Bible Question: Which Bible is toe most correct, word for word and why. Please give an answer that is enough detail to understand, and defend why you believ as you do. |
Bible Answer: Dear Justme -- Let's begin with an illustration. A sentence in modern German says, "Nach hause heute gehen wir nicht." A LITERAL word-for-word translation is this: "To house today to go we not." Sounds awkward in English, doesn't it? But to a German the construction is perfectly natural, normal, conversational German. But if we wanted to translate that sentence into English, we would better serve our English readers by putting it into natural English. Thus, instead of following the German rules of grammar and syntax, we would follow the same rules in English and translate the sentence, "We're not going home today." The first translation is more literal than the second, but it is choppy and unnatural English. The second translation, while less literal, is nevertheless quite accurate and does say in a word-for-word manner in English what the word-for-word says in the German. The second translation is therefore not a paraphrase even though it is not rendered in the literal word order of the orignal German..... So it goes with all translations. Each language has its idioms, its own peculiar rules of grammar and syntax, its unique vocabulary -- all of which must be reckoned with by translators. Thus to call any single version of the Bible the best, the most accurate, the most readable, etc. is always a judgment call and thus somewhat subjective. But there are guidelines. There are essentially two schools of translation: [1] Word-for-word, insofar as this is possible and [2] Thought-for-thought. In the former, the translators strive to present in the receptor language as much transparency as possible of the donor language, e.g., from Greek into English. In the latter, the translators attempt to access what the original writer meant by what he said and cast his thoughts into the receptor language without being overly concerned with trying to replicate his exact words. The New International Version and the New Living Translaton have found favor with Bible readers who aren't fussy about word-for-word accuracy, but who want a Bible that reads smoothly and is relatively easy to understand. On the other hand, the King James Bible, the New King James Version, and the New American Standard Bible are among the favorites of those who wish their Bibles to say as closely as possible what the original authors said in their own languages. This, Justme, is as close as I can come to answering your question, which is a good one but on which you will likely not get a universal consensus of opinion. --Hank |