Dynamic Equivalency: Its Influence and Error
October 5, 2004
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master--that’s all.”
-- excerpt from Alice in Wonderland
___________
There are two foundational things that are required for a sound Bible translation (not to speak of the qualification of the translator). The first is that it must be translated from the right Hebrew and Greek texts. The second is that it must use the right method of translation. Just as there are two competing Greek texts today (the Received Text underlying the Reformation Bibles such as the German Luther and the English King James vs. the Westcott-Hort line of Greek texts underlying most of the modern English versions since the latter half of the 19th century), there are also two competing translation methodologies. One is the literal method, the type that was used to create the Reformation Bibles such as the KJV, and the other is the dynamic equivalency method. Modern English Bibles such as the New International Version, the Today’s English Version, The Message, and the Contemporary English Version fail on both counts. They are loose dynamic equivalency renderings of the wrong Greek text. Modern English Bibles such as the New American Standard Bible and the English Standard Version fail only on the first count. They are literal translations of the wrong Greek text!
The dynamic equivalency method of Bible translation is relatively new. It was developed a few decades ago and has spread rapidly within translation circles. While working as a foreign missionary in South Asia in the 1980s, I was involved in establishing the principles and guidelines for a Bible translation project. I also had contact with men working on translations in several other languages. Through these experiences I became familiar with dynamic equivalency, and the more I have learned of this method and its growing influence, the more alarmed I have become.
The new method of Bible translation is called by many names: Dynamic Equivalency, meaning the translation is only “dynamically” (active, energetic) equivalent (less authoritative and precise than exactness) to the original and meaning that literal equivalency is not the objective; Common Language, meaning the translator aims to translate the text into the level of linguistic aptitude common to the receptor language and if the receptor language is that of a group of people who are largely illiterate, the “common level” might be third or fourth grade; Idiomatic Translation, meaning the translator is free to change idioms into those that would be easily understood by the people in the receptor language (if they don’t readily understand snow, for example, this can be changed to some other substance that is white in color); Impact Translation, meaning the translator attempts to produce the same impact on modern readers that, in his opinion, the original language version had on the original readers; Indirect Transfer Translation, meaning the translator does not have to translate literally and directly into the receptor language but is free to be indirect; Functional Equivalency, meaning the translator does not have to aim for exact equivalence but for general, functional equivalence; and Thought Translation, meaning the translator is free to translate general thoughts rather than actual words.
THE POPULARITY AND INFLUENCE OF DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY
Some will be surprised to learn that the dynamic equivalency method of Bible translation has gained almost total ascendancy among the world’s most influential translation groups.
The UNITED BIBLE SOCIETIES (UBS), composed of 142 national and local Bible societies working in 200 countries, distributes a large percentage of the world’s Bibles. They are currently involved in translation in 600 languages. In 2003 the member societies of the UBS distributed more than 430 million Bibles, New Testaments, and Scripture portions, including 21.4 million Bibles and 14.4 million New Testaments. The UBS has been dedicated to dynamic equivalency since the 1970s. The American Bible Society, which pays a large percentage of the United Bible Societies’ budget, owns the copyright to the Today’s English Version and to the Contemporary English Version. These thoroughgoing dynamic equivalency versions are their babies.
The United Bible Societies are busy producing Today’s English Version-like translations throughout the world. In the United Bible Societies publication Bible Translator, #23 for 1972, Paul Ellingworth observed, “Since Bible Societies never have enough money for everything, this means that it is unlikely that they will in the future [provide financial] support for translations in ‘traditional ecclesiastical language” (p. 223). In August 1987 I received a letter from British and Foreign Bible Society leader Geoff Horner. He wrote, “...virtually all translations being carried out at present directly by UBS are CLT’s [common language translations].” At its 1996 World Assembly, the United Bible Societies set a goal that by 2010 a dynamic equivalency Bible should be available for every language with more than 500,000 speakers, a dynamic equivalency New Testament for every language with more than 250,000 speakers, and a dynamic equivalency Bible Portion for every language with more than 100,000 speakers.
The worldwide distribution of the LIVING BIBLE in English and other languages also illustrates the influence of dynamic equivalency. As of 1997, more than 40 million copies of the Living Bible had been sold in the United States and Canada alone. Its coffers full through the sale of English Living Bibles, Living Bibles International dedicated its vast resources to the production of the equivalent of the Living Bible in non-English languages. By the early 1990s, Living Bibles International had produced the equivalent of the Living Bible in most major languages of the world.
The large resources of WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS is also devoted to the production of dynamic equivalency versions. This is the method they teach at their schools and the method their workers are using on the fields. Wycliffe supports the Today’s English Version and the dynamic equivalency methods underlying it.
How influential is Wycliffe? As of the end of 2002, Wycliffe was involved in some 1,500 translation projects in 70 countries. This represents a massive influence, but Wycliffe’s influence is spread much further than their own translation work indicates. They are responsible for much of the training of professional Bible translators from other groups, including those with the United Bible Societies, those with denominational translation projects, even some fundamentalists. This vast influence is gained through their Summer Institute of Linguistics training school in Texas and the various programs associated with it.
In addition, some Wycliffe people have written training materials used broadly by professional translators. For example, John Beekman and John Callow, both with Wycliffe, have authored materials which present classic dynamic equivalency methods and which are used widely by professional translators across all denominational and doctrinal lines.
Through these materials, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, and the translation labors of their workers, Wycliffe’s influence is massive, and it is dedicated to the promotion of dynamic equivalency.
In English, popular dynamic equivalency versions include the New International Version, the Today’s English Version (Good News for Modern Man), the Living Bible and the New Living Bible, the Simple English Bible, the Contemporary English Version, and The Message.
Thus since its rise in the 1960s, dynamic equivalency has become the chief Bible translation methodology throughout the world.
THE PRINCIPLES AND ERRORS OF DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY
Following are some of the key principles of dynamic equivalency. These are taken directly from the writings of its chief promoters.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY AIMS TO TRANSLATE THOUGHTS RATHER THAN WORDS
A cornerstone of dynamic equivalency is its goal of translating ideas rather than words. Eugene Nida said that “words are merely vehicles for ideas” (Nida, Bible Translation, 1947, p. 12).
Kenneth Taylor said the same thing when he described his translation method:
“We take THE ORIGINAL THOUGHT and convert it into the language of today. ... We can be much more accurate than the verbal translation” (Interview with J.L. Fear, Evangelism Today, December 1972).
Consider this description of the Contemporary English Version:
“The Contemporary English Version differs from other translations in that it is not a word-for-word and sequence-by-sequence rendering which reproduces the syntax of the original texts,” explained Dr. Burke. “Instead, it is an IDEA-BY-IDEA TRANSLATION, arranging the Bible’s text in ways understandable to today’s reader of English” (American Bible Society Record, June-July 1991, pp. 3-6).
Those who use dynamic equivalency claim to be aiming for a transfer of the same MEANING from the original to the receptor language. They say the original words and form are important, but only as a vehicle for the meaning; therefore, it is the meaning alone which is truly important in the translation.
It is true that the meaning of the original Scripture is important, but it is not true that one can translate only the “meaning” without concern for the words and form of the original.
Further, when we examine the dynamic equivalency or common language versions, invariably it is seen that the meaning has been changed as well as the form and words. It is impossible to translate exact meaning without striving to translate exact words and form.
A study of such popular English dynamic equivalency versions as the Good News Bible and the Living Bible proves this. Not only have the translators of these versions loosed themselves from the words and form of the original texts, but they have loosed themselves from the very meaning as well. Please keep this in mind when you read statements by these translators. They usually profess to remain faithful to the exact meaning of the original text in translation work, but it is impossible to be true to the Word of God while being faithful to dynamic equivalency.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY AIMS AT THE USE OF SIMPLE LANGUAGE AND STYLE THROUGHOUT
In 1970 the Bible Society of India (a member of the United Bible Societies) began to produce a dynamic equivalency version (otherwise known as a “common language version”) of the Punjabi Bible. This project was completed in 1984. A listing of the translation principles was given in the report issued upon the release of the New Punjabi Bible, March 2, 1985. One of those principles was this: “From the language point of view, IT SHOULD NOT HAVE A VERY HIGH LITERARY STANDARD. The language used should be within the reach of both the highly educated as well as the less educated people” (The North India Churchman, The Church of North India, June 1985, p. 10).
By the Word is a report by missionary Lynn A. Silvernale on the Bengali Common Language Bible. This was a project of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and Silvernale was in charge of the work beginning in 1966. In her report, Silvernale gives one of the principles followed in this translation:
“Since the literacy rate in Bangladesh was only twenty-one percent when we began the translation, and since that figure included many people who are barely literate and many new readers, WE FELT THAT OUR LANGUAGE LEVEL WOULD HAVE TO BE THAT WHICH IS READILY UNDERSTOOD BY ADULTS WHO HAVE STUDIED IN GRADE FOUR OR FIVE. This level would be understandable to illiterate people hearing it read as well as to people who are able to read but have limited education” (Lynn A. Silvernale, By the Word, pp. 25,26).
A practical look at just how simple dynamic equivalency versions are in their literary style can be seen in this illustration regarding the Dutch Living Bible:
“We met our Dutch coordinator, Berno Ramaker and his wife Ruth. They are currently testing portions of our soon-to-be released Dutch Living Bible. School groups are being quizzed on four different Bible translations, including the Living Bible, to make sure our edition communicates effectively. ... The book of Genesis was produced in an attractive format last year as a promotion tool for the complete Bible. Acceptance has been enthusiastic. Even before Genesis was released, the 13-year-old son of a reviewer on the project found the manuscript on his father’s desk. After reading for awhile, he went to his father and said, “Hey, Dad, I read this manuscript and for the first time I can understand a book of the Bible from the first verse to the last!” (Thought for Thought, Living Bibles International, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1985, p. 3).
Note that the translators of this dynamic equivalency version in Dutch tested its value by the attitude of young readers. It was aimed at the level of an eight- to twelve-year-old child and was tested by school groups. Nothing is said about whether these young people were saved or had any spiritual discernment whatsoever. How unreasonable to test the trustworthiness of a Bible version by the reaction of spiritually undiscerning youth!
It might seem wonderful that a 13-year-old boy could read Genesis through and understand it, but consider what this means. The Bible is filled with things that are difficult to understand even for the most mature pastor. How then is it possible for a 13-year-old to understand it perfectly? It was possible only because the Dutch Living Bible has been simplified far beyond the form and meaning of the original text.
Yes, the dynamic equivalency versions are easy to read and understand, as easy as the morning newspaper. But how many times does an individual read his morning newspaper? How closely does an individual ponder every word of the morning newspaper? The fact is that the Bible is NOT the a newspaper! Simplicity is wonderful, but this is not the primary goal of Bible translation. The first and foremost goal is faithfulness to God’s holy, eternal Words. ABWE missionary Lynn Silvernale’s goal of producing a Bible on the language level of the barely literate people of Bangladesh sounds like a wonderful goal. Since we, too, are missionaries in an Asian country, among a people even less literate than those of Bangladesh, we readily sympathize with Silvernale’s desire to produce a Bible which the average reader can understand. The problem is this: The Bible is God’s Word, written in words chosen by God, in a literary form chosen by God. And by and large the original words and form of the Bible simply are not on a grade four reading level! For a translator to produce such a Bible necessitates drastically changing God’s Word from its original.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY AIMS TO MAKE THE BIBLE ENTIRELY UNDERSTANDABLE TO NON-CHRISTIANS
Again we quote from the principles which were used by the Bible Society of India in the New Punjabi Bible: “It should be such that readers other than Christians also could understand without any difficulty” (The North India Churchman, June 1985, p. 10).
Our answer to this is simple. God has not given us authority to change His Word, regardless of the motivation.
“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Rev. 22:18,19).
“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar” (Prov. 30:5,6).
Dynamic equivalency confuses the job of the translator with that of a teacher. The translator’s job is to produce the most accurate translation possible into the receptor language. It is then the teacher’s job to explain the Scriptures.
It is the evangelist’s job to explain the Bible through preaching, personal witnessing, Gospel literature, etc.—not to dilute the Scripture so it reads like the morning newspaper, a popular novel, or a children’s story book.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY AVOIDS TRADITIONAL ECCLESIASTICAL TERMS
Again we quote from the principles which were used by the Bible Society of India in producing the New Punjabi Bible: “In this translation the traditional language should be avoided” (The North India Churchman, June 1985, p. 10).
It is this principle which has resulted in the Today’s English Version’s obliteration of such “churchy” terms as “justification,” “sanctification,” “saint,” “redemption,” and “propitiation,” “elder,” “deacon” and “bishop.” Such terms have been changed to ones which even the unsaved can understand, even when this has meant seriously changing or weakening the meaning.
The Contemporary English Version is one of the most recently completed dynamic equivalency versions, and its translation of the above words illustrates this trend. Consider the following examples from this version:
Rev. 22:21—“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all” (KJV) becomes “I pray that the Lord Jesus will be kind to all of you” (CEV). (The term “grace” means free unmerited favor and blessing” and it carries a lot of rich theological meaning when it is studied in the various contexts. To change this blessed Bible word to “kindness” is to dilute the Word of God and change its meaning.)
Eph. 2:8—“For by grace are ye saved through faith” (KJV) becomes “You were saved by faith in God’s kindness” (CEV). (Again, “grace” is changed to “kindness.” The dynamic equivalency translators have also changed almost everything else in this important verse.)
Phil. 1:1—“with the bishops and deacons” (KJV) becomes “to all of your church officials and officers” (CEV). (The terms “bishop” and “deacon” are technical and important terms that are used consistently in Scripture. To water these terms down to the vague “church officials and officers” is inexcusable.)
Phil. 1:1—“the saints in Christ” (KJV) becomes “all of God’s people who belong to Christ Jesus” (CEV). (The term “saint” means one who is set apart for God, one who is holy; it is from the same Greek words that are translated “holy” and “sanctify.” The term has a great depth of meaning when it is studied in the various contexts, but the dynamic equivalency translators typically choose one of the weakest definitions and replace the choice theological word with that definition.)
Rom. 3:10—“none righteous” (KJV) becomes “none acceptable to God” (CEV). (The term “righteous” means right living, godliness; by changing it to “acceptable,” the meaning is diluted and changed. It is true that sinners are not acceptable to God, but that is not what this verse says. The dynamic equivalency translators have interpreted the verse and given the readers their interpretation rather than a precise translation.)
Rom. 3:24—“being justified freely” (KJV) becomes “he freely accepts us” (CEV). (The term “justification” means declared righteous.”)
1 Cor. 6:11—“but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (KJV) becomes “But now the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of God’s Spirit have washed you and made you acceptable to God” (CEV). (In this verse, in addition to many other changes, the glorious Bible terms “sanctified” and “justified” have been watered down to “made acceptable to God.”)
Consider some further examples which are given in Bible Translations for Popular Use by William L. Wonderly. This book was published by the United Bible Societies and is a standard work on dynamic equivalency methods.
In Jn. 1:14 “full of grace and truth” becomes “full of love and truth” in the Spanish CL version. (Do we have to point out that love is not the same as grace?)
The “grace did much more abound” of Rom. 5:20 becomes “the kindness of God was very much greater” in the Spanish CL version. (Again, “grace” means more than the mere “kindness of God.”)
In Rom. 1:5 “By whom we have received grace and apostleship” becomes “God has given us the privilege of being sent” in the Spanish CL version. (This “translation” is so different from the original that it is almost unrecognizable.)
In 2 Cor. 8:6 “this same grace also” becomes “this kind offering” in the Spanish CL version.
In Gal. 2:9 “perceived the grace that was given unto me” becomes “recognized that God had given me this special task” in the TEV.
In Acts 13:39 “by him all that believe are justified from all things” becomes “by means of him that all those who believe are forgiven of all” in the Spanish CL version. (The term “justified” means more than merely “being forgiven.”)
The problem here is two-fold: First, the terms chosen to replace the original Bible words do not sufficiently communicate the exact meaning of the original. Saints means more than those who belong to God. Grace means more than kindness, or favor, or privilege. Justification means more than forgiven. Secondly, the entire idea that these terms are ecclesiastical, or churchy, is erroneous. They are the terms by which God chose to communicate the Truth. They are heavenly terms, and have only become known as church terms because they were given to the churches and are held to be precious by God’s people. To change them and water them down is a great evil.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY ADAPTS THE TRANSLATION TO THE CULTURE OF THE RECEPTOR PEOPLE
In describing the dynamic equivalency theories of Eugene Nida, Jakob Van Bruggen notes the emphasis on adapting the message of the Scriptures to the culture of the people:
“According to the advocates of dynamic equivalence, real communication is broken when the difference between biblical and modern culture is not considered. Nida writes, ‘Similarly, in the biblical account, the holy kiss, the wearing of veils, women speaking in the church, and wrestling with an angel all have different meanings than in our own culture’ (E. Nida, Message and Missions, p. 41). According to Nida, Jacob’s struggle with the angel is being interpreted psychoanalytically or mythologically (E. Nida, Message and Mission, pp. 41-42). He considers the cultural pattern so dominant that the translation should never be a mere transmitter of the words of the message. There is no formal equivalence between the original message and the translated message. What is needed is not a static equivalency but a dynamic equivalency” (Jakob Van Bruggen, The Future of the Bible, Thomas Nelson, 1978, p. 70).
This thinking has led to all sorts of changes in the Word of God. Those who promote dynamic equivalency almost always emphasize that they aim to be perfectly faithful to the meaning of the original text. But this simply cannot be done when dynamic equivalency methodology is used. THOUGH DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY PROPONENTS CLAIM TO HONOR THE MEANING OF THE BIBLE TEXT, IN PRACTICE THEY DO NOT! IN PRACTICE THEY CHANGE, TWIST, AND PERVERT SCRIPTURE. I know this is hard language, folks, but it is true and it needs to be said. The Bible is serious business.
A man working on the translation of a dynamic equivalency version of the Bible into a tribal language spoken in northeast India has reasoned as follows: This tribe has never sacrificed lambs, but they have sacrificed roosters (cocks) to their gods in days past. Therefore, we must translate John’s testimony as follows: “Behold the Cock of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Evangelist Maken Sanglir of Nagaland gave us this illustration of Bible translation work in northeast India.
Another example of adapting the Bible’s language to today’s cultural situations was related to me by the head of the Bible Society in Nepal. He told of one of the projects of the United Bible Societies which was done in a part of the world in which the people had not seen snow. The translators, therefore, decided to translate Isaiah 1:18—“...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as the inside of a coconut...” Is the inside of a coconut the same as snow? Both are white, but there the similarity stops. Snow is like God’s forgiveness not only in that it is white but also in the way it covers and in its loveliness and probably in many other aspects. Even slight changes in God’s Word can have significant consequences in loss of meaning or even in imparting the wrong meaning.
In a United Bible Societies translation in the Ulithian language of the South Pacific, “dove” was changed to a local bird called a gigi (“Mog Mog and the Fig Tree,” Record, Nov. 1987, pp. 6-7).
Further examples of this are given in Translating the Word of God by John Beekman and John Callow, of Wycliffe Bible Translators:
Matt. 8:20—“foxes” was translated “coyotes” in the Mazahua language of Mexico.
Mark 4:21—“on a candlestick” was translated “on a grain bin” in the Korku language of India.
Lk. 9:62—“plough” was translated “hoe” in the Carib language of Central America.
Lk. 12:24—“storehouse” was translated “basket” in the Villa Alta Zapotec language of Mexico.
Matt. 20:22—“the cup” was translated “pain” in the Copainala Zoque of Mexico.
Matt. 10:34—“a sword” was translated “there will be dissension among the people” in the Mazahua language of Mexico.
The Zapotec translation of Mexico changed “the babe leaped in her womb” of Luke 1:41 to “the baby played.”
Consider some other examples of the way these versions change the Word of God to conform with culture. The following illustrations were given to us by Ross Hodsdon of Bibles International, formerly with Wycliffe:
In a translation for Eskimos in Alaska, “lamb” was replaced with “seal pup.”
In a translation in the Makusi language of Brazil, “son of man” was replaced with “older brother.”
In another Wycliffe translation “fig tree” was replaced with “banana tree.”
We believe this type of thing is wrong. When one departs from the principle of a literal translation, the mind of the translator and the culture and understanding of the people become the authority rather than the actual words of Scriptures.
It is important to emphasize that we are not talking about a wooden literalness, but about an unwavering commitment to the actual wording of the Bible text.
From these few examples, you see how far-removed the “dynamic equivalency” rendering can be from the original text. Dynamic equivalency allows translators this strange liberty to change, delete from, and add to the Word of God to such an extent that it no longer even can be called the Word of God.
It is easy to see the unreasonable ends of this dynamic equivalency principle. Those using dynamic equivalency are not afraid to change God’s Words in order to relate to modern cultures.
We must remember that God is the Author of History. He made the nations and “hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26). The prophet Daniel knew this, as he testified, “Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding” (Dan. 2:20-21).
God was not caught off guard when the Scriptures were given in a certain period of history to a certain people within a certain culture. God had before ordained that His Word be delivered through the very cultural and historical situations in which it was given. God created the Hebrew and Greek languages as vehicles for the transmission of His eternal Word to man. Further, God created the nation Israel through which to deliver the Old Testament Scriptures, and God created the Roman empire into which Jesus Christ came to be the atonement for man’s sin, and God created the church through which to communicate the mysteries of the New Testament Scriptures. Therefore, the cultural terminology of the Bible is not incidental to the communication of God’s Word; it is essential for such communication.
The cultural terminology of the Bible, such as that pertaining to farming and slavery, is to be translated carefully from the original, then explained by evangelists and preachers. It is not the job of the Bible translator to become in the process of his work as a translator the evangelist and preacher. Of course the translator can add explanatory footnotes if he so desires and in this way give definitions of the words used in the new version. He can also make dictionaries and commentaries to be used in conjunction with his Bible translation. This is certainly wiser than taking the liberty of changing God’s Word, and it has been the method followed by godly translators of old.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY ASSUMES THAT THE BIBLE WAS WRITTEN IN LANGUAGE EASILY UNDERSTOOD BY THE PEOPLE THEN LIVING
This principle is an important basic assumption underlying the theory of dynamic equivalency. Eugene Nida says, “The writers of the Biblical books expected to be understood” ( Nida, Theory and Practice, p. 7).
Consider this as stated by ABWE missionary Lynn Silvernale:
“The spiritual truth of Scripture was originally written in clear natural language which was intelligible to its readers. Its language conformed to the idiomatic usage of the native speakers of the time in which it was written. However, the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit was necessary to enable the original readers to grasp that spiritual truth, because spiritual truth must be spiritually discerned. When people today read a translation of the Bible, the only barrier they should have to encounter is the spiritual one, not a linguistic one which stems from the use of unnatural and difficult language” (Silvernale, pp. 36,37).
Silvernale is merely restating something she learned from one of the chief promoters of dynamic equivalency—John Beekman, translation coordinator with Wycliffe Bible Translators. In Translating the Word of God, a book co-authored by Beekman and John Callow, we read this basic assumption: “The naturalness of the translation and the ease with which it is understood should be comparable to the naturalness of the original and to the ease with which the recipients of the original documents understood them” (p. 34).
Jakob Van Bruggen tells us that “Beekman and Callow simply presuppose that the linguistic form of the original was natural and not difficult. They write that Paul, Peter, John, James, Luke and the others wrote clearly and were readily understood by their first-century readers” (Jakob Van Bruggen The Future of the Bible, p. 111).
Let us return to Silvernale’s statement, and upon closer investigation it will be seen that it is a subtle mixture of truth and error. It is not completely true that the “Scripture was originally written in clear natural language which was intelligible to its readers,” nor that “its language conformed to the idiomatic usage of the native speakers of the time in which it was written.”
Even the writers of the Bible themselves did not always understand what they were speaking! This is stated in 1 Peter 1:10-11.
The Apostle Peter acknowledged that some of the writings of Paul were “hard to be understood” (2 Pet. 3:16).
Even the widely held supposition that Jesus spoke in parables to make his teachings simple and clear for unbelievers is not true. The parables of the Lord Jesus Christ had a two-fold purpose—to reveal truth to believers and to hide truth from unbelievers! “Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.... Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Matt. 13:10-13).
It is simply not true that the original Scripture was clear to the native speakers of its day.
It is also not true that all of the idioms of the original writings were those of the native speakers at the time of writing. The Law of Moses, with its tabernacle, priesthood, and sacrifices, was given by revelation from God on Mt. Sinai and much of it was completely foreign even to the Israelites at the time of its reception. These were “patterns of things in heaven” (Heb. 9:23). The details relating to the Law, the priesthood, and the tabernacle and its service were not adapted to Israel’s culture; Israel’s culture was molded and created by that Revelation!
The same is true for many other parts of Scripture. The teaching about the church in the New Testament is described as “mysteries,” which means new revelation from heaven. The people of the first century knew no more about New Testament salvation, propitiation, justification, sanctification, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, or any other church term and service than people of the world do today. They had to learn the meaning of these foreign, heavenly things after they were saved, just as men do now. Even common words used by the apostles under inspiration of the Holy Spirit are often given new meanings when they are used in Scripture than they had in everyday life.
These Bible things are foreign to all earthly cultures, because earthly cultures were formed by rebellious men who have turned from the truth and from the Living God. Truth has been lost from man’s cultures and only exists in the form of unperceived shadows remaining in the dark mists of manmade religions. It is not surprising that much of the Bible is obscure to the people of this world, for “our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). And again, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). Again, Jesus said of Christians, “...they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14, 16).
The Bible has great variety of style and doctrine—some simple enough for children to understand, some difficult even for the most educated adult; some simple enough for the unsaved to grasp, some difficult even for the most mature saint. First year Greek students soon learn that the language style of the New Testament holds great variety. Many first year Greek students can translate portions of the Gospel of John with considerable accuracy, while to the same students Paul’s epistles remain mostly obscure because of the greater difficulty in language style and content.
Man is not free to simplify that which God has not simplified! The translator who produces a version of the Bible in which the Pauline epistles is as easy to read as the Gospel of John has corrupted God’s Word. I know that such an idea sounds like heresy to a follower of dynamic equivalency. Many ask, Isn’t it always good to make the Bible simple enough for people to understand? I say no, not if in so doing we have changed God’s Holy Word! Who is man to make simple that which God did not make simple? The Bible is God’s Book. Does any fallen man know better than God what man needs to hear?
