Review of the 1995 publication of the new English Bible version, God's Word.
This review is by Wayne Leman.
This review appeared in the journal Notes On Translation (NOT), 1995, Vol. 9,
No. 9, pages 59-67. NOT is published by the Summer Institute of Linguistics,
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236 USA. The Internet Web site for SIL
is:
http://www.sil.org
This text file is close to the final published version, but minor editorial
changes were made subsequent to when this file was sent to the journal.
(Character format equivalences: _ (preceding and following a word or phrase =
italics; | = Boldfacing)
BOOK REVIEW
_GOD'S WORD_. Grand Rapids, Michigan: World Publishing. 1995. Pp. xvi + 1576.
$24.99 ($19.95 at CBD). (Reviewed by Wayne Leman.)
At the time this review was written (May 1995), the most recent English Bible
translation to be published was _GOD'S WORD_ (GW), produced during a 10-year
translation process by God's Word to the Nations Bible Society. GWNBS was
founded in 1985 for the sole purpose of funding, producing, and distributing
GW and "ancillary materials based on _|GOD'S WORD|_" (1995b:33). I had not heard
of GW until early 1995 when I saw an advertisement for it: "...[GW] is the
first Bible to follow the meticulous translation process used by global
missions (such as Wycliffe Bible Translators) to render Scripture into
thousands of languages all over the world" (CBD 1995:1). Since I am a member
of Wycliffe Bible Translators, my interest was immediately piqued.
GW makes strong claims about itself in its advertising. The following excerpts
from its book jacket are representative: "[GW] is unique among all Bible
translations," "[it] accurately presents all the meaning the original writers
intended," "[it] is a completely new, literally accurate translation," "It
looks like a book...and reads like a novel," "[it] uses natural, common
language...just as the Bible's original writers did," and "In _GOD'S WORD_ you
will hear God speak in crystal-clear English...and you will immediately
understand!"
These are strong claims, indeed. As I have examined GW, I find that it falls
significantly short of its claims for itself.
GW was produced by a team that tried to be sensitive to important issues in
translation: sentence length, number of clauses per sentence, distance between
heads and modifiers, active vs. passive voice, vocabulary level, anaphora and
pronominalization, information load, abstract vs. concrete terms, and
elimination of theological jargon (1995b: 12-16, 19-20). GW is a physically
attractive translation: single-column page layout, section headings, "generous
use of white-space", "[i]ndentation of the text is used creatively to assist
your understanding of the intended meaning", standard prose and poetry
formats, etc. (1995a:12-14). Visual formatting of poetry includes attention to
line breaks which align with the semantic phrases of the source text. GW even
translates into nice English rhyme one of the few passages where Hebrew poetry
is in rhyme (Judges 14:12):
From the eater
came something to eat.
From the strong one
came something sweet.
GWNBS is clearly aware of modern translation theory. A key member of the
Translation Consultant staff, was Dr. Eugene W. Bunkowske, who has a Ph.D. in
linguistics, as well as Litt.D. and D.D. degrees. Dr. Bunkowske has served as
translation coordinator to the United Bible Societies for the entire African
continent" (1995b:26). GWNBS considered explanation of the translation
philosophy it followed so important that it not only discusses translation
models at length in their technical brochure (1995b), but also in the preface
to GW itself:
The oldest theory of translation is form-equivalent
translation (often inaccurately called literal translation)....
A newer theory of translation is function-equivalent
translation (often inaccurately called paraphrasing). In this type
of translation, the translator tries to make the English function
the same way the original language functioned for the original
readers. However, in trying to make the translation easy to read,
the translator can omit concepts from the original text that don't
seem to have corresponding modern English equivalents. Such a
translation can produce a readable text, but that text can convey
the wrong meaning or not enough meaning.....
