Translating Truth

Translating Truth, Multiple Authors ★★★★
This book is a discussion about theories of translation of the Scripture into the vernacular and is written by a group of most venerable scholars, most of whom were involved in the ESV translation, including JI Packer, Wayne Grudem, Leland Ryken, Jack Collins, Vern Poythress, and Bruce Winter. My interest in this book stemmed from multiple comments about the use of essentially literal vs. dynamic equivalent translation techniques. The book was quite effective at persuading me about the value of essentially literal translation techniques. I realize that there was a time when missionaries paid obeisance to dynamic equivalence, claiming that their audience would not understand various words such as “sheep” or “justification”. In the process, the gospel is dumbed down. Indubitably, many passages in Hebrew and Greek have double meanings, and perhaps both meanings are correct. Perhaps the original language is simply uninterpretable or challenging to understand; in those situations, the translator should not attempt to force on the reader a single interpretation. The book was quite readable, although I’m sure I would have understood it better with a better knowledge of Hebrew and Greek. Oh well.