Featured Ways of Doing a Translation

This past Wednesday Uncle Miya and I finished the second draft of our Japanese NT. Uncle Miya and I celebrated with an ice latte we took back to the church, something new to him. (He doesn't like restaurants.) Then I took the wife out for steak this evening to celebrate, and had a 300 gram (10 ounce) sirloin, and Patty had a smaller one. We had the salad bar (one of the very few in the city) and I had a tiramisu dessert. Delicious!

I started the 1st draft in 2003, finishing it on 8/14/08. We started the 2nd draft in mid-2005, and finished it on 7/31/13. There is still much to be done, but John and Romans and some epistles are ready to be finalized. (John is being proofed still.)

At any rate, this and the book I'm reading about a missionary translation has made me think about the different ways to do a Bible translation. I don't mean the translation method, I mean how the effort is pursued: one man, committee, tribal effort, etc. So I'm going to opine on that. :type:

 

The effort most fraught with potential for spiritual failure, in my opinion, is the organization-led effort. I don't say it is always going to have problems, but the potential is there.

For example, the worse-case scenario for me would be an effort commissioned and run by a for-profit publishing company. The possibility of the company mandating changes for the purpose of profitability is great. The Bible specifically forbids using the Word of God for a profit-making enterprise. (See 2 Cor. 2:17 where the word "corrupt" is a hapax legomenon meaning "to make a trade of"--Abbott-Smith, p. 230.)

 

Thank you and amen!

In my view a mission board which specializes in reaching tribal peoples like Wycliffe or New Tribes may legitimately require a certain source text or general translation method. However, as soon as they try to control the actual translation effort by the missionary translator they cross the line: setting up rules for the translator on the field as to what national helper to use, mandating a certain format, decreeing what reference books may be used, etc. (I've not researched to what extent Wycliffe does or does not do this.) A mission board should remain just that: an organization to assist the missionary in his ministry and protect the interests of the sending churches.

Bible societies have the same potential for abuse of the translator. A Bible society provides the funds for the translation effort if needed and the printing, so it has great power. If a Bible society works up a set of rules which the translator must follow on the field in his translation effort, it has crossed the line. For example, in his flawed volume, Word-for-Word Translating of the Received Texts, H. D. Williams gives "77 Criteria for Translating" in what appears to be an appendix (though it is not called that or a chapter). Among those are some reasonable ones, but there are also ridiculous ones, such as limiting what translations the worker may consult, says that there must be an introduction to each book of the Bible at the beginning of that book, etc. etc. If Williams were to run a Bible society that requires such rules, that would be wrong.

 

Any time, brother! :wavey:

 

Next to a translation for profit ruled by a for-profit company, the worst translation effort is probably the one man translation or paraphrase. This is when one man does the translation, the editing, everything. Such a translation has no fail-safe mechanism, and can thus even end up with a heretical rendering if the translator is not extremely careful.

One such translation in Japanese is the Gendai Yaku ("The Modern Japanese Bible"), done by a pastor and theologian named Oyama. Now Oyama is conservative, has a Ph.D. and is apparently a good man, but he didn't seem to know what he was doing in many places. In his intro. he says that some have told him that his version is dynamic equivalence, but he said he didn't know what that was! His version is a paraphrase, but he could certainly have looked at the original text a lot more. In one place his rendering actually takes the deity of Christ out of a passage!

The exception to my objection is when the version is done with a specific purpose to be a help and not a main translation, such as Young's Literal or an interlinear. Even Young's gets it wrong quite a lot, though. He could have used an editor. The problem is that when a well-known scholar such as Oyama or Young does a translation, people are afraid to tell him he is wrong. This is especially true in Asia, the land of "saving face."

 

I just pulled several one man translations off my shelves to try to illustrate the problems. Looking at Rom. 6 we find:

6:4--"...we too, who rose with him, are to be employed wholly in the activities of the New Life" (Arthur Way). A translation partner, committee or good editor would have told Way that "walk" is a subjunctive so that it should be "may be" or "might be." Furthermore, someone should have told him that "walk" (Gr. peripateo) mean more than just activities, it means one's way of living.

Same verse: "...so we too might rise to life on a new plane altogether" (J. B. Phillips). Phillips should have been told that it is the life itself that has newness, so a "new plane" doesn't cut it.

6:5--"For if we have grown into fellowship with Him by sharing a death like His..." (Charles B. Williams). This is way off. There is nothing about fellowship (Gr. koinonia) in the verse, and a partner or committee or editor could have objected to it. Instead, this is a metaphor, "planted together," which is lost by Williams.

 

There is an exception to every rule, and Tyndale is it! He was brilliant! :thumbs:

 

Are you saying that the translator should not be the final arbitrator of his very own work? That he cannot be the one who decides how to translate? I suggest that while prayer is necessary, God gave the translator brain and an ability which he should use to the glory of God. You don't just pray and "poof" here is the translation. It takes a lot of work, and the funding source almost never has the knowledge or skill to do the translation.

 

Doing a double translation is a sure way to produce a poor translation. This is when you translate from a translation rather than the original. This applies to either a one-man translation or a committee translation or any other possible system of translation.

Some years ago a missionary to Japan tried to get a translation started from the KJV into Japanese. Virtually everyone interested in a translation from the received texts refused to cooperate. I was given the first few chapters of John which the man had produced, and took a look. Among other problems, he had transliterated "wine" from the KJV directly into Japanese. However, the modern transliteration of "wine" into Japanese (ワイン) becomes an archaism when used in Japanese. My research says that 1st century oinoV had a wider range of meaning than modern ワイン, but also that ワイン has a much higher alcohol content.

Another example of the problems with a double translation is the Catholic principle of translating from the Latin Vulgate. This produces some mistaken renderings such as in Gen. 3:15, where the Vulgate has inimicitias (plural accusative) where the Hebrew has a singular. The Douay Version followed this mistake with "enmities."

 

Having criticized the double translation, I will add that sometimes that is the only way to produce a translation, especially in missionary work. If the only available translator is not proficient in Greek and Hebrew, the tribe or people group may never have a Bible if they wait for proficient translators. So a double translation is sometimes unavoidable. However, since a translation of just the NT may take a decade or more, it seems like one could educate one's self in Greek during that time, at least enough to guarantee accuracy.

 

Here is part of what you originally said:

So, who is it who sets up the "set of translation guides," and who should have final authority over them?

So, please clarify. You're not making sense to me here. You seem to be saying that a group of "Elders" (church elders like the Presbyterians? older men with wisdom? who?) should run the translation instead of a translator. Is this what you mean? If so, how is this possible unless the elders know both the original and target languages?

Tell you what, this thread is about ways to do a translation. What might answer my questions best is if you simply tell how you would set things up if you were asked to do a translation. How would the committee be set up? Who would be in charge? What steps would be taken to translate a chapter, say John 3?