quote:

---

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

---

quote:

---

And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
Anyone who wishes to argue from the bible while restricting himself to one version is deluding himself. If that person is unaware of the priorities and biases of his chosen version, then he is doubly deluded.

---

quote:

---

In working towards these goals, the translators were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the Bible as God's Word in written form.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by seasick:
The preface to the NIV has the following:

quote:

---

In working towards these goals, the translators were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the Bible as God's Word in written form.

---

Whether, of course, that led them to attempt to minimise 'contradictions' is another matter....

---

Something made them shy away from the word "day"...
 

---

Posted by Mrs Tubbs (# 440) on :
 
The translators are a bunch of sexists though. The word used to describe Phoebe, Timothy etc is “deacon<something Greek>” and that usually gets translated as “Minister” or “Leader”. Except, of course, when it is applied to Phoebe. Then it gets translated as “Helper”.

Tubbs
 

---

Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mrs Tubbs:
...that usually gets translated as “Minister” or “Leader”. Except, of course, when it is applied to Phoebe. Then it gets translated as “Helper”.

---

quote:

---

That's cause you can't be a "Leader" if you aren't properly equipped to point the way!

---

What? with a penis?

That's positively obscene.
 

---

Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
What? with a penis?

---

*Psst! Hey Wood... that was the joke. Sorry you missed it. I should have been more pointed, erm... I should have made the joke bigger, umm... I mean, it wasn't outstanding... oh hell.*
 

---

Posted by Mrs Tubbs (# 440) on :
 


Tubbs
 

---

Posted by babybear (# 34) on :
 
Tis okay, we all got the joke! Yes, even Wood.

Something that I am often surprised by is the difference between the Good News Bible, and everything else.

I am quite happy with it being a Bible written with a very limted vocabulary, etc. But am unhappy with its use as a 'pew Bible' in churches.

I am happier with the NIV than the Good News. A translation that I really like is The Unvarnished New Testament, byt Andy Gaus. He writes from the idea of just treating the text as any other text that needs to be translated.

bb
 

---

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 
The NIV is shunned by the Orthodox primarily, I believe, because of the way they treat the word "tradition."

Everywhere (in the NT) something bad is said about tradition, e.g. Jesus saying "you have elevated the traditions of men above the word of God", it is translated "tradition."

But everywhere something good is said about it (e.g. hold fast to the traditions you received) it is translated "teaching" or "teachings."

But in Greek it's the same word in both places.

Just a little bias against Tradition? Sure looks that way to this observer.

Reader Alexis
 

---

Posted by babybear (# 34) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mousethief:
But in Greek it's the same word in both places.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
So, my question is, did the NIV translators purposely work from an assumption that scripture was innerant and therefore translate in such a way as to minimise problems of this kind?

---

quote:

---

2 Timothy 2 from the NIV:
Instructions on Worship <snip>
11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

---

quote:

---

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives and Husbands

22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord

---

This makes it sound like the mutual submission and the wives submitting to husbands are two separate things. In fact, wives submitting to husbands is just one aspect of mutual submission in the church, as would be made clearer were the two kept together.

Sean, who is off to grind his axes
 

---

Posted by iain67 (# 1583) on :
 
Karl asked:
So, my question is, did the NIV translators purposely work from an assumption that scripture was innerant and therefore translate in such a way as to minimise problems of this kind?

I know one of the people involved in NIV translation personally (and have read the work of others). For 100% certain, not all the translators believe in inerrancy / are fundamentalists, and the person I know personally is very dismissive of such nonsense. From those whose work I have read, they certainly tend to come from a conservative and evangelical background, but this covers a very wide range of attitudes to scripture and inspiration - I'm sure many people would be very surprised at the range of attitudes!

Translation is very difficult! It is always inexact, and involves lots of judgement calls; inevitably, there are many ways in which your presuppositions will affect your translating.

Overall, I think the NIV does a pretty good job at what it sets out to do.
 

---

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by babybear:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mousethief:
But in Greek it's the same word in both places.

---

This can happen quite legitimately in a translation. Words are not transliterated, but are translated due to context. (I am not saying that this is the case with "tradition" in the NIV.

Have a look at almost any word in a dictionary, and you can get 3 or 4 different meanings for it. Then go to a thesaurus and find its synonyms. Even from a very simple word you can get a whole host of words being thrown up, all with slightly different shades of meaning.

