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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | What does "send her away" refer to? | Matt 1:19 | wleman | 63372 | ||
Ed responded: "Doesn't the fact you ask the question say you also know the answer?" Oh, absolutely not, Ed. We often ask questions when we don't know the answer. That is the function of polls and surveys, to try to discover what people think. "In all modern translations (except the NASB) they have been rewritten to make them more understandable. The NASB in it’s pursuit of excellence must have realized the word divorce would also be incorrect since the actual marriage had not yet be consummated." Actually, the word "divorce" is correct and accurate because Jewish betrothal was just as binding as marriage. A kind of divorce decree was required to break the betrothal. Jewish betrothal was not the same as our being engaged to be married. "Therefore they choose the word set they used with the asterisk for further clarification." I'm glad they included the footnote. That helps. My field test tries to determine if speakers of standard dialects of English will get the meaning given in the footnote. It is an important principle of Bible translation that the most accurate meanings should be in the text itself. "This would be called leading and is known to corrupt surveys. By supplying the obvious answer it effects people two ways." Yes, you are right, Ed. The problem is that I am limited to multiple-choice questions when I use the particular Internet survey service that I do. I started out using a service which has a fill-in-the-blank format, a format I prefer because it doesn't ask leading questions, which have the problem you correctly point out. But so many people responded that it took them longer than they wanted to take to complete the fill-in-the-blank format (which does not ask leading questions, but simply asks someone what something means to them) that I found the multiple-choice format. I also offer the fill-in-the-blank service right next to the multiple-choice service for those people who wish to explain their answers more fully. Can you come up with a multiple choice question and answer options for Matt. 1:19 for me which would remove the problem of the leading question? "In one case, people like me “devious” say it must have a more than the obvious meaning therefore I would use B. For the less devious they see an answer that makes sense and use A. Therefore both cases would be wrong because in truth neither knew the right answer." So true. It is difficult to design good test questions. I've been a teacher and I know how difficult it is. We have to be patient and keep revising and being willing to improve the questions as we get helpful feedback like yours. "Example “What does this phrase to send her away” away mean to you? A. It means he was going to send her to some other place B. Something else. C. I don’t know Your survey if even needed would be better to supply either no answer or both the correct and the incorrect interpretation." But we also don't want to lead the questioner to an answer that they would not have thought of on their own. We are attempting to get an objective response through the surveys. My question, as worded, was my best attempt. I have been revising my questions as I have gotten feedback such as yours. "If I'm being a pain just say so and I'll shut up." Not at all, Ed. You're being helpful, and I appreciate that. I need help like this to make the surveys better. I want them to be as fair and objective as possible. Keep up the good work, blessings, Wayne http://committed.to/fieldtesting |
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2 | What does "send her away" refer to? | Matt 1:19 | EdB | 63381 | ||
Wayne My saying that the by the fact you asked the question must mean you know the answer, wasn’t an attempt to be a wise guy. I meant you had to have suspected Matt 1:19 was a hard to understand phrase or you wouldn't have asked about it. I further noticed in your survey each passage in question could be considered confusing because they all have double meanings. In fact you gave as a possible survey answer the alternate meaning in most cases. Therefore to me I would conclude you must be already aware of the problem, you must also understand what the problem is. And may even have a solution in mind. If that happens to be true then why ask? If you suspect a passage is hard to understand or does not convey the clearest understanding why not just change it forget the survey and get on with it? Forgive me I come from a corporate background and we only used surveys when we didn’t know if there were problems, or if we didn’t have an understanding of what the problem was. Both of which you seem to have a grasp of. That is why I’m having a hard time understanding what you attempting to do. Not that you owe me a explanation I’m just being curious. In my statement of NASB translators using sent her away was more accurate than saying divorce was based on the fact that in our society divorce is a term used once the marriage has been consummated in the marriage bed. I think the NASB translators wanted to once again underscore the fact Mary was a virgin at this time and had not had marital relations with Joseph. Possibly annulment could have served the purpose. I was aware that in the Jewish society Joseph and Mary were considered betrothed and a divorce would be needed for them to separate, but thank you for mentioning that for the benefit of those that might not. The problem is not the multiple choice it is the answers you provide. In this case you I would think a better selection would be. A. He was going to send her to another location. B. He was going to send her on vacation C. He had decided to divorce her. D. none of the above. In this case we supply both the correct and the wrong answer and make them choose between them. Or you could do it like True or false this passage means Joseph was going to divorce Mary? Or True or false this passage means Joseph was going to break his betrothal to Mary? I too have taught and did course development and I have spent many hours rewriting tests in an attempt to fine tune them or to remove ambiguities that I didn’t see the first time. So I understand your plight. I pray God’s richest blessing upon you and your task EdB |
