Featured Definitions Again

Is there when translators went from word to word to thought by thought phase?

 

You have to get behind the actual wording used and more in the mind of the writer of scripture per that, but wind up many times giving more commentary on what think it should have said that what was said!

 

Isn't that then where the issue of just how much interpretation and commentary gets interjected into the translation?

 

What is the definition of the translation process used by the Nkjv in their preface?

 

Optimal, or complete equivalence!

 

So the Esv with their "essentially literal" would be using that also then?

 

Formal Equivalence = Word or Phrase Contextual Meaning of the source language text translated into the same meaning in the target language using consistent word or phrases for each translated meaning. Thus monogenes should be translated either as "unique" or as "one of a kind" but the same meaning should not be translated inconsistently.

 

The very word translation by definition, when used to refer to something that is translated from one language into another language, would require its need of a source or sources from which to be translated and on which it is therefore dependent. By reason of its proper, exact definition concerning what constitutes its being a translation, it is unequivocally or univocally termed a “translation.“ Of what is it a translation? A translation is univocally a translation as a necessary consequence of its being translated from an original language source into a different language. What is more essential to the being, state, or constitution of a translation than having source or sources from which it was translated and derived? A Bible translation cannot be something other than what it is.

By definition and by the laws of causality and of non-contradiction, a Bible translation would be in a different state, classification, category, or order of thing or being than untranslated original language texts of Scripture. A proper definition of a term would include the whole category or class of things which it seeks to define and would exclude what does not properly come under that term or name. Edward Carnell asserted: “For it is impossible to relate two different orders of being by the same terms with exactly the same meaning to each” (Introduction to Christian Apologetics, p. 145). It should be clear that a Bible translation does not belong in the same category or classification as untranslated original language texts of Scripture.

A correct analytic statement would be true by virtue of the accurate meanings of its terms alone. A translation remains what it actually or truly is. Whatever is essential to its constitution as a translation is essential to it. By definition, a translation would not be the translation of nothing. By definition, a Bible translation is not the source or cause of itself. A translation cannot create itself. There could not be a translation without a source or sources from which it is translated, to which it is related, and to which it may be compared and evaluated for accuracy. A translation without any underlying texts or sources to which it is related by being translated from them would not by definition be a translation. Likewise, a translation cannot be an exact or identical duplicate of its source or sources; otherwise, by definition it would not be a translation but would instead be an identical copy or duplicate.

 

I agree. On the other hand, after words have been transliterated and then been in a language say a thousand years and have gained status and meaning, is it still proper to keep referring to using them in new translations as transliteration? For example, baptize was a transliteration, but has so long since been an English word. What are your thoughts on this?

 

The key thing about "transliteration" is that a Greek word as presented with Greek alphabet symbols, and would if pronounced correctly produce a certain sound, is represented using English alphabet symbols such that if pronounced would produce the same sound. Since the entire Bible has been transliterated, we who cannot understand Greek, can read and pronounce a transliterated interlinear, and close the gap between the inspired text and our capabilities. I can pronounce "monogenes" and identify where it appears in John 3:16, and look up its historical range of meaning in a lexicon.

 

Huh? What's it a transliteration of?

 

Baptizmo?

 

The key thing about "transliteration" is that a Greek word as presented with Greek alphabet symbols, and would if pronounced correctly produce a certain sound, is represented using English alphabet symbols such that if pronounced would produce the same sound. Since the entire Bible has been transliterated, we who cannot understand Greek, can read and pronounce a transliterated interlinear, and close the gap between the inspired text and our capabilities. I can pronounce "monogenes" and identify where it appears in John 3:16, and look up its historical range of meaning in a lexicon.