The theory followed by the Bible Society's translators is
closest natural equivalent translation. The first consideration
for the translators of _GOD'S WORD_ was to find equivalent English
ways of expressing the meaning of the original text. This
procedure ensures that the translation is faithful to the meaning
intended by the original writer. The next consideration was
readability. The meaning is expressed in natural American English
by using common English punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and
word choice. The third consideration was to choose the natural
equivalent that most closely reflects the style of the Hebrew,
Aramaic, or Greek text. This translation theory is designed to
avoid the awkwardness and inaccuracy associated with form-
equivalent translation, and it avoids the loss of meaning and
oversimplification associated with function-equivalent
translation.
No translations are mentioned in the preceding discussion, but I assume that
GWNBS would classify KJV, ASV, RSV, NASB, NKJV, and NRSV as being form-
equivalent translations. I do not know how they would classify the NIV. I wish
that GWNBS would have made it clearer which translations they regard as
function-equivalent translations (= dynamic-equivalent translation; 1995b:4),
in light of oversimplification and exegetical inaccuracies that they claim for
these translations. Surely they mean "translations" other than just the _Living
Bible_ or _The New Testament in Modern English_ (1958, 1972) by J.B. Phillips.
Could they also be referring to the TEV, the NCV, and the CEV? If so, I do
not share their blanket disapproval of them.
As I have studied GW, I have concluded that its greatest weakness is English
naturalness. Much of GW is not severely unnatural, but, on the whole, GW is
not as natural as it could and should be, and in many passages its
unnaturalness stands out conspicuously. GW is, I believe, an improvement upon
the NIV (and clearly an improvement upon the NASB, NKJV, AND NRSV) in terms of
naturalness, but it still falls far short of the way that North Americans, the
target audience of the GW, actually speak. I believe that the two main reasons
that GW does not meet its own stated goal of English naturalness are:
(1) deliberate choice of "the natural equivalent that most closely
reflects the style of the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek text," rather than
allowing the most accurate and natural expression in English to be the
natural equivalent chosen, regardless of whether or not it matched forms
of the Biblical languages; and
(2) omission of a critical step in their translation process, i.e.
extensive comprehension and other community testing with "ordinary
people from various segments of the society", a wide range of native
speakers, of all ages and educational levels (Larson 1984:493).
Choice (1) creates the Achilles heel of GW, i.e. moderate, but pervasive,
English unnaturalness. GWNBS (1995a:7) diagrams the translation process they
used and it makes no reference to any community checking (2), a step in the
translation process which is essential for any translation (Larson 1984:485-
503; Barnwell 1986:189-91). We who translate vernacular languages under the
auspices of SIL, UBS, or any other translation organization should take
special note here. It is _never_ enough to expect a native speaker of a
language, no matter how highly trained he might be in Biblical languages or
exegesis, to produce a truly natural translation by himself or even in
conjunction with a "review" by speakers, unless that review gets out into the
community and includes extensive comprehension and naturalness checking.
Details of the GW translation process are given in the GWNBS brochure
(1995b:8-10). GWNBS emphasizes that "Because of [their] concern for
communicating in natural English, the translation team included full-time
English reviewers who were involved throughout the process" (1995b:9). A
reviewer was an "expert in English style [who] read the translator's text and
suggested changes." Professional or paraprofessional stylists can be key
members of a translation committee, but even they cannot substitute for the
benefits to a translation's accuracy, clarity, and naturalness that result
from community checking.
Let us examine a few passages from the GW. In a short review, such as this, we
cannot, of course, present an exhaustive study of issues in a new translation.
But spot checking a number of passages is still be instructive.
Theological terms
The GWNBS deliberately avoided use of theological terminology: "To determine
how English speakers understand a few key theological terms, God's Word to the
Nations Bible Society undertook a survey of lay people who attend Bible
classes at their church. Of five theological terms tested, no term was
understood correctly by a majority of the respondents" (1995b:19).
In place of theological terms, GW substitutes common language phrases with
equivalent meaning. For example, "sanctify" in John 17:17 is translated as
"Use the truth to make them holy." This wording is an improvement upon form-
equivalent translations, which retain the word "sanctify".
Sanctify: John 17:17: "Use the truth to make them holy." "To make them holy is
an improvement upon "sanctify", found in formally literate translations.
Grace: GW Eph. 2:8 "God saved you through faith as an act of kindness." This
is good translation, at least as far as making "grace" easier to understand.
