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Still we see the lie

December 17, 2011 – 4:18 pm

This time of year I spend a lot of time doing textual criticism of Christmas carols. Tracking down the “authorized version” of the songs we have sung for generations can be quite challenging. And it’s interesting how many similar issues pop up that we face in Bible translation. Even in those cases where we know […]

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Here’s the answers

October 17, 2011 – 4:41 am

Yesterday (Disagreeable nouns) I posted some examples of “disagreeable nouns” in English translations. And I included a few examples of my own just to see if you were awake. Here are the four passages I listed with the problems highlighted and explained. 1. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the […]

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Disagreeable nouns

October 16, 2011 – 6:34 am

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1, ESV) Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. (Mark 2:13, NIV) One day Zechariah’s group of priests were on duty, and he was serving […]

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It’s the thought that counts: Eugene Nida and Bible translation

September 15, 2011 – 5:55 am

Nathan at ThinkChristian has a post on Eugene Nida and his influence on modern Bible translations. “As someone who loves language and linguistics, I appreciate Nida simply for putting linguistics back into the equation for translators and not conceding the turf of translation to scholars concerned first with theology, dooming us to clunky, wooden and […]

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The rise of “face fell”

September 5, 2011 – 7:14 am

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Mark 10:22, NIV This is a strange little expression. The original Greek is strange (or at least rare). And the history of the use of “face fell” as an idiomatic expression for, “become sad or gloomy” is really weird. Let’s […]

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Aural/oral qualities of the KJV/AV

July 19, 2011 – 11:09 am

Tim Bulkeley is looking for some help in studying the aural/oral qualities of the KJV/AV: “My thought is to address the well-known aural/oral qualities of the KJV/AV and relate that to the possibilities of various oralities/new oralities introduced by the move to electronically mediated communications.” I’ve attempted to look at the problem based on the […]

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Using Oral Reading Fluency tests to analyze Bible translation reading difficulty

May 18, 2011 – 8:50 am

UPDATE: I’ve added a sample text to the bottom of this post for those who want to try a test. On my FutureBible blog I’ve been looking at the subject of reader fluency as a measure of comprehension. This is based two articles published in the journal of the International Reading Association: Fluency: Bridge Between […]

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Those who actually read the Bible prefer the KJV

April 25, 2011 – 3:27 pm

Although there are two dozen English-language Bibles in many contemporary translations, the King James Version reigns even more supreme among those who actually read their Bibles: 82% of those who read the Good Book at least once a month rely on the translation that first brought the Scripture to the English-speaking masses worldwide. USA Today: […]

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The Better Bible Was Written To You

April 16, 2011 – 11:22 am

I’ve put together a collection of essays from my Lingamish blog about how to read, interpret and apply the Bible. The result is The Bible Wasn’t Written To You, a free electronic book available in many formats. One of the things that this book affirms is the power of a good Bible translation. Some people […]

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The perfect Philippians translation

March 1, 2011 – 1:32 pm

I read with interest the recent discussion about Philippians 2:6-7. The re-imagining of the frame of that verse has led to a new way of translating the verse. For me, it’s always been a slightly strange expression, “consider equality with God a thing to be grasped.” Since we’re in the neighborhood, I thought I’d bring up […]

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