trying to explain American political ideology while
avoiding the word republic. We do not get very far into the subject before
the need for such terms becomes obvious.

Barclay Newman, translator of the Contemporary English Version, informs

his readers that the word gracewhich we have defended abovecomes
from the Latin word gratia, and that the expression grace of God did not
enter the English language until A.D. 1175. 2 The assumption here seems to
be that words or phrases unattested in English before the twelfth century
are somehow illegitimate. He complains that grace, like most of the other
words he finds objectionable (e.g. righteousness and repentance), was
brought into English versions from the Latin Bible by John Wycliffe a
Latin scholar who knew little Greek. And so we are urged to reject the
word, because it came from Latin. But on the same principle we will have to
eliminate the word faith from our Bible versions also, because this word
came into our language during the same period, and from the same source.
Surely the word grace, after eight centuries of use in English-speaking

Another false notion promoted by common language advocates is that

words of Latin origin must be avoided. We get the impression that they
think these words do not really belong in the English language. They claim
that words derived from Latin are somehow exotic, unduly formal, and lack
the force of native Anglo-Saxon words. This assertion is usually made
without argument, as if it were self-evident. But is it really true? It is not
65

churches, and a million choruses of Amazing Grace, has a place no less

secure than faith in the English language by now.

This may be illustrated by the fate of the Old English word for savior. That
word was hlend (comp. German heiland), and in Anglo-Saxon translations
of scripture hlend was also used to represent the name of Jesus. But by
the time of Wycliffe this familiar Saxon word had been pushed aside by the
French sauveour, descended from the Latin salvator. A descendant of the
word hlend did survive the Norman invasion, with a more restricted
meaning, in the form of our word healer; but the sense of savior has
been taken from it and given to the adopted French word. And this is how it
went with many common Anglo-Saxon words during the Middle English
period. The Anglo-Saxon words for faith, geleafa and treow, are the
ancestors of our words belief and truth, but the modern words do not
have the same semantic range as their ancestors, because faith has taken
over part of their meaning. We are now far beyond the point when anyone
might refrain from the use of Latin-derived words, which long ago became
an integral part of our language. 8 And if it were possible, it would still not
be desirable, because the great versatility and precision of the English
language is mostly due to this infusion of Latin vocabulary; as one German
grammarian has said: The Blending of the Germanic [Anglo-Saxon] with the
Romance [Latin and French] imparts to English in general a richness of
expression for all shades of thought, possessed by no other modern
language. 9

The Anglo-Saxon primitivism that would exclude such words is engaged in

what R.C. Trench has called a futile and mischievous attempt to ignore the
full rights of the Latin element of the language, 3 and an extravagant
attempt to put under ban words of Latin or Greek derivation, where there
are not, as very often there could not be, sufficient equivalents for them in
the homelier portion of our language. 4 It brings to mind the patriotic
encomiums to Tyndale found in some nineteenth-century British authors,
who praise his New Testament for its pure Saxon vocabulary, drawn from
the well of English undefiled, and so on. 5 Statements like this are so far
from the truth, they can only be understood as expressions of the Frenchhating blood and soil romanticism of their authors. They seriously
misrepresent not only Tyndales vocabulary, but also the very nature and
history of the English language. The truth is, from the fourteenth century
onward it has not been possible for a speaker of English to avoid Latinderived words. Modern English is not merely a development of Old English
in which a few expendable inkhorn terms have been borrowed from Latin
along the way. It is the outcome of a hybrid of Old English and Old French
formed in the centuries following the Norman conquest of Britain, in which
much of the vocabulary of Old French was thoroughly naturalized. The Latinbased French words came to the British Isles in such a flood that probably
more than half the words of Modern English can be traced to them. Not
only that, but many native Anglo-Saxon words have acquired meanings from
their Latin equivalents. An example of this is the word thing. Originally in
Anglo-Saxon a thing was an assembly, but under the steady and
pervasive influence of Latin during the Middle Ages it gradually acquired all
the senses of its Latin equivalent, res, and finally its old Anglo-Saxon
meaning became obsolete. 6 It has been estimated that Modern English
has appropriated a full quarter of the Latin vocabulary, besides what it has
gained by transferring Latin meanings to native words. 7 This momentous
change in the language might be forgotten, but it cannot be reversed. We
cannot go back to a pure Saxon vocabulary by avoiding Latin derivatives,
because Latinate words have displaced much of the old Anglo-Saxon
vocabulary. There is nothing foreign about Latinate words that have been
in our language continuously for 800 years; but many of the Anglo-Saxon
equivalents, if they ever existed, have become as foreign to us as German.

Even in languages which have not undergone the kind of transformation

that English went through in the Middle Ages, the borrowing of words from
other languages is not uncommon. In fact the Hebrew word ( ark),
mentioned above, is probably a loan-word from Egyptian (see the
etymology in the Koehler-Baumgartner lexicon). In the Greek New
Testament, we find a number of loan-words from Hebrew and Aramaic.
Many Greek words entered the Latin language by means of Jeromes Latin
translations and revisions of the Bible. 10 All the European languages have
borrowed words from Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; and many of these
borrowed words are now household words in our language: the words
Christ and Bible are anglicized Greek ( and ), Amen is
Hebrew (), and these words came into our language through
ecclesiastical Latin (Christus, Biblia, Amen). We have also borrowed many
idioms from the Biblical languages. The expression answered and said may
be called a Hebraism; but in fact we find the expression andwyrde ond
cw (answered and said) in the very earliest Anglo-Saxon prose
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composition, King Alfreds Preface to his Translation of Gregorys Pastoral

Care, written around 890 a.d. The idea that words and idioms borrowed
long ago from the ancient languages should not be used in a Bible version is
unreasonable; it involves a false view of language development, and it
ignores the fact that many words have entered our language by means of
Bible translations in the past.

faddish pop Christianity. Seekers may even find that the very Word of God
has been rendered insipid and shallow by our modern translators.
Dynamic equivalence versions seem to have a genius for trivialization
that prevails even against some basic principles of their method. An
example of this is the use of happy instead of blessed as a translation
for and in the context of blessings. J.B. Phillips used this
rendering for in the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount
(Matt. 5:3-12), though he used the more appropriate fortunate in some
other places. His happy has been copied by the Good News Bible and the
New Century Version. In the latter we find the ludicrous rendering, Those
who are sad now are happy for Matt. 5:4. The translators of the King James
version used happy in the old sense of fortunate in a few places where
these words refer to the enjoyment of favorable circumstances, but
presumably the poor readers of the Good News Bible and New Century
Version will understand happy only in its ordinary modern sense, as
denoting an emotion. Clearly in the beatitudes refers to
something more spiritual in nature a blessed state of being under
divine favor. 1 Nevertheless, it seems that Phillips and the others preferred
happy to blessed here just because it sounds more colloquial and
contemporary. Blessed is one of those stilted and old-fashioned words
that the modernizing translators shun, as belonging to the stained-glass
vocabulary of yesteryear. Modern youngsters and non-Christians just dont
say that people are blessed. So we have happy instead.

When the translators of the early English versions could find no exact
equivalent for the original words, they did not settle for the closest natural
equivalent, but instead borrowed words from Greek and Latin, or coined
brand new words in English. Among the many words that Wycliffe
introduced (mostly from Latin and French) were female, childbearing,
affliction, consume, horror, problem, zealous, contradiction,
glory, treasure, liquid, mystery, interpretation, doctrine,
argument, adoption, liberty, crime, conscience, and quiet.
Tyndale introduced Passover, scapegoat, atonement, 11 beautiful,
brokenhearted, busybody, and ungodly. 12 The same is true of
idioms. Most people do not realize how many Hebrew idioms have become
naturalized in English by means of literal renderings in Bible versions. One
study of Tyndales version of the Pentateuch concludes that his procedure
was to reproduce literally such Semitic idioms as approved themselves to
him as easily understood and more vigorous than paraphrase. 13 B.F.
Westcott observes that Tyndale felt, by a happy instinct, the potential
affinity between Hebrew and English idioms, and enriched our language and
thought forever with the characteristics of the Semitic mind. 14 As Gerald
Hammond says, the Renaissance Bible translator saw half of his task as
reshaping English so that it could adapt itself to Hebraic idiom. 15

In front of me is a recently-published book called A Users Guide to Bible

Translations, whose author strongly recommends the use of dynamic
equivalence versions, which he calls meaning-driven versions. 2 He writes:

14. The Shallowness of Ordinary Language

As well as keeping the general vocabulary short and sharp to promote
reading ease, there are also specific words that readers are unlikely to meet
outside the context of the Bible. Take, for example, John the Baptist who
came preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin (Mk
1:4). Here several words are strung together, some or even all of which may
not make sense to a new Bible reader, repentance being the hardest.
Three meaning-driven versions each tackle the word repentance in Mark 1:4
in a different way:

Nothing is more characteristic of life in the modern age than its shallowness.
For many who have turned to Christ in recent years, the first prompting of
the Spirit was an overwhelming sense of the sheer emptiness and
superficiality of their lives. They come to a church looking for something
deep and permanent enough to give meaning to their lives. But at the same
time many churches have fallen victim to the shallowness of our age, and
what visitors too often find in them, instead of depth, is an inane and
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TEV John preaching, Turn away from your sins and be baptized and
God will forgive your sins.
CEV John told everyone, Turn back to God and be baptized! Then your
sins will be forgiven.
NLT John . preached that people should be baptized to show that they
had turned to God to receive forgiveness for their sins.

specify the relationship. 4 But this same baptism of repentance is

elsewhere called a baptism unto or for repentance ( ) in
Matthew 3:11, and from this we may gather that the baptism of
repentance is the sacred inauguration or pledge of a life-long repentance,
as Luther said, 5 and not the seal upon a completed act, as others have
represented it. For this reason Thayer and others have explained the
genitive phrase in Mark 1:4 as a baptism binding its
subjects to repentance. Predictably enough, the New Living Translation not
only gets this wrong, but also glosses over the expression in Matthew 3:11,
where it has baptize those who turn from their sins and turn to God
instead of baptize unto repentance. And it does this without a marginal
note. We would expect someone with a theological education to notice how
the New Living Translation pushes a particular view of repentance and
baptism here with its paraphrastic renderings; but the only problem that
our Guide sees is a long and wordy sentence.

Repentance is not a word in everyday use. It carries the specific theological

meaning of (1) turning away from sin and (2) turning toward God. The TEV
highlights only the former; the CEV only the latter. The NLT captures both,
but at the cost of producing a long and wordy sentence.
This writersaid to be a Baptist minister in England on the back cover of
the bookseems to think that the Greek word traditionally translated
Repentance () in the New Testament means nothing other than
turning away from sin, and turning toward God. But this technical
definition leaves out the remorse, the sorrow for sin, the hearty
determination to change, that are also denoted by the word. Thayer in his
Lexicon explains that denotes the change of mind of those who
have begun to abhor their errors and misdeeds, and have determined to
enter upon a better course of life, so that it embraces both the recognition
of sin and sorrow for it and hearty amendment, the tokens and effects of
which are good deeds. (2nd ed., p. 406.) All of this is implicit in our word
repentance. 3 We are aware of the fact that this stern old word, so
charged with religious meaning and emotional depth, is rarely heard outside
of church. But the claim that it may not make sense to Bible readers is
implausible. The same writer also states that the word sin may not be
understood properly (p. 46), and worries that salvation may also be too
hard for some readers to understand, because it is a long word with an
abstract meaning (p. 69).

How could such faults escape the notice of a minister who is focusing on the
rendering of the New Living Translation here for the purpose of discussing
its merits and shortcomings? What has happened to theological education
in England, that the only problem he would see here is that the rendering is
long and wordy in comparison with the other versions he quotes? One
gets the impression that advocates of dynamic equivalence are so
enamored with the idea that everything should be recast in some simple
and colloquial way, that they fail to see even the most obvious problems in
versions that attempt it.
Quite aside from any theological qualms we may have about the wording
used in modern versions, we often sense that the everyday language that
replaces the richer vocabulary traditionally used in Bible translations makes
the text mean less than it should. Nida himself has observed that it is a
basic principle of semantics that the greater the area of meaning and the
more frequent [sic] a term occurs the less it actually signifies in any given
context. 6 Words like blessedness, grief, remorse and sorrow are
rarely used in conversation, but they cannot be replaced with everyday
expressions like be happy or feel bad without trivializing the thoughts
and feelings that the sacred authors want to convey. We feel sorry about
small things that are soon forgotten; but remorse denotes a deeper and
more enduring emotion. This is practically a law of language words and

In the New Living Translations rendering of Mark 1:4 we notice also that to
show that they had turned to God construes the repentance connected
with Johns baptism as a previous or contemporaneous action to be
shown by the baptism. This is apparently the translators attempt to
explain what is meant by baptism of repentance in
the original. But Scripture itself does not explain the relationship of baptism
to repentance in this way. The genitive construction used here does not
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expressions that are common in everyday speech are associated with things
that happen every day; but for things that do not happen every day, we
require other words. If those who claim that everyday English needs to be
used in order for the text to be understandable were really consistent, they
would not use words like sorrow or remorse, as does the New Living
Translation in 2 Corinthians 7:9. The error of the everyday language
principle becomes evident, however, when it is actually adhered to and
consistently put into practice, as in the CEV.

readers understand what is really at stake in matters of style and tone. The
difference here is not just a superficial matter of form, without
consequences for the content of the message. A real distortion of
meaning occurs when everyday household language is used to describe
extraordinary things. When we speak of hurt feelings and being upset
we are referring to relatively minor agitations the average teenage girl
gets upset and has hurt feelings several times a month but these
words cannot refer to the kind of anguish that can change a mans life.

NLT
CEV

Ryken emphasizes the fact that the style of the Bible in its original languages
is largely poetic. The Psalms are all written in poetic style. The Prophetic
books are mostly poetry. Job and the Song of Solomon are poetry. There are
also some long poetic portions in the books that are mostly prose, such as
the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 32. In the New Testament, the
sayings and discourses of Christ often exhibit poetic features, especially the
parallelism of clauses which is the distinguishing mark of Hebrew poetry.
There is good reason to think that most of his preaching was delivered in
this rhetorical form, which was associated with inspiration and prophetic
speech. 8

the pain caused you to have remorse and change your ways. It was the
kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us
in any way.
God used your hurt feelings to make you turn back to him when God
make you feel sorry enough to turn to him and be saved, you dont have
anything to feel bad about.

Nida not only acknowledges this, he even states that the Jews placed high
value on the poetic language of the prophets, and felt that its very
distinctiveness marked it as somehow inspired. Among the Jews, he says,
something in poetic form achieved greater authority because of its
distinctive vocabulary, structure, and rhythm. 9 Evidently the prophets also
felt that formal and poetic language was most suitable for the
communication of the Word of God, or else they would not have spoken as
they did. This feeling is by no means confined to Israelite prophets and their
Jewish readers. People throughout the world have connected inspiration
with impressive, unusual, and even mysterious language. The speech of
sages and oracles is expected to be figurative. The book of Proverbs is full of
figures, word-plays and other clever and interesting turns of phrase, in line
with the conventions of wisdom literature. And it is a universal tendency of
human beings to associate authority with a formal and impressive style of
language. As a linguist Nida surely knows this, but as an apologist for the
Good News Bible he is constrained to minimize the importance of any
stylistic considerations.

It is not only the discriminating littrateur who will feel that something is
wrong with the CEV here. By using such expressions as hurt feelings and
feel bad the translators have substituted paltry and commonplace
emotions for those that are great and rare. They have trivialized it, and have
violated a well-established rule of language. One cannot use such ordinary
household expressions in reference to powerful spiritual convictions and
awakenings.
One might as well replace the expression they were cut to the heart in
Acts 2:37 with their feelings were hurt. This would be ridiculous, but the
rendering of the CEV there is not far different: its says, they were very
upset.
Professor Ryken of Wheaton College, in his valuable book The Word of God
in English, 7 criticizes many renderings like this from the standpoint of a
literary critic, and he very aptly describes them under such headings as
Impoverishment of language, How to lower the Bibles voltage, and
The importance of getting the tone right. But I wonder how many of his
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Some people object to Bible translations that reflect the type of language
used in newspapers Some people mistakenly assume that if the Bible is
inspired by God, then it should not sound like normal language. 10

The idea here is that the common man will not feel that the prophetic
message is relevant if the prophets do not use the kind of language that
he hears and uses every day.

If he were speaking as a disinterested linguist here, Nida would not be trying

to downplay the common association of authority and inspiration with
impressive forms of speech, by dismissing it as a mistake. It is not the part
of a linguist to reject as mistaken any common linguistic tendency or
expectation. He and his followers know full well that it is not only some
people who would expect divine revelations and commands to be more
impressive than the newspaper. They are aware of the fact that much of the
Bible is poetic, and that most of the prose sections are written in an
elevated style. They must also know how unlikely it is that common
language versions will ever command the same respect as versions that
imitate the formal style of the original. But the high place occupied by
demands for naturalness and common language in their hierarchy of
concerns really dictates a simple conversational style in all circumstances.
The versions most favored by Nida, the Good News Bible and the
Contemporary English Version, do not even rise to the stylistic level of most
newspaper articles. The tendency in these versions is to reduce the text to a
uniformly bland, prosaic, and even childish manner of speaking throughout
the Bible. Nida has even said that poetic effects should be deliberately
eliminated in translations done for most persons in the Western world,
because he believes that most will associate poetic forms of writing with
idle and fanciful thoughts that are not relevant to the practical events of
mens daily lives.

The Guide to Bible Translations quoted above tries to forestall objections to

such an anti-literary attitude by portraying as bombastic any diction that
rises above the kindergarten level:
Consider the following: The domesticated feline situated herself in a
stationary and recumbent position on the diminutive floorboard covering.
This is an unnecessarily long-winded way of saying, The cat sat on the
mat. Long, polysyllabic words are harder to understand than short words
with just one or two syllables. 12
But this parody of officialese does not illustrate what the author thinks it
does. It does not demonstrate that polysyllabic words are especially hard to
understand. In fact they are not hard to understand. The word
refrigerator is not more difficult to understand than ice box. The words
electricity, unsympathetic, congratulations, and elementary are not
hard to understand, though each of them has five syllables. There is no
necessary connection between the number of syllables in a word and the
ability of people to understand it. The simple truth is, the words that people
do not understand are the words that they have not learned. What the
example really demonstrates is the semantic cloudiness that results from
the deliberate avoidance of familiar words, and from the unnecessary use of
definitions or abstract and general terms in their place. It also illustrates
rather comically the pretentiousness of trying very hard to sound learned or
official in ones speech when simpler words would serve the purpose of
communication much better. This might be a warning to us, that we should
not use vague abstract words and periphrastic expressions when concrete
and precise equivalents are available in our language. But it gives us no
reason to avoid righteousness as a translation for , repentance
for , and salvation for . These English words are exact
equivalents for the Greek words. Their degree of abstraction mirrors that of
the Greek words precisely. These terms will seem foggy and indefinite in
meaning only to people who have not spent much time reading the Bible.

for most persons in the Western world, presenting the prophetic

utterances of the Old Testament in poetic form, as the closest formal
equivalence, often results in serious lack of appreciation for the urgency of
the prophets message, which was put into poetic form in order to enhance
its impact and to make the form more readily remembered. Such poetic
forms are often interpreted by persons in the Western world as implying a
lack of urgency, because poetic forms have become associated with
communications which are over-estheticized [sic] and hence not relevant to
the practical events of mens daily lives. 11

70

Before I put our Guide to Bible Translations back on the shelf, I would add
one more example that illustrates what is wrong with its advice.

highly important for the understanding of Christs sayings in Johns Gospel.

14

One further example will again demonstrate the difference between formdriven and meaning-driven translations. In John 15:9, Jesus gives his
disciples a command: Remain in my love. This is how the Greek is
translated by the NIV and the NLT. The NRSV, ESV and NASB follow the
AV/KJV and have the very similar Abide in my love.

One must read Johns Gospel and epistles, and the epistles of Paul, in order
to learn what is meant by and in these writings. But the literal
versions at least make it possible for a reader to do this. The observation
that abide in my love is not natural English, as the Guide complains, is
the kind of observation that will first indicate to the reader that there is
something unusual about this love. But unfortunately, the meaningdriven CEV only illustrates how much damage can be done to the meaning
of the text when we bring the wrong questions to it. The wrong question in
this case is, how would we say this? When Christ says abide in my love,
he is saying something that we cannot say.

Perhaps surprisingly, the creators of the CEV say this was the most difficult
phrase to translate meaningfully in the entirety of their translation project.
As rendered in most form-driven translations, it is not natural English. What
does it mean to remain in someones love? A husband going off to fight a
war does not say to the wife he is leaving behind, Now remain in my love,
wont you darling? The Greek carries a two-way meaning: we should
continually remember a persons love for us and we should maintain our
love for them. The CEV captures the reciprocal nature of Jesus command in
its translation: Remain faithful to my love for you. (p. 80.)

This is the kind of exegetical shallowness that one often finds in modern
versions of the Bible. The ordinary language requirement constantly
drives the interpretation down to a mundane level, where the biblical
authors are forced to say only the things that we might say in our ordinary
lives.

Here we see the hermeneutical consequences of the demand for ordinary

language. For it does not even occur to the Guide that Jesus is not talking
about ordinary love in an ordinary way. He assumes that Jesus is saying
something that we might say, and tries to understand the expression
(lit. abide in the love that is mine) in terms of
what a man might say to his wife. But the of God in Christ is not the
same as human love. Like , the divine denotes a life-giving
power that flows from the throne of grace. It is the life of the vine, the bond
of the vital union with Christ. It is poured into our hearts through the Holy
Spirit (Rom. 5:5). It moves us and constrains us (2 Cor. 5:14). To abide in this
divine love is to remain under its influence, to be mindful of it at all times, to
keep receiving it by faith, in an attitude of entire dependence. The fruit of
this love is grateful obedience, and love for others. 13 In connection with
this, it is also to be observed that the verb (imperative of )
does not mean simply remain here, but rather remain living or dwell.
The traditional English translation abide is designed to capture the latter
sense. The use of the more colloquial remain to represent in most
modern language versions fails to indicate connotations of that are

Another example of this exegetical shallowness may be seen in the

translation of John 2:4. Here Christ responds to the request implicit in
Marys observation they have no wine by saying to her, ,
literally what (pertains) to me and to you, woman? The words
here are a literal reproduction of the Hebrew idiom
meaning what do we have between us (as in Judges 11:12 and 1 Kings
17:18) or what do we have in common? (as in 2 Sam. 16:10 and 2 Kings
3:13), and it must be said that this is not very polite. Someone who uses this
expression is saying, in effect, that he does not have anything in common
with the person to whom it is said, or does not want to have anything to do
with him, his concerns, or his requests. The use of O woman as a
form of address is not in itself impolite, but it is a strangely impersonal way
for a son to address his own mother. Jesus is definitely putting some
distance between himself and Mary here, and between his concerns and
hers. 15 After this statement we would not expect him to do anything about
the wine at the feast, but on the contrary, he immediately afterwards
provides wine for the wedding guests, by a miracle which John calls a sign.
What is going on here?
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translators who came up with these renderings were clearly more

interested in making Jesus sound normal and polite to modern readers than
in conveying the intimation of divinity that we find in the original.

Although Jesus appears to treat Mary with contempt if this story is read
merely as the record of an ordinary human interaction, Augustine in his
exposition of it points out that the purpose of Christs saying cannot be
understood at that level. We cannot suppose that it was designed merely to
show a gratuitous disrespect for his mother. And so he observes, Certi
sacramenti gratia, videtur matrem non agnoscere procul dubio, fratres,
latet ibi aliquid. Certainly it is for the sake of a mystery that he appears not
to acknowledge his mother beyond a doubt, brethren, something is
hidden in it.

I am not unaware of the negative effect that Christs reply has on some
readers. I once had a conversation with a young woman who asserted that
Jesus must not have been sinless, because he evidently sinned against his
mother in speaking thus. She happened to be nominally Catholic, and I
suppose she must have thought more of Mary than of Jesus in order to
come to that conclusion. But I think the problem here stems not so much
from Roman Catholic Mariology as from ordinary feminine demands for
politeness which are really foreign to the purpose of the narrative. The
narrative deliberately violates the ordinary expectations of those who would
see Jesus as merely human. Indeed, no man ever spoke like this man (John
7:46). But like the Jews in chapter 8 of Johns Gospel, this poor woman
could not escape the mundane sphere of interpretation. Her low-level
response to Christs words fastened on their impoliteness as a human
utterance, and she could not see beyond that to the real meaning.

