liz@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/31/83)
I guess a translation can be too trendy, but consider: At first, scholars thought that the New Testament Greek was some kind of special Greek that was used in the Bible since it was so different from the Greek used in other manuscripts they had. Then they found such things as laundry lists(?) and discovered that New Testament Greek was common Greek -- not the high Greek used in the much more formal histories. This leads me to believe that the Bible was meant for common people to read and learn from -- not just the intellectuals or scholars. Well, let's put it this way. I've worked as an interpreter for the deaf a little and the best interpreters do not go word for word. They have to find a balance between accuracy and naturalness for understandability. I think an analogy can be drawn with Bible translation. It's got to say the same thing as the original but in an understandable way... -Liz PS Hmmm. To be fair, I guess I should say that interpreting is a different kind of thing from translating written material because of the time constraints of the former, but I think an analogy can still be drawn. -- Liz Allen, Univ of Maryland, College Park MD Usenet: ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz Arpanet: liz%umcp-cs@CSNet-Relay