BibleTranslations

Bible Translations  – Interpret Words 

The English Bible is a translation!  It is a result of much scholarly work and frequently by a committee of people used to select the best word(s) to fit the original language intent.  These translators have to make choices regarding meanings, and these are going to affect how you understand the words.

The base of this study is from a text book by G. Fee and D. Stuart.  I will try and identify “quotes’.  I try and use these when the material is more complex.       (Fee, G. D., & Stuart, D. K. (1993). How to read the Bible for all its worth (3rd ed., p. 19). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.)

Romans 13:14(ESV)
¹⁴But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

 Shall we translate “flesh” (as in KJV, NRSV, NASU, ESV, etc.) because this is the word Paul used, and then leave it to an interpreter to tell us that “flesh” here does not mean “body”? Or shall we “help” the reader and translate “sinful nature” (as in the NIV, TNIV, GNB, NLT, etc.) or “disordered natural inclinations” (NJB) because these more closely approximate what Paul’s word really means?

“Every imaginable heresy or practice, from the Arianism (denying Christ’s deity) of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, to baptizing for the dead among Mormons, to snake handling among Appalachian sects, claims to be “supported” by a text.”

One current rage is that of the so-called wealth and health gospel.  Taking the “good news” to say that it is God’s will for you to be financial and material successful.  Meaning that God gives one ‘financial’ and ‘material prosperity’!   To argue this some have advocated that we need to look at the scripture for the “plain sense” of it.  Stating one needs to look at what the scripture is saying, not what we think it is saying. 

Applying this they take:

3 John 2 (NASB95)

         2      Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. 

Question:  Does this text have anything to do with “prosperity”? 

Reading the verses before and after it reads:

   1  The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.

    2   Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.

    3   For I was very glad when brethren came and testified to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth.

    4   I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.

The ESV version reads this way:

¹ The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.

² Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. ³ For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. ⁴ I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

 

The ESV makes clearer that “prosperity” is that “it goes well with your soul” (ESV) 

 

Another verse used to support their claim of ‘health & prosperity” would be in Mark 10:17-22 about the rich young man, however, the meaning of the text is opposite of that.

Mark 10:17-22(ESV)
^17£And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 
¹⁸And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 
¹⁹You know the commandments: ^£‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 
²⁰And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 
²¹And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 
²²Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

If the text had the meaning of ‘prosperity’, then the man in this story that Jesus said would have gone off in a happy state, not disheartened state.

 

The antidote to bad interpretation is not no interpretation but good interpretation, based on commonsense guidelines.

 

The Nature of Scripture

God elected to speak his Word through human words found in history.  Each book in the Bible has this historical diligence and is framed by language, time, and culture in which it was originally written. 

Some look at the scriptures for ‘eternal relevance’ in that they would pick and choose various propositions and imperatives.  One example might be for when I was younger this was frequently a Christian requirement that women should not wear pants as that was men’s clothing.  The scripture support was frequently stated found in Deuteronomy 22:5….

Deuteronomy 22:5 (NASB95)

         5      “A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.

That whole section of the Bible has a series of imperatives.  Reading on note more imperatives and then we’d be required to follow these and well as others listed in this passage of the Bible.  We’d also be required to have our homes with a ‘parapet for your roof’ – to ‘sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed’ – to not wear material with a mixture of ‘wool and linen’ together? 

Deuteronomy 22:8–11 (NASB95)

         8      “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you will not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone falls from it.

         9      “You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or all the produce of the seed which you have sown and the increase of the vineyard will become defiled.

         10      “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

         11      “You shall not wear a material mixed of wool and linen together.

 

 

Quote:

God chose to speak his eternal truths within the particular circumstances and events of human history.  This also is what gives us hope. Precisely because God chose to speak in the context of real human history, we may take courage that these same words will speak again and again in our own “real” history, as they have throughout the history of the church.

One of the most important aspects of the human side of the Bible is that, in order to communicate his Word to all human conditions, God chose to use almost every available kind of communication: narrative history, genealogies, chronicles, laws of all kinds, poetry of all kinds, proverbs, prophetic oracles, riddles, drama, biographical sketches, parables, letters, sermons, and apocalypses.

In speaking through real persons, in a variety of circumstances, over a 1,500-year period, God’s Word was expressed in the vocabulary and thought patterns of those persons and conditioned by the culture of those times and circumstances. That is to say, God’s Word to us was first of all his Word to them. If they were going to hear it, it could only have come through events and in language they could have understood. Our problem is that we are so far removed from them in time, and sometimes in thought. This is the major reason one needs to learn to interpret the Bible. If God’s Word about women wearing men’s clothing or people having parapets around houses is to speak to us, we first need to know what it said to its original hearers—and why.

