Book Review: Choosing a Bible by Leland Ryken
July 9, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton
It’s not about whether you buy bonded leather or genuine
leather binding. We believe that the Bible is the inspired (or as 2 Timothy
3:16 would say- expired) Words of God. It’s the text before us that matters,
and specifically how that text is translated. With so many translations today
most Christians have no idea why one version might be better than another. As
Dr. Ryken suggests, we typically decide on a translation based on its
readability, not its accuracy.
Choosing a Bible is a 30-page booklet adapted from
Dr. Ryken’s The Word of God in English. The basic purpose of the booklet
is to argue against dynamic equivalence (hereafter DE) translations and for
essentially literal (EL) translations. DE is based on the idea that whenever
the original text may be unclear to the average reader, the text “should be
translated in terms of an equivalent rather than literally.” (7) This is
usually referred to as “thought-for-thought” as opposed to “word-for-word.”
Dr. Ryken offers five reasons why DE is not a good method
for translation. 1) Translators take liberties with the text that we would not
usually take with other documents. 2) DE destabilizes the text by bringing into
question the reliability of the translation. 3) DE gives us what the Bible
“means” to the translator instead of what the Bible says. 4) We expect to read
what the author intended us to read when we read a translation; however, DE
often fails to meet this expectation. 5) It is logically and linguistically
impossible to separate the thoughts in the Bible from the words in the Bible.
In contrast, 10 reasons why EL can be trusted are offered.
These are mostly the opposite of why DE can’t be trusted. Additionally, EL doesn’t
mix commentary with translation, it preserves theological precision, and it
preserves the dignity and beauty of the original text.
Being only 30 pages, this is not an exhaustive
treatment of the translation debate. However, Dr. Ryken’s concise writing is
clear, precise, and persuasive. Naturally much of the arguments could be
expanded, but for it’s size I don’t know of any other resource of this
excellent quality. I can think of a few theologically liberal friends I’d like
to give this to for them to chew on.
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Posted in Book Reviews, Main Page, Roger's Posts, Theology
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July 9th, 2005 at 2:31 am
Sorry to say but this sounds like an extremely biased an unfair representation of DE translation. This is hardly what DE advocates claim or practice. And the concept of “word-for-word” is possible only in languages that have a fairly similar linguistic structure–such as Greek and English. I have studied Greek for two years in seminary and can read the NT in Greek if I apply enough time and effort. I also live in Korea and can read the Bible in a simple Korean version. While it is possible to translate Greek in English “word-for-word,” The structure of Korean is so different from the structure of Greek that is is literally impossible to translate Greek into Korean “word-for-word.” There is no choice but to translate thought-by-thought. This does not mean that translators then have the liberty to wildly render the Greek in any way that they want. It means that they seek to translate the meaning as accurately as possible.
July 9th, 2005 at 2:44 am
Well, this is of course a summary of what's written. As it turns out, you can read the entire booklet on Crossway's website…
http://www.gnpcb.org/assets/products/excerpts/1581347308.1.pdf
In ragerds to your point, I would especially suggest reading pages 20-22 on the logical and linguistic impossiblity of “thought-for-thought.” I also studied Greek for two years and can do some minimal translating- though I haven't tried in any language other than English.
There's a sense in which no translation is adequate because we aren't in the same cultures in which the Bible was written. This is why I appreciate Wuest's expanded translation. It's more than word-for-word, it's more like intent-for-intent. When I'm struggling with a text I typically have Wuest, NASB, and Greek next to each other. Otherwise I just use the ESV.