Missiology
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 49, No. 2 – Spring 2007
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By Wayne Grudem, Leland Ryken, C. John Collins, Vern S. Poythress, and Bruce Winter. Wheaton: Crossway, 2005. 157 pages. Softcover, $14.99.
All five contributors to this book were members of the Translation Oversight Committee in 2001 for the production of the English Standard Version Bible (ESV), an excellent, recent, and essentially literal (EL) Bible translation. They presented the articles in this book as formal papers at the 2004 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.
The five scholars offer their articles in this book “to encourage the ongoing, careful reflection on methodology and issues in Bible transla- tion—that necessarily work, which the Christian church is called to undertake, with fear and trembling before our sovereign, holy God, for the sake of the gospel and the truth of God’s Word” (7). Their articles are excellent and certainly add clarity to the important field of Bible transla- tion. However, with the exception of Winter’s article, which seems out of place with the thrust of the other four articles, a more accurately stated purpose for this book would be: a defense of EL Bible translation against the practice of dynamic equivalence (DE) Bible translation (also called functional equivalence), a thought-for-thought translation. Winter, on the other hand, examined Paul’s plain, unrhetorical writing style in the Corinthian letters (150).
As with any collection of articles, there is the expected repetition, but this book has just a few: (1) redundant definitions of terms (20–21, 58); and (2) similar charts (22, 82). Otherwise, each writer approaches a different facet of the topic that makes a helpful apologetic for the EL translation of the Bible (22).
In clear apologetic form, Ryken gives reasoned responses to five common misunderstandings people have about EL translations. He is right on target with his answers. However, in responding to the charge of naiveté, leveled against EL translators, Ryken seems to have missed the most basic one. This straw man argument claims EL proponents believe good translation only goes word by word from the Hebrew or Greek in order to find an equivalent word in English (or in whatever the receptor language is) (60–70). Grudem actually answers this charge in his essay (20). However, every decent translator knows there is not always a word-for-word, nor a syntax-to-syntax, correspondence from one language to another. Ryken then turns around and calls the DE translators “naïve” (63–70)—good points, but perhaps the name calling could end!
Poythress’ article is the most tedious, but necessarily so, since it deals with the history of translation theory and a critique of the prevailing theory: DE. Although he rightly takes issue with Eugene Nida and his DE theory (122–34), he does so respectfully and is complimentary of parts of Nida’s work (131–34).
Most articles such as these bounce around through the Bible as they cite examples of mistranslations by the other side; however, Collins does a service by limiting his study to 1 John (94–105). This focus allows him to examine not only how translations handle individual verses, but also to study how translations deal with word repetitions and word ambiguities— important aspects often ignored in this translation debate.
Interestingly, there are conservative scholars on both sides of the EL versus DE debate even though it seems proponents of plenary-verbal inspiration would favor the EL approach, as does this reviewer. Although somewhat short, this book helps further the case for EL Bible translation and is clear enough even for the uninitiated to understand and appreciate the issues. For articles promoting DE translation, read The Challenge of Bible Translation, edited by Glen G. Scorgie, Mark L. Strauss, and Steven M. Voth.