 

TODAY we need consider these two items:

1^st – one has to hear the Word they heard; you must try to understand what was said to them back then and there (exegesis).

2^nd – one must learn to hear that same Word in the here and now (hermeneutics).

The First Task: Exegesis

The first task of the interpreter is called exegesis.Exegesis is the careful, systematic study of the Scripture to discover the original, intended meaning. This is basically a historical task. It is the attempt to hear the Word as the original recipients were to have heard it, to find out what was the original intent of the words of the Bible. This is the task that often calls for the help of the “expert,” a person trained to know well the language and circumstances of a text in its original setting. But one does not have to be an expert to do good exegesis.

 

STILL, it nonetheless tends to be employed only when there is an obvious problem between the biblical texts and modern culture. Whereas it must indeed be employed for such texts, we insist that it is the first step in reading EVERY text.

 

1 Thessalonians 5:22 KJV
²²Abstain from all appearance of evil.   
We frequently miss apply when stating our behavior needs to avoid an appearance of evil.  It does not pertain to that but it has to do with ‘prophecies’ which when tested are not found to be of the Spirit. 

Learning to Do Exegesis

How, then, do we learn to do good exegesis and at the same time avoid the pitfalls along the way?The first part of most of the chapters in this book will explain how one goes about this task for each of the genres in particular. Here we simply want to overview what is involved in the exegesis of any text.

 

There are two basic kinds of questions one should ask of every biblical passage: those that relate to context and those that relate to content.The questions of context are also of two kinds: historical and literary. Let us briefly note each of these.

The geographical, topographical, and political factors that are relevant to the author’s setting;

For example:  When dealing with Jesus’ parables the meaning is greatly enhanced by knowing something about the customs of Jesus’ day.

The more important question of historical context, however, has to do with the occasion and purpose of each biblical book and/or its various parts.

 

The Literary Context

Essentially, literary context means first that words only have meaning in sentences, and second that biblical sentences for the most part only have clear meaning in relation to preceding and succeeding sentences.

The most important contextual question you will ever ask—and it must be asked over and over of every sentence and every paragraph—is, “What’s the point?”

The goal of exegesis, you remember, is to find out what the original author intended.

One must learn to recognize units of thought, whether they be paragraphs (for prose) or lines and sections (for poetry).

 

The Questions of Content

“Content” has to do with the meanings of words, the grammatical relationships in sentences, and the choice of the original text

Take 2 Corinthians 5:16 (NASB95)  –  Who is ‘according to the flesh’?  Use different translations to help:

         16      Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.

For the most part, these are the questions of meaning that people ordinarily ask of the biblical text. When Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:16, “Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer” (NASB), you should want to know who is “according to the flesh”—Christ or the one knowing him? It makes a considerable difference in meaning to learn that “we” know Christ no longer “from a worldly point of view” (TNIV, NIV) is what Paul intends, not that we know Christ no longer “in his earthly life.”

 

The Tools

We have mentioned three such tools: a good translation, a good Bible dictionary, and good commentaries.

Because a good translation (or better, several good translations) is the absolutely basic tool for one who does not know the original languages,   –  Learning to use a good commentary is also important.

 

The Second Task: Hermeneutics

Although the word “hermeneutics” ordinarily covers the whole field of interpretation, including exegesis, it is also used in the narrower sense of seeking the contemporary relevance of ancient texts. In this book we will use it exclusively in this way—to ask the questions about the Bible’s meaning in the “here and now”—even though we know this is not the word’s most common meaning.

Proper “hermeneutics” begins with solid “exegesis.”  –  The reason you must not begin with the here and now is that the only proper control for hermeneutics is to be foundin the original intent of the biblical text.

 

Quote:  In contrast to such subjectivity, we insist that the original meaning of the text—as much as it is in our power to discern it—is the objective point of control. We are convinced that the Mormons’ baptizing for the dead on the basis of 1 Corinthians 15:29, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ rejection of the deity of Christ, or the snake handlers’ use of Mark 16:18, or the prosperity evangelists’ advocating of the American dream as a Christian right on the basis of 3 John 2 are all improper interpretations. In each case the error is in their hermeneutics, precisely because their hermeneutics is not controlled by good exegesis. They have started with the here and now and have read into the texts “meanings” that were not originally intended. And what is to keep one from killing one’s daughter because of a foolish vow, as did Jephthah (Judg 11:29–40), or to argue, as one preacher is reported to have done, that women should never wear their hair up in a topknot (“bun”) because the Bible says “topknot go down” (“Let him that is on the housetop not go down” [Mark 13:15 KJV])?  Q. (Fee, G. D., & Stuart, D. K. (1993). How to read the Bible for all its worth (3rd ed., p. 30). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.)

