Idioms
Wayne Leman
wleman at mcn.net
Mon Oct 23 10:56:51 EDT 2000
> Wayne,
> Just a question about one of the idioms--"..from faith to faith..."
(Romans
> 1:17). What would you say is a good translation of that into English. The
> NIV has attempted by the phrase "...by faith from first to last..." Do you
> think this is adequate or is there some other possible English idiom that
> would be a closer equivalent.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Lynn Trapp :-)
Lynn, since this may be off-topic for the B-Greek list (but on-topic for the
Bible translation list), I'll just answer briefly and try to slip it by
Carl's keen eyes (!). The NIV rendering seems OK to me, as long as the
reader understands that its English idiom refers to believing completely,
all the time. I don't think the focus is on boundaries of the time (first,
last) when one believes but, rather, on the necessity for total belief,
throughout one's spiritual life. As long as this is correctly understood
from the NIV rendering, it is an accurate translation. Whether or not it is
correctly understood is determined through fieldtesting of the translation
with average fluent speakers of English.
Wayne
---
Wayne Leman
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