Contrast today’s thinking among Bible translators with that of faithful William Tyndale of old, who first translated the English Bible from Greek and Hebrew: “I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God’s Word against my conscience, nor would [I so alter it] this day, if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honour, or riches, might be given me.”
WHY WE REJECT DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY
Beyond what we have already seen, following are some of the major errors of the dynamic equivalency method of Bible translation:
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY WAS CREATED BY A FALSE TEACHER
It is impossible that the theories of dynamic equivalency could be right and scriptural for the simple fact that they were devised by a false teacher. His name is Eugene Nida. Ray Van Leeuwen observes, “... if you read a Bible translated in the last half-century, you probably read a Bible influenced by Nida” (“We Really Do Need Another Bible Translation,” Christianity Today, Oct. 22, 2001, p. 29). In 1947 he published the groundbreaking book Bible Translating: An Analysis of Principles and Procedures, with Special Reference to Aboriginal Languages (London: United Bible Societies). Since then has published many other influential books promoting dynamic equivalency, such as the following:
Customs and Cultures: Anthropology for Christian Missions (New York: Harper & Row, 1954)
God’s Word in Man’s Language (New York: Harper & Row, 1952)
Message and Mission: The Communication of the Christian Faith (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960)
Religion Across Cultures: A Study in the Communication of the Christian Faith (Pasedena, CA: William Carey Library, 1979)
Nida with William Reyburn -- Meaning Across Cultures: a Study on Bible Translating (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, c. 1981)
Nida with Charles Taber -- The Theory and Practice of Translation (Leiden: Published for the United Bible Societies by E.J. Brill, 1974)
Nida with Jan de Waard -- From One Language to Another: Functional Equivalence in Bible Translating (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986)
Nida was the Executive Secretary of the Translations Department of the American Bible Society from 1946 to 1980. Since his retirement, he has been retained as a Special Consultant for Translations. He traveled to more than 85 countries and conferred on translation work in more than 200 different languages. He has influenced countless Bible translators through his writings. Nida believes the Scriptures were “imperfect” and that God’s revelation was not “absolute truth,” even in the originals (Nida, Message and Mission, 1960 pp. 221-222, 224-228). He says that the words of Scripture “are in a sense nothing in and of themselves” (Nida, Message and Mission, p. 225). He denies the view that the Scriptures were written “in a kind of Holy Ghost language” (Nida, Language Structure and Translation, 1975, p. 259). Nida claims that the Bible is limited and relative (Nida, Customs and Cultures, 1954, p. 282, f. 22). Nida agrees with the modernists who claim that Christ’s blood was not an actual offering for sin but was merely a “figure of the cost” (Nida, Theory and Practice, 1969, p. 53, n. 19). Nida also claims that Christ’s blood was merely symbolic of “violent death” and that it was not a propitiatory offering to God for sin (Nida and Newman, A Translator’s Handbook on Paul’s Letter to Romans, on Rom. 3:25). Nida has worked closely with Robert Bratcher, who wickedly changed the word “blood” to “death” in the Today’s English Version.
Further, dynamic equivalency’s largest promoters are the apostate United Bible Societies, which are filled with theological modernists and which are closely yoked together with the Roman Catholic Church. (For evidence of the apostasy of the UBS, order the author’s book Unholy Hands on God’s Holy Book: A Report on the United Bible Societies, available from Way of Life Literature.)
God has given clear commands about our relationship with heresy. See, for example, Rom. 16:17; Titus 3:9-10; 2 Tim. 2:16-21; and 2 Tim. 3:5.
Friends, God would not give us important truth through heretics! If you want to know how to translate the Bible properly, don’t go to the writings of men such as Eugene Nida and Robert Bratcher! God commands that His people mark and avoid the heresy of dynamic equivalency and those who are promoting it!
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY DENIES THE NATURE OF THE BIBLE
First, the Bible is Revelation from heaven. See Gal. 1:11-12; 2 Pet. 1:21. Examples: Moses (Num. 16:28), David (2 Sam. 23:2), Nehemiah (Neh. 9:30), and the Prophets (Jer. 1:9; 30:2; 36:2; Ezek. 1:3; Acts 3:21). God delivered the Bible message as Revelation from heaven and it must be treated as such. It’s God’s’ Book, not mans. Even the very culture in which the Bible was given was chosen of God and is an integral part of His Revelation.
Second, the Bible is verbally inspired. See 1 Cor. 2:12-13; Matt. 5:18; Acts 1:16. This means that the words and details of Scripture are as important as its meaning. The writers of the Bible were not simply given general ideas and then left to their own resources in phrasing them. The words and forms by which the message was communicated were settled in heaven from all eternity, purified seven times. Though no one would deny that in translating the Bible there must be some freedom to change the form of the original in order to properly communicate the message of the original, such freedom definitely does not extend to the liberties taken in dynamic equivalency translations.
Third, the Bible contains the deep things of God. Bible language is sufficient to communicate eternal and divine Truth. “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10). Bible language cannot be compared with any of the uninspired writings of man. This is Divine Revelation and contains very Truth without admixture.
There are those who use dynamic equivalency and yet profess to believe the doctrine of the Scriptures we have described briefly in the above study. I find this very strange. The theory of dynamic equivalency was built by men who do not hold a high view of Scripture. When one considers the very nature of Scripture, it becomes impossible to make the kind of changes that dynamic equivalency calls for.
“When the Bible is being translated, its own doctrine as to its verbal inspiration imposes limitations on the translator’s function. The Scripture teaches us that, as God’s word written, its form as well as its thought is inspired. The translator of Scripture has, therefore, above all else, to follow the text: it is not his business to interpret it or to explain it” (Ian Murray, “Which Version? A Continuing Debate,” in The New Testament Student and Bible Translation, ed. John H. Skilton, 1978, p. 132).
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY IGNORES GOD’S WARNINGS ABOUT ADDING TO OR TAKING AWAY FROM GOD’S WORD
Dynamic equivalency ignores God’s warnings about adding to or taking away from God’s Word, yet this warning is repeated in the law (Deut. 4:2), in the poetical books (Prov. 30:5-6), in the prophets (Jer. 26:2), and at the end of the Bible (Rev. 22:18-19).
Those who follow dynamic equivalency acknowledge these warnings and often have clever ways of explaining how their paraphrases do not disobey them. But in the end it is clear that the warnings are simply ignored.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY SUBSTITUTES MAN’S THOUGHTS FOR GOD’S WORDS
The dynamic equivalency translator makes many changes to the Scriptures. He simplifies the words, removes “theological terminology,” changes concrete images into abstractions, removes and interprets images and figures of speech, adds explanatory material, changes the verbs, shortens the sentences, etc.
We will repeat some of the examples of this:
Rom. 3:25—“blood” (KJV) becomes “death” (TEV).
Isaiah 1:18—“Snow” (KJV) becomes “Coconut” (United Bible Societies translation).
James 1:17—“the Father of lights” (KJV) becomes “God, the Creator of the heavenly lights” (TEV).
Eph. 1:17—“the Father of glory” (KJV) becomes “the glorious Father” (TEV).
“Lamb” becomes “seal pup” (Wycliffe translation in Eskimo).
“Fig tree” becomes “banana tree” (Wycliffe translation).
This type of thing is wrong. When one departs from the principle of a literal translation, the mind of the translator and the culture and understanding of the people become the authority rather than the actual words of Scriptures.
It is important to emphasize that we are not arguing for a wooden literalness, but for an unwavering commitment to the actual wording of the Bible text.
From these few examples, we see how far-removed the “dynamic equivalency” rendering is from the original text.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY ROBS MEN OF GOD’S WORDS
Consider the following Scriptures which show the importance of each word of the Bible: Deut. 8:3; Mat. 4:4; Luke 4:4; Gal. 3:16; Jn. 10:35. Yet dynamic equivalency leaves the readers without access to the very words of God. They have the general thoughts of the original in some cases, but the very words and exact and full meaning have been stolen from them! The reader of the dynamic equivalency versions cannot meditate over each word and detail of Scripture because he does not have an exact translation.
We have seen many examples of how dynamic equivalency translations rob people of God’s Word. Consider another one. The Bible contains ambiguity, meaning phrases and expressions that can have more than one meaning. Dynamic equivalency commonly interprets these phrases or figures of speech so that the reader is given only one possible meaning. Consider a couple of examples:
The Bible speaks of “the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Mk. 1:1). At the very least, that can mean that the gospel is from Jesus Christ and that the gospel belongs to Jesus Christ and that the gospel is about Jesus Christ. Dynamic equivalencies such as the NIV and the TEV and the NLT change this by giving it one possible interpretation -- “the gospel about Jesus Christ” -- and then replacing the broad original with the translator’s narrow interpretation.
Jesus promised blessing for those who are “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3). This expression has a wealth of meaning. It refers to humility, a recognition and acceptance of one’s sinfulness and unworthiness, complete dependence upon God, and other things. The dynamic equivalency weakens this by choosing one narrow meaning and replacing God’s Word with the translator’s interpretation. The NLT reads, “God blesses those who realize their need for him.” The CEV chooses another narrow meaning, “God blesses those who depend only on him.” The Message weakens it even further with, “you’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.” A person can be at the “end of his rope” without depending on God or without acknowledging his true spiritual destitution, etc.
The term “Lord of hosts” is rich with meaning. It describes God as the Lord of multitudes, referring to His power, His sovereignty, His royalty, His greatness, His wealth, His knowledge, His zeal against His enemies, and many other things. The NIV changes this to “Lord Almighty” which limits the meaning.
The author of Song of Solomon compares his beloved’s eyes as “doves’ eyes.” (Song of Solomon 4:1). This metaphor is rich with meaning. Doves are beautiful, gentle, peaceful, soft, tender; they come in pairs; they flutter their wings as a woman flutters her eyelashes, etc. The NLT chooses only one of these meanings, that of softness, and replaces the original with that one meaning -- “your eyes are soft like doves.” The TEV does away with the metaphor altogether and replaces it with a different meaning altogether: “how your eyes shine with love.”
This becomes even more frightful when we consider the fact that dynamic equivalency is not just a technique being used in translations of Bible portions for distribution among the unsaved in evangelistic work. This method of corruption is actually (and rapidly) replacing the earlier concept of literal translation, and new dynamic equivalency versions being produced by the United Bible Societies and others are often intended to REPLACE the old literal versions.
Many of those who use dynamic equivalency think they are helping people by bringing the Word of God down to their level. Actually they are thieves who are dooming people never to have the very words of God.
“Readers of an English Bible should not be at the mercy of a translation committee’s interpretation of a passage. They have a right to make up their own minds regarding what a passage means. Furthermore, a translation should preserve the full exegetical potential of the original text. ... Dynamic equivalent Bibles repeatedly give us a one-dimensional Bible in places where the original is multidimensional. The result is a loss of the richness of meaning that the original embodies and an organized movement that keeps English readers from what the original actually says” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 194, 195, 209).
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY CONFUSES SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT WITH NATURAL UNDERSTANDING
Consider the following Scriptures which teach that man is unable to understand the Word of God apart from divine assistance: 1 Cor. 2:14-16; John 16:8-13; Matt. 13:9-16; Luke 24:44-45; Acts 11:21; 16:14; Prov. 1:23.
Dynamic equivalency fails to recognize the root problem in regard to man’s inability to understand the Word of God, which is spiritual blindness and not cultural ignorance or lack of literary education.
We see an example of this in Acts 13:44-48. Here the Jews, in whose cultural setting the Bible was primarily written, rejected the Scriptures, while the idolatrous Gentiles accepted it. Culture and language were not the problem; rebellion of the heart was the problem. This remains true today.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY CONFUSES TRANSLATION WITH EVANGELISM AND TEACHING
The translator is to faithfully transmit the words and message from the original into the receptor language as literally as possible. In so doing he should obviously attempt to make the translation as plain for the readers AS POSSIBLE without doing damage to the original words and form. The translator is not free to simplify that which God has not simplified. Utter faithfulness to the original text should be the very chiefest concern of the Bible translator.
It is the evangelist’s and the teacher’s job, then, to explain that message to the people. The Bible translator whose overriding goal is to make the Bible clear to the unsaved of necessity becomes a Bible corrupter.
The Ethiopian eunuch was reading from the Scriptures and could not understand what he read. It was Philip the evangelist’s job to explain the Scriptures to this man (Acts 8:26-33). If Philip had believed the theories of dynamic equivalency he might have returned home after this experience and rewritten and simplified the book of Isaiah, the book which the Ethiopian eunuch had been reading! Was it not obvious that the sincere but unsaved Ethiopian had not been able to understand the Bible? Was it not obvious that many other men must be in the same condition as this Ethiopian? Was it not obvious that there are not enough evangelists to speak personally to every lost person and to explain the Bible for them? Well, then, we must reword the Bible and change its difficult, antiquated words (the book of Isaiah was already about 800 years old when the eunuch was reading it) so that the non-Christian can pick it up and “understand it without difficulty.” Certainly this would please God. Such is the thinking so commonly held among those who are promoting dynamic equivalency.
But Philip and the early Christian leaders would have had their hands cut off rather than to have tampered with God’s holy words. That Book is Holy! Is it really? Is it right to inscribe “Holy Bible” on the cover of this book? Yes, God’s name is holy and reverend, we are told in the Scriptures (Psa. 111:9), but we also read that “thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” (Psa. 138:2)! If God’s name is holy and reverend, and God has magnified His Word above all His name, then His Word is even holier and more reverend than His name! Amazing, but true. Woe unto those who are tampering with this unspeakably Holy Book.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY LOWERS THE BIBLE TO THE PEOPLE INSTEAD OF RAISING THE PEOPLE TO THE BIBLE
Dynamic equivalency is an upside down methodology. Instead of raising the people up to the level of the Bible through education, it seeks to bring the Bible down to the people’s natural level of spiritual ignorance.
“Instead of lowering the Bible to a lowest common denominator, why should we not educate people to rise to the level required to experience the Bible in its full richness and exaltation? Instead of expecting the least from Bible readers, we should expect the most from them. The greatness of the Bible requires the best, not the least. ... The most difficult of modern English translations -- the King James -- is used most by segments of our society that are relatively uneducated as defined by formal education. ... research has shown repeatedly that people are capable of rising to surprising and even amazing abilities to read and master a subject that is important to them. ... if modern readers are less adept at theology than they can and should be, it is the task of the church to educate them, not to give them Bible translations that will permanently deprive them of the theological content that is really present in the Bible” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 107, 109).
This is exactly what we say to those who criticize the King James Bible as being too difficult for modern English speakers. The King James Bible does contain a certain level of antiquation, but the problem is not that difficult to overcome. Its vocabulary is much smaller than any of the modern versions. Most of the words are only one or two-syllables. Its phrasing is short and pithy. It is not that difficult to learn what “thee, thou, and thine” mean. It is not that difficult to learn what the 100 or so antiquated words mean, that “quick” means “living,” etc. What does it require? Study! And that is exactly what God requires of those who would learn to rightly understand His Word (2 Tim. 2:15).
Instead of translating the Bible so that it sounds like a sixth-grade reader or the morning newspaper, we need to translate it accurately and majestically, and then educate the people so that they can understand it.
We do this by producing Bible study tools, such as dictionaries and commentaries and concordances. There is nothing new about this process. This is exactly what missionaries have been doing for centuries. It is a process that still works very well, and I speak from experience as a missionary.
What about the unsaved, you say? The Bible as a whole was not written for the unsaved. It is the Bible’s gospel that was written for the unsaved (Rom. 1:16), and we can make the gospel as simple as necessary for the lost (through personal evangelism, tracts, gospel recordings, radio broadcasts, etc.) without trying to bring the Bible itself down to their level. As we have seen, to translate the Bible so that the unsaved can understand it without help is an absolute impossibility, anyway, because they cannot understand it until they are born again. “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY CONFUSES INSPIRATION WITH TRANSLATION
The dynamic equivalency theory says the translator should ask, “How would Moses or Paul write if they lived today?” Beekman and Callow develop this thinking in Translating the Word of God:
“The original writings were both natural in structure and meaningful in content. When we say that the Scriptures are natural in form, we are simply saying that, written as they were by native speakers, they fell within the bounds of natural Hebrew, Aramaic, or Koine Greek. The use of words and their combinations; the syntax; the morphology—all was natural. This characteristic of the original should also be found in a translation” (Beekman and Callow, Translating the Word of God, p. 40).
Dynamic equivalency teaches translators to ask the question, “What would the Bible writers say if they were speaking today?” This thinking is faulty. It confuses inspiration and authorship with translation. An author has the authority to write whatever he pleases. In the case of the Bible, the Author was God and the secretaries were the various human writers. The human writers of the Bible received the words through the process of inspiration. The translator is not an author nor is a translator receiving Scripture by the process of divine inspiration; he is merely translating something into another language. The Bible translator’s job is to translate exactly what God has written. His job is not to adapt the images of the Bible to a modern culture.
Furthermore, not only does the translator not have the authority to modify the Scriptures, he has no way of knowing how the Bible writers would speak if they lived today. The very idea that we could perform such a task is pure fiction.
“The biblical writers are not writing today. They wrote millennia ago. To picture them as writing in an era when they did not write is to engage in fiction, and it distorts the facts of the situation. ... We do not want a speculative Bible. We need a Bible based on certainty. What is certain is what the biblical writers did actually say and write” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 98, 99).
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY ATTEMPTS THE IMPOSSIBLE
We have seen that dynamic equivalency attempts to re-write the Bible for today, which is an impossible task. In several other ways, dynamic equivalency attempts things which are impossible. Let’s consider some of these.
For one thing, dynamic equivalency attempts to retain the exact meaning of the original while allowing for great changes in adapting the Bible message to the language and culture of the receptor people. Consider the following statement by United Bible Societies translator Thomas Headland:
“The goal in Bible translation is to make a translation that will communicate to the target culture without their having to learn the Judeo-Greek culture, while at the same time being faithful to the uniqueness of the historical and theological setting of the Scriptures. No simple task!” (Thomas N. Headland, “Some Communication Problems in Translation,” Notes on Translation, No. 88, April 1982, p. 28).
Headland says this is no simple task. He is wrong. It is an impossible task! God chose to reveal His Word within the framework of a Judeo-Greek culture, and if you change the Bible to such an extent that the readers can understand it without learning anything about that culture, you have corrupted the Scripture.
At this point we need to note that dynamic equivalency proponents inevitably claim their translations are faithful to the original text. All dynamic equivalency gurus claim this. In the United Bible Societies publication Bible Translations for Popular Use, William Wonderly claims dynamic equivalency versions are faithful to the original:
“In the translations mentioned above [the TEV, Living Bible, Spanish Popular Version, French common version, and the Today’s Dutch Version, etc.] various techniques have been used to produce a version that is more meaningful for the readers for whom they are intended, STAYING WITHIN THE LIMITS OF FIDELITY TO THE ORIGINAL ON ONE HAND and the use of an acceptable style on the other” (p. 75).
Wycliffe Translator’s publication Translating the Word of God by John Beekman and John Callow also claims that the aim of dynamic equivalency is always faithfulness to the original text:
“The goal should be a translation that is so rich in vocabulary, so idiomatic in phrase, so correct in construction, so smooth in flow of thought, so clear in meaning, and so elegant in style, that it does not appear to be a translation at all, and yet, AT THE SAME TIME, FAITHFULLY TRANSMITS THE MESSAGE OF THE ORIGINAL” (p. 32).
The Today’s English Version claims this:
“The Bible in Today’s English Version is a new translation WHICH SEEKS TO STATE CLEARLY AND ACCURATELY THE MEANING OF THE ORIGINAL TEXTS in words and forms that are widely accepted by all people who use English as a means of communication” (Foreword, Holy Bible Today’s English Version with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha, American Bible Society, 1978).
The Contemporary English Version claims this:
“Every attempt has been made to produce a text THAT IS FAITHFUL TO THE MEANING OF THE ORIGINAL and that can be read with ease and understanding by readers of all ages” (“Translating the Contemporary English Version,” Bible for Today’s Family New Testament, American Bible Society, 1991).
Ken Taylor, translator of the Living Bible, claims this:
“We take the original thought and convert it into the language of today. IN THIS WAY WE CAN BE MUCH MORE ACCURATE THAN THE VERBAL TRANSLATION” (Evangelism Today, Dec. 1972).
It should be obvious that such claims do not mean anything! We have seen examples from these versions, showing that they are anything but faithful. Even the general meaning of the original is changed. I don’t care what a translator claims. If his translation is a perversion of God’s Word, I will not allow him to hide behind his claim that he is faithful to the Bible!
Let’s consider a second impossibility of dynamic equivalency. It says translators can know how hearers of the Bible centuries ago were impressed. One of the goals of dynamic equivalency is to attempt to reproduce the same reaction in modern hearers of their versions. This is called impact translating.
How utterly impossible! We cannot know how men centuries ago were impressed by the Word of God spoken to them.
Further, there have always been different reactions to that same Word by the different hearers. A glimpse of this is seen in Acts 17, following Paul’s message to the Athenians. All heard the same message from God that day, but some mocked, some decided to put off a decision until a later date, and some believed (Acts 17:32-33).
The Bible translator’s job is not to attempt to create a certain reaction in the hearer of the Bible, but to concentrate upon making a faithful rendering of God’s Holy eternal Words. The translator’s mind is to be most especially upon the receptor language, not the receptor individuals. When the translation is completed and the preaching begins, men will respond in the various ways they have always responded to God’s Word—some mocking, some ignoring and putting it off, some believing.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY IS BASED ON HALF-TRUTHS
Like all error, dynamic equivalency is based on many half truths. The writings of dynamic equivalency proponents contain many things with which we agree, yet they go beyond the truth. Consider some of the half-truths of dynamic equivalency:
First, dynamic equivalency says an overly literal translation is not correct. Those who promote dynamic equivalency inevitably begin by giving examples of wildly improper translations and using these as justification for their paraphrasing methodology. Eugene Nida does this in Every Man in His Own Language:
“Literal translations—the easiest and the most dangerous—are the source of many mistakes. The missionary in Latin America who constantly used the phrase ‘it came to pass’ scarcely realized that it only meant to the people, ‘something came in order to pass there.’ ... literally the story of Mary ‘sitting at the feet of Jesus,’ only to discover later that what they had said really described Mary as ‘on Jesus’ lap.’ It is one thing to speak of ‘heaping coals of fire on one’s head’ if one is talking to an English-speaking congregation; but if one speaks that way in some parts of Africa, he can be badly misunderstood, for that is one method of torture and killing” (Eugene A. Nida, God’s Word in Man’s Language, Harper and Brothers, 1952, p. 17).
This is a straw man to draw attention away from the improper liberties dynamic equivalency proponents take with the Word of God. The solution to a woodenly literal translation is not dynamic equivalency, but a reasonable, spiritual translation which seeks to be true to the original words and form and which does not take the frightful liberties of dynamic equivalency, but is willing to let the Word of God say what it says rather than change it—even for the sake of simplification. The proper Bible translation methodology has been called an “essentially literal translation” and a “formal equivalence translation” as opposed to dynamic equivalency.
Second, dynamic equivalency says the translator must interpret. This is true! An example is Isaiah 7:14 where it is arguably possible to translate the Hebrew word “almah” either as “young woman” or as “virgin.” The Christ-honoring, Bible-believing translator will always choose virgin because he knows that the verse is a Messianic prophecy of Christ’s virgin birth. This is the result of interpretation. Here is another example. In the Nepali language there is no generic term for wine as there is in Greek and Hebrew. The translator, therefore, must interpret passages such as John 2 when he is selecting a Nepali word for wine. He must translate it “grape juice” or “strong drink,” etc., depending upon the context.
All translators face this, but the fact that a translator must interpret things in Scripture before they are translated does not justify the extreme liberties which are being taken in dynamic equivalency versions.
Furthermore, there is a vast difference between the necessity of interpreting words and that of interpreting passages. Consider the following from Leland Ryken, professor of English at Wheaton College:
“Whenever a translator decides that a given English word best captures the meaning of a word in the original text, the decision implies an interpretation. But there is a crucial difference between linguistic interpretation (decisions regarding what English words best express Hebrew or Greek words) and thematic interpretation of the meaning of a text. Failure to distinguish between these two types of interpretation has led to both confusion and license in translation. ... It is time to call a moratorium on the misleading and ultimately false claim that all translation is interpretation. For essentially literal translations, translation is translation, and its task is to express what the original says. Only for dynamic equivalent translations is all translation potentially interpretation--something added to the original or changed from the original to produce what the translators think the passage means” (Ryken, The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation, 2002, pp. 85, 89).
Third, dynamic equivalency says that the people for whom the translation is being made must be kept in mind. Again, this is true. Every translator must have the people in mind for whom he is translating, but it does not mean we can change fig tree to banana tree or blood to death or grace to kindness or saints to people of God or pastors to church officials!
Fourth, dynamic equivalency says some things implicit must be made explicit. This is true. For instance, sometimes words must be added in the translation to make a passage intelligible and/or to bring out words implicit in the original. An example of this is the words that appear in italics in the King James Version. These are words that were added by the translators but that are not explicitly in the original texts. This type of thing is essential in Bible translation work and is something that has always been done. But contrast this important translation principle with the dynamic equivalency perversion of it in the following example from Isaiah 53:1 in the Today’s English Version:
KJV—“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”
TEV—“The people reply, ‘Who would have believed what we report? Who could have seen the Lord’s hand in this?’“
The things added and changed in this passage illustrate that dynamic equivalency goes beyond any proper bounds of faithful translating. Upon what authority have the TEV translators added “the people reply” to this passage? Upon what authority have they changed the tenses of the verbs? Upon what authority have they changed “arm of the Lord” to “the Lord’s hand”? Translators who do this type of thing might claim only to be making explicit that which is implicit, but in actuality they are corrupting the Word of God. None of these changes are truly implicit in this verse.
Consider another example. This time we will compare Ephesians 3:-2-4 in the KJV to the Contemporary English Version (CEV):
KJV—“If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.”
CEV—“You have surely heard about God’s kindness in choosing me to help you. In fact, this letter tells you a little about how God has shown me his mysterious ways. As you read the letter, you will also find out how well I really do understand the mystery about Christ.”
