Translations: Blessing, Curse, But Mostly Blessing

Gone are the days of freely preaching at the pulpit and assuming everyone is reading from the same translation. While most countries are struggling just to have access to a decent version of the Bible, there are dozens and dozens of English translations available at an American’s fingertips. In fact, the average American household had three Bibles in 1993, and four Bibles per household by 2007. All in all, there are well over 100 English Bible translations available today. The top five best selling Bibles of 2007 were (in order of first to last) the New King James Version (NKJV), the King James Version (KJV), New International Version (NIV), New Living Translation (NLT), and the English Standard Version (ESV).

To grasp some challenges of the actual translation process, consider the following example. If a person was to translate “I gotta hit the hay honey, I have work tomorrow” into another language, how would the receiver understand it? The answer depends on two primary factors: 1) the translation and, 2) the receiver’s cultural context. For instance, a purely formal, literal translation presented to a person from another country would probably leave that reader in utter confusion. After all, not many Swahili, Indian, or South African people would understand “hit the hay” to mean “go to sleep.” Moreover, men and women in countless cultures don’t refer to their spouse as “honey.”

This is a simple illustration. But it reveals the fact that there are limits to a word for word translation, like the NASB (New American Standard Bible), King James Version (KJV), and Young’s Literal Translation (YLT). The meaning in most of the text in these translations is going to be readily discernable. In other cases, however, meaning of entire phrases, idioms, and expressions have to be communicated into the appropriate linguistic structures of the receiver if they are to be understandable (i.e. “I gotta hit the hay” means “I need to sleep”). In those situations, a more meaning-oriented, free translation is necessary to capture the original intention of the author. For that reason, scholars produced translations with a completely different goal in mind than that of literal translations, like the Contemporary English Bible (CEV), The Living Bible (TLB), and others.

If Bible translators were infallible, cultures didn’t change over time, and the English language could communicate any concept, then there would be little need for multiple translations. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Humans are fallible, cultures change, and the English language – if not simply Americans’ vocabulary – is limited. Consequently, no single English translation is going to be sufficient for all twenty-first century English-speakers who are trying to understand something written thousands of years ago in a different language and context. Of course, this also doesn’t mean over one-hundred translations are necessary to understand the Bible either.

In brief, different translations are created for different purposes, and a person’s goal in reading the Bible will determine what translation is appropriate. If someone is doing a serious Bible study that revolves around the use and order of specific words, translations like the NKJV and the Updated NASB are tremendously valuable. They are (generally) designed to produce the closest English representation of the Greek text, including word order when possible. On the flip side, if someone doesn’t have an extensive vocabulary and is more concerned about the general flow of ideas, a “free translation” would be more fitting.

But these are only two extremes on a large spectrum. Other (dynamic, or “organic”) translations try to balance between the free and literal position, producing a “functional equivalence.” These include the NIV and TNIV, which lean more towards a free translation, and the ESV and NET, which lean more towards a literal translation. The point in these dynamic translations is to communicate the meaning of the text in today’s language without sacrificing the structure and character of the text as found in the original language (Greek and Hebrew). Dynamic translations attempt to get the best of both worlds.

Where, then, is the debate? The debate arises primarily over two concerns. First, how much cultural accommodation should scholars give towards contemporary “needs”? Consider, that the recent TNIV doesn’t include the Greek words for “to your brother” in Matthew 7:4, which normally reads “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your own eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” (NIV) Why does the TNIV omit Jesus’ word (adelphos) from the translation? According to the translators of the TNIV, the gender-specific language in the Greek text is often unnecessary. People get the point whether they read Matthew 7 with “to your brother” or not. They understand that often times “man” and “father” means “person” and “parent.” The point of these types of translations isn’t representing the original text, it’s representing the original meaning of the text.

Of course, that only leads to a more important question: who determines meaning, and what determines what’s necessary? If, for instance, the scholars of the TNIV are willing to exclude “to your brother” in Matthew 7:4, what is to prevent scholars from omitting an entire paragraph? What ultimately becomes “necessary”? The answers to these questions are exactly what lead to a hundred different English translations of the Bible. Interestingly, critics of free-translations and gender-inclusive Bibles like the TNIV (i.e. John Piper, Wayne Grudem) make the same claim as those versions’ proponents: people get the point. People understand the Ten Commandments to apply to women just as much as men, even though the text says “Do not covet your neighbor’s wife.” And people understand texts that use gender-specific language to apply to both men and women, even though the verse says “he” and not “he/she.” Christian conservatives always give new translations a run for their money.

Another battle in the translation war is the field of textual criticism. There are over 5,700 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament alone (far more than any other work of antiquity). The Bible was not copied down through history in a single, controlled line of tradition, nor was the transmission of the text like the proverbial telephone game. There are multiple lines of manuscript traditions (Byzantine, Alexandrian, etc.) that differ in terms of content (textual variants), material (i.e. papyri, etc.), geographical origin (i.e. Asia Minor, Imperial Rome, etc.), and time (fourth century, eight century, etc.). What manuscripts should scholars use when creating a translation, and upon what criteria? Again, the answer to these questions lead to a plethora of Bible translations (see the works of Daniel Wallace and Bruce Metzger for more on textual criticism).

While most Christians are unaware of these issues, a lot of answers can be found (like the manuscript tradition used and translation philosophy) in the introductory section of any Bible. In the meantime, the two newer translations ESV and TNIV are rapidly replacing the popularity of the KJV and NIV, especially in Reformed, Reformed Baptist, and Presbyterian circles in the Midwest.

RealApologetics: Where the Rubber Meets the Road

I sat back in my seat and listened to a short speech from the head of the InMinistry program here at Bethel. She said “gender-inclusive translations is the position of the faculty here.” I wouldn’t have much problem with that, had I not heard the complaint of a second-year student who was docked points just for using a non-gender inclusive translation, a few minutes later. It was continually asserted that gender-neutrality is simply the way things are supposed to be for modern Christians. But, I had a hard time getting through this, wondering, “would the faculty of Bethel Seminary permit the quotation of the Greek New Testament?” Surely they would…but they would be incredibly inconsistent with their own philosophy; for the Bible, as God-revealed it,  is not gender-inclusive.

Did God then, make a mistake in revealing himself in gender-specific language and certain cultures, to which we are obligated to correct in the 21st century? I beg to differ. And as a student of Greek, I have no problem consciously and intellectually telling friends over and over again, “You know what, there are too many English translations. I would prefer to use only the NASB, ESV, and NET, depending on the situation. And nothing else, unless the Greek and Hebrew. A new translation for a new age group, new society, new sub-culture, tailored towards the reader instead of the text and meaning of the text itself, is unwarranted and perhaps absurd.”

Only so much accomodation can occur before the truths of Christianty are compromised. Every Christian needs to find out where they stand, lest we preach a gospel that is not of Christ.