Command: followup
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
To: smith_w@apollo.hp.com
Subject: Re: Starting and Staying with Scripture
Distribution: 
References: <1991Aug16.124303.4921@inmos.co.uk> <1991Aug16.153713.12415@apollo.hp.com> <1991Aug22.124112.9616@inmos.co.uk> <1991Aug31.164408.3475@apollo.hp.com>

>Like the Good News bible, isn't that a "paraphrase bible"?  Leaning
>more towards readability than exactness of translation?

TEV (= Good News Bible) is a "dynamic equivalence" translation.
Whether it's exact depends upon what you mean by exact. The TEV
translators believe they are more exact than a literal translation.

There are two major methods of translation, because it's impossible in
general to show both the exact form of the original and get all the
meaning.  There are advantages to each.

A literal translation lets you see aspects such as the poetic
structure, and (if it is very literal) whether the same word is being
used in several passsages.  Thus it is useful if you are working with
a detailed commentary that is discussing the original language or the
literary form.  However typically there's a cost: you often miss the
meaning.

Dyanmic equivalence is the opposite approach.  Its goal is to transfer
the same meaning and impact to a modern reader than the original would
have to its original readers.  It departs from a literal translation
for a number of reasons: (1) idiom, (2) words that have several
meanings, which you must choose from based on a combination of context
and grammar, (3) words that have no direct equivalent in English, so
that they are best rendered by a phrase or by choosing a different
wording, (4) differences in grammatical and stylistic conventions
(e.g. Paul often going on for a whole paragraph as a single sentence.
This isn't the way we write English, and most people find it very
confusing to read.)  But there's a cost to this, too.  You often lose
features of the original form, particularly in poetic passages.

Most translations are a compromise between these two methods.
Mainstream translations such as KJV, NRSV, NAB, and NIV all try to
stick as close to literal as they can without paying too high a
penalty in meaning, but will adopt features of dynamic equivalence
where necessary.  Thus they do not necessarily translate a given word
in the original the same way, but they try to be as consistent as
possible.  NEB/REB and JB/NJB tend to be slightly more in the
direction of dynamic equivalence.  However they are still compromises,
and still try to retain much of the literary form on the original, and
to use technical words consistently.

NASB and TEV are examples of more pure approaches.  NASB attempted to
be as literal as possible while at least making sense in English (how
much sense is a matter of debate).  TEV is a pure dynamic equivalence
translation.  Its sole goal is to give the most accurate account of
the meaning, but nothing about the original word choice or sentence
form.

I find TEV particularly useful in passages where there are features
such as irony and sarcasm, which typically don't make it through a
literal translation.  Thus I recommend it strongly for Job and
Ecclesiastes.  You'll see things that you would never realize are
there.  The point that makes it a translation and not a paraphrase is
that they *are* there in the original.  It's just that unless you are
an expert in Hebrew you won't see them in a literal translation.
While Job is probably the most extreme case, there are few sections in
the Bible where TEV doesn't show you things that you wouldn't have
seen otherwise.

It's hard to know where to draw the line in this sort of enterprise.
There are enough differences in culture that you can gain
intelligibility by replacing ancient imagery by modern imagery.  TEV
intentionally avoids doing this, as they believe this goes beyond
translation.  (They cite the Cotton Patch NT as an example of what you
can do if you're willing to go further than they are.)  They also
avoid explaining the author's thought any more explicitly than in the
original.  This is typically the dividing line between a translation
and a paraphrase.  A paraphrase will tend in the direction of "what he
really means is ...".  TEV may do this as long as they believe the
contents were actually present in the text as read by its original
readers, but not otherwise.  Phillips was well-known for doing a
really good job at making Paul's thought accessible in English.  But
he did this partly by engaging in this kind of explanation.
Similarly, the Living Bible has a tendency to exceed what is really
there in the original.  TEV intends not to do this.  They will
definitely be more explicit than literal translations, which leads
some people to think they are doing paraphrase.  But supposedly they
do this only where there is something in the original grammer, word
choice, or linguistic conventions that justifies their translation as
being what an original reader would consider as the actual meaning of
the text.

This is a controversial practice.  Many Christians believe that this
is allowing a scholar's opinions to intrude between them and the
sacred text.  I claim that they are simply doing what a translator
should do.  When you deal with a literal translation, you are
effectively being left to do some of the translation for yourself as
you read.  Literal translations work as well as they do primarily
because Christians generally have enough education about the Bible
that they recognize a number of Biblical idioms, and even know things
about specific passages that are difficult to interpret.  But few of
us have complete knowledge in this area.  So there are always going to
be things we miss.  Frankly I'd rather depend upon the understanding
of a committee of scholars, reviewed carefully by their colleagues,
than on my own knowledge.  Yes, the TEV translators may be wrong in
some cases.  But left on my own with a literal translation, I will
certainly be wrong in a lot more cases. 

Of course in practice, few serious Christians use a single
translation.  I generally use the TEV when I'm reading a relatively
long section for meaning.  But when I'm interested in details, I use a
more literal translation (typically NRSV) with a commentary and (in
the NT) the original language with an interlinear translation.

By the way, one thing I like about the TEV is that they have been
fairly consistent.  The NEB/REB is generally more literal than the
TEV.  In some ways I think it strikes a good balance between literal
and dynamic equivalence.  But they seem to me to move somewhat
inconsistently between literalness and paraphrase.  Thus I have the
feeling that I'm looking through a window whose colors vary randomly.
TEV is much more consistent in its methodology, and doesn't leave me
with quite the same queasy feeling as the REB.  Part of this may be
experience.  Most translations are done by "amateurs", i.e.  experts
in the Biblical language, but experts who haven't done much
translating before.  The TEV cames from the American Bible Society,
which does translations for many languages.  Many of the translators
had done other translations before.  The person who did the first
draft (at least of the NT -- I believe his name is Bratcher) is a
professional Biblical translator.