Then there is the task of matching up the shade of meaning with the corresponding shade of meaning in the other language. And of course the shades change over time.

I am utterly crap at translation. If I need to have something in Welsh and English then I write two letters, one while thinking in Welsh, and one when thinking in English. They approximate translations, but I know that they are far from it.
bb

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anne Shirley:
I don't like the NIV. It doesn't really matter why, as I'm just trying to be the most recent poster on all the boards.

Thanks folks. x

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sean D:

quote:

---

2 Timothy 2 from the NIV:
Instructions on Worship <snip>
11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

---

There is nothing, zilch, zero in the text to suggest that the above has anything to do with "worship" yet including it under such a subheading is an attempt to strengthen the case against women in leadership and preaching.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ptarmigan:
I once heard a preacher point out that the chapter numbers aren't canonical either, and might be mistaken. He was a charismatic, and claiming that 1 Cor 13 (St Paul's famous chapter about love) was over-rated, and shouldn't even really be a chapter in its own right; it is a parenthetical section in the great section (1 Cor 12-14) about the Gifts of the Spirit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Of course many translations include such sections headings which are not in the originals - they're as artificial as chapter and verse divisions.

<Snip>

To be fair to the NIV they're not unique here

---

And making bad choices about where the divisions go seems to be a long-standing practice (says he, avoiding using the word tradition ).

You only need to look at the way Genesis Chapter 1 ends just before the account of the seventh day, when it would make far more sense for it to finish before or after Chapter 2 verse 4.
 

---

Posted by babybear (# 34) on :
 
Chapters and verses are very, very useful creations. However, they can pull things out of shape.

When I am leading Bible studies I rather like priniting out a chunk and removing chaper and verse numbers and heading (except the musical instructions in Psalms). It make it so much easier to read when there are no numbers.

bb
 

---

Posted by Smart Alex (# 1916) on :
 
We do the same with our weekly bible readings sheets. We print the Bible readings for the service (including the Psalm) on a leaflet, to encourage people to take them away afterwards. Apart from the Bible reference at the top, we remove all chapter and verse numbers.
 

---

Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
Couple of things came up elsewhere on another board whilst discussing Genesis.

Firstly, the NIV, uniquely as far as I know, uses the pluperfect in Genesis 2:19:

quote:

---

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

---

Secondly, in the same chapter (vv 16-17) the NIV states:

quote:

---

And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die

---

. Both the KVJ and Young's Literal Translation specify God saying "the day you eat it you shall die"

What was significant is that both these subtle changes were used by a fundamentalist debator (who was arguing for a literalist interpretation) to get out of the obvious problems of, in the first case, the contradictory order of creation in the two creation stories of Gen 1 and Gen 2, and in the second case, the fact that Adam did not die the day he ate the fruit.

So, my question is, did the NIV translators purposely work from an assumption that scripture was innerant and therefore translate in such a way as to minimise problems of this kind?

---

• One of those you mention, Genesis 2:19 , is the first he gives. Genesis 2:19 has God creating the animals after man not before which contradicts Genesis 1. So to translate it as saying ‘God had formed … all the beasts…’ deals with that. It is alone among the major translations in saying this.
• The one I loathe the most is the NIV’s translation of Isaiah 7:14 as ‘The virgin will be with child’ (which is what the Septuagint has and what Matthew quotes). It does not translate it as ‘the young woman’ which is what the Hebrew meant at the time Isaiah was written and which the RSV, GNB, NJB, NRSV & REB all have. What really gets my goat is that the NIV fails to even mention this in a footnote – there is nothing at all to indicate that there is any controversy in their choice of wording at all.
• Psalm 22:16 – the NIV translates this as “they have pierced my hands and feet” which is a translation of the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew and which fits better as a prophecy of the crucifixion. The Hebrew is, when translated, ‘my hands and feet were like a lions.’ Most other modern versions try and translate the Hebrew.
• Yet another, not mentioned by Rogerson, is Ezekiel 20:25 –Speaking of Israel this verse has God saying in the NRSV and other major translations “Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live.” This is an astonishing verse, suggesting the laws God gave to Israel were not good. The NIV removes the problems this would create as a contradiction with other parts of the bible by translating it as “I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by.” (my italics).