We see that the liberties taken by dynamic equivalency translators go beyond any proper bounds of Bible translation. This is true for practically any example we could give from these versions. They simply aren’t faithful. Dynamic equivalency proponents won’t admit that, but, friends, it’s true. Dynamic equivalency (by any name) is a proud new methodology which men of God of old—the William Tyndales and the Adoniram Judsons—would have rejected in trembling and disgust.
Dynamic equivalency is especially dangerous because it is a subtle mixture of truth and error. Many of those who are following this method of translation have accepted the bitter cake of dynamic equivalency because of the sweetness of the truth intermingled therein. The principles can sound so reasonable. But the bottom line is that dynamic equivalency is a perversion of Scripture.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY IS AN IMPROPER ANSWER TO VERY REAL PROBLEMS
Promoters of dynamic equivalency use examples from translation work in undeveloped nations among illiterate people to justify their methodology. Hear missionary translator Lynn Silvernale:
“How do you talk about sheep to people who have never seen sheep and have no word for such an animal? What do you use for ‘wine’ in a language which has words only for ‘grape juice’ and ‘strong liquor’? How to express theological terms and concepts like ‘righteousness,’ ‘justification,’ ‘propitiation,’ is another big challenge for most translators. In many tribal languages these concepts are foreign and there are no ready-made terms to express them. It has taken some translators months and years to find a suitable term in their language for such abstract ideas as ‘love’ and ‘holiness.’ To get an idea of what is involved, try expressing ‘propitiation’ in the shortest, clearest possible way for a translator to put into a language which doesn’t have such a term” (Silvernale, By the Word).
The problems so stated can make dynamic equivalency seem right, reasonable. These are problems Bible translators and missionaries have always faced, yet it is only in recent years that the proud concept of dynamic equivalency with its willingness to change the form of God’s Word to fit man’s culture has been put forth as the solution.
Foreign cultures are not the only problems used to illustrate the supposed need for dynamic equivalency translation. United Bible Societies publications are filled with problems involved in enabling various groups such as children and the homeless to understand the Scriptures.
It’s true that there are tremendous problems involved in translating the Bible for foreign cultures and for illiterate or marginally literate peoples. But it is never proper to change the Word of God for the sake of adapting it to another culture. The proper solution is to translate the Bible accurately, then explain the translation with footnotes, dictionaries, and commentaries.
What if a language is just too primitive to carry the Scriptures? I say don’t translate the Bible into that language! I can hear the groans now from those with a Wycliffe mindset. But who has given man the permission of changing the Word of God? Who has given such permission? God says, “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar” (Prov. 30:5-6). This is what God says, and I would assume that this is the last word on the subject!
In light of God’s warning about tampering with His Word, I would suggest that the proper method of approach would be the following:
First, simple portions of Scripture can be translated and used for evangelism. As the number of converts grows within a language group, other portions of Scriptures can be translated and used to teach the new Christians about the things of God. Further, an accurate translation of the Scriptures in a local trade language can often be used to train key tribal leaders who in turn can teach their own people and further the growth process. Through this means, over a period of time, the language of a group can be developed so that eventually it might be able to carry the entire Word of God. We must remember that it took 230 years for the Bible to be perfected in English, from the time of the first translation by Wycliffe from Latin in 1380 to the King James Bible of 1611. During that period, the English language itself was being perfected and matured from its roots in Anglo-Saxon, Latin, French, and other languages.
The above is the method which has been used successfully through the centuries by faithful missionaries who would never have used dynamic equivalency. The Bible should raise the people heavenward, not the other way around. Dynamic equivalency is a backward, upside down way of thinking.
The Bible does not say that the Scriptures must be translated into every language. It says the Gospel is to be preached to all people (Mk. 16:15). While the Gospel can be translated into every tongue, the same is not necessarily true for the whole Bible.
Many make light of the idea of using a trade language to teach people the things of God. They talk of the necessity of using the “heart language.” They say a trade language can never reach the heart. I think that is wrong. Those who understand a language, even though it might not be their mother tongue, can understand the truths of God’s Word from that language. Sure, it’s always nicer to hear things in one’s own mother tongue. That’s all well and good. But I say, if necessary, that it would be better to educate an entire people in a trade language so they can have the uncorrupted Word of God rather than corrupt the Word of God through dynamic equivalency.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY HAS NO FIRM CONTROLS ON THE TRANSLATION PROCESS
Since dynamic equivalency allows the translator to take so many liberties with the words and form of Scripture, there are no firm controls on the translation process. Consider the following example from the first part of 1 Thessalonians 1:3. We will give the translation from the faithful KJV and two other literal translations and then from three dynamic equivalency versions. We will see that the literal translations agree word for word, since there is no textual issue in this passage; but that the dynamic equivalencies are dramatically different, not only from the literal versions but also from one another:
KJV “...your work of faith, and labour of love...”
NASV (New American Standard Version) “... your work of faith and labor of love...”
ESV (English Standard Version) “... your work of faith and labor of love...”
NLB (New Living Bible) “... your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love...”
TEV (Today’s English Version) “... how you put your faith into practice, how your love made you work so hard...”
CEV (Contemporary English Version) “... your faith and loving work...”
AMPLIFIED: “your work energized by faith and service motivated by love”
“The sheer range of variability in the dynamic equivalent translations of this verse shows that once fidelity to the language of the original is abandoned, there are no firm controls on interpretation. The result is a destabilized text. Faced with the range of dynamic equivalent translations, how can a reader have confidence in an English translation of this verse? And if it is possible to translate more accurately by abandoning the words of the original for its ideas, why do the dynamic equivalent translations end up in such disagreement with each other? Instead of enhancing accuracy, dynamic equivalence subverts our confidence in the accuracy of the translation” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, 2002, p. 82).
WHERE WILL DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY LEAD?
It would be wise to consider just where things are headed now that the method of dynamic equivalency has gained such ascendancy.
NO MORE ACCURATE BIBLES
First, where dynamic equivalency prevails, no more accurate Bibles will be produced. There will only be the loose, undependable paraphrases.
The fact that the United Bible Societies are aggressively pushing to replace the literal (“formal equivalence”) versions with their new dynamic equivalence (“common language”) versions is openly admitted, at least in their more technical publications. An article appeared in The Bible Distributor, Number 27, October-November 1986, entitled “Promoting a Common Language Translation” by Daniel C. Arichea, UBS Translation Consultant for the Asia Pacific region, and M.K. Sembiring, Information Officer of the Indonesian Bible Society. Give close attention vo their report:
How does a Bible Society promote a common language (c.l.)—also called dynamic equivalence (d.e.)—translation? What are the ways to overcome the resistance of church people, both leaders and members alike, to d.e. translations?
In 1985, the Indonesian Bible Society embarked on a program to promote the c.l. Indonesian Bible which came off the press in May of that year. Several months before that, the IBS staff started to consider a viable program TO ENSURE THAT THIS NEW TRANSLATION WOULD BE USED BY CHURCHES ALL OVER THE INDONESIAN ARCHIPELAGO. In the planning sessions for this promotional program, the following matters came into focus:
Most Indonesian Christians are very fond of the standard translation of 1974, which is a formal correspondence (f.c.) translation, similar in nature to the English Revised Standard Version. The positive attitude toward this translation often results in a rather suspicious and negative attitude toward any other translation. ...
One basic approach that was employed was to promote the c.l. translation, not in lieu of, but in addition to the standard translation that is already loved and used, IN ORDER TO GAIN ACCEPTANCE FOR IT.
The tendency of translation people is to speak very highly of d.e. translations sometimes to the extent of implicitly ridiculing f.c. translations. THERE IS, OF COURSE, JUSTIFICATION FOR SUCH ENTHUSIASM. THE IDEA OF DYNAMIC OR FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE TRANSLATIONS IS LIKE THE BIBLICAL PEARL OF GREAT PRICE: ONCE A PERSON FINDS OUT HOW VALUABLE IT IS, THAT PERSON TENDS TO LEAVE ALL OTHER TRANSLATIONS IN FAVOR OF THE NEWLY FOUND TREASURE. But such an approach creates problems for people who are already used to other translations. Many people get the idea that the translations that they cherish will no longer be published and, because of that, they begin to resist the new translation even before reading it.
IN VIEW OF THIS, WE DECIDED ON A NEW APPROACH: we promoted both types of translation. Both f.c. translations and d.e. translations are valid translations. The problem is not that one is better than the other, but that it is not often recognized that they are translated on the basis of different translation principles. ... Both translations are valid and both strive to be faithful to the biblical text. But whereas the f.c. translation retains the various biblical forms and terms, the d.e. translation renders these terms in the light of their context; furthermore, it uses language that expresses the meaning of the biblical text as naturally as possible and on a level which is appropriate for the intended readership.
THIS APPROACH OF PROMOTING BOTH TRANSLATIONS HAS BROKEN DOWN RESISTANCE TO THE NEW C.L. TRANSLATION. MANY NOW READ IT TOGETHER WITH THE F.C. TRANSLATION. QUITE A FEW HAVE COMPLETELY SWITCHED TO THE C.L. TRANSLATION, ESPECIALLY AFTER REALIZING THAT IT IS MUCH EASIER TO READ AND UNDERSTAND.
From this report of how the common language version is being promoted in Indonesia, the plan and methodology of the United Bible Societies becomes clear. Their goal is ultimately to replace the older “formal equivalence” versions with the dynamic equivalence paraphrases. They liken this new method of translation to the “pearl of great price” and acknowledge that once an individual finds the supposed value of this method he “tends to leave all other translations in favor of the newly found treasure.” But they also realize that great numbers of Christians still love the older, literal versions and tend to be skeptical of the new common language versions. Therefore, to “overcome the resistance of church people to dynamic equivalency translations” they plot various approaches whereby over a period of time the people’s resistance toward the new paraphrases is cleverly broken down. At first they uphold both the old and new versions as valid and good, but the actual goal is to replace the formal versions. Thus the authors of the above report proclaim with much enthusiasm, “This approach of promoting both translations has broken down resistance to the new c.l. translation. Many now read it together with the f.c. translation. Quite a few have completely switched to the c.l. translation.”
In this light, we recall the following quotation from Jakob Van Bruggen’s book The Future of the Bible:
“Translations in colloquial language [dynamic equivalency] have the greatest priority. Their total costs are paid and this payment has priority. At the bottom of the list are the translations in traditional church language; no new funds may be formed for these, unless these funds are fed by special campaigns. See the ‘Table of Priorities,’ Bible Translator 23 (1972): p. 220. Paul Ellingworth wrote in the same issue (p. 223): ‘Since Bible Societies never have enough money for everything, this means that it is unlikely that they will in the future support for translations in ‘traditional ecclesiastical language’“ (Jakob Van Bruggen, The Future of the Bible, p. 67).
We see that there will be no new funding of “traditional ecclesiastical” versions by the United Bible Societies. This is a situation which has existed for quite a few years. In August 1987 I received a letter from Geoff Horner of the British and Foreign Bible Society, who acknowledged that “virtually all translations being carried out at present directly by UBS are CLT’s [common language translations].” This same mindset exists in the Wycliffe Bible Translators. ALL of their translations are dynamic equivalency versions. The world is being filled with “Bibles” that are weak paraphrases at best.
Furthermore, the prevalence of dynamic equivalence versions lowers the standard of Bible reading in churches and leads to increasing biblical illiteracy.
“Finally, after a quarter century of easy-read Bible translations designed to make the Bible accessible to the masses, biblical illiteracy continues to spiral. Instead of solving the problem, modern translations, with their assumption of a theologically inept readership, may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 110).
NO MORE MAJESTIC BIBLES
The Bible is more than a collection of words that must be translated correctly. It is the majestic, powerful Word of the Living God. Of all of the books of the world, only the Bible is authored by God. Thus a good translation of the Bible will be minutely accurate but it will be more than that; it will be majestic. It will not read like a newspaper or a novel or a political speech but like the eternal Word of God!
Consider the following statements along this line by a professor of literature at a Christian college:
“What is lost as we move down the continuum from the exalted to the colloquial? The fist thing that is lost is the dignity of the Word of God. If we scale down the stateliness and, where appropriate, the eloquence of the Bible into a flat, prosaic format, the Bible ceases to be anything special. A critic of modern colloquial translations has rightly said that this ‘kind of familiarity, too, can breed contempt.’ ... A second effect of the diminishment of language is the loss of the effective power of which the King James Bible was once the very touchstone. A reviewer of a modern translation comments on a quoted passage with the statement, ‘Almost everything has been lost [from the KJV]: not only the rhythm, but the sense of authority that goes with it--that bracing sense that we aren’t appealing to ideas or vague hopes of our own but to firm promises and facts. It has become weak’” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 205, 206).
“Good rhythm for a Bible is like a qualifying exam: If a translation cannot measure up on this matter, it is not in the running to be a superior Bible for public use and oral reading in more private situations. ... The best test of rhythm is simply to read passages aloud. ... If in oral reading a passage ebbs and flows smoothly, avoids abrupt stops between words and phrases where possible, and provides a sense of continuity, it is rhythmically excellent. If a translation clutters the flow of language and is consistently staccato in effect, it is rhythmically inferior. ... All of these considerations make rhythm an essential translation issue, not a peripheral one. For a book that is read aloud as often as the Bible is, and for a book whose utterances are so frequently charged with strong feeling and sublime ideas, excellent rhythm should be regarded as a given” (Ryken, pp. 257, 259).
“‘To make the Bible readable in the modern sense means to flatten out, tone down and convert into tepid expository prose what in K.J.V. is wild, full of awe, poetic, and passionate. It means stepping down the voltage of K.J.V. so it won’t blow any fuses’” (Ryken, quoting Dwight Macdonald, “The Bible in Modern Undress,” in Literary Style of the Old Bible and the New, ed. D.G. Kehl, 1970, p. 40).
“‘We are in real danger of losing, in an age of flat prose, an essential and invaluable capacity of the language, fully realized once in the English Bible ... the capacity to express by tone and overtone, by rhythm, and by beauty and force of vocabulary, the religious, the spiritual, the ethical cravings of man’” (Ryken, quoting Henry Canby, “A Sermon on Style,” in Literary Style of the Old Bible and the New, ed. D.G. Kehl, 1970, p. 427).
“Tone is the literary term that refers to such things as the writer’s attitude toward his or her subject matter, the suitability of style for the content, and the correctness of effect on a reader. ... From time to time I encounter the sentiment from dynamic equivalency advocates that the Bible ‘should not sound like the Bible.’ Billy Graham endorsed The Living Letters by saying that ‘it is thrilling to read the Word ... [in] a style that reads much like today’s newspaper.’ I disagree with these verdicts. A sacred book should sound like a sacred book, not like the daily newspaper. It should command attention and respect, and to do so it cannot be expressed in the idiom of the truck stop. The failure of modern colloquial translations is frequently a failure of tone” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 278, 279, 280).
“What a literary scholar said of one modern translation is generally true of all dynamic equivalent and colloquial translations: it ‘does slip more smoothly into the modern ear, but it also slides out more easily; the very strangeness and antique ceremony of the old forms make them linger in the mind.’ It is not only the proliferation of translations that has made Bible memorization difficult, if not actually a lost cause. ... These translations are inherently deficient in the qualities that make for memorability” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 284).
“‘I believe the Christian Church has a profound responsibility towards a people’s language ... Far from canonizing, or exploiting, the flaccid, vague language of our time, the Bible should be constantly showing it up, directing an arc-light upon it, cauterizing its impurities’” (Ryken, quoting Martin Jarrett-Kerr, “Old Wine: New Bottles,” in The New English Bible Reviewed, p. 128).
The Scriptures in Hebrew and Greek are beautiful, majestic, and dignified, and when the Scripture is translated accurately and literally by spiritually and literarily qualified people, its inherent majesty will shine through the translation. Dynamic equivalency cannot produce a truly majestic translation because it takes too many liberties with the Word of God; in fact, dynamic equivalency disdains the majesty and grandeur of the Bible and willfully lowers that most exalted, most noble of books to the level of a lowly newspaper, which has so little value that it is read today and tossed away tomorrow.
NO MORE CONFIDENCE IN BIBLES
There will be no confidence because the dynamic equivalencies are at conflict with one another and there is no settled standard. We have already given examples of this.
There will be no confidence because of the multiplicity of translations. The dynamic equivalency method of translation requires that the Bible be continually re-translated because the language is continually changing at the common, everyday level. The “language of today” is ever new so a Bible that purports to be in the “language of today” must be ever new. A multiplicity of Bibles creates confusion because the individual is confronted with a bewildering variety of versions, all claiming to be better than the others. Can all of these Bibles really be the Word of God?
“The effect [of the proliferation of Bible translations] has been to destabilize the biblical text--to render it ever-changing instead of permanent. With this succession of new translations (and their constant revision), people have lost confidence in the reliability of English translations. If every year beings a new translation, apparently the existing ones must not be good enough. And if the previous ones were inadequate, what reason is there to believe that the current ones will be better?” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 187).
NO MORE MEMORIZATION OF THE BIBLE
The multiplication of Bibles in English has seriously diminished the custom of Scripture memorization. And the loose dynamic equivalency versions almost totally discourage this practice.
“We have lost a common Bible for English-speaking Christians The Christian community no longer speaks a universal biblical ‘language.’ And with the loss of a common Bible we have lost ease in memorization of the Bible. After all, when a common Bible exists, people hear it over and over and ‘memorize’ it virtually without consciously doing so, but this ease is lost when translations multiply. Furthermore, with the proliferation of translations, churches and organizations find it difficult to know which translation to choose for purposes of memorization; and even after they choose, there is such variety that a person faces the prospect of having to memorize from different translations in different settings” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 62).
I have seen many examples of this. For example, in August 2003, I visited the Saddleback Community Church in southern California, pastored by Rick Warren of Purpose Drive Church fame. I observed on the way into the auditorium that only a few of the people carried Bibles, and the reason became clear when I saw the multiplicity of versions that were used in the preaching. An outline of the sermon was handed out with the bulletin, and six or seven versions were quoted, most of them paraphrases such as the Living Bible, the New Living Bible, The Message, the Today’s English Version, and the Contemporary English Version. It would have been impossible to have followed along in one’s Bible, regardless of which one you had brought. The result is that a large number of the people do not bring their own Bibles and do not therefore carefully test the preaching.
It is a given that there is less Scripture memorization within such a context as there is when people use one standard formal equivalence translation.
NO MORE WHOLE BIBLES
Where dynamic equivalency prevails there might not be any more whole Bibles. There is a strong move on the part of the United Bible Societies to produce selections of the Bible rather than whole Bibles or even entire New Testaments. Jacob Van Bruggen writes of this development:
Even such an important common language translation as the TEV is still a thick book. It is not ‘easy-to-read’ for all people. The goal of the Bible Societies, therefore, is to provide translations for concrete target-groups, such as ‘Beginning Readers; Children and Youth; Students and Youth; Women; the Blind and Visually Handicapped; Special Groups (e.g., people on vacation, victims of natural disasters, migrant workers, prisoners, people in hospitals, members of the armed services); Mass Media Audiences; People Listening to Audio Scriptures.’ [“Free the Word for Modern Man! The Programme of Advance for the 70’s adopted by the UBS Council at Addis Ababa,” Sec. I: Main Target Groups, Bulletin of the UBS 93, 1973, p. 5ff.]
Separate Bible translations for all of these groups and situations are not possible. To reach such a variety of groups and situations, selected Bible passages must be used. The table below indicates that the production of selections is increasing faster than that of complete Bibles:
Ratio of Bibles to Selections in world distribution of the UBS:
1962 1 Bible to 3.5 selections
1969 1 Bible to 18.5 selections
1974 1 Bible to 33 selections (Van Bruggen, The Future of the Bible, p. 30).
Those who are behind the development of this phenomenon argue that they are returning to the conditions that existed before the invention of printing made the dissemination of whole Bibles feasible. In fact, they profess that by moving away from the printing of whole Bibles to the production of Bible selections, they are returning to the pure conditions of the early church.
According to Eugene Nida, a complete Bible does not achieve an equivalent effect nearly so well as does a selection:
“Some persons are still fearful of the consequences of such developments [focusing on the production of Bible portions rather than whole Bibles], but in a sense the Bible Societies are reproducing today the cultural equivalent of what happened in the first generation of the Christian church, when the sayings of Jesus and the accounts of his wonderful deeds were widely circulated either in separate leaflets or evidently, as many scholars believe, as bound series of selections (E. Nida, “A New Epoch in the Bible Societies,” Bulletin of the UBS, #96, 1974, pp. 7-8).
There is a serious error here. To attempt to return to the first century in this particular matter is regression, not progress. The early churches did not yet have the entire New Testament in one volume, though they did recognize by the guidance of the Holy Spirit which epistles and writings were Holy Scripture and which were spurious. Had the Christians of the first century been given the opportunity to have had the whole Bible beautifully bound in one volume as we can have it today, we can be sure they would have had it and would have treasured it with their lives. That was not God’s will; they were living in a transitional period during which the Holy Bible was being completed, its final chapters even then being written. We can praise God that such a day is past. The Book is complete, and the God of History has given man the printing press so the blessed Book can be printed and disseminated throughout the world economically inasmuch that the humblest person can have his own copy of the very Word of God. Amazing! Wonderful! A desire to return to an earlier period of history during which such a blessing was not possible is strange folly. But this is exactly what is being proposed — and proposed seriously — by the misguided gurus who are leading the influential United Bible Societies.
“What then is the future of the Bible? Will it remain a complete book, or will it become a bundle of selections? Will the Bible continue to be one book for all, or will each individual in the future have his own folder of selections?” (Van Bruggen, pp. 30-32).
CONCLUSION
For lack of space we cannot go further into the exact principles or errors of dynamic equivalency. Our goal has been to inform God’s people of how popular this has become in the last few years, and to warn briefly of its danger. We are dealing with something which has enormous and growing influence throughout the world—and not only among modernists and neo-evangelicals, but now even among some fundamentalists.
It is crucial to understand that the common language mentality has opened the floodgates of corruption. It is impossible to produce a pure Bible by following these principles. Having loosed themselves and their followers from literal translation principles, the gurus of dynamic equivalency are causing the world to be filled with paraphrases. These people have no anchor. They have loosed themselves from the unbending authority of the original text. Thus there will be no end to the heretical thinking this movement will spawn.
Dear Brethren, be warned and stand fast.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY INFLUENCING FUNDAMENTALIST TRANSLATORS
Having seen something of the immense influence dynamic equivalency wields in Bible translation work today, we turn to one final sad issue. As we were studying books on the dynamic equivalency principle with the goal of exposing its errors, we were shocked to learn that a fundamentalist mission board, Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE), has adopted these principles for a translation in the Bengali language of Bangladesh and India. Because of the widespread promotion of dynamic equivalency, we believe it will increasingly be adopted by fundamentalist missionaries, and we want to sound a note of warning.
ABWE’s involvement with dynamic equivalency is documented in a booklet written by missionary Lynn Silvernale and published by ABWE in 1983. The booklet By the Word is a review of the Bengali translation project and the principles used.
Silvernale was in charge of the project, which began in 1966, and as she explains her translation principles throughout the book she continually and unreservedly quotes modernist translators such as Eugene Nida of the United Bible Societies and neo-evangelical translators such as John Beekman and John Callow of Wycliffe.
Nida, as we have seen, is the chief guru of dynamic equivalency and is a liberal. He denies the blood atonement and the perfect inspiration and preservation of Scripture.
When Silvernale established the principles of the Bengali project, she turned to the writings of men such as these, in spite of the fact that the Bible demands that we shun such men and their teachings. This is indeed strange for a supposed fundamentalist missionary project, but even stranger is the fact that these unscriptural principles were submitted to the ABWE Bangladesh field council AND APPROVED (Silvernale, By the Word, p. 34).
The following quotes from Silvernale’s book show why we are so concerned about this. The booklet opens with a scene from Silvernale’s missionary life years ago in which she attempts to read the Bible to Bengali villagers and is frustrated at their inability to understand. The proposed solution to this problem is a dynamic equivalency translation.
“What an opportunity for the new missionary. She had prepared her lesson well and her listeners nodded with interest and spoke out in agreement. To emphasize her story and clinch the point, she opened her big red Bengali Bible and said, “Listen to what God says, ‘All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God ... We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.’”
“Gradually the restlessness built up again. The keen interest was gone. Blank looks greeted her as she read verse after verse from the Bible. Then one lady spoke up, ‘What are you trying to say? We don’t understand those words.’
“This is exactly the situation in which I found myself in 1963 in a remote little village in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Some of my fellow missionaries in the city were having the same experience at the same time. The people were Bengalees—some Buddhists, some Hindu, some Muslim, some Christian. Their language was the rich and expressive Bengali language of Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore. The Bible used was the Bengali version often referred to as the Carey Bible.
“There didn’t seem to be anything to do but give a spur-of-the moment paraphrase of the verse we wanted to teach, but somehow that isn’t quite the same as saying, ‘Listen, this is what God says. These are God’s words.’ I was reminded of a haunting question I had once read in some material on Bible translation: ‘If God had a message for me, wouldn’t it be in my language?’
“This is what caused the East Pakistan Field Council of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism to embark on a New Testament translation project in 1966, and to follow it up with the Old Testament project in 1978” (Lynn Silvernale, By the Word).
What Silvernale describes is a common problem. The scene could be envisioned in the United States as easily as in Bangladesh. I’ve gotten the same blank stares during Bible studies from men in a county jail in Coupeville, Washington, as Silvernale got in the village in Bangladesh. An accurately translated Bible simply is not an easy book to understand. To do so requires considerable diligence and study; it requires a teacher. Especially is this true for those who are not saved. When Philip inquired of the eunuch as to whether he understood the book of Isaiah which he was reading, the eunuch said, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” (Acts 8:26-31). We can argue with this all we want, but the fact is that this is the way God has ordained that things be. The Bible simply was not written in such a way that it can be understand easily by the unsaved, nor even by the saved unless they are diligent in study and unless they have proper teachers. It is the nature of wisdom that it must be searched for “as for hid treasures” (Prov. 2:1-5).
