Featured Books on Translation

Well, now, when I get the thing I'll enlighten us all!

What I do know is that it starts out with the author's view of inspiration and preservation. You can read some sample pages here: http://theoldpathspublications.com/PDFs/Samples/Sample Pages Combs Translators-Greek-Grammar.pdf

 

I got a book recently which I have not had time to read, but am looking forward to it. It is Bible Translations: A History Through Source Documents, ed. by Roland H. Worth, Jr. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 1992). It turns out to be an excellent resource, with key articles and essays from history.

The book includes either essays about or the actual original document of various ancient sources: The Letter of Aristeas, Aristobulus (from Eusebius), Jerome, the exchange of letters between Jerome and Augustine.

It has essays and sources about Reformation European and English translations (Luther, Wycliffe, etc.). An interesting chapter on this is "Uncompleted Translations," such as that of William Roye and the 1534 Bishops' translation. Of course there is a chapter on the KJV.

Ch. Five introduces various modern English translations up to the original NIV. Then there are chapters on what are called "Immersion Translations," which means a translation which says "immerse" instead of "baptize." There are three discussed: Alexander Campbell (of the Church of Christ," the American Bible Union efforts (Adoniram Judson and others), etc. Section 7 is about the Roman Catholic versions, and the last section is essays about "Contemporary Issues in Bible Translation," covering gender neutral efforts, etc.

 

Hmm. Forgot about that. I'll see what I can do.

 

The NET Bible hardback

About a year ago, I was ushered with some other Bible college profs into a room with a bunch of books left on earth by a Heaven-bound preacher. One of them was a hard cover copy of the New English Translation (NET) Bible New Testament.

I disagree with the NET translation philosophy (clearly dynamic equivalence) as laid out in the Preface and Introduction. Not only do I disagree, there are blunders in the Preface. One is calling Bible scholars “biblical” on p. 9. A “biblical scholar” would be a scholar of some kind who lived according to the Bible. Another blunder is the old fake-out that translating idioms by meaning instead of literally somehow proves DE and disproves literal methods (pp. 9-10). Idioms are by definition figurative language with the actual meaning being different from the literal meaning. I resent it when folks try to use idioms to say my (or any other) literal method of translating is in error. If I translated "raining cats and dogs" literally into Japanese, they might lock me up!

Having said all of that, the notes on translation choices are sometimes helpful. I don’t often consult this volume, but it’s nice to have.

 

Now for an excellent secular book on translation in general: Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche, Found in Translation. New York: A Perigee Book, 2012. The subtitle is, "How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World." It mainly speaks of various translation principles and happenings in the secular world, but also references Bible translation. Well worth the read!

Here's a great story on p. 125. A couple decided to get married in the Maldives, and have a traditional ceremony in the local language, which, by the way, they did not speak. The officiant, however, did not give them what they wanted, but "spent the entire ceremony making insulting comments about the couple and stating that their marriage was illegitimate." Then the miscreant posted it on YouTube with English subtitles! Just goes to show the dangers of having something done in a language you don't know. I am reminded of the time Uncle Miya taught me that being too polite in Japanese can be an insult! So even if you know a language, take care!

About Jerome, the great translator of the Vulgate, the authors wrote: "One of the most popular saints in art history is St. Jerome, who also happens to be the patron saint of translators. Jerome's popularity is not surprising. His life included many fairy tale-like religious traditions, such as a lion that guarded him after Jerome removed a thorn from his paw. In his real life as a theologian and Bible scholar, he managed to make enemies with almost everyone he encountered. But most importantly, he was a prolific late fourth- and early fifth century translator" (p. 112).

 

Sakae Kubo and Walter F. Specht, So Many Versions? rev. Subtitle: "20th Century English Versions of the Bible." Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983.

Okay, this is somewhat of an old book, and many versions have come out since it was published. However, it is still instructive. It has a useful glossary, and an Appendix which lists 159 English Bibles. Somewhere in the book it says that there had been at that time over 200 English versions of the Bible published. What is sad is that while all of those English versions were being published, there were and are still 1000s of people groups with no Bible in their heart language.

