The Journal of Missiology has a
fascinating series of articles by Adam Simnowitz, a minister with the Assemblies of God. It is a four-part series called “The
Desecration of Bible Translation.” Such
a title deserves a summary. (I also used
a YouTube audio blog for a source, “The
Great Bible Hoax.”) Here are the main points:
Tragically, some well-known and
highly-respected and trusted Bible translation societies and organizations,
borrowing from the Anthropological field of linguistics, teach and promote that
language and meaning are relative to culture. This commitment to cultural
relativism is a faulty foundation for Bible translation, leading to compromised
translations of Scripture. This has resulted in such notions as “Religious
Idiom Translation” (RIT), in which the text of the Bible is Islamized for
Muslims, Buddhaized for Buddhists, and Hinduized for Hindus. All done by no less than Wycliffe Bible
Translators and their Summer Institutes of Linguistics (SIL), and by the
American Bible Society, and the United Bible Societies.
This current free-for-all in
Bible translation is in great measure due to the life and work of one of the
earliest teachers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, who also served as
the first Secretary for Translations at the American Bible Society, namely Dr.
Eugene A. Nida.
The
likelihood that beginning in 1936, a 22-year old graduate from UCLA with no
formal theological training, who did not believe that truth transcends
culture but is relative to it, whose view of language does not necessarily
include belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible, and who never
translated any part of the Bible for publication--would be able to so
thoroughly remake Bible translation in his own image--does not seem possible. He did it through a revolutionary means of
translating, using his self-admittedly flawed theory of Dynamic Equivalence
(DE). This was destined to become the accepted translation theory among a
majority of missionary translators by the 1970s. His work also had significant
ramifications for North American evangelicalism, since dynamic equivalence
also formed the theoretical basis for most modern vernacular English
translations, as we shall see.
To explain the dangers of Dynamic Equivalence,
Dr. Phil Stringer, head of Dayspring Bible College and Seminary says: Nida’s
system was telling translators, “You’ve got to stop translating literally
(i.e., word for word). By doing that, you’re worshipping words more than God.”
(A false statement). David Daniels,
author of ‘Why They Changed the Bible,’ felt that Nida was influenced by
neo-orthodoxy. Since he did not believe
that God inspired the words, he felt that the best translation was when you
could translate it so that the
Scriptures inspire the reader. To quote
Nida, ‘The Scriptures are inspired because they inspire me.’ If you could
invoke the same feeling in a reader of a different culture, of what he alleges
the original Bible reader felt, that’s a proper translation. Of course, who knows what the inspired Bible
author or original reader felt?
Dr. Stringer felt that you can’t drop the “word-for-word
technique and take the “translate what the idea means” approach because you
will, unknowingly, influence it with your interpretation of the idea’s meaning.
Prior to Nida, your job was to take the words that God gave in Greek and
Hebrew, and turn them into that language. God was the author, and He inspired
the words. Nida felt that
God did not inspire words, He inspired ideas. Your job is to translate the idea
to their language.
.
SIL Corporate Historian, Frederick “Boone”
Aldridge identified the motivating factor behind Nida’s revolution: “By driving
a wedge between the text and its message Nida was carrying out a direct assault
on the idea that each word’s literal
meaning functioned to preserve truth.”
Nida’s first monumental step to make
Bible translations less literal began when he attended the third Camp Wycliffe
(which was later renamed, the SIL, in the summer of 1936. This was a
“Summer Training Camp for Prospective Bible Translators,” started by William
Cameron Townsend (a.k.a. “Uncle Cam”), the founder of SIL and also founder
of Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Though he began as a student, Nida became part
of the faculty, a role in which he would serve until 1953. Nida worked with Townsend for many years achieving his first
goal: to radically change the methods of
Bible translation, as we’ve seen above.
He was successful in applying his methods in SIL, and he and Townsend
worked well together. The organization
has grown to where it is ubiquitous. Anyone who wants to be
a Bible translator, with any agency, were funneled into SIL. There, you
get the principles for proper Bible translation. So all of them got those from
Eugene Nida.
But “Cam” did not demand true
accountability from SIL’s attendees (not surprising, considering their leader
didn’t even believe the Bible). One who went
through SIL in the 1970s was author David Daniels, a graduate of Fuller Bible
Seminary. While at SIL, he relaxed by
talking to one of his professors who had been a missionary Bible translator for
many years. He was shocked to hear the
man did not believe in the Great Flood of Genesis 6. He suggested that when you go to raise
support with churches who want you to certify your statement of faith with a
signature, you just “sign it, even if you don’t believe it.” Then when you get on the mission field, you
can do whatever you want. Daniels’ question was, how can you translate a Bible
that you don’t believe? How many
non-believers does SIL “teach?”
