Translating Truth (Foreword by J.I. Packer)

The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation

C. John Collins, Wayne Grudem, Vern S. Poythress, Leland Ryken, Bruce Winter

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781433518584
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblische Studien

Which translation do I choose?

In an age when there is a wide choice of English Bible translations, the issues involved in Bible translating are steadily gaining interest. Consumers often wonder what separates one Bible version from another.

The contributors to this book argue that there are significant differences between literal translations and the alternatives. The task of those who employ an essentially literal Bible translation philosophy is to produce a translation that remains faithful to the original languages, preserving as much of the original form and meaning as possible while still communicating effectively and clearly in the receptors' languages.

Translating Truth advocates essentially literal Bible translation and in an attempt to foster an edifying dialogue concerning translation philosophy. It addresses what constitutes "good" translation, common myths about word-for-word translations, and the importance of preserving the authenticity of the Bible text. The essays in this book offer clear and enlightening insights into the foundational ideas of essentially literal Bible translation.

1

ARE ONLY SOME WORDS
OF SCRIPTURE
BREATHED OUT BY GOD?

Why Plenary Inspiration Favors
“Essentially Literal” Bible Translation

W A Y N E G R U D E M

I. INTRODUCTION

Is Bible translation a spiritually and morally “neutral” activity, something to be guided only by secular linguistic theories about translation of languages in general? And is it true that there is really no right or wrong, no “better” or “worse” in Bible translations, but only the subjective preferences of readers who happen to “like” one translation better than another? And is the Bible such a sacred and special book that no one should ever criticize anybody else’s attempts at translating the Bible?

Or might the Bible itself say something that is relevant to current debates about how the Bible should be translated?

I will argue in this chapter (1) that the Bible repeatedly claims that every one of its words (in the original languages) is a word spoken to us by God, and is therefore of utmost importance; and (2) that this fact provides a strong argument in favor of “essentially literal” (or “word-for-word”) translation as opposed to “dynamic equivalent” (or “thought-for-thought”) translation.

But first, some definitions:

A. Essentially Literal

An essentially literal translation translates the meaning of every word in the original language, understood correctly in its context, into its nearest English equivalent, and attempts to express the result with ordinary English word order and style, as far as that is possible without distorting the meaning of the original. Sometimes such a translation is also called a “word-for-word” translation, which is fine if we understand that at times one word in the original may be translated accurately by two or more words in English, and sometimes two or more words in the original can be represented by one word in English. The main point is that essentially literal translations attempt to represent the meaning of every wordin the original in some way or other in the resulting translation.¹

Sometimes essentially literal translations are called “formal equivalence” translations, suggesting that they try as far as possible to preserve the “form” of the original language in the translation. I do not generally use the phrase “formal equivalence” nor do I think it is a useful phrase for describing essentially literal translations. The reason is that the word “form” places too much emphasis on reproducing the exact word order of the original language, something that just makes for awkward translation and really has very little to do with the goal of translating the meaning of every word in the original. (The label “formal equivalence” is often used by defenders of dynamic equivalence theory, perhaps in part because this makes it so easy to caricature and thus dismiss essentially literal translation theory as a theory that places too much emphasis on the order of words in the original language.)

B. Dynamic Equivalence

A dynamic equivalence translation translates the thoughts or ideas of the original text into similar thoughts or ideas in English, and “attempts to have the same impact on modern readers as the original had on its own audience.”²Another term for a dynamic equivalence translation is a “thought-for-thought” translation, as explained in the “Introduction” to the New Living Translation (NLT): the translators say that “a dynamic-equivalence translation can also be called a thought-for-thought translation, as contrasted with a formal-equivalence or word-for-word translation.”³

A good illustration of the difference between essentially literal and dynamic equivalence translations is actually given in the “Introduction” to the NLT. They mention 1 Kings 2:10, which says, in the King James Version, “So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David.”⁴Then they note that the NLT translates this verse, “Then David died and was buried in the city of David.”⁵The NLT translators see this as an advantage, for they say, “Only the New Living Translation clearly translates the real meaning of the Hebrew idiom ‘slept with his fathers’ into contemporary English.”⁶The argument in favor of the NLT would be that today, when John Doe dies, English speakers don’t say that John Doe “slept with his fathers.” Today, the way we would express the idea that someone died is simply to say that John Doe “died,” so that is what the NLT has done. The translation is a “thought-for-thought” translation because the main thought or idea—the idea that David died and was buried—is expressed in a way that modern speakers would use to express the same idea today.

