Featured Bill Mounce

Yes

 

Provide the best translation for the passage. Don’t be a slave to a particular “formula.” Instead, be professional and do it right. Add some footnotes. And then write an apology for not being perfect and recommend study aids and experienced help.

 

Is substituting "yes" for "it" supposed to make sense?

 

The formal approach is to be preferred over the Dynamic equivalence method

 

Let’s put it another way. “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” A professional uses the right tool for the right task. A good professional translator would use the best words structured properly in the target language to best represent what the source actually says, not be a slave to a formulaic approach.

This may be what most mean by word-for-word translation. Again, it has already been established that “word-for-word” translation does not mean that literally, woodenly, or those using it would translate idioms word-for-word. But enough of this.

Mounce may know both English and Greek and Hebrew well. However, he did a major disservice in the way he presented what seems to be a pet peeve of his. If he really intended to give the impression that passages should always have a single word as their focus to the point of ignoring the obvious, then it's even worse than that.

 

There are indeed places where a more dynamic rendering makes more sense to the passage for an English reader, but still should strive to be as formal and literal as possible overall