 

A text cannot mean what it never meant.Or to put it in a positive way, the true meaning of the biblical text for us is what God originally intended it to mean when it was first spoken. This is the starting point.

 

The Basic Tool: A Good Translation

 

What this does mean, however, is that, in a certain sense, the person who reads the Bible only in English is at the mercy of the translator(s), and translators have often had to make choices as to what in fact the original Hebrew or Greek was really intending to say.

The trouble with using only one translation, be it ever so good, is that you are thereby committed to the exegetical choices of that translation as the Word of God. The translation you are using will, of course, be correct most of the time; but at times it also may not be.

Let’s take, for example, the following four translations of1 Corinthians 7:36:

 

NKJV:

            “If any man thinks that he is behaving improperly toward his virgin …”

 

NASB/U:

            “If any man thinks that he is acting unbecomingly toward his virgin daughter …”

 

TNIV:

            “If anyone is worried that he might not be acting honorably toward the virgin he is engaged to …”

 

NEB:

            “If a man has a partner in celibacy and feels that he is not behaving properly towards her …”

 

 

For a number of reasons, the TNIV reflects the best exegetical option here (in fact the NEB reading is now a marginal note in the REB).

First, it is probably a good practice to use mainly one translation, provided it really is a good one.  Frequently, the better translations, it will have notes in the margin

However, for the study of the Bible, you should use several well-chosen translations and use translations that one knows in advance will tend to differ.

 

One need to know some things about the science of translation itself as well as about some of the various English translations.

?  is it:  textual and linguistic

? – Are they are using is as close as possible to the original wording as it left the author’s hands

Variants  means: textual criticism

 

There are two kinds of evidence that translators consider in making textual choices: external evidence (the character and quality of the manuscripts) and the internal evidence (the kinds of mistakes to which copyists were susceptible).

Quote: Note three variants as illustrations of the work of textual criticism:

1 Samuel 8:16

NKJV/NASU:	“he will take … your finest young men and your donkeys”
NRSV/TNIV:	“he will take … the best of your cattle and donkeys”

Quoting source: Fee, G. D., & Stuart, D. K. (1993). How to read the Bible for all its worth (3rd ed., p. 38). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

The text of the nrsv/TNIV (“your cattle”) comes from the Septuagint, the usually reliable Greek translation of the Old Testament made in Egypt around 250–150 b.c. The NKJV/NASU follows the medieval Hebrew text, reading “young men,” a rather unlikely term to be used in parallel to “donkeys.” The origin of the miscopy in the Hebrew text, which the NKJV followed, is easy to understand. The word for “your young men” in Hebrew is bḥrykm, while “your cattle” is bqrykm (they’re as much alike as “television” and “telephone”—i.e., the error could not have been oral.)The incorrect copying of a single letter by a scribe resulted in a change of meaning. The Septuagint was translated some time before the miscopy was made, so it preserved the original “your cattle.” The accidental change to “your young men” was made later, affecting medieval Hebrew manuscripts, but too late to affect the premedieval Septuagint. Quote:

 

Mark 1:2

NKJV:	“As it is written in the Prophets …”
TNIV:	“as it is written in Isaiah the prophet …”

The text of the TNIV is found in all the best early Greek manuscripts. It is also the only text found in all the earliest (second-century) translations (Latin, Coptic, and Syriac) and is the only text known among all the church fathers, except one, before the ninth century. It is easy to see what happened in the later Greek manuscripts. Since the citation that follows is a combination of Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3, a later copyist “corrected” Mark’s original text to make it more precise.

1 Corinthians 6:20

NKJV:	“therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
TNIV:	“Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

This example was chosen to illustrate that, on occasion, changes to the original text were made by copyists for theological reasons.The words “and in your spirit, which are God’s,” though found in most of the late medieval Greek manuscripts, do not appear in any early Greek evidence or in the Latin-speaking church in the West. Had they been in Paul’s original letter, it is nearly impossible to explain how/why they would have been left out so early and so often. But their late appearance in Greek manuscripts can be easily explained. All such manuscripts were copied in monasteries at a time when Greek philosophy, with its low view of the body, had made inroads into Christian theology. So some monks added “in your spirit” and then concluded that both body and spirit “are God’s.” While this is true, these additional words deflect Paul’s obvious concern with the body in this passage and are thus no part of the Spirit’s inspiration of the apostle.

 

Although textual criticism is a science, it is not an exact science, because it deals with too many human variables.