Among the weird versions mentioned are the Cotton Patch Version (an extreme paraphrase), The Word Made Fresh (a paraphrase), etc. It boggles the mind what some people do with the Bible, God's holy Word. For example, CPV has "Get moving, and take your wife and baby and highball it to Mexico" (Matt. 2:13). Weird.

 

Great post. Thanks, Deacon! My son has this book and I've read it. I second your recommendation.

 

William D. Barrick, Understanding Bible Translation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), subtitle, "Bringing God's Word into New Contexts." See the author's website at: https://drbarrick.org/

This is a recent book that I had bought for me, and it looks very good, though I haven't read it all yet. The author is a Hebrew scholar and missionary translator who worked on the Bengali Bible Translation team, which was an effort of The Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE), a GARBC mission board (though the GARBC no longer endorses individual mission boards). The ABWE missionary effort in Bangladesh centered around Viggo Olsen, the medical missionary who founded a hospital in the southern part of the country. What I like about that committee is that they did two related Bengali versions, the Standard Bengali Common Language (SBCL) Bible and the Muslim Bengali Common Language (MBCL) Bible with ABWE. This shows a good understanding of Skopos Theory, which says that the goals of a translation should govern the work.

I have actually ministered in Bangladesh, though I'll not tell you where. It was an awesome experience, and the translator used the version this author worked on. I was told that it is a very good version. By the way, I also held in my hands a copy of the "Carey Bible," the Bengali version done by William Carey, which is still in print. That's a tremendous tribute to that great missionary translator! William Barrick, a Hebrew scholar and translator, follows in Carey's footsteps.

As I said, I have not yet read the whole book, but the author gets a lot of things right. For example, he has the best definition and understanding of the idiom that I have read: "Technically an idiom is a word or group of words that has a special meaning not discernible from the parts comprising that word of group of words" (p. 159). I am considering changing to this book for the main textbook for a seminary class I teach, “Bible Translation Theory and Practice.”

Chapter Six looks especially helpful. This chapter has ten different ways to translate Psalm 1:1, all the way from "Unmodified Literal Translation of the Hebrew" to "Free Translation = Shortened Paraphrase." There is then a discussion of the key points in rendering the verse.

 

Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, Scripture and Translation, trans. by Lawrence Rosenwald and Everett Fox. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana U. Press, 1994.

This is another book that I got somewhere and haven't been able to read yet. The book was originally written in German in 1936, and had never been translated until this edition. The two authors were philosophers and Bible translators living when Hitler was in charge, so it should be interesting.

Here are a few chapter titles to give you the flavor of the work:
People Today and the Jewish Bible
Scripture and Luther
On Word Choice in Translating the Bible
A Suggestion for Bible Courses

It is surprising to me how many philosophers dabble in translation, men from Schleiermacher to Jacques Derrida (deconstructionism). But then again, both disciplines are all about words and their meanings.

 

Very interesting. Thank you!

Keeping the characteristics of the original prose or poetry is a very difficult task in translation. For example, if I were to translate the haiku poems of Basho into English, in order to retain all of the flavor of the original I would have to duplicate the poetic structure of five, seven, then five syllables, making sure that there was a hint of the season of the year in it, and making sure the language was poetic rather than colloquial. Here is a website where none of the poetic structure is retained, but the flavor is: Best 10 famous Matsuo Basho's haiku poems in English and Japanese - Masterpieces of Japanese Culture

 

I have a pamphlet in English from 1954 entitled, Introducing the New Testament in Colloquial Japanese, by The Japan Bible Society. It is a brief informative pamphlet about the Kogoyaku Seisho (口語訳聖書) version which was the first colloquial complete Bible in Japanese. Until ＷW2 all written Japanese was done in the classical language, very hard to read. There were a couple of problems with that conservative evangelicals had with this version, which of course this booklet doesn't mention:

1. One of the English texts consulted was the RSV, in disfavor among conservatives for having liberals on the team and translating the Hebrew almah as "young woman" in Is. 7:14.
2. They often translated the Greek future with a Japanese potential verb, so that, for example, Acts 1:11 says, 「...またおいでになるであろう」。 "This same Jesus may come again."

I have a few books in Japanese about translation. I'll just list them here for you to look at. No big deal--to Westerners.

