Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Indeed, it is
not fully possible, and that is why ministers are taught the biblical languages
in seminary.
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.
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).
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:
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.
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
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
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
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.
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:
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.).
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
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:
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:
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
with resulting unfaithfulness to the content and the impact of the message.
(pp. 12-13.)
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
this literally, we must say that it never happened. But that is not at all
necessary. Bible commentaries usually explain it along these lines:
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
24
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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:
[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.
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.
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):
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
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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)
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
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
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 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:
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
And again:
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)
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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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.
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.
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
61
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
67
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.
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
68
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
69
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
74
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:
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
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
77
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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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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.
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
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
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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.
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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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.
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
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?
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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.
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
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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.
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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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
95
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.
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.
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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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
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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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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:
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.
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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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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
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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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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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)
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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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.
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.
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.
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
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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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
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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