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Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2017 9:45 pm
by Timios
The mechanics of the Spanish language just makes a word-for-word translation of 2 English words into 3.
To me, the expression "word for word" means that every single word in a passage in one language is translated into a single word in another. The example you gave above is not "word for word." It is "3 words for 2 words." Perhaps "thought for thought" would be a better way of putting it.

Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2017 11:38 pm
by Homer
Hi remade,

You wrote:
"God atones for our sin," might be, "God dies and pays the price for our sins," in a thought for thought translation. It's the same thought, but just not a word-for-word translation, why? Because they extracted the thought of "atones" into more contemporary words.

Does that all make sense?
The problem with the "thought for thought" translations is that not everyone agrees on what the thoughts are. Underlined in the quote above is a perfect example because it is a statement of opinion (which I have no disagreement with). Theologians have disagreed, for many centuries, about what the atonement accomplished.

Thought for thought is, more or less, opinion. I think it is best, as nearly as possible, to translate word for word, then if we need to we can go to the Greek. And that will not settle some questions (see above). Then we look at context, what the scriptures say elsewhere, etc.

Anyway, I prefer the NASB or NKJV.

Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 12:36 pm
by willowtree
Timios wrote:
The mechanics of the Spanish language just makes a word-for-word translation of 2 English words into 3.
To me, the expression "word for word" means that every single word in a passage in one language is translated into a single word in another. The example you gave above is not "word for word." It is "3 words for 2 words." Perhaps "thought for thought" would be a better way of putting it.
Original. - "An inch is as good as a mile."

Word for word -- 2.5cm is as good as 1.6 kilometers.
Thought for thought - a centimeter is as good as a kilometer.

Graeme

Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 7:07 pm
by dwilkins
In the last few years I've become a fan of the ESV. Before that, I split my time between NKJV and NASB. Translations can't be perfect.

Doug

Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:25 pm
by Singalphile
The distinction between "word-for-word" and "thought-for-thought" that makes sense to me can be seen by this demo:

Select English-to-Spanish at translate.google.com.

Word-for-Word

Type in "God" --> you get "Dios".
Erase "God" and type "loves" --> you get "ama"
Erase "loves" and type "you" --> you get "tú"

That would be a true word-for-word translation. You work on one word at a time, without respect to context or grammar. The translator doesn't even know what the previous or next word is.

Thought-for-Thought

Type in "God loves you." --> you get "Dios te ama."

That's thought for thought. It obviously took grammar/context into account.

Thought-for-thought is necessary if you want anything grammatically correct and readable.

blueletterbible is pretty awesome, alright.

Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 9:13 pm
by psimmond
I prefer NASB but like others have said, it's good to compare to see how other translation teams handle various texts. What I appreciate most about NASB is when they insert additional words, they place them in italics so you can see they were not part of the original text.

Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2017 9:04 pm
by Si
I have read quite a lot out of four major translations: KJV, NKJV, ESV, and NASB. I finally landed on the NKJV being my main Bible translation. Although I do use all the above mentioned translations (and others) in parallel to study.

First of all, I think the NKJV has the most literary beauty of the modern translations, which is important for me; but it also maintains a high degree of formal equivalence, and italicizes words not found in the original. Also, it is important for me to have a fixed Bible text to use. Understandably the ESV and NASB must be updated regularly to keep up with current scholarship. That is wonderful as a study resource, but not as my main Bible. I like that the NKJV maintains a lot of traditional Biblical vocabulary (brethren, tares, incorruptible, seed, instead of brothers, weeds, imperishable, offspring). I also like how the NKJV has all the major variants from the critical and majority text in the footnotes. In that sense it is somewhat of a neutral Bible. They present the straight textus receptus, and let you decide if a critical or majority variant is the better reading.

Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 5:20 pm
by 21centpilgrim
I have been an ESV guy for over a decade, but the last few years using it mostly because I had been gifted this very nice goatskin one. The last year or so I have enjoyed the Holman Christian Standard Bible, listening to the audio here and there. It uses 'Yawweh' which is a nice change personally.
Here is a summary review I found from an article.

"In general, the HCSB translation is slightly more literal than the New International Version, but much less literal than the New American Standard Bible or the English Standard Version. In various ways the text is simplified (long and complex Greek sentences are broken up into smaller and simpler ones) and made easy to understand by interpretive renderings. The style is on a level much lower than the NKJV, RSV and ESV. It sometimes fails to convey the literary qualities of the text. But an attempt is made to present the Psalms in a suitable literary style."

also this about gender renderings- "The translation of generic masculine nouns and pronouns in this version is conservative — that is, the version does not aim to conceal the fact that the authors of Scripture regularly use what modern feminists have called “sexist” language. But the plural of the Greek word ανθρωπος (“man”) is regularly translated “people” instead of “men,"

Anyone with any familiarity with the HCSB care to chime in?

Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 9:13 pm
by Singalphile
I like the HCSB. I remember that at one point I found it to be the most helpful for English word searches b/c it would more consistently use the same English word for the Greek or Hebrew word. I actually have that written in some of my notes - "used the HCSB because it translates consistently".

The newer version (March 2017) is just called the Christian Standard Bible (CSB). Apparently, they've replaced "Yahweh" with "LORD", and used some more gender-neutral language, according to Wikipedia. So I guess you'll want to stick with the HCSB.

Re: Preferred Bible Translation

Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 5:07 pm
by remade
I had heard about, and have had an HCSB Study Bible for some time.

I received a Christian Standard Bible (the revised HCSB) for pastoral review. I had found in comparing the CSB and HCSB more reasons to love the HCSB besides the literal translation of gender in HCSB.

I posted an exhaustive review here, for anyone interested:

https://kevinrkdavisblog.wordpress.com/ ... -the-hcsb/