Chapter One
The Need for Translation
Many years ago a much-admired teacher of Greek stood before her
first-year Greek class. With uncharacteristic vigor, she held up her
Greek New Testament and said forcefully, "This is the New
Testament; everything else is a translation." While that statement itself needs
some qualification (see chap. 8 below), the fact that it is still remembered
fifty-plus years later by a student in that class says something about the
impact that moment had in his own understanding of the Bible. For the
first time, and as yet without the tools to do much about it, he was
confronted both with the significance of the Greek New Testament and with
the need for a careful rendering of the Greek into truly equivalent-and
meaningful-English. And at that point in time he hadn't even attended
his first Hebrew (or Aramaic) class!
Since the majority of people who read this book will not know the
biblical languages, our aim is to help readers of the Bible to understand
the why, the what, and the how of translating the Bible into English. It will
be clear in the pages that follow (esp. chap. 2) that we think the best of all
worlds is to be found in a translation that aims to be accurate regarding
meaning, while using language that is normal English. Nonetheless, our
goal is not to tell the reader which translation to use; in the end, that is a
matter of personal choice. And while we think that everyone should have
a primary translation of choice, we hope also, in light of the richness of
available options, to encourage the frequent use of more than one
translation as an enriching form of Bible study.
The Why of Bible Translation
The question of "why biblical translation" seems so self-evident that one
might legitimately ask "why talk about why?" The first answer, of course, is
the theological one. Along with the large number of believers who consider
themselves evangelicals, the authors of this book share the conviction that
the Bible is God's Word-his message to human beings. So why a book
about translating Scripture into English? Precisely because we believe so
strongly that Scripture is God's Word.
But we also believe that God in his grace has given us his Word in very
real historical contexts, and in none of those contexts was English the
language of divine communication. After all, when Scripture was first given,
English did not yet exist as a language. The divine Word rather came to
us primarily in two ancient languages-Hebrew (with some Aramaic) and
Greek, primarily "Koine" Greek. The latter was not a grandiose language
of the elite, but "common" Greek, the language of everyday life in the
first-century Roman world.
Although modern Hebrew and Greek are descendants of these languages,
the reality is that the languages spoken in ancient Israel and in
the first Christian century are not the same languages spoken today. For
contemporary Israelis and Greeks, reading the Bible in their original languages
is like our reading the English of its early writers, such as the
fourteenth-century Chaucer. We recognize many of the words, but many
we do not, and the grammar is especially strange to our ears.
The third answer to "why do we need biblical translation" lies with a
reality that might seem obvious to all, but which is often misunderstood.
This is the reality that languages really do differ from one another-even
cognate languages (i.e., "related" languages such as Spanish and Italian, or
German and Dutch). The task of translation is to transfer the meaning of
words and sentences from one language (the original or source language =
the language of the text being translated) into meaningful words and sentences
of a second language (known as the receptor or target language),
which in our case is English. At issue ultimately is the need to be faithful to both languages-that is, to reproduce faithfully the meaning of the original
text, but to do so with language that is comprehensible, clear, and natural.
As we will see, this means that a simple "word-for-word" transfer from
one language to the other is inadequate. If someone were to translate the
French phrase petit déjeuner into "word-for-word" English, they would
say "little lunch"; but the phrase actually means "breakfast." Similarly, a pomme de terre in French is not an "apple of earth," as a literal translation
would suggest, but a "potato." Since no one would think of translating
word-for-word in these cases, neither should they imagine that one can
simply put English words above the Hebrew words in the Old Testament
or the Greek words in the New, and have anything that is meaningful in
the receptor language. After all, the majority of words do not have "meaning"
on their own, but only in the context of other words.
One might try in this case, as one of the authors has done regularly
in introductory classes, to present the word "bear" to a group of students
and ask them what it "means." In response one gets a large number of
"meanings" for the word (large furry animal, to give birth, to carry, to
endure, to put up with, etc.), but never the meaning that was actually in
the mind of the professor. For he and his family were from the American
west coast and were now living in New England. They had asked a service
station attendant for directions to a high school gym in a neighboring
town so they could watch their son play basketball. "Go down this (winding)
street," we were told, "and when you come to the tree, bear right."
Although context gave us a fairly good idea of what was intended by the
word, this was a usage we had never before encountered.
In other words, knowing "words" is simply not enough; and anyone
who uses an "interlinear Bible," where a corresponding English word
sits above the Greek word, is by definition not using a translation, but
is using a "crib" that can have some interesting-and, frankly, some
unfortunate-results.