Quote: The reason for the uncertainty is either that the best manuscript evidence conflicts with the best explanation of how the error came about or that the manuscript evidence is evenly divided and either variant can explain how the other came to be. We can illustrate this from 1 Corinthians 13:3, which in the NIV looks like this:

NIV text:	“surrender my body to the flames”
NIV note:	“surrender my body that I may boast”

But in the TNIV it now looks like this (cf. NRSV, NLT):

TNIV text:	“give over my body to hardship that I may boast
TNIV note:	“give over my body to the flames”

 

In Greek the difference is only one letter: kauthēsoōmai/kauchēsōmai. The word “boast” has the best and earliest Greek support; the word “flames” appeared first in Latin translation (at a time when Christians were being burned at the stake). In this case both readings have some inherent difficulties: “Flames” represents a form that is ungrammatical in Greek; moreover, 1 Corinthians was written well before Christians were martyred by burning—and no one ever voluntarily “gave over their bodies” to be burned at the stake! On the other hand, while supported by what is easily the best evidence, it has been difficult to find an adequate meaning for “that I may boast” (hence the small brackets around “to hardship” in the TNIV thus indicating its probable sense; cf. NRSV, NLT). Here is one of those places where a good commentary will probably be necessary in order for you to make up your own mind.

 

Paul’s point here finally is little affected by that choice. In either case, he means that if one gives the body over to some extreme sacrifice, or the like, but lacks love, it is all for nothing.

 

Translators must make textual choices

 

This author states this about the King James Version and the NKJV:

The KJV for a long time was the most widely used translation in the world; it is also a classic expression of the English language. Indeed, it coined phrases that will be forever embedded in our language (“coals of fire,” “the skin of my teeth,” “tongues of fire”). However, for the New Testament, the only Greek text available to the 1611 translators was based on late manuscripts, which had accumulated the mistakes of over a thousand years of copying. Few of these mistakes—and we must note that there are many of them—make any difference to us doctrinally, but they often do make a difference in the meaning of certain specific texts. Recognizing that the English of the KJV was no longer a living language—and thoroughly dissatisfied with its modern revision (RSV/NRSV)—it was decided by some to “update” the KJV by ridding it of its “archaic” way of speaking. But in so doing, the NKJV revisers eliminated the best feature of the KJV (its marvelous expression of the English language) and kept the worst (its flawed text).

This is why for study you should use almost any modern translation rather than the KJV or the NKJV. But how to choose between modern translations takes us to the next kinds of choices translators have to make.

 

The Questions of Language  –   verbal and grammatical

 

The problem has to do with the transferring of words and ideas from one language to another.

 

Originallanguage:the language that one is translating from; in our case, Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek.

Receptorlanguage:the language that one is translating into; in our case, English.

Historicaldistance:has to do with the differences that exist between the original language and the receptor language, both in matters of words, grammar, and idioms as well as in matters of culture and history.

Formalequivalence: the attempt to keep as close to the “form” of the Hebrew or Greek, both words and grammar, as can be conveniently put into understandable English. The closer one stays to the Hebrew or Greek idiom, the closer one moves toward a theory of translation often described as “literal.” Translations based on formal equivalence will keep historical distance intact at all points.

Functionalequivalence: the attempt to keep the meaning of the Hebrew or Greek but to put their words and idioms into what would be the normal way of saying the same thing in English. The more one is willing to forego formal equivalence for functional equivalence, the closer one moves toward a theory of translation frequently described as “dynamic equivalent.” Such translations keep historical distance on all historical and factual matters but “update” matters of language, grammar, and style.

Freetranslation: the attempt to translate the ideas from one language to another, with less concern about using the exact words of the original. A free translation, sometimes also called a paraphrase, tries to eliminate as much of the historical distance as possible and still be faithful to the original text.

Theoryof translationhas basically to do with whether one puts primary emphasis on formal or on functional equivalency, that is, the degree to which one is willing to go in order to bridge the gap between the two languages, either in use of words and grammar or in bridging the historical distance by offering a modern equivalent. For example, should “lamp” be translated “flashlight” or “torch” in cultures where these serve the purpose a lamp once did? Or should one translate it “lamp,” and let readers bridge the gap for themselves? Should “holy kiss” be translated “the handshake of Christian love” in cultures where public kissing is offensive? Should “coals of fire” become “burning embers/coals,” since this is more normal English? Should “endurance of hope” (1 Thess 1:3), a formal equivalent that is almost meaningless in English, be rendered “your endurance inspired by hope,” which is what Paul’s Greek actually means?

