America has been a country of lazy readers for a long time. It used to be that in English class people would hit the Cliffnotes when the reading got tough, while the lazy ones would just watch the movie. We’re probably close to the stage where students are too lazy to even look up the movie’s synopsis on IMDB. Sadly, we live in an age where the Bible is daunting to most teens and even adults. It’s a huge book and on top of that “The Law is Spiritual.” Biblical devotional time is likely non-existant, or limited to a daily Bible passage or maybe even reading some Bible comic book. Unfortunately, Bible translators are marketing to people who don’t know their Bible’s well, and want an easy, exciting understanding of scripture.
I am going to show you how much a translation can mess up our thinking by showing you how the Message (openly an interpretation), the NIV and the NCV, translate parts of Psalm 1. Written in bold letters is my translation, trying to be as literal as I can. Read the following carefully, and see how so much can be lost in translation:
Happy the man who did not walk in the guidance of the wicked,
NIV: Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked
And in the path of the sinners did not stand,
NCV: who don’t go where sinners go,
And in the seat of mockers did not sit.
NCV: who don’t do what evil people do.
But rather, in the Torah of the Lord is his delight
and in His Torah, he meditates day and night.
He shall be as a tree planted alongside streams of water
that gives forth its fruit in it’s time
and its leaf does not wither.
The Message:
Instead you thrill to God’s Word,
you chew on Scripture day and night.
You’re a tree replanted in Eden,
bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf,
always in blossom.
And all that he does will prosper.
NIV: Everything they do will succeed.
Not so the wicked,
rather like the chaff which is driven away by wind.
The Message: You’re not at all like the wicked,
who are mere windblown dust-
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment
nor the sinners in the gathering of the righteous.
NCV: So the wicked will not escape God’s punishment.
Sinners will not worship with God’s people.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous
And the way of the wicked will be destroyed.
NCV: This is because the Lord takes care of his people,
but the wicked will be destroyed.
Interpretation, Interpretation, Interpretation
As you can see, it’s a mess. The original thought is hardly preserved and the poetry is completely butchered. We see just by looking at Psalm 1, that these translators are putting a ton of interpretation and bias into their work. The NCV has taken the idea of the Lord knowing the way of the righteous to mean that God takes care of his people. That’s no translation. That is simply an interpretation of the verse. If the purpose of these translations was to put scripture into easier language, they could do that without forcing their interpretations on people. Other more literal translations of this Psalm, like mine, are likely written in simple, easy to understand English. Why do they need to go crazy with the text?
Specifics Become Generics
A common thread throughout these butcheries, is that the translators make specifications where it was intended to be vague and foggy when the text is specific. For instance, the NCV generalizes the word leytzim meaning “scorners” to “evil people,” which would be the word r’shayim, which is used in first verse. This translation is impossible and an absolute cop-out of an interpretation. An occasion of specification is where it talks about sinners not being able to stand in the gathering of righteous. The NCV sees this as meaning some sort of gathering of people worshipping, and the sinners not being able to worship with them. This is an interpretive specification that creates an extremely vague scenario, that needs even more interpretation to make sense of the meaning! How far is the world going to get from inspired scripture!?
Wait, it’s talking about me?
Something else these translators deemed necessary to change was the Gramattical person. While the literal translation is exclusively talking about an unidentified male, the Message changes it to second person! The NIV, found it necessary to use both third person singular and plural, while simultaneously taking the gender of the subject out. If you read the whole Psalm in the NIV, you’ll see they go to great lengths to make our subject sexless, while the Hebrew continually shows him as a man. The NCV version too takes out the gender, this time by making the whole Psalm in third person plural.
How Much Else is Out There?
We’re dealing with Psalm 1. We shouldn’t expect some huge bias with this section of scripture. Translators should be able to be clear and concise, without getting too funky with the text. And that fact that they can’t even translate this, means that we cant trust them with the rest of scripture. It’s not like a literal translation requires us to use difficult English. However, we see can see from the example of Psalm 1 that translators sometimes take extreme liberties with the text. When you’re reading these, you’re reading people’s interpretation and what’s to say that any of it is right, or that they’ve done any homework on it? You’re putting a dangerous amount of power into their hands. Don’t buy an interpretive Bible! Imagine how much could potentially be messing with your Biblical understanding in these interpretations! Imagine how many verses these translators could be translating wrong, whether because they are biased, or unknowledgable, or simply fallible. Let me conclude with saying that what people would call “the literal translations” (NASB and KJV, to name the biggies) unfortunately too, are extremely far from literal and if you really want to delve deep into what the Bible is saying, you are going to have to learn the languages and thought. There’s so much within the Biblical text that is impossible for an English translator to get right.