If you think the ESV is a dream translation and you want to continue in your ignorant bliss, don’t read this. The rest of you will have some good laughs. (Part 1 talks about the problems of translating too literally. Parts 3, 4, 5, and 6 give more examples. Oops. There were two parts when I started writing this; now there are 13. You don’t have to read them all; maybe just start with a scan of part 2.) Here’s the beginning of the conclusion (Part 13):
As noted earlier, this survey is just the tip of the iceberg. It should be evident, however, that the ESV needs a major revision with reference to its English style. I would recommend that the ESV committee enlist competent English stylists to carefully review the entire text with an eye toward standard English idiom.
There is an unfortunate tendency among biblical scholars—who live in the world of Hebrew and Greek—to think they are getting it “right” if they mimic the form of the original languages. The unfortunate result is a tendency to create “half-idioms” (half-English/half-Greek), transferring a few words of the original, but missing its meaning in standard English. This is what the ESV does when people speak “with a double heart” (Ps. 12:2), have “news in their mouths” (2Sam. 18:25), “go in and out among them” (Acts 1:21; 9:28), or “fill up the measure of their fathers” (Matt. 23:32). These are half-idioms—Biblish rather than English. As noted earlier, idioms work as a whole rather than through their individual parts. In translating the English idiom, “He’s really in a pickle,” it would be a mistake to preserve cucumbers in the translation. It is not the component parts but the statement as a whole that communicates its meaning.
Some critics have claimed that the only way to protect the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture is to translate literally. This, of course, is linguistic nonsense. The translation that best preserves the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture is one that clearly and accurately communicates the meaning of the text as the original author intended it to be heard. The Greek idioms that Paul or John or Luke used did not sound awkward, obscure or stilted to their original readers. They sounded like normal idiomatic Greek. Verbal and plenary inspiration is most respected when we allow the original meaning of the text to come through.
Thank you! I’ve been trying to point a lot of these things out to people for years, so it’s nice to have an articulate scholar-type do all the work for me!
There is always that tension in translations between literal and paraphrase. I think the NASB has this problem as well (they also seem to try to follow the original word order, which creates some terrible English sentences).
You could make a good care for translating the idiom and simply putting the literal translation in the footnotes.
‘Biblish’
:)
awesome!
Thanks for hosting us Sunday evening. Enjoyed meeting you and your family. Grace & Peace…
Leland Ryken would disagree with you.
Way to be controversial!
Several of my profs at sem. really enjoyed reading these links! Thanks for sharing!
Why, exactly, are we subjecting the ESV to such special fine-tooth-comb treatment? I’m fully confident we could find similar blunders in any translation – and yes, Todd, that includes the NIV.
In my experience, you never know which version will have the best translation for a given verse – and by best I mean how *I* would translate it =). That’s probably getting at the heart of the issue – people just have different preferences. We could niggle about such things in any translation.
Some of those from the ESV are pretty funny, though. =)
No, Danny, you *won’t* find similar blunders in the NIV. The reason is that it was prepared *much more* carefully. As Strauss shows, it’s not enough to gloss words and call it a translation. I think that Strauss’ goal was to get the translators to consider a revision and perhaps temper some of the wild enthusiasm about a translation that has some pretty glaring weaknesses. My interest in this is that I have always thought that “literal” translations are not good *translations.* I like good Greek and I like good English, but the NASB (what formerly was hailed as the greatest translation) is bad Greek and bad English. Either side (literal or dynamic equivalent) loses something, but in my opinion, the NIV has held up remarkably well in the 30 years it has been out. You will find translations you disagree with; you won’t find much that is laughable.
Todd,
I’ll grant that the more literal translations will probably produce more of the “funny” errors (or infelicities, let’s say) because they are trying a little too hard to follow the original. But consider this: looser translations can miss the point, too, and the English is so pleasant that the reader is totally unaware that he’s being left uninformed of the translational choices, or even that he’s being misled. Given the choice between these two (awkward but faithful or smooth but misleading), I’ll lean slightly towards literal. Usually I don’t have any problems understanding the point of a slightly awkward passage. I know that two women “grinding” isn’t referring to a type of modern dancing.
But there is a third way, which is infinitely better than the two above. Ultimately, the only way to do an honest translation is like the NET Bible did it – include 70,000 notes explaining the ambiguities and unknowns, and justifying every translational choice you made. No, I’m not joking. The only downside of this is that you can’t fit one of these in your pocket.
Danny – I completely agree that looser translations miss things in the text. Some things simply cannot be captured in any translation. For those not fluent in Hebrew and Greek, it is a blessing that there are different kinds of translations – some are better for reading and others for study.
The NET Bible would be better if the translation team was not so narrow. In my opinion, one of the strengths of the NIV is that it had a broad team and thus it has wide appeal to all kinds of Christians.
Confession: the primary translation that I have used this past year is the ESV. I think attention to some of the points that Strauss makes would make a revised version the new standard for a literal Bible translation.