 

Quote:

The several translations of the whole Bible that are currently easily accessible may be placed on a formal or functional equivalent and historical distance scale in a somewhat arbitrary way, as shown on the following graph (line 1 represents the original translations, line 2 their various revisions; note that in the case of the RSV, both the NRSV and ESV move more toward the middle, as does the TNIV, while the NJB, REB and NLT [the revision of the Living Bible] also have moved more toward the middle from their originals).

 

Formal Equivalence (literal)			Functional Equivalence (dynamic)			Free
1. KJV	NASB	RSV	NIV	NAB	GNB	JB	NEB	LB
2. NKJV	NASU	NRSV, ESV	TNIV	NJB	REB	NLT		The Message

 

Quote: Our view is that the best theory of translation is the one that remains as faithful as possible to both the original and receptor languages, but that when something has to “give,” it should be in favor of the receptor language—without losing the meaning of the original language, of course—since the very reason for translation is to make these ancient texts accessible to the English-speaking person who does not know the original languages.

If the best translational theory is functional equivalence, a translation that adheres to formal equivalence is often helpful as a second source; it can give you some confidence as to what the Hebrew or Greek actually looked like.

 

Writer supports this:  But the basic translation for reading and studying should be something in the TNIV/niv/nrsv range.

 Quote – The Problems:

The problem with a formal-equivalent translation is that it keeps distance at the wrong places—in language and grammar. Thus the translator often renders the Greek or Hebrew into English that is otherwise never written or spoken that way. It is like translating maison blanchefrom French to English as “house white.” For example, no native English-speaking person would ever have said “coals of fire” (Rom 12:20 KJV). That is a literal rendering of the Greek construction, but what it means in English is “burning coals” (TNIV, NIV) or “live coals” (REB).

A secondproblem with a literal translation is that it often makes the English ambiguous, where the Greek or Hebrew was quite clear to the original recipients. For example, in 2 Corinthians 5:16 the Greek phrase kata sarka can be translated literally “[to know] according to the flesh” (as in the NASU). But this is not an ordinary way of speaking in English. Furthermore, the phrase is ambiguous. Is it the person who is being known who is “according to the flesh,” which seems to be implied in the NASU, and which in this case would mean something like “by their outward appearance”? Or is the person who is “knowing” doing so “according to the flesh,” which would mean “from a worldly point of view”? In this case the context is clear, and the TNIV/NIV correctly translate: “So from now on [since we have been raised to a new life, v. 15] we regard no one from a worldly point of view.”

 

The problem with a “free” translation,on the other hand, especially for study purposes, is that the translator updates the original author too much. In the second half of the twentieth century, three “free translations” served succeeding generations of Christians: Phillips (by J. B. Phillips), the Living Bible (by Ken Taylor, who “translated” into language for the young not the Greek Bible but the KJV), and The Message (by Eugene Peterson).
On the one hand, these renditions often have especially fresh and vivid ways of expressing some old truths and have thus each served to stimulate contemporary Christians to take a fresh look at their Bibles. On the other hand, such a “translation” often comes very close to being a commentary, but without other options made available to the reader. Therefore, as stimulating as these can sometimes be, they are never intended to be a person’s only Bible; and the reader needs constantly to check particularly eye-catching moments against a true translation or a commentary to make sure that not too much freedom has been taken.

 

Euphemisms

It was better to just place a QUOTE as it is detailed information about Euphemisms.

Euphemisms.Almost all languages have euphemisms for matters of sex and toilet. A translator has one of three choices in such matters: (1) translate literally but perhaps leave an English-speaking reader bewildered or guessing, (2) translate the formal equivalent but perhaps offend or shock the reader, or (3) translate with a functionally equivalent euphemism.

Option 3 is probably the best, if there is an appropriate euphemism. Otherwise it is better to go with option 2, especially for matters that generally no longer require euphemisms in English. Thus to have Rachel say, “I am having my monthly period” (Gen 31:35 GNB; cf. NIV/TNIV) is to be preferred to the literal “the manner of women is upon me” (NASU, cf. KJV, RSV). For the same idiom in Genesis 18:11 the GNB is consistent (“Sarah had stopped having her monthly periods”), while the TNIV is much freer (“Sarah was past the age of childbearing”). Similarly, “[he] forced her, and lay with her” (2 Sam 13:14 KJV) becomes simply “he raped her” in the NIV/TNIV and GNB.