Why, then, said the Son to the mother, Woman, what have I to do with
thee? mine hour is not yet come? Our Lord Jesus Christ was both God and
man. According as he was God, he had not a mother; according as he was
man, he had. She was the mother, then, of his flesh, of his humanity, of the
weakness which for our sakes he took upon him. But the miracle which he
was about to do, he was about to do according to his divine nature, not
according to his weakness; according to that wherein he was God, not
according to that wherein he was born weak. 16

15. An Indescribable Something More

In short, he speaks thus as God. This serves one of the primary purposes of
Johns Gospel, to emphasize the divinity of Christ. Though according to the
flesh he is her son, he must now be shown to be her Lord. Furthermore, his
answer to Mary is designed to indicate that he makes the water into wine
on his own initiative and for symbolical reasons of his own, which have
nothing to do with the ordinary desire for wine at a wedding feast. His
interaction with Mary cannot be understood in terms of normal human
attitudes and motives when it is accurately translated. His abnormal way of
speaking to his mother, as if she were a stranger to him, signifies that his
agenda has little to do with her mundane concern about the wine running
out. But the dynamic versions try to make it into something that will be
seen as inoffensive and normal. The primary concern of the dynamic
equivalence translators is that Jesus should be presented as a wellmannered son, speaking politely to his mother. And so we have in the TNIV
mother instead of woman, and the NLT eliminates the rebuff by falsely
translating it How does that concern you and me? This transforms the
saying into a gentle and polite one, which fulfills conventional expectations,
but it happens to be the exact opposite of what he said. The dynamic

In an essay published in 1534, John Calvin asked:

Who sees not that there is much force in such Hebraisms as the following?
Bless the Lord, O my soul, My soul doth magnify the Lord, Say to
my soul, I am thy salvation. (Psalm ciii. 1; civ. 1; Luke i. 46.) An
indescribable something more is expressed than if it were said without
addition, Bless the Lord; I magnify the Lord, Say to me, I am thy salvation! 1
It is sometimes hard for us to say what is lost in loose translations, though
we intuitively sense that something is missing. As Calvin says, one feels that
an indescribable something more is expressed in the Hebrew idioms.
When My soul doth magnify the Lord in Marys Magnificat (Luke 1:46) is
reduced to Oh, how I praise the Lord, as it is in the New Living Translation,
something has definitely dropped out. The NLT has tried to make the
expression emphatic by adding Oh how, but it fails to convey the full force
of Marys praise. By my soul she means that vital essence which causes
her to live, from which the deepest feelings and impulses of her heart
72

originate. We have discussed the meaning of the Hebrew expression

my soul above, and the fact that the NIV in some places interprets it as
just another way of saying I. We are glad to see that in Psalm 103:1, 104:1,
and Luke 1: 46 the NIV gives a literal reproduction of the phrase. But the
NLT consistently eliminates everyones soul. In Psalm 103 and 104 we find
Praise the Lord, I tell myself! Who does not see the inadequacy of this?
The distortion and loss of meaning is great, though it may be hard to
describe to someone who does not acknowledge it.

The behold adds something that can hardly be described. It causes us to

stop and behold the ruined city with David and his men. It somehow brings
us into the scene. The pleonastic burned with fire has a peculiar force that
destroyed by fire does not. The failure of the NIV to put a mark of
punctuation after fire causes us to glide through the sentence instead of
pausing, to be appalled at what had happened. The literal lifted up their
voice and wept of the KJV far surpasses the NIVs wept aloud in pathetic
force. This is what happens when the text is purged of its Hebrew idioms: it
is systematically weakened. Anyone can see that the effect is far from
equivalent to a literal translation of the Hebrew.

Joseph Addison, the famous English poet and literary critic, speaks of the
peculiar Force and Energy of the Hebrew idioms in Scripture:
There is a certain Coldness and Indifference in the Phrases of our European
Languages, when they are compared with the Oriental Forms of Speech; and
it happens very luckily, that the Hebrew Idioms run into the English Tongue
with a particular Grace and Beauty. Our Language has received innumerable
Elegancies and Improvements, from that Infusion of Hebraisms, which are
derived to it out of the Poetical Passages in Holy Writ. They give a Force and
Energy to our Expressions, warm and animate our Language, and convey our
Thoughts in more ardent and intense Phrases, than any that are to be met
with in our own Tongue. There is something so pathetick in this kind of
Diction, that it often sets the Mind in a Flame, and makes our Hearts burn
within us. How cold and dead does a Prayer appear, that is composed in the
most Elegant and Polite Forms of Speech, which are natural to our Tongue,
when it is not heightened by that Solemnity of Phrase, which may be drawn
from the Sacred Writings. 2

What principle of translation is responsible for this systematic weakening of

the text? It is the ill-conceived notion that everything must be reduced to
the prosaic conversational style of Common English just the way we
would say it.
The way we would say it in colloquial English tends to reflect the Stoic
temper and values of our Anglo-Saxon culture. There is a preference for cool
understatement, matter-of-fact objectivity, and calmness among Teutonic
peoples, which is not shared by people of the Middle Eastern and
Mediterranean cultures in which the Bible originated. The Bible reflects
their habitual way of talking and their experience of things. The ardent and
intense phrases that Addison notices in the style of the biblical authors are
not just a way of speaking, but a way of experiencing life.
It has often been observed that the contents of the Bible do not usually take
the form of a theological treatise. There are some portions that do resemble
a treatise (e.g. the Epistle to the Romans), but for the most part it presents
its message in stories and images. The message is incarnated as it were, in
very concrete and specific ways. 3 Attributes, attitudes and actions of God
are usually expressed anthropomorphically. We do not find in the Bible a
statement about Gods omniscience, but we do read that the eyes of the
Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3).
We would strongly agree with anyone who says this means that God is
omniscient. However, there is an indescribable something more in the
Bibles way of expressing this truth. Omniscience belongs to the
intellectual realm of theological abstraction, but the eyes of the Lord are

The rhetorical force and pathos of the Hebrew idioms that Addison speaks
of here can be illustrated with 1 Sam. 30:3-4.
KJV: So David and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with
fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken
captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice
and wept, until they had no more power to weep.
NIV: When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire
and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. So David and his men
wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.
73

very real to us. Likewise the Good News Bibles general statement You
know everything I do is not really equivalent to You know my sitting down
and my rising up in Psalm 139:2. A translator must resist this tendency to
put things in abstract and general terms, and should always try to express
things in the same concrete and particular way that the original text does.

For most people, who are not especially skillful communicators, the way
we would say it is unimaginative and dull. But the writer who knows how
to make an impression prefers the name of the species to that of the
genus, and the name of the class to that of the species; he is always urged
forward towards the individual and the actual; his mind does not lag in the
region of abstractions and formulas, but presses past the general term, or
abstraction, or law, to the image or the example, and into the tangible,
glowing, sensible world of fact. 6

In Genesis 45, the aged Jacob hears that his son Joseph is alive, and says, I
will go and see him before I die. Then God speaks to him in a night vision,
saying, I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee
up again; and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes (46:4). There is
something deeply poignant about the last sentence, with its picture of
Joseph closing the eyes of his deceased father with his hand. This is not a
tired clich in Hebrew, it is unusual. 4 The reference to his eyes recalls
Jacobs earlier statement, I will see him before I die. It is not that Jacob
wished for death, or that God needed to bring up the subject of death for
some reason. Jacob knew that he would die before many more years would
pass. But he longed to be reunited permanently with his son, and never
separated again, until death. The image of Joseph closing his eyelids is
designed to reassure Jacob that this hope will be fulfilled, and so the saying
is sweet to him. An effect is here produced by the perfect concreteness of
the promise, as we are transported into the scene. Gods promise is not
couched in vague, general, and abstract terms; it is expressed concretely
and set before the minds eye in a picture. This is one of the secrets of really
effective communication.

Too often, however, we find that dynamic equivalence translations

enforce the bland and banal habits of common speech, by substituting
generalities for the concrete and specific images of the Bible. In the New
Living Translation, the last sentence of Genesis 46:4 reads, But you will die
in Egypt with Joseph at your side. The image has been stripped of its
details, and has lost its vividness. We find similar renderings in the Good
News Bible and Contemporary English Version. Probably the translators of
these versions believed that some of their readers would not understand a
more literal rendering of this unusual statement, and so they aimed low and
gave only the gist of it, in general terms. It is hard to explain what exactly is
lost in the translation, and we do not doubt that various elements of
modern linguistic theory could be used to justify this treatment of the text,
but all the linguistics in the world cannot hide the fact that something has
been lost, and in fact this method of representing the text was practiced
long before the invention of modern linguistics. Of these versions we may
say what Max Margolis has said concerning the paraphrastic Targums of late
antiquity: Thus in deference to the ordinary intelligence which may take a
figure of speech literally all the poetry of the original is sacrificed, and the
elevated style of the sacred writers is reduced to commonplace. For the
translators were distrustful of the comprehension of the common people.
7

All description and narrative, and in general all writing that seeks to make
people, not only understand, but also feel, depends upon the choice of
words that appeal to the imagination. Such words are concrete. Concrete
words are those that stir the imagination by specific suggestions of sound,
motion, color, touch, taste. In short, they are words of physical sensations.
By such words alone we can make our readers sympathize with our feeling;
for these words alone will stir him to imagine himself in the scene. The
specific mention of the physical details that roused in us pleasure, pain,
contentment, horror, or exultation, is the only sure way to rouse in others
the same emotion. We reach the emotions by appealing to the imagination
through words of sensation. Thus what is called force or vividness of style
depends upon the choice of concrete words. 5

16. A Science Falsely So Called

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and
vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, which some
professing have erred concerning the faith. (I Timothy 6:20, KJV)

74

Science as a rendering of gnosis in 1 Tim. 6:20 may not be as obsolete as

some modern people think. Tyndale used this rendering because he
perceived that Paul was referring not to knowledge in general, but to a
formal system of teachings which pretended to confer knowledge a
system now commonly known by the name of gnosticism. Many people in
ancient times were fascinated by speculative philosophies like this,
especially if they were couched in enough mumbo-jumbo to give them an
air of profundity and authority. Our modern science is supposed to be
different, being founded on an empirical method, in which directly
observable facts replace mythopoetic speculation; but some things that
vaunt themselves as science in our time are not much more empirical
than ancient gnosticism.

Denial of the Inequality of Languages

Although the field of linguistics (the science of language) might at first sight
seem to be an unpromising one for ideological agendas, this field also has its
share of them. Those who take courses in linguistics will first of all be taught
that a linguist must never make any value judgments about languages and
dialects. 3 If one were to say, for example, that classical Greek is a more
precise language than Hebrew, and hence better for scientific purposes, or
that modern English is better than Romanian in some other respect, a
professor of linguistics would not let it go unpunished. Students are not
allowed to say things like that, because they involve value judgments. They
are supposed to think (or at least say) that all languages are equal. But
obviously this principle is itself a value judgment, and has nothing to do with
science. It is an ideological fiction, designed to discourage cultural
chauvinism and class-conscious attitudes of superiority. As such, it may help
to put students in the proper frame of mind for disinterested inquiry and
learning, but it may also interfere with their ability to say or think things that
are true.

During the twentieth century many academic disciplines re-invented

themselves as sciences. Political philosophy gave birth to political science.
Epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge) was narrowed down and
refashioned as cognitive psychology. Philology (the study of languages) gave
rise to linguistics. Faith in science was so great that in 1929 Leonard
Bloomfield said, I believe that in the near futurein the next few
generations, let us saylinguistics will be one of the main sectors of
scientific advance, and that in this sector science will then win through to
the understanding and control of human conduct. 1 In these new scientific
disciplines the study of human qualities and behaviors was supposed to be
based on observable phenomena, and pursued with modern scientific
methods. But in some cases, the new sciences turned out to be less
helpful than their predecessors, and certainly less helpful than the physical
sciences after which they had been modeled. One prominent American
sociologist, Robert Nisbet, has said that after World War II the social
sciences came to be dominated by people promoting liberal ideology under
the guise of science, and have been characterized by scientific posturing
and a pretentious and unconvincing scientism ever since. 2 My own
experience as a college student in the 70s tends to confirm Nisbets
estimate of the social sciences. Fields like sociology are so thoroughly
infected with political ideology that undergraduates are not likely to hear
anything that is not calculated to serve some political purpose.

The notion that all languages are in some way equal has functioned as a
sort of axiom in linguistics since the beginning of the twentieth century, but
leading linguists have always expressed this idea as a potential rather than
an actual equality. Franz Boas is usually mentioned as the one who first
emphasized the idea of linguistic equality, but in his book The Mind of
Primitive Man he described the lack of abstract or general terms in some
American Indian languages as a hindrance to communicating even such
simple propositions as the eye is the organ of sight. He maintained,
reasonably enough, that it is conceivable that this problem would be
overcome by adaptations to the language as it is moulded by a new state
of culture in which such terms are needed. But he did not deny that, in their
present state, it was not easy to express abstract ideas in many primitive
languages, and he reports that his experimental efforts to form the
necessary expressions for that purpose were perceived as unidiomatic by
native speakers of the language. 4 The same distinction between the actual
and the potential is implicit in Edward Sapirs statement, All languages are
set to do all the symbolic and expressive work that language is good for,
either actually or potentially. 5 But the lesser linguists who have followed
in this line of thinking have tended to neglect the distinction between the
75

actual state of a language and its potential for adaptation. The assertion of
equality became absolute, unrealistic, and even blatantly counter-factual.
By 1922 one prominent linguist, Otto Jespersen, was already complaining:

Meaning is partly a matter of means. Elaboration, explanation substitute or

insert the meaning of a different genre. What is funny or trenchant or
compelling in the sound profile of a single line is not as a disquisition. The
hearer or reader is changed into a student of a text, no longer an active
participant in immediate recognition. 7

The common belief of linguists that one form or one expression is just as
good as another, provided they are both found in actual use, and that each
language is to be considered a perfect vehicle for the thoughts of the nation
speaking it, is in some ways the exact counterpart of the conviction of the
Manchester school of economics that everything is for the best in the best
of all possible worlds if only no artificial hindrances are put in the way of
free exchange, for demand and supply will regulate everything better than
any Government would be able to. Just as economists were blind to the
numerous cases in which actual wants, even crying wants, were not
satisfied, so also linguists were deaf to those instances which are, however,
obvious to whoever has once turned his attention to them, in which the
very structure of a language calls forth misunderstandings in everyday
conversation, and in which, consequently, a word has to be repeated or
modified or expanded or defined in order to call forth the idea intended by
the speaker: he took his stickno, not Johns, but his own; or: I mean you in
the plural, or, you all, or you girls No language is perfect, but if we admit
this truth (or truism), we must also admit by implication that it is not
unreasonable to investigate the relative value of different languages or of
different details in languages. 6

Like Sapir, Hymes only maintains that there is a potential for equality
between languages (e.g. any language has the potential to become a
language in which scientific medicine is practiced), but observes that what
we really have is an actual inequality. It would be better for linguists to
say that all varieties are deserving of respect and study, without claiming
that they are equal in what communities can do with them. Although
those who call attention to actual lack of equivalence may be stigmatized
by linguists who believe that claims of actual equality are necessary to
promote respect for other languages, Hymes points out that when such
false claims are refuted by common experience, it may cast doubt on the
call for respect.
Nida also has made use of the potential concept to defend the idea that
languages are to be regarded as equal. When it is pointed out that
primitive languages lack the necessary vocabulary for the expression of
abstract ideas, he replies that all languages are basically open systems and
they all have the potentiality for the creation and use of generic
vocabulary. Language is primarily an open system, with the capacity for an
unlimited amount of modification and change, to cope with constantly new
circumstances and concepts, he says. 8 This open system concept of
language, with its distinction between the potential and the actual, really
amounts to nothing more than the trivial observation that over centuries
any language might change and develop new capabilities. But if equality
depends upon change, then this concept is really inimical to Nidas theory of
translation. The theory of dynamic equivalence is built on the idea that
languages are actually equal for the purpose of expressing anything that is
worth translating in the Bible, and it explicitly rejects the idea that in a
translation the receptor language may have to be supplemented or
otherwise improved to convey the meaning of the original.

By the middle of the twentieth century it had become even more necessary
to raise a protest against ideological dogmatism. Recently one American
linguist, Dell H. Hymes, described the situation in the 1950s:
When I entered linguistics, the rightness of the equality of all languages was
so certain that it was believed, and argued, that one can express anything in
any language, translate anything into any language, that all languages are
equally complex. Not that one had evidence. The statements were simply
consistent with, elaborations of, an insurgent and triumphant world view.
Every translator knows that there are things which can be done in one
language that cannot be done in another. It is only if one divorces meaning
from form that one can claim that there is completeness of translation.
Given pages enough and time, that meaning, that effect that takes one line
in the original can be explained. But still the meaning is not the same.
76

R.C. Trench observes that it took centuries after the introduction of

Christianity for the Germanic languages to become really adequate vehicles
for expressing the truths of the Bible.

repentance. Some also lack the ability to embed subordinate clauses in

sentencesa grammatical resource necessary for the clear and exact
expression of complex ideas. 10 This difference may also be noticed
between colloquial and literary registers of a single language. The hypotactic
or periodic sentence structurewhich has semantic functions that I have
already discussed in chapter 12is common in literature and in elevated
style; but it is rarely used in popular speech, as Jespersen observes: Popular
speech often prefers coordination (parataxis), where a more refined literary
style prefers subordination (hypotaxis) by means of a relative clause. 11

No doubt in whatever human tongue God may please to make his will to be
known, his thoughts will transcend our speech. Wherever the sons of
heaven are married to the daughters of earth,Divine thoughts to human
words,the inequality of the union, the fact that, whatever richest
blessings it may bring with it, it is still a marriage of disparagement, will
make itself plainly to appear. We shall have this treasure, if I may repeat the
image, in earthen vessels still. At the same time, one vessel may be of far
finer, another of far coarser, earth. Thus, where a language for long
centuries has been the organ and vehicle of Divine truth, there will be in it
words which will have grown and expanded into some meetness for the task
to which they have been put. Long set apart for sacred uses, for the
designation of holy persons or things, there will float a certain sanctity
round them. Life and death, good and evil, sin and repentance, heaven and
hell, with all the mysteries of each, will have found utterances not wholly
inadequate to them. But how different will it be in a language now for the
first time brought into the service of Divine truth. Here all will be by
comparison slight and superficial, common and profane. For the most
solemn, the most sacred, the augustest mysteries of our redemption, words
will have to be employed which have little, if any thing, of solemn or sacred
or august about them,words which have sometimes almost to be picked
out of the mire, in the hope that they may be cleansed, may little by little be
filled with a higher sense, a holier meaning, than any which before their
adoption into this sacred service they knew. And so no doubt they will at
last; heathen Ostara will become Christian Easter; suona and sunta and
sculd, words touching once but the outer circumference of life in the old
German heathendom, will severally as Shne [atonement] and Snde
[transgression] and Schuld [guilt], touch the centre and core of the
Christian life of men. Hriuwa, which meant so little, will become Reue
[repentance], which means so much; galauba, Glaube [faith]; not to speak
of innumerable other words, to which the same or a yet more wonderful
transfiguration will arrive. 9

The truth is, languages are closely adapted to the mental culture of societies
in which they are used, they differ greatly in their powers of expression, and
the differences between literary and vulgar forms of the same language are
not unimportant. There are many things that cannot be transferred from
one language to another, or from literary to vulgar forms of the same
language, without the need for explanations. The meaning of some words
and expressions can never be fully appreciated by people who do not
belong to the culture in which they are used. Moreover, a language not only
reflects but also reinforces the mentality of its culture; it not only conveys
thoughts from one mind to another, but also serves as a channel or
instrument of thought, which tends to shape thinking along the contours of
the culture. (I explain this aspect of language more fully in another article.)
A science of translation cannot afford to ignore these things.
Reductionistic Tendencies
In the 1950s and 1960s the field of linguistics was dominated by thinkers
who were more interested in emphasizing things which all languages had in
common. Language per se, and its universal characteristics, was the focus of
research. The most dominant figure in linguistics at that time was Noam
Chomsky, who formulated his theories of language in deliberate opposition
to behaviorist and cultural-environmental accounts. One historian writes:
In the background [of Chomskys theory] there was an assumption that
communication among people is possible, even between people who do not
share each others language, because there are certain formal similarities in
all languages. Psycholinguistics sought to relate these formal similarities in
languages to the structure of the mind and brain . Chomsky himself went

Moreover, it is not true that primitive languages lack only the vocabulary
that is needed for talking about such abstract ideas as faith and
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on to elaborate what he identified as a Cartesian theory of language, a

theory that presupposes the existence of universal, innate grammatical
structures. The result was a concrete research programme for linguistics, to
search out the grammatical universals and to trace how they underlie actual
languages. This strongly stimulated the development of the field, though
many researchers in linguistics with a psychological orientation soon
questioned both the logic and the empirical content of Chomskys
programme. 12

These restructured expressions are basically what many linguists call

kernels; that is to say, they are the basic structural elements out of which
the language builds its elaborate surface structures. In fact, one of the most
important insights coming from transformational grammar is the fact that
in all languages there are half a dozen to a dozen basic structures out of
which all the more elaborate formations are constructed by means of socalled transformations. In contrast, back-transformation, then, is the
analytic process of reducing the surface structure to its underlying kernels.
From the standpoint of the translator, however, what is even more
important than the existence of kernels in all languages is the fact that
languages agree far more on the level of the kernels than on the level of the
more elaborate structures. This means that if one can reduce grammatical
structures to the kernel level, they can be transferred more readily and with
a minimum of distortion. This is one justification for the claim that the
three-stage process of translation is preferable (see Figure 6).

It was during this time that Eugene Nida published his book Toward a
Science of Translating. Nida aimed to make Bible translating more scientific
by using principles of this universalistic linguistics.
In his book, Nida explains human language in much the same way that a
modern physicist understands atoms and molecules. He theorizes that
people generate sentences by unconsciously transforming and combining
basic psycho-linguistic elements called kernels, which he defines thus:

figure 6

kernel: A sentence pattern which is basic to the structure of a language, and

which is characterized by (a) the simplest possible form, in which objects are
represented by nouns, events by verbs, and abstracts by adjectives, adverbs,
or special verbs (according to the genius of the language), (b) the least
ambiguous expression of all relations, and (c) the explicit inclusion of all
information. Each language has only 6-12 types of kernels. Kernels are
discovered in a surface structure by back transformation; they are
converted into a surface structure by transformation. (glossary, p. 203.)

This same theory about kernels and transformations is found in Mildred

Larsons Meaning-Based Translation, where it is explained with different
terms. Larson calls the kernels propositions, and says that (in the mind,
somehow) these propositions are first associated in a deep structure or
semantic structure. This deep structure, as described by Larson, consists
of a network of semantic units, but she represents it as merely a list of
propositions, and says that in semantic structure the only ordering is
chronological. The propositions included in the deep structure are then
transformed and linked together somehow on their way to the form in
which sentences are actually spoken or written, which she calls the surface
structure. Larson describes this theory as an assumption of her book. 13

The importance of kernels for translation theory is explained on page 39,

in this manner:
Now if we examine carefully what we have done in order to state the
relationships between words in ways that are the clearest and least
ambiguous, we soon discover that we have simply recast the expressions so
that events are expressed as verbs, objects as nouns, abstracts (quantities
and qualities) as adjectives or adverbs. The only other terms are relationals,
i.e., the prepositions and conjunctions.

Again, this account of language was invented by Chomsky, and it is known as

generative or transformational linguistics. He and his followers have
presented it as being in some sense scientific, but it is not based on
empirical observations. It is speculative. The elementary kernels to which
everything is reduced, and upon which everything is based, are only
figments of the kind of grammatical analysis peculiar to generative
grammar. And despite the use of the kernel metaphor, in which these
postulated entities are compared to physical objects, they are not at all like
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physical objects, whose existence can be observed or demonstrated. They

refer to unobservable processes of the subconscious mind. The existence of
these kernels can no more be proven by empirical methods than can the
ons of gnosticism. So here we are in the realm of unverifiable
speculations, not empirical science. Nor does this theory have much
explanatory power. The reductionistic account of language put forth here is
quite incapable of explaining how human language works to create and
convey complex thoughts and feelings. It brings to mind the lines in
Goethes Faust about logicians who have tried to analyze human thought by
reducing it to a few mechanical processes.

17. Half-Baked Ideas

As a theorist Nida was eclectic. He has been described as a basically
Bloomfieldian linguist, but as we have seen above, he also borrowed from
Chomsky, whose ideas were not compatible with Bloomfields. And I have
found that the treatment of fundamental issues is perfunctory and shallow
in the works of Nida. His assumptions are not clearly presented as
assumptions that is, they are not distinguished from findings or
conclusions based on facts and analysis. His terms are not adequately
defined. The process of thought is fast and loose, without a satisfactory
analysis or discussion of basic concepts. There is a quality of cavalier
spontaneity to his work, and one gets the impression that he is often
winging it.

