Book Review - Understanding English Bible Translation: The Case for an Essentially Literal Approach

"It is impossible to translate any document without making numerous interpretive decisions to make it understandable in the target language."
Ryken does not deny this. (Anybody who's even spent 20 minutes translating a few verses from the epistles of John can see it). That's why they call it "essentially literal."

What he does show is that there is a genuine philosophical difference between the approach the ESV translators (and other more formal equivalent versions like NASB) took and that taken by NIV translators and the makers of paraphrases like NLT. It's true that NIV is barely in the dynamic equivalent category, and NLT is much deeper into that approach. It's also true that ESV occasionally gets fairly paraphrastic. They do this reluctantly though and from a starting point that is DE averse. It would be a great help to have translators notes for the ESV like we have for NET so folks could see why they felt it necessary to break up this sentence here and alter word order dramatically there.

But on that score, as one who writes a fair amount and edits a good bit--in English, sentence divisions don't carry a whole lot of semantic value. That is, one long sentence with four independent clauses does not mean anything different from four sentences, and the latter is easier to read. But yes, when you're doing that with portions of Paul's epistles, for example, you have to repeat subjects and verbs here and there when you create a sentence break and that does involve departing from "literalness" a step more than usual.

The truth is that all translations are somewhere on a scale of formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence and hardly any can be characterized as purely one or the other. But Ryken points out some substantial advantages for translations that try to be as literal as possible while still producing good quality English.
(Just to be clear, I have often found NIV valuable and also greatly enjoyed reading the entire Bible in NLT. But the latter clearly moves into "extremely concise commentary" on a regular basis. So it's value is similar to the value of a commentary, but fills a unique niche because it is so compact.)

I too just finished Ryken's book (and had been marking things hoping to review it here, but was told it was already taken). Ryken makes important points in favor of Formal Equivalence -- points of which every thinking believer should be aware. But I agree there is a tendency to make this an either/or discussion as if THE MESSAGE (at the extreme end of Dynamic Equivalence) and the KJV are entirely representative of every version at their end of the spectrum.

A casual reading of this book would lead one to believe that the NIV is as bad as THE MESSAGE, and that the KJV never engages in dynamic equivalence. Neither is true.

Where we go from here is the larger question. If Fundamentalists and Conservative Evangelicals are all going to rally round the translations that tend toward Formal Equivalence (KJV, NASB, ESV, etc.), as we should, then we must develop strategies to communicate the Word and its meaning to those with lower reading levels (rapidly becoming the majority of our population).

I'm working on an article on this now. In the near future I will submit it for publication here at SI.

Furthermore, and equally pertinent to the point at hand, cows eat grass.

I don't disagree with that but I think we also need strategies to improve reading levels.... in the long run, I'd put more money there (had I money to put).

I don't see NIV as being the same as "the Message" by a long shot, and it's true, Ryken is probably not careful enough about some important distinctions there. He does pretty much approach the question as "essentially literal vs. all other." I don't have my copy of his book handy at the moment but it seems like I remember the vast majority of his examples being from Good News Bible, Message, New Living Translation, and other versions quite deep into "dynamic" territory. But even NLT doesn't deserve to be just lumped with The Message. Vastly different. Both dynamic but Message pulls out all the stops. I don't consider it to even be a good paraphrase.

In Ryken's defense, he probably chose to keep some things simpler for the sake of the target audience of the book. He is quite passionate about ESV's translation philosophy though, and I did think he was overstating things a bit here and there in his zeal to bring the differences of approach into sharp relief.

My point is that there is no demonstrable correspondence between the dynamic equivalence theory of translation and new evangelicalism or ecumenism. This is a classic instance of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Nida didn't adopt the dynamic equivalence model because he was ecumenical or new evangelical. He adopted it because from his standpoint as a trained linguist, that's how translation works. You can disagree with the substance of his conclusion (and many do), but lobbing the ecumenical label at the dynamic equivalence theory of translation is quite unfair to those who appreciate dynamic equivalence theory despite their resistance to ecumenism.

It's OK, write it anyway... lots of people never read discussion threads. (Or so they say. I think some of them just do it secretly. )

Just so I am clear, Dave, are you saying that people who prefer a translation like the NIV are unbelievers?

I have not met a single person, regardless of their degree of religious training or education, who has not 'mishandled' God's words. Many have 'good intent' in doing this but the ultimate problem is that it fails in the final analysis.

I have seen people here do it, I have done it (as meaningless as that may be) and i have seen many 'famous' and 'reputable' evangelists, preachers, etc. who have done this. Dave, I will leave the determination to you as to whether you have done it.

This is always a problem with a translation (much less relaying the message to others) and was the intention of the KJV to attempt to avoid with the large number of people involved. But, then, there is the dispute between the KJV and the Geneva Bible and the reason certain passages have been interpreted in one manner or another.

Jim

Well, no, that's not what it is really. It is a good deal more complex than that.

Actually, a formal equivalent translation can be very faithful and inaccurate. It's the way language works.

But I do wonder if you reject dynamic equivalence when the KJV uses it.

Do you think that was talking about which translation method a person prefers?

