Featured So You Want to Be a Bible Translator!

I actually believe it is the Biblical gift of tongues. The Greek word glossa (γλωσσα) refers to (1) that thing in your mouth, and (2) actual languages. I've never found in my research that it can mean ecstatic utterances. Unfortunately, the KJV adds the word in italics "unknown," but I believe that is a wrong rendering. It should have simply been "tongue," which meant "language" in 1611.

 

Bearing in mind the absolute minimum requirement for being a Bible translator of knowing two languages, is it possible nowadays to do a good job of translating the Bible without knowing the original languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek)? (This was not possible for many centuries.). If so, how?

 

This is off topic. Please refrain from side tracks.

Question: Do you know more than one language, or just English? (This is more in line with the OP.)

 

Cambridge definition of a translator:

"someone who changes the words of one language into the words in another language that have the same meaning."
translator

Therefore, by definition a translator must know two languages. This is the absolute minimum requirement.

 

Impressive!

 

As long as you say literate in two languages.

Taylor did his translation work in a dialect. I've always been intrigued by the fact that he translated, but there is little information about it, even in the two volume biography.

In general I agree, but there are liberals who translate the Bible also. And oftentimes a missionary translator will begin with a lost translation helper until the Lord raises up a person of peace to help or even become a co-translator.

 

What I was getting at with this post is that there are a ton of helps now in the English language for translation work, in particular software. I use PowerBible, e-sword, and BibleWorks. The last is a more high end package, but it parses every word in the OT & NT original languages (except some words in the LXX), and has a bunch of lexicons. e-sword is the best free software out there, and has BDB for the OT Hebrew, which is good, and for the NT has Thayer's, which is somewhat out of date, but also Mounce (the definitions from his analytical lexicon, I believe). In hard copy, I use the analytical lexicons of Robinson and the Fribergs, which are very helpful.

So, a translator who does not know the original languages can translate from English but still get reasonable semantic accuracy by consulting resources like these. Syntactical accuracy is a different matter. For someone not trained in the original languages, it takes some work to learn the syntax of Greek and Hebrew.

Bob Patton translated into the Sranantongo language of Surinam, and did a good job using such helps, though he didn't know the original languages. He tells his story in his book, Thoughts About Translation. Unfortunately, being without training in the Greek, he mixes up translation and textual criticism a number of times in the book. Still, if you like translation it's worth a read to find out how someone does it without original language training.

 

Not impossible, I'll grant you, but extremely difficult to do.

Our church has an outreach to the Rohingya, a Muslim people group with many in Milwaukee. Our linguistics prof and some of the students are involved, and we plan to translate the NT into their language. We we have a student in our MA in Bible Translation about to take the course "Greek and Hebrew Issues in Translation," and she wants to do her Greek project (translating 25 verses from Romans and annotating the work) in that language. To me, this will be a test about whether or not one can do what you propose.

 

Thanks for the belly laugh. I am already a translator, having translated the complete NT from Greek into Japanese. About 100,000 Gospels of John or "John and Romans" have been distributed already. The entire NT has been printed, and the workers are collating it now. The team has started work on the OT, and I am personally working on the poetic books of the OT. Other team members are working on Genesis. At this point there are no wannabes on the team.

The topic is not "How to Translate," or, "The Van Bible Translation," but, "So You Want to Be a Bible Translator!!" meaning, "What does it take to be a translator??"

 

Folks, here is a good definition of a wannabe:

"One who aspires, often vainly, to emulate another's success or attain eminence in some area." (Definition of wannabe | Dictionary.com). Unfortunately, we get them right here on the BB.