Another good app is the Blue Letter Bible which has the NET and several other free translations. As well as extras
Yes, they did some pretty significant revisions on the 1984 NIV, which is no longer sold.
Overly literal translations have their uses. We use the NRSV and the ESV to check minority language translations to make sure nothing important has gotten left out. They are basically crib sheets for the Greek and Hebrew. But the translators work from meaning-based translations in several languages while they are drafting so they can focus on the meaning. English and Greek are both Indo-European languages and Western culture has been greatly affected by Greek concepts. So it is often possible to be pretty âword for wordâ and still communicate. When you are working in other unrelated languages with very different vocabularies and grammar structures and discourse strategies, you canât translate âword for word,â it comes out nonsense and there just arenât words available with one-to-one correspondences. For example in the language Iâve studied there are very few abstract nouns and one preposition. You donât talk about love you say who loves who, you donât talk about adultery you say someone cheated on someone, etc. So translating Paul, lover of abstract nouns and prepositional phrases, is a challenge because all those nouns have to be changed to relative clauses and prepositional relationships are expressed with positional verbs.
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From a different perspective, there can be meaning in the text but beyond the words.
What do I mean?
Several psalms, and 6/7ths of the book of Lamentations have two key features that almost all English translations completely fail to capture. Any yet those features, particularly in the case of Lamentations, lend an extraordinary power, particularly to Lamentations.
(Little question: how many of us are genuinely captured by Lamentations? Not me, until a couple of years ago. And if you are about to cherry-pick a couple of nice, pretty, but totally unrepresentative verses in the middle of chapter three, youâve missed the point Iâm getting at!)
- Those psalms and 6/7ths of Lamentations (chapters 1 to 4) use alphabetic acrostics to lend a structure, and a sense of âA to Zâ all-embracing totality. If you like, the âAnnihilation of Zionâ.
- Lamentations 1-4 in particular uses a driven, almost rap-like, beat rhythm called âqinahâ, pushing the text inexorably onwards. Street angst in the city.
Yet our English translations almost always ignore these features. In Lamentations, a strong case can be made that a major part of the meaning is bound up in those features âbeyond the wordsâ that our English translations, with our microscopic focus on words themselves, generally miss.
Sometimes the meaning, which we tend to limit to the words on the page, can lie significantly beyond those words.
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Thanks for the update. I checked and my NIV (Archaeological Study Bible pub 2005) is the 1984 version. I do have other versions though, and am familiar with some of the needs you state â that is, the need to consider culture when translating into a particular language and so on. Not a job for the faint-hearted!!
ESV and NRSV are âcrib sheets for the Greek and Hebrewâ? Thatâs interestingâŠ
Appreciate your taking the time here.
I guarantee translators are aware, they are just choosing meaning over form. How does one translate an acrostic into a language with a different alphabet anyway?
When the Disney movie Frozen came out, we were living in Mexico and my daughters learned âLet It Goâ in English and Spanish. The âtranslationâ of the song, was really a completely different song, because they prioritized having the lyrics work as a song, with the right rhymes and rhythm in Spanish over communicating the exact same meaning as the song in English.
Libre soy, libre soy (I am free, I am free)
No puedo ocultarlo mas (I canât hide any longer)
Libre soy, libre soy (I am free, I am free)
Libertad sin vuelta atrĂĄs (Freedom with no turning back)
ÂĄque mas da! (What else!)
No me importa ya (I donât care anymore)
Gran tormenta habrĂĄ (A great storm is coming)
El frĂo es parte tambiĂ©n de mi (The cold is also part of me)
Compared to English:
Let it go, let it go
Canât hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I donât care what theyâre going to say
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway
But the Psalms arenât Disney songs and the translatorâs goals are very different.
I would argue itâs not a major part of the meaning, itâs a major part of the aesthetic, which will trigger affective associations that shape the inferences people draw. But all the imagery also triggers culturally bound associations that âdonât translate.â Why are we supposed to associate with a Cedar of Lebanon anyway? They definitely had specific ideas. All of this stuff is just inherent issues with the idea that any text can be translated in a way that communicates âthe same meaning.â Thatâs an ideal that will always fall short in reality. Poetic texts donât even communicate the same meaning to two individual speakers of the same language. They are supposed to be open and imprecise in some ways.
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JPMâŠIs there a reason why they call it the Blue Letter Bible? I know there are (have long been) versions that translate Jesusâ words into red. WellâŠmaybe I will have to look this up!
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Should have seen this coming, but they say
Cute.
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You are correct, of course, Christy. Yes, translators, in their process, are aware of this.
But my point is that the end-product of that process can have the net effect of having laid aside these key aspects of meaning
âMeaning over formâ. But suppose âformâ is, in such cases, an inherent, integral part of âmeaningâ? Why wouldnât it be?
As you point out, meaning is more than merely dictionary definitions of words or phrases. We additionally recognise that context, both linguistic and cultural, play into meaning. Similarly, my suggestion here, particularly with Lamentations is that form itself can be part of meaning, and that if the end-product omits form, it may also be omitting a significant part of meaning.
A few of us hymnwriters prepare versions of Psalms which attempt to honour some sort of mapping of Hebrewâs 22-letter âAlef to tavâ into some ordered subset of our own 26-letter âA to Zâ.
@Christy On the more general topic of translation, you might appreciate this, by Douglas Hofstadter: The Shallowness of Google Translate
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I agree it is. Itâs just that there is no such thing as a perfect translation. You will always be introducing inferences that werenât possible with the source text and eliminating inferences that were possible with the source text. You are constantly doing a cost-benefit analysis and prioritizing which concerns win out.
