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Welcome to Day 1509 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomBible Study \u2013 Translation and Study Bibles \u2013 Meditation MondayWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge.\xa0Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend; I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy.\xa0Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1509 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday.\xa0Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy.\xa0For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection.\xa0You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God\u2019s Word and in prayer.\xa0It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body.\xa0As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.\xa0
We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser.\xa0Our current insights are focusing on what the Bible is. Today let us meditate on:
Bible Study \u2013 Translations and Study Bibles\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Insight Thirty-Three: Learn Something About Philosophies of Bible Translation
Bible translation is both an art and a science. It\u2019s not just a matter of knowing English equivalents to words in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. If you are bilingual or have a friend who speaks another language, you know there\u2019s more to understanding what is communicated in any language than using a dictionary.
The difficulty is easy to illustrate in English. Understanding what is meant by phrases liked \u2018She copped a plea\u201d or \u2018He\u2019s piling up yards\u201d requires cultural knowledge\u2014in these cases, the slang of crime dramas and the nuances of football. We could translate those phrases word-for-word into another language, but without the appropriate cultural intuition, they\u2019d be meaningless.
Bible translators struggle with these sorts of problems frequently. There are also issues unique to the Bible that present difficulties. The doctrine of inspiration is one such complication. Since inspiration can be defined as \u201cverbal,\u201d where each word of the original compositions is ultimately the result of a process guided by Providence, should translation of those compositions take the form of a \u201cword-for-word\u201d rendering? If not, are words of God being lost?
This \u201cword-for-word\u201d approach to translation is called formal equivalence by translators. This translation philosophy aims to account for each word in the original language with an English word wherever that is possible. The result is typically a rigidly literal rendering that may sound awkward. Each word must be accounted for. Some Bible translations lean in this direction. Another approach is called \u201cdynamic equivalence\u201d or \u201cfunctional equivalence.\u201d This approach looks at the material to be translated and assesses what the original material meant to its original audience. Once that is discerned, the \u201cmeaning\u201d is put into English using whatever words are best suited toward that end. There is no emphasis on accounting for each word of the original since meaning is the focus. Again, specific translations favor this approach.
Some translations fall in between. Still, others are paraphrased. Paraphrases start with an English translation and then reword the English. No actual translation work occurs.
I like to say the best Bible translation is the one you\u2019ll read. It\u2019s good to know the...