****The Randy White Guide to Hermeneutics
Session 4 | Methods of Translation
The Lesson, In a Nutshell* *(Lesson 3, continued)
**Your decisions about the content of the text will determine the output and conclusions.
The Achilles heel of Christianity is that it has not determined what is a Bible. In part 1 we discussed the need to determine which family of Biblical texts will be translated. In part 2 we will discuss the manner of interpreting the words we've decided to interpret.
Which Method Do I Use To Translate This Text?
Once the text of Scripture is determined, the interpreter must determine a translation method for interpretation. Few students work primarily from Hebrew and Greek texts, and such is not necessary to have a full understanding of the Word of God. This work goes from the assumption that an English translation of the Scripture will be the student's primary source of God's Word.
In Biblical translation, there is a continuum between word-for-word and thought-for thought translations. A true word-for-word is almost impossible since it requires ignoring rules of English grammar. In Greek and Hebrew, parts of speech are determined by spelling, and word order is not as necessary as in English, where parts of speech are often displayed in word order. In addition to clear rules of grammar, there are unwritten rules of functional grammar. For example, the Greek will often speak of the Spirit Holy, but in English we would only speak of the Holy Spirit. A Greek interlinear or the Young's Literal translation use a word-for-word approach.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, a thought-for-thought approach believes that the power of Scripture is not in the actual words, but in the ideas behind the words. “dynamic equivalence." The New International Version“father of dynamic equivalence" in English Bibles.
The challenge of word-for-word is readability. The challenge of thought-for-thought is accuracy. In just about any estimation, it seems, accuracy is more important than readability. For the interpreter of the Scripture, readability is very low on the list of needs. Interpreters need (and must demand) accuracy. To overcome readability issues, a host of tools is at the interpreter's disposal, including repetition, the use of qualified dictionaries, verbalization, feedback from others, and so much more.
Any continuum that attempts to display the various versions of the English Bible from word-for-word to thought-for-thought will be an estimation. But estimating the location on the continuum is important for understanding the translation in your hands.
Methods of Estimation
There are naturally logical methods of estimating the translation philosophy of a particular translation.
First, we should look at what the translator's themselves declare. Almost all translations include some form of notes by the translators concerning the method they use to translate. These should be read, but with scrutiny and discernment.“No Marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words; which cannot without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text."
Second, we should look at how the translators handle necessary word insertions. In any translation it is necessary for the receptor language to make accommodation for words and grammatical rules of the source that do not exist in the receptor. The best practice is that words or phrases that must be inserted be placed in italics or given some designation so that the reader is aware of the insertion. In my opinion, I would not even consider a Bible that does not reveal the instances in which this takes place. We should not that it would be virtually impossible for a thought-for-thought“dynamic equivalence" that a translation goes, the fewer connections can be made between the source word and the translation.
Third, we should consider how the translators deal with words or phrases that have multiple meanings. This involves words for which there is no clear equivalent, and words in the original that can be taken with more than one meaning. For example, Hebrew has the word hessed. The word occurs 248 times in the Hebrew. The King James uses at least 12 English words to accommodate the broad meaning of hessed, including lovingkindness, mercy, goodness, etc. It would be ludicrous for a translation to use the same English word for hessed each of the 248 times it is used. In the King James, there are three kinds of notes. The symbol † typically means there is a more literal meaning, while the symbol ||means there is an alternate reading, and the symbol * (or, more recently, a letter of the alphabet) means there is a suggested cross reference.
For example, let's consider Psalm 17:13.
Arise, O Lord, †disappoint him, qqcast him down: Deliver my soul from the wicked, r||which is thy sword:
† Heb. prevent his face. Ps. 95:2 marg. See Matt. 17:25 (Engl.).
qq See Ps. 18:39.
r So Isai. 10:5. Jer. 51:20.
|| Or, by thy sword. Job 41:26.
We should note that those who adopt the Byzantine family of texts as their underlying work have very little work to do because the choices are few: Young's Literal Translation, King James Version, and the New King James, along with a few minor translations. However, those who adopt the “updates" of older versions (that called themselves, humorously, a standard.)
Summary
If the content of Scripture is words from the Byzantine text that are interpreted word-for-word, then the output of the interpreter is much more likely to be Biblically and thus theologically sound.