In truth the subtle web of thought

Is like the weavers fabric wrought:
One treadle moves a thousand lines,
Swift dart the shuttles to and fro,
Unseen the threads together flow,
A thousand knots one stroke combines.
Then forward steps your sage to show,
And prove to you, it must be so;
The first being so, and so the second,
The third and fourth deduced we see;
And if there were no first and second,
Nor third nor fourth would ever be.
This, scholars of all countries prize,
Yet mong themselves no weavers rise.
He who would know and treat of aught alive,
Seeks first the living spirit thence to drive:
Then are the lifeless fragments in his hand,
There only fails, alas! the spirit-band. 14

Nidas statement, Anything that can be said in one language can be said in
another is often quoted, sometimes without its continuation unless the
form is an essential element of the message. 1 Obviously it is a theoretical
statement with far-reaching implications. But if one goes to the source, in
the first chapter of The Theory and Practice of Translation, one finds that
this statement is made very arbitrarily, without any attempt to support it. It
appears to have no more substance than a slogan. In the discussion that
follows it, Nida also seems to have little regard for theoretical clarity or even
the requirements of logic. I will reproduce the section and offer some
comments on it.
Anything that can be said in one language can be said in another, unless the
form is an essential element of the message.
For the average person the potential and actual equivalence of languages is
perhaps the most debated point about translation. He does not see how
people who have no snow can understand a passage in the Bible that speaks
about white as snow. If the people do not know snow, how can they have
a word for it? And if they do not have a word for it, then how can the Bible
be translated? The answer to this question is both complex and varied. In
the first place, many people have a word for snow, even if they have not
themselves experienced it, for they have heard about the phenomenon.
Second, in other instances, people do not know snow, but they do have
frost and they speak about the two with the same term. Third, many

What Goethe calls the spirit-band (geistige Band) of the original web of
thought (Gedankenfabrik) cannot survive all the methodical
dismemberment it must suffer when reduced to a series of syllogisms, nor
can it survive the similar treatment it receives in Nidas science of
translation.

79

languages have equivalent idioms, e.g., white as egret feathers, or white

as fungus (if there is an especially white form of fungus); or they may use a
nonmetaphor to express the concept white as snow, such as very, very
white. The point is that snow as an object is not crucial to the message.

To preserve the content of the message the form must be changed.

If all languages differ in form (and this is the essence of their being different
languages), then quite naturally the forms must be altered if one is to
preserve the content. For example, in Mark 1:4, the Greek employs a
nominal construction, baptism of repentance, but translated literally into
English the resulting phrase really does not convey the meaning of the
original. The average person is simply unable to describe clearly what is the
relationship between baptism and repentance. Moreover, in a high
percentage of languages, terms which express events (and both baptism
and repentance are events, not objects) are expressed more naturally as
verbs, rather than as nouns. Even this Greek noun expression is really only a
nominalization (or adaptation) of what occurs in Acts 2:38 in verbal form,
namely, repent and be baptized. In languages which either require that
such events be expressed as verbs or normally use verb rather than noun
phrases, it is not only right, but essential, that the nominal form of this
Greek phrase be changed into a corresponding verbal expression.

Some persons may object, however, and insist that unless one has a word
for snow, the translation is not adequate, for anything which does not
communicate the precise meaning of the original is a distortion. Of course
no communication, even within a single language, is ever absolute (for no
two people ever understand words in exactly the same manner), and we
certainly cannot expect a perfect match between languages. In fact, we do
not have such a match even in translating from Hebrew or Greek into
English, with all its wealth of vocabulary (more than a million words if one
includes all the technical terminology). When the Hebrew word hesed is
translated into English as loving-kindness, or as covenant love, there is
much left unsaid, for this Hebrew term implies a whole social structure of
mutual loyalty and support between the tribal chief and his followers, a
relationship quite strange to us and almost unthinkable to many people.
Similarly, when the Gospel of John uses the Greek word logos, Word, in
the prologue, there simply is no English word (and certainly not Word itself)
which can do justice to the variety and richness of meaning of this Greek
term.

My purpose now is to observe the manner in which ideas are laid out and
developed, and to contrast this with what a scholar would ordinarily expect
to see in a theoretical treatise.

It must be said, however, that if the form in which a message is expressed is

an essential element of its significance, there is a very distinct limitation in
communicating this significance from one language to another. It is usually
impossible to reproduce this type of meaning. For example, in the third
chapter of John, Jesus speaks of the wind and of the Spirit. In Greek a
single word, pneuma, is used with both meanings. This results in a very
significant play on words, but it cannot be reproduced in English. The best
we can do under such circumstances is to use a marginal note to call the
attention of the reader to the fact that in the source language one and the
same word has both meanings.

First we observe that the passage is obviously not intended to be a

contribution to theoretical linguistics. It is written for translators, as a work
of practical guidance, and it assumes that the reader is ignorant of some
basic concepts. Nida begins with a comment about the views of the
average person, as if his purpose were merely to correct a common
laymans mistake. Readers who are not linguists will get the impression that
the actual equivalence of languages is not an issue debated by linguists,
but an academic linguist would certainly notice the word anything in the
clause, anything that can be said in one language can be said in another,
and would know that among linguists this is controversial, to say the least.
Most would reject it as an exaggeration, if by another Nida means an
idiomatic translation into any dialect of any language whatsoever, without
the aid of explanations. 2 A more defensible idea is expressed by Edward
Sapir when he asserts that as far as the grammar is concerned, any given
language has such a formal completeness that no matter what any

In a similar way, we cannot reproduce the rhythm of Hebrew poetry, the

acrostic features of many poems, and the frequent intentional alliteration.
At this point, languages just do not correspond, and so we must be prepared
to sacrifice certain formal niceties for the sake of the content.
80

speaker of it may desire to communicate the language is prepared to do

his work, but that improvements must sometimes be made in the
vocabulary to give adequate expression to some thoughts. 3 Certainly no
biblical scholar would agree that a translation can by itself convey the full
meaning of a poetic and religious text from one language to another,
without the need for commentary. If every exception to the anything in the
first clause is supposed to be included in the category of exceptions where
form is an essential element, then we must ask, what is meant by form
here ?

tautological, Anything that can be said in one language can be said in

another, unless it cant.
Then we have the sentence, If all languages differ in form (and this is the
essence of their being different languages), then quite naturally the forms
must be altered if one is to preserve the content, in which we must infer
that content is another way of referring to what he has called the
message or the meaning. Or perhaps not. Why the shift in terminology?
It seems we are being asked to make a distinction between form and
meaning now. But as a linguist Nida knew that linguistic forms are
themselves meaningful, and cannot be contrasted with meaning. In Toward
a Science of Translating he gives an entire chapter to the discussion of the
meaning that belongs to grammatical constructions or linguistic forms, a
kind of grammatical meaning that he calls Linguistic Meaning. On the
other hand, in chapter 8 of the same work he tried to make this distinction
between form and content:

As we read on, we find in the second paragraph that he seems to retreat

from the extreme position that he appeared to take at first, by conceding
that some words cannot be adequately translated. (The examples he gives
can hardly be placed in the category where form is somehow responsible
for the untranslatable semantic content.) And so it appears that by
anything he might mean nothing more than what is called crucial to the
message at the end of the first paragraph. Understood thus, however, the
statement becomes empirically vacuous, and untestable. It expresses
nothing more than a presumption that whatever is really important in the
Bible can be conveyed in the translation somehow. So then everything
depends upon what we decide is important, and apparently Nida does not
think the meaning of chesed or logos is really important or crucial to the
message.

Messages differ primarily in the degree to which content or form is the

dominant consideration. Of course, the content of a message can never be
completely abstracted from the form, and form is nothing apart from
content; but in some messages the content is of primary consideration, and
in others the form must be given a higher priority. For example, in the
Sermon on the Mount, despite certain important stylistic qualities, the
importance of the message far exceeds considerations of form. (p. 156.)

He then goes on to discuss cases where he attributes meaning to form,

and in his discussion of pneuma we learn that this includes the
significance of a metaphorical comparison when it happens to exploit the
ambiguity of a word. But in what sense can this be called a contribution of
the form? And why does he put scare quotes around the word meaning
in this context, as if to imply that the significance of the comparison could
not properly be spoken of as being part of the meaning of the text? Again,
we raise theoretical questions that would interest linguists, but he is not
really addressing such theoretical issues. We begin to suspect that
attributing meaning to form is just his hasty way of dealing with anything
that cannot be expressed in translation. But if this is the case, then his
sentence Anything that can be said in one language can be said in another,
unless the form is an essential element of the message amounts to the

With regard to messages he insists upon making a distinction between

form and content even after saying that they cannot ultimately be
separated. Apparently he concedes that the message is inseparable from
the meaning of the text, and because form is always meaningful, we
cannot say that the message is unaffected by the form. Nevertheless, he
wants to suggest that there is a distinction between form and content
that somehow acquires legitimacy under considerations that increase with
the importance of the message. So it seems that the word message is
now equated with content, and refers to something less than the full
meaning of the text or perhaps something more. But we cannot quite put
our finger on what difference Nida has in mind, because he is not defining
his key terms.
81

We observe also that the use of the terms content and form suggests an
analogy, in which linguistic units are likened to containers of meaningful
substance. There is a kind of implicit metaphor at work when we speak of
language in this way. Analogies like this are often very helpful in teaching
and learning, and so we are ready to entertain them, and they gain a certain
plausibility on that account alone. But when doing intellectual work of this
kind, one must be wary of arguments based upon analogies and metaphors,
because they are often deceptive. As Sapir said: Of all students of human
behavior, the linguist should by the very nature of his subject matter be
the least taken in by the forms of his own speech. 4

Regarding the claim that baptism and repentance are events, not
objects, and that therefore it is somehow essential to transform the
nouns into verbs to express the meaning, we observe that it involves a sort
of fallacy in which nouns are associated only with objectsignoring the fact
that in addition to referring to objects, nouns also may refer to places,
ideas, and conditions. Repentance and baptism are obviously not
physical objects, but that does not mean that it is somehow wrong to refer
to them with nouns. The word baptism in itself does not refer to a specific
one-time event experienced by a single person, but to a religious rite or
ordinance, and it is necessary to use the noun baptism if we want to talk
about the rite or ordinance. It is also necessary to use the noun if we want
to qualify the whole class of events that it denotes, with an adjective or
other modifying phrase. That is what is going on in the phrase baptism of
repentanceit is not just any baptism, it is a baptism that especially
pertains to repentance. As for the word repentance, it is not merely a
nominalization of an event, it refers to a condition which is not
reducible to an event, hence the use of a noun instead of a verb. All of this
meaning falls away in the transformation that Nida proposes. The meaning
cannot really be separated from the syntactic form, because the nominal
form enables us to express a concept that the corresponding verbs cannot
express in themselves. To a linguist, the importance of the form to the
meaning here should be obvious enough. Yet Nida is using this as an
example of how unimportant the form is to the content. 5

As an illustration of the form vs. content distinction he wants to draw,

Nida begins to discuss the meaning of the Greek phrase normally rendered
baptism of repentance. He claims that this rendering does not convey the
meaning of the original, but that repent and be baptized does. But for
those who know Greek this does not seem to be a reasonable statement,
and so we require a strong argument. Obviously there is a difference in
meaning between preached, Repent and be baptized and
(and preaching a baptism of repentance). Are
we to infer that according to Nida this difference in meaning does not
involve a difference in content? If so, what makes content differ from
meaning?
As a way out of these conundrums one might suggest that content be
defined only as the general idea and not necessarily the precise meaning,
but he does not say this. Later, on page 9, he says that baptism of
repentance is a transform of repent and be baptized, and on page 52 he
says that it reduces to a set of kernels that is equivalent to the expression
repent and be baptized. So perhaps by content here he means the sum
of the kernels, as an uncoordinated heap of little concepts. But he does
not say that either. If he does not want to make any distinction between his
terms meaning and content, then shall we say that the semantic
difference is due to a difference in form? If so, what becomes of the
distinction between form and content? These questions must be
answered before Nidas discussion can make sense on a theoretical level,
but he does not address them at all.

In this same paragraph, we also notice that in Nidas opinion a translation

does not convey the meaning of the original if the reader is unable to
describe clearly what is the relationship between the two nouns in the
genitive phrase. But obviously the original text itself does not make this
clear, because it is not the purpose of the author to make it clear just now.
So Nida is really faulting the author, not merely the translation. We also
notice the rhetorical stridency of his last sentence, where he declares that it
is not only right, but essential to abide by whatever is thought to be
normal in a language. This pulpit-pounding is out of place in a scientific
treatise.
As a work of linguistic theory, therefore, we must say that this discussion is
very inadequate, especially if it is supposed to be received as authoritative.
The author imposes very much on his readers with an air of authority, but
82

his ideas are half-baked. He seeks to make a strong impression with

exaggerations, but neglects to define his terms in such a way that his
statements become fully clear, testable and falsifiable, or even logically
coherent. He eludes theoretical problems through vagueness, verbal shifts
and other rhetorical devices, and fails to interact appropriately with
scholarly literature. He surreptitiously introduces false dichotomies by
implication. On close examination his examples backfire and cast doubt
upon his analysis. The casual presentation of ideas here is more like an
informal essay than a serious work of theoretical scholarship. If the book
purported to be a serious theoretical treatise, its author would not be
allowed to get away with such a careless discussion without having dealt
more adequately with the same issues elsewhere. But I have not been able
to find a more careful and rigorous treatment of the same issues in other
works of Nida and his school.

equivalence or functional equivalence. But the attempt fails, because

despite all his theorizing it remains only too plain that a formal equivalence
is often needed to preserve the meaning which belongs to the form, and
thus a true functional equivalence actually requires a formal equivalence.
If the receptor language into which we are translating lacks grammatical
forms which correspond closely to those of the original language, we are
faced with the same problem that presents itself when the vocabulary is
inadequate: it may not be possible to bring the meaning across without
distortion. If a language is incapable of using nouns to talk about events and
conditions, it may not be possible to express the meaning of baptism of
repentance accurately and concisely in that language, because a successful
transfer depends upon both lexical and grammatical equivalence.

I do notice that in an article published many years later, in 1995, Nida seems
to have given up his earlier attempts to draw distinctions between linguistic
form and content. He writes: One thing is clear: the old distinctions
about form versus content and literal versus free are no longer valid since
they imply quite false dichotomies. 6 But even this is problematic. He
speaks of the old distinctions without mentioning that the form versus
content distinction was his distinction, and we have good reason to doubt
that he was ever really serious about it. And although we must agree that
Nidas attempt to associate meaning with content while distinguishing
form and content is untenable, because it does amount to a false
dichotomy, in which meaning is set against form, we do not agree that
literal versus free involves any illicit dichotomization, because free and
literal have always been understood as relative terms that indicate the
positions of translations on an unbroken continuum. There is no
dichotomization in this, only a gradation. It does not take much thought to
see this difference. But once again, Nida is seen to be a careless thinker.

The history of theoretical linguistics does not inspire much confidence in the
field as a science. The field is highly speculative, and intellectually
turbulent. There have been many conflicts about basic theoretical problems
between 1920 and the present day. At present it seems that the basic ways
of thinking about language that Nida and his followers had taken for granted
are coming to be seen as obsolete.

18. Recent Developments in Linguistics

In his writings on translation Nida liked to represent language as a kind of

vessel or code which somehow carried thoughts from one mind to another.
Hence the form versus content dichotomy, and his frequent use of the
terms coding and decoding in connection with messages. The model
served well enough to describe what happens in some very simple linguistic
events, in a culturally sterile laboratory of theory. But it cannot serve very
well as a model of language in general.
The trouble with the code analogy is, it implies that the whole meaning
intended by a speaker or writer is encoded and decoded without relying
much upon a shared body of knowledge, beliefs, presuppositions,
expectations, and so forth. Language does not normally convey culturallydisembodied messages from one mind to another. It is more like a system
of activating signals that invoke, vivify, combine, and modify various
elements of a pre-existing and shared body of knowledge. It is not possible
to encode the elaborately ramified message of the Bible in such a way

His attempt to make a distinction between form and content in

language is really nothing more than an attempt to insinuate the idea that
form is not important to the meaning, without saying it so plainly that the
idea will be rejected immediately by informed readers. He needs this idea
for his argument, because he must somehow associate formal
equivalence with meaninglessness in order to set it over against dynamic
83

that it might be decoded by those who lack the cultural knowledge that it
presupposes. Trying to accomplish this in a translation is like trying to
transplant a full-grown tree by cutting it off at the roots and sticking it into
the ground in another place.

have begun to show some awareness of what is really involved in Biblical

interpretation. Ernst-August Gutt, for instance, has written several articles
on this subject, in which he takes advantage of a new development in
linguistics known as relevance theory to promote more adequate ideas
about translation.

It is strange that such obvious things need to be stated. But this is the result
of the abstract approach to language that Nida represents, which focuses on
universal theories and models. As I point out in another essay, 1 after 1940
the trajectory of American linguistics has followed this path, after sharply
separating itself from anthropological, psychological, historical, and literary
studies. Edward Sapir had resisted efforts along this line, and at Yale he
opposed the creation of a Department of Linguistics because saw the study
of language as an activity which should be pursued by scholars with
extensive training in other disciplines. Sapir had emphasized the
particularity of languages and the need to study them in their cultural
contexts. Language is primarily a cultural or social product and must be
understood as such. 2 Verbal communication within the context of a
developed culture takes much for granted, and is highly efficient: Generally
speaking, the smaller the circle and the more complex the understandings
already arrived at within it, the more economical can the act of
communication afford to become. A single word passed between members
of an intimate group, in spite of its apparent vagueness and ambiguity, may
constitute a far more precise communication than volumes of carefully
prepared correspondence interchanged between two governments. 3 Of
some relevance here is Edward T. Halls distinction between high context
and low context cultures, and the communication styles that pertain to
each. 4 Public communication in our culturally shallow and deracinated
society tends to be low context, requiring little cultural conditioning to be
understood. But the Bible has the communication style of a very high
context culture. Nida, as a follower of Bloomfield and Chomsky, tried to
analyze linguistic communication as if it were all low context, and his
program of translation is an attempt to transform the Bible into a low
context document.

We all know from everyday experience that reading literature not written
especially for us or eavesdropping on conversations between people whose
background we do not share usually causes comprehension problems. This,
then, being the case, how can one overcome these problems in Bible
translation?
No doubt, the first and possibly most important step is that we, as Bible
translators, fully acknowledge the existence of this problem. We need to lay
aside the misconception that the meaning of biblical texts can be
successfully communicated regardless of the receptors background
knowledge. As I have tried to point out in my book Translation and
Relevance (2000) and other writings, this idea is rooted in the code model
paradigm, which lacks an adequate understanding of the inferential nature
of communication and of the crucial role played by contextual information.
Secondly, Bible translators need to understand the true extent of contextual
difference between original and target audiences and the magnitude of the
communication problems they cause. Though context is referred to in
translation literature, the vast amount of information it often involves has
generally been seriously underestimated. For example, the opening verse of
the epistle to the Hebrews (1,1) in the Revised Standard Version reads: In
many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets
(polymeroos kai polytropoos palai ho theos lalesas tois patrasin en tois
prophetais)
With the original readers, the Greek word prophetais (by the prophets)
would access presumably large encyclopedic entries, full of information
about the events of the history of Israel and of the prophets, such as Moses,
Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others. With all this information accessible in
the minds of the audience, the expressions polymeroos (on many
occasions) and polytropos (in many ways) would encourage the readers
to recall a range of events from different times that illustrated the different

Outside of America, linguists have never been very supportive of the

approach taken by Nida. European linguists have always placed much more
emphasis on the connection of language to culture. And some linguists who
have written in English on the subject of Bible translation in recent years
84

ways in which God spoke through the prophets. Thus with a very few words,
the author evoked in his readers minds a wealth of information spanning
Old Testament history, for example, the giving of the law at Mount Sinai,
Gods communications with Israel during the wanderings through the
wilderness, the miracle of the fire coming down on Mount Horeb, and the
visions God gave through Ezekiel.

simply foolish and irrelevant. But a formal linguistic theory that recognizes
this fact is at least a welcome corrective to the more naive ideas that have
been promoted in the field of translation theory after Nida. One biblical
scholar, C. John Collins, has therefore criticized Nidas simplistic code model
of communication along the same lines as Gutt:
Consider what place a text has in an act of communication. It is far too
simple to say that we have a speaker, an audience, and a message that
connects them. Rather, we should see that the speaker and audience have a
picture of the world that to some extent they share between them: that
picture includes, for example, knowledge, beliefs, values, experiences,
language, and rhetorical conventions. For example, I am writing this essay in
English, and I assume that you know what I mean by the Hebrew Bible. A
text is a means by which the speaker (or author) operates on that shared
picture of the world to produce some effect (the message) in the audience;
perhaps by adding new things for them to know, or by correcting things that
they thought they knew; or by drawing on some part of it (such as their
experience of Gods love) in order for them to act upon it; or by evoking
some aspect of it for celebration or mourning; or even by radically revising
their orientation to the world (their worldview). The authors and their
audiences also share linguistic and literary conventions, which indicate how
to interpret the text; for example, everyone who is competent in American
English knows what to expect when a narrative begins with once upon a
time. For an audience to interpret a text properly, they must cooperate
with the author as he has expressed himself in his text. (In terms used by
the linguists, the message includes such things as illocutionary force,
implicatures, and so on.) 6

At the same time, the author here leaves much to the audience: he gives no
guidance as to any particular incidents they should consider. In relevancetheoretic terms, this is a clear example of weak communication: the author
activates a wide range of information, but leaves to the readers which
particular instances to recall Moses, Elijah, and Samuel, for example, or
Abraham, Daniel, Amos and Jeremiah any selection satisfying the terms
polymeroos and polytropos would do. Thus there would be a rich set of
weakly implicated assumptions, that is, weak implicatures. Typically, codemodel based accounts of and approaches to Bible translation have little, if
any, recognition of weaker implicatures. Bible translation literature dealing
with this particular passage, for example, does not usually address the
existence of all this information nor how the translator might succeed in
conveying it to the receptors. 5
I ought to mention that although Gutt writes in English, he is a German, who
received his degrees at the University of London, and perhaps it says
something about the present situation that we quote a person of this
background to indicate the existence of serious intellectual opposition to
theories of dynamic equivalence. But the cultural emphasis of Gutt is
quickly gaining ground among American linguists. Relevance Theory in
itself will not bring any improvement, because it is just another abstract
theory of how language works, and its ideas might even be used to support
the worst abuses of dynamic equivalence. But it does firmly set aside the
code model.

Evidently Collins has been reading about the recent contributions of

relevance theory to theoretical linguistics, which emphasizes the wealth
of implicatures (things implied or taken for granted by the author, which
must be understood by the reader to get the meaning) in almost any
communicative act.

Biblical scholars have always emphasized the importance of background

knowledge, and have never felt a need for any formal theory of
communication to justify this emphasis. To them it is perfectly obvious that
the biblical text cannot be fully understood by those who have not studied
the language and religious culture of the authors. A theory of translation
that pretends to make exegetical comment unnecessary would be seen as

Not everyone in the wide field of linguistics appreciates this new emphasis
on the importance of shared background in communication. Translation
theorists who have always sat at the feet of Nida can be expected to resist
any fundamental change in their theoretical orientation. But we hope it will
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eventually dawn upon them that a translator can never succeed in

conveying what the author of the epistle to the Hebrews meant by the
prophets if the reader is not acquainted with the prophetic writings. Nor
can a translation make readers understand why the New Testament begins
with a genealogy, in which our Lord is introduced as a son of Abraham, if
they are ignorant of the Old Testament. There is no magical science of
translation that can make this historical and cultural preparation for the
gospel unnecessary.

caring for himself. The RSV and ESV also distort the sense in this direction by
adding you in the last clause: Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of
you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
This is an error.
I do not doubt that the RSV translators knew the difference between
and . It only goes to show that even the most competent
scholars will produce slipshod work when they are distracted and burdened
by stylistic requirements. It is sometimes not easy, even for the most expert
scholar, to give an accurate translation while making sure the style is fluent
and clear. In the present case, the problem originated with a feeling that the
last phrase must be made more fluent in English than a literal rendering
would permit. The literal rendering in the ASV (in falling away ) was
thought to be too awkward. 2 Therefore the translators made a limited use
of the dynamic approach to translation, recasting the phrase and adding
you, mainly for the sake of a fluent and clear expression; but in the
process of making this little stylistic adjustment at the end, it escaped their
notice that the meaning of the whole sentence was retroactively altered by
it. The ESV revisers have in many places improved the accuracy of the RSV,
but they failed to correct the inaccuracy here.

19. The Overworked Translator

There are innumerable small inaccuracies in modern translations that
appear to have arisen by a general lack of carefulness. But I suspect that, as
translators are pushed out of the habit of giving literal renderings, and are
expected to give more attention to stylistic matters, the work just becomes
too complex and difficult for many of them to handle. There is certainly an
increase in the demands put upon translators when they are expected to
make everything not only accurate but also fluent and clear to every reader.
Probably many of them are not skillful enough in English, or are not given
enough time to do the job well. It is like a business owner asking his
accountant to answer the phone, which rings every 30 seconds. We should
not be surprised to find a number of errors in the account books at the end
of the day.