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

---

What was significant is that both these subtle changes were used by a fundamentalist debator (who was arguing for a literalist interpretation) to get out of the obvious problems of, in the first case, the contradictory order of creation in the two creation stories of Gen 1 and Gen 2

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rhisiart:
One lecturer has said that he dislikes the NIV because its provenance and assumptions affect its content, and I'm starting to see his point.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chapelhead:

You only need to look at the way Genesis Chapter 1 ends just before the account of the seventh day, when it would make far more sense for it to finish before or after Chapter 2 verse 4.

---

That's cos the 7th day never ended in our timeframe
 

---

Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
Interesting idea. Never seen any backing for it though.
 

---

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spong:
The NRSV does have its own hobby-horses though, particularly gender inclusiveness. I keep getting caught out by reading 'brothers and sisters', thinking, 'how progressive' and then noticing the footnote that says 'Gk: brothers'...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Did Greek use the word αδελφοι to mean brothers and sisters? It may have.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chapelhead:

You only need to look at the way Genesis Chapter 1 ends just before the account of the seventh day, when it would make far more sense for it to finish before or after Chapter 2 verse 4.

---

That's cos the 7th day never ended in our timeframe

---

Does that mean God is still resting?
 

---

Posted by Admiral Holder (# 944) on :
 
Regarding chapter/verse divisions, I was told a wonderful - though no doubt apocryphal - tale that they were done by some Frenchman, riding in a carriage on his way to somewhere [long journey, methinks!] Everytime he hit a bump he started a new verse, and on bigger bumps he started a new chapter.

Given the verse divisions, it seems plausible enough to me!

Back to the translations, can I expand this to include the ESV ? My only real question - is this a thing only pushed in Evangelical circles, as I haven't heard much about it, except through Anglican Media Sydney. The idea, from my memory, was to move back to a more literal translation. Though it seems to include Glenn's pet hates from my quick perusal.
 

---

Posted by Spong (# 1518) on :
 
A quick look at the translation team reveals a heavy preponderance of a fairly small number of universities, either in the present positions of the academics concerned or as their alma maters. I'm also not immediately impressed by the fact that one of the translators is a PhD candidate...
 

---

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
Though Dr Ernest Lucas is a good bloke

(:thud: <-- sound of name being dropped )
 

---

Posted by babybear (# 34) on :
 
[tangent]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spong:
I'm also not immediately impressed by the fact that one of the translators is a PhD candidate...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by babybear:
Don't be an intellectual snob over that. I know quite a few people who have worked in their subject area for years, and then gone on to do a PhD. Their professional abilities were not altered by them completing a PhD, it merely 'normalised' their situation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SteveTom:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Did Greek use the word αδελφοι to mean brothers and sisters? It may have.

Moo

---

Well, depends what you mean, really. Literally, no. Greek had one word for 'brothers' and another for 'sisters', and they meant exactly what ours do - αδελφοι was just as male as 'brother' is in English

(Whether they had a word for 'siblings' I don't know, but anyway.)

The NRSV's point is that in the 1st-century if you addressed a mixed gathering you would call them 'brothers' etc., the language of that time working on the assumption that the male was senior.

Even leaving politics aside, we simply don't talk like that now - except for clergy over 70. If Paul was speaking in contemporary English he wouldn't address a mixed gathering as if they were all men. In that sense, 'brothers and sisters' better translates Paul's meaning than 'brothers'.

---

quote:

---

"O Thou great governour and parent of universal nature - who manifestest thy glory to the blessed inhabitants of heaven - may all thy rational creatures in all the parts of thy boundless dominion be happy in the knowledge of thy existence and providence, and celebrate thy perfections in a manner most worthy of thy nature and perfective of their own!..."

---

• Personal reflection if the sermon is boring you or your kids have distracted you too much

• Following along during the public reading

quote:

---

Originally posted by OgtheDim:
the NIV sings like a repentant accountant.

---

What's wrong with my singing?
 

---

Posted by Calvin (# 271) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Smart Alex:
We don't have pew Bibles - we have simple readings sheets which have the texts of the readings (including the psalm) for the Sunday.

---

This does have the disadvantage that you can not establish the context of the passages if you think that the preacher has got it wrong/reading more into it than is there etc. There is also a cost issue (depending on the size of the congo) photocopying 200 sheets a week will soon be more expensive than 200 church issue bibles (which would last for several years).

Calvin.
 

---

Posted by Elephenor (# 4026) on :
 
For pew bibles could I put in a word (remembering my childhood) for the importance of interesting maps; coloured if at all possible.

