Featured Does Dynamic Equivalency cause.....

Thanks for your reply.

I'm glad to read how you yourself approach the "DE vs. FE" controversy in your translation of your own Japanese Bible.

I hope that my post didn't misinterpret your own views on the "D vs. F" approach that you take in your own translation of your Japanese Bible. If it did misinterpret it, please forgive me.

On a somewhat different aspect of this translation controversy, do you know of, or can access, any articles from John R. Rice, as well as any of his successors, may have had published either in The Sword of the Lord or any other papers that are still accessible to the public, or can be ordered/purchased from the Sword's bookstore in Murfreesboro on this "DE vs. FE" controversy?

Bridge Avenue isn't that far from where I live (only less than a mile from what used to was the Hickory Hollow Mall, or as it's now called "The Global Mall at the Crossings" off of I24 W exits 59 or 60).

It wouldn't be that much of a drive for me to actually drive down to the Sword 's bookstore---which I've done a couple times in the past [In spite of all of the road construction one encounters on I 24 E or W when you near the conjunctions of TN-840 Bypass/Medical Center Parkway/Exits 78A & 78B.]

Also, if any of us BB people may be interested, if any of us care to financially donate to your translation project, how would we do that?

 

I'm not sure Pike was involved in thinking up DE. His books are listed in Nida's first book on DE, but not the other two, and he doesn't appear in the index of any of the three. He was more of a pure linguist than a translating consultant.

But I'm being nitpicky. :smilewinkgrin:

As I understand it (don't have it, haven't read it), The Message is a paraphrase. Thus, it should not even be considered a translation. Secular translators universally avoid paraphrase as a translation method (though they may paraphrase somewhat in their work), and personally I don't consider a paraphrase to be an actual translation, but more of a commentary.

Whenever I discussed possible problems in the Japanese Bible (done on NASB lines), I almost always would say, "Your Bible is not wrong here, but maybe a better rendering is...."

 

I didn't note any misinterpretations per se.

John R. Rice wrote little about translation theory. His book on inspiration, Our God-Breathed Book the Bible, has a chapter on it and references to translations throughout. The first chapter of Dr. Rice, Here Are More Questions (pp. 9-48) probably has the most about his views on translation. He reviews there various translations, liberal and conservative. I don't believe he discusses DE, it being a new method at the time, but he does critique the liberal Good News for Modern Man, which was the first translation done with DE.

I'm sure you would enjoy the Sword Bookroom, but there are quite a few of Dr. Rice's books that have gone out of print and are not available there. Those I just mentioned are not on the SOTL website for sale, but can be bought second hand on Amazon.com.

Here is an interesting article on the Internet that quotes from a letter to David Otis Fuller on the subject: http://www.kjvonly.org/bob/ross_rice_reply_to_fuller.htm

Thanks for your interest! I can give further information if they will PM me here on the BB. One who is key in the effort has just paid a large sum to ship over the "John and Romans," and might appreciate some financial help. When we're ready to publish the whole NT we'll need more funds, but that won't be for a couple more years.

 

Would you agree with me though that a bigger danger is that if one holds to a vernal plenary sense of bible inspiration, that would force one away from DE philosophy?

 

Nope (using your most commonly used word these days). In the book by Fee and Strauss :How To Choose a Translation For All Its Worth:

"So while formal equivalent translators try to proceed with a method of formal equivalence (word-for-word replacement), their decisions are in fact determined by a philosophy of functional equivalence (change the form whenever necessary to retain the meaning.' (p.28)

 

That's a nonsense charge.

(BTW, vernal has to do with spring.)

 

I'd say so. There is no way around it. It's not the only way that God approved, or authorized, but it certainly was one of the methods. And that was centuries before Eugene was born, need I say. "..."

 

Appears to be different words? Of course different versions use different words. There is nothing "apparent" about it. ;-)

 

I assume you mean here that a verbal plenary doctrine of inspiration inclines the translator to a more literal method. If so, that is true in my experience.

