Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation

by Wayne Grudem, C. John Collins, Vern Sheridan Poythress

Which translation do I choose?

In an age when there is a wide choice of English Bibletranslations, the issues involved in Bible translating are steadilygaining interest. Consumers often wonder what separates one Bibleversion from another.

The contributors to this book argue that there are significantdifferences between literal translations and the alternatives. Thetask of those who employ an essentially literal Bible translationphilosophy is to produce a translation that remains faithful to theoriginal languages, preserving as much of the original form andmeaning as possible while still communicating effectively andclearly in the receptors' languages.

Translating Truth advocates essentially literal Bibletranslation and in an attempt to foster an edifying dialogueconcerning translation philosophy. It addresses what constitutes"good" translation, common myths about word-for-word translations,and the importance of preserving the authenticity of the Bibletext. The essays in this book offer clear and enlightening insightsinto the foundational ideas of essentially literal Bibletranslation.

Genres: Theology, Christian

160 pages, Paperback

First published November 8, 2005

About the author

Wayne Grudem (PhD, University of Cambridge; DD, Westminster Theological Seminary) is research professor of theology and biblical studies at Phoenix Seminary, having previously taught for 20 years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Grudem earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard University, as well as an MDiv from Westminster Seminary. He is the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, a cofounder and past president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a member of the Translation Oversight Committee for the English Standard Version of the Bible, the general editor of the ESV Study Bible, and has published over 20 books, including Systematic Theology, Evangelical Feminism, Politics—According to the Bible, and Business for the Glory of God.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book consists of five essays by biblical scholars arguing in favor of translations that are "essentially literal" rather than those that are "very paraphrasatic." They make a convincing case.

The first two essays are the best. This is because they clearly show what is being translated in each type of Bible's case and what the guiding principles behind the translation are. Just because these authors come down heavily in favor of "essentially literal" translations, foremost among them the English Standard Version (ESV), the Holcomb Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), and the New English Translation (NET), does not mean the reader must as well. The essay authors supply enough information that the reader can reasonably decide differently. For example, if I am giving a person with a high school education a copy of the Bible because they've read C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity for a freshman college class and therefore want to read the Bible on their own to see what it's all about, the last Bible I would give them is one of those four listed above, or a King James. I would recommend to them one of the paraphrasatic ones. I definitely think people should be informed that by obtaining one of these they're reading a paraphrase of the Bible rather than the real thing and that it's a good idea to do so if they're completely on their own in reading the Bible, particularly if they want to read it quickly to get an overview.

The authors of this book would probably disagree with me and they make a compelling argument for why they would. They actually contend that substituting a paraphrased Bible for the real thing is a disservice because it keeps God's actual word in all of its sometimes complicated splendor from ever reaching the audience. I agree; they're right. That's why Christians who truly wish to know God go to church and read the Bible in fellowship so that its many subtler points can be expounded by a trained professional (priest, pastor, minister, what have you). In those cases, a well footnoted version of one of those four translations provided above is the best way to truly read God's faithfully translated, unfiltered message.

The third and fifth essays are good, four stars instead of the five stars of the first and longer two. They do not give as many revealing examples, yet still make interesting and worthwhile arguments. I liked the fourth essay in the collection because I like linguistics. This isn't my first run-in with Saussure and Chomsky, parole, langue, and generative grammar. But it's overly technical compared to the other essays and adds little but a twist of academese to the book. I'd have tried to add a Nida essay and another contrasting opinion essay instead if I were the editors of the book so that rather than making an argument, as they did, they could have shown both sides better.

That all said, I am so glad I encountered this book. It provided me an important, even monumental insight into what is going on with all these Bible translations that have proliferated in recent years.

[Todd Wilhelm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought chapters 1 (Are Only Some Words of Scripture Breathed Out by God? By Wayne Grudem) and 2 (Five Myths About Essentially Literal Bible Translation, by Leland Ryken) were excellent. Chapters 3 (What the Reader Wants and the Translator Can Give: First John as a Test Case, by C. John Collins) and 4 (Truth and Fullness of Meaning: Fullness Versus Reductionistic Semantics in Biblical Interpretation, by Vern Sheridan Poythress) were very detailed and probably appeal more to the scholarly minded. I felt a bit out of my league as I struggled through them. Chapter 5 (Revelation Versus Rhetoric: Paul and the First-century Corinthian Fad, by Bruce Winter) was at times a bit scholarly, but I liked it. If I were to rank the chapters in order of personal preference it would be: 1, 2, 5, 4, 3.

