Translators frequently have information at their disposal that doesn’t come directly from the text they are translating. Though it’s often tempting, it is nonetheless almost always a mistake to add the additional information into the translation. For example, if a mystery novel starts, “a man was walking by the beach,” the translator should not change…
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Adultery and Matthew 5:32 According to Matthew 5:32, divorcing a woman causes her to commit adultery. But Peter Kirk notices that the new NIV (“NIV 2011”) translation has a new take on the verse. Peter writes: One rather odd change I noticed, which some might attribute to political correctness: in Matthew 5:32 the “adulteress” (1984,…
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The popular Better Bibles Blog (“BBB”) has a new feature: Share, where you can leave questions about Bible translation and share links. From the announcement there: GIVE US A LINK! We would like to hear from you. The Internet is a big place with far too much interesting stuff for our small group of writers…
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The Pope’s latest comments about condoms have again brought up the Ten Commandments, and, in particular, “thou shalt not kill,” which Catholics and some others number as the fifth commandment, while Jews and most Protestants call it the sixth. Unfortunately, “kill” is a mistranslation of the original Hebrew, which does not say, “you shall not…
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The latest incarnation of the NIV (“NIV2011,” released on-line in 2010) sometimes translates ioudaioi (“Jews”) as “Jewish leaders” because “the negative statements made about groups of Jews in the New Testament were clearly never intended to refer to every living Jew at that time….” (translators’ notes, available on-line as a PDF — emphasis from the…
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I think it can helpful to look at familiar English words as a way of understanding ancient words and how best to translate them. In this case, we’ll look at one way words can mean more than one thing. “Cash” in English One meaning of the English word “cash” is actual physical money — dollar…
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According to the translators’ notes for the updated (“2011”) NIV, “every single change introduced into the committee’s last major revision (the TNIV) relating to inclusive language for humanity was reconsidered.” This is in keeping with an announcement the translators made in 2009. Some people were concerned about this, because they were afraid the translation committee…
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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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