But Nida and Cam parted the ways in 1953 because Wycliffe wanted
everyone to sign a faith statement that they believed the Bible was God’s Word,
that it was inerrant in its original writing. Nida could not sign it.
Prior to that, in 1943, through Townsend’s
advocacy, he also joined the American Bible Society (ABS) as their
“associate secretary for versions” (later, promoted to “Secretary for
Translations”). He was influenced by a landmark book, Language, by Leonard Bloomfield. Bloomfield
wrote that linguistics did not improve “until the eighteenth century, when
scholars ceased to view language as a direct gift of God.” Bloomfield’s view of
language as a physical response unrelated to the author’s thoughts guts
individual words of any fixed meaning. God is
not the source of language, he believed. Further statements by Bloomfield which Nida followed:
§ cultural
relativism (there are no absolutes)
§ language
is merely cultural (and thus subject to relativism)
§ language
is a flawed medium of communication
Nida carefully introduced cultural relativism
and Bloomfield’s mechanistic view of language to unsuspecting evangelicals.
That these biblically incompatible beliefs with their attendant errors have
come to dominate the world of Bible translation and greatly impact missions,
with hardly any effective opposition from biblical conservatives, is in great
measure a testament to Nida’s skill in knowing how to persuade a given
audience. These gifts have proved invaluable in allowing Nida’s agenda of cultural
relativism to go undetected by them, for they assume that “dynamic equivalence” is a valid
translation theory compatible with the belief that the Bible is the
divinely-inspired Word of God. But that is not one of Nida’s beliefs.
If “dynamic equivalence,”
with its emphasis on receptor response, is opposed to translation in general,
it is especially devastating when applied to Bible translation. Most
importantly, it completely undermines its divine inspiration by bypassing the
need to faithfully and accurately communicate authorial intent—especially
important when the author is God. When your main desire is to communicate
smoothly with the receptor, that introduces another of Nida’s
goals: Do not offend the receptor. That
belief is important in his later role as a translation ecumenicist. In
the Adam Simnowitz thesis, “Muslim Idiom Translation: Assessing So-Called Scripture
Translation For Muslim Audiences With A Look Into Its Origins In Eugene A.
Nida’s Theories Of Dynamic Equivalence And Cultural Anthropology,” he
provides examples of Nida encouraging translators of Scripture to not
use “Son [of God]” in reference to Jesus with regard to Muslim audiences. For
proof, look no further than the translation of Mark 1:1. It reads, in the New King James Version:
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God
But
in the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition:
The
beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.
If
Jesus is not the Son of God, you don’t have a gospel anymore.
Nida
made a reference to Jan Slomp’s article in The Bible Translator,
“Are The Words ‘Son Of God’ In Mark 1.1 Original?,” as
if Slomp agreed with Nida’s contention that “Son of God” should be
omitted in Mark 1:1 because
it is a “stumbling block…for an Islamic constituency.” But the fact is, Slomp
wrote that the inclusion or exclusion of ‘Son of God’ in Mark 1:1 should
not be based on ‘apologetic concern for the Muslim reader…[but] has to
be decided…on the basis of textual criticism.’” So Slomp is falsely referenced
by Nida as agreeing with him, when it was clear that they disagreed—strongly. This constitutes dishonest scholarship by
Nida.
So let’s
take a closer look at Nida’s character. Nida
was first married on June 19, 1943, to Althea Sprague. They remained
married until her passing on May 1, 1993. Nida remained a widower until
his second marriage to María Elena Fernández-Miranda, on May 5,
1997. Prior to their marriage, however, with both of them living in
Brussels, Belgium, Maria wrote that they began living together on February 3,
1996. Living in sin is relative to the
culture, I presume.
June
Bratcher, the wife of Robert Bratcher (author of several books on Bible
translators, who knew Nida well) told Simnowitz the following:
Nida
was very careful with what he said…[he] didn’t “just talk.” Gene [i.e. Nida]
was very enigmatic. I think he said what people would approve of. He could
argue both sides of an argument when he needed to. In an intense conversation,
he could go along with the person he wanted to press, to obtain control. He was
slippery some times. Nida was not truthful in the way that I understand
truthful. Nida told [my husband] Bob to never admit a mistake, never put
anything in writing. If you change something, do not admit it. He was
wily.