"Essentially literal translation theory and practice are regularly misrepresented by devotees of dynamic equivalence. I have attempted to correct what must be frankly acknowledged often to be caricatures. However, the current debate is more than an intellectual inquiry into correct translation principles and a dispelling of erroneous claims about essentially literal Bible translations. What is at stake is whether the Bible reading public will return to the real Bible or accept a substitute for it."
-Leland Ryken, Chapter 2 page 76

"While I agree that translators should weigh heavily the ability of ordinary readers to understand a translation, I do not think that reader response should be the primary criterion for good translation. Rather, the primary criterion should be faithfulness to the words of the original text, representing their meaning accurately in English (or another language) even if at times that means that the meaning is difficult to understand or requires some effort on the part of the reader.

Nida wants a Bible in which it is certain that an average reader "is very unlikely to misunderstand it." In practice that means a Bible with simple vocabulary, simple, short sentences, and thousands of verses that state the main idea clearly but leave out details and complexities of meaning that are there in the original Greek or Hebrew text. But what if the Bible is not that simple a book, and what if the Bible was not that simple even when its various books were first written? What if many parts of it were difficult to understand even for the original readers?

What if God gave us a Bible that was not easy to understand in every place? What if he gave us a Bible that had layers and depths of meaning that an "average reader" who is non-Christian will simply not comprehend on first or second reading, and that Christians themselves will only understand after repeated study, reflection, and meditation? What if God gave us a Bible that contains wisdom that is "not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age," but is "a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory," a wisdom that "none of the rulers of this age understood" (I Cor. 2:6-8, ESV)? Is it then right to simplify or remove everything that we think some average readers will find difficult?"
-Wayne Grudem, chapter 1 page 54

[Coral Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a reader of a Greek New Testament myself, I especially enjoyed Collins’ essay “What the Reader Wants and the Translator Can Give: First John as a Test Case.” He looked directly at the Greek words and then how the essentially literal, moderately dynamic and fully dynamic translations treated them. Using just that, he showed how much personal interpretation (I use that term cautiously) is lost when the dynamic translation interprets the basic message into something different. As a child who grew up reading both the NIV and the NKJV, I appreciated the insight into ways that a less literal translation might be doing more theological interpretation for you than you would think.

Grudem and Ryken’s essays were both also very good, very accessible and interesting. Poythress was the most technical (discussion of Noam Chomsky should set off alarms all around on the readability front,) but while he said things like “It so happened that generative transformations connected sentences with analogous meanings,” he also wrote this beautiful thought: “[I:]n the end, the process of translation is so complex and multi-dimensional that it must remain an art; it involves technique to be sure, as all good art does, but it is never reducible to a merely mechanical or formal process.”

The last essay, a short one by Winter, was the most grounded in secular academics, discussing the epistolary genre in Paul’s time and what that, as well as Paul’s own words, might tell us about how Paul intended his letters to be approached.

If you have any interest in Bible translation, or if you’re in the market for a new Bible and haven’t chosen a translation to pursue, I recommend picking up this light read and considering its words.

[Kyle Barton · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book disappointed me. I am solidly in the literal translation camp for primary Bible usage, but also find good uses for dynamic translations. I think the main thing is understanding what each translation method can do for a reader. That being said, this book makes some good arguments for essentially literal translations, but in my opinion it is not that well written or winsome, overstates its case many times, and ends with two dud chapters that are overly technical for what most readers are probably looking for in this book. Based on these criteria it gets two stars, based on the arguments in the first three chapters it might garner three. Overall, even though I agreed with most of the points, I just didn't like the book.

Nida is the authors' archnemesis and is clearly in the crosshairs here. There are long sections devoted to disagreeing and debunking him. I have nothing against that, but for me he was way too much in the spotlight and detracted from the basic arguments. I think every chapter except the last one goes after him. I would have rather only one chapter address him and use the rest of the space for something else.