Silvernale and other dynamic equivalency proponents, though, are not satisfied with this. Their answer to the problem of Bible understanding is to produce a paraphrase. Can you imagine Philip the evangelist proposing such a thing to Peter and James upon his return to Jerusalem? “Fellows, I met a man out in the desert who was reading Isaiah but could not understand it. It was obscure to him. I believe we need to make a dynamic equivalency version so these folks can understand the Scriptures on their own.” Such a thought never entered the minds of men of God of old. Yet there is a new generation today which is not afraid of making changes to the Word of God in order to conform it “dynamically” to man’s situation.
Sadly, Silvernale and ABWE Bangladesh is among these. We see this from the following statements in Silvernale’s book. Though Silvernale claims to believe in the necessity of teachers and of Holy Spirit enlightenment, she is not satisfied with a “literal” translation.
We must understand that the standard Bengali Bible is fashioned after the translation methodology which prevailed in Bible work until only a few years ago. It is the same type of translation as the German Luther Bible and the English King James Bible. Yet Silvernale and ABWE Bangladesh is following the multitude today who are saying this type of Bible is too stuffy and literal and cannot do the job.
Let me be clear that I am not putting a stamp of approval on the Carey Bengali Bible. I don’t know if it is a good translation or not. It might need some updating and revision. I don’t know. But if it is literal and accurate, it is better than any type of dynamic equivalency.
Consider, though, that the ABWE solution to the “problem” of the literal Carey Bible is a dynamic equivalency:
“In spite of some training in linguistics and slight exposure to translation work before coming to Bangladesh, I was very naive about what is involved in Bible translation and how you do it. If I had realized what is involved, I probably never would have embarked on the Bengali New Testament translation project! ...
“I began to read everything I could find about translation, and learned that there are different types of translation. Various authors classify them differently, but Beekman’s classification in Translating the Word of God [a publication of Wycliffe Bible Translators] made a lot of sense. He refers to two basic approaches to translation: literal and idiomatic. These give rise to four types of translations: highly literal, modified literal, idiomatic, and unduly free. ...
“... FOR BELIEVERS WHO ARE LARGELY SEMI-LITERATE OR NEW READERS, AS IN BANGLADESH, AND FOR USE IN EVANGELISM WITH NON-CHRISTIAN PEOPLE WHO HAVE HAD LITTLE PREVIOUS EXPOSURE TO CHRISTIAN TEACHING, THE IDIOMATIC TYPE OF TRANSLATION IS DEFINITELY PREFERABLE. THIS WAS OBVIOUSLY THE CASE IN BANGLADESH, WHERE THERE ALREADY WAS A MUCH LOVED BUT LITTLE UNDERSTOOD MODIFIED LITERAL BENGALI TRANSLATION. ...
“There is nothing special or ‘holy’ about the language of the Bible. Greek and Hebrew are subject to the same limitations as all natural languages. ...
“The linguistic form of the original is important, because we must study it carefully to find out the meaning of Scripture. BUT THERE IS NO BASIS FOR BELIEVING THAT THE PURPOSE OF INSPIRATION WAS ALSO TO GIVE A BASIC SURFACE STRUCTURE TO BE FOLLOWED FOR ALL TRANSLATIONS” (Silvernale, By the Word).
It is obvious that Silvernale and ABWE in Bangladesh adopted classic dynamic equivalency methodology as the solution to the problem that Bengalis cannot easily understand the Scriptures. The Bengalis already had what Silvernale called “a modified literal” translation, but they weren’t satisfied with this.
This, we believe, is a great error. The Bible must be translated accurately, literally. That—and that alone—is the Bible translator’s job. Then it is the evangelist and teacher’s job to explain it and to produce tools and commentaries to help people understand it. ABWE Bangladesh confused the job of the translator with that of the teacher. They deny that they did this, but I believe the facts speak for themselves. That is exactly what they did.
And note this very dangerous statement by Lynn Silvernale, “There is nothing special or ‘holy’ about the language of the Bible. Greek and Hebrew are subject to the same limitations as all natural languages.”
It is obvious that this fundamentalist missionary was deeply influenced by dynamic equivalency gurus such as Eugene Nida. To say there is nothing special or holy about the language of the Bible is to deny both the sovereignty of God and the divine inspiration of Scripture. The Greek and Hebrew languages themselves are subject to limitations in everyday life as used by fallible men, but not as they are used in Scripture under divine inspiration!
To further illustrate how enamored Silvernale is with dynamic equivalency and its promoters, we note her unqualified recommendation of Wycliffe Bible Translators: “...there is nothing to compare with the courses offered by the Summer Institute of Linguistics during the summer ... or during the regular school year at the International Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas” (Silvernale, p. 44).
Nothing to compare, indeed! While it might be possible to sight SIL as a helpful resource in linguistics, it is wrong in such a context to fail to give clear warning about the radical ecumenism and apostate translation theories promoted by Wycliffe. For more information on Wycliffe, we would point your attention to our article “Wycliffe Bible Translators: Whither Bound?” This is in the Fundamental Baptist CD-ROM Library, which is available from Way of Life Literature.
We would be careful to point out that Silvernale and ABWE would doubtless not take exactly the kind of liberties in translation that liberals such as Eugene Nida and Robert Bratcher have done. Yet it is not possible to produce a truly pure translation of the Scriptures using the dynamic equivalency principles which underlie ABWE’s Bengali common language version. There are liberties taken which go beyond the license given to us by God. We believe that anytime someone is not content with a “modified literal” version, that one has departed from proper Bible translation work.
We would mention one more thing. The ABWE Bengali Common Language version was published by the United Bible Societies (UBS). That should be a sufficient warning for those informed of the ecumenicity and apostasy of the UBS. Fundamentalists should have absolutely nothing to do with these Bible corrupters. There are faithful Bible publishers such as Trinitarian Bible Society and Bearing Precious Seed. There is no excuse for fellowshipping with those who have produced such perversions as the Today’s English Version and the New English Bible. Again we would point attention to our book Unholy Hands on God’s Holy Book: A Report on the United Bible Societies. This is available from Way of Life Literature. See the online catalog at http://www.wayoflife.org or call 866-291-4143.
REVIEW OF LELAND RYKEN’S THE WORD OF GOD IN ENGLISH
The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation was published in 2002 (Wheaton: Crossway books). The author, Dr. Leland Ryken, a professor of English at Wheaton College, writes in defense of literal or formal Bible translation as opposed to dynamic equivalency.
Though Ryken does not defend the King James Bible on the basis of its underlying Hebrew Masoretic and Greek Received texts, he defends the KJV’s literal and exalted style of translation. He continually applauds the KJV, praising its beauty, dignity, and power. He repeatedly uses it as an example of what good Bible translation is all about. He calls for modern translation work to be done after “the King James tradition” (p. 282, 284). The book contains many quotations exalting the KJV. It is a “peerless among literary masterpiece” (p. 270), “unquestionably the most beautiful book in the world” (p. 267), “the noblest monument of English prose” (p. 258), “incomparably the best English translation in its rhythm” (p. 259), “when it comes to stylistic range and flexibility, the King James Bible is peerless” (p. 227), “the touchstone of affective power” (p. 206), “matchless in its literary qualities among all English translations” (p. 188), “the supremely literary English translation” (p. 163), “immeasurably superior” (p. 163), “the touchstone of literary excellence” (p. 62), “stylistically the greatest English Bible translation ever produced” (p. 51).
Ryken served as literary stylist for the English Standard Version, so he is not opposed to modern versions per se but only to dynamic equivalency versions. He also defends the theories of modern textual criticism that have produced the Westcott-Hort type Greek text underlying the modern versions. I do not know how much he actually knows about the textual issue, but he does take the standard position that we must put aside the KJV because it is “not based on the best manuscripts” (p. 284). We would challenge the professor to read Dr. Edward F. Hills’ The King James Bible Defended, a preliminary edition of which was first written in the 1950s, after Dr. Hills obtained his doctorate in textual criticism from Harvard. We would also recommend that he read The Revision Revised by that great textual scholar Dean John Burgon, to get another side of the story about the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament.
Dr. Ryken is an evangelical, in that he believes the Bible is the infallible Word of God, but he is also a New Evangelical (as one would assume by his association with Wheaton). This is illustrated by his uncritical quotation of liberals such as Bruce Metzger and Krister Stendahl and also by his praise of those who hold doctrines and methods that he labels as unscriptural. For example, after condemning dynamic equivalency and claiming that it is contrary to a high view of the Bible’s inspiration and authority, which it is, Ryken is quick to soften the blow by saying, “I want to record at the outset my respect toward translators and publishers whose translation theory and practice I believe to be theologically and ethically deficient” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 123).
The New Evangelical strives to be “both and” rather than “either or.” He wants to hold the truth but not condemn nor separate from those who hold error. This is contrary to the Word of God, such as Psalm 119:128: “Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.” The Psalmist refused the New Evangelical philosophy, in that not only did he love the truth but he hated error. If men are corrupting the Word of God by the unscriptural method of dynamic equivalency -- and they are! -- they should be condemned plainly and unequivocally and they should not be respected or befriended! God has warned that those who add to or take away from His Revelation will perish (Rev. 22:18-19). Those are strong words. Who are we to bless those whom God has cursed?
That being said, Dr. Ryken’s arguments against dynamic equivalency are powerful and are worthy of study by the defenders of the King James Bible. We recommend that you obtain a copy of this book for your library.
Following are some excerpts from this 336-page book:
“The author’s own words matter. Publishers and editors are not ordinarily allowed to change the words of literary texts. Readers expect to receive the actual words of an author. As changes in language make texts from bygone ages difficult, archaic, and even obsolete, readers are educated into the meanings of the words. ... Should we not treat the words and text of the Bible with the same respect that we show toward Shakespeare and Milton? Do not the very words of biblical authors deserve the same protection from alteration that authors ordinarily receive? Should we not expect readers to muster the same level of rigor for the Bible that they are expected to summon in high school and college literature courses? ... My answer is that it cannot. Translation should not be the occasion for license. The ordinary rules of textual accuracy, integrity, and reliability still prevail. In fact, I would have thought that the Bible would be the last book with which people would take liberties.” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 30, 31)
“Modern translations have participated in the spirit of the times--a spirit restless for change, iconoclastic in its disrespectful attitude toward what was venerated in the past, granting automatic preference to what is new and original.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 62)
“We have lost a common Bible for English-speaking Christians The Christian community no longer speaks a universal biblical ‘language.’ And with the loss of a common Bible we have lost ease in memorization of the Bible. After all, when a common Bible exists, people hear it over and over and ‘memorize’ it virtually without consciously doing so, but this ease is lost when translations multiply. Furthermore, with the proliferation of translations, churches and organizations find it difficult to know which translation to choose for purposes of memorization; and even after they choose, there is such variety that a person faces the prospect of having to memorize from different translations in different settings” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 62)
“The task of translators is simply to reproduce in English whatever they find in the original.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 71)
“The sheer fact of the matter is that the Bible is an ancient book, not a modern book. To translate it into English in such a way as to make it appear a modern book is to distort it.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 74)
“The very translators who make so much of the need to translate the Bible into immediately understandable terms, with all interpretive problems removed from readers, have themselves become the counterparts to medieval Roman Catholic priests. By means of preemptive interpretive strikes, these translators take to themselves the power of making readers’ minds up for them, deciding for ‘ignorant readers’ what they think the text means and then doling out only those interpretations that they think correct. The reader is just as surely removed from the words of the text as the medieval Christian was.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 78)
“When we change the words, we change the meaning. ... The whole dynamic equivalent project is based on an impossibility and a misconception about the relationship between words and meaning. Someone has accurately said that ‘the word may be regarded as the body of the thought,’ adding that ‘if the words are taken from us, the exact meaning is of itself lost.’ ... When the words differ, the meaning differs. To claim that we can translate ideas instead of words is an impossibility.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 80, 81)
“Something else that needs to be said is that dynamic equivalent translations ordinarily show a much greater range of variability than essentially literal translations display. This is a way of saying that dynamic equivalence lacks an internal set of controls on the translation process.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 81)
“And if it is possible to translate more accurately by abandoning the words of the original for its ideas, why do the dynamic equivalent translations end up in such disagreement with each other? Instead of enhancing accuracy, dynamic equivalence subverts our confidence in the accuracy of the translations.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 82)
“Those who endorse dynamic equivalency as a theory need to ‘own’ the tradition that has flowed from the theory ... The NIV stood near the beginning of the dynamic equivalence experiment and was a mild version of dynamic equivalence theory. The trajectory from that early point has been toward greater and greater removal from the original text. ... If it is the theory itself that proponents wish to endorse, they need to offer a defense of the variability that stems from their theory, or formulate controls on the wide-ranging renditions that typically characterize the dynamic equivalence tradition.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 84)
“Whenever a translator decides that a given English word best captures the meaning of a word in the original text, the decision implies an interpretation. But there is a crucial difference between linguistic interpretation (decisions regarding what English words best express Hebrew or Greek words) and thematic interpretation of the meaning of a text. Failure to distinguish between these two types of interpretation has led to both confusion and license in translation. ... It is time to call a moratorium on the misleading and ultimately false claim that all translation is interpretation. For essentially literal translations, translation is translation, and its task is to express what the original says. Only for dynamic equivalent translations is all translation potentially interpretation--something added to the original or changed from the original to produce what the translators think the passage means.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 85, 89)
“For essentially literal translators, the translator is a messenger who bears someone else’s message and ‘a steward of the work of another’ whose function is ‘to be faithful to what is before him’ and ‘not ... to change the text.’” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 91)
“To put it bluntly, what good is readability if a translation does not accurately render what the Bible actually says? If a translation gains readability by departing from the original, readability is harmful. It is, after all, the truth of the Bible that we want. ... The only legitimate appeal to readability comes within the confines of a translation’s having been truthful to the language of the original. ... An effective piece of writing needs to be answerable to the demands of what it is designed to do. Within those demands, it must be as readable as possible. Readability in an English Bible translation should not be defined in terms of being the simplest English prose that we can produce. It should always be defined in terms of maximum readability within the parameters of the true nature of the biblical text as it stands in the original. As I said in an earlier chapter, the Bible is not, on balance, a simple and easy book. It is frequently difficult, complex, and sophisticated. If it were not, it would not have occasioned so many learned commentaries and books. Simplifying this complexity for the sake of readability does not increase understanding; instead of clarifying the original text, it obscures it.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 91, 92, 93)
“The biblical writers are not writing today. They wrote millennia ago. To picture them as writing in an era when they did not write is to engage in fiction, and it distorts the facts of the situation. ... We do not want a speculative Bible. We need a Bible based on certainty. What is certain is what the biblical writers did actually say and write.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 98, 99)
“As Tony Naden has correctly observed, to use the translation process as the occasion to render the biblical text easily understandable actually violates the translation principle of faithfulness to the original. ... In other words, there are parts of the Bible for which we can unequivocally say that the easier a translation is to read, the more inaccurately it has translated the original text.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 100)
“An English Bible translation should strive for maximum readability only within the parameters of accurately expressing what the original actually says, including the difficulty inherent in the original text. The crucial question that should govern translation is what the original authors actually wrote, not our speculations over how they would express themselves today or how we would express the content of the Bible. The fact that the New Testament was written in koine Greek should not lead translators to translate the Bible in a uniformly colloquial style. Finally, a good translation does not attempt to make the Bible simpler than it was for the original audience.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 100, 101)
“Instead of lowering the Bible to a lowest common denominator, why should we not educate people to rise to the level required to experience the Bible in its full richness and exaltation? Instead of expecting the least from Bible readers, we should expect the most from them. The greatness of the Bible requires the best, not the least. ... The most difficult of modern English translations -- the King James -- is used most by segments of our society that are relatively uneducated as defined by formal education. ... research has shown repeatedly that people are capable of rising to surprising and even amazing abilities to read and master a subject that is important to them.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 107)
“Previous generations did not find the King James Bible, with its theological heaviness, beyond their comprehension. Nor do readers and congregations who continue to use the King James translation find it incomprehensible. Neither of my parents finished grade school, and they learned to understand the King James Bible from their reading of it and the preaching they heard based on it. We do not need to assume a theologically inept readership for the Bible. Furthermore, if modern readers are less adept at theology than they can and should be, it is the task of the church to educate them, not to give them Bible translations that will permanently deprive them of the theological content that is really present in the Bible.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 109)
“Finally, after a quarter century of easy-read Bible translations designed to make the Bible accessible to the masses, biblical illiteracy continues to spiral. Instead of solving the problem, modern translations, with their assumption of a theologically inept readership, may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 110)
“When translators fix the level of translation within the parameters noted above [grade-school level, limited vocabulary, etc.], they apparently believe that Bible readers will forever be stuck at their current low level of ability. Alternately, even if readers advance beyond a low level of ability, their new mastery will do them no good when they come to read the Bible because the translation has been fixed at a lowest-common-denominator level.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 113)
“The very proliferation of English translations feeds the syndrome of readers as the ones who determine the shape of translation. The result of the multitude of translations has been a smorgasbord approach to choosing a Bible translation. The assumption is that there are no longer objective or reliable standards for assessing a Bible translation; so readers can simply take their pick. Carried to its extreme, this mentality produces The Amplified Bible, which multiplies English synonyms for words in the biblical text, leaving readers to simply pick the word that pleases them, with no attempt to pin a preference to what the original text actually says.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 117)
“In fact, I would not feel comfortable making the kinds of changes that dynamic equivalent translations make to the original text with any book that I hold in high esteem. For example, if I were to distribute excerpts from a work of literature, the Gettysburg Address, or even an article from Newsweek to a class of students, I would never think of changing the wording. I have too high a regard for the authority of even secular texts to do so. The same principle is even more important in Bible translation, where the words of the Bible are the very words of God. Every possible nuance of meaning that resides in the words of the original must be carried over into the words of a translation.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 128)
“I can imagine dynamic equivalent translators saying that they do not think of themselves as tampering with the text. My reply is that they need to start viewing it in those terms. If this seems a stretch, they need to ponder the implications of the fact that they themselves would object if an editor or translator or a speaker quoting them did with their statements what they do with the Bible during the process of translating. I refer to such customs as dropping metaphors, changing words, adding explanatory commentary, and changing gender references to match what the editor or translator or speaker prefers. Surely we would think that this constitutes a disrespect for our authority as author.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 128)
“Did the writers of the Bible express God’s truth in the exact forms that God wants us to have them? And if the biblical doctrine of the inspiration of the Scripture by the Holy Spirit prompts the answer ‘yes,’ the logical conclusion is that the very images and metaphors and technical terms that we find in the Bible are inspired. We are not free to correct or adapt the text to the perceived abilities or tastes of a contemporary readership.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 130)
“We ourselves do not like having what we have said or written slighted by someone who presumes to know what we ‘intended to say.’ What we intend to say is what we do say. If this is true of ordinary verbal communication, how much more should we assume that the writers of the Bible, carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), said what they intended to say. ... What biblical authors primarily intended to say is what they did say, that is, their words. To jump over their words to an inferred meaning during the process of translation is to exchange certainty for inference. As readers of the English Bible, we need an actual text, not an inferred or hypothetical text. In a Bible translation we need reality, not something that approximates ‘virtual reality.’” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 147)
“If, as some claim, literary form and style do not matter in the Bible, why did God give us a literary Bible? And if the Bible is a predominantly literary book, why are some translations and translation theories so careless about preserving the literary aspects of the Bible? ... A notorious non-Christian of the twentieth century called the King James Bible ‘unquestionably the most beautiful book in the world.’ It is with regret that I have many times concluded that the beauty of the Bible meant more to this cultured pagan than it does to most modern Bible translators.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 159, 161)
“Literary authors and literary scholars overwhelmingly regard the KJV as being the supremely literary English translation, and others in its tradition as being superior to dynamic equivalent Bibles. Allen Tate called modern translations ‘dull and vulgar.’ W.H. Auden considered the KJV ‘immeasurably superior,’ Thornton Wilder said that he was ‘never ... able to read long in any other version’ than the KJV, and T.S. Eliot considered modern translations to be ‘an active agent of decadence.’ ... The verdict of literary experts does not cover all that is important in a Bible translation; for example, it does not speak directly to accuracy and fidelity to the original. On the other hand, authors and literary critics are people whose literary intuitions can be trusted, and if they almost uniformly dislike modern colloquial translations, this is surely an index to the literary deficiency of these translations.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 163)
“A good transition of the NT will preserve a sense of historical and cultural distance. It will take the reader back into the alien milieu of first century Judaism where the Christian movement began.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 175)
“I believe that it is correct for an English translation to preserve an appropriate archaic flavor as a way of preserving the distance between us and the biblical world. Joseph Wood Krutch used an evocative formula in connection with the King James Bible when he spoke of ‘an appropriate flavor of a past time.’” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 182)
“The effect [of the proliferation of Bible translations] has been to destabilize the biblical text--to render it ever-changing instead of permanent. With this succession of new translations (and their constant revision), people have lost confidence in the reliability of English translations. If every year beings a new translation, apparently the existing ones must not be good enough. And if the previous ones were inadequate, what reason is there to believe that the current ones will be better? We can contrast this to the situation that prevailed for over three centuries when the King James Version was the dominant English Bible ... During those centuries, English-speaking people could accurately speak of ‘the Bible.’ The King James Version was the Bible--the common property of Bible readers in England and America. ... There is obviously no way to turn back the clock, but we should frankly acknowledge what a toll has been exacted by the decline of the King James Bible and the loss of a common English Bible.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 187, 188)
“As we all know, interpreters of the biblical text do not agree among themselves. To introduce the resulting range of variability into the translation itself has produced an increasingly unstable biblical text. People have rightly become skeptical of the reliability of the English Bible. The dynamic equivalent experiment aimed for clarity and has produced confusion.” (p. 195)
“One of the most obvious developments in Bible translation during the past fifty years is the reduced expectations that translators have of their assumed readers. The King James Version that dominated the scene for more than three and a half centuries emphatically refused to patronize its readers. Although the KJV preface claims that the translation ‘may be understood even of the very vulgar [common person],’ it is obvious from the book that the translators produced that their estimate of the abilities of ‘the vulgar’ was very high indeed. The King James Bible is, in the words of a literary scholar, a work of ‘high art, which will always demand more from the reader, for it makes its appeal on so many planes.’” (p. 200)
“It is, of course, ironic that the common reader through the centuries was regarded as capable of rising to the demands of the King James Version, while modern readers, with more formal education than their forebears, are assumed to have ever-decreasing ability to read.” (p. 200)
“‘I believe the Christian Church has a profound responsibility towards a people’s language ... Far from canonizing, or exploiting, the flaccid, vague language of our time, the Bible should be constantly showing it up, directing an arc-light upon it, cauterizing its impurities.’” (Ryken, quoting Martin Jarrett-Kerr, “Old Wine: New Bottles,” in The New English Bible Reviewed, p. 128)
“Once Bible translation was set in the direction of abandoning the very words of the Bible for its thoughts, a spirit of license was set into motion that has gotten progressively accentuated.” (p. 205)
“Poetry has not fared well with modern dynamic equivalent translations. The reason is simple: The principles that underlie poetry are on a collision course with dynamic equivalence theory. Poetry is not immediately understandable. It achieves its effects by deviating from everyday discourse. By its very nature, poetry requires a reader to ponder an utterance. Furthermore, poetry by its very nature delights in multiple meanings, and dynamic equivalent translations want to pare statements down to a single meaning.”
“Good rhythm for a Bible is like a qualifying exam: If a translation cannot measure up on this matter, it is not in the running to be a superior Bible for public use and oral reading in more private situations. ... The best test of rhythm is simply to read passages aloud. ... If in oral reading a passage ebbs and flows smoothly, avoids abrupt stops between words and phrases where possible, and provides a sense of continuity, it is rhythmically excellent. If a translation clutters the flow of language and is consistently staccato in effect, it is rhythmically inferior. ... All of these considerations make rhythm an essential translation issue, not a peripheral one. For a book that is read aloud as often as the Bible is, and for a book whose utterances are so frequently charged with strong feeling and sublime ideas, excellent rhythm should be regarded as a given” (Ryken, pp. 257, 259).
“‘To make the Bible readable in the modern sense means to flatten out, tone down and convert into tepid expository prose what in K.J.V. is wild, full of awe, poetic, and passionate. It means stepping down the voltage of K.J.V. so it won’t blow any fuses’” (Ryken, p. 270, quoting Dwight Macdonald, “The Bible in Modern Undress,” in Literary Style of the Old Bible and the New, ed. D.G. Kehl, 1970, p. 40).
“‘We are in real danger of losing, in an age of flat prose, an essential and invaluable capacity of the language, fully realized once in the English Bible ... the capacity to express by tone and overtone, by rhythm, and by beauty and force of vocabulary, the religious, the spiritual, the ethical cravings of man’” (Ryken, p. 270, quoting Henry Canby, “A Sermon on Style,” in Literary Style of the Old Bible and the New, ed. D.G. Kehl, 1970, p. 427).
“Tone is the literary term that refers to such things as the writer’s attitude toward his or her subject matter, the suitability of style for the content, and the correctness of effect on a reader. ... From time to time I encounter the sentiment from dynamic equivalency advocates that the Bible ‘should not sound like the Bible.’ Billy Graham endorsed The Living Letters by saying that ‘it is thrilling to read the Word ... [in] a style that reads much like today’s newspaper.’ I disagree with these verdicts. A sacred book should sound like a sacred book, not like the daily newspaper. It should command attention and respect, and to do so it cannot be expressed in the idiom of the truck stop. The failure of modern colloquial translations is frequently a failure of tone” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 278, 279, 280).
“What a literary scholar said of one modern translation is generally true of all dynamic equivalent and colloquial translations: it ‘does slip more smoothly into the modern ear, but it also slides out more easily; the very strangeness and antique ceremony of the old forms make them linger in the mind.’ It is not only the proliferation of translations that has made Bible memorization difficult, if not actually a lost cause. ... These translations are inherently deficient in the qualities that make for memorability” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 284).
“Translators have no right to assume the role of priest, doling out the ‘right’ interpretation to the masses. Readers who do not know the original languages of the Bible deserve to be given the materials with which to do the interpretive work that they do in other verbal situations in life.” (p. 288)
“I believe that it is dishonest to pass off as an accurate version of what the Bible says something that one knows is not what the Bible says.” (p. 291).
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master--that’s all.”