June’s unflattering comments provide us with a first-hand
account of someone who, along with her husband, interacted with Nida for many
years.
Dr. Charles R. Taber,
the co-author of The Theory and Practice of Translation, described Nida as follows:
alternating between sensitivity and manipulativeness
charming, blunt, devious, persistent
as the occasion seems to warrant
Finally, we can’t fail to mention Nida’s connection with the
Roman Catholic Church.
After he left his SIL job in 1953 because he couldn’t agree that
the Bible’s originals were inerrant, his energetic style took him
elsewhere—namely, to work with the Roman Catholic Church, starting in 1954. He
urged them to consider joint translation efforts, Protestant and
Catholic, since ecumenism was the wave of the future. That way he could
continue to reach translators with his approach. After a series of meetings, he was finally
successful; the pope and the cardinals endorsed the idea in Vatican II. They even asked him to come to Rome and teach
the Jesuits how to translate, no less.
Based on the Malachi Martin book on them, the Jesuits are not to be
trusted. The Catholic leaders figured it
was all right to work with Protestants who are eager to work with them; they
even called us “separated brethren,” not heretics, as in the past. (Don’t forget the Council of Trent, where
they hurled over a hundred anathemas our way—important, also, is that they
never apologized for that. Nor did they eliminate ANY of a pile of traditions
that had no basis in Scripture. One
thing is constant: They are not familiar with compromise). How were we to work together since they have
continued to produce their own Bibles (such as the New Revised Version—Catholic
Edition, published in 1966). When they
make their own Bibles, even after working on a “joint” translation, what was
the point? I suspect it’s to compromise
the Protestant Bibles.
Nida’s influence has now gotten into Christian homes, through
their Bible translation. As we saw
above. His dynamic equivalency approach
is used by many modern versions. He got
together with Rome, and in ecumenical sessions, put together the United Bible
Society’s Bibles. An example is the
Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Version—1952. One of their goals was, as I mentioned, , to
make sure no one was offended by the translation. Their Old Testament committee included an
unbelieving Jewish scholar, Harry Olinsky.
He caused an uproar over Isaiah 7:14, in effect forcing them to change
‘virgin’ to ‘young woman’ regarding Mary’s conception of Jesus’ But this removed an important foundation of
faith. Mary had to be a virgin
impregnated by the Holy Spirit to make sure Jesus did not get the sin nature
that we all had—and it made it possible that Jesus was qualified to be a
perfect substitute to redeem us believers from the penalty of sin. That Bible version would have us believe that
Mary had unmarried sex with Joseph. They
hate that God would perform a supernatural event so we could be saved. Perhaps
they would like to share their views on what will redeem us, then—or, perhaps,
man has evolved so as not to sin any more?
He just makes mistakes? God loves us anyhow, and we will all be
saved? Keep in mind, Ken Pike (leader of
SIL after Nida) thought that this was wonderful ecumenicism—he said that liberal
translators did a much better job than conservatives. Despite saying that, he was not removed from
his position at SIL. Other examples of “no offense” Bibles are the
New Revised Standard Version, put together by an ecumenical committee of
scholars for the National Council of Churches in 1989. This is also the
source for the NRSV “Updated Version” of 2021.
And let us not forget those versions that Nida had a larger hand in
translating, including Today’s
English Version New Testament (TEV;
a.k.a. Good News for Modern Man),
and the Good News Bible (now,
Good News Translation) in English. None of these has Isaiah
7:14 right. Actually, that’s a good
litmus test for avoiding the “ecumenical” Bibles that are determined to
sacrifice word-meanings for the receptor’s feelings. (I should mention, my favorites are, besides
of course the New King James, I like the Legacy Standard Bible and the Pure
Word.)
So it’s gotten to this: As
of 1979, we have a one-world Greek text, except for a handful of
believer-translators that refused to sign in to the program. We should not talk of a “one world” religion for
the future, since we have them now, as far as translating
Scriptures world-wide. As of 1979, the official Greek and Hebrew text of the
Roman Catholic Church was the United Bible Society’s text, Likewise the
American Bible Society, and almost every National Bible Society in the world.
Well, one result is, any new translations are going to have great consistency. Looks like Mary will always be a “young
woman” in Isaiah 7:14 in almost every Bible around in any language in the
world. And we’re not sure where Jesus
fits in, with Mark 1:1 (and there are others).
My recommendation: Hang onto your
old Bibles. More importantly, Read
them.
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