I grew up with Good News Bibles in the pews, which I, er, wouldn't particularly recommend for the job; indeed some sick individual had even removed their chief redeeming feature - the line art - from the pew editions.

Fortunately, I discovered it was possible to bring along my own bible (with lots of beatiful coloured maps) instead (later still I discovered how to plait Prayer Book ribbons, but that's another story). But is it any wonder other young people have abandoned our churches? I ask you!
 

---

Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :
 
At our somewhat spikey Carthlick parish at home, the parish priest has decided to invest in several copies of the E.S.V. Now, for one thing, it doesn't have the whole Bible in (as our church has always understood it), and it's famously evangelical. Am I alone in thinking this odd? Fr. P. just says "It's a sound translation - and according to my letter from them they're translating the Deutero-canonical books next year."

Thurible
 

---

Posted by Nicole Smith (# 1234) on :
 
Anyone familiar with Peterson's The Message? It's a paraphrase, immediate in terms of American culture, and an interesting interpretation.

Bottomline for me on translations is try not to get stuck on any one of them, check out a variety and don't get too hung up on their inevitable limitations, and keep working on your Greek till I can read more of the original... eventually I'd like to get the Hebrew too but that's a long-term project.

Be well,
 

---

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicole Smith:
Anyone familiar with Peterson's The Message?

---

We recently had a thread on the Message, here in Purgatory
 

---

Posted by Nicole Smith (# 1234) on :
 
Thanks our angel Alan!
 

---

Posted by Merseymike (# 3022) on :
 
Isn't the best thing to have a number of translations available, and to not get too bound up with the exact meaning of every word? Given that we are talking not about literal truth, but a work of men
 

---

Posted by Sean D (# 2271) on :
 
Even thought I disagree to an extent with your second sentence Mike, I entirely agree with your 1st! Having two or three versions all of a slightly different style/emphasis/tradition has helped me a lot, especially with confusing passages. I have not purchased any of these, incidentally, but use the freeeeee online bibles. (sale spiel over ).
 

---

Posted by Esmeralda (# 582) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Merseymike:
Isn't the best thing to have a number of translations available, and to not get too bound up with the exact meaning of every word? Given that we are talking not about literal truth, but a work of men

---

Exactly - it seems most translations are indeed the work of men. That is why I'm with Mrs Tubbs on hating the Non-Inclusive Version - especially since the loathsome James Dobson successfully campaigned against the inclusivised revision some years ago, because it was supposedly 'anti-family' (how can acknowledging that women and girls are present be anti-family??). I was a signatory to the letter of complaint from the UK charity Men, Women and God, objecting to the withdrawal of the inclusive NIV from the market. Now, over ten years later, the TNIV has come out. I haven't seen it yet, but look forward to it.
I don't want people to think inclusive language is my only criterion for a translation, but if translators can't even give this courtesy to half the human race, it bodes ill for the rest of what they do (and arguing that what Paul said meant 'brothers' is pointless, he clearly didn't mean to address only the men, which is what using it means nowadays - anyway I was always told 'adelphoi' means 'born from the same womb' which surely implies 'siblings' rather than 'male siblings).
 

---

Posted by Allan6815 (# 4392) on :
 
Whilst on the one hand I would agree with you about not excluding people by the words we use, this does have some problems. The main one being that it isn't an accurate translation. If a translator changes one word to make it more acceptable, what are they doing elsewhere?

Glenn raised an interesting question about the Septuagint. I should imagine that the justification would be along the lines of knowing that LXX was widely used in the 1st Century and that this is probably the one that most people were familiar with, but a dangerous position.

I used the NIV quite happily for many years until I started learning Greek and now I'm never sure how much I trust it. To the passages Sean D mentions I would add Philemon 6 which compared with any other translation I have seen is obviously biased. I suspect the same is also true of parts of Isaiah 35, but I don't know Hebrew.

Mrs Tubbs is quite right in pointing out the bias in the translation of diakonos in relation to Phoebe. I think this is bias creeping in, however in their slight defence the word is hard to translate accurately, especially in Paul's writings. The JB in using deaconess is just as bad.
 

---

Posted by Conrad (# 4644) on :
 
Hey folks, you know that the NIV Translation Committee decided to take on the Dobson Crew after all? The TNIV (Today's New International Version, Zondervan in the USA and Hodder in the UK) is an inclusive version with lots of changes from the original NIV. And be nice about it when you post here, because I was one of the consultants in the translation of Acts.