I can't see how the last two chapters would interest that many people. Chapter 4 is WAY too technical and covers lots of history of linguistic theory. Unless you are familiar with linguistic theory and it's technical terminology you will quickly get lost and slog your way through the chapter. Chapter 5 is all about the comparison between Seneca the Younger and Paul and his use of rhetoric in 1 Corinthians, all to make the point (only in the LAST PARAGRAPH) that because Paul didn't use high rhetoric, Bible translations should be straightforward and plain in style.

The first two chapters are definitely the best part of this book, but even then I think you would be better off just reading another book by Leland Ryken, "Choosing a Bible: Understanding Bible Translation Differences". It makes most of the same good arguments, is shorter, and free of the cluttered of the technical discussions.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important topic, although the effort this book exerts is only so-so in addressing it. By far the first two chapters are the most important. First, Wayne Grudem talks about why plenary verbal inspiration favors an essential literal Bible translation (in fact, requires it, as I would argue). If we believe God inspired every last word of Scripture, then we should want our English translations to be as transparent to those original words as possible. Leland Ryken then offers a barnburner of a chapter that addresses five myths about essentially literal Bible translations--the sort of myths promulgated by fans of the NIV or the NLT; that is, those who get their translation cues from Doug Moo or Eugene Nida (who are otherwise world-class scholars).

The next chapter was enjoyable, but not as vital, as in the chapter C. John Collins goes to 1 John to show why an essentially literal translation is a better rendering of the original Greek.

The final two chapters were, to be honest, head-scratchers. Vern Poythress is a brilliant guy, but a lot of his writing seems to struggle to connect. This was no exception. Even by looking at the chapter title and subtitle I can hardly remember what the chapter was about. The final chapter, from Bruce Winter, has literally nothing to do with the topic of the book. It attempts in one final paragraph to connect it to the act of translating, but this effort falls totally flat. This was clearly an attempt to make this book longer by adding a chapter written by one of the main ESV translators, even if was on another topic and not all that helpful.

So, I'd recommend thinking more about this topic by reading the first two chapters, then consulting the third to see what a difference essentially literal translation makes. This is in addition to your daily ESV Bible reading, of course.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The nature of this being five essays by five separate authors means that overall coherence is not terribly strong. I agree with the arguments that formal equivalence (or essentially literal translation) is a better translation philosophy, I can't help but think that especially the first essays fell into caricaturing the weakness of dynamic equivalence while they were themselves defending against caricatures of essentially literal translation.

The third essay is the best of the bunch in my opinion. It is the most measured and provides the best comparisons between the translations.

The fourth essay delved into the linguistic theory driving dynamic equivalence, but did not engage with the overall subject at the same level as the first three. The final essay discussed Paul's unpretentious rhetorical style, and really had little to do with the larger theme of the book.

The first three essays are worthwhile reads to gain some perspective on translation philosophy, though there should be better overall options out there.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book helpful and confirmed my opinion that the 'Essential Literal' translation is the best for study and preaching.

The chapter by Vern Poythress would have been helped by a glossary to make terms used in Linguistics. It assumed that the reader was knowledgeable about technical terms.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good
This collection of essays does a good job of making the case for the "essentially literal" Bible translation philosophy. I found the arguments compelling. The first three essays are worth the purchase of the book. The strongest case for the "essentially literal" approach are clearly presented.

The Bad
Making the case for a word-for-word philosophy does not need to descend into accusations of malpractice on the part of those that do not follow this approach. Grudem's essay (the first essay) did this a few times (four or five times). It was unnecessary.

The final two essays were a little more technical and not as helpful. While these two did tease out the practical implementation of an essentially literal approach, it was a little hard to follow.

That being said, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a clear and concise argument FOR the essentially literal translation approach.

[William Dicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

To find out what I think about the book, visit my multi-part review of the book here.

I have already written 3 parts, am busy with part 4 at the moment and then the final part will come after that.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written essays on the necessity of translating scripture word for word from the original languages. Collins and Ryken's articles were especially helpful.