新改訳聖書が変わりました：改訂改訂箇所一覧表, which is just a list of all of the changes in the 2nd edition of the New Japanese Bible, the version used by almost all evangelicals.

尾山令二、「聖書翻訳の歴史と現代訳」, The History of Bible Translation and the "Modern Translation." This is essentially a defense by the "translator" of a terrible paraphrase. However, it does have some interesting facts about the history of the Bible in Japanese.

いのちのことば社、「聖書翻訳を考える」, Thinking About Bible Translation, by Word of Life Press, the literature ministry that sponsored the New Japanese Bible. This is just an informative book about the version, especially the 3rd edition of 2017. An interesting feature is the conversation in the second half of the book between two of the translators discussing their translation decisions. That's something we could certainly use for a lot of English versions (remembering that the NET Bible does this somewhat in the footnotes).

泉田昭、「日本における聖書とその翻訳」, The Japanese Bible and Its Translation, by Izuta Akira. This is a short but informative history.

For anyone interested in more about the Japanese Bible, I'll attach my own history.

 

Ira Maurice Price, The Ancestry of our English Bible, 9th ed. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935.

This may be the best history of the Bible ever. It was originally written in 1906, and revised over and over through 1935, my edition. The title points to the fact that it is not only a history of the English Bible, but of the background of the English Bible, going way back 1000s of years. There are 322 pages, and it covers everything--well, everything up to 1935. The preface says, "The purpose of this volume is to present in as concise and popular form as possible a description of the principal versions and texts of the Bible, from the earliest known translations and manuscripts down through the middle ages, even to modern times" (p. vi).

There are a ton of photographs scattered throughout the book rather than in a center section: manuscripts, individuals such as the Samaritan high priest of 1909 standing with a Pentateuch scroll, rare Bibles, etc.

Some of the information is from old sources I have not found in other, more recent books, so this book is still valuable. For example, he gives the source of the famous decision by Ulphilas not to translate Kings into Gothic because "the Gothic tribes were especially fond of war" (p. 103), a contemporary named Philostorgius. Interestingly enough, the Gothic of Ulphilas used a Lucian text, that is, a Byzantine text (p. 103).

The author is a good writer, and interesting to read. For example, he says about Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible, "He wielded a sharp pen, possessed a hot temper, and did not fail to combine them into cutting and caustic retorts and criticisms" (p. 81). There is a good, lengthy section on Jerome.

 

My son has remarked that one is not really a Greek professor until he has had a Greek grammar published. That's why I did my own brief Greek grammar here on the BB a few months ago. There, I'm in!

I have two beginning Greek grammars sitting on my desk, both of them brand new. They are at opposite ends of a spectrum. One is A Grammar of New Testament Greek, by Rodney A. Whitacre. My son, "Dr. Paul" as the students call him, is tasked to review this one for JETS. Supposedly it's a beginning Greek grammar, but it is so difficult and hard to read that my son will probably say it is useful for an intermediate grammar, not a beginning one.

The other is The Translator's Greek Grammar of the Textus Receptus, by Steve Combs. The title is self explanatory. As you'll remember, I mentioned this one earlier in the thread, saying that the school had ordered it for me. Well, Miss. L. just brought it to my office, so I'll review it for the good old BB after I take a look at it today. I know, I know, the BB is not as prestigious as JETS, but hey, I like it.

 

Steve Combs, The Translator’s Grammar of the Textus Receptus. Dahlonega, GA: The Old Paths Publications, 2021.

Steve Combs is a Bible translation consultant with Bearing Precious Seed Global, otherwise known as Global Bible Translators (a ministry of Plantation Baptist Church in Plantation, Florida). Their website is: www.bpsglobal.org. Their goal is to empower translators from the received text, and I like that.

According to “About the Author,” Combs “holds a doctor of Theology from Covington Theological Seminary” (p. 357). This school has been called a degree mill, and a cursory examination of their website seems to indicate that, since their degrees are earned by email, and there is no list of faculty and their degrees, as is common with genuine schools of higher learning. (See the discussion at: What Is Wrong with Diploma Mills?)

