July 31, 2012
Speaking of Translations
The critique on a new
Bible translation, The Voice, says that it is written like a screenplay
and cites the use of drama to make the Scripture come alive. I listen to the
dramatized version of the NIV on CD and I appreciate how dramatization enhances
the text without changing the text. However, The Voice adds to the text.
An example is at the birth of Cain, “Eve
(excited): Look I have created a new human, a male child, with the help of the
Eternal.” I suppose Eve may have been excited, but I hate it when an author
tries to read between the lines for me.
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2 comments:
Gail;
-----I can imagine how The Voice might make the stories and exhortations of the Word more vivid. When things are more vivid, they are more memorable. Since memories make and effect our behavior, I can see how this is good. In a sense, I like the idea, as long as you use only faithful translations for your map.
-----But there remains something about God that raises a cautious note. His being right in every detail and relevant to all things is far more than we can immediately grasp. Knowledge of Him grows in us through experience, and this experience comes through our yield to His revelation. His revelation is in the Word He inspired for our use. It seems to me that if it was befitting for Him to speak His Word into the text it became, then by His perfect wisdom, the message He meant is in the text precisely as He presented it, and our grasp of it is in our obedience to all its details as being relevant.
-----I’ve always viewed the Bible as being like a complicated jigsaw puzzle. It has pieces which are clear and certain as to where they fit into the picture of its message. But more are open to seemingly wider possibilities, although even by these God intended specific meaning. And some parts seem completely ambiguous. Yet by His nature of relevant detail, even the seemingly ambiguous parts of the Word become clear when all parts are seen in their proper place where they can form the particular nuances He meant for the picture drawn by the whole of them. If we mess with the natural shape He gave each expression in the way He gave it, we are whittling and altering the tabs and slots of the puzzle pieces, photo-shopping the images on the pieces, and then entering the great risk of receiving a revelation more or less distorted by the sloppiness we created in the altered pieces.
-----Of course, the Bible as God gave it seems dull to some. It seems so dull to most that they don’t even read it, let alone think about it. This in itself is a message from God. We far less sort out the Bible’s meanings than it sorts out our meanings. If we seek to find interest in its words and expressions, we seek to find its message. But when we must colorize, animate, and dramatize it to find it meaningful, maybe it has sorted us into the category of those having minimal interest in His messages and maximum interest in our own. We already see dimly as through a mirror, knowing only in part. Fogging up the Word with a plethora of nuances not inspired by the Spirit doesn’t strike me as helping the situation. But laying aside our own insistences and taking up the relevant details of His does help defog the mirror some.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Ack. That translation sounds just awful. Deb said, (Derisively) "A new HUMAN?" Relly? Paleeessse."
Hope all is well with you & yours. :)
Deb
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