One of the interesting things I learned when I took up that role was that my job was sometimes to render things ambiguously in English. This is one of the big differences between a paraphrase like GoodNews or TheMessage and a translation: If the Greek text could be taken This Way or That Way, a paraphraser will decide and make the English clearly This Way or That Way; but translators like us at TNIV worked hard at trying to construct English that could similarly be taken This Way or That Way.

I'm certain that there are still biases, but that wasn't and isn't usually the agenda.

Conrad
 

---

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Conrad:
If the Greek text could be taken This Way or That Way, a paraphraser will decide and make the English clearly This Way or That Way; but translators like us at TNIV worked hard at trying to construct English that could similarly be taken This Way or That Way.

---

Any examples?
 

---

Posted by eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
I know exactly what Conrad means (though my expertise is not in translating Greek!).

I think one example would be John 7:38 where Jesus says "he who believes in me, streams of living water will flow from him" . I think this is ambiguous in the original (ie it is not immediately clear if Jesus is referring to himself or to the person who believes in him). At least one translation here firmly comes down on the former side because of its non-charismatic bias; others remain neutral.
 

---

Posted by Conrad (# 4644) on :
 
WARNING: LONG POST, but Ken asked for it.....

Hi Ken. It was like 4 or 5 years ago that I did this work, so I don't have all the specifics in my brain, and none of them are huge matters of doctrine in any case (at least none of the ones I dealt with in Acts). But here's a few examples that have come up for different reasons since....

-------------example one---
Acts 5:9 NIV
"Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also."

The Translation Committee was proposing changing this to something simpler like "Look! The men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also."

BUT... the text clearly talks about the "feet" of the graveyard crew, and the whole of 4:32 - 5:10 positively stinks of mentions of feet, including (twice) the tradition that people who sold their property would lay the money at the feet of the apostles (probably to indicate it was of very little worth).

Even though we don't understand, then, what the "feet" are doing in the verse in question, I argued that it was best to keep them in.

My suggestion was something like:
"Listen: the footsteps at the door are the men who buried your husband...."

The compromise in the final TNIV included my "Listen!" (the Greek word is literally "Behold!"), but played it more conservative, keeping the feet rather than the footsteps;
"Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door..."

Not exactly preserving ambiguity, but a case where we avoided streamlining the reading according to our own understanding... preserving the text just in case it meant more than we translators realized at the time.

-------------example one---
Another example is Acts 20:30. The verse before talks about dangerous people who will attack the church from outside. But then sexist NIV reads:
"Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth..." apparently without realizing that women can distort the truth too!

The suggestion among the committee was to "clarify" the meaning with, as I recall:
"Even some of your own people will distort the truth."

This clearly makes the insiders/outsiders distinction that we all thought 20:29-30 was about.

BUT "some of your own people" can only refer to the congregation of these leaders, whereas the older "from your own number" might mean either from your congregation or from the ranks of the leaders standing here. The latter seems to me to be unlikely in the context of the book, but was not an option that I thought we had the right to cut off, so the TNIV partially reverts (without the exclusivist language):

"Even from your own number some will arise and distort the truth..."

These are minor examples, I know, but they illustrate the point that I was surprised to find that even evangelical translators see their job not as making the original texts clearly teach what we know that they teach, but as using contemporary language to reproduce precisely the conundrums we find in the text.

One or two other examples come to mind, but these things take so long to explain. But here's a sort of non-example

In that same chapter, clearing up the "theological inaccuracy" of 20:28 wasn't even on the table:
"Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood...."

That last phrase is more literally "bought with the blood of his own" and you'd think that the temptation would be strong to provide the missing word "Son".... "the church of God which he bought with the blood of his own Son"

BUT rather than supply the missing word, the more responsible position is to take "with the blood" and "of his own" as a sort of parallelism Greek construction and collapse them even though it looks as though Luke's Paul was saying it was the Father's blood somehow.

I'm sure biases creep in to translations, but it's not only not the agenda, it's something that we're constantly thinking about: keeping interpretative possibilities alive rather than closing them down.

Conrad
 

---

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
Thanks!

Looks like I'll have to add a TNIV to my ever-growing pile of not-that-different-really ( ) translations!
 

---

© Ship of Fools 2016


UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0