HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 1557
Introduction to the
New Living Translation
Translation Philosophy
and Methodology
English Bible translations tend to be governed
by one of two general translation theories.
The first theory has been called “formalequivalence,” “literal,” or “word-for-word”
translation. According to this theory, the translator attempts to render each word of the original language into English and seeks to preserve
the original syntax and sentence structure as
much as possible in translation. The second
theory has been called “dynamic-equivalence,”
“functional- equivalence,” or “thought-forthought” translation. The goal of this translation theory is to produce in English the closest
natural equivalent of the message expressed by
the original-language text, both in meaning and
in style.
Both of these translation theories have
their strengths. A formal-equivalence translation preserves aspects of the original text—including ancient idioms, term consistency, and
original-language syntax—that are valuable
for scholars and professional study. It allows a
reader to trace formal elements of the originallanguage text through the English translation.
A dynamic-equivalence translation, on the
other hand, focuses on translating the message
of the original-language text. It ensures that
the meaning of the text is readily apparent to
the contemporary reader. This allows the message to come through with immediacy, without
requiring the reader to struggle with foreign
idioms and awkward syntax. It also facilitates
serious study of the text’s message and clarity
in both devotional and public reading.
The pure application of either of these
translation philosophies would create translations at opposite ends of the translation spectrum. But in reality, all translations contain a
mixture of these two philosophies. A purely
formal-equivalence translation would be unintelligible in English, and a purely dynamicequivalence translation would risk being
unfaithful to the original. That is why translations shaped by dynamic-equivalence theory
are usually quite literal when the original text
is relatively clear, and the translations shaped
by formal-equivalence theory are sometimes
quite dynamic when the original text is obscure.
The translators of the New Living Translation set out to render the message of the original texts of Scripture into clear, contemporary
English. As they did so, they kept the concerns
of both formal-equivalence and dynamicequivalence in mind. On the one hand, they
translated as simply and literally as possible
when that approach yielded an accurate, clear,
and natural English text. Many words and
phrases were rendered literally and consistently
into English, preserving essential literary and
rhetorical devices, ancient metaphors, and
word choices that give structure to the text
and provide echoes of meaning from one passage to the next.
On the other hand, the translators rendered
the message more dynamically when the literal
rendering was hard to understand, was misleading, or yielded archaic or foreign wording.
They clarified difficult metaphors and terms to
aid in the reader’s understanding. The translators first struggled with the meaning of the
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