Gene Edward Veith, of the Cranach blog, provides today’s subject matter.
First of all, he links to this article, which tells how the Beatles, John Lennon especially, tried to make a deal to film The Lord of the Rings back in the 1960s.
According to Peter Jackson, who knows a little something about making Lord of the Rings movies, John Lennon was the Beatle most keen on LOTR back in the ’60s—and he wanted to play Gollum, while Paul McCartney would play Frodo, Ringo Starr would take on Sam and George Harrison would beard it up for Gandalf. And he approached a pre-2001 Stanley Kubrick to direct.
Fortunately, Prof. Tolkien was still alive at the time, and he put his brogan down firmly on the idea.
Prof. Veith also writes about the new NIV Bible, which (most of us weren’t aware, I’m sure) is now going to supersede both previous versions of the NIV.
…But still there remains lots of interpretations for the sake of modern readers in place of simply rendering what these non-modern texts literally say, this being part of the translating philosophy of the NIV. Here too is that tendency in American evangelicalism to cut itself off from the church of the past (eliminating “saints”?). Not to mention the presumption of correcting the Bible’s “sexist” language.
This seems like an excellent opportunity to publicly thank Dale Nelson, for his generous gift of a copy of the new The Lutheran Study Bible: English Standard Version
I don’t think Dr. Veith is really being fair to the no longer available first edition of the NIV. Dynamic equivalence simply recognizes the reality that you cannot have, literally *cannot have*, a word for word translation from one language to another. Certainly not Hebrew to English or koine Greek to English. So you translate the phrase. ALL translations do this to an extent, or they would be incomprehensible gibberish.
“Saint” of course, to us in modern English does not have the same meaning that hagiazein did in koine Greek, due to the centuries of Roman Catholic theological baggage tied on to it. So translating it so that it means what it meant is actually the correct thing to do.
The second edition of the NIV strikes me as being considerably worse than the first edition, and no doubt this one will be worse yet. Just like the ESV, translated under the direction of a former prof of mine who does not believe the Genesis account and who therefore deliberately translates Genesis 1 and 2 as two separate creation accounts, rather than a zoom-in on day six in Genesis 2. Likewise when the ESV departs from the RSV text which it is a slight modification of, it is extremely clunky in its English usage, most irritatingly in the way it tries to render the rhetorical implied negative in a purely southern dialectical form that grates on the ears of the rest of the English-speaking world.
I’d stick with the NASB 2nd for the New Testament, and the NIV for the Old Testament, if you want accuracy. (though no modern translation accurately translates the crudities in the OT, preferring to bowdlerize them.
As to the LSB, the last I knew, it was using an already-available set of non-Lutheran study notes from a 19th century source, rather than using the best of modern textual and archaeological scholarship to help us understand the text in its historical and grammatical context. Am I wrong? I hope so. (of course a study Bible ought not be presenting a theology, but just contextual information to assist in understanding the text, I find anything else to be ethically questionable considering Who’s Word it is)
My understanding is that the new LSB is a fresh project.
I’m hugely disappointed that the new NIV seems to be essentially a TNIV reboot.
Also, anyone interested in reading about dynamic equivalence versus formal equivalence should read Leland Ryken’s The Word of God in English.
Steve, am I reading you to say the ESV deliberately translates Genesis 1-2 to be separate creation accounts? What would that mean?
http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Genesis+2
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2&version=KJV
I’m not seeing it.
Have you tried the ESV Study Bible?
J.K.Jones, I tend to refer to texts and monographs than to study Bible footnotes, myself. So far as I know, the ideal study Bible does not exist.
Phil, could you restate your question?
I haven’t read Ryken on that, but I have studied from excellent scholars and of course the original languages. I would say that the 2nd edition (not to mention the TNIV etc) NIV, goes a little too far, but not for laypeople, and the NASB can be a little too wooden.
All three are vastly better than the sadly popular The Message, which is a commentary on the Bible by Peterson not a translation like people take it as being, or the LV, Amplified or NRSV
Oh, I don’t think that the WEB Bible is a superb translation BUT -it’s- footnote on the reasons they made the translation choices they did are very helpful. Combine that with archeaological and cultural context notes – from the starting point that the Bible is true – which is hard to find, and you’d have something fairly ideal.
Steve,
Ryken would agree that The Message is abominable. He argues that translators ought to be more sensitive to form and genre as well as meaning. Poetry should read like poetry, apocalyptic prophesy like apocalyptic prophesy, etc. Everything shouldn’t feel like a string of proposition. (In his view, this is where the NASB fails.) It’s a fascinating book whether or not one agrees at every point.
Steve, you said, “Just like the ESV, translated under the direction of a former prof of mine who does not believe the Genesis account …”
Are you saying the ESV skews the Genesis account? If so, how?