Is every translation valuable? Quality? Only without accuracy.

My present view is that some approaches to translation prioritize comprehension by a target audience over accuracy in the traditional sense. I would be the last to say that I understand every approach, and in the case of some translations, we only have our analysis of the work with which to make inferences about the method of the translators. As I note in my blog post, I appreciate the work of William Wonderly and his clarity about his approach.

I read through the blog post--maybe too quickly--and never saw what I was looking for: A definition of accuracy. I see an assumption that the more literal translation is more accurate in some way, but that is just assumed. It might even be true, but since the point of the article is to promote that assumption, it does seems like without some kind of explanation as to why you hold this view or what makes this view better than other views, you really are "begging the question." The real question is: Accurate to whom? Perhaps the underlying assumption is that Bibles should be translated for well-educated people who can then grasp all of the nuances and  explain them to the rest of us. But one could then argue that well-educated people should not be using translations at all, but should learn Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, using that as a base to explain it to the rest. And the next  step in the logical progression is that this is precisely what the "less accurate" (by your definition) translations are setting out to do.

Could it be that in our quest to "get it right," we've lost the point (mercy, justice, humility, love God and neighbor passionately)? And that the ultimate value in a translation might be moving that needle a bit closer to lived reality in the lives of those you're translating for?

Mark Penner , Thank you for reading my blog post. I'm also looking for a definition of accuracy, and so I quoted the FOBAI statement on accuracy to at least underscore the importance of this quality of a translation. I agree with you that the major question of the last 50 years has been who is the audience in Bible translation. Wonderly and, no doubt, Nida and their colleagues set forth a new direction: there are multiple audiences for translation, defined by Wonderly by educational level. Later, differences in religion and function were added, so that there are now several possible audiences for translation in a given language community. 

If you have a moment to quickly look over Wonderly's book, you'll see that he assumes that he can define the audience of a translation and proceeds to do so based on educational level and religious background, the "unchurched." He doesn't provide any arguments or even interact with the fact that he is the not author of the text nor is following the authorial intent. It has been noted for centuries that the Scriptures are God's Word for His people. And don't forget that the Gospel message is a message to be proclaimed to those who do not believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. 

I wouldn't assume that the Scriptures should be translated for the well-educated or for the least educated. I think the only clear statement about audience from the Scriptures themselves is that they are for God's people.

Responding to: "It has been noted for centuries that the Scriptures are God's Word for His people.

Mark Penner Thanks for your comments. Yes, I think it is important to reflect on the biblical distinction between the written revelation of God, Scripture, and the message entrusted to the church about faith in Jesus Christ, the Gospel message. Both are referred to as "the Word" in Scripture, but they are distinct. Scripture is the full revelation from God to His people; it is to be translated for them. The Gospel is a message that is to be announced to the language groups of the world in their respective languages. When the two are confused, you have evangelistic Bible translation for the unchurched. If you look at Wonderly, for instance, he proposed a translation for those outside the church and with the goal of evangelism; in short, conflating the two distinct things.

As for translating and accuracy, I don't know anything about translation for the signing community. But my general concern is that if you translate for comprehension, what is the bar for comprehension. Just this afternoon, my daughter came to me with a question from Titus 1; she didn't understand something. We discussed it; I tried to explain it, and she went away happy. I see the Scriptures as a text to be understood in community, read repeatedly, and meditated on day and night. If someone doesn't understand a term on the first reading, that doesn't necessarily mean it need to be unpacked and an explanatory phrase used in its place. I don't think a work like The Message has much value. When it first appeared, it wasn't taken very seriously. But now, after millions of sales and showing some staying power, it's mentioned as a resource for translators by Katherine Barnhart in her recent textbook. Dave Brunn, in his book as well, mentions it as a translation of value. I am wondering where are the guardrails that keep everyone from slipping into free translation and cultural adaptation.

Aaron briefly highlights three terms/concepts and their translation in the GNT: in English, these would be Jews, Justification, and Jasper. The final one is worth reflecting on. If someone showed me a lineup of stones, I'm not sure I'd know which one is jasper (I think I'd go for a greenish one, but I'm not sure about that). Lots of English speakers would do worse than me. But is "jasper" an accurate translation? (Let's assume that English "jasper" identifies the same stone as Greek ἴασπις.) If yes, then accuracy is something distinguishable from the issue of whether or not a reader understands the text. If you're willing to say that "jasper" is an inaccurate translation for people who don't know what jasper is, then the standards for accuracy have moved from "no added meaning, no lost meaning, no distorted meaning" (a standard with a manageable amount of subjectivity) to "no misunderstandable meaning" (a standard with an unmanageable level of subjectivity).

As translators, we should be honest. Accuracy is sometimes sacrificed for other ends, including clarity and naturalness. I admit this about my own translation work: it's impossible for a translation to attain perfect accuracy (by standard definitions) in the first place. Sometimes, accuracy in one domain (say, nailing the right meaning in context) means loss of accuracy in another domain (say, obscuring an intentional play on words in the text). Sometimes we sacrifice accuracy for naturalness. In the language I work on, there are words for older-sister, older-brother, younger-sibling, but none for plain-old "brother" and "sister". If we want a natural-sounding translation, we don't want a sentence qualifying the fact that we don't really know if Lazarus was older or younger than Martha. We just make a one-word choice and sigh. That's a loss of accuracy, but there are good reasons for it. I just finished checking Acts 27. Our translation of the chapter involves quite a lot of meaning loss for nautical terms. If had to make choices about the main ideas, because long descriptions with "all the meaning" would make the chapter impossible to follow (unclear), and it's not how you tell a story (unnatural), and it's not how Luke told the story (inaccurate in ways other than strict semantic content).

So my proposal is this: let's keep distinguishing accuracy from other qualities of a good translation, and let's be honest that even if accuracy is our highest priority in a theoretical ranking, it has to be sacrificed in small ways at every juncture. Otherwise, we're not translating, we're making a new copy of the Greek.

Joshua Jensen Thank you for your comments. Yes, I agree that accuracy should be the highest priority in a theoretical ranking, recognizing that it might not end up being the most important quality in some specific contexts or genres, such as poetry.

If we are willing to affirm accuracy, we have a basis for delineating idiomatic from free translations and cultural adaptations.

But to the topic of value, and quality for that matter, I think these concepts loose their substance without a clear affirmation of the importance of accuracy.

There's a difference between, on the one hand, the necessity of meaning addition/loss in a particular language, and, on the other hand, the standards for quality in translation. It's entirely possible for some languages to be less apt for translating the Bible accurately, clearly, and naturally than others. Some languages are more like Greek and some less so. Some cultures are more like the cultures of the levant (or Israel specifically) and some less so. There's no a priori reason to think that, because we believe the Bible to be translatable into every language, it must be translatable equally well into every language. The best translation in some languages might not be very good (compared to what's possible in other languages), but it is still (we hope) good enough. Translation without loss simply isn't possible, and it's likely that some languages will involve more loss than others, in particular because of radical incommensurability between the grammars and vocabulary stocks of those languages with respect to Hebrew or Greek, and because of cultural differences.

So the issue may not be so much the educational capacities of one audience versus another (the vast majority of Israelites were illiterate, as were, most likely, the majority of early Gentile Christians), but language and culture differences. Those simply have to be taken into account in a good translation. Whether or not the result will be immediately and clearly understood on a first performance/reading is a separate issue. Certainly much of the Bible was written with the expectation of repeated reading and "paratext": priests and prophets in the OT, and heads of household; teachers and pastors and others in the New Testament period.