However, that is not the end of the argument. Defenders of essentially literal translations object that some details are missing in the NLT’s thought-for-thought translation of 1 Kings 2:10. The dynamic equivalence translation does not include the idea of sleeping as a rich metaphor for death, a metaphor in which there is a veiled hint of someday awakening from that sleep to a new life. The expression “slept with his fathers” also includes a faint hint of a corporate relationship with David’s ancestors who had previously died, something that is also missing from the dynamic equivalence translation, “then David died.” Critics of the NLT would agree that the NLT translated the main idea into contemporary English, but they would add that it is better to translate all of the words of the Hebrew original, including the word shakab (which means, “to lie down, sleep”), and the words ’im (which means “with”), and ‘ab’ (which means “father,” and in the plural, “fathers”), since these words are in the Hebrew text as well. When these words are translated, not just the main idea but also more details of the meaning of the Hebrew original are brought over into English.

But will modern readers understand the literal translation, “David slept with his fathers”? Defenders of dynamic equivalence translations will say it is too difficult for readers to understand this since it is not an expression that English speakers use today. But defenders of essentially literal translations will reply that even modern readers who have never heard this idiom before will understand it because the rest of the sentence says that David was buried: “Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David” (1 Kings 2:10, ESV). The larger context begins in verse 1, “When David’s time to die drew near . . .” (1 Kings 2:1). Modern readers may ponder the expression for a moment, but they will understand it, and they will then have access to the much greater richness of meaning that was there in the original text.

C. Translations Fall Along a Spectrum

Everyone involved in recent debates over Bible translations agrees that all Bible translations fall along a spectrum from those that are very literal to those that are very free or paraphrastic. This spectrum is represented on the following chart. (As the chart suggests, dynamic equivalence translations fall along a broader spectrum than essentially literal translations, because there is a wide variety in how much they are willing to paraphrase and to simplify to an easily understood idea in each verse or sentence.)

A SPECTRUM OF TRANSLATIONS

KJV	NRSV	NIV	GNB	NCV	CEV	LB	MESSAGE
NKJV	HCSB	NIVI	REB	GW
RSV	NET	TNIV		NLT
NASB
ESV

ESSENTIALLY	MIXED	DYNAMIC	VERY
LITERAL		EQUIVALENCE	PARAPHRASTIC

Abbreviations for Bible Versions (in order of publication; dates are given for the first publication of the entire Bible in each version; second dates indicate significant revisions):

KJV	King James Version (1611)
RSV	Revised Standard Version (1952, 1971)
NASB	New American Standard Version (New American Standard Bible) (1963, 1995)
LB	The Living Bible (1971)
GNB	Good News Bible: The Bible in Today's English Version (1976, 1992)
NKJV	New King James Version (1982)
NIV	New International Version (1984)
NCV	New Century Version (1987, 1991)
REB	Revised English Bible (1989)
NRSV	New Revised Standard Version (1989)
CEV	Contemporary English Version (1995)
GW	God's Word (1995)
MESSAGE	The Message (1995)
NIVI	New International Version Inclusive Language Edition (published in UK; 1995, 1996)
NLT	New Living Translation (1996)
NET	The NET Bible, New English Translation (1996)
ESV	English Standard Version (2001)
HCSB	Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004)
TNIV	Today's New International Version (2005)

This means that in actual practice every dynamic equivalence translation still has a lot of “word-for-word” renderings of individual words in the biblical text. And every essentially literal translation has some amount of “paraphrase” where a woodenly literal translation would be nearly incomprehensible to modern readers and would hinder communication rather than helping it. One common example is Philemon 7, which in the King James Version said:

For we have great joy and compassion in thy love, because the bow-els of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother (Philem. 7, KJV).

The Greek word translated “bowels” is splagchna, which refers to the inward parts of the body, especially the stomach and intestines, but when not used to refer literally to those parts of the body the Greek word referred metaphorically to the seat of inward emotions or to the emotions themselves, especially love, sympathy and mercy.⁷

So how should this word be translated today? The word “bowels” is not appropriate because it has come to be used in modern English almost exclusively to refer to the intestines and the discharge of bodily waste, a sense readers in 1611 would not have given it in a verse like this. Even translating it as “the intestines of the saints have been refreshed by you,” or “the internal organs of the saints have been refreshed by you,” would not help modern readers, because these highly literal renderings would seem more physiological or medicinal than emotional. For that reason nearly all modern translations (including some current printings of the KJV itself) have changed to “the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you” (ESV). This still talks about an internal organ (the heart) but does so in terms of an image that modern readers easily understand.⁸

But if all translations depart from complete literalness at some points, is there any difference between dynamic equivalence and essentially literal translations? Yes, there is. First, essentially literal translations will depart from complete literalness only where it is necessary, in cases where a truly literal translation would make it nearly impossible for readers to understand the meaning or would hinder communication of meaning much more than it would help it. But dynamic equivalence translations depart from literal translation and resort to paraphrase far more often, whenever the translators feel that the main thought or idea can be communicated more clearly with a mo...