Question: What makes a translation accurate?

 Here's an interesting article from Biblegateway.com. When talking to young believers a question I often get is: What's the deal with all the different bibles? ESV NIV TNIV KJV RSV... Here's a good answer...

Question: What makes a translation accurate?

A translation is accurate when it faithfully renders the intended meaning of the biblical author into a receptor language. Biblical scholars differ over what approach to translation best achieves this goal. Those who favor a dynamic or functional equivalence approach argue for thought-for-thought translation. Those who favor a formal equivalence approach argue for word-for-word translation. In truth, no translation consistently follows either of these approaches. Rather, what we have is a spectrum with formal equivalence at one end and dynamic equivalence at the other. Translations like the NASB, ESV, and KJV belong somewhere on the formal equivalence half of the spectrum, while the GNB, NLT, and LB belong on the dynamic equivalence half. The NIV is probably somewhere in the middle.

Which of these two approaches produces the most accurate translation? Neither of them does if followed in their purest form. A pure formal equivalence translation would look something like the English glosses in an interlinear version. In such a version, there is a wooden substitution of English equivalents for the individual words of the original biblical text. No translator worth his salt would accept an undiluted formal equivalence approach, because it produces English sentences that make little to no sense. In fact, one of the complaints against formal equivalence translations is their lack of readability (though this complaint is sometimes overwrought). Likewise, hardly anyone would favor a pure dynamic equivalence approach because while readable, it can produce renderings that sit too loose to the linguistic structures and content of the donor language.

To read the article in it's entirety click here.