What Constitutes a Valid Translation?

Of course, "valid" does not mean 'perfect' (from online American Heritage Dictionary) --

adj.
1. Well grounded; just: a valid objection.
2. Producing the desired results; efficacious: valid methods.
3. Having legal force; effective or binding: a valid title.
Logic.
4a. Containing premises from which the conclusion may logically be derived: a valid argument.
4b. Correctly inferred or deduced from a premise: a valid conclusion.
5. Archaic. Of sound health; robust.
[French valide, from Old French, from Latin validus, strong, from valere, to be strong.]​

So, I agree with Ed Sutton that while a Bible translation may not "accurately convey to a 100% certainty, in every instance of a word and/or phrase, the exact sense of the Hebrew and/or Chaldee/Aramaic, and/or Greek languages, as the writers were inspired to pen down the 'God-breathed-out' words of Scripture" it can still be a efficacious version overall.

 

Do you think it's possible for someone who thinks he translating in a form-driven manner to translate erroneously as well?Perhaps the form-driven guy can translate what he thinks the verse means also and yet err.Who would not translate what he thinks a given passage means?Some highly educated man could translate wrongly while sincerely believing a certain verse means a particular thing.

But back to your translation of the paraphrase (talk about going through some filters!).God din't "make" His Son die on the cross in place of our sin.God the Father gave His Son.The 'cross' itself is not in the original."Only Son" is kind of weak --'one and only' is better."In place of our sin" is not mentioned in the verse."God loved us" should appear earlier in the verse.

Those are just some of my layman's observations.

 

I just thought of two more paraphrases a few minutes ago.How about Kenneth Wuest's and F.F.Bruce's expanded translations?They were really paraphrases.But they were not done in a cavalier manner as you seemed to suggest.

Paraphrases of the Bible have been helpful to the Church over the centuries and I think God approves!:godisgood:

 

John, I believe if you read Ed's comment on translations you'll see the relevance of mentioning the LXX.

 

You are on target with each point. Good job! I would add that "saved" and "has eternal life" are quite different. And each of these points can skew what God wants the reader in the target language to understand with this passage.

But you see, this is how far out of bounds a paraphrase can get--not that it will always be out of bounds.

 

If you mean #37 I've re-read it twice and I'm not sure I get it. Please explain your point to me.

 

Indeed, the early church and the Jews did make good use of the LXX, but that is not what I was referring to, primarily. I was contrasting the OT and the NT, vs. the two primary languages, here, in conferring doctrine.

The KJV translators noted the "good use" of the LXX, while also noting it was but a translation, If I recall.

Did you happen to note their displeasure with the vilifying of Englishe Bibles? I happen to agree with their sentiments, as expressed here, completely.

Ed

 

Pei & Gaynor said :"The statement of the context of a passage,text,etc. in the same or other language,without following the original text verbatim."

Again,based on that definition even the more form-driven versions would qualify as paraphrases.

Borrowing a paraphrased line from rbell : I say pish tosh to that JoJ.Why do I say pish tosh?Because I like the way it sounds.I'll say it again.Pish tosh.

Well Pei and Gaynor,along with you and your noted scholar friend may be wrong.The P&G definition is just plain inadequate.Paraphrasing would have a much wider application than my commonly understood definition of the word.

Well that's only in your mind.There have been some good God-honoring paraphrases which may outclass your preferred method of translation in a number of ways.Have you ever seen the paraphrases of Wuest and Bruce?

You still didn't answer some questions.Do you follow the original text verbatim?Have you aimed for word-to-word correspondence?

 

Fine, take a "form-driven" translation and prove that it is a paraphrase by this definition. And I don't mean find a verse or two that you say are paraphrased, I mean prove that the overall translation is a paraphrase.

Fine. Give me the definition you go by. Not your own, not a normal dictionary definition, which would be the popular meaning, but something from a linguistic scholar.

You have no way of telling whether or not an English translation would outclass my method of translation unless you can read Japanese. So we'll have to pass on this one. As for Wuest and Bruce--non sequitor.

I've given my principles of translation on the BB before. I think it was a couple of years ago, though. But your questions are loaded, and furthermore I don't know what you mean by "word-to-word" correspondence. There are so many views on that.

I will simply say that I look for the optimal equivalent in Japanese of each element of grammar and each individual word in the original Greek NT. For scholarly treatments about this methodology see Complete Equivalence in Bible Translation and A Theory For Biblical Translation: An Optimal Equivalence Model, both by James Price.