>MY COMMENT: Even more than this, Muslims do not believe that it is even
>possible to speak of a "translation" of their holy book; one can have only a
>"paraphrase." Sometimes I think Christians would be wiser to maintain that
>all biblical "translations" are in some sense not the same as the original
>text!
>
As anyone who has studied a foreign language is acutely aware, nearly any
good translation involves some element of paraphrase. As nearly as I can
tell, the chief difference between a paraphrase such as the Living Bible
(not the New Living Translation) and a translation like the NASB is that
the translation was done by a committee! I am currently working at
learning some New Testament Greek, and it fits the pattern: there are a
good many places where a strict literal translation would be
unintelligible. I agree with Ted: we ought to be very careful what we
mean by "translation".
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
Staff Research Engineer
Chassis and Vehicle Systems MC 480-106-390
GM R&D Center
30500 Mound Road
Warren, MI
hamilton@predator.cs.gmr.com / whamilto@mich.com (home)