One of the editors of the New Revised Standard Version has said that the
peculiar stylistic requirement under which they labored, of insuring that
the language was properly inclusive, involved the translators in problems
which were often extremely difficult and very time-consuming, since the
resulting text had to sound like normal English. 3 The basic problem was,
they were being required to produce a translation in a style which is not
normal in English, and which seriously interfered with their ability to
produce an accurate translation of the Hebrew and Greek. He reports that
three members of the committee, representing both the Old Testament
and New Testament sections, resigned with the complaint that an
inordinate amount of time was being spent on matters that seemed to them
essentially trivial rather than on issues of substantial scholarly concern. 4
Another editor of the version reports that the Old Testament committee
worked hours on their attempt to produce a stylistically acceptable
translation of a single verse, Genesis 9:6, without using the word man. 5
The result of their hours of work on this verse was, Whoever sheds the
blood of a human, by a human shall that persons blood be shed; for in his

In Hebrews 3:12 the Greek reads, , ,

. Literally
this says, Take care, brethren, that there will not be in any one of you an
evil heart of unbelief, in apostasy from the Living God. We would expect a
careful scholar to notice here the emphatic expression in any one of you
( ). This is not the same as saying in you ( ). The readers
are urged, collectively, to take care that no one in their congregation,
insofar as they can prevent it, should have such an unbelieving heart as to
apostatize. And so in the following verse it continues, encourage one
another lest any of you be hardened. Evidently the purpose here is not
to urge self-examination, but to enjoin the brethren to care for one
anothers souls. 1 But the NLT says Be careful then, dear brothers and
sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning
you away from the living God. Thus the focus is turned inward, with each
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own image God made humankind. Yet even this awkward rendering was
condemned as sexist by one constituency that the editors had hoped to
please, because of its use of the pronoun his in reference to God. 6 In
order to achieve the degree of inclusiveness that was desired by the
editors, it was finally necessary for a small committee of inclusive
language commissars to go over the whole version before its publication.
Afterwards one of the translators reported that when members of the full
committee became aware of the extent of these changes, many were
outraged, feeling that much of their own work on the translation over the
years had been irresponsibly gutted. 7 Needless to say, we are more
inclined to sympathize with the translators who were trying to make an
accurate translation, than with the editors who imposed such vexatious and
essentially political requirements of English style. This unfortunate episode
may also be seen as another instance of the Criterion of Acceptability at
work, whose theoretical problems we have fully examined in a previous
chapter. Here we simply note that the stylistic requirements imposed by the
editors created such difficulties for the committee of scholars that some of
them were not even willing to continue the work.

and that they are responsible for whatever is finally published. We have this
picture of several expert scholars sitting around a table and hammering out
the version together, over a period of years, with very learned discussions,
followed by voting. And when all is finished, people imagine that the
manuscript goes straight from the scholars conference table to the printer.
This is a substantially true picture of how some versions in the past came
into being. The King James Version, the English Revised Version, and the
Revised Standard Version were created by such a confidence-inspiring
process. But in the case of many modern versions, the picture is
substantially false. The more usual procedure now is for a publisher to enlist
various scholars as reviewers or consultants who send suggestions for
portions of a version that is being revised by the publishers editorial staff.
The scholars never sit down at a table together, and there is no voting. It is
really the editors who create the version, although they are usually not
scholars of any great reputation.
The rationale for this way of doing things was provided by Nida in his book
The Theory and Practice of Translation (Leiden: Brill, 1969), in which he
states that too much knowledge of the subject matter of the Bible is
undesirable in a translator (p. 99), because theologically trained persons
have special problems in learning how to translate for a level other than the
one on which they habitually operate (p. 100). So it is better for the first
draft to be produced by a stylist who has some grasp of the source
language but is not a scholar in it, and afterwards a real scholar can review
it, bringing to the attention of the stylist errors of various kinds (p. 103).
He claims that experience has shown that it is much easier to achieve the
proper combination of accuracy and adequate style in this manner than in
the more traditional approach in which the scholar translated and the stylist
corrected (p. 103). The stylist should not have too much acquaintance
with the traditional forms of the Scriptures. If he knows the Bible too well,
he is likely to be deceived by his very familiarity with the text and thus let
many things slip past which really do not make sense (p. 157). Moreover,
the final draft should be submitted to a stylist who is not a Christian, or at
least who is not familiar with the Bible (p. 104). In an appendix to the same
book, Nida admits that not all reviewers will give as much time to this work
as they should (p. 185), but he seems more interested in emphasizing that
their role should be limited: From time to time the reviewers may be called
together to discuss a specific agenda covering points on which the

20. The Editorial Sausage Factory

In the case of stylist-scholar teams, the usual process of translating should
be reversed. Rather than having a scholar prepare a somewhat literal
translation which is then revised by a stylist, it is the stylist who should
prepare the first draft, but only on the basis of extensive preliminary
discussions with the biblical scholar. Only later is the text gone over
carefully by the scholar and various options discussed. Eugene Nida, From
One Language to Another (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986), p. 192.
An old saying goes, Laws are like sausages it is best not to see them
being made. The same thing could be said about some versions of the
Bible. People who know how they were made are not likely to have much
respect for them.
It should be made known to readers of some modern versions that not
everything in them can be attributed to the biblical scholars who are
employed by the publisher as members of the translation team. People
tend to assume that the scholars were the actual translators of the version,
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translators need guidance, but they should not meet as a committee to

discuss in detail all that the translators have done. It should be emphasized
that their function is supplementary and advisory. They do not constitute a
committee of censors. (pp. 179-80.) And again: In some projects the
reviewers have insisted on meeting together as a committee and going over
the whole draft verse by verse. This is rarely a desirable approach. Not only
can such a committee spend endless hours debating over details, but the
end results are rarely as good as the work of the translators which was the
basis of the discussion. The reviewers and the consultative group 1 should
remember that it is not their work to be censors. (p. 186.)

21. Dynamic Theology

In another passage of Faust, Goethe gives us a scene full of irony, as Faust
sits down to translate a passage of the New Testament.
Our spirits yearn toward revelation
That nowhere glows more fair, more excellent,
Than here in the New Testament.
To open the fundamental text Im moved,
With honest feeling, once for all,
To turn the sacred, blest original
Into my German well-beloved.
He opens a volume and applies himself to it.
Tis written: In the beginning was the Word!
Here now Im balked! Wholl put me in accord?
It is impossible, the Word so high to prize,
I must translate it otherwise
If I am rightly by the Spirit taught.
Tis written: In the beginning was the Thought!
Consider well that line, the first you see,
That your pen may not write too hastily!
Is it then Thought that works, creative, hour by hour?
Thus should it stand: In the beginning was the Power!
Yet even while I write this word, I falter,
For something warns me, this too I shall alter.
The Spirits helping me! I see now what I need
And write assured: In the beginning was the Deed! 1

Now, it is certainly true that a committee of scholars is likely to produce a

more literal version, and one that requires more from the reader. But we
observe here, how the corrections that might have been made by a
committee of careful scholars are disparaged as censorship, and how their
deliberations are dismissed as nitpicking endless hours debating over
details.
Under this kind of arrangement, where scholars are merely asked to make
suggestions by mail, one can never be sure whether at any given point the
translation really represents the consensus of scholarly opinion, or even the
opinion of anyone who was paid to review the version for accuracy. The
first draft and the final decisions are made not by scholars, but by people
who do not have too much knowledge of the Bible to produce the kind of
dynamic equivalence that is desired by the publisher.
English versions that have been produced by such a process include some
well-known ones, including the New Living Translation, the Good News
Bible, the Contemporary English Version, and the New Century Version. The
publishers of these versions have been less than frank about it in their
prefaces and in their advertising, and for obvious reasons. They would not
want the public to see their sausage-factory in operation. The Bible version
that emerges from this process is not even primarily the work of
professional scholars. The publishers have even rejected the whole concept
that a Bible translation should be made by professional scholars.

As we noted above, the word in the prologue of Johns Gospel

presents a problem for translators. Faust begins to tackle the problem
sincerely enough, but in the end he wanders far from the meaning of the
Greek word, and sees in it only a reflection of his own ruminations on the
need to turn away from mere words to the essence of things, and to deeds.
The irony is that he imagines the Spirit is helping him, but what spirit is
really present? In the room with him is Mephistopheles, the demon to
whom he will turn for help at the peril of his soul.

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A translator must indeed be careful. Weighty theological lessons sometimes

depend upon having a strictly accurate translation of the Bible. A good
example of this may be seen when we compare Bible versions at Genesis
50:20. Here as Joseph comforts his brethren he makes a statement full of
theological implications. The ESV gives us a literal rendering of the verse:
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring
it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. This is
truly an interesting statement, often quoted by theologians in the context of
explaining the sovereignty and providence of God behind even those events
which seem to be evil. As John Calvin explains in his Genesis commentary
here,

meant it, which required Calvins explanation, and in its place we see that
the New Living Translation has substituted the idea that God afterwards
turned evil actions to his use. So in at least four ways in this one little
verse the use of dynamic equivalence has obscured an important
theological lesson which shines through in the literal rendering. Probably
the NLT translator believed that he was helping the reader to understand
the verse with these adjustments, but for all the good intentions we may
attribute to the translator we perceive in this officious meddling with the
text the hand of someone who is attempting to change not only the verbal
form but the very teaching of the verse into something that is easier to
understand and accept. 2

The selling of Joseph was a crime detestable for its cruelty and perfidy; yet
he was not sold except by the decree of heaven. For neither did God merely
remain at rest, and by conniving for a time, let loose the reins of human
malice, in order that afterwards he might make use of this occasion; but, at
his own will, he appointed the order of acting which he intended to be fixed
and certain. Thus we may say with truth and propriety, that Joseph was sold
by the wicked consent of his brethren, and by the secret providence of God.

It is often said by advocates of dynamic equivalence that all translation is

interpretation or all good translation involves interpretation. 3 This
statement is true; yet it is dishonest, if it is designed to distract attention
from the fact that some translations are more interpretive than others. Like
most things in life, it is a matter of degree, and the difference in degree can
be important. If a doctor who wanted to do elective surgery on a patient
knew that the patients health would probably be ruined by it, he could not
escape responsibility by shrugging his shoulders and saying well, all surgery
involves risks. Some surgery carries little risk, some is very risky. Some is
absolutely necessary to save the patients life; some is purely optional, and
does not improve the health of the patient at all. And the same is true of
translations. Some interpretation is necessary, and some is not. Take for
instance Philippians 2:13, which in the Greek reads,
. A
translation that involves very little interpretation is, for it is God who works
in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (ESV). The
interpretation here is so obvious and so minimal that probably the
translator was not even aware of having interpreted the verse, but it does
involve some assumptions and some obligatory interpretation: for instance,
it assumes that by Paul means God and not a god, and that by
he means in rather than among. But now compare this with the much
more interpretive and riskier translation of the Common English Bible: God
is the one who enables you both to want and to actually live out his good
purposes. Here has been interpreted, who enables you.
This is certainly more interpretive, and it is also highly qestionable, because
the verb does not mean enable. It means be operative, be at

Yet what does the user of the New Living Translation read here? As far as I
am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil. He brought
me to the high position I have today so I could save the lives of many
people. Here there are several things that might be pointed out which
vitiate the theology implicit in Josephs words. We wonder how the phrase
As far as I am concerned can be justified here, because it corresponds to
nothing in the Hebrew text and it makes the statement merely an opinion
rather than a statement of fact. This in itself is an important change in the
meaning of the verse. We notice that the phrase He brought me to the high
position I have today has been inserted. So instead of the bald statement
that God planned the harmful action of the brothers for the good of many
(this is even clearer in the Hebrew than in the literal English), a good thing is
inserted, namely Josephs prosperity, as the thing that God used as the
means of saving people. We see that so I could save the lives of many
people attributes the good outcome to the will of Joseph rather than
attributing it to the will of God alone, as in the Hebrew. But we notice
especially the paraphrastic rendering God turned. Gone from the verse is
the mysterious secret providence of God, expressed in the words God
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work, put forth power (Thayer), be at work, operate, be effective (BAGD).

H.C.G. Moule observes that the Greek word has a certain intensity about it,
worketh effectually. 4 The translation neglects to convey what the text
actually says (who works effectually) and offers instead a notion of how
God might be said to work in the heart and life of the believer if his working
were not really effectual. Evidently the translator reasoned that God must
be at work in the believer indirectly and non-effectually by enabling him
to want and to do this or that, rather than simply causing him to want or do
these things, although that is by no means what the text says. The
interpretation injected here goes beyond what is necessary for a
grammatical and understandable English sentence.

such a manner, that God restores in us a free choice, that we may have it in
our power to will aright. Thus they acknowledge to have received from God
the power of willing aright, but assign to man a good inclination. Paul,
however, declares this to be a work of God, without any reservation. For he
does not say that our hearts are simply turned or stirred up, or that the
infirmity of a good will is helped, but that a good inclination is wholly the
work of God.
Perhaps not everyone will agree with all that Calvin says here. But it must be
admitted that it requires no torturing of the text. The same cannot be said
for the Arminian gloss of the Common English Bible, which pointedly
excludes Calvins thoughts, by playing fast and loose with the words of the
Apostle. This manipulation of the text in translation is not excusable on the
grounds that all translation is interpretation.

In connection with this interpretation we note what Calvin writes on the

verse:
It is God that worketh. This is the true engine for bringing down all
haughtiness this the sword for putting an end to all pride, when we are
taught that we are utterly nothing, and can do nothing, except through the
grace of God alone. I mean supernatural grace, which comes forth from the
spirit of regeneration. For, considered as men, we already are, and live and
move in God. (Acts 17:28.) But Paul reasons here as to a kind of movement
different from that universal one. Let us now observe how much he ascribes
to God, and how much he leaves to us. There are, in any action, two
principal departments the inclination, and the power to carry it into
effect. Both of these he ascribes wholly to God; what more remains to us as
a ground of glorying? Nor is there any reason to doubt that this division has
the same force as if Paul had expressed the whole in a single word; for the
inclination is the groundwork; the accomplishment of it is the summit of the
building brought to a completion. He has also expressed much more than if
he had said that God is the Author of the beginning and of the end. For in
that case sophists would have alleged, by way of cavil, that something
between the two was left to men. But as it is, what will they find that is in
any degree peculiar to us? They toil hard in their schools to reconcile with
the grace of God free-will of such a nature, I mean, as they conceive of
which might be capable of turning itself by its own movement, and might
have a peculiar and separate power, by which it might co-operate with the
grace of God. I do not dispute as to the name, but as to the thing itself. In
order, therefore, that free-will may harmonize with grace, they divide in

Someone might object to our criticism by saying that the method of

dynamic equivalence itself cannot be blamed for misinterpretations. It is the
fault of the translator, not the theory, because the translator must
understand the original text before he can recast it in equivalent English
expressions. Yet does it surprise anyone that when so much emphasis is
placed upon the ease of the reader, we find not only easy language but also
easy theology? Moreover, it is an impractical theory which requires the
translator to interpret the text so thoroughly while avoiding interpretations
that flow naturally from his own intellectual presuppositions. It expects
something that we cannot reasonably expect from a human being. In his
book The Text of the Old Testament, Ernst Wrthwein emphasizes the
importance of taking a psychologically realistic view of Bible versions:
For a long period the versions were approached rather naively and used
directly for textual criticism on the uncritical assumption that the base from
which they were translated could be readily determined. But the matter is
not that simple. Anyone who translates also interprets: the translation is not
simply a rendering of the underlying text but also an expression of the
translators understanding of it. And every translator is a child of his own
time and of his own culture. Consequently every translation must be
understood and appreciated as an intellectual achievement in its own right.
This is especially true of the versions of the Bible which were produced to
meet the practical needs of a community. Most versions of the Bible have
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been the work of anonymous translators (usually of many translators) who

have given concrete expression in their work to the intellectual assumptions
of their age and their culture, the religious and other opinions which they
adhere to or respect, the prejudices and concerns which they adopt
consciously or unconsciously, their education, their ability to express
themselves, the conceptual range of the language they are translating into,
and many other factors. We must therefore distinguish between what
comes from the original text and what is added by the translatora
formidable task to accomplish before we can use the versions for purposes
of textual criticism. 5

We might as well notice here the role that Nidas theories have played in
recent controversies about missionary contextualization of the Christian
religion, reconceptualizations of biblical theology according to the
worldview and thought-forms of various cultures. In the 1970s Charles Kraft
of Fuller Theological Seminary even used the phrase dynamic equivalence
in reference to this, urging the creation of dynamic equivalence churches
in which principles of dynamic theology would allow the development of
indigenous ethnotheologies. 7 Various things which are being done under
the banner of contextualization and ethnotheology are clearly syncretistic.
For example, missionaries may explain the efficacy of prayer in line with
Voodoo concepts about magical utterances, or Jesus could be described as
being the son of the most powerful deity already being worshiped by a
tribe. Contextualizations like this are now common on the mission field,
even among missionaries associated with reputedly conservative mission
agencies such as the Wycliffe Bible Translators. 8

Here Wrthwein is speaking of ancient versions of the Old Testament, such

as the Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic Targums, and the Latin Vulgate; but
what he says concerning these ancient versions must also be said about
modern English versions. And if it is especially true of the versions of the
Bible which were produced to meet the practical needs of a community
i.e., versions like the Targums, which have their contemporary readers very
much in mind, and which aim to make the text highly accessible and
pertinent to them then it is also especially true of modern English
versions that are of this same character. This warning about the use of
highly interpretive versions does not lose its relevance when the versions
are modern, and it pertains just as much to simple questions about the
meaning of the Greek and Hebrew words as it does to the specialized textcritical research of scholars like Wrthwein.

This kind of thinking is not confined to missionary theorists and translators

in primitive places. Recently one of Nidas disciples wrote:
I have studied how a number of theologians and preachers discuss the move
from time-bound text to timeless theological truths. I have noticed that a
model that has not been as widely used or influential in hermeneutical
circles as I think it should be is the process of Bible translation known as
dynamic equivalence (or functional equivalence). The heart of dynamic
equivalence translation theory is the attempt to create the same impact in
the receptor language of those who are hearing the text now as was created
in the original audience of the text. In order to do this, Eugene Nida and
others have developed a complex model of translational theory. I recognize
that this theory has both shortcomings and strengths, and that it is the
subject of considerable debate, in which I have been a participant. The
intricacies of that debate are not my concern here, though I will say that
virtually all debate over Bible translation theory today takes as its starting
point Nidas dynamic equivalence, which tries to move from one language
and contextan ancient and sacred oneto a modern language and
context. My contention is that this is the task not only of translation, but
also of theology itself, and that the procedure of one may well be essentially
the procedure of the other.

Scholars never trust dynamic translations, because they know from

experience the strength of the tendencies which lead even learned men to
accommodate any admired author to their own mentality. At one time the
prestige of Aristotle was such that philosophers, at least, could hardly be
trusted to quote him accurately! In 1813 one complained how easy it is for
a translator of Aristotle (in consequence of the unparalleled brevity which
he sometimes effects) to accommodate the sense of the original, by the
help of paraphrastical clauses, expressed in the phraseology of modern
science, to every progressive step in the history of human knowledge. In
truth, there is not one philosopher of antiquity, whose opinions, when they
are stated in any terms but his own, are to be received with so great
distrust. 6 This is even more true of St. Paul, whose rapid style gives many
occasions to interpreters.
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22. The Bible for Children

I will try to summarize the theory. The notion is that one must first
determine the kernel or heart of what is being said in the original text. In
translation theory this is applied to the sentence, but I think that the notion
can be and often is extended to larger units, including larger theological
units. This requires a process of differentiating the essential from the
ephemeral, the enduring from the contingent, the pertinent from the
impertinent. Then one must put this kernel into the equivalent form of
expression in the receptor languagetodays theological languageso that
it has the same effect on the present receiver as it did on the first hearer.
We may have to return to how we formulate our theology in each day and
age, and with various receptor groups in mind, but that seems consistent
with how the original gospel message was presented; within a context, but
without losing its christological center. 9

Egermeier's Bible Story BookMuch of the support for paraphrastic Bible

versions has been due to the desire of some to provide a version which
children might be able to understand. This is well-meant, but I think it
should be obvious to anyone who is really familiar with the Bible that it was
not written for children. Let us be realistic. We have always had catechisms
and Bible story books for the children, and anyone who has been involved in
teaching the children knows very well that these supply more than enough
material for young minds; and they are far better suited for the education of
children than any simplified version of the Bible can be. There is only so
much one can do with the Bible to make it clear or interesting to children,
and in the end a selection of passages is going to be made anywaywhich,
if it is a good selection, will differ little from the selection in the old Bible
Story books. I remember that when I was a child in Sunday school we did
have copies of the Good News for Modern Man New Testament on hand
(I still have the copy that was presented to me one promotion Sunday),
but I also remember that we did not use it. The catechism took up all of our
time. The truth is, there is no good reason why the Bible should be adapted
for this purpose. And there is a danger in it. The danger is, the Bible
simplified for children will become the Bible of adults. I have seen Good
News Bibles in the pews of mainline churches. The American Bible Society
had removed the cartoons for this pew bible edition. And then there is the
case of the Living Bible, which Ken Taylor originally meant for children, and
yet Billy Graham quickly made it into one of the most popular versions for
adults. 1 This was bound to happen, given the mental laziness of so many
people, both in the pew and in the pulpit.

It might be argued that this goes beyond what Nida himself had in mind for
Bible versions, but there are many programmatic statements in favor of
cultural contextualization in Nidas published works, with extensive
discussion of examples, and it is difficult to say where he might draw the
line between dynamic equivalence and contextualization. In his books he
mixes these things together so much that it is sometimes hard to tell which
of the two subjects is under discussion. In any case Nida himself clearly
wished to convey the idea that dynamic equivalence and contextualization
are intrinsically related, being two aspects of the same principle of
immediate equivalent effect in communication, and so it is not unfair for
us to connect these things also. At bottom they are related, and our attitude
toward contextualization will have implications for our evaluation of
dynamic equivalence. The root of both is the idea that everything important
in the Bible can be so thoroughly naturalized that it does not seem to be
foreign to the language and culture into which it is introduced, and that if
there is anything that cannot be so naturalized, it must not be essential to
the message or pertinent to modern readers of the Bible.

The publishers of the dynamic equivalence versions have at any rate been
very aggressive in promoting these versions as if they were suitable for
everyone, young and old, Christian or non-Christian. The New Living
Translation now is making much headway in our churches as a version for
the whole congregation, being used in the pulpit and in Bible study classes. I
wonder how superficial the preaching and teaching must be in such
churches, where this simplified version is thought to be adequate or
necessary. What if a man who has been under such a steady diet of pablum
happens to open an exegetical commentary and read there the comments
of a scholar, or visits a church where the Bible is explained in some detail?

In the pursuit of contemporary relevance, the Bible translator had better

beware of what spirit is helping him.

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He will not be long in seeing what a false impression has been given by his
easy-reading version. It is not at all as he was led to suppose. The main ideas
of the Bible are indeed simple enough, in any version; but it is very far from
being true that every verse of the Bible is simple. Moreover, if he reads any
moderately detailed treatise of theology he will find that the great
theologians of Protestantism habitually call attention to linguistic details
that are simply absent from his Bible version. If a man knows the Bible only
through such a version, and has been encouraged to think that it is just as
accurate as any other, how well has he been served? He has been treated
like a child or a simpleton. Is it any wonder that many educated people scoff
at Christianity when even our Bibles have been so dumbed down that they
offer nothing above the level of a ten-year-old child? Is it any wonder that
we have such problems getting the interest of the men (who ought to be
the spiritual leaders of their households) when everything is designed for
children? In regards to this, perhaps the words of the old Scottish preacher,
James Stalker, bear repeating.

23. Bible Babel

For then will I restore to the peoples a pure language,
That they may all call upon the name of the Lord,
To serve him with one accord. (Zephaniah 3:9)
In the late 1950s F.F. Bruce wrote a book on the history of English Bible
versions in which he expressed some appreciation of versions in modern
English that had appeared up to that time, saying, may their number go on
increasing! 1 And increase they did! This was before the great proliferation
of versions that began in the 1960s, and before the appearance of any of
the modern versions that are now to be found on the shelves of Christian
bookstores. In an enlarged edition of his book published in 1978 we detect a
note of concern, however, when Bruce complains that the number of new
translations of the Bible keeps on increasing to a point where it becomes
more and more difficult to keep up with them all. 2 In 1991 D.A. Carson
observed that from the publication of the RSV Bible [in 1952] to the
present, twenty-nine English versions of the entire Bible have appeared,
plus an additional twenty-six English renderings of the New Testament. 3
And yet they continue to increase. Turning out new versions and revisions of
the Bible has become an established industry, with interests of its own, and
we can no longer extend a magnanimous welcome to everything that the
Bible publishing industry churns out.