Yes, Iâve seen it done in published translations too. Check out the Voice for Psalm 25. Their translation strategy privileged literary artistry and poetic imagery.
Psalm 25
A song of David.
1 ALWAYS I will lift up my soul to You, Eternal One,
2 BECAUSE You are my God and I put my trust in You.
Do not let me be humiliated.
Do not let my enemies celebrate at my expense.
3 CERTAINLY none of the people who rely on You will be shamed,
but those who are unfaithful, who intentionally deceive,
they are the ones who will be disgraced.
4 DEMONSTRATE Your ways, O Eternal One.
Teach me to understand so I can follow.
5 EASE me down the path of Your truth.
FEED me Your word
because You are the True God who has saved me.
I wait all day long, hoping, trusting in You.
6 GRACIOUS Eternal One, remember Your compassion; rekindle Your concern and love,
which have always been part of Your actions toward those who are Yours.
7 Do not HOLD against me the sins I committed when I was young;
instead, deal with me according to Your mercy and love.
Then Your goodness may be demonstrated in all the world, Eternal One.
8 IMMENSELY good and honorable is the Eternal;
thatâs why He teaches sinners the way.
9 With JUSTICE, He directs the humble in all that is right,
and He shows them His way.
10 KIND and true are all the ways of the Eternal
to the people who keep His covenant and His words.
11 O LORD, the Eternal, bring glory to Your name,
and forgive my sins because they are beyond number.
12 MAY anyone who fears the Eternal
be shown the path he should choose.
13 His soul will NOT only live in goodness,
but his children will inherit the land.
14 ONLY those who stand in awe of the Eternal will have intimacy with Him,
and He will reveal His covenant to them.
15 PERPETUALLY my focus takes me to the Eternal
because He will set me free from the traps laid for me.
16 QUIETLY turn Your eyes to me and be compassionate toward me
because I am lonely and persecuted.
17 RAPIDLY my heart beats as troubles build on the horizon.
Come relieve me from these threats.
18 SEE my troubles and my misery,
and forgive all my sins.
19 TAKE notice of my enemies.
See how there are so many of them
who hate me and would seek my violent destruction.
20 Watch over my soul,
and let me face shame and defeat
UNASHAMED because You are my refuge.
21 May honor and strong character keep me safe.
VIGILANTLY I wait for You, hoping, trusting.
22 Save Israel from all its troubles,
O True God.
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My previous church used to support Wycliffe Bible Translators (and still does). At one of our mission prayer meetings I set up a table for Wycliffe where I went into the pastors study, found as many different Bible translations, and stacked them in the middle of the table. I did it to illustrate a point. In the English world weâre drowning in translations, but in the majority world many languages groups have 1 complete translation if they are lucky, some might have a New Testament, perhaps the psalms too, other might only have access through a language spoken by a neighbour⊠who incidentally might be a historic oppressor. Can you imagine reading the Gospels and hear Jesus speak in the voice of an oppressor? Many other people groups have no access to Godâs Word at all. We might have several different translations in our home, some places might have one Bible in the village.
The very fact that we can debate form over meaning, thought for thought vs. word for word is a reflection of the privileges we enjoy. Iâm not saying that to gas light anyone. But in a conversation like this, I do think it is helpful to step back and see that this a conversation that doesnât or even cannot happen, outside of a few major language groups, English first among them.
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Also, English Bible translations are done by teams of PhDs, many of whom have decades of experience studying the original languages and the minutia of various interpretation debates. We work with a translator who has a fifth grade education and six weeks of basic translation training. That is a common situation in translation projects in many of the minority languages of the world that still have no Bible in their language. Good thing God can communicate through imperfect translations.
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Others have provided excellent information about English translations. May I offer a different perspective. Following the Lord Jesus is not about having a âbetter English version.â Focusing on particular passages or words as is done in expository preaching about doctrines may make us feel more enlightened or comfortable with some scriptures, but such things are not a substitute for knowing the stories and narratives of the Bible. These are what the Holy Spirit uses to guide us. One might be surprised how the Holy Spirit uses childrenâs Bible stories. Childrenâs Bible story books are an excellent place to begin for a new convert. Accordingly, a version like the New Living Translation is easy to read and provides the substance of what the Holy Spirit uses to speak to us. And for most modern readers allows them to read more in less time. My wife had read her RSV through about twenty times in over twenty years⊠Three years ago I bought her a New Living Translation. She says she understands the Bible better and reads this version from Genesis to Revelation in about eight months.
Know this. There is no such thing as a âword for wordâ translation for some of the reasons others have spoken. Just as in English where words have multiply meanings, the same applies to the original languages of the Bible. Translators not only have a choice of meaning in the original language but also a choice of which English word they use to translate the word or thought. All translators approach the task with their theology, doctrines, predetermined ideas about how some verses should be translated, and how other English versions have traditionally render the translation⊠These things also effect the translation.
There isnât a substitute for reading the Bible over and over. If you are going to study a particular book, you might read it everyday for a couple of months. If you do not do academic level Bible study, reading only a single version will facilitate recall and remembering where certain verses are to be found. Regularly reading different version leads to confusion about which word can be found in particular passages.
There are not any inadequate English Bible versions. Even those versions some would discount, will accomplish the Lordâs goal in your life. The Bible isnât God. Read with the Lordâs blessings and âlove thy neighbor as thyselfâ (Translated using Elizabethan pronouns in these English versions. KJV, GNV, ASV. KJ21, BRG, DARBY, DRA, YLT). Likely, you will not purchase one of these English versions.
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Critical scholars mostly use the RSV or NRSV in their quotations in the works where they are not offering their own fresh translation. That is my cue to do the same. None are perfect. NIV is decent but it definitely has evangelical leanings.
Vinnie
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