So far the broadest and most basic question (What makes a translation accurate?) has generated the largest number of responses at the Perspectives in Translation forum at Bible Gateway. Surely accuracy is the translator’s chief goal in rendering God’s inspired, inerrant Word for modern readers. But translators disagree about the best strategies for bringing the Bible out of the ancient world into today’s English vernacular.

  • Tremper Longman III writes that “translations are commentaries without the notes.” Thus, translations that communicate thoughts more than just words should be preferred.
  • E. Ray Clendenen reminds us that the biblical authors “weren’t just playing games.” Translators need to wield every available tool to discover the author’s intended meaning. When moving from original meaning to contemporary clarity, they must use an idiom that today’s readers can easily understand.
  • James M. Hamilton Jr. prizes translations that “preserve the way that later biblical authors evoke earlier Scripture.” But the translation process poses a great threat to this goal, with so many different scholars and linguists specializing on different parts of the biblical canon. Thus, the Bible’s inter-connectedness can be lost in translation.
  • Robert Yarbrough offers a simple answer to the question: “a translation is accurate when the form and substance of the original is rendered as faithfully as possible into another language.” But he acknowledges in teasing out this statement that there’s nothing simple about achieving this goal.
  • George H. Guthrie points out that accurate translations can’t just relate words according to their dictionary definitions. They must assess intended effect based on analysis of the original context. Then they must make the great leap into intended meaning and effect for today.
  • Denny Burk assess two examples from the HCSB and TNIV. He uses these to argue that “accuracy is best achieved by retaining formal equivalence as far as is compatible with good English.”
  • Richard L. Pratt Jr. draws on his experience of teaching ministers around the world whose options are limited and often flawed. He laments how translators are torn in two directions. “We want ‘to get the point across,’ but we also don’t want to say ‘a lot more than the Hebrew or Greek says.’”
  • Ray Van Neste discourages translators from deciding every interpretive issue. He encourages them to “accurately communicate the original with its ambiguity as much as possible.” Leave it to churches and their pastors to wrestle through the interpretive possibilities.
  • Michael Bird calls on translators to allow canonical context, rather than “theological shibboleths and exegetical hobby horses,” to determine their decision.
  • T. David Gordon defends the KJV as “always responsible.” When the translators needed to make educated guesses, they marked off the word or phrase with italics.

The conversation continues this week at Bible Gateway with several responses to the thorny issue of translating pistis Christou in such passages as Galatians 2:16. Whether this and other passages refer to “faith in Christ” or the “faithfulness of Christ” makes a significant difference. So check out Perspectives in Translation this week to hear again from several of these scholars, along with Tom Schreiner and Darrell Bock.