Not unfrequently ministers are exhorted to cultivate extreme simplicity in

their preaching. Everything ought, we are told, to be brought down to the
comprehension of the most ignorant hearer, and even of children. Far be it
from me to depreciate the place of the simplest in the congregation; it is
one of the best features of the Church in the present day that it cares for
the lambs. I dealt with this subject, not unsympathetically I hope, in a
former lecture. But do not ask us to be always speaking to children or to
beginners. Is the Bible always simple? Is Job simple, or Isaiah? Is the Epistle
to the Romans simple, or Galatians? This cry for simplicity is three-fourths
intellectual laziness; and that Church is doomed in which there is not
supplied meat for men as well as milk for babes. We owe the Gospel not
only to the barbarian but also to the Greek. Not only to the unwise but also
to the wise. 2

The problem lies not only the number of versions, but also in their
mutability. Publishers are continually making changes in their versions, so
that they do not remain the same for more than a dozen years or so. The
situation with the NIV is typical. Its New Testament was originally published
in 1973. Changes were made in 1978, and in 1984. By 1997 the people who
control the NIV were revising it with inclusive language. Apparently they
thought this revision would be accepted in the same way that the previous
revisions had been. As it turned out, however, many church leaders
objected to this last revision as frivolous, and as a capitulation to political
correctness. The NIV is not really owned by a publisher. It is owned by a
non-profit organization called Biblica, formerly called the International Bible
Society. But this organization has a very close relationship with Zondervan
Publishers, and it was reported that Zondervan executives had requested
the revision. 4 The pressure brought against the project by ministry leaders

Stalkers counsel here is to preachers, who in their sermons must engage

the attention of grown men and educated people as well as the simple. He
takes it for granted that the reader will agree with him that the Bible itself is
not always simple, and is itself meat for men.

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prevented the revision from replacing the 1984 NIV immediately, but
Zondervan got what it asked for anyway, because the revision was
published under another name: Todays New International Version
(published in 2002). The version was marketed as being one that was
adapted to the language of consumers between eighteen and thirty-four
years old. Prior to this, Zondervan had also caused the International Bible
Society to produce a New International Readers Version (1995) adapted to
the language of children. Then in 2011 the 1984 NIV was superceded by a
new edition which was really a revision of the TNIV. So one generation has
seen at least five different New International versions being published in
America. But there is more: if we include the British editions (which are not
identical to the American editions), there are at least seven New
International versions.

when they are at church the King James Version is more likely to be the
Bible read during the week than is the NIV by a 5:1 ratio. 6 This might seem
incredible to some people in the Bible business, but it agrees with my own
observations over the years. For whatever reason, people who use the KJV
tend to know their Bibles much better than those who use the NIV, despite
the fact that the NIV (in any of its forms) is much easier to understand. I
have also met people who say that although they sometimes use the NIV for
casual reading, they prefer to use the KJV for memorization. And I do not
know anyone who uses the NIV for word by word and phrase by phrase
exposition. People who study the Bible closely have generally preferred the
New American Standard or the New King James Version over the NIV. For
those who do not care so much about literal accuracy, the New Living
Translation is now being used by many congregations that had formerly
used the NIV.

This instability and variety within the NIV brand itself is not in line with the
intentions of the original NIV committee. When they began work on the
version in 1967 they stated their goals in a document which emphasized the
importance of having one version in common use.

In 1998 the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention

launched a translation project of its own. At that time Paige Patterson, the
President of the SBC, was asked to comment on the situation. His reply
indicated the failure of the NIV translators hopes: If the Sunday School
Board did something really good, theres enough dissatisfaction with the
NIV that it might sell, and he added, We have over-translated and we have
ruined Bible memorization and congregational reading. We have translation
pandemonium out there. How its going to work out, I dont know. 7 When
the New Testament of this new version (the Holman Christian Standard
Bible) appeared in 2001, its preface explained that there was a need for the
version because Each generation needs a fresh translation of the Bible in its
own language. By fresh they mean something completely new, as
opposed to revisions of translations from previous generations. If the
editors believe this, then thirty years from now they will have to say that
their own version is obsolete. By then it will have reached its generational
expiration date.

Only with one version in common use in our churches will Bible
memorization flourish, will those in the pew follow in their own Bibles the
reading of Scripture and comments on individual Scriptures from the pulpit,
will unison readings be possible, will Bible Teachers be able to interpret with
maximum success the Biblical text word by word and phrase by phrase to
their students, and will the Word be implanted indelibly upon the minds of
Christians as they hear and read again and again the words of the Bible in
the same phraseology. We acknowledge freely that there are benefits to be
derived by the individual as he refers to other translations in his study of the
Bible, but this could still be done in situations in which a common Bible was
in general use. 5
The prospects for one version in common use are not good. Although the
NIV brand has become the best-selling one in America (according to
statistics compiled by the Christian Booksellers Association), it has never
been the one most often read by people who do much Bible-reading. That
honor still belongs to the King James Versiona version which has not
changed in hundreds of years. In 1998 the Barna Research Group found that
among Americans who read the Bible during a typical week, not including

Also in 2001 the English Standard Version (a revision of the RSV) appeared,
under the marketing rubric Truth. Unchanged. Six years later a revised
edition appeared, with 360 changes.
The situation reached a high point of absurdity in 2003 when the New
Century Version (the least accurate one of all) soared to the top of the sales
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charts in an edition called Revolve, bringing the Bible to teen girls in a

format theyre comfortable with. Designed to resemble the celebrity
gossip magazines sold at supermarket checkouts, this edition shows them
that the Bible is fun and applicable to life today.

The ability to decode a particular type of message is constantly in process of

change, not only as the result of an increase in general education, but
especially through specific acquaintance with the particular type of
message. For example, at first a new reader of the Scriptures is obviously
confronted with a very heavy communication load, but as he becomes
familiar with certain words and combinations of words, the communication
load is reduced. Obviously, then, the communication load is not a fixed
characteristic of a message in and of itself, but is always relative to the
specific receptors who are in the process of decoding it.

In the meantimewhat has happened to the Holy Bible? It has become a

piece of merchandise. Bible publishing has become like the popular music
industry, in which the songs are given only so much air time before they are
replaced by newer ones. The Bible racks at the Christian bookstore have
become like the toothpaste aisle at the grocery storeten brand names,
with several new and improved formulas, available in four varieties each.
The resemblance is not accidental. In both cases the same principles of
product development and brand marketing are in operation.

Because of this shift in communication load, we are faced with two

alternatives: (1) changing the receptors, i.e. giving them more experience,
and (2) changing the form of the message, i.e. providing different forms of
the message for different grades of receptors. In the past the tendency was
to insist on educating the receptors to the level of being able to decode the
message. At present, however, in the production of all literature aimed at
the masses the usual practice is to prepare different grades of the same
message, so that people at different levels of experience may be able to
decode at a rate acceptable to them. The American Bible Society, for
example, is sponsoring three translations of the Bible into Spanish: one is of
a traditional type, aimed at the present Evangelical constituency; another is
of a more contemporary and sophisticated character, directed to the welleducated but nonchurch constituency; and a third is in very simple Spanish,
intended especially for the new literate, who has usually had a minimum of
contact with Protestant churches. Communist propagandists, it may be
noted, have engaged in a similar scaling of translations of Lenin and Marx,
making important adaptations for various grades of background and
educational experience.

Regarding the contribution of dynamic equivalence to this situation, we

will not say that Nida is responsible for the Revolve edition. We might
connect it with the emphasis on cultural relevance and formal
accommodation that figure so prominently in his theories, but even if the
publisher of such an edition presented it as an application of dynamic
equivalence, we should rather see it as something wholly inspired by
commercial interests. Nevertheless, the philosophy of dynamic
equivalence has obviously contributed to the current flood of popular
versions and editions, not only by directly inspiring many of them, but also
by subverting the traditional view that continuity and uniformity are
important in the ministry of the Word. Under the new regime of dynamic
equivalence, there can be no continuity or uniformity in Bible versions, and
no standard translation. Only a succession of versions erected on the
shifting sand of what each generation seems to want.

If the communication load is generally too low for the receptor, both in style
and content, the message will appear insipid and boring. The failure of
Laubachs The Inspired Letters (a translation of the New Testament Epistles
from Romans through Jude) is largely due to this fact. It is possible, of
course, to combine a low formal communication load with a relatively high
semantic load (especially by the inclusion of allusions) and to produce thus a
very acceptable piece of literature or translation. The Kingsley-Williams
translation of the New Testament in Plain English is an example of a
translation which purposely employs a limited vocabulary and simple

The theory of dynamic equivalence actually demands multiple versions and

frequent revisions. Nida has said, because languages are constantly
changing, no translation can retain its value for very long. 8 And because
people differ so much in their linguistic preferences and capacities, Nida
maintained that every language ought to have several different Bible
versions designed for different constituencies. In Toward a Science of
Translating (1964) he wrote:

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grammatical constructions, but in which the semantic content is not

watered down or artificially restricted. In the field of literature, Alice in
Wonderland and Winnie the Poo, and, in contemporary cartoon strips, Pogo
and Peanuts, provide examples of quite low formal communication loads
combined with high semantic loads. On the highest level, the power of
Jesus teaching by means of parables exemplifies this combination of low
formal communication load with superbly challenging semantic content.

reading for pleasure will be quite different from one intended for a person
anxious to learn how to assemble a complicated machine. (p. 158.)
Likewise in The Theory and Practice of Translation (1969) he wrote:
The priority of the audience over the forms of the language means
essentially that one must attach greater importance to the forms
understood and accepted by the audience for which a translation is
designed than to the forms which may possess a longer linguistic tradition
or have greater literary prestige.

It is possible to produce a very acceptable translation while combining high

formal and semantic communication loads, as has been done in the New
Testament of the New English Biblean outstanding work of translation.
From time to time any good literary production must of necessity pierce the
upper limit of ready decodability; but again it must also drop below this limit
in order to adjust to the periodicity which is a part of all normal human
activity.

In applying this principle of priority it is necessary to distinguish between

two different sets of situations: (1) those in which the language in question
has a long literary tradition and in which the Scriptures have existed for
some time and (2) those in which the language has no literary tradition and
in which the Scriptures have either not been translated or are not so set in
their form as to pose serious problems for revisers.

A really successful translation, judged in terms of the response of the

audience for which it is designed, must provide a challenge as well as
information. This challenge must lie not merely in difficulty in decoding, but
in newness of formnew ways of rendering old truths, new insights into
traditional interpretations, and new words in fresh combinations. (pp. 1434.)

As will be seen in Chapter 7, in which the basic problems of style are

considered for languages with a long literary tradition and a well-established
traditional text of the Bible, it is usually necessary to have three types of
Scriptures: (1) a translation which will reflect the traditional usage and be
used in the churches, largely for liturgical purposes (this may be called an
ecclesiastical translation), (2) a translation in the present-day literary
language, so as to communicate to the well-educated constituency, and (3)
a translation in the common or popular language, which is known to
and used by the common people, and which is at the same time acceptable
as a standard for published materials. (p. 31)

Decoding ability in any language involves at least four principal levels: (1)
the capacity of children, whose vocabulary and cultural experience are
limited; (2) the double-standard capacity of new literates, who can decode
oral messages with facility but whose ability to decode written messages is
limited; (3) the capacity of the average literate adult, who can handle both
oral and written messages with relative ease; and (4) the unusually high
capacity of specialists (doctors, theologians, philosophers, scientists, etc.),
when they are decoding messages within their own area of specialization.
Obviously a translation designed for children cannot be the same as one
prepared for specialists, nor can a translation for children be the same as
one for a newly literate adult.

I have quoted so extensively from Toward a Science of Translating here

because I want the reader to notice not only what is said but also what is
not said by Nida in his discussion of the subject. The thing missing is any
admission of the fact that meaning is lost in the versions that have a low
communication load. By communication load Nida does not mean the
total amount of information conveyed by the translation, but rather the rate
at which information is conveyed, as he explains very carefully in the same
chapter. To put it very simply and in my own terms, he maintains that the
amount of information can be made equivalent by paraphrastic expansion

Prospective audiences differ not only in decoding ability, but perhaps even
more in their interests. For example, a translation designed to stimulate
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of the translation. A low communication load conveys the same information

at a low rate by extending its length. The only downside is, a version that
does this will appear insipid and boring to educated people. In the
passage quoted from The Theory and Practice of Translation he sends us to
chapter 7 for an explanation of the need for three types of Scriptures. But
there we find that the only reason for this is that different classes of people
tend to prefer different styles of writing. It is only a matter of taste. (No
explanation is given for the threefold division, but this seems rather
arbitrary. Human beings do not just naturally fall into three classes. Why not
four or five?) The reason for a traditional ecclesiastical translation is not
explained, and we get the impression that it is merely a concession to the
benighted people who insist upon having one. Another theorist of Nidas
school, William Wonderly, sees no good reason why common language
versions like the Good News Bible should not completely displace the more
literal Church translations. He attributes the preference for more literal
versions within the Church to a spirit of mindless traditionalism: common
language translations are indeed excellent for church use, he says,
wherever there is not a heavy pressure for the use of a version which is
hallowed by church tradition. 9 Of course the Church translation is the
one that causes serious problems for revisers, as Nida complains, because
people will not allow it to be changed lightly; but by the same token it is the
one most diligently read and studied by Christians. Nida never
acknowledges any legitimate place for tradition, gives no attention to the
question of exegetical accuracy, sees no value in theological terms, and,
indeed, he completely ignores all of the considerations I have raised in this
book. Even the literary translations are to be judged purely in terms of
the response of the audience.

describes this problem by saying that every utterance of a speech form

involves a minute semantic innovation. If this is soand from both a
theoretical and a practical point of view we must admit this to be a factit
means that, in some measure at least, the boundaries of a term are being
altered constantly. At the same time, of course, no two persons have exactly
the same boundaries to words. That is to say, for precisely the same
referent one person my use one linguistic symbol and another person a
different symbol. The interminable arguments about terminology provide
ample evidence that the boundaries of terms are not identical for all
members of a speech community. Of course, there is a wide measure of
agreement in the use of words; otherwise, human society could not
function. Nevertheless, there are significant differences of word boundaries
between semantic areas. (Toward a Science of Translating, p. 48)
He further states that no two persons ever mean exactly the same thing by
the use of the same language symbols.
In any discussion of communication and meaning, one must recognize at the
start, each source and each receptor differs from all others, not only in the
way the formal aspects of the language are handled, but also in the manner
in which symbols are used to designate certain referents. If, as is obviously
true, each person employs language on the basis of his background and no
two individuals ever have precisely the same background, then it is also
obvious that no two persons ever mean exactly the same thing by the use of
the same language symbols. (ibid., p. 51)
Here we see the foundations of our modern Bible Babel. For there is almost
nothing that cannot be defended in one way or another, on the grounds
that it may be convenient or pleasing to some hypothetical group of
peoplewhose limitations are just accepted, rather than challenged and
expanded by teaching.

Nida constantly focuses on the need for versions in common or popular

language. The very notion of a common language becomes rather
problematic, however, when we find that Nida believes that no word ever
has precisely the same meaning twice.

There is something plausible about Nidas idea that different versions are
appropriate for different sociological groups and also for different levels of
knowledge within each group. It puts us in mind of the textbooks designed
for different grades in school. Obviously a second-grade text should be
much simpler than a sixth-grade text. But in an educational setting like this,
the texts are not translations of the same material in some other

If the problem of describing the area covered by a particular linguistic

symbol is difficult, the assigning of boundaries is even more so. The basic
reason is that no word ever has precisely the same meaning twice, for each
speech event is in a sense unique, involving participants who are constantly
changing and referents which are never fixed. Bloomfield (1933, p. 407)
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language, nor are they ever presented as such. (We note that Nida must go
to the Communist propagandists to find a precedent for this questionable
practice.) It is not just the verbal form of the material that changes from
grade to grade, but also the content. There is no pretense of equality or
equivalence. The subject matter becomes more challenging and complex.
So the situation is not really comparable. And in fact a gradation of
translations is not a viable option for congregational ministry. We do have
Sunday-school grades, youth ministries, small-group Bible studies, and new
member classes; but the adult members of the congregation cannot be
divided into grades, like students in a school, and given different versions of
the Bible that are adapted to their level of biblical knowledge. Although
their knowledge is unequal, they must be treated as one bodya
sociological unitand the teachers must help everyone to understand the
Bible through an accurate translation, rightly dividing the word of Truth.

recommendations, we can well imagine what sort of renderings were being

rejected. Frankly, we find it hard to believe that any Christian could have
said But if all the laymen can understand the Bible, what will the preachers
have to do?unless perhaps it were a joke, designed to make the
translator of the rejected version feel better. But again, Nida presents it in
all seriousness as the real reason why so many teachers prefer to use a
more literal ecclesiastical version in ministry.
Regarding the use of an ecclesiastical translation for liturgical purposes,
we find that Nida does not understand why it should be so. Elsewhere he
argues that a version used for such a purpose must not be traditional, but
should instead be especially dynamic and easy to understand:
The priority of the heard form of language over the purely written forms is
particularly important for translations of the Bible. In the first place, the
Holy Scriptures are often used liturgically, and this means that many more
people will hear the Scriptures read than will read them for themselves.
Second, the Scriptures are often read aloud to groups as means of group
instruction

Nida never did acknowledge the need for such a painstaking ministry of the
Word. We even find in his books such disparaging remarks concerning the
role of teachers as this:
in some instances Christian scholars have a certain professionalism about
their task and feel that to make the Bible too clear would be to eliminate
their distinctive function as chief expositors and explainers of the message.
In fact, when one committee was asked to adopt some translations which
were in perfectly clear, understandable language, the reactions of its
members were, But if all the laymen can understand the Bible, what will
the preachers have to do? (The Theory and Practice of Translation, p. 101.)

If a translation is relatively literal (i.e.. a formal correspondence translation),

it is likely to be overloaded to the point that the listener cannot understand
as rapidly as the reader speaks. This is particularly true in the case of
expository materials. For this reason it is not only legitimate, but also
necessary, to see that the rate at which new information is communicated
in the translation will not be too fast for the average listener. (Theory and
Practice of Translation, pp. 28-30.)

An ecclesiastical setting is in view here, but Nida goes out of his way to deny
any place for an ecclesiastical translation in it. Instead, he explains that
some teachers do not want to use the new paraphrastic versions for
teaching purposes in the church because they are selfish obscurantists, who
do not want their jobs eliminated by translators who make the Bible too
clear. He tries to establish this slander with an anecdote (which he no
doubt heard from one of the translators he had trained) in which certain
perfectly clear and understandable renderings were rejected by a
church committee. We have no way of knowing what the perfectly clear
and understandable renderings were in this case, but considering all the
problems we have seen in English versions produced according to Nidas

Now as for the use of the Bible in study groups, it will not be necessary for
me to describe to those who have much experience of it the problems
which arise from different people having different versions in front of them.
We all know what happens. Someone reads a passage out loud, and others
follow along in their own Bibles, in whatever version they may be, and the
differences between the versions sometimes give rise to difficult questions.
This problem is not severe when the different versions are all essentially
literal, having only minor differences which are easily taken in stride. But I
have often had to explain to people why so many dynamic renderings are
incorrect. I have been involved for many years in group Bible studies, at
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which various versions were being used, among them the King James, the
New American Standard, the New International, the English Standard
Version, and others, all of which can be read together without much
trouble. But when such a version as the New Living Translation is read, it is
quite impossible for people to follow along in other versions. They soon lose
track and look up from their Bibles in confusion. I have seen this several
times in recent Bible study meetings. A dynamic equivalence version can
only be used very extensively if everyone uses it. But this is out of the
question. Nor is it even possible, because these versions come and go, and
keep changing. The people who use them also come and go. They will buy
their own Bibles, of course, and they will choose between versions for their
own private reading; but a teacher must use a version that is not always
going its own peculiar way. Even if I enjoyed some paraphrastic version, and
wanted to use it in ministry, I know it would not be practical to use it much
in the context of a Bible study. There is no way around it: a version that is
used in common must be a relatively literal one.

In the circumstances of our society, where so many Bible versions are

competing, it is not enough for us evaluate them only according to the
individual effect each may have in isolation from the others, because they
do not really exist in isolation. They must also be evaluated according to the
total effect produced by their presence together in society. If one effect of
adding yet another dynamic version to the mix is to worsen the confusion
experienced by laymen, then we cannot just ignore this problem. The
confusion is in fact one of the effects of the version. But as a theorist Nida
does ignore the problem, because in his theory the individual readers and
the versions appear not in their real-world social context but only in an
unreal theoretical state of isolation. Thus, the practical realities of ministry,
and indeed social realities in general, are left out of account.

Bible says about all sorts of things. Recently I happened to read the daily
Billy Graham column that appears in my local newspaper, which gives
brief answers to questions about Christian teachings. The question today
was, Did people in Old Testament times go to heaven when they died? In his
answer Graham says yes, and to prove it he quotes the familiar words of
King David in Psalm 23 words of hope and confidence in Gods promise of
eternal life. He wrote, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:4,6). This precious Psalm should be
stored in the heart of every Christian. But what I have in mind here is a
situation where the reader of Grahams column turns to the passage in the
Bible he has at home. If that happens to be an edition of the New American
Bible (NAB) published between 1970 and 2011, he will find: Even though I
walk in the dark valley I fear no evil, for you are at my side And I shall
dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come. Likewise in the Revised
English Bible he will read, Even were I to walk through a valley of deepest
darkness I should fear no harm and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
throughout years to come. And now in the 2011 revision of the NIV we find
in verse 4 the darkest valley. It will be noticed that in this rendering there
is no reference to death or the life beyond. So what will the reader make of
this? The very words which Graham depends upon for his point are altered
so that the point cannot be made. It appears now that even the final words
of the twenty-third Psalm cannot be quoted without fear of contradiction. In
verse 4 the translators have interpreted the Hebrew word ( vocalized
tsalmaveth in the Masoretic text) in a weakened sense, so that valley of the
shadow of death becomes only a dark valley. This is defensible if we
accept a different vocalization of the word (tsalmuth), but the opinion of the
translators here was certainly influenced by the common liberal view that
the writers of the Old Testament did not look forward to any life beyond the
grave, in stark contradiction to Grahams view of the matter. 10 And it is for
the same reason that they have interpreted the final phrase ( lit.
to length of days) rather minimally as for years to come instead of
forever more. 11 On the other hand, the traditional translation cited by
Graham assumes that the Psalmist has in view not only this life but also the
life to come.

Although our problem is not acknowledged by Nida, it is a real problem that

arises every day for many people who are trying to teach or learn what the

Although I believe the traditional rendering of these words is better, that is

not my point just now. The point is, the newspaper readers who want to

There is really no need for dumbing down the Bible in the context of the
worship service, where a sermon is delivered for the very purpose of
explaining the Word of God. Nor is there any reason for it in the context of a
Sunday school or Bible study group, in which someone who is able to teach
is doing it, as a workman who does not need to be ashamed.