-- excerpt from Alice in Wonderland
___________
There are two foundational things that are required for a sound Bible translation (not to speak of the qualification of the translator). The first is that it must be translated from the right Hebrew and Greek texts. The second is that it must use the right method of translation. Just as there are two competing Greek texts today (the Received Text underlying the Reformation Bibles such as the German Luther and the English King James vs. the Westcott-Hort line of Greek texts underlying most of the modern English versions since the latter half of the 19th century), there are also two competing translation methodologies. One is the literal method, the type that was used to create the Reformation Bibles such as the KJV, and the other is the dynamic equivalency method. Modern English Bibles such as the New International Version, the Today’s English Version, The Message, and the Contemporary English Version fail on both counts. They are loose dynamic equivalency renderings of the wrong Greek text. Modern English Bibles such as the New American Standard Bible and the English Standard Version fail only on the first count. They are literal translations of the wrong Greek text!
The dynamic equivalency method of Bible translation is relatively new. It was developed a few decades ago and has spread rapidly within translation circles. While working as a foreign missionary in South Asia in the 1980s, I was involved in establishing the principles and guidelines for a Bible translation project. I also had contact with men working on translations in several other languages. Through these experiences I became familiar with dynamic equivalency, and the more I have learned of this method and its growing influence, the more alarmed I have become.
The new method of Bible translation is called by many names: Dynamic Equivalency, meaning the translation is only “dynamically” (active, energetic) equivalent (less authoritative and precise than exactness) to the original and meaning that literal equivalency is not the objective; Common Language, meaning the translator aims to translate the text into the level of linguistic aptitude common to the receptor language and if the receptor language is that of a group of people who are largely illiterate, the “common level” might be third or fourth grade; Idiomatic Translation, meaning the translator is free to change idioms into those that would be easily understood by the people in the receptor language (if they don’t readily understand snow, for example, this can be changed to some other substance that is white in color); Impact Translation, meaning the translator attempts to produce the same impact on modern readers that, in his opinion, the original language version had on the original readers; Indirect Transfer Translation, meaning the translator does not have to translate literally and directly into the receptor language but is free to be indirect; Functional Equivalency, meaning the translator does not have to aim for exact equivalence but for general, functional equivalence; and Thought Translation, meaning the translator is free to translate general thoughts rather than actual words.
THE POPULARITY AND INFLUENCE OF DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY
Some will be surprised to learn that the dynamic equivalency method of Bible translation has gained almost total ascendancy among the world’s most influential translation groups.
The UNITED BIBLE SOCIETIES (UBS), composed of 142 national and local Bible societies working in 200 countries, distributes a large percentage of the world’s Bibles. They are currently involved in translation in 600 languages. In 2003 the member societies of the UBS distributed more than 430 million Bibles, New Testaments, and Scripture portions, including 21.4 million Bibles and 14.4 million New Testaments. The UBS has been dedicated to dynamic equivalency since the 1970s. The American Bible Society, which pays a large percentage of the United Bible Societies’ budget, owns the copyright to the Today’s English Version and to the Contemporary English Version. These thoroughgoing dynamic equivalency versions are their babies.
The United Bible Societies are busy producing Today’s English Version-like translations throughout the world. In the United Bible Societies publication Bible Translator, #23 for 1972, Paul Ellingworth observed, “Since Bible Societies never have enough money for everything, this means that it is unlikely that they will in the future [provide financial] support for translations in ‘traditional ecclesiastical language” (p. 223). In August 1987 I received a letter from British and Foreign Bible Society leader Geoff Horner. He wrote, “...virtually all translations being carried out at present directly by UBS are CLT’s [common language translations].” At its 1996 World Assembly, the United Bible Societies set a goal that by 2010 a dynamic equivalency Bible should be available for every language with more than 500,000 speakers, a dynamic equivalency New Testament for every language with more than 250,000 speakers, and a dynamic equivalency Bible Portion for every language with more than 100,000 speakers.
The worldwide distribution of the LIVING BIBLE in English and other languages also illustrates the influence of dynamic equivalency. As of 1997, more than 40 million copies of the Living Bible had been sold in the United States and Canada alone. Its coffers full through the sale of English Living Bibles, Living Bibles International dedicated its vast resources to the production of the equivalent of the Living Bible in non-English languages. By the early 1990s, Living Bibles International had produced the equivalent of the Living Bible in most major languages of the world.
The large resources of WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS is also devoted to the production of dynamic equivalency versions. This is the method they teach at their schools and the method their workers are using on the fields. Wycliffe supports the Today’s English Version and the dynamic equivalency methods underlying it.
How influential is Wycliffe? As of the end of 2002, Wycliffe was involved in some 1,500 translation projects in 70 countries. This represents a massive influence, but Wycliffe’s influence is spread much further than their own translation work indicates. They are responsible for much of the training of professional Bible translators from other groups, including those with the United Bible Societies, those with denominational translation projects, even some fundamentalists. This vast influence is gained through their Summer Institute of Linguistics training school in Texas and the various programs associated with it.
In addition, some Wycliffe people have written training materials used broadly by professional translators. For example, John Beekman and John Callow, both with Wycliffe, have authored materials which present classic dynamic equivalency methods and which are used widely by professional translators across all denominational and doctrinal lines.
Through these materials, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, and the translation labors of their workers, Wycliffe’s influence is massive, and it is dedicated to the promotion of dynamic equivalency.
In English, popular dynamic equivalency versions include the New International Version, the Today’s English Version (Good News for Modern Man), the Living Bible and the New Living Bible, the Simple English Bible, the Contemporary English Version, and The Message.
Thus since its rise in the 1960s, dynamic equivalency has become the chief Bible translation methodology throughout the world.
THE PRINCIPLES AND ERRORS OF DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY
Following are some of the key principles of dynamic equivalency. These are taken directly from the writings of its chief promoters.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY AIMS TO TRANSLATE THOUGHTS RATHER THAN WORDS
A cornerstone of dynamic equivalency is its goal of translating ideas rather than words. Eugene Nida said that “words are merely vehicles for ideas” (Nida, Bible Translation, 1947, p. 12).
Kenneth Taylor said the same thing when he described his translation method:
“We take THE ORIGINAL THOUGHT and convert it into the language of today. ... We can be much more accurate than the verbal translation” (Interview with J.L. Fear, Evangelism Today, December 1972).
Consider this description of the Contemporary English Version:
“The Contemporary English Version differs from other translations in that it is not a word-for-word and sequence-by-sequence rendering which reproduces the syntax of the original texts,” explained Dr. Burke. “Instead, it is an IDEA-BY-IDEA TRANSLATION, arranging the Bible’s text in ways understandable to today’s reader of English” (American Bible Society Record, June-July 1991, pp. 3-6).
Those who use dynamic equivalency claim to be aiming for a transfer of the same MEANING from the original to the receptor language. They say the original words and form are important, but only as a vehicle for the meaning; therefore, it is the meaning alone which is truly important in the translation.
It is true that the meaning of the original Scripture is important, but it is not true that one can translate only the “meaning” without concern for the words and form of the original.
Further, when we examine the dynamic equivalency or common language versions, invariably it is seen that the meaning has been changed as well as the form and words. It is impossible to translate exact meaning without striving to translate exact words and form.
A study of such popular English dynamic equivalency versions as the Good News Bible and the Living Bible proves this. Not only have the translators of these versions loosed themselves from the words and form of the original texts, but they have loosed themselves from the very meaning as well. Please keep this in mind when you read statements by these translators. They usually profess to remain faithful to the exact meaning of the original text in translation work, but it is impossible to be true to the Word of God while being faithful to dynamic equivalency.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY AIMS AT THE USE OF SIMPLE LANGUAGE AND STYLE THROUGHOUT
In 1970 the Bible Society of India (a member of the United Bible Societies) began to produce a dynamic equivalency version (otherwise known as a “common language version”) of the Punjabi Bible. This project was completed in 1984. A listing of the translation principles was given in the report issued upon the release of the New Punjabi Bible, March 2, 1985. One of those principles was this: “From the language point of view, IT SHOULD NOT HAVE A VERY HIGH LITERARY STANDARD. The language used should be within the reach of both the highly educated as well as the less educated people” (The North India Churchman, The Church of North India, June 1985, p. 10).
By the Word is a report by missionary Lynn A. Silvernale on the Bengali Common Language Bible. This was a project of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and Silvernale was in charge of the work beginning in 1966. In her report, Silvernale gives one of the principles followed in this translation:
“Since the literacy rate in Bangladesh was only twenty-one percent when we began the translation, and since that figure included many people who are barely literate and many new readers, WE FELT THAT OUR LANGUAGE LEVEL WOULD HAVE TO BE THAT WHICH IS READILY UNDERSTOOD BY ADULTS WHO HAVE STUDIED IN GRADE FOUR OR FIVE. This level would be understandable to illiterate people hearing it read as well as to people who are able to read but have limited education” (Lynn A. Silvernale, By the Word, pp. 25,26).
A practical look at just how simple dynamic equivalency versions are in their literary style can be seen in this illustration regarding the Dutch Living Bible:
“We met our Dutch coordinator, Berno Ramaker and his wife Ruth. They are currently testing portions of our soon-to-be released Dutch Living Bible. School groups are being quizzed on four different Bible translations, including the Living Bible, to make sure our edition communicates effectively. ... The book of Genesis was produced in an attractive format last year as a promotion tool for the complete Bible. Acceptance has been enthusiastic. Even before Genesis was released, the 13-year-old son of a reviewer on the project found the manuscript on his father’s desk. After reading for awhile, he went to his father and said, “Hey, Dad, I read this manuscript and for the first time I can understand a book of the Bible from the first verse to the last!” (Thought for Thought, Living Bibles International, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1985, p. 3).
Note that the translators of this dynamic equivalency version in Dutch tested its value by the attitude of young readers. It was aimed at the level of an eight- to twelve-year-old child and was tested by school groups. Nothing is said about whether these young people were saved or had any spiritual discernment whatsoever. How unreasonable to test the trustworthiness of a Bible version by the reaction of spiritually undiscerning youth!
It might seem wonderful that a 13-year-old boy could read Genesis through and understand it, but consider what this means. The Bible is filled with things that are difficult to understand even for the most mature pastor. How then is it possible for a 13-year-old to understand it perfectly? It was possible only because the Dutch Living Bible has been simplified far beyond the form and meaning of the original text.
Yes, the dynamic equivalency versions are easy to read and understand, as easy as the morning newspaper. But how many times does an individual read his morning newspaper? How closely does an individual ponder every word of the morning newspaper? The fact is that the Bible is NOT the a newspaper! Simplicity is wonderful, but this is not the primary goal of Bible translation. The first and foremost goal is faithfulness to God’s holy, eternal Words. ABWE missionary Lynn Silvernale’s goal of producing a Bible on the language level of the barely literate people of Bangladesh sounds like a wonderful goal. Since we, too, are missionaries in an Asian country, among a people even less literate than those of Bangladesh, we readily sympathize with Silvernale’s desire to produce a Bible which the average reader can understand. The problem is this: The Bible is God’s Word, written in words chosen by God, in a literary form chosen by God. And by and large the original words and form of the Bible simply are not on a grade four reading level! For a translator to produce such a Bible necessitates drastically changing God’s Word from its original.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY AIMS TO MAKE THE BIBLE ENTIRELY UNDERSTANDABLE TO NON-CHRISTIANS
Again we quote from the principles which were used by the Bible Society of India in the New Punjabi Bible: “It should be such that readers other than Christians also could understand without any difficulty” (The North India Churchman, June 1985, p. 10).
Our answer to this is simple. God has not given us authority to change His Word, regardless of the motivation.
“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Rev. 22:18,19).
“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar” (Prov. 30:5,6).
Dynamic equivalency confuses the job of the translator with that of a teacher. The translator’s job is to produce the most accurate translation possible into the receptor language. It is then the teacher’s job to explain the Scriptures.
It is the evangelist’s job to explain the Bible through preaching, personal witnessing, Gospel literature, etc.—not to dilute the Scripture so it reads like the morning newspaper, a popular novel, or a children’s story book.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY AVOIDS TRADITIONAL ECCLESIASTICAL TERMS
Again we quote from the principles which were used by the Bible Society of India in producing the New Punjabi Bible: “In this translation the traditional language should be avoided” (The North India Churchman, June 1985, p. 10).
It is this principle which has resulted in the Today’s English Version’s obliteration of such “churchy” terms as “justification,” “sanctification,” “saint,” “redemption,” and “propitiation,” “elder,” “deacon” and “bishop.” Such terms have been changed to ones which even the unsaved can understand, even when this has meant seriously changing or weakening the meaning.
The Contemporary English Version is one of the most recently completed dynamic equivalency versions, and its translation of the above words illustrates this trend. Consider the following examples from this version:
Rev. 22:21—“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all” (KJV) becomes “I pray that the Lord Jesus will be kind to all of you” (CEV). (The term “grace” means free unmerited favor and blessing” and it carries a lot of rich theological meaning when it is studied in the various contexts. To change this blessed Bible word to “kindness” is to dilute the Word of God and change its meaning.)
Eph. 2:8—“For by grace are ye saved through faith” (KJV) becomes “You were saved by faith in God’s kindness” (CEV). (Again, “grace” is changed to “kindness.” The dynamic equivalency translators have also changed almost everything else in this important verse.)
Phil. 1:1—“with the bishops and deacons” (KJV) becomes “to all of your church officials and officers” (CEV). (The terms “bishop” and “deacon” are technical and important terms that are used consistently in Scripture. To water these terms down to the vague “church officials and officers” is inexcusable.)
Phil. 1:1—“the saints in Christ” (KJV) becomes “all of God’s people who belong to Christ Jesus” (CEV). (The term “saint” means one who is set apart for God, one who is holy; it is from the same Greek words that are translated “holy” and “sanctify.” The term has a great depth of meaning when it is studied in the various contexts, but the dynamic equivalency translators typically choose one of the weakest definitions and replace the choice theological word with that definition.)
Rom. 3:10—“none righteous” (KJV) becomes “none acceptable to God” (CEV). (The term “righteous” means right living, godliness; by changing it to “acceptable,” the meaning is diluted and changed. It is true that sinners are not acceptable to God, but that is not what this verse says. The dynamic equivalency translators have interpreted the verse and given the readers their interpretation rather than a precise translation.)
Rom. 3:24—“being justified freely” (KJV) becomes “he freely accepts us” (CEV). (The term “justification” means declared righteous.”)
1 Cor. 6:11—“but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (KJV) becomes “But now the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of God’s Spirit have washed you and made you acceptable to God” (CEV). (In this verse, in addition to many other changes, the glorious Bible terms “sanctified” and “justified” have been watered down to “made acceptable to God.”)
Consider some further examples which are given in Bible Translations for Popular Use by William L. Wonderly. This book was published by the United Bible Societies and is a standard work on dynamic equivalency methods.
In Jn. 1:14 “full of grace and truth” becomes “full of love and truth” in the Spanish CL version. (Do we have to point out that love is not the same as grace?)
The “grace did much more abound” of Rom. 5:20 becomes “the kindness of God was very much greater” in the Spanish CL version. (Again, “grace” means more than the mere “kindness of God.”)
In Rom. 1:5 “By whom we have received grace and apostleship” becomes “God has given us the privilege of being sent” in the Spanish CL version. (This “translation” is so different from the original that it is almost unrecognizable.)
In 2 Cor. 8:6 “this same grace also” becomes “this kind offering” in the Spanish CL version.
In Gal. 2:9 “perceived the grace that was given unto me” becomes “recognized that God had given me this special task” in the TEV.
In Acts 13:39 “by him all that believe are justified from all things” becomes “by means of him that all those who believe are forgiven of all” in the Spanish CL version. (The term “justified” means more than merely “being forgiven.”)
The problem here is two-fold: First, the terms chosen to replace the original Bible words do not sufficiently communicate the exact meaning of the original. Saints means more than those who belong to God. Grace means more than kindness, or favor, or privilege. Justification means more than forgiven. Secondly, the entire idea that these terms are ecclesiastical, or churchy, is erroneous. They are the terms by which God chose to communicate the Truth. They are heavenly terms, and have only become known as church terms because they were given to the churches and are held to be precious by God’s people. To change them and water them down is a great evil.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY ADAPTS THE TRANSLATION TO THE CULTURE OF THE RECEPTOR PEOPLE
In describing the dynamic equivalency theories of Eugene Nida, Jakob Van Bruggen notes the emphasis on adapting the message of the Scriptures to the culture of the people:
“According to the advocates of dynamic equivalence, real communication is broken when the difference between biblical and modern culture is not considered. Nida writes, ‘Similarly, in the biblical account, the holy kiss, the wearing of veils, women speaking in the church, and wrestling with an angel all have different meanings than in our own culture’ (E. Nida, Message and Missions, p. 41). According to Nida, Jacob’s struggle with the angel is being interpreted psychoanalytically or mythologically (E. Nida, Message and Mission, pp. 41-42). He considers the cultural pattern so dominant that the translation should never be a mere transmitter of the words of the message. There is no formal equivalence between the original message and the translated message. What is needed is not a static equivalency but a dynamic equivalency” (Jakob Van Bruggen, The Future of the Bible, Thomas Nelson, 1978, p. 70).
This thinking has led to all sorts of changes in the Word of God. Those who promote dynamic equivalency almost always emphasize that they aim to be perfectly faithful to the meaning of the original text. But this simply cannot be done when dynamic equivalency methodology is used. THOUGH DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY PROPONENTS CLAIM TO HONOR THE MEANING OF THE BIBLE TEXT, IN PRACTICE THEY DO NOT! IN PRACTICE THEY CHANGE, TWIST, AND PERVERT SCRIPTURE. I know this is hard language, folks, but it is true and it needs to be said. The Bible is serious business.
A man working on the translation of a dynamic equivalency version of the Bible into a tribal language spoken in northeast India has reasoned as follows: This tribe has never sacrificed lambs, but they have sacrificed roosters (cocks) to their gods in days past. Therefore, we must translate John’s testimony as follows: “Behold the Cock of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Evangelist Maken Sanglir of Nagaland gave us this illustration of Bible translation work in northeast India.
Another example of adapting the Bible’s language to today’s cultural situations was related to me by the head of the Bible Society in Nepal. He told of one of the projects of the United Bible Societies which was done in a part of the world in which the people had not seen snow. The translators, therefore, decided to translate Isaiah 1:18—“...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as the inside of a coconut...” Is the inside of a coconut the same as snow? Both are white, but there the similarity stops. Snow is like God’s forgiveness not only in that it is white but also in the way it covers and in its loveliness and probably in many other aspects. Even slight changes in God’s Word can have significant consequences in loss of meaning or even in imparting the wrong meaning.
In a United Bible Societies translation in the Ulithian language of the South Pacific, “dove” was changed to a local bird called a gigi (“Mog Mog and the Fig Tree,” Record, Nov. 1987, pp. 6-7).
Further examples of this are given in Translating the Word of God by John Beekman and John Callow, of Wycliffe Bible Translators:
Matt. 8:20—“foxes” was translated “coyotes” in the Mazahua language of Mexico.
Mark 4:21—“on a candlestick” was translated “on a grain bin” in the Korku language of India.
Lk. 9:62—“plough” was translated “hoe” in the Carib language of Central America.
Lk. 12:24—“storehouse” was translated “basket” in the Villa Alta Zapotec language of Mexico.
Matt. 20:22—“the cup” was translated “pain” in the Copainala Zoque of Mexico.
Matt. 10:34—“a sword” was translated “there will be dissension among the people” in the Mazahua language of Mexico.
The Zapotec translation of Mexico changed “the babe leaped in her womb” of Luke 1:41 to “the baby played.”
Consider some other examples of the way these versions change the Word of God to conform with culture. The following illustrations were given to us by Ross Hodsdon of Bibles International, formerly with Wycliffe:
In a translation for Eskimos in Alaska, “lamb” was replaced with “seal pup.”
In a translation in the Makusi language of Brazil, “son of man” was replaced with “older brother.”
In another Wycliffe translation “fig tree” was replaced with “banana tree.”
We believe this type of thing is wrong. When one departs from the principle of a literal translation, the mind of the translator and the culture and understanding of the people become the authority rather than the actual words of Scriptures.
It is important to emphasize that we are not talking about a wooden literalness, but about an unwavering commitment to the actual wording of the Bible text.
From these few examples, you see how far-removed the “dynamic equivalency” rendering can be from the original text. Dynamic equivalency allows translators this strange liberty to change, delete from, and add to the Word of God to such an extent that it no longer even can be called the Word of God.
It is easy to see the unreasonable ends of this dynamic equivalency principle. Those using dynamic equivalency are not afraid to change God’s Words in order to relate to modern cultures.
We must remember that God is the Author of History. He made the nations and “hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26). The prophet Daniel knew this, as he testified, “Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding” (Dan. 2:20-21).
God was not caught off guard when the Scriptures were given in a certain period of history to a certain people within a certain culture. God had before ordained that His Word be delivered through the very cultural and historical situations in which it was given. God created the Hebrew and Greek languages as vehicles for the transmission of His eternal Word to man. Further, God created the nation Israel through which to deliver the Old Testament Scriptures, and God created the Roman empire into which Jesus Christ came to be the atonement for man’s sin, and God created the church through which to communicate the mysteries of the New Testament Scriptures. Therefore, the cultural terminology of the Bible is not incidental to the communication of God’s Word; it is essential for such communication.
The cultural terminology of the Bible, such as that pertaining to farming and slavery, is to be translated carefully from the original, then explained by evangelists and preachers. It is not the job of the Bible translator to become in the process of his work as a translator the evangelist and preacher. Of course the translator can add explanatory footnotes if he so desires and in this way give definitions of the words used in the new version. He can also make dictionaries and commentaries to be used in conjunction with his Bible translation. This is certainly wiser than taking the liberty of changing God’s Word, and it has been the method followed by godly translators of old.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY ASSUMES THAT THE BIBLE WAS WRITTEN IN LANGUAGE EASILY UNDERSTOOD BY THE PEOPLE THEN LIVING
This principle is an important basic assumption underlying the theory of dynamic equivalency. Eugene Nida says, “The writers of the Biblical books expected to be understood” ( Nida, Theory and Practice, p. 7).
Consider this as stated by ABWE missionary Lynn Silvernale:
“The spiritual truth of Scripture was originally written in clear natural language which was intelligible to its readers. Its language conformed to the idiomatic usage of the native speakers of the time in which it was written. However, the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit was necessary to enable the original readers to grasp that spiritual truth, because spiritual truth must be spiritually discerned. When people today read a translation of the Bible, the only barrier they should have to encounter is the spiritual one, not a linguistic one which stems from the use of unnatural and difficult language” (Silvernale, pp. 36,37).
Silvernale is merely restating something she learned from one of the chief promoters of dynamic equivalency—John Beekman, translation coordinator with Wycliffe Bible Translators. In Translating the Word of God, a book co-authored by Beekman and John Callow, we read this basic assumption: “The naturalness of the translation and the ease with which it is understood should be comparable to the naturalness of the original and to the ease with which the recipients of the original documents understood them” (p. 34).
Jakob Van Bruggen tells us that “Beekman and Callow simply presuppose that the linguistic form of the original was natural and not difficult. They write that Paul, Peter, John, James, Luke and the others wrote clearly and were readily understood by their first-century readers” (Jakob Van Bruggen The Future of the Bible, p. 111).
Let us return to Silvernale’s statement, and upon closer investigation it will be seen that it is a subtle mixture of truth and error. It is not completely true that the “Scripture was originally written in clear natural language which was intelligible to its readers,” nor that “its language conformed to the idiomatic usage of the native speakers of the time in which it was written.”
Even the writers of the Bible themselves did not always understand what they were speaking! This is stated in 1 Peter 1:10-11.
The Apostle Peter acknowledged that some of the writings of Paul were “hard to be understood” (2 Pet. 3:16).
Even the widely held supposition that Jesus spoke in parables to make his teachings simple and clear for unbelievers is not true. The parables of the Lord Jesus Christ had a two-fold purpose—to reveal truth to believers and to hide truth from unbelievers! “Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.... Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Matt. 13:10-13).
It is simply not true that the original Scripture was clear to the native speakers of its day.
It is also not true that all of the idioms of the original writings were those of the native speakers at the time of writing. The Law of Moses, with its tabernacle, priesthood, and sacrifices, was given by revelation from God on Mt. Sinai and much of it was completely foreign even to the Israelites at the time of its reception. These were “patterns of things in heaven” (Heb. 9:23). The details relating to the Law, the priesthood, and the tabernacle and its service were not adapted to Israel’s culture; Israel’s culture was molded and created by that Revelation!
The same is true for many other parts of Scripture. The teaching about the church in the New Testament is described as “mysteries,” which means new revelation from heaven. The people of the first century knew no more about New Testament salvation, propitiation, justification, sanctification, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, or any other church term and service than people of the world do today. They had to learn the meaning of these foreign, heavenly things after they were saved, just as men do now. Even common words used by the apostles under inspiration of the Holy Spirit are often given new meanings when they are used in Scripture than they had in everyday life.
These Bible things are foreign to all earthly cultures, because earthly cultures were formed by rebellious men who have turned from the truth and from the Living God. Truth has been lost from man’s cultures and only exists in the form of unperceived shadows remaining in the dark mists of manmade religions. It is not surprising that much of the Bible is obscure to the people of this world, for “our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). And again, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). Again, Jesus said of Christians, “...they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14, 16).
The Bible has great variety of style and doctrine—some simple enough for children to understand, some difficult even for the most educated adult; some simple enough for the unsaved to grasp, some difficult even for the most mature saint. First year Greek students soon learn that the language style of the New Testament holds great variety. Many first year Greek students can translate portions of the Gospel of John with considerable accuracy, while to the same students Paul’s epistles remain mostly obscure because of the greater difficulty in language style and content.
Man is not free to simplify that which God has not simplified! The translator who produces a version of the Bible in which the Pauline epistles is as easy to read as the Gospel of John has corrupted God’s Word. I know that such an idea sounds like heresy to a follower of dynamic equivalency. Many ask, Isn’t it always good to make the Bible simple enough for people to understand? I say no, not if in so doing we have changed God’s Holy Word! Who is man to make simple that which God did not make simple? The Bible is God’s Book. Does any fallen man know better than God what man needs to hear?