There can be dangers in this, however, especially when translators themselves miss the meaning of the idiom, as can be seen in the NIV, GNB, and LB translation of 1 Corinthians 7:1: “It is good for a man not to marry.” The idiom “to touch a woman” in every other case in antiquity means to have sexual intercourse with a woman, and never means anything close to “to marry.” Here the NAB has found an equivalent euphemism: “A man is better off having no relations with a woman”; but this has the possibility of being misunderstood or misconstrued to mean no relations whatsoever—including friendly ones. So the TNIV has eliminated the euphemism altogether: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”

 

Vocabulary

Vocabulary.When most people think of translation, this is the area they usually have in mind. It seems like such a simple task: find the English word that means the same as the Hebrew or Greek word. But finding precisely the right word is what makes translation so difficult. Part of the difficulty is not only in the choosing of an appropriate English word but also in the choosing of a word that will not already be filled with connotations that are foreign to the original language.

The problem is further complicated by thefact that some Hebrew or Greek words have ranges of meaning different from anything in English. In addition, some words can have several shades of meaning, as well as two or more considerably different meanings. And a deliberate play on words is usually impossible to translate from one language to another.

We have already noted how various translations have chosen to interpret “virgin” in 1 Corinthians 7:36. In chapter 1 we also noted the difficulty in rendering Paul’s use of the word sarx (“flesh”). In most cases, almost anything is better than the literal “flesh.” The TNIV handles this word especially well: “sinful nature” when Paul is contrasting “flesh” and “spirit”; “human nature” in Romans 1:3 where it refers to Jesus’ Davidic descent; “from a worldly point of view” in 2 Corinthians 5:16 noted above (cf. 1 Cor 1:26 “by human standards”); and “body” when it means that, as in Colossians 1:22.

 

This kind of thing can be illustrated many times over and is one of the reasons why a translation by functional equivalence is much to be preferred to a more “literal” translation.

 

 

Wordplays

 

Wordplays tend to abound in most languages, but they are always unique to the original language and can almost never be “translated” into a receptor language. The same is true with wordplays in the Bible, which abound in the poetry of the Old Testament and can be found throughout the New Testament as well. So what does the translator do?

Take, for example, the play on the sounds for the words “summer” and “end” in Amos 8:1–2, where even though the Hebrew consonants are qyṣ and qṣ respectively, the two words themselves were pronounced virtually alike in Amos’s day. Translations that tend toward formal equivalence translate in a straightforward manner:

NRSV:

“[God] said, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A basket of summer [qyṣ] fruit.’ Then the Lord said to me, ‘The end [qṣ] has come upon my people Israel.’ ”

Translations that move toward functional equivalence try to work with the wordplay, even when doing so may alter the meaning somewhat:

TNIV:

“ ‘What do you see, Amos,’ [God] asked. ‘A basket of ripe [qyṣ] fruit,’ I answered. Then the Lord said to me, ‘The time is ripe [qṣ] for my people Israel.’ ”

An example of the same difficulty can be found in some instances of Paul’s use of the word “flesh,”noted above and in the previous chapter (p. 19). This happens especially in Galatians 3:3, where Paul says (NASU): “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” Lying behind this rhetoric is the issue of Gentile believers yielding to Jewish-Christian pressure to submit to circumcision (of the flesh!). But it is clear from the full argument of Galatians that Paul here means more than just circumcision when referring to “by the flesh.” In Galatians 5 the “flesh” has to do with living in a self-centered, ungodly way as opposed to living “by the Spirit.” So what does the functional-equivalent translator do in 3:3? The NIV/TNIV renders it “by human effort” (cf. NLT) and the GNB “by your own power”; but in doing so they must lose the “Spirit/flesh” contrast that is picked up again in 4:28 and 5:13–26. Both ways of translating are “right,” of course, in keeping with the respective theories of translation; but in both cases something is lost, simply because such wordplays cannot be made in English. And this is yet another reason why you should learn to use more than one translation on a regular basis.

 

Grammar and Syntax

Grammar and Syntax.Even though most Indo-European languages have a great many similarities, each language has its own preferred structures as to how words and ideas are related to each other in sentences. It is at these points especially where translation by functional equivalence is to be preferred. A formal-equivalent translation tends to abuse or override the ordinary structures of the receptor language by directly transferring into it the syntax and grammar of the original language. Such direct transfers are often possible in the receptor language, but they are seldom preferable. From hundreds of examples, we choose two as illustrations, one from Greek and one from Hebrew.

a. One of the characteristics of Greek is its fondness for what are known as genitive constructions. The genitive is the ordinary case of possession, as in “my book.” Such a true possessive can also, but only very awkwardly, be rendered “the book of me.” However, other possessives in English, such as “God’s grace,” do not so much mean, for example, that God owns the grace as that he gives it, or that it comes from him. Such “nontrue” possessives can always be translated into English as “the grace of God.”

