Truth and Myth in the Literal-Paraphrase Diagram

Presently, as the topic is too big for one post, I am beginning to blog a short series of posts dealing with the truth about the categorization of Bible versions as more or less “literal.”

Within popular Bible translation theory and method it is perhaps the most widely perpetuated myth, namely the artificial categorization of translation philosophy according to a degree of “literalness,” by creating a polarized “literal-to-paraphrase” diagram (with “interlinear” at one extreme and free “paraphrase” at the other extreme).

The following two diagrams (both originally from Zondervan I think) whereby “literal” is contrasted it with free “paraphrase”:

Like many myths, such diagrams are not without merit and do contain elements of truth.

The first post in this series begins by discussing where the diagram seems to succeed in saying something true. 

Part 1: What is "Literal"?

There is some truth to the notion that some versions are generally more or less “literal” than others. And at the left extreme (Interlinear and NASB) we can honestly say that the NASB does fall relatively close (closer than the others in the diagram) to an “interlinear” approach to translation (interlinear being a method that preserves the original words and simply supplies English words directly below every Greek or Hebrew word).

But what exactly counts as “literal” is problematic. The notion of something being “literal” is a subjective judgement. The complexity of language means that there are potentially infinite ways different people might choose to represent speech from one language more or less “literally” in another language. 

Are, for example, any of the following successfully “literal” translations of the first verse in Matthew (without footnotes)...?

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham: (NASB 1977)

The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham: (NASB 1995)

Most “literally” Mt 1:1 is composed of the Greek words:

Βίβλος  γενέσεως  Ἰησοῦ  χριστοῦ  υἱοῦ  Δαυὶδ  υἱοῦ  Ἀβραάμ

which might be “literally” represented by replacing each word with an English word, that is, by using an “interlinear” method of representation:

Book  of-record  of-Jesus  Anointed  son-of  David  son-of  Abraham

 Already we can see that the notion of “literal” quickly degenerates into a provisional, “makeshift” representation even though I have already begun here to make decisions about which English words to capitalize, and to add other punctuation (which is needed in English but not in ancient Greek) to make it look more like a translation and less like an interlinear. I have also attached “of” using hyphens (for genitive cases) in order to indicate that the number of words chosen does not match the number of Greek words. So I have still not sufficiently managed to “translate” into English the sense of the entire Greek verse (grammatically and/or semantically). Granted, our verse has no verb and is not really a complete clause (sentence). Still, we are hovering at the boundary between translation and interlinear.

“Book” is, however, somewhat anachronistic here in that “books” (in the modern “book” format) did not really exist yet … scrolls and wax tablets existed … so “book” here would have to mean something like “scroll” or “document” or “record,” which is why many Bible versions avoid the term “book” in Mt 1:1. “Book” seemed like a suitable “literal” equivalent for “biblos” probably because of the etymological histories and usages of both words where similar enough (“biblos” [papyrus-bark] and “book” [beech-bark] extended by both to be used for creating a record by means of writing: apparently the English word “book” originally meant “writing tablet” and is probably etymologically connected with “beech” as in the name of the beech-tree, OED 2nd ed., 1989). 

But is the etymology of “book” really relevant here? Not really, we don’t expect readers to read words etymologically! In fact if we want a “literal” translation to work we are hoping that readers can automatically recognise that the chosen English words take on meanings based on the source culture, not the target culture. An example like “book” might not be too unsatisfactory so long as the reader can resist imposing more modern ideas of “book.”

But why stop at “book”? Why not go more literal and translate “biblos” as “papyrus”? Unfortunately it seems one can always find ways to go more “literal” when it comes to representing individual words … but at what cost to the sense of sentences? A “literal  translation” still has to deal with “sense” of the words and (preferably) of the sense of words used in combination. Thus “biblos Yesou,” as a phrase, determines that “papyrus of-Jesus” is insufficient as a translation (sense-wise), and so we see that “more literal” begins to become nonsensical and inaccurate (since the medium of writing material is probably the wrong sense to take). Hence more “literal” eventually leads to a nonsensical interlinear. We cannot adequately relay meaning by simply providing fragmented pieces (interlinear glosses).

