Featured The Musings Of Mounce

I have appreciated the Blog of Bill Mounce for a long time : Monday With Mounce.

I will share some snips.

On 7/24/2017 he posed an article called Does Inspiration require every word to be translated? (Matt. 1:4)

"I suggest that authorial intent is discovered more at the phrase level (in most cases) than at the word level, and style is part of the communication process."

"...translating every word (which no one does with idioms) miscommunicates."

 

Is the ESV Literal and the NIV Gender Neutral? (6/22/2017)

"...about eighty percent of the ESV and the NIV are the same, once you account for different translations of individual words."

"No Bible on the market is "literal."

"All translations are interpretive; anyone who says otherwise is selling something...."

"We are in the middle of a sea change in language, and 'they' is becoming the third person pronoun that can refer to women or men. Many people decry this, but grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive, and this what is happening to English. A person may not like it, but that doesn't matter. 'They' was not marked for gender in Elizabethan English (check out Shakespeare), and it is coming back in vogue."

"The NIV is not 'gender neutral.'

In the comment section Mounce said :
"Best thing to do is read several translations. If you use the NIV and NLT, you can be pretty confident you are reading what the Greek means."

 

I don't know. You'll have to check for yourself.

 

Ambiguous and meaningless (Jn. 3:21) 7/10/2017

"...shows that a word-for-word translation isn't always translation since it can be meaningless."

 

There is always a reason (Jn. 2:1) 7/3/2017

"We just completed another week of work on the NIV in Cambridge, and I was again reminded that there is always a reason. No matter how unusual a translation of a certain verse may appear, there is always a reason...nothing is random."

"But before you pronounce the NLT translators as incompetent --which they are not --- repeat after me: 'There is always a reason; nothing is random.' "

 

Aktionsart and Ask,Seek, Knock (Matt. 7:7-8) May 22,2017

Only the NLT with its periphrastic translation philosophy is able to convey the fuller meaning of the Greek. "Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.“

...the NLT is translating the Greek, and not under-translating as everyone else does.

 

Mounce puts both the KJV and the NIV in the dynamic category. I won't comment on the former, but I'd put the latter in the mediating spot along with the NET, NAB, and CSB.

No translation is consistently dynamic or formal. All translations weave in and out of both according to the translational need.

The NASB and NKJV use less dynamic equivalence than the NLT overall --but the NLT is not strictly in the dynamic camp --it uses its share of formal equivalence. I'd say most folks would be surprised to find out how much functional equivalence is in the ESV and how much formal equivalence is in the NLT. And remember, translating in a dynamic way is sometimes superior to a more formal approach.

So its all a matter of degree --not a black and white issue. There are gradations. Things are in flux depending on the passage in question.

Any comments on what Mounce said? "If you use the NIV and NLT, you can be pretty confident that you are reading what the Greek means."

 

You have yet to approach the use of English.

 

There is no possible way to translate without interpretation.

Not that you are an authority, but you have claimed multiple times in the past that the NIV was a mediating translation.
So you are contradicting yourself.

 

You are so confused.

 

What is a 'Just Man'? (Matt. 1:19)

"Be careful of thinking that translating only words is actually translating, especially when you are left with a contradiction, or at best, confusion."

 

When Word-For-Word is Ambiguous (Jn. 4:7) April 10,2017

" I have been sensitive lately to finding passages in which a word-for-word translation is not clear but is ambiguous and perhaps even misleading. I am finding lots of examples."

"So word-for-word creates a problem that the NIV and NLT don't."

 

Clarity or Ambiguity (Jn. 1:13) April 3,2017

"Do you want clarity or meaning, or do you want to stay closer to the Greek and be less meaningful and more ambiguous?"

"The NIV moves a little further away from the ambiguity of the Greek and more toward meaning."

"My point is that if you want to be clear, you have to be more interpretive. If you want to be less interpretive, you will be less clear and more ambiguous. You simply can't have it both ways."