Posts tagged as:

translation

Luke 2:14 – well, since Jim asks

December 12, 2009

Jim asks how people translate Luke 2:14.
δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ
καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας.
My own version would be something like
Glory to God in the highest heaven
and on the earth peace to people of good will
I read a contrast between ἐν ὑψίστοις (in the highest) and ἐπὶ γῆς (on the earth) that leads me [...]

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Confess! That’s a bad translation.

December 3, 2009

Wayne Leman’s latest salvo against artificial English in translations has the word “confess” in its sights. He cites tow particular contexts: John 1:20 and Romans 10:9. He says:

It is possible that English speakers in the past actually used the word “confess” both about admitting a wrongdoing as well as a declaration of faith, but if [...]

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Some thoughts on gender-inclusive language

November 15, 2009

I once sought to illustrate the question of gender inclusive language by saying: “I’d like to ask my fellow men to stand”. (This is some 15 years ago). Without exception, the males in the audience stood. Many of the men who stood, and the women who remained seated, were among those who were adamant that [...]

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The CEB, the Human One, and Matthew’s misquotations

November 6, 2009

John Hobbins joins those criticising the first sighting of the CEB (among whom I seem to be a relatively mild critic). Some of his criticisms I agree with, but one in particular struck me as a little odd. It is based on his musings about what is arguably the most daring aspect of the CEB [...]

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An alphabetical oddity of Bible translation

October 10, 2009

It doesn’t seem to matter very much whether they adopt sense-for-sense or word-for-word theories of translation. Most translations of the Bible, when it comes to Revelation 1:8, 21:6 and 22:13, seem to stick to the Lord describing himself as “The Alpha and the Omega”.
There are two exceptions I know of: TEV and derivatives have “the [...]

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Red letter Bibles strike back: “No to quotation marks”.

September 10, 2009
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About a week ago I suggested that red-letter Bibles were a bad thing (or as I put it in very understated and obviously totally serious language) the worst evangelical heresy. In a response today posted both there and on Evangelical Textual Criticism, Stephen Carlson disagrees with what seems to me to be a slightly odd [...]

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Justifying the flesh as a good translation of Paul

September 3, 2009

Mark Goodacre makes a pointed criticism of the NIV’s use of “sinful nature” as a translation of sarx – flesh. Matthew Montonini follows up with some discussion of Moo’s position, linking to a paper of his on the translation of sarx in Romans.
I agree that it is actually a difficult word to translate, not least [...]

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Translating rough texts: making Mark sound a bit less polished

August 28, 2009

John Hobbins has recently offered a “style-sensitive” translation of Luke 1:1-4 – exhibiting a somewhat latinate orotundity and verbosity. In the course of things he reminded me of a now defunct post in which I had essayed a literary translation of Mark’s rough and non-literary text. (Most translations make Mark sound more like literature than [...]

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Teasing out the tension of translation

August 3, 2009

There is a not quite explicitly acknowledged elephant in the room in Wayne Leman’s latest post clarifying what he means by natural English. I excerpt that post briefly to make the point, but please read it all:

Natural English is English which is normally spoken or written by native speakers of English at any particular time.
OK, [...]

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Translating the NT’s bad language

July 21, 2009

Wayne Leman poses one of his regular questions about Bible translation. This time, however, he made me think of a different question, which I’ve left in the comments over there.
His main point (leading to a question about preferences):
In Bible translation courses we are taught to word a translation using the natural patterns of the language [...]

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