Which Translation Methodology Is Best?

Definition of Terms

Formal Equivalence. The terms formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence are used to describe two entirely different methods of translating the Bible. Formal equivalence sacrifices readability in order to adhere more closely to the meaning of the original text. Hence, formal equivalence is required in diplomacy and sometimes in business.

Dynamic Equivalence. Dynamic equivalence seeks to produce a more readable translation by not adhering to the lexical details and grammatical structure of the original text.

Examples of Formal and Dynamic Equivalence

Formal Equivalence. The best known example of formal equivalence is the King James Version and its many revisions. Two of the latest revisions of that translation are the Revised Standard Version and the New American Standard Bible.

Dynamic Equivalence. The New Jerusalem Bible and the New English Bible are examples of translations based on the use of dynamic equivalence.

Moderate Dynamic Equivalence. The translators of the New International Version and Today’s New International Version sought to find a balance between formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence.

Extreme Dynamic Equivalence (paraphrase). The best known example of extreme dynamic equivalence is The Living Bible.

The Strength and Weakness of the Two Approaches

Formal Equivalence. The strength of the formally equivalent approach to the translation of the Bible is the production of a text that, in most cases, allows the reader to see the grammar and syntax of the original text. Its weakness is the production of a text that is not easily readable.

Dynamic Equivalence. The main strength of the dynamically equivalent approach to translation is the production of a text that is easily readable. Its primary weakness is, the translation produced by this methodology not only prevents the reader from seeing the grammar and syntax of the original text, it also allows the translator to import his own interpretation of the text into his translation.

The Basic Weakness in Both Approaches. Both of these two approaches to translating the Bible fail to take into account the fact that the message of the Bible is based on an understanding of the meaning of Hebrew idioms that speak in terms of imagery inherent in the mythology of the era in which it was written. Consequently, neither approach allows the reader to see all of the instances in which the Hebrew idioms occur; and they further obscure the meaning of the biblical text by not translating the constituent parts of the idioms consistently. The following dynamic equivalence translations of 2 Samuel 7:8–13 are a classic example.

A Formal-Dynamic Equivalence

The translation methodology represented in Harper’s Standardized Study Bible threads the needle between the formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence approaches to translation so as to produce a translation that is both dynamically equivalent and formally equivalent.

Harper’s Standardized Study Bible produces a formally equivalent translation by first defining and refining the meaning of the terms in the original text so that each term in the text can be assigned a unique word or phrase in the English language that is formally equivalent to the word in the original text. It then translates every noun, adjective, adverb, pronoun, and particle, as well as every use of the verb, in the same way every time.

The translation methodology represented in Harper’s Standardized Study Bible differs dramatically from most formally equivalent translations in that, while the translators who use that approach focus on maintaining the grammar and syntax of the original language, they have a wide range of “acceptable” English words that may be used to translate a word in the original text. In some cases, such translations translate a single word in the original text more than fifty different ways in the English text. And the translators quite often use one English term to translate several different words in the original text. Those same two flaws can be found in dynamically equivalent translations. Such is not the case in Harper’s Standardized Study Bible.

A Timeline of English Translations of the Bible

View a timeline that will show how biblical translations have changed through the years. This will help you to better understand why Larry Dee Harper created his very own translation.

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To the greatest extent possible, Harper’s Standardized Study Bible assigns every word in the original text a unique English word or phrase that accurately encompasses the wide range of meaning that word has in the original language. When it is not possible to restrict the translation of a term in the original text to only one word or phrase, it defines the term according to its usage in specific contexts. It produces a dynamically equivalent translation by rearranging the translation of the morphological units found in the original text so that the result is a readable and understandable translation that accurately reflects what the author said. That methodology maintains the original grammatical and syntactical relationship between those morphological units so as to adhere to the formally equivalent methodology.

Harper’s Standardized Study Bible Methodology

Translation Conventions (HSSB Desktop Application Only)

• Each morphological unit is enclosed in square brackets [ ].
• Nouns and demonstrative pronouns are capitalized.
• Adjectives, adverbs, verbs, prepositions, and particles are lower case.
• Equational verbs that are assumed by a nonverbal sentence structure and prepositions denoted by the case ending of a noun or adjective are enclosed in curly brackets { }.
• The Hebrew article is included within the square brackets of the noun or adjective it is joined to. The Greek article, if not just a silent grammatical indicator, is translated in accordance with its usage as an article, personal pronoun, relative pronoun, etc.

Translation Standards

• Singular and plural nouns are translated as they stand in the original text.
• Singular and plural personal pronouns are translated as they stand in the original text.
• Adjectives and adverbs are translated so as to modify the same word they modify in the original text.
• Particles are translated variously, standardized according to grammatical function.
• The translation of finite verbs is standardized according to the various forms in which they occur.
• Participles are translated as adjectives, relative phrases, and temporal phrases, depending on context.
• Infinitives are translated in a standard way, with each usage determined by context.
• Archaic English terms that are still being used by all other translators but have long since lost the meaning they had when the King James Version was translated (e.g., words like covenant, righteousness, and justification) are updated with definitions that accurately reflect the meaning of the words in the original text.
• Words that occur only one time in the biblical text are denoted with an asterisk (*).