However this week I felt really frustrated. The church where I was planned uses the so called "Good News Bible". This emerged in the 1950s and 1960s based on a theory of "dynamic equivalence". This means that translation from the earliest scriptures are "thought for thought" rather than "word for word" as in "formal equivalence".
It must be hard work translating an ancient document. What I would prefer is accuracy. Sadly the "thought for thought" concept leaves a lot of scope for the translator to interpose his or her own interpretation of what that thought is.
One of the key translators of the Good News Bible was a man called Robert Bratcher who clearly had his own agenda which seems to show at certain key points. For example John 3:16 is watered down to "For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life".
In the Good News Bible the Beatitudes are reduced from "blessed" to "happy". So we have "Happy are those who know God....", "Happy are those who mourn....., "Happy are those who are humble... and so on.
Now I can understand how happiness can be part of a blessing, but I don't accept that a blessing is limited to happiness. The earliest translations of Mathew's gospel are in Greek. It may be that Jesus spoke Greek - the city of Tiberius was and is just a few miles from Nazareth - but there is no evidence that Jesus visited the gentile Greek speaking city consider unclean by many Jews at the time.
The Greek word used in those early gospels is makarios which does mean "happy" but much more beside .The Hebrew word for blessing barukh is often used to include happiness but again much more, including be set aside, being consecrated. I feel far more comfortable with the wider interpretation of the Beatitudes rather than a narrow Good News one which confines it to happiness.
From my experience the Good News Bible is just not a reflection of the core of Christian belief, nor is it a true reflection of the Biblical hope. The sooner we send the copies we have in Methodism for re-cycling, the better.
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For whatever it is worth, John Wesley in his sermon on this part of the Sermon on the Mount wrote that it should be translated "happy" rather than "blessed."
I used the Revised English translation, which is contemporary, but preserves the traditional vocabulary, though I preached on 1 Cor. 1:26. I found excellent prayers of confession and intercession in 'Worshipping God Together' (p. 242) and 'Companion to the Revised Common Lectionary' (p. 12) respectively.
I share your frustration with 'happy' as a translation of baruch/makarios. However, you're not being fair to the GNB. It was actually a two-step translation: the first step is a good and accurate translation of the original text; the second is re-translation of that translation into text readable by anyone with a reading age of 12 (which is actually the level for a large proportion of British adults. The disadvantage is that it becomes a very fuzzy translation in places, fudging the sharper edges of meaning of certain words and ideas (I have my own list of such 'failings'...). The advantage is that anybody can pick it up and read it, and not find words they cannot understand, so the brain comes to a juddering halt part-way through the passage. That was the primary aim, as explained to my class at Cliff in 1974 by the then General Secretary of the Bible Society. Interestingly, in a comparison of the same passage in 4 different Bibles (AV, GNB, NEB and RSV) the hardest one to understand was always the NEB.
Also interestingly, the best use I have personally had for the GNB is comparing synoptic parallels - it is superb for taking in whole stretches of text at a glance!
Sarah Dylan Breuer is one who argues for "honoured." i think that is a perfectly legitimate translation.
How do you translate they (Your sins) shall be as white as snow, when the reader has never seen snow and his language has no word ofr it? This was a real issue for the Bible translators. The answer was 'as white as the inside of a coconut'. Thought for thought. Dynamic equivalence.
Word for word can mess up the word order and pose some interesting theological problems. Just what does 'this my body' mean?
The tree Zaccheus climbed is literally translated 'sycomore' - Note the spelling - not sycamore. It was not the sycamore we know. It was a sycomore-fig (Ficus sycomorus). It brings in a load of symbolism to the story.
Words also change their meaning over the years. Hence the need for new translations.
Translation is not an exact science. There will always be interpretation. A good scholar will warn you in advance.
I did try to explain this but the gospel wasn't translated into Greek - that is the orignial language. The semetic language Jesus would have spoken is Aramaic (a dialect of Syriac) and as a carpenter he may have had to draw up and understand contracts in Greek. Also Mark 5:1-20 - is an example of a gentile area that Jesus visited.
Thanks, very helpful. Am I right in thinking that there is a consensus that although not always loved the GNB does have a place?
Horses for courses. There is no such thing as a perfect translation - different versions suit different situations, but since most folk only use one or two versions, there will always be a degree of compromise. The GNB is good for easy reading and access, but fudges some ideas a bit, and destroys poetry. RSV is the most accurate in terms of representing the original MSS, and the poetry is superb, but it is archaic. I haven't really used NRSV - I'm put off by the push for 'inclusive language.' NIV is a good workaday translation, but it has a few problems, usually because the translators couldn't make their minds up whether they were doing a new RSV (ie accurate) or a new GNB (ie changing things to make them more comprehensible to non-specialists). NEB/REB just feel turgid. The Message, etc, are fun, but can get a long way from the original, and will date very rapidly - just as the NEB feels very 1960s and the Living Bible feels very 1970s.
It's no good - the only answer is to make sure everybody learns Greek and Hebrew...
In academic situations, certainly the one I'm in, the NRSV is the standard translation - and most prints of it are well foot-noted to show alternative meanings, and to flag up where inclusive language has been used, which is generally where we can be reasonably certain the masculine word used in the MSS was used in a place we would now use an inclusive term.
We are also, however, encouraged to own several translations, and those who teach Greek and Hebrew make a significant effort to show how faithful translators can come to differing opinions on how a text should be translated.
As for the GNB, I wouldn't choose to read from it myself, but it does, I think, have a place - it is certainly easy to read and listen to (and I love the line drawings!). I would suggest that maybe it makes a good starting point, from which we can help people delve deeper by gradually introducing them to other translations (I would not wish to use a GNB translation as the basis of a Bible Study, but I would be happy to have one available should someone need a more easily readable starting point). I've always felt it a shame church congregations tend to stick to one translation - I wonder whether people might gain a greater insight into the complexities of biblical study and exegesis if we read the same passage from more than one translation in the same service. Just a thought!
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