And what about transliteration? Almost all Bible versions will choose to transliterate certain words (such as with χριστοῦ as “Christ” in Mt 1:1). Transliteration primarily intends to carry over the phonetic sounds of the source (here Greek) and is presumably for when the target language (English) lacks a good translation “equivalent” (another common example is using the word baptize for βαπτίζω, rather than using a translation such as “wash” or “clean” or “cleanse”).

Does transliteration count as more “literal” or less “literal”? If transliteration were to be considered (always?) more literal then it is interesting that no Bible versions have chosen the word “genesis” to “translate” (transliterate) γένεσις in Mt 1:1 - doing so would give us

(The) book of genesis of-Jesus Anointed Son of David Son of Abraham

and readers might then notice not only that the first verse is functioning as a title for the whole Gospel of Matthew as well as a description of the first two “historical” chapters (a “genealogy” and birth “origins story”) but would also note the probable allusion being made to the same formulaic expression βίβλος γενέσεως (book of-genesis) used several times in the early chapters of the book of Genesis in the Greek OT, which translated the Hebrew phrase sefer toledot (stories of family generations/genealogies). So transliteration might sometimes be considered as more successfully literal (as “genesis” is here), but not necessarily always.

Finally, I must mention compound words. Let's look at the first verse in Mark (with an interlinear):

Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ [υἱοῦ θεοῦ]
beginning of-the gospel of-Jesus Anointed [Son of-God]

The word I’m interested in here is εὐαγγελίου (which might be transliterated as “evangel” but no Bible versions I know transliterate this compound word as evangel). By compound word I mean that it has two (or more) parts which can (in theory) each be translated separately. Many Bibles consequently translate τοῦ εὐαγγελίου as “of the Good News” (or “of the good news”). Should we always split up compound words like εὐαγγελίου? Probably not. Bible versions do not have any strict method for always translating separately the parts of Greek compound words with separate English words. In fact most compound Greek words should probably not be split up, just as most compound English words are considered as whole words. 

The question here for εὐαγγέλιον is: Is “Good News” more “literal” than “Proclamation”? Perhaps a more literal translation for the “eu” prefix is “well” or “wellness.” But perhaps more literal would, in fact, be to translate the “eu” prefix with its intended meaning within the Gospel of Mark, namely as “salvation” or “victory” or “peace” given that the word belongs within the “semantic domain” of heralds, kings and kingdoms. . . .

Conclusion 

In this first post (in my series dealing with truth and myth in the “literal-to-paraphrase diagram”) I have briefly discussed “literal” (at the left extreme) by looking at two simple verses (Mt 1:1 and Mk 1:1) neither of which contained difficult grammar or strange speech idioms. Even here we found we could always find ways of going more “literal,” but at the cost of losing meaning. Since translation is about relaying meaning, when more literal leads to a disregard for meaning, it can no longer be considered translation but merely an interlinear representation. On this much our diagrams may actually be in agreement with the above points.  

Unfortunately the “diagrams” above are not very clear about the significance of the boundary between interlinear and a “literal translation” like NASB. They might seem to suggest that “interlinear” is simply an extreme form of literal translation whereas in reality an interlinear is not really a translation if it only translates the broken pieces. Some Bible versions attempt to position themselves very closely to the boundary between “interlinear” and “translation” probably in the hope that they will provide more insight into individual words by playing chicken with an interlinear approach. But more “literal” does not necessarily lead to more “accuracy of meaning,” especially as “literal” ultimately depends on interpretation of words in combination. When it comes to the translation of grammar of clauses (sentences), the issue of what might count as more literal is not a simple cut and dry issue.  

Transliteration is sometimes more successfully “literal” (as is “genesis” in Mt 1:1) but transliteration is not usually considered to count as translation (even though used by most Bible versions!). Similarly, compound words do not usually require splitting into separate words but this is again not a clear cut issue. Likewise, interlinear “piecemeal glosses” are not really translations when they ignore grammatical combinations of phrases and clauses.

So in conclusion, since interlinears do not translate the meaningful combination of words, an “interlinear translation” is really an oxymoron (self contradictory). And to further complicate things we could talk about “machine translation” (translation performed by a computer) where an attempt at translation (to reproduce meaningful grammar) has been made but inadvertently falls short as unsuccessful, ultimately landing us back in the realm of the nonsensical, piecemeal interlinear. 

In the next post (part 2) I plan to discuss some issues regarding the “placement” (relative positioning) of certain Bible versions on the “mythical diagram.”