Another author associated with this ministry, H. D. Williams, also has a degree from that institution, and made his dissertation into a very poor book on how to translate the Bible, entitled Word-For-Word Translating of The Received Texts. Williams is a KJV-Only author who used to be associated with the Dean Burgon Society and D. A. Waite, but reportedly left it over leadership struggles.

Covington Seminary has no Hebrew courses listed in its catalog, and only has one course in Greek listed, which is “Beginners (sic) Greek,” a 4 credit course offered only at their extension locations, not through email. None of their degrees, undergrad or grad, list this class as a requirement, including the ThD that Combs has. However, regardless of the quality of this phase of his education, Combs appears to have learned Greek fairly well.

There are a number of unusual features in Combs’ grammar. Part 1 (Ch. 1-5) is all about the doctrines of inspiration and preservation, the history of the Received Text, why we should translate from the original languages instead of the KJV (one reason: “It is the method used by the King James translators,” p. 84), and Ch. 5, “The Great Need for Bible Translating.” That chapter I mostly agree with.

Chapter 2 shows the author’s KJVO prejudices: he dismisses the Hodges/Farstad Majority Text and the Robinson/Pierpont Byzantine Textform. He mistakenly says, “Neither of these is according to the majority text” but are from Von Soden (p. 64). However, he doesn’t seem to understand that the TR Greek NT is also from the Byzantine/Majority text type. Instead, he says it was from “Traditional Text manuscripts” (p. 65), but doesn’t explain the difference. This phrase is often used to refer to Byz/Maj. manuscripts. I got the impression he’s never actually looked at either Greek text, or he would have seen the extensive apparatus each has.

Chapter 4 is very negative towards lexicons, seeming to buy into the Gail Riplinger book against them, Hazardous Materials: Greek and Hebrew Study Dangers. Combs says that he sometimes uses early 19th century lexicons (p. 86). Then he says the KJVO line that the KJV itself is a lexicon, also taught by Riplinger. I’ve never been able to quite internalize the logic in that position.

Chapter 6 is the obligatory chapter on the alphabet and pronunciation. The author goes for modern Greek pronunciation rather than more traditional koine methods. Then Chapter 7 is very unusual for a Greek grammar, being a chapter on how to do word studies using the free and excellent Bible software e-sword, which I recommend to my students.

There are a couple of features of this book that make me think that the author has never actually taught Greek, though he apparently studied it under Robert Gromacki at Cedarville, since he calls Gromacki “a great teacher of Greek and the Bible. 1975-1977.” One example that makes me think he never has taught the subject is that Chapter 7 is John 1 from the TR. That’s the whole chapter. The funny thing is, every Greek teacher I’ve ever known has required that the students buy the Greek New Testament. So, why put a chapter in the book that they could read in their Greek NTs?

Then, the author’s first chapter on actual Greek grammar, Chapter 8, is on the article. I’m pretty sure that no other Greek grammar in print does that. Knowing the article does the student little good if they don’t know any nouns, adjectives, participles, or infinitives (all of which sometimes need the article). If I taught from this book, I would have to postpone that chapter until I had taught on nouns.

The rest of the book is fairly standard until you reach Chapter 28, which is on –mi (-μι) verbs. That chapter has a review, meaning explanation, of John 1:14-16. This is an essay on how the author thinks that passage should be translated in light of the KJV rendering. Chapters 30-35 are similar expositions of the rest of John 1 with many other references.

A good feature of this book, similar to some other grammars, is that Chapter 36, the last chapter, is a review chapter. I enjoy that feature in the beginning grammar I teach from by David Alan Black.

There are a number of typos, but also some out and out blunders. I’ll just give one. The author says that “inspired” in 2 Tim. 3:16 is in the present tense in the KJV and Greek text (p. 23). However, “inspired” (θεόπνευστος) is actually an adjective, and there is no verb until the end of v. 17, when there is a perfect passive participle. The word “is” must be understood in this case, not being explicit.

If you are a King James Only prof, you could use this book to teach from, I believe, in spite of the negatives I’ve mentioned. I could write much more about this tome, but I’ll stop here.

 

I did notice what Barrick wrote, and I'm sure you're right. I based my attribution to Carey on what I was told: that it was called the Carey Bible over there.