# Translation accuracy



## yeutter (Aug 21, 2015)

Is it unreasonable, to expect a translation that is so accurate, that one could reconstruct the original text with a high degree of accuracy, by translating the text back into Greek?


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## psycheives (Aug 21, 2015)

I would think if you are using an ultra literal translation, you would have the best chance at doing this fairly accurately, such as Young's Literal Translation. But even then, I think SOOO many words have overlapping meaning, you wouldn't have a clue which of the 15 Greek words to translate the one English word into. So I don't think such a task is do-able IF you are hoping to get a more literal Greek translation out of an English Bible. You certainly will NOT get anything close to the original Greek bible. If you don't mind a more meaning focused Greek translation, I think you could do it.

Adding to the problem of recovering the original Greek manuscript from an English bible, is that most English bibles (including the more literal/form focused NASB) aren't ultra-literal. They go against the "literal" translation philosophy ALL the time. They try to work out some balance between meaning and literalness because too much literalness can cause a loss of meaning. Also they just translate "less accurately" ALL the time with no understandable reason (ALL the critical text English Bibles do this).

I think the best book to read on Bible translation philosophies is "One Bible, Many Versions" by Dave Brunn. In this book, he shows you ENDLESS cases where "so-called literal/form driven" Bibles go against this philosophy in favor of a "meaning focused" translation. All Bible translation is a balancing act between the two philosophies, in my opinion and all translators employ both.


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## JimmyH (Aug 22, 2015)

For a really good explanation of the vagaries of translation if you can pick up a copy of 'The Inclusive Language Debate', by D.A. Carson, it will answer your question and more. Available used on Amazon for $0.01 + shipping.


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## God'sElectSaint (Aug 22, 2015)

I'd say that is kind of unreasonable. No translation is actually "word for word" that would be unreadable and unnecessary. For instance just a quick look from the Gospel of John chapter 1:14, most of our bibles say "And the Word became flesh" which would most-literally be "and the Word flesh became." All bibles trade off at different spots, some more then others. I think the KJV,NKJV,NASB, and ESV are all pretty good accurate translations. I'd say use more then one of these and throw in a interlinear or Young's Lit.


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## VictorBravo (Aug 22, 2015)

For that matter, try translating an English version of Hugo's _Les Miserables_ back to the French. You'll get the gist, if done properly, but you probably won't get Hugo.


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## ZackF (Aug 22, 2015)




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## DMcFadden (Aug 22, 2015)

What Victor said.

"Accurate" is not necessarily the same as "literal."

A "literal" translation of an idiom may yield nonsense in a receptor language. Good translations, even formal correspondence ones, are forced to reconstruct some locutions to make sense. That, in and of itself, would render such back translation projects a fool's errand. Plus, the multitude of synonyms in both languages would make it even more difficult. Take John's Gospel, for instance. When Jesus promises "another" comforter, "another" comforter would be an "accurate" translation whether the original was "allos" or "heteros"?


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## bookslover (Aug 23, 2015)

DMcFadden said:


> Good translations, even formal correspondence ones, are forced to reconstruct some locutions to make sense.



Exactly. All languages do the same thing, but each language does those things differently, due to differences in grammar, syntax, etc. So, as Dennis says, there is no such thing as an exact correspondence between any two languages. That, of course, is part of what makes languages so interesting.


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## Robert Truelove (Aug 27, 2015)

yeutter said:


> Is it unreasonable, to expect a translation that is so accurate, that one could reconstruct the original text with a high degree of accuracy, by translating the text back into Greek?



I think we could reconstruct a Greek text from a faithful translation that would retain all of the doctrines of the Christian faith so in that way we could make an "accurate" reconstruction. However, we will still lose a lot. It's essentially the same as making a translation from a translation. The further we are removed from the original language, the more we are going to lose all things else being equal. 

In the unlikely event we completely lost the Geek text, nothing would be gained by translating a translation back into Greek. We'd have better Bibles by simply translating whatever translation we thought to be the most faithful into the new receptor language. The result would be a translation only 1 step removed from the original. If we translated back into Greek and from there into another language, we'd have a translation 2 steps removed from the original, inspired text.

It is for this reason Protestants have strived to provide translations directly from the original Greek and Hebrew.


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