translation Archives - A Bible A Day

In my post “Translation Confusion,” I pointed out that the Bible has word-for-word translations, thought-for-thought translations, and paraphrases (more technically known as “functional equivalence”).

These all exist on a continuum, so the lines of distinction between them are blurry.

Here is how Ministry Today magazine recently broke them down:

Popular word-for-word translations are the New American Standard Bible (NASB), King James Version (KJV), and the English Standard Version (ESV).

Popular thought-for-thought translations are the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB), as well as the New International Version (NIV) and New Living Translation (NLT), though both those are viewed as more of a balance between word-for-word and thought-for-thought (hence the aforementioned continuum).

Popular paraphrases are The Message and The Living Bible.

Not included in their list is the Amplified Bible. It is based on the American Standard Bible, which is a word-for-word translation.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

Translation Confusion

In continuing our discussion on Bible translations, let’s pretend I’m translating an ancient text. In doing a strict word-for-word translation, I come up with:

“She hit him, I never said.”

Even with punctuation inserted — which is a requirement — it is confusing (and sounds a bit like Yoda). Somewhat modifying a strict word-for-word methodology might result in:

“I never said she hit him.”

This rendering, however, can be interpreted in six different ways, depending on which of the six words are emphasized:

“I never said she hit him.”
“I never said she hit him.”
“I never said she hit him.”
“I never said she hit him.”
“I never said she hit him.”
“I never said she hit him.”

A thought-for-thought translation could be attempted to clarify and might result in:

“I didn’t communicate that she hurt him”

Of course, that still leaves ambiguity that likely did not exist for the ancient reader, as in:

“I didn’t communicate that she hurt him”
“I didn’t communicate that she hurt him”
“I didn’t communicate that she hurt him”
“I didn’t communicate that she hurt him”

This confusion begs for a paraphrase, which might result in:

“I can confirm that no one was hurt in any way.”

This is a clean and straightforward result. Of course, to come up with this rendering, the translators would have needed to look at the original text from the perspective of audience of that day and produce a modern day equivalent.

What if they erred in any of their determinations along the way? Then, what seems clear and understandable is actually skewed and misleading, but that of course, is a matter of opinion.

With all this, it is easy to see why there is debate over the various versions of the Bible, leaving me with my original statement that whatever version you will actually read, is the best one.