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Understandable and Accurate

No one knows when the first Latin translation of the Scriptures was produced, but it probably took place in the mid- to late second century AD, if not before. From that point on, so many different translations of the Scriptures into Latin were made that the western church father Augustine (AD 354–430) complained of their extraordinary number.

The problem was that many of the translations were done without proper caution and care. This led Pope Damasus (AD 366–384) to commission the brightest Hebrew, Greek, and Latin scholar of his day to produce an authorized form of the Latin text that would remedy this problem and bring the text back into the closest possible conformity with the original. This scholar, Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus (or Jerome) worked hard to produce his edition of the Latin text that became known as the Vulgate. "Vulgate" comes from the Latin word, vulgare, and refers to the common speech of the people. It highlights Jerome's desire to create a readable and understandable translation.

From How We Got
the Bible

by Clinton E. Arnold

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The Ultimate Concern of Bible Translation

The ultimate concern of translation is to put a Hebrew or Greek sentence into meaningful English that is equivalent to its meaning in Hebrew or Greek.... For example, the very literal American Standard Version (ASV) translates Jesus' words in Mark 4:30 as, "How shall we liken the kingdom of God? or in what parable shall we set it forth?" This is almost a word-for-word translation, but it is unnatural English. No normal English speaker would say, "In what parable shall we set it forth?" The TNIV [and NIV] Translate, "What parable shall we use to describe it?" The formal structure of the Greek must be changed to reproduce normal, idiomatic English.

—Gordon D. Fee and Mark L. Strauss, How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth

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