Comments on: Bible translation and natural language

By: Ben Wehr

Ben Wehr — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:31:44 +0000

I think a natural language bible should be more standard in todays churches and communities. Here I am the other day reading Job and I find my self rewriting it so that it could be better understood for people who don’t speak ‘Biblese’.

I often find my self while reading the Bible aloud with my wife rewording the words as I go along to make it more simple and conversational. She hasn’t grown up reading the Bible and can’t just substitute one word for another to figure out the meaning.

Also, think about the younger generation who, when they read the Bible it doesn’t make sense. They don’t want to feel worshippy. They want to see what the Bible says.

By: ruben

ruben — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:55:38 +0000

For me, I try to read the Bible as I would a novel – putting myself into the narrative, absorbing the context, living the story. A Dynamic equivalent translation is best for me, the more literal translations tend to lead more to study, as if the Bible were a text book. I had been reading the Scriptures this way before and I felt that I missed the most important points.

By: Hannah C.

Hannah C. — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:42:19 +0000

Personally, I use the NLT for my main translation and have for two years. Recently I acquired an ESV, and I’ve read through the New Testament. What struck me the most was that the ESV was harder to read (a good thing in my case) and gave me a much better impression of God’s majesty. Romans especially made a HUGE impression on me. When I reread most of it in the NLT translation today, it just wasn’t the same. I think part of that is the choppy sentences, though that may just be a translation issue; I remember reading (probably on this blog) that Romans is a challenge to translators due to the long sentences Paul uses. It may also have been just the contrast between the two.

By: CD-Host

CD-Host — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:21:02 +0000

Patrick –

In terms of stylistict translation the scholars version, Gaus, Price all break with the stylistic monotone. That’s an artifact of the KJV tradition. Versions that break fully with the KJV are willing to capture the style.

By: CD-Host

CD-Host — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:18:29 +0000

For worship, liturgy. KJV no question. Under those circumstances I don’t care very much accuracy and I don’t care about understanding. The reading is for effect that the KJV “sounds like the bible”. I did a review of the voice translation last week, which is designed for informal worship.

Liturgical reading is supposed to be a blur of word pictures
Or Hebrews 8
10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

The word pictures work:
a new convenient with israel
heart vs. mind
people vs. god
teaching: neighbor, brother, heart, mind,
mercy / not remembering

Exod 20:2-4 CEV:
2I am the LORD your God, the one who brought you out of Egypt where you were slaves.
3Do not worship any god except me.
4Do not make idols that look like anything in the sky or on earth or in the ocean under the earth.

Ecod 20:2-4: KJV
2I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

By: J. K. Gayle

J. K. Gayle — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:58:51 +0000

Shouldn’t Bible translation of the Hebrew also account for what Robert Alter notes: “the language of the canonical texts was not identical with the vernacular”? If there’s this disjuncture, then should the translation into English try to mirror the “more formal literary language” of the Hebrew canon or somebody’s clearer “vernacular” English?

http://betterbibles.com/2009/04/29/bible-translations-unto-the-death-of-their-translators/#comment-13804

By: Why don’t you write the translation that no one dares to write? « Castle of Nutshells

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:32:41 +0000

[...] English, greek, translation trackback Rich Rhodes commented on Wayne Leman’s latest post, The Bible and Natural Language: John talks Greek the way an Hindi swami speaks English. Sentences a little too short and a little [...]

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:59:39 +0000

* You can also ask yourself if the semitisms were really unnatural for the first audience, or for the authors themselves. I have worked in a multi lingual situation where a set of Swahili words is used in English and it sounds very natural to everyone. That is a beginning of loaning words, so it is on a lexical level, but I can imagine that even on a grammatical level this could happen. Completely natural for everyone. If this is the case for all these semitisms, it would not be bad to translate it naturally in the target language.
* To say ‘No one dares translate that way, however. Instead we get this stylistic monotone, regardless of whether it’s KJV/ESV or GNB/TEV.’ might be true for English translations(not sure about that, I haven’t read all of them). But in Dutch a translation has been published a few years ago (2004) that tried to preserve the different styles that were used by the different authors. Jonah sounds way different than Esther and Romans and John and Psalms. I like that.

By: Terry Thomas

Terry Thomas — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:32:33 +0000

Wayne,
Great questions. These are probably the most fundamental questions that go through the minds of people as they consider which translation to use.

Personally I want a balance between the natural language as well as the (slightly) more formal “sound” of my translation. As you say, I want my translation to read as natural as possible but as you say not slangy and yet for public reading / worship I like a little more “formal”/dignified sound. This can typically be achieved by the choice of words when translating, for instance Blessed vice Happy in Psalm 1. Either is a proper translation, both are natural words in the language, one is simply more formal than the other. At the end of the day I am still inclined towards the “natural language” that sounds/reads like I speak everyday.

In terms of how the major existing translations do this (from my perspective): of the top mediating translations, the NIV and HCSB both find a good balance with the NIV I think having a slightly more “formal” sound to it in public reading due to its use of more traditional words such as “blessed” and expressions such as “O Lord”. The HCSB is more natural in reading I think, examples would be the way it has chosen not to use the vocative “O” and it’s use of contractions.

In the formal equivalent translations, NASB and ESV, I find the NASB to be very formal in word choice and sentence structure – it certainly has that “dignified” sound even with the 95 update which moved it towards more natural english. The ESV while having the “dignified”, worshipful sound is I think very unnatural, it had the opportunity to be a highly formal translation, formal in language AND natural sounding, unfortunately I think it failed choosing instead to maintain too much of the RSV archaic sentence structure and word choice.

Finally, on the functional equivalent translations, it is understood that the translations in this category would typically use natural language but they must guard against slang. I think the best of those would probably be the NLT. The language is very natural and I find it to be free of slang but I don’t think that it rises to the level to be suitable for public preaching and worship. Now let me admit up front my own bias against the NLT, it like so many of the FE translations have far too much paraphrasing to be suitable as public use translations though for personal reading they serve a very good purpose. I don’t want anyone to take this to mean that the NLT, NCV, etc are not the Word of God, they are simply primarily paraphrases.

I apologize for the length but hope that it encourages thoughts and discussion by others. Oh, my preference for a primary translation is the HCSB.
v/r
Terry Thomas

By: docdeer

docdeer — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:41:35 +0000

I think you make a great observation about the need for some to have a translation that has a more “dignified” feel. For years, I have preached from a NASB. Over the last few months, I have experimented with a few other translations (ESV, HCSB, and NLT). Most of the feedback that I get favors the more “majestic” sounding translations. Even people who carry a more natural language translation were interested in the more formal sounding ones (some to the point of even wanting to go buy one). And, to be honest, I even struggle with that as I try to settle on a primary teaching translation. I think that people who have any sort of church exposure favor that sort of translation, at least for their public consumption.