Lesson from the scripture this week was the story of Ehud, the guy that assassinated the king of Moab and how God can use the most unlikely of people and their abilities to carry out his will. Anyway, Ehud used a sword to stab the king of Moab (who was a very fat man) in the stomach.
21 And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.
22 And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out. [ESV]
21 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly.
22 Even the handle sank in after the blade, and his bowels discharged. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. [NIV]
His dung (?!) came out? Dung?
I think the NIV use of bowels is much better. For comparison's sake:
"his entrails" NKJV
"insides" HCSB
"the refuse" NASB
"the dirt" KJV
Judges 6. The story of Gideon meeting an angel. Unleavened cakes? Or unleavened bread?
21 Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. [ESV]
21 Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. [NIV]
21 Then the Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. [NKJV]
21 Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. [NASB]
21 The Angel of the Lord extended the tip of the staff that was in His hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire came up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. [HCSB]
I also like the NIV's description of the fire. It "flared from the rock". Compare to the other versions "sprang up", "rose out", "came up".
Many years ago I had a conversion with my 5 year old grandson. His mind had not quite jelled yet.
He thought if he said something was so, that made it so.
If the standard for a "good" translation is that they make money for the publisher, all three of the mentioned functional non-equivalent versions are "good."
If the standard for a "good" translation is one that uses the grammatical-historical word and phrase meaning for word and phrase meaning in the target language, then not so much.
It's been an education for me. I would never have thought the NIV would be my translation of choice, but after seeing it side-by-side with the ESV for several years now, it's the winner in that battle. I rarely read the ESV unless it is read in church but I assume a daily reading next to the NIV would find daily examples. Even with my limited exposure to the ESV there have been many, many more examples I could have posted but didn't because I forgot about this thread.
When I look up a verse I check it in this order: NIV and NKJV, then possibly the KJV, then ESV. I throw the ESV in there just to see if there are any more examples of clunky translations with low expectations I'm going to gain any insight in the text. Sad, but true.
Just because it is not your standard or my standard, it very well might be the standard of publishers.
If the standard for a "good" translation is one that uses:
1)
the grammatical-historical word and phrase meaning
- each word or phrase has one or more historical meanings, and a translation that does not go outside that range and redefine the word is fine.
Ditto for grammar, if the source language was a verb, then the target language choice would therefore be a verb.
2) word and phrase meaning in the target language - for each meaning on the source language, the translation should provide a unique target language word or phrase to convey that particular meaning whether literal or idiomatic.