Contrast today’s thinking among Bible translators with that of faithful William Tyndale of old, who first translated the English Bible from Greek and Hebrew: “I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God’s Word against my conscience, nor would [I so alter it] this day, if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honour, or riches, might be given me.”
WHY WE REJECT DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY
Beyond what we have already seen, following are some of the major errors of the dynamic equivalency method of Bible translation:
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY WAS CREATED BY A FALSE TEACHER
It is impossible that the theories of dynamic equivalency could be right and scriptural for the simple fact that they were devised by a false teacher. His name is Eugene Nida. Ray Van Leeuwen observes, “... if you read a Bible translated in the last half-century, you probably read a Bible influenced by Nida” (“We Really Do Need Another Bible Translation,” Christianity Today, Oct. 22, 2001, p. 29). In 1947 he published the groundbreaking book Bible Translating: An Analysis of Principles and Procedures, with Special Reference to Aboriginal Languages (London: United Bible Societies). Since then has published many other influential books promoting dynamic equivalency, such as the following:
Customs and Cultures: Anthropology for Christian Missions (New York: Harper & Row, 1954)
God’s Word in Man’s Language (New York: Harper & Row, 1952)
Message and Mission: The Communication of the Christian Faith (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960)
Religion Across Cultures: A Study in the Communication of the Christian Faith (Pasedena, CA: William Carey Library, 1979)
Nida with William Reyburn -- Meaning Across Cultures: a Study on Bible Translating (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, c. 1981)
Nida with Charles Taber -- The Theory and Practice of Translation (Leiden: Published for the United Bible Societies by E.J. Brill, 1974)
Nida with Jan de Waard -- From One Language to Another: Functional Equivalence in Bible Translating (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986)
Nida was the Executive Secretary of the Translations Department of the American Bible Society from 1946 to 1980. Since his retirement, he has been retained as a Special Consultant for Translations. He traveled to more than 85 countries and conferred on translation work in more than 200 different languages. He has influenced countless Bible translators through his writings. Nida believes the Scriptures were “imperfect” and that God’s revelation was not “absolute truth,” even in the originals (Nida, Message and Mission, 1960 pp. 221-222, 224-228). He says that the words of Scripture “are in a sense nothing in and of themselves” (Nida, Message and Mission, p. 225). He denies the view that the Scriptures were written “in a kind of Holy Ghost language” (Nida, Language Structure and Translation, 1975, p. 259). Nida claims that the Bible is limited and relative (Nida, Customs and Cultures, 1954, p. 282, f. 22). Nida agrees with the modernists who claim that Christ’s blood was not an actual offering for sin but was merely a “figure of the cost” (Nida, Theory and Practice, 1969, p. 53, n. 19). Nida also claims that Christ’s blood was merely symbolic of “violent death” and that it was not a propitiatory offering to God for sin (Nida and Newman, A Translator’s Handbook on Paul’s Letter to Romans, on Rom. 3:25). Nida has worked closely with Robert Bratcher, who wickedly changed the word “blood” to “death” in the Today’s English Version.
Further, dynamic equivalency’s largest promoters are the apostate United Bible Societies, which are filled with theological modernists and which are closely yoked together with the Roman Catholic Church. (For evidence of the apostasy of the UBS, order the author’s book Unholy Hands on God’s Holy Book: A Report on the United Bible Societies, available from Way of Life Literature.)
God has given clear commands about our relationship with heresy. See, for example, Rom. 16:17; Titus 3:9-10; 2 Tim. 2:16-21; and 2 Tim. 3:5.
Friends, God would not give us important truth through heretics! If you want to know how to translate the Bible properly, don’t go to the writings of men such as Eugene Nida and Robert Bratcher! God commands that His people mark and avoid the heresy of dynamic equivalency and those who are promoting it!
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY DENIES THE NATURE OF THE BIBLE
First, the Bible is Revelation from heaven. See Gal. 1:11-12; 2 Pet. 1:21. Examples: Moses (Num. 16:28), David (2 Sam. 23:2), Nehemiah (Neh. 9:30), and the Prophets (Jer. 1:9; 30:2; 36:2; Ezek. 1:3; Acts 3:21). God delivered the Bible message as Revelation from heaven and it must be treated as such. It’s God’s’ Book, not mans. Even the very culture in which the Bible was given was chosen of God and is an integral part of His Revelation.
Second, the Bible is verbally inspired. See 1 Cor. 2:12-13; Matt. 5:18; Acts 1:16. This means that the words and details of Scripture are as important as its meaning. The writers of the Bible were not simply given general ideas and then left to their own resources in phrasing them. The words and forms by which the message was communicated were settled in heaven from all eternity, purified seven times. Though no one would deny that in translating the Bible there must be some freedom to change the form of the original in order to properly communicate the message of the original, such freedom definitely does not extend to the liberties taken in dynamic equivalency translations.
Third, the Bible contains the deep things of God. Bible language is sufficient to communicate eternal and divine Truth. “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10). Bible language cannot be compared with any of the uninspired writings of man. This is Divine Revelation and contains very Truth without admixture.
There are those who use dynamic equivalency and yet profess to believe the doctrine of the Scriptures we have described briefly in the above study. I find this very strange. The theory of dynamic equivalency was built by men who do not hold a high view of Scripture. When one considers the very nature of Scripture, it becomes impossible to make the kind of changes that dynamic equivalency calls for.
“When the Bible is being translated, its own doctrine as to its verbal inspiration imposes limitations on the translator’s function. The Scripture teaches us that, as God’s word written, its form as well as its thought is inspired. The translator of Scripture has, therefore, above all else, to follow the text: it is not his business to interpret it or to explain it” (Ian Murray, “Which Version? A Continuing Debate,” in The New Testament Student and Bible Translation, ed. John H. Skilton, 1978, p. 132).
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY IGNORES GOD’S WARNINGS ABOUT ADDING TO OR TAKING AWAY FROM GOD’S WORD
Dynamic equivalency ignores God’s warnings about adding to or taking away from God’s Word, yet this warning is repeated in the law (Deut. 4:2), in the poetical books (Prov. 30:5-6), in the prophets (Jer. 26:2), and at the end of the Bible (Rev. 22:18-19).
Those who follow dynamic equivalency acknowledge these warnings and often have clever ways of explaining how their paraphrases do not disobey them. But in the end it is clear that the warnings are simply ignored.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY SUBSTITUTES MAN’S THOUGHTS FOR GOD’S WORDS
The dynamic equivalency translator makes many changes to the Scriptures. He simplifies the words, removes “theological terminology,” changes concrete images into abstractions, removes and interprets images and figures of speech, adds explanatory material, changes the verbs, shortens the sentences, etc.
We will repeat some of the examples of this:
Rom. 3:25—“blood” (KJV) becomes “death” (TEV).
Isaiah 1:18—“Snow” (KJV) becomes “Coconut” (United Bible Societies translation).
James 1:17—“the Father of lights” (KJV) becomes “God, the Creator of the heavenly lights” (TEV).
Eph. 1:17—“the Father of glory” (KJV) becomes “the glorious Father” (TEV).
“Lamb” becomes “seal pup” (Wycliffe translation in Eskimo).
“Fig tree” becomes “banana tree” (Wycliffe translation).
This type of thing is wrong. When one departs from the principle of a literal translation, the mind of the translator and the culture and understanding of the people become the authority rather than the actual words of Scriptures.
It is important to emphasize that we are not arguing for a wooden literalness, but for an unwavering commitment to the actual wording of the Bible text.
From these few examples, we see how far-removed the “dynamic equivalency” rendering is from the original text.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY ROBS MEN OF GOD’S WORDS
Consider the following Scriptures which show the importance of each word of the Bible: Deut. 8:3; Mat. 4:4; Luke 4:4; Gal. 3:16; Jn. 10:35. Yet dynamic equivalency leaves the readers without access to the very words of God. They have the general thoughts of the original in some cases, but the very words and exact and full meaning have been stolen from them! The reader of the dynamic equivalency versions cannot meditate over each word and detail of Scripture because he does not have an exact translation.
We have seen many examples of how dynamic equivalency translations rob people of God’s Word. Consider another one. The Bible contains ambiguity, meaning phrases and expressions that can have more than one meaning. Dynamic equivalency commonly interprets these phrases or figures of speech so that the reader is given only one possible meaning. Consider a couple of examples:
The Bible speaks of “the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Mk. 1:1). At the very least, that can mean that the gospel is from Jesus Christ and that the gospel belongs to Jesus Christ and that the gospel is about Jesus Christ. Dynamic equivalencies such as the NIV and the TEV and the NLT change this by giving it one possible interpretation -- “the gospel about Jesus Christ” -- and then replacing the broad original with the translator’s narrow interpretation.
Jesus promised blessing for those who are “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3). This expression has a wealth of meaning. It refers to humility, a recognition and acceptance of one’s sinfulness and unworthiness, complete dependence upon God, and other things. The dynamic equivalency weakens this by choosing one narrow meaning and replacing God’s Word with the translator’s interpretation. The NLT reads, “God blesses those who realize their need for him.” The CEV chooses another narrow meaning, “God blesses those who depend only on him.” The Message weakens it even further with, “you’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.” A person can be at the “end of his rope” without depending on God or without acknowledging his true spiritual destitution, etc.
The term “Lord of hosts” is rich with meaning. It describes God as the Lord of multitudes, referring to His power, His sovereignty, His royalty, His greatness, His wealth, His knowledge, His zeal against His enemies, and many other things. The NIV changes this to “Lord Almighty” which limits the meaning.
The author of Song of Solomon compares his beloved’s eyes as “doves’ eyes.” (Song of Solomon 4:1). This metaphor is rich with meaning. Doves are beautiful, gentle, peaceful, soft, tender; they come in pairs; they flutter their wings as a woman flutters her eyelashes, etc. The NLT chooses only one of these meanings, that of softness, and replaces the original with that one meaning -- “your eyes are soft like doves.” The TEV does away with the metaphor altogether and replaces it with a different meaning altogether: “how your eyes shine with love.”
This becomes even more frightful when we consider the fact that dynamic equivalency is not just a technique being used in translations of Bible portions for distribution among the unsaved in evangelistic work. This method of corruption is actually (and rapidly) replacing the earlier concept of literal translation, and new dynamic equivalency versions being produced by the United Bible Societies and others are often intended to REPLACE the old literal versions.
Many of those who use dynamic equivalency think they are helping people by bringing the Word of God down to their level. Actually they are thieves who are dooming people never to have the very words of God.
“Readers of an English Bible should not be at the mercy of a translation committee’s interpretation of a passage. They have a right to make up their own minds regarding what a passage means. Furthermore, a translation should preserve the full exegetical potential of the original text. ... Dynamic equivalent Bibles repeatedly give us a one-dimensional Bible in places where the original is multidimensional. The result is a loss of the richness of meaning that the original embodies and an organized movement that keeps English readers from what the original actually says” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 194, 195, 209).
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY CONFUSES SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT WITH NATURAL UNDERSTANDING
Consider the following Scriptures which teach that man is unable to understand the Word of God apart from divine assistance: 1 Cor. 2:14-16; John 16:8-13; Matt. 13:9-16; Luke 24:44-45; Acts 11:21; 16:14; Prov. 1:23.
Dynamic equivalency fails to recognize the root problem in regard to man’s inability to understand the Word of God, which is spiritual blindness and not cultural ignorance or lack of literary education.
We see an example of this in Acts 13:44-48. Here the Jews, in whose cultural setting the Bible was primarily written, rejected the Scriptures, while the idolatrous Gentiles accepted it. Culture and language were not the problem; rebellion of the heart was the problem. This remains true today.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY CONFUSES TRANSLATION WITH EVANGELISM AND TEACHING
The translator is to faithfully transmit the words and message from the original into the receptor language as literally as possible. In so doing he should obviously attempt to make the translation as plain for the readers AS POSSIBLE without doing damage to the original words and form. The translator is not free to simplify that which God has not simplified. Utter faithfulness to the original text should be the very chiefest concern of the Bible translator.
It is the evangelist’s and the teacher’s job, then, to explain that message to the people. The Bible translator whose overriding goal is to make the Bible clear to the unsaved of necessity becomes a Bible corrupter.
The Ethiopian eunuch was reading from the Scriptures and could not understand what he read. It was Philip the evangelist’s job to explain the Scriptures to this man (Acts 8:26-33). If Philip had believed the theories of dynamic equivalency he might have returned home after this experience and rewritten and simplified the book of Isaiah, the book which the Ethiopian eunuch had been reading! Was it not obvious that the sincere but unsaved Ethiopian had not been able to understand the Bible? Was it not obvious that many other men must be in the same condition as this Ethiopian? Was it not obvious that there are not enough evangelists to speak personally to every lost person and to explain the Bible for them? Well, then, we must reword the Bible and change its difficult, antiquated words (the book of Isaiah was already about 800 years old when the eunuch was reading it) so that the non-Christian can pick it up and “understand it without difficulty.” Certainly this would please God. Such is the thinking so commonly held among those who are promoting dynamic equivalency.
But Philip and the early Christian leaders would have had their hands cut off rather than to have tampered with God’s holy words. That Book is Holy! Is it really? Is it right to inscribe “Holy Bible” on the cover of this book? Yes, God’s name is holy and reverend, we are told in the Scriptures (Psa. 111:9), but we also read that “thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” (Psa. 138:2)! If God’s name is holy and reverend, and God has magnified His Word above all His name, then His Word is even holier and more reverend than His name! Amazing, but true. Woe unto those who are tampering with this unspeakably Holy Book.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY LOWERS THE BIBLE TO THE PEOPLE INSTEAD OF RAISING THE PEOPLE TO THE BIBLE
Dynamic equivalency is an upside down methodology. Instead of raising the people up to the level of the Bible through education, it seeks to bring the Bible down to the people’s natural level of spiritual ignorance.
“Instead of lowering the Bible to a lowest common denominator, why should we not educate people to rise to the level required to experience the Bible in its full richness and exaltation? Instead of expecting the least from Bible readers, we should expect the most from them. The greatness of the Bible requires the best, not the least. ... The most difficult of modern English translations -- the King James -- is used most by segments of our society that are relatively uneducated as defined by formal education. ... research has shown repeatedly that people are capable of rising to surprising and even amazing abilities to read and master a subject that is important to them. ... if modern readers are less adept at theology than they can and should be, it is the task of the church to educate them, not to give them Bible translations that will permanently deprive them of the theological content that is really present in the Bible” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 107, 109).
This is exactly what we say to those who criticize the King James Bible as being too difficult for modern English speakers. The King James Bible does contain a certain level of antiquation, but the problem is not that difficult to overcome. Its vocabulary is much smaller than any of the modern versions. Most of the words are only one or two-syllables. Its phrasing is short and pithy. It is not that difficult to learn what “thee, thou, and thine” mean. It is not that difficult to learn what the 100 or so antiquated words mean, that “quick” means “living,” etc. What does it require? Study! And that is exactly what God requires of those who would learn to rightly understand His Word (2 Tim. 2:15).
Instead of translating the Bible so that it sounds like a sixth-grade reader or the morning newspaper, we need to translate it accurately and majestically, and then educate the people so that they can understand it.
We do this by producing Bible study tools, such as dictionaries and commentaries and concordances. There is nothing new about this process. This is exactly what missionaries have been doing for centuries. It is a process that still works very well, and I speak from experience as a missionary.
What about the unsaved, you say? The Bible as a whole was not written for the unsaved. It is the Bible’s gospel that was written for the unsaved (Rom. 1:16), and we can make the gospel as simple as necessary for the lost (through personal evangelism, tracts, gospel recordings, radio broadcasts, etc.) without trying to bring the Bible itself down to their level. As we have seen, to translate the Bible so that the unsaved can understand it without help is an absolute impossibility, anyway, because they cannot understand it until they are born again. “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY CONFUSES INSPIRATION WITH TRANSLATION
The dynamic equivalency theory says the translator should ask, “How would Moses or Paul write if they lived today?” Beekman and Callow develop this thinking in Translating the Word of God:
“The original writings were both natural in structure and meaningful in content. When we say that the Scriptures are natural in form, we are simply saying that, written as they were by native speakers, they fell within the bounds of natural Hebrew, Aramaic, or Koine Greek. The use of words and their combinations; the syntax; the morphology—all was natural. This characteristic of the original should also be found in a translation” (Beekman and Callow, Translating the Word of God, p. 40).
Dynamic equivalency teaches translators to ask the question, “What would the Bible writers say if they were speaking today?” This thinking is faulty. It confuses inspiration and authorship with translation. An author has the authority to write whatever he pleases. In the case of the Bible, the Author was God and the secretaries were the various human writers. The human writers of the Bible received the words through the process of inspiration. The translator is not an author nor is a translator receiving Scripture by the process of divine inspiration; he is merely translating something into another language. The Bible translator’s job is to translate exactly what God has written. His job is not to adapt the images of the Bible to a modern culture.
Furthermore, not only does the translator not have the authority to modify the Scriptures, he has no way of knowing how the Bible writers would speak if they lived today. The very idea that we could perform such a task is pure fiction.
“The biblical writers are not writing today. They wrote millennia ago. To picture them as writing in an era when they did not write is to engage in fiction, and it distorts the facts of the situation. ... We do not want a speculative Bible. We need a Bible based on certainty. What is certain is what the biblical writers did actually say and write” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 98, 99).
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY ATTEMPTS THE IMPOSSIBLE
We have seen that dynamic equivalency attempts to re-write the Bible for today, which is an impossible task. In several other ways, dynamic equivalency attempts things which are impossible. Let’s consider some of these.
For one thing, dynamic equivalency attempts to retain the exact meaning of the original while allowing for great changes in adapting the Bible message to the language and culture of the receptor people. Consider the following statement by United Bible Societies translator Thomas Headland:
“The goal in Bible translation is to make a translation that will communicate to the target culture without their having to learn the Judeo-Greek culture, while at the same time being faithful to the uniqueness of the historical and theological setting of the Scriptures. No simple task!” (Thomas N. Headland, “Some Communication Problems in Translation,” Notes on Translation, No. 88, April 1982, p. 28).
Headland says this is no simple task. He is wrong. It is an impossible task! God chose to reveal His Word within the framework of a Judeo-Greek culture, and if you change the Bible to such an extent that the readers can understand it without learning anything about that culture, you have corrupted the Scripture.
At this point we need to note that dynamic equivalency proponents inevitably claim their translations are faithful to the original text. All dynamic equivalency gurus claim this. In the United Bible Societies publication Bible Translations for Popular Use, William Wonderly claims dynamic equivalency versions are faithful to the original:
“In the translations mentioned above [the TEV, Living Bible, Spanish Popular Version, French common version, and the Today’s Dutch Version, etc.] various techniques have been used to produce a version that is more meaningful for the readers for whom they are intended, STAYING WITHIN THE LIMITS OF FIDELITY TO THE ORIGINAL ON ONE HAND and the use of an acceptable style on the other” (p. 75).
Wycliffe Translator’s publication Translating the Word of God by John Beekman and John Callow also claims that the aim of dynamic equivalency is always faithfulness to the original text:
“The goal should be a translation that is so rich in vocabulary, so idiomatic in phrase, so correct in construction, so smooth in flow of thought, so clear in meaning, and so elegant in style, that it does not appear to be a translation at all, and yet, AT THE SAME TIME, FAITHFULLY TRANSMITS THE MESSAGE OF THE ORIGINAL” (p. 32).
The Today’s English Version claims this:
“The Bible in Today’s English Version is a new translation WHICH SEEKS TO STATE CLEARLY AND ACCURATELY THE MEANING OF THE ORIGINAL TEXTS in words and forms that are widely accepted by all people who use English as a means of communication” (Foreword, Holy Bible Today’s English Version with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha, American Bible Society, 1978).
The Contemporary English Version claims this:
“Every attempt has been made to produce a text THAT IS FAITHFUL TO THE MEANING OF THE ORIGINAL and that can be read with ease and understanding by readers of all ages” (“Translating the Contemporary English Version,” Bible for Today’s Family New Testament, American Bible Society, 1991).
Ken Taylor, translator of the Living Bible, claims this:
“We take the original thought and convert it into the language of today. IN THIS WAY WE CAN BE MUCH MORE ACCURATE THAN THE VERBAL TRANSLATION” (Evangelism Today, Dec. 1972).
It should be obvious that such claims do not mean anything! We have seen examples from these versions, showing that they are anything but faithful. Even the general meaning of the original is changed. I don’t care what a translator claims. If his translation is a perversion of God’s Word, I will not allow him to hide behind his claim that he is faithful to the Bible!
Let’s consider a second impossibility of dynamic equivalency. It says translators can know how hearers of the Bible centuries ago were impressed. One of the goals of dynamic equivalency is to attempt to reproduce the same reaction in modern hearers of their versions. This is called impact translating.
How utterly impossible! We cannot know how men centuries ago were impressed by the Word of God spoken to them.
Further, there have always been different reactions to that same Word by the different hearers. A glimpse of this is seen in Acts 17, following Paul’s message to the Athenians. All heard the same message from God that day, but some mocked, some decided to put off a decision until a later date, and some believed (Acts 17:32-33).
The Bible translator’s job is not to attempt to create a certain reaction in the hearer of the Bible, but to concentrate upon making a faithful rendering of God’s Holy eternal Words. The translator’s mind is to be most especially upon the receptor language, not the receptor individuals. When the translation is completed and the preaching begins, men will respond in the various ways they have always responded to God’s Word—some mocking, some ignoring and putting it off, some believing.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY IS BASED ON HALF-TRUTHS
Like all error, dynamic equivalency is based on many half truths. The writings of dynamic equivalency proponents contain many things with which we agree, yet they go beyond the truth. Consider some of the half-truths of dynamic equivalency:
First, dynamic equivalency says an overly literal translation is not correct. Those who promote dynamic equivalency inevitably begin by giving examples of wildly improper translations and using these as justification for their paraphrasing methodology. Eugene Nida does this in Every Man in His Own Language:
“Literal translations—the easiest and the most dangerous—are the source of many mistakes. The missionary in Latin America who constantly used the phrase ‘it came to pass’ scarcely realized that it only meant to the people, ‘something came in order to pass there.’ ... literally the story of Mary ‘sitting at the feet of Jesus,’ only to discover later that what they had said really described Mary as ‘on Jesus’ lap.’ It is one thing to speak of ‘heaping coals of fire on one’s head’ if one is talking to an English-speaking congregation; but if one speaks that way in some parts of Africa, he can be badly misunderstood, for that is one method of torture and killing” (Eugene A. Nida, God’s Word in Man’s Language, Harper and Brothers, 1952, p. 17).
This is a straw man to draw attention away from the improper liberties dynamic equivalency proponents take with the Word of God. The solution to a woodenly literal translation is not dynamic equivalency, but a reasonable, spiritual translation which seeks to be true to the original words and form and which does not take the frightful liberties of dynamic equivalency, but is willing to let the Word of God say what it says rather than change it—even for the sake of simplification. The proper Bible translation methodology has been called an “essentially literal translation” and a “formal equivalence translation” as opposed to dynamic equivalency.
Second, dynamic equivalency says the translator must interpret. This is true! An example is Isaiah 7:14 where it is arguably possible to translate the Hebrew word “almah” either as “young woman” or as “virgin.” The Christ-honoring, Bible-believing translator will always choose virgin because he knows that the verse is a Messianic prophecy of Christ’s virgin birth. This is the result of interpretation. Here is another example. In the Nepali language there is no generic term for wine as there is in Greek and Hebrew. The translator, therefore, must interpret passages such as John 2 when he is selecting a Nepali word for wine. He must translate it “grape juice” or “strong drink,” etc., depending upon the context.
All translators face this, but the fact that a translator must interpret things in Scripture before they are translated does not justify the extreme liberties which are being taken in dynamic equivalency versions.
Furthermore, there is a vast difference between the necessity of interpreting words and that of interpreting passages. Consider the following from Leland Ryken, professor of English at Wheaton College:
“Whenever a translator decides that a given English word best captures the meaning of a word in the original text, the decision implies an interpretation. But there is a crucial difference between linguistic interpretation (decisions regarding what English words best express Hebrew or Greek words) and thematic interpretation of the meaning of a text. Failure to distinguish between these two types of interpretation has led to both confusion and license in translation. ... It is time to call a moratorium on the misleading and ultimately false claim that all translation is interpretation. For essentially literal translations, translation is translation, and its task is to express what the original says. Only for dynamic equivalent translations is all translation potentially interpretation--something added to the original or changed from the original to produce what the translators think the passage means” (Ryken, The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation, 2002, pp. 85, 89).
Third, dynamic equivalency says that the people for whom the translation is being made must be kept in mind. Again, this is true. Every translator must have the people in mind for whom he is translating, but it does not mean we can change fig tree to banana tree or blood to death or grace to kindness or saints to people of God or pastors to church officials!
Fourth, dynamic equivalency says some things implicit must be made explicit. This is true. For instance, sometimes words must be added in the translation to make a passage intelligible and/or to bring out words implicit in the original. An example of this is the words that appear in italics in the King James Version. These are words that were added by the translators but that are not explicitly in the original texts. This type of thing is essential in Bible translation work and is something that has always been done. But contrast this important translation principle with the dynamic equivalency perversion of it in the following example from Isaiah 53:1 in the Today’s English Version:
KJV—“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”
TEV—“The people reply, ‘Who would have believed what we report? Who could have seen the Lord’s hand in this?’“
The things added and changed in this passage illustrate that dynamic equivalency goes beyond any proper bounds of faithful translating. Upon what authority have the TEV translators added “the people reply” to this passage? Upon what authority have they changed the tenses of the verbs? Upon what authority have they changed “arm of the Lord” to “the Lord’s hand”? Translators who do this type of thing might claim only to be making explicit that which is implicit, but in actuality they are corrupting the Word of God. None of these changes are truly implicit in this verse.
Consider another example. This time we will compare Ephesians 3:-2-4 in the KJV to the Contemporary English Version (CEV):
KJV—“If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.”
CEV—“You have surely heard about God’s kindness in choosing me to help you. In fact, this letter tells you a little about how God has shown me his mysterious ways. As you read the letter, you will also find out how well I really do understand the mystery about Christ.”