Thus the why of biblical translation is self-evident. The Bible is God's
Word, given in human words at specific times in history. But the majority
of English-speaking people do not know Hebrew or Greek. To read and
understand the Bible they need the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words
and sentences of the Bible to be transferred into meaningful and equivalent
English words and sentences.
The What of Bible Translation
The ultimate concern of translation is to put a Hebrew or Greek sentence
into meaningful English that is equivalent to its meaning in Hebrew
or Greek. That is, the goal of good translation is English, not Greeklish
(or Biblish). Biblish results when the translator simply replaces Hebrew or
Greek words with English ones, without sufficient concern for natural or
idiomatic English. For example, the very literal American Standard Version
(ASV) translates Jesus' words in Mark 4:30 as, "How shall we liken the
kingdom of God? or in what parable shall we set it forth?" This is almost a
word-for-word translation, but it is unnatural English. No normal English
speaker would say, "In what parable shall we set it forth?" The TNIV translates,
"What parable shall we use to describe it?" The formal structure of
the Greek must be changed to reproduce normal, idiomatic English.
At issue, therefore, in a good translation is where one puts the emphasis:
(1) on imitating as closely as possible the words and grammar of the
Hebrew or Greek text, or (2) on producing idiomatic, natural-sounding
English. Or is there some balance between these two? In the next chapter
we will introduce technical terms for, and a fuller explanation of, these
approaches to translation.
While we believe that there is a place for different translation theories
or approaches, we think the best translation into English is one where the
translators have tried to be truly faithful to both languages-the source
language and the receptor language. In any case, the task of translating
into English requires expertise in both languages, since the translator
must first comprehend how the biblical text would have been understood
by its original readers, and must then determine how best to communicate
this message to those whose first language is English. At the same
time, since English is now the most commonly known second language
throughout the world, at issue also must be how well nonnative English
speakers will be able to understand and use the translation. Some of the
versions we will examine in this book were developed especially for remedial
readers or those with limited English-language skills.
The How of Biblical Translation
The how question concerns the manner in which translators go about their
task. Here several issues come to the fore. First, has the translation been
done by a committee or by a single individual? While some translations by
individuals have found a permanent place on our shelves (the Living Bible
being a case in point), there is a kind of corrective that comes from work
by a committee that tends to produce a better final product.
Second, if the translation was produced by a committee, what kind of
representation did the committee have? Was there a broad enough diversity
of denominational and theological backgrounds so that pet points of
view seldom won the day? Did the committee have representation of both
men and women? Was there a broad range of ages and life experiences?
Did the committee have members who were recognized experts in each
of the biblical languages and in the matters of textual criticism regarding
the transmission of both the Hebrew and Greek Bible? Were there English
stylists on the committee who could distinguish truly natural English
from archaic language?
Third, if translation decisions were made by a committee, what was
the process of deciding between competing points of view? Was the choice
made by simple majority, or did it require something closer to a two
thirds or three-quarters majority in order to become part of the final version
of the translation?
While the majority of readers of this book will not have easy access to
the answers to these questions, most modern versions have a preface that
gives some of the information needed. It is good to read these prefaces, so
as to have a general idea of both the makeup of the committee and of the
translational theory followed.
We should note at the end of this introductory chapter that in recent
years there has emerged a great deal of debate over which of these kinds of
translation has the greater value-or in some cases, which is more "faithful"
to the inspired text. But "faithful" in this case is, as with "beauty,"
often in the eye of the beholder. While we are convinced that a translation
based on "functional equivalence" is the best way to be fair to both the
original and receptor languages, we are also aware that at issue ultimately
is which version communicates God's eternal Word in language that is accessible
to the majority of English-speaking people. In this regard, almost
all of them do. But some do so for certain readers more adequately than
others. Related to this is the need for the translation to "read well in
church."
While the authors of this book think the greater overall value lies
with a translation that attempts to be faithful both to the biblical languages
and to English, our ultimate goal is not to convince others of this.
Rather, we hope to help readers understand the how and the what that
goes into any good translation of the Bible.
In the chapters that follow, we will take up the issues of the what and how of biblical translation, spelling out in more detail why and how certain
kinds of translations differ from others. We will also indicate the benefits
and limitations of each type of translation. We then offer examples of
the kinds of issues that all translators must face in order to render into
both accurate and understandable English something that was originally
expressed in Hebrew or Greek.
(Continues.)
