The Editorial Department has responsibility for checking the faithfulness of translations that are brought to our attention and most especially for those actually published by the Society. There are two facets to this work of checking. The first ascertains whether the translation has been based on the Traditional Texts of Scripture: the Masoretic Hebrew Text of the Old Testament and the Received Greek Text of the New Testament. The Old Testament does not usually present a problem since the Masoretic Hebrew Text is commonly used. However, the checking of the New Testament requires special care since the use of the Critical Text, rather than the Received Text, has become very common over the last one hundred years or so. This facet of the checking process is carried out by the use of the Society’s Textual Key to the New Testament, which contains a list of New Testament verses that have either been corrupted in the Critical Text or entirely omitted. By examining these verses, it is possible to determine whether the translation conforms to the Received Text or the Critical Text.

The second facet of checking the faithfulness of a translation is determining whether certain key theological terms have been accurately translated in the receptor language and whether a formal equivalent approach has been adopted. For this purpose, the Society’s Textual Analysis Checklist is employed. This document contains a list of Old Testament and New Testament verses, as well as certain key theological terms which occur in the Scriptures. The translation of each of these verses and terms is checked for accuracy. Liberalism in theology can affect how accurately certain key theological terms such as ‘propitiation’, ‘only begotten’, ‘ransom’, etc., are translated.

While a formal equivalent approach to translation is characterised by a closeness to the very words and syntax of the original, a dynamic equivalent one is characterised by a general looseness and ‘freeness’ in the translation. Sometimes there are limitations in the receptor language so that some ‘freeness’ in the translation is unavoidable. But there is a distinct difference between ‘freeness’ when the limitations of the receptor language may require it and ‘freeness’ when no necessity calls for it.

The general rule is to be wary of taking liberties in translating the sacred text; in doubtful cases it is preferable to ‘stretch’ the capabilities of the receptor language than to be unfaithful to the original Hebrew and Greek. A recent example of the application of this rule occurred in the translation of the Scriptures into the Waray-Waray language of the Philippines. The Greek word monogenes, which means ‘only begotten’, could not be rendered easily into Waray-Waray since all the words in that language for ‘beget’ or ‘begotten’ refer more to the maternal role than to the paternal. The translator suggested that we still use the Waray-Waray word for ‘begotten’, even though it had more of a maternal than a paternal reference, since it was preferable to accommodate the receptor language to the original Greek than to be unfaithful to the original Greek because of limitations in the receptor language. This suggestion was warmly welcomed and commended by the Editorial Department, being the correct approach for producing a faithful translation of the Scriptures.

First published in Quarterly Record 604 and republished in June 2023.