Bible Translation as Bilingual Quotation by Karen H. Jobes

Zondervan is pleased to present in this blog posting an 18-page paper titled Bible Translation as Bilingual Quotation presented by Karen H. Jobes at the Fall 2007 Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting.  We believe this paper succinctly addresses two significant points on contemporary Bible translations:

1. Translation as bilingual (inter-lingual) quotation – see pages 5-11 of the paper

• “Because of the growing importance of accurate, authoritative translation in the highly charged forums of the United Nations and the European Union, the practice of simultaneous interpretation has enjoyed increasing study by linguists over the last thirty years.” p. 5
• “Although simultaneous translation of spoken language may at first seem an inappropriate analog to Bible translation, both tasks share the paramount goal of producing a precise and accurate translation that is faithful to the meaning of the original language.” p. 6

2. Verbosity as a measure of translation – see pages 11-16 of the paper.  Chart below is from page 15 of the paper.

• “My point is that the concepts of formal versus functional equivalence, though perhaps useful in their day, do not fully do justice to how language works and to what characterizes translations that are faithful to their sources.  Furthermore, the concepts of formal and functional equivalence have been polarized and used to valorize or demonize a given English translation, which has been quite counter-productive for scholarly debate of translation issues, to say the least.” p. 16

We invite you to download the PDF of the 18 page paper at this link.  After reading the paper, we invite you to provide your reactions to the 2 points above in the Comments section of this blog posting.  Additionally, if you have your own blog, we welcome you posting your reactions and linking your readers to this blog posting. 

Please note that the 18 page paper is copyrighted by Karen H. Jobes, 2008.  We ask that you would not save or distribute the PDF in any manner.  You are welcome to link to the PDF at its URL hosted by Zondervan.  Thank you for your courtesy in this regard.

We appreciate you reading Bible Translation as Bilingual Quotation by Karen H. Jobes and we look forward to reading your comments.

Sincerely,
Paul J. Caminiti
Vice President and Publisher, Bibles
ZONDERVAN