I too would ask the same question as Kyle does when reviewing this video. Parsing the Bible by committee vote is never sexy and the overall conclusion we should draw from this example is that the reader of the Bible must try to get to the original source AND the intent of the manuscript as much as possible. And then make the hard choices as to how to extrapolate what the Bible says with what is being observed within society and the culture around us. It would look like this -
examination -->
text redaction -->
translation -->
exposition -->
relevancy (personal / societal)
(Ya gotta luv how I got to relevancy!)
...but humor aside, it is a difficult task to interpret the Bible requiring knowledge in hermeneutics, epistemology (languages, symbolism), theology (both biblical and systematic), philosophy, ancient textual sources and archaelogy, church history (the early Church Fathers, relevant Contemporary Theologians, etc), and a reasoned awareness of the practical concerns of life. While discerning various ecclesiastical interpretations favored by denominational traditions and preferences as well as redacting and elucidating corporate and individual regional-understandings. And then, over and above all this, to be able to speak street-wise to those around you in a personally directive, challenging, encouraging and motivating fashion offering hope, love, counsel, compassion and assistance. There's a lot more to speaking the gospel than simply speaking one's mind and biases, prejudices and judgments in cliche-like wisdoms bundled in cultural fluff and folklored-proverbs based upon popular hearsay and loudly acclaimed rhetoric.
That said, enjoy this snippet of information....
R.E. Slater
September 28, 2011
**********
Biblical Literalists Doing Dynamic Equivalence?
by Kyle Roberts
September 21, 2011
This is a interesting look (filmed by the BBC) into the work of a Bible translation committee (the English Standard Version). What fascinates me here, though, is that the translators of this non gender-inclusive, “literal” version are using, in this clip (unless I’m misunderstanding), the same rationale for choosing “servant” or “bond-servant” rather than “slave” that the gender inclusive TNIV (and, in cases, NIV 2011) used for replacing “man” or “men” with gender inclusive pronouns. Or am I missing something?
So, I guess my question is this - what is fundamentally different between the rationale here employed to translate “servant” or “bondservant” instead of “slave” and that of responsible “dynamic equivalent” translations that render masculine pronouns as gender inclusive, when such rendering would be both better understood/received by contemporary readers and likely originally “intended” anyway (as gender inclusive)?
[Moreover,] Wayne Grudem’s rationale [for a literal bible] stood out for me, because he has said things like:
“I cannot teach theology or ethics from a dynamic equivalent Bible. I tried the NIV for one semester, and I gave it up after a few weeks. Time and again I would try to use a verse to make a point and find that the specific detail I was looking for, a detail of wording that I knew was there in the original Hebrew or Greek, was missing from the verse in the NIV.
“Nor can I preach from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would end up explaining in verse after verse that the words on the page are not really what the Bible says, and the whole experience would be confusing and would lead people to distrust the Bible in English.
“Nor would I want to memorize passages from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would be fixing in my brain verses that were partly God’s words and partly some added ideas, and I would be leaving out of my brain some words that belonged to those verses as God inspired them but were simply missing from the dynamic equivalent translation.
“But I could readily use any essentially literal translation to teach, study, preach from, and memorize.”
end of article
*To view a historical timeline of the biblical texts
and bible translations -
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/11/king-james-bible-historical-timeline.html
So, I guess my question is this - what is fundamentally different between the rationale here employed to translate “servant” or “bondservant” instead of “slave” and that of responsible “dynamic equivalent” translations that render masculine pronouns as gender inclusive, when such rendering would be both better understood/received by contemporary readers and likely originally “intended” anyway (as gender inclusive)?
* * * * * * * * * *
[Moreover,] Wayne Grudem’s rationale [for a literal bible] stood out for me, because he has said things like:
“I cannot teach theology or ethics from a dynamic equivalent Bible. I tried the NIV for one semester, and I gave it up after a few weeks. Time and again I would try to use a verse to make a point and find that the specific detail I was looking for, a detail of wording that I knew was there in the original Hebrew or Greek, was missing from the verse in the NIV.
“Nor can I preach from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would end up explaining in verse after verse that the words on the page are not really what the Bible says, and the whole experience would be confusing and would lead people to distrust the Bible in English.
“Nor would I want to memorize passages from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would be fixing in my brain verses that were partly God’s words and partly some added ideas, and I would be leaving out of my brain some words that belonged to those verses as God inspired them but were simply missing from the dynamic equivalent translation.
“But I could readily use any essentially literal translation to teach, study, preach from, and memorize.”
end of article
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
*To view a historical timeline of the biblical texts
and bible translations -
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/11/king-james-bible-historical-timeline.html
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