Translation practice

I do not agree that the scriptures have to remain in the original languages. When God told the apostles and disciples to go into all the word and preach the gospel, do you believe he was telling them to go into all the world and teach Greek? That is preposterous.

No, it is assumed when Jesus commanded them to go into all the world and teach and preach the gospel to all nations that it would be necessary to translate into those languages. So I believe scripture itself refutes your position here.

 

I wouldn't call changing the wording a translation, it is simply a lie. How would you like to be in a country on trial and the court did not understand English and so an interpreter was brought in who wanted to introduce lies into your testimony? Would that be a translation of what you actually said? That is what the JWs have done with the NWT.

Years ago they had a good translation until they decided to change it. I saw a translation done in the 50's and it was much different than today. In Jn 1:1 they diod not have "a god" but simply "God."

 

Jesus included much more than you suggest. He said to go to every ethnic group in the world and make disciples teaching them to observe all that he commanded. That is far more vast than just preaching the gospel.

 

Preaching from a translation of a translation may or may not be the whole gospel. Any translation loses part of the original as that's the nature of the beast. By trying to make a translation of a translation you will be losing even more of what the original said. Part of translating is interpreting what is said so it can be put into the other language; by using a translation of a translation you will be filtering the gospel message through two sets of human opinions. One is bad enough.

The scriptures can and should be translated from the original languages, but each translation should be from the original languages to the receptor language directly in order to lose as little as possible. You say that these translations should come from the KJV or the "underlying texts" because of your own prejudices, but using the KJV would cripple any translation made from it... and not everyone holds to your dogma about the KJV's "underlying texts". Just because they are supposedly the origin of your Nehushtan doesn't make them magical or even the best for this sort of thing.

 

Are you saying that the gospel is the same thing as the Bible.

 

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already but the first edition of Erasmus' Textus Receptus had the book of revelation "back-translated" from the Latin Vulgate to the Greek.

Additionally, translations of bibles to the "vulgar" (common) languages of european countries before the popularization of the TR were usually done from the Latin Vulgate, including Wycliffe's Bible among others.

In both those situations, the choice was made because the Greek editions were not available or of questionable quality.

I don't see what is so terrible about a translation of a translation. It is still a translation and not a paraphrase as some have commented. Of course, if we do have good quality source texts available in the original language, that is the a better option to go with.

The KJV is not a good source for translation from because we have far better manuscripts in terms of accuracy at reflecting the original writings at our disposal.

In terms of missionaries translating from english to another language, the issue is about the training and education required to be proficient at translating from biblical greek and hebrew into rarely used languages. There are limited resources in terms of time and people with the right linguistic skills and interests. I see translations of translations to be perfectly valid in this scenario. Obviously not as accurate or precise as going to the Hebrew and Greek but while some people navel gaze about accuracy, the message is not getting out. That is the motivation and I think it is a valid one.

 

No. I am saying that filtering the message through so many human perspectives you would be likely to lose some of the original message.

I can share the gospel without opening a bible, but for someone who doesn't know the gospel they will have to go to a bible to find it.

 

It was just six verses.

 

Thanks for the tip. I always thought it was more than that.