The updated NIV has been released on-line. According both to an interview with Douglas Moo and to the translators’ notes (available in PDF format), one goal of the NIV is “hearing the Word the way it was written,” which, Dr. Moo explains, means “trying to reflect in English something of the form of the original…
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As expected, the much-anticipated updated NIV went on-line today at Bible Gateway. The new translation doesn’t seem to have a name that distinguishes it from older translations of the same name. It’s just called the “NIV.” Unfortunately, the previous two NIV translations — the TNIV and what I guess we’ll have to call the “old…
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Bible Gateway’s new Perspectives in Translation blog, a joint project with The Gospel Coalition, went live last week with the question “What Makes a Translation Accurate?” So far, six answers to the question appear on the blog. Unfortunately, reading the posts feels — at least to me — like joining a debate in the middle.…
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From the About page comes this follow-up question from a presentation I recently gave: Thanks for your presentation for the ARC — You mentioned the use of achoti in Song of Songs meaning more than “my sister,” but better translated as “my equal.” How do you understand Abraham’s turning to Sarah and telling her to…
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Bible Gateway is one of the top destinations for different translations of the Bible. It has also announced that the widely-anticipated updated NIV translation (the so-called “2011” edition) will first be available on its website. So its new Perspectives in Translation blog, a joint project with The Gospel Coalition, is sure to receive attention. The…
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From the About page comes this great question: This may be more of a philosophical/historical question than a linguistic one, but how would you render the word usually given as “vanity” in Ecclesiastes? Abstract nouns are notoriously difficult to track even within a language — “nobility” now is not what it was — but how…
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Different communities have different styles of conveying information. I think this is particularly important for understanding and translating the Bible. I recently posted some thoughts about prophecies (and why they don’t “come true” in the NT). Along the way, the idea of a proof text came up. In particular, I claimed that one style of…
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What happens to prophecies in the New Testament? The obvious answer is that they come true, but I think a more careful look shows otherwise. Matthew 1:18-22 / Isaiah 7:14 As an example of a prophecy apparently coming true, we might consider the first chapter of Matthew. The text starting around Matthew 1:18 deals with…
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The CEB blog has an interesting post about reading levels. In particular, Paul Franklyn claims that “[r]eading measurements are a measure of the writer’s clarity.” The CEB, he claims, aims for a 7th-8th grade reading level not because of their readers’ intelligence, but because the editors of the CEB wanted to create a translation that…
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The question of how much original linguistic structure should be preserved in a translation has come up twice recently — on BBB and on Bill Mounce’s blog. Bill Mounce notes that most people’s gut-reaction is that, “[a]n accurate translation is … one that reflects the grammar of the Greek and Hebrew.” (Dr. Mounce seems to…
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Recent posts from my Ancient Wisdom, Modern Lives:
