Parting Thought for the Week
I hate to leave such good conversations for a few days, especially when there is so much left to talk about. Meredith and I are heading out in a few hours to visit my sister Rachel and her husband Casey.
I leave you with an article about one of my interests, translation philosophy.
Form, Function, and the “Literal Meaning” Fallacy in Bible Translation by Mark Strauss
I have not gotten all the way through it, but I have liked it so far. If you have some spare time this weekend, I would recommend giving it a look over.
The problem comes when translation decisions are affected by the perceived need to retain form. The result is often barely-comprehensible (or incomprehensible) English rather than a natural rendering which communicates to contemporary readers with the same clarity that the Greek or Hebrew communicated to the original readers. Awkward and obscure English translations often result from seeking to translate idioms word-for-word, without carefully considering the meaning. Consider Matthew 5:2:
NKJV: Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:
RSV/ESV: And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
NASB: And opening His mouth He began to teach them, saying,
NIV/TNIV: and he began to teach them, saying:
TEV: and he began to teach them
NLT: This is what he taught them:The Greek idiom uses two phrases anoigo¯ to stoma (”open the mouth”) + didasko¯, (”teach”) to express a single action. Opening the mouth and teaching are not two consecutive actions, but one act of speaking (cf. Acts 8:35; 10:34; Rev. 13:6). In English we would never say, “The professor opened his mouth and taught the class.” This is a Greek idiom, not an English one.
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