[B-Greek] my wooden interlinear translations

Gary Hedrick garyh at cjfm.org
Mon Nov 7 02:02:57 EST 2005


Your point is well taken, Don.  Equivalency is unavoidable in translation,
whether it's Greek or any other language.  A thousand years from now,
someone might find a note in English that reads, "I hit the sack every
evening no later than 11 o'clock."  Obviously, it would be a disaster to
translate that comment into another language literally because he's not
really pounding on a bag, but rather going to sleep.

The problem, on the other hand, is that equivalency in translation can be
subjective in a way that allows the translator, at times, to inject his own
preconceptions (or even misconceptions) into the text ("Humm ... this is
what I think the writer had in mind when he said this").  What you end up
with is more of a running commentary on the text rather than a true
translation of the text itself.  Like most other things in life, the key
here is balance.  The ideal approach is to strike a helpful balance between
dynamic equivalency and literality where the two techniques complement each
other in unlocking the meaning of the text.

Gary Hedrick
Mevasseret, Israel  
garycjf at 012.net.il 

Dear List, 

My Occam's razor contribution to the discussion is this 25-word quote
(source unknown) which has lived above my desk for years: 

"To translate is not to put the words of one language into another:
it is to express the meaning of the words in another language".


Don Doherty
Alexandra Headland
Australia





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