Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Explore the Bible for Yourself, Part 5 of 52

IDEA: Good translations are the basic tools of Bible study.

PURPOSE: To help people understand how different translations function. FORMAT: conversation

If you took the tunnel from Great Britain to France, would that be the same thing as taking the tunnel under the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York? What do you face on the other side?

I. When you think of biblical translations, you're looking at abridge or a tunnel between two languages and two cultures.

The problem of the translator lies in that picture: How far will you go to bridge the gap between the two languages?

For example, "Greet one another with a holy kiss." Phillips translates this as "Greet one another with a hearty handshake." Is that an accurate translation?

Suppose you were translating that holy kiss into a culture in which public kissing or any sort is offensive? Which would be preferable?

II. That illustration of a tunnel or bridge points to three basic theories of communication:

The literal translation tries to stay as close as possible to the original languages. So it keeps the historical distance intact at all points.

Example: If we took very literal translations, we'd have something like "coals of fire," but we would not say that in English. We'd perhaps say "burning coals" which is really what it means. The literal translation has difficulties because in trying to be faithful to the Hebrew and Greek, it may be faithful to it in the wrong place. Then it makes the English ambiguous, whereas it was perfectly clear to the Greek or Hebrew reader.