Monday with Mounce

People often say there are two forms of translation, "formal" and "functional." One is more "word-for-word" and the other is more "thought-for-thought." This is not accurate. There are actually five, and a truly "literal" Bible is not really a biblical translation at all.

I am starting a short series of blogs on what I have learned about translation since joining the Committee on Bible Translation, which controls the text of the NIV. In this first posting I am discussing my dislike of the word "literal."

I am taking a break from blogging until August. We are off to Ireland for the annual NIV meeting, sightseeing around Ireland and Northern Ireland with my family, and then headed to Berlin for my daughter's wedding. Follow the fun on Instagram.com/billmounce. I will start up again some time in August.

When an adjective functions substantivally, generally we have to add in words from the context to make sense of the statement. Normally, it is not hard to do so, but it would appear that Acts 2:23 is somewhat troublesome. When Peters says that Jesus died by the hands of ἀνόμων, is he thinking of lawless people or non-Jewish people? And once more, can we stop saying Luke literally says "men without the Law, i.e. pagans" when Luke did not write English? Literally, Luke said ἀνόμων.

Why do some people resist the new, and why do others think the new is better than the old? Jesus' teaching is the new wine, and the purveyors of the old will almost always fight it, asserting their old forms of thinking are good enough or actually better. Why is it so hard to evaluate the new and decide whether or not it should replace our old? Let's think through Luke 5:39.