We see that the liberties taken by dynamic equivalency translators go beyond any proper bounds of Bible translation. This is true for practically any example we could give from these versions. They simply aren’t faithful. Dynamic equivalency proponents won’t admit that, but, friends, it’s true. Dynamic equivalency (by any name) is a proud new methodology which men of God of old—the William Tyndales and the Adoniram Judsons—would have rejected in trembling and disgust.
Dynamic equivalency is especially dangerous because it is a subtle mixture of truth and error. Many of those who are following this method of translation have accepted the bitter cake of dynamic equivalency because of the sweetness of the truth intermingled therein. The principles can sound so reasonable. But the bottom line is that dynamic equivalency is a perversion of Scripture.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY IS AN IMPROPER ANSWER TO VERY REAL PROBLEMS
Promoters of dynamic equivalency use examples from translation work in undeveloped nations among illiterate people to justify their methodology. Hear missionary translator Lynn Silvernale:
“How do you talk about sheep to people who have never seen sheep and have no word for such an animal? What do you use for ‘wine’ in a language which has words only for ‘grape juice’ and ‘strong liquor’? How to express theological terms and concepts like ‘righteousness,’ ‘justification,’ ‘propitiation,’ is another big challenge for most translators. In many tribal languages these concepts are foreign and there are no ready-made terms to express them. It has taken some translators months and years to find a suitable term in their language for such abstract ideas as ‘love’ and ‘holiness.’ To get an idea of what is involved, try expressing ‘propitiation’ in the shortest, clearest possible way for a translator to put into a language which doesn’t have such a term” (Silvernale, By the Word).
The problems so stated can make dynamic equivalency seem right, reasonable. These are problems Bible translators and missionaries have always faced, yet it is only in recent years that the proud concept of dynamic equivalency with its willingness to change the form of God’s Word to fit man’s culture has been put forth as the solution.
Foreign cultures are not the only problems used to illustrate the supposed need for dynamic equivalency translation. United Bible Societies publications are filled with problems involved in enabling various groups such as children and the homeless to understand the Scriptures.
It’s true that there are tremendous problems involved in translating the Bible for foreign cultures and for illiterate or marginally literate peoples. But it is never proper to change the Word of God for the sake of adapting it to another culture. The proper solution is to translate the Bible accurately, then explain the translation with footnotes, dictionaries, and commentaries.
What if a language is just too primitive to carry the Scriptures? I say don’t translate the Bible into that language! I can hear the groans now from those with a Wycliffe mindset. But who has given man the permission of changing the Word of God? Who has given such permission? God says, “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar” (Prov. 30:5-6). This is what God says, and I would assume that this is the last word on the subject!
In light of God’s warning about tampering with His Word, I would suggest that the proper method of approach would be the following:
First, simple portions of Scripture can be translated and used for evangelism. As the number of converts grows within a language group, other portions of Scriptures can be translated and used to teach the new Christians about the things of God. Further, an accurate translation of the Scriptures in a local trade language can often be used to train key tribal leaders who in turn can teach their own people and further the growth process. Through this means, over a period of time, the language of a group can be developed so that eventually it might be able to carry the entire Word of God. We must remember that it took 230 years for the Bible to be perfected in English, from the time of the first translation by Wycliffe from Latin in 1380 to the King James Bible of 1611. During that period, the English language itself was being perfected and matured from its roots in Anglo-Saxon, Latin, French, and other languages.
The above is the method which has been used successfully through the centuries by faithful missionaries who would never have used dynamic equivalency. The Bible should raise the people heavenward, not the other way around. Dynamic equivalency is a backward, upside down way of thinking.
The Bible does not say that the Scriptures must be translated into every language. It says the Gospel is to be preached to all people (Mk. 16:15). While the Gospel can be translated into every tongue, the same is not necessarily true for the whole Bible.
Many make light of the idea of using a trade language to teach people the things of God. They talk of the necessity of using the “heart language.” They say a trade language can never reach the heart. I think that is wrong. Those who understand a language, even though it might not be their mother tongue, can understand the truths of God’s Word from that language. Sure, it’s always nicer to hear things in one’s own mother tongue. That’s all well and good. But I say, if necessary, that it would be better to educate an entire people in a trade language so they can have the uncorrupted Word of God rather than corrupt the Word of God through dynamic equivalency.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY HAS NO FIRM CONTROLS ON THE TRANSLATION PROCESS
Since dynamic equivalency allows the translator to take so many liberties with the words and form of Scripture, there are no firm controls on the translation process. Consider the following example from the first part of 1 Thessalonians 1:3. We will give the translation from the faithful KJV and two other literal translations and then from three dynamic equivalency versions. We will see that the literal translations agree word for word, since there is no textual issue in this passage; but that the dynamic equivalencies are dramatically different, not only from the literal versions but also from one another:
KJV “...your work of faith, and labour of love...”
NASV (New American Standard Version) “... your work of faith and labor of love...”
ESV (English Standard Version) “... your work of faith and labor of love...”
NLB (New Living Bible) “... your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love...”
TEV (Today’s English Version) “... how you put your faith into practice, how your love made you work so hard...”
CEV (Contemporary English Version) “... your faith and loving work...”
AMPLIFIED: “your work energized by faith and service motivated by love”
“The sheer range of variability in the dynamic equivalent translations of this verse shows that once fidelity to the language of the original is abandoned, there are no firm controls on interpretation. The result is a destabilized text. Faced with the range of dynamic equivalent translations, how can a reader have confidence in an English translation of this verse? And if it is possible to translate more accurately by abandoning the words of the original for its ideas, why do the dynamic equivalent translations end up in such disagreement with each other? Instead of enhancing accuracy, dynamic equivalence subverts our confidence in the accuracy of the translation” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, 2002, p. 82).
WHERE WILL DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY LEAD?
It would be wise to consider just where things are headed now that the method of dynamic equivalency has gained such ascendancy.
NO MORE ACCURATE BIBLES
First, where dynamic equivalency prevails, no more accurate Bibles will be produced. There will only be the loose, undependable paraphrases.
The fact that the United Bible Societies are aggressively pushing to replace the literal (“formal equivalence”) versions with their new dynamic equivalence (“common language”) versions is openly admitted, at least in their more technical publications. An article appeared in The Bible Distributor, Number 27, October-November 1986, entitled “Promoting a Common Language Translation” by Daniel C. Arichea, UBS Translation Consultant for the Asia Pacific region, and M.K. Sembiring, Information Officer of the Indonesian Bible Society. Give close attention vo their report:
How does a Bible Society promote a common language (c.l.)—also called dynamic equivalence (d.e.)—translation? What are the ways to overcome the resistance of church people, both leaders and members alike, to d.e. translations?
In 1985, the Indonesian Bible Society embarked on a program to promote the c.l. Indonesian Bible which came off the press in May of that year. Several months before that, the IBS staff started to consider a viable program TO ENSURE THAT THIS NEW TRANSLATION WOULD BE USED BY CHURCHES ALL OVER THE INDONESIAN ARCHIPELAGO. In the planning sessions for this promotional program, the following matters came into focus:
Most Indonesian Christians are very fond of the standard translation of 1974, which is a formal correspondence (f.c.) translation, similar in nature to the English Revised Standard Version. The positive attitude toward this translation often results in a rather suspicious and negative attitude toward any other translation. ...
One basic approach that was employed was to promote the c.l. translation, not in lieu of, but in addition to the standard translation that is already loved and used, IN ORDER TO GAIN ACCEPTANCE FOR IT.
The tendency of translation people is to speak very highly of d.e. translations sometimes to the extent of implicitly ridiculing f.c. translations. THERE IS, OF COURSE, JUSTIFICATION FOR SUCH ENTHUSIASM. THE IDEA OF DYNAMIC OR FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE TRANSLATIONS IS LIKE THE BIBLICAL PEARL OF GREAT PRICE: ONCE A PERSON FINDS OUT HOW VALUABLE IT IS, THAT PERSON TENDS TO LEAVE ALL OTHER TRANSLATIONS IN FAVOR OF THE NEWLY FOUND TREASURE. But such an approach creates problems for people who are already used to other translations. Many people get the idea that the translations that they cherish will no longer be published and, because of that, they begin to resist the new translation even before reading it.
IN VIEW OF THIS, WE DECIDED ON A NEW APPROACH: we promoted both types of translation. Both f.c. translations and d.e. translations are valid translations. The problem is not that one is better than the other, but that it is not often recognized that they are translated on the basis of different translation principles. ... Both translations are valid and both strive to be faithful to the biblical text. But whereas the f.c. translation retains the various biblical forms and terms, the d.e. translation renders these terms in the light of their context; furthermore, it uses language that expresses the meaning of the biblical text as naturally as possible and on a level which is appropriate for the intended readership.
THIS APPROACH OF PROMOTING BOTH TRANSLATIONS HAS BROKEN DOWN RESISTANCE TO THE NEW C.L. TRANSLATION. MANY NOW READ IT TOGETHER WITH THE F.C. TRANSLATION. QUITE A FEW HAVE COMPLETELY SWITCHED TO THE C.L. TRANSLATION, ESPECIALLY AFTER REALIZING THAT IT IS MUCH EASIER TO READ AND UNDERSTAND.
From this report of how the common language version is being promoted in Indonesia, the plan and methodology of the United Bible Societies becomes clear. Their goal is ultimately to replace the older “formal equivalence” versions with the dynamic equivalence paraphrases. They liken this new method of translation to the “pearl of great price” and acknowledge that once an individual finds the supposed value of this method he “tends to leave all other translations in favor of the newly found treasure.” But they also realize that great numbers of Christians still love the older, literal versions and tend to be skeptical of the new common language versions. Therefore, to “overcome the resistance of church people to dynamic equivalency translations” they plot various approaches whereby over a period of time the people’s resistance toward the new paraphrases is cleverly broken down. At first they uphold both the old and new versions as valid and good, but the actual goal is to replace the formal versions. Thus the authors of the above report proclaim with much enthusiasm, “This approach of promoting both translations has broken down resistance to the new c.l. translation. Many now read it together with the f.c. translation. Quite a few have completely switched to the c.l. translation.”
In this light, we recall the following quotation from Jakob Van Bruggen’s book The Future of the Bible:
“Translations in colloquial language [dynamic equivalency] have the greatest priority. Their total costs are paid and this payment has priority. At the bottom of the list are the translations in traditional church language; no new funds may be formed for these, unless these funds are fed by special campaigns. See the ‘Table of Priorities,’ Bible Translator 23 (1972): p. 220. Paul Ellingworth wrote in the same issue (p. 223): ‘Since Bible Societies never have enough money for everything, this means that it is unlikely that they will in the future support for translations in ‘traditional ecclesiastical language’“ (Jakob Van Bruggen, The Future of the Bible, p. 67).
We see that there will be no new funding of “traditional ecclesiastical” versions by the United Bible Societies. This is a situation which has existed for quite a few years. In August 1987 I received a letter from Geoff Horner of the British and Foreign Bible Society, who acknowledged that “virtually all translations being carried out at present directly by UBS are CLT’s [common language translations].” This same mindset exists in the Wycliffe Bible Translators. ALL of their translations are dynamic equivalency versions. The world is being filled with “Bibles” that are weak paraphrases at best.
Furthermore, the prevalence of dynamic equivalence versions lowers the standard of Bible reading in churches and leads to increasing biblical illiteracy.
“Finally, after a quarter century of easy-read Bible translations designed to make the Bible accessible to the masses, biblical illiteracy continues to spiral. Instead of solving the problem, modern translations, with their assumption of a theologically inept readership, may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 110).
NO MORE MAJESTIC BIBLES
The Bible is more than a collection of words that must be translated correctly. It is the majestic, powerful Word of the Living God. Of all of the books of the world, only the Bible is authored by God. Thus a good translation of the Bible will be minutely accurate but it will be more than that; it will be majestic. It will not read like a newspaper or a novel or a political speech but like the eternal Word of God!
Consider the following statements along this line by a professor of literature at a Christian college:
“What is lost as we move down the continuum from the exalted to the colloquial? The fist thing that is lost is the dignity of the Word of God. If we scale down the stateliness and, where appropriate, the eloquence of the Bible into a flat, prosaic format, the Bible ceases to be anything special. A critic of modern colloquial translations has rightly said that this ‘kind of familiarity, too, can breed contempt.’ ... A second effect of the diminishment of language is the loss of the effective power of which the King James Bible was once the very touchstone. A reviewer of a modern translation comments on a quoted passage with the statement, ‘Almost everything has been lost [from the KJV]: not only the rhythm, but the sense of authority that goes with it--that bracing sense that we aren’t appealing to ideas or vague hopes of our own but to firm promises and facts. It has become weak’” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 205, 206).
“Good rhythm for a Bible is like a qualifying exam: If a translation cannot measure up on this matter, it is not in the running to be a superior Bible for public use and oral reading in more private situations. ... The best test of rhythm is simply to read passages aloud. ... If in oral reading a passage ebbs and flows smoothly, avoids abrupt stops between words and phrases where possible, and provides a sense of continuity, it is rhythmically excellent. If a translation clutters the flow of language and is consistently staccato in effect, it is rhythmically inferior. ... All of these considerations make rhythm an essential translation issue, not a peripheral one. For a book that is read aloud as often as the Bible is, and for a book whose utterances are so frequently charged with strong feeling and sublime ideas, excellent rhythm should be regarded as a given” (Ryken, pp. 257, 259).
“‘To make the Bible readable in the modern sense means to flatten out, tone down and convert into tepid expository prose what in K.J.V. is wild, full of awe, poetic, and passionate. It means stepping down the voltage of K.J.V. so it won’t blow any fuses’” (Ryken, quoting Dwight Macdonald, “The Bible in Modern Undress,” in Literary Style of the Old Bible and the New, ed. D.G. Kehl, 1970, p. 40).
“‘We are in real danger of losing, in an age of flat prose, an essential and invaluable capacity of the language, fully realized once in the English Bible ... the capacity to express by tone and overtone, by rhythm, and by beauty and force of vocabulary, the religious, the spiritual, the ethical cravings of man’” (Ryken, quoting Henry Canby, “A Sermon on Style,” in Literary Style of the Old Bible and the New, ed. D.G. Kehl, 1970, p. 427).
“Tone is the literary term that refers to such things as the writer’s attitude toward his or her subject matter, the suitability of style for the content, and the correctness of effect on a reader. ... From time to time I encounter the sentiment from dynamic equivalency advocates that the Bible ‘should not sound like the Bible.’ Billy Graham endorsed The Living Letters by saying that ‘it is thrilling to read the Word ... [in] a style that reads much like today’s newspaper.’ I disagree with these verdicts. A sacred book should sound like a sacred book, not like the daily newspaper. It should command attention and respect, and to do so it cannot be expressed in the idiom of the truck stop. The failure of modern colloquial translations is frequently a failure of tone” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 278, 279, 280).
“What a literary scholar said of one modern translation is generally true of all dynamic equivalent and colloquial translations: it ‘does slip more smoothly into the modern ear, but it also slides out more easily; the very strangeness and antique ceremony of the old forms make them linger in the mind.’ It is not only the proliferation of translations that has made Bible memorization difficult, if not actually a lost cause. ... These translations are inherently deficient in the qualities that make for memorability” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 284).
“‘I believe the Christian Church has a profound responsibility towards a people’s language ... Far from canonizing, or exploiting, the flaccid, vague language of our time, the Bible should be constantly showing it up, directing an arc-light upon it, cauterizing its impurities’” (Ryken, quoting Martin Jarrett-Kerr, “Old Wine: New Bottles,” in The New English Bible Reviewed, p. 128).
The Scriptures in Hebrew and Greek are beautiful, majestic, and dignified, and when the Scripture is translated accurately and literally by spiritually and literarily qualified people, its inherent majesty will shine through the translation. Dynamic equivalency cannot produce a truly majestic translation because it takes too many liberties with the Word of God; in fact, dynamic equivalency disdains the majesty and grandeur of the Bible and willfully lowers that most exalted, most noble of books to the level of a lowly newspaper, which has so little value that it is read today and tossed away tomorrow.
NO MORE CONFIDENCE IN BIBLES
There will be no confidence because the dynamic equivalencies are at conflict with one another and there is no settled standard. We have already given examples of this.
There will be no confidence because of the multiplicity of translations. The dynamic equivalency method of translation requires that the Bible be continually re-translated because the language is continually changing at the common, everyday level. The “language of today” is ever new so a Bible that purports to be in the “language of today” must be ever new. A multiplicity of Bibles creates confusion because the individual is confronted with a bewildering variety of versions, all claiming to be better than the others. Can all of these Bibles really be the Word of God?
“The effect [of the proliferation of Bible translations] has been to destabilize the biblical text--to render it ever-changing instead of permanent. With this succession of new translations (and their constant revision), people have lost confidence in the reliability of English translations. If every year beings a new translation, apparently the existing ones must not be good enough. And if the previous ones were inadequate, what reason is there to believe that the current ones will be better?” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 187).
NO MORE MEMORIZATION OF THE BIBLE
The multiplication of Bibles in English has seriously diminished the custom of Scripture memorization. And the loose dynamic equivalency versions almost totally discourage this practice.
“We have lost a common Bible for English-speaking Christians The Christian community no longer speaks a universal biblical ‘language.’ And with the loss of a common Bible we have lost ease in memorization of the Bible. After all, when a common Bible exists, people hear it over and over and ‘memorize’ it virtually without consciously doing so, but this ease is lost when translations multiply. Furthermore, with the proliferation of translations, churches and organizations find it difficult to know which translation to choose for purposes of memorization; and even after they choose, there is such variety that a person faces the prospect of having to memorize from different translations in different settings” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 62).
I have seen many examples of this. For example, in August 2003, I visited the Saddleback Community Church in southern California, pastored by Rick Warren of Purpose Drive Church fame. I observed on the way into the auditorium that only a few of the people carried Bibles, and the reason became clear when I saw the multiplicity of versions that were used in the preaching. An outline of the sermon was handed out with the bulletin, and six or seven versions were quoted, most of them paraphrases such as the Living Bible, the New Living Bible, The Message, the Today’s English Version, and the Contemporary English Version. It would have been impossible to have followed along in one’s Bible, regardless of which one you had brought. The result is that a large number of the people do not bring their own Bibles and do not therefore carefully test the preaching.
It is a given that there is less Scripture memorization within such a context as there is when people use one standard formal equivalence translation.
NO MORE WHOLE BIBLES
Where dynamic equivalency prevails there might not be any more whole Bibles. There is a strong move on the part of the United Bible Societies to produce selections of the Bible rather than whole Bibles or even entire New Testaments. Jacob Van Bruggen writes of this development:
Even such an important common language translation as the TEV is still a thick book. It is not ‘easy-to-read’ for all people. The goal of the Bible Societies, therefore, is to provide translations for concrete target-groups, such as ‘Beginning Readers; Children and Youth; Students and Youth; Women; the Blind and Visually Handicapped; Special Groups (e.g., people on vacation, victims of natural disasters, migrant workers, prisoners, people in hospitals, members of the armed services); Mass Media Audiences; People Listening to Audio Scriptures.’ [“Free the Word for Modern Man! The Programme of Advance for the 70’s adopted by the UBS Council at Addis Ababa,” Sec. I: Main Target Groups, Bulletin of the UBS 93, 1973, p. 5ff.]
Separate Bible translations for all of these groups and situations are not possible. To reach such a variety of groups and situations, selected Bible passages must be used. The table below indicates that the production of selections is increasing faster than that of complete Bibles:
Ratio of Bibles to Selections in world distribution of the UBS:
1962 1 Bible to 3.5 selections
1969 1 Bible to 18.5 selections
1974 1 Bible to 33 selections (Van Bruggen, The Future of the Bible, p. 30).
Those who are behind the development of this phenomenon argue that they are returning to the conditions that existed before the invention of printing made the dissemination of whole Bibles feasible. In fact, they profess that by moving away from the printing of whole Bibles to the production of Bible selections, they are returning to the pure conditions of the early church.
According to Eugene Nida, a complete Bible does not achieve an equivalent effect nearly so well as does a selection:
“Some persons are still fearful of the consequences of such developments [focusing on the production of Bible portions rather than whole Bibles], but in a sense the Bible Societies are reproducing today the cultural equivalent of what happened in the first generation of the Christian church, when the sayings of Jesus and the accounts of his wonderful deeds were widely circulated either in separate leaflets or evidently, as many scholars believe, as bound series of selections (E. Nida, “A New Epoch in the Bible Societies,” Bulletin of the UBS, #96, 1974, pp. 7-8).
There is a serious error here. To attempt to return to the first century in this particular matter is regression, not progress. The early churches did not yet have the entire New Testament in one volume, though they did recognize by the guidance of the Holy Spirit which epistles and writings were Holy Scripture and which were spurious. Had the Christians of the first century been given the opportunity to have had the whole Bible beautifully bound in one volume as we can have it today, we can be sure they would have had it and would have treasured it with their lives. That was not God’s will; they were living in a transitional period during which the Holy Bible was being completed, its final chapters even then being written. We can praise God that such a day is past. The Book is complete, and the God of History has given man the printing press so the blessed Book can be printed and disseminated throughout the world economically inasmuch that the humblest person can have his own copy of the very Word of God. Amazing! Wonderful! A desire to return to an earlier period of history during which such a blessing was not possible is strange folly. But this is exactly what is being proposed — and proposed seriously — by the misguided gurus who are leading the influential United Bible Societies.
“What then is the future of the Bible? Will it remain a complete book, or will it become a bundle of selections? Will the Bible continue to be one book for all, or will each individual in the future have his own folder of selections?” (Van Bruggen, pp. 30-32).
CONCLUSION
For lack of space we cannot go further into the exact principles or errors of dynamic equivalency. Our goal has been to inform God’s people of how popular this has become in the last few years, and to warn briefly of its danger. We are dealing with something which has enormous and growing influence throughout the world—and not only among modernists and neo-evangelicals, but now even among some fundamentalists.
It is crucial to understand that the common language mentality has opened the floodgates of corruption. It is impossible to produce a pure Bible by following these principles. Having loosed themselves and their followers from literal translation principles, the gurus of dynamic equivalency are causing the world to be filled with paraphrases. These people have no anchor. They have loosed themselves from the unbending authority of the original text. Thus there will be no end to the heretical thinking this movement will spawn.
Dear Brethren, be warned and stand fast.
DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY INFLUENCING FUNDAMENTALIST TRANSLATORS
Having seen something of the immense influence dynamic equivalency wields in Bible translation work today, we turn to one final sad issue. As we were studying books on the dynamic equivalency principle with the goal of exposing its errors, we were shocked to learn that a fundamentalist mission board, Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE), has adopted these principles for a translation in the Bengali language of Bangladesh and India. Because of the widespread promotion of dynamic equivalency, we believe it will increasingly be adopted by fundamentalist missionaries, and we want to sound a note of warning.
ABWE’s involvement with dynamic equivalency is documented in a booklet written by missionary Lynn Silvernale and published by ABWE in 1983. The booklet By the Word is a review of the Bengali translation project and the principles used.
Silvernale was in charge of the project, which began in 1966, and as she explains her translation principles throughout the book she continually and unreservedly quotes modernist translators such as Eugene Nida of the United Bible Societies and neo-evangelical translators such as John Beekman and John Callow of Wycliffe.
Nida, as we have seen, is the chief guru of dynamic equivalency and is a liberal. He denies the blood atonement and the perfect inspiration and preservation of Scripture.
When Silvernale established the principles of the Bengali project, she turned to the writings of men such as these, in spite of the fact that the Bible demands that we shun such men and their teachings. This is indeed strange for a supposed fundamentalist missionary project, but even stranger is the fact that these unscriptural principles were submitted to the ABWE Bangladesh field council AND APPROVED (Silvernale, By the Word, p. 34).
The following quotes from Silvernale’s book show why we are so concerned about this. The booklet opens with a scene from Silvernale’s missionary life years ago in which she attempts to read the Bible to Bengali villagers and is frustrated at their inability to understand. The proposed solution to this problem is a dynamic equivalency translation.
“What an opportunity for the new missionary. She had prepared her lesson well and her listeners nodded with interest and spoke out in agreement. To emphasize her story and clinch the point, she opened her big red Bengali Bible and said, “Listen to what God says, ‘All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God ... We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.’”
“Gradually the restlessness built up again. The keen interest was gone. Blank looks greeted her as she read verse after verse from the Bible. Then one lady spoke up, ‘What are you trying to say? We don’t understand those words.’
“This is exactly the situation in which I found myself in 1963 in a remote little village in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Some of my fellow missionaries in the city were having the same experience at the same time. The people were Bengalees—some Buddhists, some Hindu, some Muslim, some Christian. Their language was the rich and expressive Bengali language of Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore. The Bible used was the Bengali version often referred to as the Carey Bible.
“There didn’t seem to be anything to do but give a spur-of-the moment paraphrase of the verse we wanted to teach, but somehow that isn’t quite the same as saying, ‘Listen, this is what God says. These are God’s words.’ I was reminded of a haunting question I had once read in some material on Bible translation: ‘If God had a message for me, wouldn’t it be in my language?’
“This is what caused the East Pakistan Field Council of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism to embark on a New Testament translation project in 1966, and to follow it up with the Old Testament project in 1978” (Lynn Silvernale, By the Word).
What Silvernale describes is a common problem. The scene could be envisioned in the United States as easily as in Bangladesh. I’ve gotten the same blank stares during Bible studies from men in a county jail in Coupeville, Washington, as Silvernale got in the village in Bangladesh. An accurately translated Bible simply is not an easy book to understand. To do so requires considerable diligence and study; it requires a teacher. Especially is this true for those who are not saved. When Philip inquired of the eunuch as to whether he understood the book of Isaiah which he was reading, the eunuch said, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” (Acts 8:26-31). We can argue with this all we want, but the fact is that this is the way God has ordained that things be. The Bible simply was not written in such a way that it can be understand easily by the unsaved, nor even by the saved unless they are diligent in study and unless they have proper teachers. It is the nature of wisdom that it must be searched for “as for hid treasures” (Prov. 2:1-5).