Justification: In GW Rom. 5:1, "Now that we have God's approval because of
faith," "God's approval" is a clear improvement over "justified" of formally
literal translations. I consider CEV's restructuring of Rom. 5:1 to a verbal
phrase even better, both in terms of naturalness, and accuracy: "we have been
made acceptable to God". When we believe in Christ, we not only gain God's
approval, but we gain an even higher status since we are actually been "made
acceptable" to him. NCV, similarly, seems more accurate and natural: "Since we
have been made right with God". Justification is a legal status which the CEV
and NCV renderings make clearer than GW, in my opinion. I commend GW for
supplying "God" in Rom. 5:1 as the understood agent of justification.
Reordering
One of the tests of the courage of Bible translators is how willing they are
to reorder parts of verses or even verses themselves to make logical or
temporal sequencing easier for the reader to follow. The GW translators had
such courage when they translated 1 John 1:9, GW: "God is faithful and
reliable. If we confess our sins, he forgives them and cleanses us from
everything we've done wrong." The grounds for God's forgiveness is that he is
"faithful and reliable" (GW properly avoids obsolescent "just", but a more
accurate translation of Greek _dikaios_ here would be "fair" rather than
"reliable"). This grounds stands in prominent position at the beginning of the
verse, where the reader should be better able to grasp its significance than
if it were in the middle of the verse as in so many other translations. GW
leaves the logical connection between the grounds and result (his forgiveness)
implicit and it will probably be difficult for many readers to supply this
logical link. It could have been made explicit here by beginning the second
sentence of 1 John 1:9 with "So".
In Luke 10:34 the two medicinal services the Samaritan performed for the
wounded man are out of chronological order in the Greek and many English
translations, e.g. NIV: "[The Samaritan] went to him and bandaged his wounds,
pouring on oil and wine." The NIV makes it sound as if the bandage was
applied first, then it was soaked with oil and wine. But the oil and wine were
the medicine, applied first; the bandage kept the oil and wine in contact with
the skin and prevented further soiling of the wound. GW does the necessary
reordering: "[he] went to him, and cleaned and bandaged his wounds."
Genitives and datives
GW 2 Cor. 5:14 nicely resolves the ambiguity of the Greek genitive (KJV "the
love of Christ") in "Clearly, Christ's love guides us."
In GW the eschatological phrase "the day of the Lord" is left as a theological
term, literally translated from Greek (Acts 2:20, 1 Cor. 5:5, 2 Cor. 1:14, 1
Th. 5:2, 2 Pet. 3:10). This follows the practice of most other English
translations, each of which leaves the average reader with little, if any,
meaning to understand the reference to this important event. CEV fully
translates the meaning of this phrase which its translators regarded as most
likely, based on serious exegesis, resulting in, e.g. 1 Th. 5:2 "You surely
know that the Lord's return will be as a thief coming at night." NCV also
translates the meaning of the phrase.
GW Phil. 4:4 "Always be joyful in the Lord" ends with the essentially
meaningless formal translation, "in the Lord", of the Greek prepositional
phrase ending with a dative, _en kurio_. Community testing with average speakers
shows that they do not understand the meaning of "in the Lord". I tested this
verse with one average American English speaker who was able to state,
properly, that the first part of this verse tells us to be joyful. But he was
unable to tell what the prepositional phrase meant. He said he thought it
might be something he would hear "in church". It is sad that GW
undertranslated here, preventing average readers from understanding the
meaning of this semantically rich phrase, "in the Lord".
Figures of speech
GW translates figures of speech with mixed success. It retains the Hebrew
figure, feet, in Isa. 52:7: "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of
the messenger..." Although the synechdoche here (feet representing the entire
person) is natural in Biblical Hebrew, it makes no sense in English. Keeping
the adjective "beautiful" as a modifier of "feet" compounds the unnaturalness
of the entire phrase. Finally, no speaker of American English would ever use
the word order "How beautiful on the mountains..." TEV correctly translates
Isa. 52:7 into accurate, natural English: "How wonderful it is to see a
messenger ..."
