Understanding English Bible Translation...Continued from page 2

Linguistic conservatism: as applied to Bible translation, a general orientation toward language that would seek to conserve the actual words of the original text as much as possible; an implied contrast to the "liberalism" of dynamic equivalence, which does not feel bound to reproduce the actual Hebrew and Greek words of the original.

Transparent text: this means two opposite things, and for that very reason the term has become devalued and misleading, even though it continues to be widely used by dynamic equivalent advocates. A text is transparent to the modern or contemporary reader when it is immediately understandable in the receptor language; this is the goal of dynamic equivalent translations. A translation is transparent to the original text when it reproduces the language, expressions, and customs of the original text; this is the goal of an essentially literal translation.

Target audience: the audience that a translation committee and publisher expect to be the chief market for a translation. Translation committees that consciously bring a target audience into their enterprise make translation decisions based on their desire to appeal to the target audience that they envision.

What the Terms Tell Us and Don't Tell Us 

The definitions in the preceding section of this chapter provide a good introduction to the field of modern translation theory and practice. The terms do a good job of revealing where we currently stand with English Bible translation.

We should note first the dominance of the word equivalence. This was a brand-new word on the translation scene when it was introduced in the mid-twentieth century. There was no comparable dominating word for translation before Eugene Nida popularized the new philosophy of translation, but it is pretty clear that the word that translators would have used to describe their practice up to that point was correspondence. What translators formerly did was find the correspondent English words for the words of the original.

What is significant about the rise of the word equivalence as the dominant term? The significance lies in the fact that the word was popularized by Eugene Nida and his followers. While the word need not imply license, as used by dynamic equivalent proponents, it does imply a loose attitude toward preserving the words of the original text of the Bible. As used by the people who elevated it to the main term in translation theory, translating the Bible into something equivalent to the original text stands in implied contrast to translating it into something that corresponds to or is identical with the words of the original (subject of course to the changes required by translation from one language into another).

We might ask further what the word dynamic is doing in the formula. The phrase has become so common that we scarcely note what an odd adjective dynamic is in this context. It is mainly an honorific term—dynamic in contrast to the allegedly static or dead products of essentially literal translators. But in this context the word dynamic actually means something in addition, namely, a spirit of freedom or exemption from the need to reproduce the actual words of the original in an English translation.