 

Shock of Shocks - many years ago we had a similar round robin discussion with the KJVO devotees here at the BB about dynamic equivalence so I read some of Peter Ruckman's NT expositions and what was the shock of shocks?

Peter Ruckman actually created some dynamic equivalence phrases of his own even using the TR Koine Greek for a base rather than the KJV Jacobean-Elizabethan English.

 

It's not an excuse at all --it's a fact.

 

Wow, what a twisted view. So-called dymanic translations convey eternal truths as much as the more formal-equivalent translations do.

 

Au contraire former missionaire!

"Second, much of this rhetoric represents a poor understanding of the doctrine of verbal inspiration, which historically does not refer to the words as 'words in themselves,' but 'words as they convey meaning.' It is precisely at this point that we would argue that a translation that places the priority of meaning over form is much more in keeping with the doctrine of inspiration, since at issue always is the 'meaning' of the inspired words. The translation that best conveys that meaning is the most faithful to this historic doctrine." (p.36 of How To Choose A Translation For All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss.)

"Some critics have claimed that the only way to protect the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture is to translate literally. This, of course, is literary nonsense. The translation that best preserves the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture is one that clearly and accurately communicates the meaning of the text as the original author intended it to be heard...Verbal and plenary inspiration is most respected when we allow the original meaning of the text to come through." (Do Literal Bible Versions Show Greater Respect For Plenary Inspiration? by Mark Strauss)

 

As a follow-up:

But why a literal translation is necessarily more in keeping with the dotrine of verbal inspiration, I am quite at a loss to know...Ultimately what we want is a translation that means what the original means, both in denotation and connotation...it ought to be obvious that to some extent every translation from anywhere on the spectrum, is necessarily involved again and again with finding the "dynamic equivalent." (The KIng James Version Debate : A Plea For Realism by D.A. Carson)

 

Do you mean simply free translation or actual DE translation?

"free translation: The rendering of the meaning of a statement, expression, text, etc., in another language, without following the original accurately" (Dictionary of Linguistics, Pei and Gaynor, p. 77).

"Unfortunately, the expression 'dynamic equivalence' has often been misunderstood as referring to anything which might have special impact and appeal for receptors. Some Bible translators have seriously violated the principle of dynamic equivalence as described in Theory and Practice of Translating and Toward a Science of Translating. It is hoped, therefore, that the use of the expression 'functional equivalence' may serve to highlight the communicative functions of translating and to avoid misunderstanding" (Eugene Nida and Jan de Waard, From One Language to Another, pp. vii, viii).

 

John, Is the superman you or Paul? That is too funny!

 

Hi John,

Well, now that you ask I'm not 100% sure :

http://bibletranslations.info/TypesOfTranslationsDynamic.html

Dr Ruckman was applying his theory of "double inspiration" of the scripture between the underlying Greek of the AV and the 1611 English itself attributing correctness to the English rather than the Greek which (English) had had an inspirational revision of the meaning of the words by God (e.g. 'Easter' rather than 'Passover'). This was the first time I had heard of " double inspiration".

He applied this over and over in many ways that just didn't carry water IMO.

"bias and motives other than pure theology can more easily creep into the text".

Does this qualify as dynamic equivalence in your estimation?


Thanks
HankD

 

I strongly suggest that you look for another source for your definitions.

First of all, his definition of DE does not include reader (or receptor) response, whereas Nida's clearly does: "Dynamic equivalence is therefore to be defined in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language” (Nida and Tabor, The Theory and Practice of Translation, p.24).

Secondly, he mistakenly equates functional equivalence with formal equivalence, while functional equivalence is actually what Nida renamed DE. In fact, the subtitle of his book with Jan de Waard (From One Language to Another) is "Functional Equivalence in Bible Translating."

I can't see equating double inspiration with dynamic equivalence. They are apples and oranges, IMO. What he is talking about would be rather anachronization, or reading back a modern view into the ancient text.

 

Yours truly at a camp one year.