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know which representation of the meaning is more correct have no way of

settling the matter independently. The difference cannot even be explained
without reference to the Hebrew and without bringing in some important
hermeneutical questions as well. In the end the layman will have to rely
upon a teacher or commentator to explain the options and recommend one
or the other. So Nidas attempt to eliminate the role of the teacher must
ultimately fail, not only in the context of the Church but also in society at
large. A really adequate theory of translation would not be blind to this.

compelled to redefine accuracy, so that it means nothing other than a

Nidaesque equivalence:
Actually, one cannot speak of accuracy apart from comprehension by the
receptor, for there is no way of treating accuracy except in terms of the
extent to which the message gets across (or should presumably get across)
to the intended receptor. Accuracy is meaningless, if treated in isolation
from actual decoding by individuals for which the message is intended.
Accordingly, what may be accurate for one set of receptors may be
inaccurate for another, for the level and manner of comprehension may
be different for the two groups. Furthermore, comprehension itself must be
analyzed in terms of comprehending the significance of a message as
related to its possible settings, i.e. the original setting of the communication
and the setting in which the receptors themselves exist. (p. 183)

In addition to breaking society up and dissolving it into individuals, even the

stages of the average persons education are isolated from one another in
Nidas theory. Superficially this does not appear to be the case, because in
one paragraph quoted above, Nida states that The ability to decode a
particular type of message is constantly in process of change, not only as the
result of an increase in general education, but especially through specific
acquaintance with the particular type of message. He then speaks of the
desirability of having different grades of the same message (Toward a
Science of Translating, p. 143). Further on he acknowledges the fact that
Obviously a translation designed for children cannot be the same as one
prepared for specialists, nor can a translation for children be the same as
one for a newly literate adult (p. 158). We have compared this to
educational methods. But we find in his works no recognition of the need to
move from one grade to the next, nor any explanation of why a literate
adult should not be using a version prepared for children. He even avoids
saying this outright in his discussion of grades. The reason is, he will not
admit on a theoretical level that there must be a loss of meaning in any
dynamic equivalence version. Obviously there can be no equivalence if
the different grades of versions are not even theoretically equivalent, and
so they must be regarded as equivalent. But how can that be? Only if
equivalence is defined purely in terms of the response of the audience,
so that one is not so concerned with matching the receptor-language
message with the source-language message, but with the dynamic
relationship (p. 159). I would emphasize this point because I think most
people looking at this range of versions from a common-sense standpoint
will assume that in Nidas scheme of things the different grades are
provided so that people can begin with something easy and progress to
something more accurate. But that is precisely what he cannot say, and
does not say. He cannot admit a difference in accuracy. Indeed he is

Thus the whole concept of accuracy becomes as slippery and subjective as

everything else in this body of theory. It may be thought that Nida has a
point here, in saying that the accuracy of a translation must be measured by
the receptors comprehension of it. But his point has validity only after we
have accepted the assumption implicit in the phrase decoding by
individuals for which the message is intended. The thing in view here is not
translation into languages, such as German, French, English, etc., but
translation into the infinitely variable idiolects of individuals. If this is the
goal of translation, then it follows that accuracy can only be defined with
reference to decoding by individuals, as Nida says. But if the goal of the
translation is to transfer the meaning from one language to another, and
the language of the receptor is defined not as his personal idiolect but as
the language of his country, then we are able to speak of accuracy in a more
objective way. The national language is everywhere a matter of public
record. It is taught in schools, and described in dictionaries and grammars. It
is embodied in the literature of the nation. When judged by that fixed
standard, accuracy is not a subjective and personal matter. If an English
version uses the word grace as an equivalent for the Greek , and
someone does not understand the meaning of the word grace, he might
after all look it up in the dictionary. It is in fact an accurate English
translation of whether he understands it or not. This is how accuracy
has always been understood in the past. Within the framework of Nidas
theory, from the standpoint of his individualized view of language, it might
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indeed be said that if a man does not understand the word grace, then the
word is not part of his language. But we would insist that it is part of his
language, if his language is English.

and actual equality, not only between different languages, but also between
different dialects and registers of the same language. This concept arose as
an absolutist development of the linguistic equality notion, and it gained
currency among American linguists around 1930. An early example is in
Leonard Bloomfields Language (New York, 1933), an introduction to
linguistics which was used as the standard textbook on the subject in
American universities for many years. Bloomfield writes:

We note also that Nida propounds a rather novel view of comprehension

when he states that comprehension itself must be analyzed in terms of
comprehending the significance of a message as related to its possible
settings. A related assertion is made in The Theory and Practice of
Translation, where he says concerning intelligibility that it is not to be
measured merely in terms of whether the words are understandable and
the sentences grammatically constructed, but in terms of the total impact
the message has on the one who receives it. (p. 22.) By these statements
he apparently means that the receptors comprehension includes his
understanding of the contemporary relevance of the text, or what may be
called its significance for modern times, and even the intelligibility of the
translation cannot be measured without somehow factoring in such
intangible and invisible effects as the total impact on the receptors, both
ancient and modern. The translator is thus made responsible for knowing
what is really unknowable, and presenting the text so that its (divinely
intended?) transcultural applications may be comprehended by everyone
straight off the page of the version. According to Nida, any talk of
accuracy is meaningless apart from this definition of comprehension.

For the native speaker of sub-standard or dialectical English, the acquisition

of standard English is a real problem, akin to that of speaking a foreign
language. To be told that ones habits are due to ignorance or
carelessness and are not English, is by no means helpful. Our schools sin
greatly in this regard. The non-standard speaker has the task of replacing
some of his forms (e.g. I seen it) by others (I saw it) which are current
among people who enjoy greater privilege. An unrealistic attitudesay, of
humilityis bound to impede his progress. The unequal distribution of
privilege which injured him in childhood, is a fault of the society in which he
lives. Without embarrassment, he should try to substitute standard forms
which he knows from actual hearing, for those which he knows to be substandard. In the beginning he runs a risk of using hyper-urbanisms; such as I
have saw it (arising from the proportion I seen it : I saw it = I have seen it :
x). At a later stage, he is likely to climb into a region of stilted verbiage and
over-involved syntax, in his effort to escape from plain dialect; he should
rather take pride in simplicity of speech and view it as an advantage that he
gains from his non-standard background. (p. 499)

Is it necessary for us to point out that these definitions are outlandish, and
that they place impossible demands upon the translation? For what version
has ever done this, or ever could do such things? There is something
fantastic and even megalomaniacal about Nidas vision of the role of
translators and translations, in which the whole process of religious
education and spiritual development is taken up into versions produced by
omni-competent translators.

The presence of an ideology here is plain to see. We find value judgments

about several things. Instead of just stating the fact that in English we have a
formal and traditional variety called standard English, and describing its
history, features and purposes in an objective way, Bloomfield rather
dismissively characterizes it as a form of language current among people
who enjoy greater privilege, and expresses disapproval of this whole sociolinguistic system of things, on ideological and even moral grounds. He would
like to encourage the sub-standard speaker to take pride in his nonstandard colloquial language, while actually pitying him for his linguistic
disability. He expresses the view that we cannot expect people to become
proficient in standard English, and he even compares acquisition of
standard English to speaking a foreign language. People will only make

Nidas refusal to admit the need for education is not strange when the
theory is really understood. Linguistic education, at least, must be excluded
on a theoretical level if all languages, dialects and idiolects are to be
regarded as equal. In chapter 16 of this book I traced the origin of this
concept, pointed out its unscientific nature, and emphasized the fact that
among the more careful linguists it is nothing more than an assertion of
potential equality. But Nidas theory depends upon the idea of an absolute
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themselves ridiculous, like incompetent foreigners, by trying too hard. The

whole situation is somehow a a fault of the society, in which educators
sin greatly, and so forth.

unprincipled facility of changing the State as often, and as much, and in as

many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and
continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could
link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a
summer.

This may appear very noble and democratic in spirit, but the alleged
problem is certainly overstated, and we are left with the impression that
Standard English serves no other purpose than to make uneducated
people feel inferior. Bloomfield should have explained that traditional
standards of language serve important cultural and linguistic purposes. We
might compare Standard English with a uniform system of federal law which
makes it possible for people of different states to make enforceable
contracts across state lines. Without such a code of law, the welfare of the
whole country will suffer. Likewise the promotion of a common language
will have cultural benefits, and there can be no common language without
traditional standards. Even when we recognize that the established forms of
a language are purely and simply a matter of custom, and ultimately
arbitrary, that should not lead us to think that formal standards are
dispensable. They are both arbitrary and indispensable. Law and order is
as necessary in language as it is in the political and economic realms. It
promotes continuity and community. When there are no standards held in
common, the linguistic community deteriorates, and everything that
depends upon our ability to communicate ideas declines. 12

We have only to change one word to make the application: substitute

Language for State. And it brings to mind the claim made in one Bible
versions preface quoted above, that Each generation needs a fresh
translation of the Bible in its own language. The language referred to
here is presumably a form of colloquial English that lasts only one
generation. But it took centuries for the words grace, righteousness,
repent, faith, blessed, and Christ to accumulate all the connotations
that make them so meaningful to Christians. Will these words now be
unceremoniously ditched and forgotten by a vain generation that prefers
the common language of the moment? That would be to cut off the
entail, and commit waste on the inheritance of our Christian language.
The only Common Language that is adequate for speaking of these things is
the one we have in common with our fathers.
24. Power-Point Midrash
Until recently most people who attend church were not even aware of the
existence of most of these new versions. But in the past ten years, many
preachers in the evangelical churches have been using canned sermon
series that come with Power Point slides, and these slides often use
dynamic equivalence versions for Scripture quotations. In this they are
following the example of Rick Warren, author of the wildly popular Purpose
Driven line of commercial products. I have seen some renderings on these
slides which almost make me despair, they are so bad. (Some of the
examples I have used in this book first came to my attention in this way.)
But people in the congregation who are not very familiar with the Bible will
have no idea how inaccurate those renderings are.

The decomposition of the national language not only separates

contemporaries from one another, but also the generations. If we might use
again the analogy between language and law, the point is well made by
Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790):
But one of the first and most leading principles on which the
commonwealth and the laws are consecrated, is lest the temporary
possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from
their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act as if they
were the entire masters; that they should not think it amongst their rights
to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at
their pleasure the whole original fabric of their society; hazarding to leave to
those who come after them, a ruin instead of a habitationand teaching
these successors as little to respect their contrivances, as they had
themselves respected the institutions of their forefathers. By this

Just twenty years ago it was normal for people in most evangelical churches
to bring their Bibles to church. Their pastors would ask them to open their
Bibles to the passages quoted in the sermon, and would even wait for them
to find the place. It might have been unnecessary when the point being
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made was very simple, but there are several good reasons for it. First, as
Tyndale observed, I had perceived by experience, how that it was
impossible to stablish the lay people in any truth, except the scripture were
plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue, that they might see the
process, order, and meaning of the text. 1 People are much more likely to
understand a verse if they look at the context of the verse in their Bibles.
Second, it keeps their attention from wandering. Third, many people learn
better when they both hear and see the words. Fourth, it encourages them
to make use of their own Bibles. And last but not least, it keeps the preacher
honest. But unfortunately it seems that the Power Point slides are bringing
an end to this excellent Scottish fashion, of keeping a Bible in hand during
the sermon, as John Broadus called it. 2 Recently I was listening to a
sermon in which the preacher wanted to quote a verse from a paraphrastic
translation to make his point, but, not having a slide for it, he felt the need
to say, Dont turn to it in your Bibles, just listen to this ! Whatever his reason
was for saying this, I think we are in trouble when people are being told not
to open their Bibles.

the word obviously before pregnant. The innkeeper must have noticed
Marys condition, he said, because it was obvious. The rest of the sermon
was a lesson on the obligation to show hospitality to those in need,
especially now during the Christmas season. It was a good sermon on that
subject. However, I noticed that the one word that the preacher used as the
basis of his whole exposition was a word that had been added gratuitously
by the translation, without any warrant in the original. And in fact the
sermon removed attention from the narratives focus on Christ, whose lowly
birth in a stable represents the amazing condescension of our God. Blaming
it on the innkeeper misses the point.
This method of handling Scripture resembles the ancient midrash of Jewish
expositors, in which the biblical narrative is embellished by the invention of
characters and incidents that are more convenient for the expositors
moralizing than the narrative itself. Usually some verbal detail of the text is
exploited to provide an ostensible basis for the midrash, but, as this
example illustrates, the midrashic interpretation was often tangential or
even irrelevant to the purpose of the biblical passage that was used as a
springboard. In late antiquity, the Aramaic translations of the Bible
commonly used in the synagogues (called Targums) tended to reflect and
facilitate the most popular midrashic treatments of Scripture, by adding
words that gave the traditional midrash a stronger basis in the text.

In another sermon I recently heard, the preacher put the following passage
from the New Living Translation on the screen:
At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should
be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken
when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own towns to
register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King
David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, Davids ancient home. He
traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him
Mary, his fiance, who was obviously pregnant by this time. And while they
were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her
first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a
manger, because there was no room for them in the village inn. (Luke 2:1-7)

This is precisely what the editors of the New Living Translation have done in
this case. Or rather, this is what Ken Taylor did in the Living Bible, and his
rendering was retained by the editors of the NLT revision. Taylor inserted
obviously here to suggest that someones observation of Marys condition
was pertinent, as in the Christmas pageant version of the story. So the
preachers inferences from the translation were natural enough.
Would a more literal version have prevented this? Perhaps not. I think true
exposition of the Scriptures depends almost entirely upon the wisdom of
the preacher, and a competent preacher does not depend upon any Bible
version. He ought to be in the habit of applying himself to the original. But if
he does depend upon versions, he would not be wise to put his trust in
dynamic equivalence.

Now, of all the things that might be said about this passage, the preacher
chose to focus on the supposed lack of hospitality shown by the
innkeepera person not mentioned in the narrative. The preacher
introduced this character by referring to the melodramatic form the
narrative usually assumes in a Christmas pageant, in which the innkeeper
behaves rudely; but he pointed out that there is a scriptural basis for it in
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In one respect the example just cited is unusual, in that seven consecutive
verses were put on the screen. It is more usual to see only one at a time,
and I think the dynamic versions are often used because they lend
themselves to this kind of atomistic quotation. The modern expositor,
instead of having to quote a complex thirty-word sentence for the sake of
just one phrase, can now find a dynamic version that chops the sentence
up into three bite-sized pieces of only ten words each. The fragmentation of
the original sentence can do wonders for the interpretation and application
of its pieces. There is no more messy context to get bogged down in. One
can even search in a variety of paraphrastic translations for favorite words
and phrases one would like to emphasize, using a computer to find them, as
Warren did for his Purpose Driven books. The beauty of using a computer
program for this kind of work is that the search-results window will even rip
the verses out of their contexts for you. Just select, copy and paste the
pieces you need on a slide, and you are ready to prove anything. This
atomistic treatment of the words of Scripture is also very much in the spirit
of ancient Jewish midrash. People who do not compare the preachers
remarks with a decent Bible translation, and have only the verses of a
Targum dangled before their eyes, will be none the wiser.

A century later Martin Luther renewed this teaching of Wycliffe, and ever
since, evangelical Protestants have emphasized the supreme authority of
the Bible. In 1849 one prominent evangelical minister in the Church of
England wrote:
I would to God the eyes of the laity of this country were more open on this
subject. I would to God they would learn to weigh sermons, books, opinions,
and ministers, in the scales of the Bible, and to value all according to their
conformity to the word. I would to God they would see that it matters little
who says a thing, whether he be Father or Reformer, Bishop or Arch-bishop,
Priest or Deacon, Archdeacon or Dean. The only question is, Is the thing said
Scriptural? If it is, it ought to be received and believed. If it is not, it ought to
be refused and cast aside. I fear the consequences of that servile acceptance
of everything which the parson says, which is so common among many
English laymen. I fear lest they be led they know not whither, like the
blinded Syrians, and awake some day to find themselves in the power of
Rome. Oh! That men in England would only remember for what the Bible
was given them! I tell English laymen that it is nonsense to say, as some do,
that it is presumptuous to judge a ministers teaching by the word. When
one doctrine is proclaimed in one parish, and another in another, people
must read and judge for themselves. Both doctrines cannot be right, and
both ought to be tried by the word. I charge them above all things, never to
suppose that any true minister of the Gospel will dislike his people
measuring all he teaches by the Bible. 1

25. Loss of Authority

How can you say that the Law of the Lord is with us? (Jeremiah 8:8)
It was no coincidence that the first English Bible was produced in a time of
crisis, the period known as the Great Schism (1378-1417) during which rival
popes strove for supremacy over Western Christendom. There was a pope
in Rome, and one in Avignon. In 1409 a third pope was elected by cardinals
meeting at Pisa. Christians everywhere began to wonder how the Pope
could be seen as the ultimate authority in the Catholic Church when there
are three of them, all duly elected by cardinals, excommunicating one
another. In the midst of this crisis of authority, John Wycliffe stepped
forward with a Bible, and declared that Scripture alone should be regarded
as the ultimate authority, and the standard against which all teachings and
practices were to be judged. He translated the Bible into English so that
even laymen might be able to read what is written in Gods Law, as
opposed to the canon law of the Roman hierarchy.

The minister was J.C. Ryle, who went on to become a bishop himself.
Unfortunately, his views were not shared by many bishops in the Anglican
church, but I wish to point out that when Ryle thinks of for what the Bible
was given he thinks of an authoritative standard by which all things are
weighed, judged, and tried. I wonder how many evangelicals today think of
their English versions in these terms.
Today we are in the midst of a crisis of authority that goes deeper than the
Great Schism of the Papacy. Now we have a schism of the Bible itself. The
clash of versions has provided more than enough excuse for unstable
modern people to reject teachings of the Bible here and there. As one
liberal scholar observed long ago, the multiplication of versions in itself
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tends to subvert, in the popular mind, the idea that the text is verbally
inspired.

Advertisement for the New Living TranslationProbably everyone who has

been raised in an evangelical church has heard at one time or another the
encouragement to read the Bible that goes something like this: Why do
you not read your Bible? If someone sent you a love letter, would you leave
it unread? Well, the Bible is Gods love letter to you, and so on. I have not
used this exhortation myself because, aside from the fact that it is offputting to men and appeals only to women, it is simply false. Anyone who
begins to read the Bible from the first page will find out soon enough that it
is anything but a love letter. It is more like a combination history book and
code of law; and even the prophetic books which do contain some few
passages which might be compared to love letters (e.g. Hosea 2:19) are in
general much more like a reading of the Riot Act than a Valentine. There is a
good reason for this. The canon of Scripture was shaped by the purpose of
providing an authoritative Torah and Diatheke for the people of God. The
overarching purpose is to disclose the will of God, and to provide instruction
in righteousness, as indicated by Paul: whatever was written in former days
was written for our instruction (Romans 15:4) and All scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete
(2 Tim. 3:16).

The work which a translation does unconsciously is often the most farreaching. We wish to emphasize the importance of these considerations.
The partisans of a verbal inspiration are right in maintaining that their view
has been shaken in the public confidence by no other argument so much as
by the appearance of the Revised Version in other words. It called the
attention of all patently to the fact that no version was authorized by
canons either of the human or the divine. How significant a step this new
insight was in the swift forward movement of the last twenty years we have
failed to appreciate. It was really a popular emancipation from that
literalism which could hold its ground only where there was but one
translation of the Bible. Yet this result was no purpose of the English
revisers. In a like unconsciousness these recent translators are surely
achieving. 2
It is becoming a real problem for pastors and teachers. One college course I
took in English literature dealt with the translations of the Bible, and a
woman in the class gave a presentation on the subject, in which she
observed: My husband keeps saying the Bible teaches this and that, but
now that I know how many different versions there have been, I can say,
which Bible? She rather liked the idea that the versions disagree. That was
in a secular academic setting thirty years ago, but the attitude may now be
found in the churches. Not long ago in one Bible study meeting at a
Presbyterian church I had occasion to mention the authority of the Bible,
and one woman there immediately piped up: Yes, but what version? And
whose interpretation? It was a very good question, but, like Pilate when he
asked what is truth? she did not want an answer. She asked the question
because she thought it was unanswerable. Many people who profess to be
Christians today do not want an authoritative text, or indeed any authority
over them.

This is obvious enough to those who have studied it. The Bible is mostly an
anthology of books that are designed to instruct, warn and exhort. The
whole idea of the canon was to set apart a collection of authoritative books.
Many edifying books have been written, and continue to be written; but the
canonical books of the New Testament were first separated from the
general run of Christian literature and identified as Scripture so that they
might serve as a touchstone for judging doctrine. They were not selected
with any other effect in mind. But evidently most people do not care
much for authority, doctrine, or instruction in righteousness; they cannot be
induced to read the Bible if it is presented in those terms. Most people
would much rather enjoy a narcissistic emotional experience of the kind
provided by romantic movies and sentimental songs, and so the Bible is
presented as something which might also provide such an experience.

In evangelical churches the decline of the Bibles authority is not signaled by

direct challenges like this, but there has been a real decline of interest in the
Bible as an authoritative text. The emphasis is now shifted from what the
Bible teaches to how it makes people feel.

This has certainly had an effect on how the Bible is translated in some
recent versions. It may be seen most clearly in the gushing language of the
Living Bible and New Living Translation (e.g. Romans 1:7, dear friends
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God loves you dearly, and he has called you to be his very own people).
One suspects also that the heavy emphasis on the supposed need for
common language is largely caused by a desire to make the whole tone of
the biblical text less formal and more intimate, let us say, if not exactly
sentimental. The idea here seems to be that, if Jesus is not precisely your
lover, he might at least talk like your familiar friend. I hope it is clear from
what I have written earlier that I am not insensitive to emotional effects of
style. My main point in chapter 15 was that the common language
versions avoid the poetic diction of Scripture that sets the mind in a flame,
and makes our hearts burn within us, as Addison describes it. The noble
thoughts that breathe, and words that burn are very important to the
purposes of the Bible. However, one cannot make up for the loss of truly
noble and impressive language by an application of cheap semantic
perfume, sprinkling words like marvelous and dearly here and there to
sweeten the style. I do not think I am alone in saying that the effect of this
upon me is not too pleasant: I find it smarmy and somewhat nauseating. In
any case, the Bible is not a love letter. It is intended to be received as
authoritative Torah (instruction). It is God who speaks. A generation which
tries to translate the voice of the Almighty into the casual talk of friends and
neighbors has lost all sense of this Books authority.

abound, along with cultivations of feeling and emotion in which language, as

such, is regarded with disdain, as a positive barrier to expression of what is
important. The discipline of language comes to seem little more than sterile
coercion. Under the guise of search for the simple and the universal, or the
colloquial, there is almost a sabotage of languages authority. I do not
question that something akin to sabotage of the old is to be found in the
linguistically creative ages, for language grows and prospers on what it casts
aside as well as on what is added. But escape from the old or sterile in the
creative ages is invariably set in the larger pattern of quest for new
structures, words, phrases, metaphors, and other meanings. In the twilight
periods, casting-aside becomes its own justification. In such ages there is
commonly a turning to the child, to the noble savage, to the barbarian, to
the demented, to all those for whom language in any rich sense is yet to be
achieved or to whom it is in some manner denied. An emphasis grows, even
in literature and philosophy, upon the special kinds of wisdom which are
thought to lie in the preliterate or semiliterate. 3
The growing use of dynamic equivalence versions in common language,
along with the whole body of theory that seeks to legitimize it, may be seen
as just another manifestation of these tendencies. Indeed Nisbets
paragraph here might even serve as a summary of all that I have said about
dynamic equivalence in this book. There is the retreat from the disciplines
and complexities of language, there is a repudiation of modes of
thought which are inseparable from language of high order, along with
cultivations of feeling and emotion. There is the search for the simple
and the universal, or the colloquial. The casting-aside of the old
becomes its own justification. There is a turning to the child and to the
semiliterate. Nidas theoretical writings begin to look like a mere
epiphenomenon of the anti-authoritarian Zeitgeist described by Nisbet. This
is what the Bible begins to look like when it is stripped of its authority.

The tendency of our times is to magnify the value of spontaneous feelings

and subjective impressions, while belittling the need for careful study and
learning. The triumph of this subjective approach to everything is nearly
complete. The text has become just another medium to be used for
stimulating emotions, and the whole question of its objective accuracy and
authority does not even arise.
Knowledge and even rational thought become less and less important in this
atmosphere, and so language as a vehicle of thinking and instruction
degenerates. Robert Nisbet in his book Twilight of Authority has described
the linguistic tendencies of our age very well:

One follower of Nida exemplifies the turning to the child in a most explicit
way. On his blog he argues that Bible versions must be done in our mother
tongue English, which he defines as the kind of English that uses the
linguistic forms and expressions that you learned at your mothers knee.
Bible versions which are not written in our mother tongue English typically
impact us cognitively, and not emotively nor volitionally, he claims. So
nothing but mother tongue English will do, because when we speak or

As there are ages of growth in language, so are there ages of decline and
sterility. Twilight ages have a number of linguistic traits in common. There is
a kind of retreat from the disciplines and complexities of language. Often it
is more than retreat; it is actual repudiation of language and of the modes
of thought which are inseparable from language of high order. Corruptions
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write to someone else for the purpose of trying to get them to feel
something or change their attitude or behavior or worship God more
intimately, we use natural (mother tongue) English syntax, lexicon,
discourse flow, and rhetoric to impact one another with more than just our
cognitive faculties. 4 He maintains that you will have to do something
about what you read if your Bible is in English that uses the linguistic forms
and expressions of your mother tongue, the English that you learned at your
mothers knee, because this is your English, your heart language, and you
must get your heart warmed by hearing Gods Word written in language
that speaks most directly to your mind and heart, since it was your first
language. 5

fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and
our oppression. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand
and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and
wonders. And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land
flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of
the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me.
My ancestor was homeless, an Aramean who went to live in Egypt. There
were only a few in his family then, but they became great and powerful, a
nation of many people. 6 The Egyptians were cruel and had no pity on us.
They mistreated our people and forced us into slavery. 7 We called out for
help to you, the Lord God of our ancestors. You heard our cries; you knew
we were in trouble and abused. 8 Then you terrified the Egyptians with your
mighty miracles and rescued us from Egypt. 9 You brought us here and gave
us this land rich with milk and honey. 10 Now, Lord, I bring to you the best
of the crops that you have given me.