Matt. 3:8, KJV: "Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance". GW:
"Do those things that prove you have turned to God and have changed the way
you think and act." The GW translates the Greek idiom here with English words
that accurately and naturally convey the meaning of the Greek.
GW 1 Cor. 2:16: "Who has known the mind of the Lord so that he can teach him?
"The phrase "known the mind" is awkward, unnatural English. An even more
serious problem in this verse is that the antecedents of "he" and "him" are
not clear: Who is to do the teaching, and who is to be taught? Again, the CEV
comes through with accurate, clear, natural English, "Has anyone ever known
the thoughts of the Lord or given him advice?" Notice that a better
translation for "mind of the Lord" is used, i.e. "thoughts of the Lord". And
the problem of clarity of pronominal reference is solved in the CEV by making
it clear that it is someone else who is mentioned as giving advice to the
Lord.
GW Acts 18:6: "You're responsible for your own death." Very good. GW has
accurate and natural English, rather than an unnatural literal translation of
the original idiom, as in NKJV "Your blood be upon your own heads."
GW Lk. 24:30 "While he was at the table with them" literally retains the Greek
metonymy, where being "at the table" is associated with the act of eating. GW
does not use employ natural American English here. The translation should,
instead, refer to the act of eating, which is the actual meaning of the Greek
metonymy, as in CEV, "After he sat down to eat."
GW 1 Tim. 3:8 "[Deacons] must not be two-faced", a nice translation substitute
for the Greek idiom in this verb, _dilogous_, literally, "double-tongued."
English idioms not based on any idiom in the Biblical source are as scarce as
hens' teeth in GW. This is unfortunate, since the sensitive, judicious use of
idioms, including figures of speech, can make a translation come alive, and
increase the interest of readers and the impact it has upon them.
Pronominalization
As noted earlier, the GW team paid special attention to anaphoric reference
and whether or not to use a pronoun or a repeat of the noun when the same
referent is repeated within a text span. In browsing through GW, however, I
have spotted passages where GW unnaturally repeats a noun rather than using a
pronoun for the repeated referent: GW Mark 5:35 "...some people came from the
synagogue leader's home. They told the synagogue leader, ..." Natural English
calls for the second sentence to be "They told him, ..."
GW John 18:10 "Simon Peter had a sword. He drew it, attacked the chief
priest's servant, and cut off the servant's right ear. (The servant's name was
Malchus.)" I would use "his" instead of the first mention of "the servant's".
Rhetorical questions
I have noted numerous rhetorical questions which could be interpreted as real
questions in GW, e.g. Lk. 24:26, 30, 38, 39; Acts 7:50-52; 1 Cor. 11:13-15.
English, of course, does include rhetorical questions as part of its inventory
of natural grammatical (in particular, pragmatic) devices. But when rhetorical
questions are used naturally in English, there is usually sufficient
conversational or other pragmatic context so that the hearer knows a real
question is not being asked. Community testing would be required to determine,
for each verse, if a rhetorical question in GW will be understand as a real or
rhetorical question.
Naturalness
There are many natural passages in this translation, although many of these,
even, are tainted with some moderate unnaturalness. I have found some good
examples of naturalness in GW. One is GW 1 Tim. 5:21 which ends with the
admonition, "Never play favorites." That is accurate, idiomatic English!
GW James 5:12b has natural, idiomatic admonitions: "If you mean yes, say yes.
If you mean no, say no." These sentences, with active verbs, communicate more
directly and naturally than the hortative type wording of, for instance, the
NIV, "Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "no," no".
John 3:3, GW: "I can guarantee this truth," is the phrase used throughout GW
for Greek "amen, amen" (KJV "Verily, verily"). The GW phrase is true to the
meaning of Greek "amen", which was borrowed Hebrew "amen". In both languages
the word has the meaning that a statement referred to by it is declared to be
true. The phrase "guarantee this truth," however, is not natural American
English. More natural is CEV "I tell you for certain" and NCV "I tell you the
truth", as is TEV "I am telling you the truth". There are other ways to
translate the same meaning into English which are even more natural than using
a veracity prequote word such as "amen". One of the best is to move the
certainty term(s) to within the quote itself. So, in John 3:3 an accurate
translation of "amen, amen", which is even more natural than use of the
prequote veracity phrase, would be "Certainly no one can see the kingdom of
God without being born from above" (all but the word "Certainly" is from GW).