Silvernale and other dynamic equivalency proponents, though, are not satisfied with this. Their answer to the problem of Bible understanding is to produce a paraphrase. Can you imagine Philip the evangelist proposing such a thing to Peter and James upon his return to Jerusalem? “Fellows, I met a man out in the desert who was reading Isaiah but could not understand it. It was obscure to him. I believe we need to make a dynamic equivalency version so these folks can understand the Scriptures on their own.” Such a thought never entered the minds of men of God of old. Yet there is a new generation today which is not afraid of making changes to the Word of God in order to conform it “dynamically” to man’s situation.
Sadly, Silvernale and ABWE Bangladesh is among these. We see this from the following statements in Silvernale’s book. Though Silvernale claims to believe in the necessity of teachers and of Holy Spirit enlightenment, she is not satisfied with a “literal” translation.
We must understand that the standard Bengali Bible is fashioned after the translation methodology which prevailed in Bible work until only a few years ago. It is the same type of translation as the German Luther Bible and the English King James Bible. Yet Silvernale and ABWE Bangladesh is following the multitude today who are saying this type of Bible is too stuffy and literal and cannot do the job.
Let me be clear that I am not putting a stamp of approval on the Carey Bengali Bible. I don’t know if it is a good translation or not. It might need some updating and revision. I don’t know. But if it is literal and accurate, it is better than any type of dynamic equivalency.
Consider, though, that the ABWE solution to the “problem” of the literal Carey Bible is a dynamic equivalency:
“In spite of some training in linguistics and slight exposure to translation work before coming to Bangladesh, I was very naive about what is involved in Bible translation and how you do it. If I had realized what is involved, I probably never would have embarked on the Bengali New Testament translation project! ...
“I began to read everything I could find about translation, and learned that there are different types of translation. Various authors classify them differently, but Beekman’s classification in Translating the Word of God [a publication of Wycliffe Bible Translators] made a lot of sense. He refers to two basic approaches to translation: literal and idiomatic. These give rise to four types of translations: highly literal, modified literal, idiomatic, and unduly free. ...
“... FOR BELIEVERS WHO ARE LARGELY SEMI-LITERATE OR NEW READERS, AS IN BANGLADESH, AND FOR USE IN EVANGELISM WITH NON-CHRISTIAN PEOPLE WHO HAVE HAD LITTLE PREVIOUS EXPOSURE TO CHRISTIAN TEACHING, THE IDIOMATIC TYPE OF TRANSLATION IS DEFINITELY PREFERABLE. THIS WAS OBVIOUSLY THE CASE IN BANGLADESH, WHERE THERE ALREADY WAS A MUCH LOVED BUT LITTLE UNDERSTOOD MODIFIED LITERAL BENGALI TRANSLATION. ...
“There is nothing special or ‘holy’ about the language of the Bible. Greek and Hebrew are subject to the same limitations as all natural languages. ...
“The linguistic form of the original is important, because we must study it carefully to find out the meaning of Scripture. BUT THERE IS NO BASIS FOR BELIEVING THAT THE PURPOSE OF INSPIRATION WAS ALSO TO GIVE A BASIC SURFACE STRUCTURE TO BE FOLLOWED FOR ALL TRANSLATIONS” (Silvernale, By the Word).
It is obvious that Silvernale and ABWE in Bangladesh adopted classic dynamic equivalency methodology as the solution to the problem that Bengalis cannot easily understand the Scriptures. The Bengalis already had what Silvernale called “a modified literal” translation, but they weren’t satisfied with this.
This, we believe, is a great error. The Bible must be translated accurately, literally. That—and that alone—is the Bible translator’s job. Then it is the evangelist and teacher’s job to explain it and to produce tools and commentaries to help people understand it. ABWE Bangladesh confused the job of the translator with that of the teacher. They deny that they did this, but I believe the facts speak for themselves. That is exactly what they did.
And note this very dangerous statement by Lynn Silvernale, “There is nothing special or ‘holy’ about the language of the Bible. Greek and Hebrew are subject to the same limitations as all natural languages.”
It is obvious that this fundamentalist missionary was deeply influenced by dynamic equivalency gurus such as Eugene Nida. To say there is nothing special or holy about the language of the Bible is to deny both the sovereignty of God and the divine inspiration of Scripture. The Greek and Hebrew languages themselves are subject to limitations in everyday life as used by fallible men, but not as they are used in Scripture under divine inspiration!
To further illustrate how enamored Silvernale is with dynamic equivalency and its promoters, we note her unqualified recommendation of Wycliffe Bible Translators: “...there is nothing to compare with the courses offered by the Summer Institute of Linguistics during the summer ... or during the regular school year at the International Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas” (Silvernale, p. 44).
Nothing to compare, indeed! While it might be possible to sight SIL as a helpful resource in linguistics, it is wrong in such a context to fail to give clear warning about the radical ecumenism and apostate translation theories promoted by Wycliffe. For more information on Wycliffe, we would point your attention to our article “Wycliffe Bible Translators: Whither Bound?” This is in the Fundamental Baptist CD-ROM Library, which is available from Way of Life Literature.
We would be careful to point out that Silvernale and ABWE would doubtless not take exactly the kind of liberties in translation that liberals such as Eugene Nida and Robert Bratcher have done. Yet it is not possible to produce a truly pure translation of the Scriptures using the dynamic equivalency principles which underlie ABWE’s Bengali common language version. There are liberties taken which go beyond the license given to us by God. We believe that anytime someone is not content with a “modified literal” version, that one has departed from proper Bible translation work.
We would mention one more thing. The ABWE Bengali Common Language version was published by the United Bible Societies (UBS). That should be a sufficient warning for those informed of the ecumenicity and apostasy of the UBS. Fundamentalists should have absolutely nothing to do with these Bible corrupters. There are faithful Bible publishers such as Trinitarian Bible Society and Bearing Precious Seed. There is no excuse for fellowshipping with those who have produced such perversions as the Today’s English Version and the New English Bible. Again we would point attention to our book Unholy Hands on God’s Holy Book: A Report on the United Bible Societies. This is available from Way of Life Literature. See the online catalog at http://www.wayoflife.org or call 866-291-4143.
REVIEW OF LELAND RYKEN’S THE WORD OF GOD IN ENGLISH
The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation was published in 2002 (Wheaton: Crossway books). The author, Dr. Leland Ryken, a professor of English at Wheaton College, writes in defense of literal or formal Bible translation as opposed to dynamic equivalency.
Though Ryken does not defend the King James Bible on the basis of its underlying Hebrew Masoretic and Greek Received texts, he defends the KJV’s literal and exalted style of translation. He continually applauds the KJV, praising its beauty, dignity, and power. He repeatedly uses it as an example of what good Bible translation is all about. He calls for modern translation work to be done after “the King James tradition” (p. 282, 284). The book contains many quotations exalting the KJV. It is a “peerless among literary masterpiece” (p. 270), “unquestionably the most beautiful book in the world” (p. 267), “the noblest monument of English prose” (p. 258), “incomparably the best English translation in its rhythm” (p. 259), “when it comes to stylistic range and flexibility, the King James Bible is peerless” (p. 227), “the touchstone of affective power” (p. 206), “matchless in its literary qualities among all English translations” (p. 188), “the supremely literary English translation” (p. 163), “immeasurably superior” (p. 163), “the touchstone of literary excellence” (p. 62), “stylistically the greatest English Bible translation ever produced” (p. 51).
Ryken served as literary stylist for the English Standard Version, so he is not opposed to modern versions per se but only to dynamic equivalency versions. He also defends the theories of modern textual criticism that have produced the Westcott-Hort type Greek text underlying the modern versions. I do not know how much he actually knows about the textual issue, but he does take the standard position that we must put aside the KJV because it is “not based on the best manuscripts” (p. 284). We would challenge the professor to read Dr. Edward F. Hills’ The King James Bible Defended, a preliminary edition of which was first written in the 1950s, after Dr. Hills obtained his doctorate in textual criticism from Harvard. We would also recommend that he read The Revision Revised by that great textual scholar Dean John Burgon, to get another side of the story about the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament.
Dr. Ryken is an evangelical, in that he believes the Bible is the infallible Word of God, but he is also a New Evangelical (as one would assume by his association with Wheaton). This is illustrated by his uncritical quotation of liberals such as Bruce Metzger and Krister Stendahl and also by his praise of those who hold doctrines and methods that he labels as unscriptural. For example, after condemning dynamic equivalency and claiming that it is contrary to a high view of the Bible’s inspiration and authority, which it is, Ryken is quick to soften the blow by saying, “I want to record at the outset my respect toward translators and publishers whose translation theory and practice I believe to be theologically and ethically deficient” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 123).
The New Evangelical strives to be “both and” rather than “either or.” He wants to hold the truth but not condemn nor separate from those who hold error. This is contrary to the Word of God, such as Psalm 119:128: “Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.” The Psalmist refused the New Evangelical philosophy, in that not only did he love the truth but he hated error. If men are corrupting the Word of God by the unscriptural method of dynamic equivalency -- and they are! -- they should be condemned plainly and unequivocally and they should not be respected or befriended! God has warned that those who add to or take away from His Revelation will perish (Rev. 22:18-19). Those are strong words. Who are we to bless those whom God has cursed?
That being said, Dr. Ryken’s arguments against dynamic equivalency are powerful and are worthy of study by the defenders of the King James Bible. We recommend that you obtain a copy of this book for your library.
Following are some excerpts from this 336-page book:
“The author’s own words matter. Publishers and editors are not ordinarily allowed to change the words of literary texts. Readers expect to receive the actual words of an author. As changes in language make texts from bygone ages difficult, archaic, and even obsolete, readers are educated into the meanings of the words. ... Should we not treat the words and text of the Bible with the same respect that we show toward Shakespeare and Milton? Do not the very words of biblical authors deserve the same protection from alteration that authors ordinarily receive? Should we not expect readers to muster the same level of rigor for the Bible that they are expected to summon in high school and college literature courses? ... My answer is that it cannot. Translation should not be the occasion for license. The ordinary rules of textual accuracy, integrity, and reliability still prevail. In fact, I would have thought that the Bible would be the last book with which people would take liberties.” (Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 30, 31)
“Modern translations have participated in the spirit of the times--a spirit restless for change, iconoclastic in its disrespectful attitude toward what was venerated in the past, granting automatic preference to what is new and original.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 62)
“We have lost a common Bible for English-speaking Christians The Christian community no longer speaks a universal biblical ‘language.’ And with the loss of a common Bible we have lost ease in memorization of the Bible. After all, when a common Bible exists, people hear it over and over and ‘memorize’ it virtually without consciously doing so, but this ease is lost when translations multiply. Furthermore, with the proliferation of translations, churches and organizations find it difficult to know which translation to choose for purposes of memorization; and even after they choose, there is such variety that a person faces the prospect of having to memorize from different translations in different settings” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 62)
“The task of translators is simply to reproduce in English whatever they find in the original.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 71)
“The sheer fact of the matter is that the Bible is an ancient book, not a modern book. To translate it into English in such a way as to make it appear a modern book is to distort it.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 74)
“The very translators who make so much of the need to translate the Bible into immediately understandable terms, with all interpretive problems removed from readers, have themselves become the counterparts to medieval Roman Catholic priests. By means of preemptive interpretive strikes, these translators take to themselves the power of making readers’ minds up for them, deciding for ‘ignorant readers’ what they think the text means and then doling out only those interpretations that they think correct. The reader is just as surely removed from the words of the text as the medieval Christian was.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 78)
“When we change the words, we change the meaning. ... The whole dynamic equivalent project is based on an impossibility and a misconception about the relationship between words and meaning. Someone has accurately said that ‘the word may be regarded as the body of the thought,’ adding that ‘if the words are taken from us, the exact meaning is of itself lost.’ ... When the words differ, the meaning differs. To claim that we can translate ideas instead of words is an impossibility.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 80, 81)
“Something else that needs to be said is that dynamic equivalent translations ordinarily show a much greater range of variability than essentially literal translations display. This is a way of saying that dynamic equivalence lacks an internal set of controls on the translation process.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 81)
“And if it is possible to translate more accurately by abandoning the words of the original for its ideas, why do the dynamic equivalent translations end up in such disagreement with each other? Instead of enhancing accuracy, dynamic equivalence subverts our confidence in the accuracy of the translations.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 82)
“Those who endorse dynamic equivalency as a theory need to ‘own’ the tradition that has flowed from the theory ... The NIV stood near the beginning of the dynamic equivalence experiment and was a mild version of dynamic equivalence theory. The trajectory from that early point has been toward greater and greater removal from the original text. ... If it is the theory itself that proponents wish to endorse, they need to offer a defense of the variability that stems from their theory, or formulate controls on the wide-ranging renditions that typically characterize the dynamic equivalence tradition.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 84)
“Whenever a translator decides that a given English word best captures the meaning of a word in the original text, the decision implies an interpretation. But there is a crucial difference between linguistic interpretation (decisions regarding what English words best express Hebrew or Greek words) and thematic interpretation of the meaning of a text. Failure to distinguish between these two types of interpretation has led to both confusion and license in translation. ... It is time to call a moratorium on the misleading and ultimately false claim that all translation is interpretation. For essentially literal translations, translation is translation, and its task is to express what the original says. Only for dynamic equivalent translations is all translation potentially interpretation--something added to the original or changed from the original to produce what the translators think the passage means.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 85, 89)
“For essentially literal translators, the translator is a messenger who bears someone else’s message and ‘a steward of the work of another’ whose function is ‘to be faithful to what is before him’ and ‘not ... to change the text.’” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 91)
“To put it bluntly, what good is readability if a translation does not accurately render what the Bible actually says? If a translation gains readability by departing from the original, readability is harmful. It is, after all, the truth of the Bible that we want. ... The only legitimate appeal to readability comes within the confines of a translation’s having been truthful to the language of the original. ... An effective piece of writing needs to be answerable to the demands of what it is designed to do. Within those demands, it must be as readable as possible. Readability in an English Bible translation should not be defined in terms of being the simplest English prose that we can produce. It should always be defined in terms of maximum readability within the parameters of the true nature of the biblical text as it stands in the original. As I said in an earlier chapter, the Bible is not, on balance, a simple and easy book. It is frequently difficult, complex, and sophisticated. If it were not, it would not have occasioned so many learned commentaries and books. Simplifying this complexity for the sake of readability does not increase understanding; instead of clarifying the original text, it obscures it.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 91, 92, 93)
“The biblical writers are not writing today. They wrote millennia ago. To picture them as writing in an era when they did not write is to engage in fiction, and it distorts the facts of the situation. ... We do not want a speculative Bible. We need a Bible based on certainty. What is certain is what the biblical writers did actually say and write.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 98, 99)
“As Tony Naden has correctly observed, to use the translation process as the occasion to render the biblical text easily understandable actually violates the translation principle of faithfulness to the original. ... In other words, there are parts of the Bible for which we can unequivocally say that the easier a translation is to read, the more inaccurately it has translated the original text.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 100)
“An English Bible translation should strive for maximum readability only within the parameters of accurately expressing what the original actually says, including the difficulty inherent in the original text. The crucial question that should govern translation is what the original authors actually wrote, not our speculations over how they would express themselves today or how we would express the content of the Bible. The fact that the New Testament was written in koine Greek should not lead translators to translate the Bible in a uniformly colloquial style. Finally, a good translation does not attempt to make the Bible simpler than it was for the original audience.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 100, 101)
“Instead of lowering the Bible to a lowest common denominator, why should we not educate people to rise to the level required to experience the Bible in its full richness and exaltation? Instead of expecting the least from Bible readers, we should expect the most from them. The greatness of the Bible requires the best, not the least. ... The most difficult of modern English translations -- the King James -- is used most by segments of our society that are relatively uneducated as defined by formal education. ... research has shown repeatedly that people are capable of rising to surprising and even amazing abilities to read and master a subject that is important to them.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 107)
“Previous generations did not find the King James Bible, with its theological heaviness, beyond their comprehension. Nor do readers and congregations who continue to use the King James translation find it incomprehensible. Neither of my parents finished grade school, and they learned to understand the King James Bible from their reading of it and the preaching they heard based on it. We do not need to assume a theologically inept readership for the Bible. Furthermore, if modern readers are less adept at theology than they can and should be, it is the task of the church to educate them, not to give them Bible translations that will permanently deprive them of the theological content that is really present in the Bible.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 109)
“Finally, after a quarter century of easy-read Bible translations designed to make the Bible accessible to the masses, biblical illiteracy continues to spiral. Instead of solving the problem, modern translations, with their assumption of a theologically inept readership, may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 110)
“When translators fix the level of translation within the parameters noted above [grade-school level, limited vocabulary, etc.], they apparently believe that Bible readers will forever be stuck at their current low level of ability. Alternately, even if readers advance beyond a low level of ability, their new mastery will do them no good when they come to read the Bible because the translation has been fixed at a lowest-common-denominator level.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 113)
“The very proliferation of English translations feeds the syndrome of readers as the ones who determine the shape of translation. The result of the multitude of translations has been a smorgasbord approach to choosing a Bible translation. The assumption is that there are no longer objective or reliable standards for assessing a Bible translation; so readers can simply take their pick. Carried to its extreme, this mentality produces The Amplified Bible, which multiplies English synonyms for words in the biblical text, leaving readers to simply pick the word that pleases them, with no attempt to pin a preference to what the original text actually says.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 117)
“In fact, I would not feel comfortable making the kinds of changes that dynamic equivalent translations make to the original text with any book that I hold in high esteem. For example, if I were to distribute excerpts from a work of literature, the Gettysburg Address, or even an article from Newsweek to a class of students, I would never think of changing the wording. I have too high a regard for the authority of even secular texts to do so. The same principle is even more important in Bible translation, where the words of the Bible are the very words of God. Every possible nuance of meaning that resides in the words of the original must be carried over into the words of a translation.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 128)
“I can imagine dynamic equivalent translators saying that they do not think of themselves as tampering with the text. My reply is that they need to start viewing it in those terms. If this seems a stretch, they need to ponder the implications of the fact that they themselves would object if an editor or translator or a speaker quoting them did with their statements what they do with the Bible during the process of translating. I refer to such customs as dropping metaphors, changing words, adding explanatory commentary, and changing gender references to match what the editor or translator or speaker prefers. Surely we would think that this constitutes a disrespect for our authority as author.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 128)
“Did the writers of the Bible express God’s truth in the exact forms that God wants us to have them? And if the biblical doctrine of the inspiration of the Scripture by the Holy Spirit prompts the answer ‘yes,’ the logical conclusion is that the very images and metaphors and technical terms that we find in the Bible are inspired. We are not free to correct or adapt the text to the perceived abilities or tastes of a contemporary readership.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 130)
“We ourselves do not like having what we have said or written slighted by someone who presumes to know what we ‘intended to say.’ What we intend to say is what we do say. If this is true of ordinary verbal communication, how much more should we assume that the writers of the Bible, carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), said what they intended to say. ... What biblical authors primarily intended to say is what they did say, that is, their words. To jump over their words to an inferred meaning during the process of translation is to exchange certainty for inference. As readers of the English Bible, we need an actual text, not an inferred or hypothetical text. In a Bible translation we need reality, not something that approximates ‘virtual reality.’” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 147)
“If, as some claim, literary form and style do not matter in the Bible, why did God give us a literary Bible? And if the Bible is a predominantly literary book, why are some translations and translation theories so careless about preserving the literary aspects of the Bible? ... A notorious non-Christian of the twentieth century called the King James Bible ‘unquestionably the most beautiful book in the world.’ It is with regret that I have many times concluded that the beauty of the Bible meant more to this cultured pagan than it does to most modern Bible translators.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 159, 161)
“Literary authors and literary scholars overwhelmingly regard the KJV as being the supremely literary English translation, and others in its tradition as being superior to dynamic equivalent Bibles. Allen Tate called modern translations ‘dull and vulgar.’ W.H. Auden considered the KJV ‘immeasurably superior,’ Thornton Wilder said that he was ‘never ... able to read long in any other version’ than the KJV, and T.S. Eliot considered modern translations to be ‘an active agent of decadence.’ ... The verdict of literary experts does not cover all that is important in a Bible translation; for example, it does not speak directly to accuracy and fidelity to the original. On the other hand, authors and literary critics are people whose literary intuitions can be trusted, and if they almost uniformly dislike modern colloquial translations, this is surely an index to the literary deficiency of these translations.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 163)
“A good transition of the NT will preserve a sense of historical and cultural distance. It will take the reader back into the alien milieu of first century Judaism where the Christian movement began.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 175)
“I believe that it is correct for an English translation to preserve an appropriate archaic flavor as a way of preserving the distance between us and the biblical world. Joseph Wood Krutch used an evocative formula in connection with the King James Bible when he spoke of ‘an appropriate flavor of a past time.’” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 182)
“The effect [of the proliferation of Bible translations] has been to destabilize the biblical text--to render it ever-changing instead of permanent. With this succession of new translations (and their constant revision), people have lost confidence in the reliability of English translations. If every year beings a new translation, apparently the existing ones must not be good enough. And if the previous ones were inadequate, what reason is there to believe that the current ones will be better? We can contrast this to the situation that prevailed for over three centuries when the King James Version was the dominant English Bible ... During those centuries, English-speaking people could accurately speak of ‘the Bible.’ The King James Version was the Bible--the common property of Bible readers in England and America. ... There is obviously no way to turn back the clock, but we should frankly acknowledge what a toll has been exacted by the decline of the King James Bible and the loss of a common English Bible.” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 187, 188)
“As we all know, interpreters of the biblical text do not agree among themselves. To introduce the resulting range of variability into the translation itself has produced an increasingly unstable biblical text. People have rightly become skeptical of the reliability of the English Bible. The dynamic equivalent experiment aimed for clarity and has produced confusion.” (p. 195)
“One of the most obvious developments in Bible translation during the past fifty years is the reduced expectations that translators have of their assumed readers. The King James Version that dominated the scene for more than three and a half centuries emphatically refused to patronize its readers. Although the KJV preface claims that the translation ‘may be understood even of the very vulgar [common person],’ it is obvious from the book that the translators produced that their estimate of the abilities of ‘the vulgar’ was very high indeed. The King James Bible is, in the words of a literary scholar, a work of ‘high art, which will always demand more from the reader, for it makes its appeal on so many planes.’” (p. 200)
“It is, of course, ironic that the common reader through the centuries was regarded as capable of rising to the demands of the King James Version, while modern readers, with more formal education than their forebears, are assumed to have ever-decreasing ability to read.” (p. 200)
“‘I believe the Christian Church has a profound responsibility towards a people’s language ... Far from canonizing, or exploiting, the flaccid, vague language of our time, the Bible should be constantly showing it up, directing an arc-light upon it, cauterizing its impurities.’” (Ryken, quoting Martin Jarrett-Kerr, “Old Wine: New Bottles,” in The New English Bible Reviewed, p. 128)
“Once Bible translation was set in the direction of abandoning the very words of the Bible for its thoughts, a spirit of license was set into motion that has gotten progressively accentuated.” (p. 205)
“Poetry has not fared well with modern dynamic equivalent translations. The reason is simple: The principles that underlie poetry are on a collision course with dynamic equivalence theory. Poetry is not immediately understandable. It achieves its effects by deviating from everyday discourse. By its very nature, poetry requires a reader to ponder an utterance. Furthermore, poetry by its very nature delights in multiple meanings, and dynamic equivalent translations want to pare statements down to a single meaning.”
“Good rhythm for a Bible is like a qualifying exam: If a translation cannot measure up on this matter, it is not in the running to be a superior Bible for public use and oral reading in more private situations. ... The best test of rhythm is simply to read passages aloud. ... If in oral reading a passage ebbs and flows smoothly, avoids abrupt stops between words and phrases where possible, and provides a sense of continuity, it is rhythmically excellent. If a translation clutters the flow of language and is consistently staccato in effect, it is rhythmically inferior. ... All of these considerations make rhythm an essential translation issue, not a peripheral one. For a book that is read aloud as often as the Bible is, and for a book whose utterances are so frequently charged with strong feeling and sublime ideas, excellent rhythm should be regarded as a given” (Ryken, pp. 257, 259).
“‘To make the Bible readable in the modern sense means to flatten out, tone down and convert into tepid expository prose what in K.J.V. is wild, full of awe, poetic, and passionate. It means stepping down the voltage of K.J.V. so it won’t blow any fuses’” (Ryken, p. 270, quoting Dwight Macdonald, “The Bible in Modern Undress,” in Literary Style of the Old Bible and the New, ed. D.G. Kehl, 1970, p. 40).
“‘We are in real danger of losing, in an age of flat prose, an essential and invaluable capacity of the language, fully realized once in the English Bible ... the capacity to express by tone and overtone, by rhythm, and by beauty and force of vocabulary, the religious, the spiritual, the ethical cravings of man’” (Ryken, p. 270, quoting Henry Canby, “A Sermon on Style,” in Literary Style of the Old Bible and the New, ed. D.G. Kehl, 1970, p. 427).
“Tone is the literary term that refers to such things as the writer’s attitude toward his or her subject matter, the suitability of style for the content, and the correctness of effect on a reader. ... From time to time I encounter the sentiment from dynamic equivalency advocates that the Bible ‘should not sound like the Bible.’ Billy Graham endorsed The Living Letters by saying that ‘it is thrilling to read the Word ... [in] a style that reads much like today’s newspaper.’ I disagree with these verdicts. A sacred book should sound like a sacred book, not like the daily newspaper. It should command attention and respect, and to do so it cannot be expressed in the idiom of the truck stop. The failure of modern colloquial translations is frequently a failure of tone” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, pp. 278, 279, 280).
“What a literary scholar said of one modern translation is generally true of all dynamic equivalent and colloquial translations: it ‘does slip more smoothly into the modern ear, but it also slides out more easily; the very strangeness and antique ceremony of the old forms make them linger in the mind.’ It is not only the proliferation of translations that has made Bible memorization difficult, if not actually a lost cause. ... These translations are inherently deficient in the qualities that make for memorability” (Ryken, The Word of God in English, p. 284).
“Translators have no right to assume the role of priest, doling out the ‘right’ interpretation to the masses. Readers who do not know the original languages of the Bible deserve to be given the materials with which to do the interpretive work that they do in other verbal situations in life.” (p. 288)
“I believe that it is dishonest to pass off as an accurate version of what the Bible says something that one knows is not what the Bible says.” (p. 291).
copyright 2013, Way of Life Literature
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