Although this writer describes himself as a linguist, his argument is much

more sentimental than scientific, and his assertions do not square with my
own observations about language, feelings, and behavior. I have observed
that even children (especially boys) tend to ignore their mothers tongue.
A real change of attitude and behavior is generally brought about by other
means (Prov. 22:15). And grown men do not change their behavior by
getting their heart warmed. Far more important to reformation of life and
spiritual growth is a belief in the authority of the speaker, feelings of respect
and admiration, an awakened sense of duty, fear of shame, and so forth.
And it is not even true that people are touched by banal forms of language,
or that we use such language when trying to motivate people. Ordinary
language goes in one ear and out the other. 6 But attention is gained and
emotions are stirred up by eloquent speakers (like the prophets) when they
use language that is unusually formal and verges on the poetic, as Aristotle
in his Art of Rhetoric observes, 7 because impressiveness depends largely on
deviations from the idiom of ordinary talk. As an illustration of this, I give
below one of my favorite passages from the Old Testament, Deuteronomy
26:5-10, in two versions, and I invite the reader to judge which is more
impressive.

We are not evaluating these according to the criterion of easy intelligibility

just now. If that were the main issue, the CEV clearly has some advantages,
because the main purpose of its translators was to make it easy. Rather, we
are asking which of the two is most impressive. And I do not think anyone
could say that the CEV is more impressive or heart warming than the ESV
here. Is the phrase my ancestor was homeless, an Aramean more emotive
than a wandering Aramean was my father? I think not. I would point out
in particular the difference between you terrified the Egyptians with your
mighty miracles and rescued us from Egypt and the Lord brought us out of
Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of
terror, with signs and wonders. The latter is certainly more impressive. In
fact every sentence of the ESV is more impressive. Why is that? Because it
has poetic qualities. In the ESV, the first sentence acquires poetic force by
the use of inverted syntax. A stately rhythmic quality runs through the
whole passage. The diction is in a register definitely higher than ordinary
talk. It has imagery and metaphors. For instance, there is the striking
imagery of the mighty hand and outstretched arm. This is the rhetorical
high point of the passage. Anyone reading it aloud would certainly slow
down and raise his voice at this point. It has real impact. It stirs up a feeling
of overwhelming triumph and admiration. Then we have the words with
great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. These words have the

Literal version (ESV) Mothers Knee version (CEV)

A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and
sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great,
mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated
us and laid on us hard labor. Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our
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cumulative force of hammer blows. But the effect of it is entirely eliminated

in the weak and prosaic rendering of the CEV. There are several other things
we could mention also, such as the CEVs prosaic rich instead of flowing,
and crops instead of fruit of the ground. Any literary critic would notice
these differences, and pronounce in favor of the ESV. Presumably the CEV
translators thought their own paraphrastic rendering would be easier to
understand. Perhaps they believed that the intelligibility of the sentence in
the eighth verse was improved by recasting it in two clauses with the verbs
terrified and rescued. This would also be in keeping with Nidas rule that
it is grammatically more natural to express actions with verbs. But the
effect is much weaker than the literal rendering of the ESV. I find the same
kind of thing over and over again, in every chapter, and in nearly every verse
of this version. Emotional impact is the very thing it lacks most
conspicuously.

The earlier Wycliffite version is an extremely literal rendering of the Latin

original. Professor Margaret Deanesly suggests that this version was made
in accordance with Wycliffes conception of the Bible as the codification of
Gods law, something that ought to take the place of contemporary canon
law as the basis of church order and authority. In the formulation of law
verbal accuracy is of the utmost importance. While men of learning could
still use the Latin Bible as their law-book, the less learned clerics and the lay
leaders of John of Gaunts anti-clerical party would have at their disposal a
strictly literal rendering of that law-book. Besides, if recourse were had to
the standard glosses or commentaries on the biblical text, in which each
individual word was annotated, the relevance of these glosses to the English
translation would be more apparent if the translation corresponded to the
Vulgate word for word. 8
In the formulation of law verbal accuracy is of the utmost importance
goes to the heart of the matter here. The Bible regarded as a canonical book
has the force of law, even in its non-legal portions, because it is regarded as
normativenot only for church order and authority, but for all matters
pertaining to Christian teaching, faith and practice. A translation to be used
for proof, in accordance with this normative purpose of the Bible, cannot be
a paraphrastic translation; it must be a version that faithfully represents
every word of the original. One eighteenth-century scholar, James
Macknight, expressed it thus:

We have turned aside here from the main point I wished to make in this
chapter, however, which is that a loss of authority happens when the Bible
is presented mainly as an instrument for emotional stimulation. The
emotive qualities of the Bible can take care of themselves quite well in a
literal translation, without being the focus of a translators misguided
efforts. And they will not be the center of a translators attention if he is
properly focused on the main purpose of the Bible, which is to provide the
people of God with a translation of a divine revelation and an authoritative
canon of teachings. The cognitive function of language observed in
traditional criteria of accuracy cannot take a back seat while subjective
emotive considerations drive the translation, if indeed this Book is being
taken seriously as the Word of God. Emotional stimulation (if that is what
the reader really needs) can always be supplied by devotional books and
sermons. But this Book alone can serve as the ultimate authority for all
things in the church. It should be translated with that principal objective in
view, with especial care for accuracy. And we should especially disapprove
of any loss or distortion of meaning that can be defended only by
unsubstantial and sentimental notions about heart language, or any such
thing.

The author is sensible that a literal translation of the scriptures, such as he

hath attempted, cannot be so elegant as one in which more liberty is taken.
But, as a free translation is in reality a paraphrase, rather than a translation,
a version of the scriptures, formed on that plan, never can have the
authority in determining matters of faith and practice, which a translation of
writings, acknowledged to be inspired, ought to have; and this seems to be
the reason, why most of the learned men, who have translated the
scriptures, have preferred the literal, to the free method. In endeavouring,
therefore, to make this translation as literal as possible, consistently with
the genius of the English language, the author is sufficiently justified by the
nature of the writings translated, and by the example of those who have
gone before him in the like undertaking. 9

Tough-minded demands for precision and accuracy will prevail whenever

the Bible is seen primarily as an authority. Regarding the work of John
Wycliffe and his followers, F.F. Bruce says:
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Theologians like to emphasize that the authority and inspiration of Scripture

pertain only to the original text in Hebrew and Greek, and not to any
translation. An English version of the Bible cannot be canonized and treated
as fully equivalent to the originals. But as a practical matter, there is really
no use talking about the Bibles authority if you are not going to give your
people a reliable translation. If the versions disagree sharply, how is anyone
to know what the Word of God really says?

whole company expressed their approval, they bade them pronounce a

curse in accordance with their custom upon any one who should make any
alteration either by adding anything or changing in any way whatever any of
the words which had been written or making any omission. This was a very
wise precaution to ensure that the book might be preserved for all the
future time unchanged. 11
Now we grant that Aristeas probably gives more legend than history here,
but we must credit the author with knowing what it means to have an
authoritative book! And we notice that he correlates authority with
, exactness. The aura of canonicity is gained by the translation by
virtue of its literal accuracy. Likewise Philo of Alexandria explains in his
treatise On the Life of Moses (first century a.d.) that only such a literal
translation, in which there is an exact and consistent word-for-word
correspondence, could truly represent the sacred text:

One of Nidas favorite concepts is functional equivalence. The translation,

he says, must use expressions that have the same communicative function
in the receptor language as the original words did, although they may be
quite different in form. But Nidas focus is myopic and narrowly linguistic,
dealing only with isolated phrases. He does not apply the concept of
functional equivalence to the version as a whole. We should ask what sort
of translation is really functionally equivalent to the canonical books of
the Bible in the original languages, for persons with a high view of Scripture.
Can a modernistic dynamic version that remains in print for less than
twenty years ever serve the canonical and dogmatic functions of an
absolutely authoritative book? What are we to say about a whole group of
such ephemeral translations, which not only disappear within a generation,
but also compete and disagree with one another while they are in print?
Obviously none of them can really function as the Word of God. They all fail
miserably of the venerableness which appropriately belongs to a book of
God. 10 It should not be necessary to point out that a translation that has
been revised five times in the space of forty years has practically disqualified
itself. We require something more sacred than that. What we have in mind
is something like the ancient version celebrated in the Letter of Aristeas
(second century b.c.), in which the following account is given of the
versions reception:

And yet who is there who does not know that every language, and the
Greek language above all others, is rich in a variety of words, and that it is
possible to vary a sentence and to paraphrase the same idea, so as to set it
forth in a great variety of manners, adapting many different forms of
expression to it at different times. But this, they say, did not happen at all in
the case of this translation of the Law, but that, in every case, exactly
corresponding Greek words were employed to translate literally the
appropriate Chaldaic words [ '
, ], being adapted with exceeding
propriety to the matters which were to be explained; for just as I suppose
the things which are proved in geometry and logic do not admit any variety
of explanation, but the proposition which was set forth from the beginning
remains unaltered, in like manner I conceive did these men find words
precisely and literally corresponding to the things, which words were alone,
or in the greatest possible degree, destined to explain with clearness and
force the matters which it was desired to reveal. 12

When the work was completed, Demetrius collected together the Jewish
population in the place where the translation had been made, and read it
over to all, in the presence of the translators After the books had been
read, the priests and the elders of the translators and the Jewish community
and the leaders of the people stood up and said, that since so excellent and
sacred and accurate a translation had been made [
], it was only right that it should
remain as it was and no alteration should be made in it. And when the

If these statements overestimate the literal accuracy of the Septuagint, the

exaggeration only underlines the fact that in ancient times a version would
be seen as reliable and authoritative only if it were thought to be a literal
translation. We have here the most ancient theory of translation, in which
the ideal version is described. It is true that in the first century some rather
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paraphrastic Aramaic renderings of the biblical books also began to develop

by a process of oral tradition, but these had to be memorized, because the
Aramaic-speaking rabbis would not even allow such inferior substitutes for
the original to exist as written texts. Eventually they were written down, and
the least paraphrastic of them (Targum Onkelos) acquired authoritative
status among the Jews of later times, but only after the rabbis began to say
that this particular version of the Torah had been given to Moses by God
himself on mount Sinai. I do not say that anyone should accept such
extravagant claims, but the perennial tendency to invest approved versions
with near-canonical authority arises from an urgent theological need to
present in other languages the Word of God in all its authority; and I will
venture to say that it is justifiable to authorize a version for most practical
purposes, when the version is sufficiently literal. When an English
translation is so servile to the original Hebrew and Greek that its readers
must learn a biblical dialect of Englishin which the meanings of English
words are enriched or modified by the Hebrew and Greek words that they
representit may even be said that the readers are on the verge of learning
the original language.

I do not see how anyone with a high view of Scripture can disagree with that
statement, in principle. But there is a need for the principled and deliberate
resistance that Ryken enjoins, because we are continually bombarded
with the marketing propaganda issued by publishers who promise to make
bible-reading easier for the beginner. There is no wonder if ease and
pleasure have found their advocates, as Samuel Johnson observed, in an
effete age when paraphrastic liberties have been almost universally
admitted. Our age does not need more of the same. What we need is an
attempt to justify or revive the ancient severity. 14
We might mollify this by granting that the most literal rendering is not
always the best one for all readers. But people who use the most readily
understandable versions must also understand that many accommodations
have been made for their sake in these versions, and they cannot have it
both ways. Most people understand this intuitively. In any case, the new
dynamic equivalence versions will never be accepted as authoritative by
educated people. Any intelligent person who takes even an hour to compare
versions will realize soon enough that the text has been simplified and
extensively processed in these new versions, and will also notice that their
interpretations frequently disagree with one another which is really fatal
to any claims of accuracy that have been made for them. Although they are
easy to understand, they are just as easily dismissed as illegitimate. In short,
they lack authority. They were not even translated with the authority of the
Bible in view. Even in matters of style they seem to avoid giving people the
impression that the Bible is an authoritative book, by avoiding the kind of
formal and dignified style that everyone associates with authority.

People today who have a high view of Scripture quite naturally think along
the same lines as those who so venerated the Scriptures in ancient times. It
is generally recognized that linguistic learning is indispensable for
understanding the Scriptures, and despite the claims of our modern
Targumists, the most understandable translations are usually deemed the
least accurate. So people are quite willing to put up with difficulties, for the
sake of accuracy, and they will put considerable effort into understanding a
really accurate form of the text. They accept the fact that ministers are
appointed to help them understand and apply the text correctly; but it is far
better in their eyes to have a reliable translation that requires study, than to
have an easy paraphrase that is not reliable. This is the attitude expressed
by Leland Ryken:

Consequently, these version cannot be used effectively in ministries that

emphasize the authority of the Bible. If a minister is going to use the Bible as
an authority, by quoting it to prove his assertions in the pulpit, he had
better see to it that the version he quotes is not some fun but easilydismissed paraphrase. If he feels a need to say, Dont turn to it in your
Bibles, just listen to this, he had better not be trying to prove something
that requires biblical support.

Having had a quarter of a century to ponder the matter, I have concluded

that the criterion of readability, when offered as a criterion by itself, should
be met with the utmost resistance. To put it bluntly, what good is
readability if a translation does not accurately render what the Bible actually
says? If a translation gains readability by departing from the original,
readability is harmful. It is, after all, the truth of the Bible that we want. 13
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26. A Low View of Inspiration

But before I begin my testimony as a translator I must make a few
reservations. First, although I believe in the true inspiration of the New
Testament and its obvious power to change human lives in this or any other
century, I should like to make it quite clear that I could not possibly hold to
the extreme fundamentalist position of so-called verbal inspiration. This
theory is bound to break down sooner or later in the world of translation.
There are over 1,100 known human languages, and it was during a brief
spell of work for the British and Foreign Bible Society that I learned of the
attempts to translate the Bible, or at least parts of it, into nearly all of these
different tongues. I learned of the extreme ingenuity which the translator
must use to convey sense and truth where word-for-word transmission is
out of the question. You cannot talk to tribes who live without ever seeing
navigable water of our possessing an anchor for the soul. You cannot
speak to the Eskimos of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the
world, or of Christ being the true Vine and of us, his disciples, being the
branches! Such examples could, literally, be multiplied many thousands of
times. Yet I have found, when addressing meetings in this country and in
America, that there still survives a minority who passionately believe in
verbal inspiration. It appears that they have never seriously thought that
there are millions for whom Christ died who would find a word-for-word
translation of the New Testament, even if it were possible, frequently
meaningless. Any man who has sense as well as faith is bound to conclude
that it is the truths which are inspired and not the words, which are merely
the vehicles of truth. 2

Biblical authority is closely connected with the concept of plenary

inspiration. History shows that these things cannot be separated. Those who
believe that the text is fully inspired will insist upon its authority, as the very
Word of God. Those who think it is only partly inspired have already put
themselves above it. So we need to ask what view of inspiration (if any) is
implied in dynamic equivalence.
Nida himself addressed this question in one place, and he observed that the
ideology of dynamic equivalence is especially congenial to the so-called
neo-orthodox view of inspiration and authority.
One must recognize, however, that neo-orthodox theology has given a new
perspective to the doctrine of divine inspiration. For the most part, it
conceives of inspiration primarily in terms of the response of the receptor,
and places less emphasis on what happened to the source at the time of
writing. An oversimplified statement of this new view is reflected in the
often quoted expression, The Scriptures are inspired because they inspire
me. Such a concept of inspiration means, however, that attention is
inevitably shifted from the details of wording in the original to the means by
which the same message can be effectively communicated to present-day
readers. Those who espouse the traditional, orthodox view of inspiration
quite naturally focus attention on the presumed readings of the
autographs. The result is that, directly or indirectly, they often tend to
favor quite close, literal renderings as the best way of preserving the
inspiration of the writer by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, those who
hold the neo-orthodox view, or who have been influenced by it, tend to be
freer in their translating; as they see it, since the original document inspired
its readers because it spoke meaningfully to them, only an equally
meaningful translation can have this same power to inspire present-day
receptors. 1

The logic of this argument is not entirely clear to us. But evidently Phillips
takes it for granted that anyone who believes in verbal inspiration must be
in favor of literal translation. Strangely, he seems to think that God could
not have inspired anything that is not immediately intelligible to Eskimos.
Robert Bratcherwho was Nidas protg at the American Bible Society,
and the principal translator of the Good News Biblehas some bitter words
for those who think that the words of the Bible are inspired:

The truth of this can be illustrated with statements from several translators.
James Moffatt, for instance, says that his attempts to give the meaning in
modern English were made easier by the fact that he is "freed from the
influence of the theory of verbal inspiration" (Preface to the New
Testament, 1913). J.B. Phillips writes:

Only willful ignorance or intellectual dishonesty can account for the claim
that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. To qualify this absurd claim by adding
with respect to the autographs is a bit of sophistry, a specious attempt to
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justify a patent error No truth-loving, God-respecting, Christ-honoring

believer should be guilty of such heresy. To invest the Bible with the
qualities of inerrancy and infallibility is to idolatrize it, to transform it into a
false God No one seriously claims that all the words of the Bible are the
very words of God. If someone does so it is only because that person is not
willing thoroughly to explore its implications Even words spoken by Jesus
in Aramaic in the thirties of the first century and preserved in writing in
Greek 35 to 50 years later do not necessarily wield compelling or authentic
authority over us today. The locus of scriptural authority is not the words
themselves. It is Jesus Christ as THE Word of God who is the authority for us
to be and to do. 3

theories of translation secretly undermine the tired cautions of an earlier

era. In his view, not only the traditional notions of verbal inspiration, but
also the theologies built thereon are made obsolete by dynamic
equivalence.
What could be plainer? I could add other examples. But I think this is
enough to establish the point. And I think it throws some light on the
question of why the translators of the Contemporary English Version found
the Bibles way of talking about inspiration so extremely difficult that it
could not be translated literally. 5
Nida protests that It would be quite wrong to assume that all those who
emphasize fully meaningful translations necessarily hold to a neo-orthodox
view of inspiration; for those who have combined orthodox theology with
deep evangelistic or missionary convictions have been equally concerned
with the need for making translations entirely meaningful. 6 Nidas use of
the word meaningful here is very misleading, because our main objection
to dynamic versions is that they fail to represent the meaning. But leaving
that main point on one side for the moment, we gather that he means that
some persons who have advocated the use of idiomatic or modern
English versions have also held to the orthodox view of inspiration. That we
freely concede. We think of William F. Beck, for example, whose version of
the New Testament is paraphrastic but whose opinions on inspiration seem
impeccable. But Becks version swarms with errors of interpretation, and we
can only suppose that he was unable to distinguish between his
interpretations and the actual words of Truth. The same is true of Kenneth
Taylor, whose Living Bible is a monument of evangelical audacity. We also
observe that not everyone who has favored literal translation believes in
verbal inspiration. Some of the translators of the exceedingly literal
American Standard Version (1901) did not believe in verbal inspiration. 7
Even a non-Christian might favor a literal translation of the New Testament
simply because he needs an accurate translation of it for academic
purposes. Nevertheless, it remains true that those who espouse the
traditional, orthodox view of inspiration tend to favor quite close, literal
renderings as the best way of preserving the inspiration of the writer by the
Holy Spirit, as Nida says, and it is surely significant that he described the
neo-orthodox opinion in terms that link it with his own theory (the
response of the receptor being the really important thing). The ideological

It does not surprise us that Bratcher thinks no one seriously claims that all
the words of the Bible are the very words of God. His work as a researcher
and translator at the liberal-dominated American Bible Society would not
have brought him into regular contact with anyone who espouses this view.
Dr. William Hull, who was a professor and Dean of the graduate school at
Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, noticed the theological
implications of dynamic equivalence in remarks delivered to a meeting of
the Association of Baptist Professors of Religion (of which he was President)
on February 23, 1968:
with the passing of the torch to younger hands, one notes a growing
impatience to go beyond the tired cautions of an earlier era We cannot
worry forever with the millennium, or verbal inspiration, or the Scofield
Bible. For an increasing number of restless spirits, it is time to move on
What are the implications of widespread SBC [Southern Baptist Convention]
acceptance of the TEV [Todays English Version]? To begin with, we have
here the employment of a much more daring translation theory than that
adopted by the RSV Of course, Southern Baptists do not yet realize all of
this Shout it not from the housetops, but the TEV is clearly incompatible
with traditional notions of verbal inspiration, and the theologies built
thereon. It could be that Southern Baptists will embrace the TEV with their
hearts before they grasp the implications with their heads. 4
Hull seems to relish the thought that old views of inspiration will be
overthrown by gradual subversion, as the implications of Nidas new
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affinities are clear enough, the connection is enthusiastically asserted by

people who are promoting the theory, and the widespread rejection of
orthodox views of inspiration does help explain why so many translators
and editors in our generation have cared so little about accuracy or
traditional exegesis, while professing to make the real meaning of the Bible
clear to the masses.

continue to cite the works of Nida, chapter-and-verse, as their ultimate

authority. 3 SIL authors John Beekman and John Callow, in their Translating
the Word of God (1974), followed Nida very closely. They wanted a
translation that faithfully transmits the message of the original, 4 but the
goal of clarity and ease of understanding was so emphasized that it became
an overriding concern. Beekman even endorsed the idea that The Living
Bible should serve as a model for translation projects around the world. 5
We get an idea of what applications of the method Beekman recommended
from the companion volume prepared by one of his students, Mildred
Larson. In this book, A Manual for Problem Solving in Bible Translation
(Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1975) translators are taught to
refashion James 2:24 a man is justified by works and not by faith alone as
a man is justified by faith shown by his works and he is not justified by faith
alone. (p. 34) This of course represents an attempt to explain James
statement in such a way that it does not seem to be contradicting the
teaching of Paul, in his epistles to the Romans and Galatians. As a teacher I
approve of the effort to explain James and Paul in ways that show their
essential agreement; but I think most people would agree that this is the
duty of teachers with formal training in theology, not of translators, and I
am not at all satisfied with the solution proposed by Larson. Justified by
faith shown by his works does not really harmonize with Pauls teaching. A
better solution would be justified by the kind of genuine faith that
produces good works, or something similar. But an explanatory paraphrase
like this belongs in the margin, not the text. The Geneva Bible note in this
place explains that by faith only James means a false, barren and dead
faith. This, by the way, is not really an exception to the rule that in the New
Testament denotes more than a mere intellectual assent, because
James is speaking of an empty pretension of faith, and thus modifies the
word: What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have
not works? can that faith save him? (2:14, in which we understand the
definite article preceding as having the demonstrative force of
that.) The old saying, Faith alone justifies, but the faith which justifies is
not alone is one that every Protestant teacher should know; 6 and we must
also teach that in the epistles of Paul, does not refer to an idle faith
that bears no fruit. Such explanations are probably best given not only in the
margin but also in introductions to the epistles. It is a great mistake on the
part of Nidas followers to think that such explanations can be made

27. True Believers

In this work I have interacted chiefly with the writings of Nida and his coauthors. It may be said that in focusing on them I am behind the times, and
criticizing ideas which have already lost their ascendancy in the field of
academic translation theory. A catalogue of Books on Translation Theory
and Practice presented online by the United Bible Societies describes The
Theory and Practice of Translation by Nida and Taber as a book Of
historical interest, as a reflection of an influential perspective on Bible
translation from the 1950s-80s, and with many insights of contemporary
pertinence. 1 A recent book about Nidas influence published by the
American Bible Society says that Nidas theory and model of translation
relied on several related assumptions. First, all languages have equal value
Second, Nida assumes that anything that can be said in one language can
be said in another 2 So it is recognized that he relied upon questionable
assumptions, as I have argued above. Theorists have moved on, and much
of the literature of the field in the past twenty years really amounts to a
reaction against Nida, especially his universalist assumptions about
language. It is not hard to find theoretical linguists who sharply disagree
with important elements of dynamic equivalence theory. I have myself
emphasized this in the chapter on Recent Developments in Linguistics. But
the influence of this theory continues to be very strong in popular-level
works, whose authors seem to be unaware of what is happening in the field
and usually it is the most questionable aspects of the theory that are
being invoked to defend renderings found in modern Bible versions. Recent
developments in translation theory go in several directions, and some only
amplify the worst ideas in Nida.
It would be an understatement to describe Nida as influential in the
training of missionary translators at the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL).
For four decades, instructors there have been True Believers. SIL officials
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unnecessary, in versions designed for the uneducated, without doctrinal

note or comment. 7

reassembled. Like Nida, Larson focuses almost exclusively upon methods of

making the text easily understood by people who have little education and
little experience of language outside the habits of daily speech. She does
express in two or three places the idea that the translator should keep in
mind the educational level of the intended audience, but she only does this
to emphasize the importance of making the Bible easy for newly literate
people to understand. For example:

One has to wonder what sort of things the missionary translators have
presented as the Word of God in the many tribal languages of Africa. A
single heretic armed with this theory could do much damage. I once
received a letter from an Ethiopian minister about the Bible translated for
most common Ethiopians languages by an organization called UBS which
had created an issue which troubles and become night mare for my people
with me. 8 He did not describe the problem in detail, but I have seen
enough of modern translation theory to know what is possible. Even wellmeaning people who are apparently orthodox in their theology will make
mistakes that tend to support heterodox teachings at times. One must have
an education in historical theology to be aware of the implications that have
been drawn from different interpretations of phrases here and there in the
Bible. The crash course in communication theory that people receive at
places like SIL does not make them competent interpreters of the Bible.

