Bible 101 - ALL translations are interpretations

October 9, 2:55 PMMethodist ExaminerJames-Michael Smith

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Christians are often quite passionate about Bible translations.  This isn't a bad thing.  In fact, it's to be expected given the fact that Christians (particularly Protestants) build their doctrine and live their life based upon the teaching of Scripture as God's revealation to His people. 

However, sometimes people's passion for God's words end up overriding their knowledge of how God's words have been given to them in their own language. 

As a result there are often "Bible battles" when it comes to Christians and their translations of choice.  Fortunately today these "battles" are almost always rhetorical rather than literal (though, sadly, that hasn't always been the case in Church history; political power has co-opted Bible translation many times...with horrendous results!).

The most recent skirmish in Bible translations has been between proponents of "essentially literal" translations (i.e translations that seek to translate the words as literally as possible, even if it reads somewhat strangely in English) and "dynamic equivalence" translations (i.e. translations that seek to communicate the original meaning in modern English, even if it means straying from the literal wording of the text). 

Famous Christians have endorsed various positions on the spectrum of translations between these two poles, with varying degrees of intensity.  New Testament scholar Mark Strauss presented a paper criticizing the ESV (English Standard Version), the most popular "essentially literal" translation among Evangelicals, at a recent meeting of the ETS (Evangelical Theological Society) which his fellow New Testament scholar (and friend) Bill Mounce will be responding to at the next ETS meeting. 

For the most part, these debates are healthy because they help Christians to wrestle with how they understand Scripture and how they interpret it in their own language. 

Unfortunately, many Christians often rely merely on sound-bytes or the opinion of their favorite Pastor, Scholar, or Christian celebrity, and thus end up watering down the debate and passing along misinformation...often bordering on slander.  For instance, many outspoken proponents of essentially literal translations have accused dynamic equivalence translations of "leaving out words" or "adding to the meaning" of the text and thus "distorting the Word of God." 

Of course there is often some truth to such charges, and dynamic equivalence translations do at times take liberties with the text, which end up obscuring certain theological points...BUT essentially literal translations often add to the text or leave words untranslated for the sake of clarity as well!  For instance, compare the following translations of Philippians 2:3-4 from the ESV (essentially literal) and the TNIV (dynamic equivalence).  The original Greek wording of Philippians 2:3-4 LITERALLY says:

μηδ?ν κατ? ?ριθε?αν μηδ? κατ? κενοδοξ?αν ?λλ? τ? ταπεινοφροσ?ν? ?λλ?λους ?γο?μενοι ?περ?χοντας ?αυτ?ν,  μ? τ? ?αυτ?ν ?καστος σκοπο?ντες ?λλ? κα? τ? ?τ?ρων ?καστοι.

"...not according to selfishness, nor according to conceit, but to humility, one another considering being better than themselves, not themselves looking out for but also others every"

Now just translating each word literally leads to a very confusing jumble of words, so the TNIV and ESV translators each rendered it as follows:

TNIV "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others."

ESV "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

In this case, for the sake of translating the implied idea of the passage into smoother English, the ESV went with a dynamic equivalence approach by converting the longer participle-filled sentence ("considering...not looking to...") into a series of shorter imperatives ("count...Let each of you look...").  This involved ADDING words to the text (such as "Let", etc.). 

They also added the word "only" to v.4.  The original Greek text does not contain the word "only."  Paul doesn't say "not looking ONLY to your own interests...", he says "not looking to your own interests..."  Of course, the "also" that comes after gives the idea that Paul probably means they should not look "only" to their own interests, but that is an interpretation.  A good interpretation that is probably correct, but an interpretation nonetheless.  (Interestingly, the TNIV chose to keep the rhetorical punch of Paul's literal words by not translating the "also" in the second part of the sentence--which is actually missing in some ancient manuscripts of this passage, incidentally). 

What is the point? 

Simply this: ALL translations--even the ones that claim to be "essentially literal"--are full of interpretations made by the translators. 

Those who decry dynamic equivalence translations as "inferior" or as "distorting" Scripture are often quick to defend their own translation of choice whenever it follows the very same principle. 

Of course there will always be translations that try to do as little interpretation as possible, and they can be quite helpful when doing in-depth Bible study.  But the fact remains that unless we are reading the original text in the language in which it was written (i.e. Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek), we are reading an interpretation.  Therefore, the smuggness which some (but certainly not all!) essentially-literal proponents display in the debate over translations is at best naive and at worst disingenuous.  There is room at the Biblical translation table for both types of translations, and both types have their own strengths and weaknesses.