There was more that almost as troubling as the statement I zeroed in on. But I don't want to get involved in that issues because I am not sure that it would be profitable.

Here's a few highlights though:

1. The KJV is copyrighted, though that doesn't really matter anyway..
2. The electic text does use all extant manuscripts. It simply weighs them differently than HF or RP or MajT. In essence, with the exception of the TR, these Greek texts consider all available evidence and simply choose different variants based on their critical philosophy.
3. The 400 years since the KJV was translated has brought numerous advances in textual study, linguistics, grammar, lexicography, etc. We should probably take advantage of that in the interest of knowing what God's word says.
4. As for "most accurate only," I think the almost universal view is that the NASB is the most literal translation among the common ones. Most seem to dislike it because it is too wooden in its devotion to formal equivalence.

Well, if his definition and understanding of DE/FE is wrong, then all of his examples are meaningless. The linguists that I've read and know say that he doesn't really understand the translation philosophy, so, if they are right, then his books merely amount to a string of examples of poor translation choices. Since the review didn't really present any arguments, I'm not going to go back through my copy of The Word of God in English to find his arguments to refute them. I posted a link above, which contains some info and a bunch of other links with more info.

Even the review, though, makes some unfortunate and unsupportable leaps. His use of Eugene Nida is irresponsible. For one thing, readers should keep in mind that Nida has devoted much of his life to working with unreached people groups who are getting Bibles in their language for the very first time. Much of his translation philosophy stems from his experience with languages that bear far less resemblance to Greek and Hebrew than English does. When he asserts "the priority of the needs of the audience over the forms of language," he really just means forms of language. So, participles don't need to be rendered by participles, subject-verb-object order doesn't always need to be kept intact, etc. His whole point is about how to faithfully communicate meaning from one context to another, not being distracted by mechanical features. So, when I translate "What's your name?" into French, I say, "Comment vous appelez-vous?", which would be woodenly rendered into English, "How do you call yourself?" Now, there are French equivalents for "what," "is," "your," and "name," but they don't add up to the same meaning. Not only do the French and English differ as to the (again woodenly speaking) words used, they also use different sentence structures for the same question. The English uses an equative (linking) verb with a predicate nominative, whereas the French has an active verb with a direct object. But who would object that rendering "What is your name?" by "Comment vous appelez-vous?" is being unfaithful to the original speaker?

Quickly, Nida's point that the language of the median age should be preferred is virtually common sense. I hope no one would translate the foreign language equivalent of "movie" into English as "moving picture" (an example a bit dated, but I hope still clear). In less literate/educated cultures, language change is much more rapid, so there may be a noticeable difference between generational speech patterns. In summary, people should actually read Nida and others for themselves. Nida for one is both accessible and informative. Ryken comes close to positing a "dynamic equivalence" conspiracy theory, and it simply isn't there. There are wretched Bible translations, but there isn't some supra-philosophy connecting the NIV, NLT, CEV, etc.

Charlie, I see where you are going with this, and I agree that Ryken is NOT dealing with some big underlying philosophical issues in this debate, some of which have theological implications. And they should be dealt with.
I am a little more at peace with some Dynamic Equivalence than most here would be. For instance, I am frequently OK with the NIV handling of a passage. I am only troubled by it once in awhile. The KJV has some glaring Dynamic Equivalence renderings itself. Sometimes, such a translation choice is required by the nature of the differences between the source language and the receptor language.

Nevertheless, your statement above is not really correct. The examples show the result of the extremes of DE translation philosophy. Even if Ryken doesn't frame the debate adequately, some of the examples Ryken gives from the more out-there DE translations are blood-chilling. The NIV is not the problem (except for a few isolated passages), but translations like "The Message" are dangerous. Years ago, publishers were responsible to call such works "paraphrases". We distinguished between a paraphrase and a translation by saying something like "paraphrases put it in different, easier words, whereas translations directly convert the words from the original language." The more modern and extreme DE translations blur this line.

I was troubled by Ryken's book, though I get his point. In dealing with the translation philosophy debate, he spends much time dealing with it from a standpoint of the "literary qualities" that are being lost in the DE translations. But there is a loss of God's intended Biblical meaning in some of these translations. Our doctrine of Verbal inspiration must have implications for our translation philosophy, though the particulars need to be hashed out.

Well, your comment struck me as funny since you are criticizing Ryken yet I can't imagine Ryken disagreeing with your example. (I do have to note that I haven't read his second book, just the first one.)

No one that I know has accused Ryken of being confusing; just inaccurate, simplistic, and unhelpful. At least, that's what people actually trained in the field are saying. The Decker article is the best, since it defines terms, discusses context, and then brings in Ryken at the end. Also, he prefers more formal equivalence. I'd like your thoughts on it if you get the chance.

Don, the point is not that Ryken would disagree with my translation. No one with the barest familiarity with French and English would disagree. The point is that I don't see that he would get to the right answer by following his translation philosophy as he has expressed it. It simply exposes that there is something wrong with the way the issues are being framed.

Ryken does make a lot of good points about individual translations and translation choices. Almost all of his reviewers grant him that. His problem is that the larger framework he builds to discuss the issue does not conform to the reality of the situation.