One of the main concerns of the translator who is translating for indigenous
minority cultures is the educational level of the audience for whom he is
translating. If the translation is to be read by people with the level of
primary education, the vocabulary chosen must be vocabulary which would
be understood by those people. If, however, the translation will be used
primarily by people who have a secondary education there will be a great
deal of additional vocabulary which might be used. For example, more
educated persons tend to have borrowed more words from other languages
and use these as part of their own language. Persons with less education
would probably not understand many of these borrowed words. (p. 148)

Larsons Meaning-Based Translation has been used as an introductory

textbook at SIL since 1984. 9 This book is not as technical and theoretical as
Nidas writings, and it uses terminology preferred by Beekman and Callow,
but it largely takes for granted the rightness of Nidas ideas, and their
appropriateness for Bible translation. 10 The book often relies on the
Chomskian concept that a covert deep structure or semantic structure
exists somewhere beneath the overt surface structure of language. Larson
describes the building up of the surface structure as a process in which
there is a skewing of the constituent deep elements, which the
translator must disassemble and set right again before attempting to
translate. Reversal of the skewing results in a disintegration of complex
sentences into a series of very short and simple sentences, in which all
passive verbs are converted to active forms, all nouns which do not refer to
physical objects are converted to verbs, and so on. This is said to be an
intermediate phase of the translation process. The translator is supposed to
go on to recombine the parts in ways that are natural for the receptors.
But if the receptor language does not have syntactic and lexical resources
comparable to those used in the surface structure of the original, or if the
use of comparable constructions and words in that language is not natural
enough for the intended readers, the parts are never re-skewed and

Technical terminology may also have special connotative value for those
who use them. [sic] Sometimes people will use more technical or more
formal vocabulary in order to impress the audience with their own level of
education or status in the community. The use of technical terms can be a
way of speaking which will eliminate some people from understanding
because they are not acquainted with the technical terminology. The
translator must carefully keep in mind who the audience is for whom he is
translating and not use vocabulary which is so technical that it will not be
understood. A medical bulletin translated for doctors might use words like
incision, lesion, tonsillectomy, and optometrist. The same information
translated for rural people with less education might use cut, wound, have
tonsils out, and eye doctor, respectively. (p. 149)
Here it is said that the translator must use simple vocabulary for people
with little education, but might use more advanced vocabulary for the
better educated. There is no suggestion that the translator should take full
advantage of the readers linguistic abilities. Common sense tells us that this
should be done, because it makes for greater accuracy. Obviously the richer
and more precise vocabulary of educated people has its advantages. But this
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is never mentioned by Larson, probably because it is incompatible with the

notion of linguistic equality. After Nidas example, she explains the use of
technical terms only by the elitist motives that might lead someone to use
them, and shows no awareness of what communicative purposes they are
designed to serve among educated people. She is committed to the idea
that Anything which can be said in one language can be said in another (p.
12), and, like Nida, she presses this idea beyond reasonable limits by adding
that the language of the translation must not only be intelligible but also
perfectly natural and ordinary for the readers. She does notice a
fundamental problem:

We are able to talk about shamans, komodo dragons, and cannibals without
ever having encountered them. But the jungle languages are disadvantaged
in this respect, because they cannot talk about things from other cultures
with such precision. Sometimes they lack words that are necessary to talk
about them even in the vaguest terms. In the face of such problems, clinging
to some politically correct fantasy about how anything which can be said in
one language can be said in another is useless. One must recognize at
some point the need for education, and the development of a vocabulary
that is suitable for the subjects of the foreign text.
Larson ignores the fact that for bookless indigenous minority cultures any
kind of education necessarily involves a transition to a more advanced state
of culture, with corresponding linguistic developments. No doubt she shares
Nidas sectarian vision of an indigenous Christianity that will fit in the
jungle. But this vision is unbiblical and unrealistic. Christianity is
emphatically not indigenous to the jungle culture. It is itself a kind of
culture, which must be introduced from outside. If it is well and truly
planted, it does not seek to fit in, it refashions and transforms everything
around it. It is the very nature of the Church to be universal, transformative,
and pointedly non-indigenous. Its purpose is to gather a holy people
together into the one, indivisible body of Christ. So for any jungle culture,
the arrival of Christian missionaries portends great cultural changes; and
with the beginning of literacy these changes have already begun. The
language will also be changed. Literacy by itself will either transform these
languages or kill them. A language that cannot grow, develop, and adapt
itself to the educational culture of the civilized world will only be abandoned
by those who are being educated.

If the source language text originates from a highly technical society, it may
be much more difficult to translate it into the language of a nontechnical
society. For example, to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into the languages
of Papua New Guinea or the languages of the Amazon of South America,
there will be many problems in vocabulary having to do with such things as
priest, temple, sacrifice, and synagogue. When the cultures are similar,
there is less difficulty in translating. This is because both languages will
probably have terms that are more or less equivalent for the various aspects
of the culture. When the cultures are very different, it is often very difficult
to find equivalent lexical items. (p. 150)
But this downplays the problem that confronts the missionary translator.
For jungle languages, it is more than difficult, it is often impossible to find
words that can be called equivalent to the words of the original texts,
because the words do not exist in the jungle languages. How can we
translate a text that often mentions wine into the language of a people
that is unfamiliar with intoxicating beverages? Before the arrival of
European explorers in the eighteenth century, many indigenous cultures
knew nothing about such drinks. I do not see how the word wine could be
translated into the language of such a culture with any reasonable
expectation of semantic equivalence. One must have at least a second-hand
knowledge of the substance. Actually, one needs first-hand knowledge of it
to fully understand any talk about this particular substance, but such
knowledge has practically destroyed many indigenous cultures. In the more
elaborate languages of civilized countries we are not so constrained by
culture and personal experience, because we have acquired specific words
for many things that are quite foreign to us, on account of our education.

The languages of Papua New Guinea are often mentioned by Larson. This
country, on an island just north of Australia, is said to have 830 languages.
The territory covered by many of them is not much larger than an average
township in America, and I am told that these are not dialects but separate
languages, whose speakers cannot understand one another. A missionary
informs me that the clannishness of many of these tribes is beyond
measure, and the fact that neighboring tribes cannot understand their
speech has been a point of savage pride. But it can hardly be doubted what
the future holds for these 830 proud languages. The place is crawling with
missionaries, and a Pidgin-English has already established itself as the lingua
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franca of the island. I wonder if Larson and her colleagues at SIL have
considered this whole situation carefully enough. A broader and longer view
might suggest that the goal of producing an idiomatic Bible translation for
each of the 830 languages is ill-conceived.

As can be seen by studying the above examples, highly technical words

make understanding more difficult. Relating the new information to
something familiar makes it easier to understand. Long sentences and
complicated grammatical constructions make it harder for the reader to
follow what is being said. There are many factors which are involved in the
information load of a particular text. The translator needs to be familiar
with these in order to make a translation which will be easily understood by
the receptor language audience. (p. 478)

Larson, like her teachers, is always assuming that difficulties of

comprehension are due to an insensitive use of language, and can be solved
by condescending linguistic adjustments on the part of the author or
translator. I find in her chapter on Information Load a particularly clear
example of the failure to see the true nature of communication problems.
She writes:

These two texts are obviously intended for different kinds of readers, and
are giving different information. The first, in which technical words make
understanding more difficult, is written for people who have some
education in physics, and it is trying to explain one aspect of the physics of a
machine. For this purpose the technical terms are really indispensable, and
in fact these terms are relating the new information to something familiar
for the intended readers. It is not the technical terms themselves, but the
ignorance of their meaning, which will prevent uneducated readers from
understanding what is being said. It would be pointless to try to explain the
physics of this machine to someone who has no background in physics, and
there is no reason for us to think that the information load is heavier for
the intended readers of the first text than it is for the intended readers of
the second. The second contains much information; but it is written for
people who have no education in physics, and nothing in it is comparable to
the information in the first. The author does not try to explain why the fan
moves, which is the whole subject of the first text; he only says that the
steam jet will obviously drive it round, without offering any explanation of
how that happens. Larson says that the examples illustrate how long
sentences and complicated grammatical constructions make it harder for
the reader, but in fact the second text has, on average, longer sentences
than the first, and it also has the more complex sentences. This is not hard
to see.

Notice the following example. Two texts about the turbine are given. The
second is easier to read than the first. The information load is not as "heavy"
in the second. (Example from Barnwell 1980: 123):
A. The steam turbine obtains its motive power from the change of
momentum of a jet of steam flowing over a curved vane. The steam jet, in
moving over the curved surface of the blade, exerts a pressure on the blade
owing to its centrifugal force. This centrifugal pressure is exerted normal to
the blade surface and acts along the whole length of the blade. The
resultant combination of these centrifugal pressures, plus the effect of
changes of velocity, is the motive force on the blade. (from E. H. Lewitt:
Thermodynamics Applied to Heat Engines)
B. The principle of the turbine is extremely simple. If the lid of a kettle is
wedged down, when the water boils, a jet of steam will issue from the
spout. If this jet is projected against the blades of a fan or any sort of wheel
shaped like the old-fashioned water-wheel, it will, obviously, drive it round.
In the power station, steam is generated in huge boilers, and very often a
temperature as high as 850 degrees Fahrenheit at a pressure of sometimes
1,000 lbs. per sq. in. is built up before the steam is released from the boiler
to the turbine jets.

How did Larsons analysis of the differences here go so completely wrong? It

was her hasty assumption, in line with theories of dynamic equivalence, that
the difficulties are attributable to the linguistic form. Her theoretical
prepossessions have so distorted her perception of the facts that she even
mentions long sentences as being one reason for the difficulty of the first
text. But it is really the subject of the first text that makes it hard for

The turbine comprises two parts, the rotor or moving part, and the stator or
fixed portion. Instead of a single nozzle with one jet, there are a large
number of nozzles ... (from: How and Why it Works, published by Odhams)
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laymen, not any of the things that she mentions. And I think the same is true
for most problems that uneducated people encounter while reading the
Bible. The usual problem is a lack of the kind of preparation that the original
text assumes.

be accepted as a comprehensive theory, or one that is adequate for guiding

the work of translation in civilized countries.

In the same chapter, we are pleased to find the following paragraph, which
points the way to the only practical method of dealing with most problems
of comprehension:

This work uses many examples, in which I criticize specific renderings of the
so-called dynamic equivalence versions, but my argument has not merely
been that a theory that generates so many bad renderings must be wrong. I
aimed to deal with the theory itself, on a deep theoretical level, not merely
to criticize its practical results. The examples are intended to illustrate
aspects of the theory and the methods that it prescribes. I would emphasize
this here, because a naive defense of the theory might claim that the bad
renderings I have brought under discussion are only a consequence of
misapplications of the theory. I contend that they are not random
misapplications of the theory, they are illustrations of the theory in action.
When renderings like this have been pointed out in the past, the theory has
been invoked to justify them ex post facto. They are quite in keeping with
the theory. My task, therefore, has been to criticize the theory itself, by
examining the theoretical statements upon which everything depends.

28. Conclusion

All meaning is culturally conditioned. The receptor language readers will

interpret the message in terms of their own culture. They cannot draw on
the experiences of the source text writer, but only on their own. The
translator must make it possible for the reader to understand the message
in light of the source text background. To do this he must supply, at some
point, the information needed. Some can be woven into the translation,
when appropriate, but much of this background will need to be given in
introductions, notes, or glossaries. (p. 480, emphasis added.)
Nearly all the difficulties that Nida and his followers try to resolve with
paraphrastic renderings can be dealt with more effectively and more safely
in this traditional fashion. We suspect that Larson mentions it here as a last
resort, to be avoided as much as possible; but it should be the primary
method. A well-written introduction can supply the needs of the reader far
better than any theory of translation.

Under close examination the theory is found to be an organon of

interrelated fallacies. It acquires the appearance of science by its use of
linguists jargon, and by its technical treatment of superficial and minor
questions, but it is not really based upon linguistic science. It is based upon a
reductionistic bible alone orientation to missionary work, and upon ideas
that are fundamental to modern liberalismchiefly individualism and
egalitarianism. It is modernistic in spirit, explicitly anti-traditional, and anticlerical to the core. Borrowing the words of Hymes, we might say that the
predominance of ideas associated with dynamic equivalence in the field of
translation theory is mostly due to the fact that they are simply consistent
with, elaborations of, an insurgent and triumphant world view. It comes as
no surprise, therefore, that support for this theory is strongest in the most
liberal circles, and weakest among conservative Christians. In Europe the
theory has been associated with American evangelicals, and in chapter
two I also drew a connection between it and modern American
evangelicalism; but it is deeply contrary to conservative principles and
instincts.

Theories can be very helpful. They serve as tools for thinking and enable us
to organize knowledge. But the excessive love of theories is dangerous,
especially when they are new. It is not unusual to see highly intellectual
people enthralled by them. When we notice how it distorts their perception
of things, we say their minds are captive to a theory. This is what I see in
works written by adherents of this school. They are long on theory, and
short of common sense. For the sake of the theory, they magnify the
importance of things that do not even exist (deep structures and
kernels, Bible-readers who are baffled by the words grace and
righteousness) and ignore obvious facts of language, culture, and
education. A theory designed under the assumption that the readers are
extremely ignorant and can receive no help from teachers may of course be
useful where that assumption is true. But it is rarely true, and so this cannot
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Here and there I have indicated on what grounds a theoretically-minded

person might justify the ancient severity of literal translation. I do not
aspire to build up any grand theory of translation that would receive respect
from professional linguists. That is a task for one of their own. But in this
area no progress will be made by those who do not move well beyond the
sort of elementary speech-centered linguistics that one finds in Nida, which
is totally incapable of dealing with the issues raised in this book. Progress
will depend upon the development of a sophisticated literary linguistics that
is able to account for linguistic effects pertaining to a body of canonical
literature.

this one is a paraphrase. One feature of such a work probably is that the
paraphrast includes much more of his own interpretation and exposition
than a translator would deem proper. Where my own interpretation and
exposition are incorporated in this paraphrase, they are based on careful
consideration of the text; and I have tried not to represent Paul as saying
anything which he did not intend to say. 1
Such a disarming caveat makes most criticism needless. Here we find no
attempt to confuse the public with quibbles about every translation is an
interpretation, no overblown claims of equivalence, no one-sided
polemic against more literal translations. Bruce is far from claiming that his
paraphrase is more accurate than a literal version. In fact he recommends
the highly literal English Revised Version of 1881, as a version which
reproduces most accurately the nuances of Greek grammar and follows the
idiom of the original as closely as possible without doing excessive violence
to English literary usage, 2 and he even prints it next to his paraphrase in
parallel columns. The whole ideology of dynamic equivalence is absent
here, and perhaps implicitly rejected. One only needs to quote Bruces
Introduction to remind people that according to his own description it is an
interpretive paraphrase, and not what we should call a translation. As for
the Phillips paraphrase, I can remember sermons in the 1970s when the
preacher would quote some words from it, but this was always done more
or less as a bit of fun, and it was perceived as somewhat rakish, without
anyone thinking that the paraphrase was more accurate as a translation. If a
preacher quoted from it too extensively or too seriously, that would not
have gone over very well. 3

The traditional, essentially literal Bible translation is surely one of the best
established genres of world literature, and it does not require any
theoretical defense. Descriptive linguists might spend some time trying to
understand how such versions function in Christianity, by observing how
they are used by preachers, teachers, and authors. But scientific linguistics is
not now in any position to be prescribing methods of biblical translation for
the Church, and probably never will be.
Even if all this is granted, we may still be asked to accept simplified versions
as being useful for various purposes. I have made arguments against this in
chapters 22 and 23, but I do not deny that paraphrases can be useful if they
are presented with modesty, and used in full awareness of their typical
inadequacies. For example, in their exegetical commentary on the Epistle to
the Romans, Sanday and Headlam give a loose paraphrase of the text to
explicate some aspects of it. In my opinion their paraphrase is often wrong,
but I do not object to their use of this method, as long as everyone
understands that it is merely a convenient way of presenting
interpretations. If someone were to extract this paraphrase from their
commentary and set it forth as an authoritative translation, it would not be
acceptable. The paraphrase of Pauls Epistles done by F.F. Bruce is
acceptable because in his introduction he clearly explains its purpose and its
limitations:

The situation is quite different now. Our generation has seen a general
decline in standards of formality and seriousness. Worship services in the
burgeoning mega-churches are like rock music concerts, where anything
very formal, religious, or educational seems out of place. In this context, it
was almost inevitable that paraphrastic versions like the New Living
Translation would supplant the more accurate translations. The seeker
sensitive movement is being pushed forward by people who care nothing
about accuracy, and so claims of accuracy seem strangely irrelevant here
but the new versions are being recommended by persons who insist upon
calling them accurate, equivalent, etc., according to the rhetoric of
dynamic equivalence. When laymen hear such claims, they have no idea

It is of course difficult to say where translation ends and paraphrase begins;

much depends on ones definition of the two words. But frequently the
criticism has been urged against certain recent versions of the New
Testament that in places they are not translations but paraphrases. Well,
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how the words accuracy and equivalence have been defined by Nida,
and so these claims can only mislead and confuse people. Ernst-August Gutt
makes this point in one article, although he believes that there is a place for
the low-resemblance versions if they are called something other than
translations. 4 The whole controversy about Bible versions would lose
much of its urgency if the publishers and promoters of paraphrastic versions
would stop trying to mislead people with claims of accuracy, and practice
more truth in advertising. When the publishers of the Living Bible asserted
that Scholars, pastors and laymen have paid tribute to its accuracy and
fluency, 5 they could not expect such a misleading statement to go
unchallenged. The same is true of other versions, whose publishers have
been less than completely honest in their advertising. It is only too clear that
Nidas concepts are being used as a fig leaf to hide the real motives that are
at work here.

of our young people. But just as their ancient counterparts made the Court
of the Gentiles a marketplace (John 2:14-16), these hustlers have found a
ready market for their merchandise in the outer courts of the Church, where
a brand of pop-evangelicalism that almost excludes discipleship or any
serious learning prevails; and neither the sellers nor the buyers of the new
versions have much interest in maintaining the level of accuracy that is
appropriate for Scripture.
I began this book with the thesis that the Bible belongs to the Church. But a
corrupted church will naturally lead to a corrupted Bible, because its leaders
will not be faithful in the stewardship of the written Word. Conversely, a
corrupted Bible is a sign of a corrupted church. 10 We see this all around us
today. Yet I maintain that this stewardship cannot be delegated to another
institution, and that a large part of the current problem about versions is
due to the fact that, in the past fifty years, parachurch organizations and
publishing companies have usurped this stewardship, and have taken
control of the Bible. The translation of the Bible is now being controlled by
interests and agendas that are far different from the original purposes of its
authors, and the theory of dynamic equivalence is being used to justify all
of this.

For the publishing companies, the true motive is of course the profit motive.
I was most impressed by this fact while reading publishing industry trade
journals in the years following the publication of the TNIV, a revision of the
NIV that appeared in 2002. In its press releases the publisher pretends to
have evangelical motives, and describes itself as the leading Christian
communications company in the world. 6 But these articles revealed an
utterly shameless pursuit of filthy lucre. A common theme of the articles
was their strategy of bypassing uncooperative church leaders, while
appealing directly to the felt needs of consumers in the 18- to 34-year-old
age group in youth-market venues, with innovative marketing techniques.
In particular, I noticed the alarming contempt for pastoral leadership that
came to light in the remarks of Zondervans Vice President of Bible
Marketing, who was heartened by the thought that young people are more
sophisticated and understand the complexities of life, so when a leader of
the previous generation comes out against the TNIV, they are more likely to
think for themselves. 7 One article explained that Zondervan is hoping to
do an end-run around church leaders who disapprove of the version, and
quoted its vice president of sales and marketing: Were targeting key
gatekeepers such as the leaders of local chapters of campus Bible studies
and parachurch organizations. 8 Another officer of the same corporation
dismissed all criticism with the remark, These people who are making these
judgments are not linguists. 9 May God save us from men who would drive
a wedge between the generations in the Church, so as to make consumers

Which versions should we use? I have been asked that question many times.
So I will offer some recommendations here. Obviously I am advocating the
use of the more literal and traditional translations in ministry. First of all I
must say that the King James Version is more accurate and hence a more
reliable basis of teaching than most versions published in recent years. The
greater accuracy made possible by scholarly research over the past four
centuries is indeed considerable, and ought to have led to a generally higher
level of accuracy in English versions; but this scholarly advantage has been
so contravened by the paraphrastic tendencies of modern translators that
the overall accuracy of their versions is really lower. Still, the problem of
obsolete words cannot be overlooked. Some revisions of the KJV published
during the nineteenth century replaced the most troublesome obsolete
words with more modern language, without altering the meaning. The
revision published by Noah Webster is one of these. The editors of the New
Scofield Reference Bible (1967) did a good job of replacing obsolete words.
This edition is available in most Christian bookstores, and although I have
some reservations about its notes, I can recommend its revised text to
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anyone who wishes to use a minimal revision of the KJV. The New King
James Version of 1982 is a much more thorough revision, and it often
represents opinions of modern scholars about the meanings of Hebrew and
Greek words, but it is rather cautious in this respect, usually retaining
interpretations of the KJV that are supportable. The American Standard
Version of 1901 is a highly literal revision of the KJV that represents the
consensus of scholarly opinion about the meaning of the text and about the
correct manuscript readings. Its language is somewhat archaic (without
being obsolete), and its literal method sometimes makes for difficult
reading, but in my opinion it continues to be the most reliable version
available. The New American Standard Bible of 1971 is a mostly literal
revision of the ASV that replaces its archaic language with more modern
language, and represents more recent opinions about the meanings of
words and expressions. I must say that it is less accurate than the ASV, but it
is certainly good enough for most purposes, and easier to understand. The
Revised Standard Version of 1952 is at a much lower level of accuracy, and
presents interpretations that are associated with liberal hermeneutics. A
revision of the RSV known as the English Standard Version, published in
2001, improves its accuracy and eliminates most of the liberal bias. It is
generally acceptable for use in ministry, although it does require some
correction. Much more could be said about these versions, but I would
recommend any of them except the RSV for use in ministry. The New
International Version, as I have indicated several times in this book, often
falls below the level of accuracy that is necessary for serious teaching, and I
would recommend it only for the most casual purposes. The New Living
Translation of 1996 should not be used by ministers at all. The Message by
Eugene Peterson is a mockery of Scripture that should not be used for any
purpose, either at church or at home. Those who wish to learn more about
these and many other versions can find detailed reviews that I have
published on the internet. 11

versions came along. Explaining an obscure expression here and there in the
KJV was a small thing, compared to all the trouble and uncertainty that the
new versions have brought upon us. It also seems that our forefathers were
better people than we are. They did not expect everything to be so easy; but
we, being lazy, have corrupted our way through love of ease and pleasure. If
that does not change, there is no hope for us.
Church leaders must be more diligent in their guardianship of the Word.
This means acquiring the ability to compare versions with the original text,
and telling people what to receive and what not to receive under the name
of Holy Scripture. Criticism may not be easy or pleasant, but at the present
time it is necessary. Competence in this area will never be gained by people
who continue to indulge egalitarian delusions and spurn head knowledge.
I would not give any encouragement to the oafish and nasty criticism of
modern versions that we have seen from King James Only
fundamentalists, which does more harm than good; but it was no less
foolish, or harmful, for evangelicals to think that the Bible could be
entrusted to secular publishers or parachurch Bible Societies, and that we
could accept one version after another from these sources without scrutiny.
Discernment is always in order, and it is the responsibility of the Churcha
divine institution established by Jesus Christto determine such matters.
We are told to preserve knowledge (Malachi 2:7), prove all things (1 Thess.
5:21), hold fast the form of sound words (2 Tim. 1:13), the faithful word as it
has been taught (Titus 1:9). We are not peddlers of Gods word (2 Cor. 2:17),
but stewards of the mysteries of God, who will be held responsible for our
stewardship (1 Cor. 4:1-2).
Michael Marlowe
January, 2012
Notes

Christians must stop listening to the siren song of experts who, with
seductive promises and misrepresentations, have lured us into this
confusion. New and improved Bible versions should be viewed with
suspicion, especially when they promise to make things easier. None of the
modern versions mentioned in the previous paragraph are as difficult for us
as the King James Version was for our ancestors. Yet it seems that our
forefathers were better off a hundred years ago, before all these new

Bible Research > English Versions > Translation Methods > Dynamic
Equivalence

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