The Greek language has a great profusion of these latter kinds of genitives, which are used, for example, as descriptive adjectivesto express source, to connote special relationships between two nouns, etc. A “literal” translation almost invariably transfers these into English with an “of” phrase, but frequently with strange results, such as the “coals of fire” noted above, or “the word of his power” (Heb 1:3 NKJV). Both of these are clearly adjectival or descriptive genitives, which in the NIV/TNIV are more accurately rendered “burning coals” and “his powerful word.” Similarly the NASU’s “steadfastness of hope” (1 Thess 1:3) and “joy of the Holy Spirit” (1:6) are translated in the NIV/TNIV “endurance inspired by hope” and “joy given by the Holy Spirit.” These are not only to be preferred; they are, in fact, more accurate because they give a genuine English equivalent rather than a literal, Greek way of expressing things that in English would be nearly meaningless.

Interestingly enough, in one of the few places where the KJV (followed by the RSV but not the NASU) offered something of an equivalent (1 Cor 3:9), the translators missed the meaning of the genitive altogether. Apparently they were led astray by the word “fellow-workers” and thus translated, “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” But in Paul’s sentence each occurrence of “God” is clearly a possessive genitive, with an emphasis on both we (Paul and Apollos) and you (the church as God’s field and building) as belonging to him. This is correctly translated in the TNIV as, “For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” Paul’s point is made even more clearly in the NAB: “We are God’s co-workers, while you are his cultivation, his building.”

b. Thousands of times in the Old Testament the KJV translators woodenly followed the Hebrew word order in a way that does not produce normal idiomatic English. One common example is how often verses (with each verse a paragraph!) begin with the word “and.” For example, in Genesis 1 every verse, without exception, begins with “and”—a total of thirty times. Even the NKJV translators had difficulty with this idiom; nonetheless they still rendered the Hebrew “and” in almost every case (using “and,” “then,” “so,” etc.). Now compare the NIV/TNIV. It reduces the number of occurrences of “and” to eleven, while at the same time improving the flow of the language so that it sounds more natural to the ear.

The NIV/TNIV translators produced an improved translation by taking seriously the fact that the vast majority of prose sentences in Old Testament Hebrew begin with one of the two Hebrew forms for the word “and.” The word for “and” appears even when there is absolutely nothing preceding to which the sentence logically connects.In fact, six books of the Old Testament (Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, Ezra, Ruth, and Esther) begin in Hebrew with the word “and,” though these obviously do not follow anything. Accordingly, it is now recognized by Hebrew grammarians that “and” at the beginning of a sentence is virtually the equivalent of the use of capitalization at the beginning of English sentences. This does not mean that the Hebrew “and” should never be translated by the English “and”; it simply means that “and” is only sometimes, and certainly not a majority of the time, the best translation in English. The simple English sentence beginning with a capital letter will do nicely in most cases.

Another example is the KJV’s “and it came to pass,” which is frequently retained in the NKJV, even though this is never used in normal English anymore. Indeed, it was rare even in the seventeenth century when the KJV was undertaken. Because this Hebrew narrative verb form was followed literally and woodenly, the resulting translation, “and it came to pass,” occupied a prominent position in Old Testament style but nowhere else in English speech. We once heard a sermon on the concept that all things are temporary and shall eventually pass away (cf. 1 Cor 13:8–10) based on the frequency of the clause “and it came to pass,” which the preacher misunderstood to mean, “And it came in order to pass away.” In fact, the NIV/TNIV translators (rightly) do not give expression to the Hebrew clause as such. Judiciously rendering Hebrew into English requires an equivalent meaning, not an equivalent word or clause pattern.

 

Review: Luke 2:1, 19:29 – Acts 4:7, 28:17  and 64 other times used in the OT and in the NKJV.

Luke 2:1 NKJV – And it came to pass (ginomai)(Greek word)  in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.   Of course the same Greek word is translated in other translations:

ESV:  In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

NASB95 –      Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth.

NIV – In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

YLT – And it came to pass in those days, there went forth a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world be enrolled

HCSB – In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus  ^z that the whole empire  should be registered.  

TheMessage –  About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire.

Matters of Gender

 

When this book first appeared in 1981, the problem of using masculine language where women are included or are in view was just beginning to become an issue for translators. By the time the second edition appeared in 1993, one revision (NRSV) of a well-established translation (RSV) had already appeared, which became deliberately inclusive in all such instances in both the Old and New Testaments. In the following decade all the other leading translations have followed suit to a greater or lesser degree, while at least one revision (ESV) came into existence to “stem this tide,” as it were, so that in effect it is deliberately exclusive of women in many places where it is quite unnecessary to do so. While this matter is still in something of a state of flux, there can be no question that standard usage in both Great Britain and North America has now shifted rather completely toward inclusiveness when both men and women are being addressed or are in view. Indeed, surveys show that a majority of people up to age sixty(!) will consider a statement like “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” to refer only to men or boys, not to women or girls.