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3 | What does "send her away" refer to? | Matt 1:19 | wleman | 63382 | ||
"My saying that the by the fact you asked the question must mean you know the answer, wasn’t an attempt to be a wise guy." I didn't take it that way, Ed. "I meant you had to have suspected Matt 1:19 was a hard to understand phrase or you wouldn't have asked about it." Exactly. We are trained as Bible translators to ask questions where we suspect there may be a problem. But we still do not know what the answer will be. We do not know what understanding people will have of the part of the translation that is being tested. If we knew, we would not need to ask. "I further noticed in your survey each passage in question could be considered confusing because they all have double meanings." Yes, each passage was a candidate for a possible misunderstanding. So I have made a proper field test, testing passages where we wonder if there is a problem. The field test will either confirm that there is a problem or will tell us that there is no problem. " In fact you gave as a possible survey answer the alternate meaning in most cases." Yes, I believe it was the proper thing to give the literal meaning which would be the most likely meaning one would expect, as well as to give respondents an opportunity to give some other meaning if they believe it is more likely in the context of the Bible verse. " Therefore to me I would conclude you must be already aware of the problem, you must also understand what the problem is." Exactly, because of our training and experience, we often can suspect where the POSSIBLE problem points are. But we cannot know if they are actual problems until we do the necessary testing. The same is true for any product which is made and needs to be tested before release to the public. We may know that the typical place where a tire will fail is where the tread attaches to the steel belts. So we have to test that place on tires especially carefully. If a tire passes the test, we are glad. If it doesn't pass the test, we have to throw it away. If most of the tires do not pass the test, we know that we have a design problem and have to make changes in the design. It is exactly the same with Bible translation. " And may even have a solution in mind. If that happens to be true then why ask?" Because we do not know what understanding people have from the translated passage. We are testing a translation which was done by a good translation team. The team believed that they translated accurately or else they would not have translated as they did. It is now for the field testing stage of the process to determine if the translators' beliefs about the accuracy of their translation are correct or not. " If you suspect a passage is hard to understand or does not convey the clearest understanding why not just change it forget the survey and get on with it? " Because we do not know the answer until we field test and learn the answer. Many times people can get the correct answer from translation wordings which may not be as clear as some others. There can be important reasons for not translating something in the clearest way. Sometimes it is important to retain the flavor of the original culture. With the many unknown factors in the translation process, it is necessary that we field test, to learn what we do not know. "Forgive me I come from a corporate background " You can be forgiven for that!! :-) " and we only used surveys when we didn’t know if there were problems, or if we didn’t have an understanding of what the problem was." Bible translators use surveys for a wider range of issues than that. We do not use surveys when we already know the answers, though, I can assure you that. That would be a waste of our time. We only ask about things for which we do not know how target audiences will understand them. " Both of which you seem to have a grasp of. That is why I’m having a hard time understanding what you attempting to do. Not that you owe me a explanation I’m just being curious. " I'm happy to try to provide an explanation, Ed. Did it work this time? "The problem is not the multiple choice it is the answers you provide. In this case you I would think a better selection would be. A. He was going to send her to another location. B. He was going to send her on vacation C. He had decided to divorce her. D. none of the above. In this case we supply both the correct and the wrong answer and make them choose between them. Or you could do it like True or false this passage means Joseph was going to divorce Mary? Or True or false this passage means Joseph was going to break his betrothal to Mary? " Thanks for the good suggestions, Ed. Blessings, Wayne http://committed.to/fieldtesting |
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