kg(Note: The following does not use words in their technical linguistic sense. If you see anything that is used in a way other than their technical sense, feel free to let me know and I’ll make the necessary substitution.)

Let me start out that I enjoy reading the so-called “essentially literal” translations, though the title itself is a misnomer. I think that every translation type has it’s place and use. I probably own more ESVs than any other translation with the KJV and NLT coming up close behind. I am not anti-ESV. I am, however, anti- the new notion of KJV- ESV-onlyism “literalism” that has crept onto the scene.

I also admire the desire and presuppositions that most of these advocates hold. I held them myself. I still hold them, just with more nuance having dealt with translation issues, and even just the bare basic (and I do mean BASIC) understanding of linguistics, primarily remedial ideas of how words and meanings collide. Their desire is to have access to God’s very Word (inscripturate) in the english language. As someone who has benefited from having the Scriptures in english (most notably eternally benefited), I have this same desire. Their presupposition is that there is a very specific way that we get to have God’s very Word in English—1 to 1 correspondence between the original language and the receptor language. This is where we differ.

In his recent review of Leland Ryken’s new book, Tim Challies shows his lack of knowledge in how translation works. He says:

“[Ryken] wants Christians to have before them a Bible that accurately conveys the words that God has spoken—not a paraphrase of those words, not an interpretation of them, but simply a translation that, as much as possible, takes the exact words of the original and carries them over to English. One would think that this would not be difficult to come by, but the modern history of English Bible translation shows few versions that adhere to this philosophy.”

Italics and bold text are mine. Listen to what Challies is saying—it shouldn’t be difficult? It is, in fact, impossible. No translation can live up to these standards. That just simply isn’t how words, and therefore translation, works.

Words live their lives inbetween modernism and postmodernism it seems. For example, you can’t say that a word means (A). Just given a simple word, it is, in a sense, meaningless without a referent. However, we can’t go full out deconstructionism and say that a word means whatever we want either. While a word has no one definition (A), it has a range of possible meanings (A) to n. As an example, take the english word “board.” What does it mean? A plank of wood? A group of people who supervise something? The side of a ship? A circuit board? What if I said I served on a board of directors? Or that a I stepped on the nail that was sticking out of a board? Here, we know what each use of the word “board” refers too, because we have a given context for each word. But notice that this is true of every word in the sentence; they each have a range of meaning that we derive from the context of the other words with their own ranges of meaning.

The situation is complicated enough already. Now, throw in the whole aspect of translation, which includes all of the above for each word in the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic originals, then determining which english words best convey the sense of the context of the original with the same shared referents in meanings. Then, we must factor in the organic nature of languages. The English language is always changing.

Challies shows his lack of understanding of how translation works in two ways. First, when he says “takes the exact words of the original and carries them over to English” he shows that he is ignorant of the fact that this is impossible. We cannot take the “exact words of the original” because that would simply leave us with the originals themselves. Greek cannot be “carried over into English,” because it is not English. Translation is necessarily much more than “carrying over.” As Mike Aubrey has said aner means aner. Aner doesn’t mean “man,” they just happen to have the same referent. A perfect example is the Hebrew word hesed. We have no English word that conveys the concept of hesed, which is why we have some translations that say loving-kindness, or longsuffering, or steadfast love, or covenant loyalty. We just don’t have an exact word for this, or many other words. Another example is shalom. Quite frankly, our word “peace” doesn’t cut it.

Second, he shows his misunderstanding when he says, “one would think that this would not be difficult to come by,” but that was the gist of what I mentioned previously, after the quote, so I’ll just refer back to it.

The problem is that many of the advocates of a so-called “essentially literal” translation have the same set of presuppositions. Tim is obviously not the only one making these arguments. In fact, I hear them pretty often. They don’t get it, but then again, neither did I not too long ago.

See Mike Aubrey’s review of Leland Ryken’s first book, The Word of God in English, and his other review on amazon with different content here.

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