David Frank at BBB asks if a translation has to sound like a translation. Not surprisingly when it comes to the Bible, two answers emerged: “yes,” and “no.” David’s point was that a translation into English should sound like English. Bob MacDonald seems to counter that the foreignness is part of the text and a…
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Genesis 2:7, according to the KJV, has the creation of man “from the dust of the ground.” But why “dust”? The Hebrew here is afar, and it doesn’t seem to mean “dust.” From Genesis 2:7, we know that it’s something on the ground, but we don’t know what. “Dust” is a possibility, just from this…
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In 2008, as I was writing And God Said, I described the King James Version (KJV) as the “fool’s-gold standard” of English Bible translation. That was approximately 397 years after the watershed publication of the KJV, hardly a date worth noticing. But today the KJV turns 400, and with that anniversary has come renewed world-wide…
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As with words, it makes intuitive sense that a translation should convey the grammar of the original. “Translating the words and grammar separately doesn’t work. They have to be translated together.” But, again, our intuition leads us astray. Here’s an example of what can go wrong if we try to mimic the grammar of one…
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Doug “Clayboy” Chaplin has an interesting post about literal Bible translations. Among other things, he says: There seems to me — behind the so-called “formal equivalence” emphasis on source language syntax something of a hankering for a sacred language. By sacred I mean, in this context, especially appropriate for or capable of being a vehicle…
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The debate between “formal equivalence” and “functional equivalence” has come up again at BBB, this time in the comment thread to a post about David Ker’s The Bible Wasn’t Written To You. (It’s a free e-book. Take a look.) Dannii started the debate with a reference to his post “In which I ask if there’s…
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I’m thrilled to announce that my father, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, Ph.D., has just started a blog: Life and a Little Liturgy. The author of three dozen books, Rabbi Hoffman — “Dad,” to me — is a preeminent Jewish liturgist (it’s a niche market, I know, but he’s got it cornered) and leading modern Jewish…
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Judge Not “Judge not…” Most people are familiar with this famous verse from Matthew 7:1 (and the similar Luke 6:37), and know that the full line runs along the lines of “Judge not, that you be not judged” (ESV). The content of the line is pretty easy to understand, but the poetry is very hard…
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In a comment on Dr. Claude Mariottini’s excellent blog, a reader named Daniel asks: “Since we have cleared up centuries of inferior translating, and presumably inferior application, now we should do …?” It’s an excellent question. Normally when we find a better way of doing things, we move on: “Out with the old and in…
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