Translating God's Word into Today's Language
By Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss
Download this free booklet here - 32 pages - 547kb
View the entire booklet online here. Never before in the history of humanity have there been as many different translations of the Bible into as many different languages. Even in English alone, there is a bewildering array of options that one may consult. What are the differences among these options? What principles guided the various versions or translations? What are their respective strengths and weaknesses? This booklet is an adaptation of the ?rst two chapters of Gordon Fee’s and Mark Strauss’s wonderful little primer, How to Translate the Bible for All Its Worth . Both authors are members of the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT) that years ago produced the New International Version ( NIV ) of the Bible and its most recent update, Today’s NIV ( TNIV ). They make the case that translations like Today’s NIV that mediate between formal and functional equivalence in their philosophy stand the best chance of communicating God’s word both accurately and clearly to the broadest cross-section of the reading public. As one who joined the CBT in 2008, I would concur. In this adaptation, we learn why neither a strictly word-for-word nor an entirely phrase-by-phrase approach is suf?cient for translating one language into another. We are reminded that only the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic of the Scriptures were inspired, so that the translator’s job involves re-creating the best possible combination of original intent, textual meaning and impact on readers. But there will always be various legitimate options under each of these headings. And we are given an abundance of good illustrations, both from modern foreign languages and from Scripture of the authors’ various principles. Particularly helpful is a chart that places the major, current English translations of the Bible on a spectrum from most formally equivalent to most functionally equivalent. Readers looking for insight on more speci?c kinds of problems for Bible translators will have to get the entire book by Fee and Strauss. But a surprising number of key issues involved in understanding why translations differ and in choosing a Bible translation (or choosing several, depending on one’s purposes in any given context) do receive clear, accurate, succinct and helpful treatment here. I warmly recommend this introduction to the issues to any interested readers.
Craig L. Blomberg
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