A number of instances of GW unnaturalness are due to undertranslation. The
questions of GW Phil. 2:1 are nearly meaningless as worded: "So then, as
Christians, do you have any encouragement? Do you have any comfort from love?
Do you have any spiritual relationships? Do you have any sympathy and
compassion?" No native English speaker would ever ask someone "Do you have
any comfort from love?" It is not at all clear who the implicit participants
involved with the actions or relationships mentioned in this verse are; this
is undertranslation. Meaningful, natural, and, I believe, accurate
translations of Phil. 2:1 are found in TEV, CEV, and NCV. Even the NIV is
slightly better than GW here for meaningfulness.
Accuracy
Accuracy is inextricably intertwined with the two other legs of the
translation stool, clarity and naturalness. In my perusal of GW, I have not
found many passages which are clearly inaccurate. I have, however, found many
passages which are, as earlier described, undertranslated, or translated with
English phrases which no one ever says, since they are not a natural part of
the way that English is spoken. Readers are unable to grasp the full meaning,
and, in some cases, any meaning, from passages which are undertranslated or
translated unnaturally. And to the degree that readers do not have available
to them the correct meaning of the Biblical texts, those passages are, for all
practical purposes, "inaccurate", as well as being unclear or unnatural.
I have found a few passages in which GW is simply inaccurate. One is GW Phil
4:5a "Let everyone know how considerate you are." The most obvious meaning of
this sentence is that we are told to brag about how considerate we are! I am
sure that this is not what the GW translators intended the meaning to be. I
did some community testing of this sentence, asking three speakers what they
thought it meant, and each one answered that it sounds like we are to brag
about being considerate.
Usefulness for Bible translators
As it claims, GW truly is a "brand new translation". It is exegetically sound.
It has more natural English than that found in formally literal translations,
yet many readers will sense that much of GW is not quite on target in terms of
truly natural English.
I do not know what niche GW will find for itself in the English Bible market.
It will neither please those who wish to continue using translations which are
closely tied to the forms of the original texts, nor those who wish to hear
God's Word spoken most naturally in the same kind of language they speak, that
language which best communicates to our hearts and minds. As for me and my
spouse, we will continue feasting on the idiomatic banquet prepared for us by
Eugene Peterson in _The Message_. The English translations we rely on most
heavily in our Cheyenne translation program will continue to be the CEV, NCV,
and, to a lesser degree, the TEV, which the CEV has largely superseded. Of
course we also check with the Greek, commentaries, and more literal
translations, such as the NIV, to be sure we are on track exegetically. I
eagerly await publication of the entire CEV Bible this summer.
I do not anticipate that GW will become a significant reference tool for Bible
translators. It does not break enough new ground to add much to what we
already have in other translations. Bible translators may find GW of some
value as they weigh exegetical decisions within various passages, since its
translators avowedly tried to maintain the meaning and "style" of the original
texts. GW's shortcomings in naturalness and clarity, however, diminish its
usefulness as a translation resource.
Those who have questions about GW are invited by GWNBS to write to:
God's Word to the Nations Bible Society
22050 Mastick Road
Cleveland, OH 44126 U.S.A.
|References|
Barnwell, Katherine. 1986. _Bible Translation: An Introductory Course in
Translation Principles_. Dallas, TX: SIL.
Christian Book Distributors (CBD). 1995. (March/April catalog.) Peabody, MA.
God's Word to the Nations Bible Society. 1995a. _All about GOD'S WORD: An
Introductory Guide to today's Bible translation that says what it means_.
Cleveland, OH.
----. 1995b. _The Translation Process of GOD'S WORD_. Cleveland, OH.
Larson, Mildred L. 1984. _Meaning-based Translation: A Guide to Cross-language
Equivalence_. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.