Posted on 01/24/2003 7:34:07 AM PST by Brookhaven
Well, that's how I've always seen it described. You clearly have a different opinion on the matter....
That's an excellent question -- one that has been the subject of much study for centuries. Most modern translations use many or most of the available texts, and attempt to rectify any differences between them. The Dead Sea Scrolls have been useful, both for getting two thousand years closer to the originals, and also for seeing how much divergence has cropped up in the intervening years.
The current concensus seems to be that we have something that is pretty darned close to the original writings.
This is 4 semesters at most schools. This can be done when you are working full time because the class schedules are flexible.
Dyniamc translation theory is a license to steal. With dynamic translations, verbs become nouns, participles become what ever fits, Greek words are left out, subordinate clauses became unsubordinate, conjunctions are ignored etc.
Recommendod text books are:
First year grammar: Basics of Bublical Greek by William Mounce (this book takes at least 6 semester hours to get through Roughly, one week per lesson) This is the best beginning grammar text in English.
To read Greek: Learn to Read New Testament Greek (expanded edition) by David Black. This text tells you how to read Koine with many examples.
Translation work books: You can't learn it without translating. The translating practice will alert you to the problems with existing modern translations.
A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek by William Mounce.
For in beween semesters: A Summer Greek Reader by Goodrich and Diewert. (This book drills you, using NT text on the words which occur between 15 and 50 times in the NT)
Just when you think you have it under control you need to get an advanced grmmar.
This is an additional 6 semester hours of work(min).
Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics by Daniel Wallace.
There are two New Testaments in Greek. The one I use is
The Greek New Testament (4th revised edition with the dictionary- yes it does change as new texts and fragments are discovered) edited by Kurt Aland et al. Published by the United Bible Societies Stuttgart, Germany
Also get for reference:
A Textual Cemmontary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce Metzger This is also published by the United Bible Societies. This tells you why the choices were made to include or exclude items from the text.
To put the icing on the cake get and work through:
Biblical Greek Exegesis by George Guthrie and Scott Duvall
Two years from now, when you do this you will be able to pray the Lord's prayer as the Aposals and the ancient church fathers did.
Sometime during this process, pick up a GOOD lexicon to look up the meaning of words and to do word studies.
You then will know that John 14:6 says in the Koine
I MYSELF am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Faher except by ME (the me is emphasized in the Koine. The myself is there because there is a pronoun (ego - I) and eimi meaning I am in the text. This redundancy is for emphasis) Note: Itis not good English, so it won't appear in a Bible.
On a serious note, we need to get enough Koine readers out there with the Greek Bible to counter all this revisionism which is now going around.
Exactly. "Literal" and "dynamic equivalent" are merely two ends of a continuum, with word-for-word translation at one extreme and paraphrase at the other. Most translations fall somewhere in the middle. The KJV is more literal than the NIV, for example, but neither is purely literal or purely paraphrased.
And this is an excellent illustration. (I think I use it in my essay.) It is interpretation to say that "flesh" means "sinful nature." That decides the question that the Christian actually has two distinct natures — a position not held by all Christians (and, I think, not Biblical). But the English reader has no idea that there is any controversy or ambiguity; the NIV has settled it for him.
Dan
As for the translation of "flesh" into "sinful nature," you can at least understand why the NIV guys did it, especially if, in context, it conveys the intended meaning.
50Mas digo isto, irmãos, que carne e sangue não podem herdar o reino de Deus; nem a corrupção herda a incorrupção.If you don't understand the meaning of these words written in Portuguese, you'll have no hope of obtaining an accurate translation on your own. But I do. Here is the translation:
51Eis aqui vos digo um mistério: Nem todos dormiremos mas todos seremos transformados,
52num momento, num abrir e fechar de olhos, ao som da última trombeta; porque a trombeta soará, e os mortos serão ressuscitados incorruptíveis, e nós seremos transformados.
50 But I tell you this, brothers, that flesh and blood are not able to inherit the kingdom of God; neither can corruption inherit incorruption.This above is translation and relies entirely on meaning. It is the answer to the question, "What does the passage say?" You're making an error based on two different meanings of the word 'meaning'. The first is the one that I just used. The second is the answer to the question, "What is the significance of the passage?" That is interpretation. One correct interpretation would be to say that the passage is calling physical death sleep and is saying, among other things, that death is not the end of our individual human existence any more than sleep is, since there is abundant evidence throughout the Bible that "sleep" is referring to physical death. An incorrect interpretation of the passage would be to maintain that it is referring to a pretrib rapture, since there is no evidence in the Bible for a pretribulation resurrection much less a pretribulation rapture.
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: Not all of us will sleep, but all of us will be transformed,
52. in a moment, in an opening and closing of the eyes, at the sound of the last trumpet; because the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be resurrected incorruptible, and we will also be transformed.
And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friendsThis is a faithful translation of the individual words, but it misses the meaning since "he that pisseth against a wall" literally meant "man" (as opposed to woman). Since not a lot of people in English use the phrase "he that pisseth against a wall" to refer to men, it is more appropriate to use the word "man" since that is what the phrase referred to.
< coffee spraying all over monitor >
Wha-a-a-at?
Dan
Better the monitor than the keyboard!! Where the Never Inspired Version is more literal, it is very good, where it is more 'dynamic' it is very bad. i have compared many sections of the NIV to the underlying Greek Text, (UBS 4th ed), and found far too many instances where the NIV text did not follow the Greek...Check out Rev 3:14 in the NIV and every other translation. The most frightening thing is that they often interpret participles and infinitives, and places where the verb is "understood" (two nominative words with no connection, indicating a form of the verb eimi), with spurious moods, (the subjunctive, or in some cases, the imperative) that have no basis what-so-ever in the clear context of the text. There is not even room to interpret them as modals. The bottom line on the NIV and other 'dynamic equivalence' translations is that i can't trust what i am reading, even in places where it is good and accurate (without a Greek text handy, how do you know?)!
They think conjunctions make for rough reading... so they just drop them! This unfortunately IS OFTEN intepretively important, such as in Matthew 17:1, where they just ignore that pesky little de for us, thus obscuring Matthew's own clue as to the meaning of what Jesus had just said!
Dan
For what little it's worth, I don't much trust the NKJV.
My reasoning isn't all that rigourous -- it has to do with that "Prayer of Jabez" craze that went around a couple of years back.
Turns out that the version of the prayer used to sell all those books was from the NKJV. The passage of interest reads ...that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!"
Every other translation (even the KJV) has it as some variation on "don't cause me pain." (1 Chron. 4:10)
The author's choice of the NKJV version was a little too convenient for my tastes (though I do understand how marketing makes it necessary), and it led me to distrust the accuracy of the NKJV as a whole (admittedly, I've done nothing to confirm or disprove my suspicions).
Do you have some doctrinal problem with the way the NKJV translates it? To me it doesn't seem to make any difference. If you practice evil you will cause pain to both yourself and others. Either way, you cause pain.
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