But this also presents some agonizing decisions on the part of translators. There is very little difficulty, for example, in translating Paul’s vocative “brothers” as “brothers and sisters,” since in almost all cases it is clear that women are also in view—and in any case some Christian traditions (Pentecostals, for example) have been using this inclusive vocative for several generations. But other cases are more problematic. Two examples will suffice.

In order to avoid excluding women from passages that are spoken to or about people in general, it has been deemed necessary by some to make certain clauses plural that are expressed in the singular (although this usually does not have significance in itself). Psalm 1:1 (“Blessed is the man” [RSV]) is an example, where most revisions of existing translations have moved to the plural in order to avoid unnecessarily excluding women from this psalm, since the generic use of “man” as a way of saying “person” has generally fallen out of current usage. To translate “person” here would require the translator to follow up with either masculine pronouns (v. 2 “his delight”) or with some kind of awkwardness (“his or her”) that distorts the poetry. Here functional equivalence rules, since the only thing lost in the poem is the author’s own move from speaking first in the singular and then moving to the plural. What is lost in terms of actual meaning is usually relatively small in these sorts of cases. The older RSV (now no longer published) preserved the intended contrast between the lone righteous person in Psalm 1 (“Blessed is the man who …” [v. 4]) and the many who are wicked (“The wicked are not so …” [v. 4]). The newer NRSV simply pluralizes the entire psalm (“Happy are those who.…” etc.) as if there were no intentional singular-plural contrast in it. It’s not that the NRSV is trying to distort the meaning of the Bible; it’s just the opposite—the NRSV is only trying to keep the reader from distorting the meaning of the Bible by hearing only masculine language where the original does not intend it or from not hearing the message at all because of awkward, abnormal English. The problem is that the meaning is at risk in either case. So the modern translator, trying to convey God’s truth to and about both men and women, cannot always do a perfect job of steering between awkwardness on the one hand and subtle meaning-shifting on the other.

Often, “pluralizing” is not particularly harmful, and the issue is more a matter of getting used to a shift in English grammar. In gnomic sayings that begin with “If anyone” or “Whoever” or “When someone,” the standard English rule learned by the authors as schoolboys was that these must be followed by a singular pronoun, which of course was always masculine. But that was not everyone’s rule, since it turns out that several well-known authors of nineteenth-century English novels frequently used a “singular” them in such sentences. Again, this is now becoming standard English, at least in the print and spoken media, so that one can regularly hear, “If anyone … let them …”

While these kinds of matters will be open for continuing discussion for some years yet, and even though the two of us aren’t entirely in agreement about the success of “pluralizing” as a means of preserving indefiniteness in gender, you should realize that most of the newer revisions have already moved in this direction.

On Choosing a Translation

The Writer wrote this:

Which translation, then, should you read? We would venture to suggest that the TNIV is as good a translation as you will get. The GNB and NAB are also especially good. One would do well to have two or all three of these. The TNIV (and NIV) is a committee translation by the best scholarship in the evangelical tradition. The NAB is a committee translation by the best scholarship in the American Catholic tradition. The GNB is an outstanding translation by a single scholar, Robert G. Bratcher, who regularly consulted with others and whose expertise in linguistics has brought the concept of dynamic equivalence to translation in a thoroughgoing way.

Along with one or more of these, you would also do well to use one or more of the following: the NASU or the NRSV. These are attempts to update the KJV. The translators used better original texts and thereby eliminated most of the nonoriginal matter in the KJV. At the same time they tried to adhere as closely as possible to the language of the KJV and yet still modernize it some. The NRSV is by far the better translation; the NASU is much more like the KJV and therefore far more literal—to the point of being wooden.

Along with one or more of these, we recommend you also consult either the REB or NJB—or both. Both of these are committee translations. The REB is the product of the best of British scholarship and therefore includes many British idioms not always familiar to North American readers. The NJB is an English translation from the French Bible de Jerusalem. Both of these translations tend to be freer at times than the others described here as functionally equivalent. But both of them have some outstanding features and are well worth using in conjunction with the others.

In the following chapters we will follow the TNIV (or NIV) unless otherwise noted. If you were regularly to read this translation, and then consult at least one from three other categories (NRSV/NASU; GNB/NAB; REB/NJB), you would be giving yourself the best possible start to an intelligent reading and study of the Bible.^[1]