Wayne Grudem is smart. He agrees with me on Bible translations.

   All the words of Scripture are breathed out by God for purposes only he fully understood. He put the words there so that we could use them to probe deeper into the meaning of Scripture and even to construct arguments or to answer arguments yet to be invented in the future. But some of these words of God are simply deleted from dynamic equivalence translations. Unless our theory of translation seeks to translate all the words (in some way or another), we will leave out things that we don’t know we are leaving out, and we will leave out part of the meaning of Scripture.
   Are only some words of Scripture breathed out by God?

—Wayne Grudem, Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation (Crossway, 2005), 32–33.

Wayne Grudem offers an example of the editorializing found in dynamic equivalence translations of the Bible:

Generations of Christians have identified with David’s famous words of repentance in Psalm 51:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me (Ps. 51:10–11, esv).

All essentially literal translations include the same elements of this prayer: a request for a “clean heart” (or a “pure heart”) and a right spirit from God, and a plea that God not cast the person from his presence or remove his Holy Spirit.
   But look at The Message on this passage:

God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don’t throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.

   On first reading The Message on this passage people might think, “How creative!” “How Catchy!” “What an interesting way to put it!” But then we realize: creating new ideas is not what translators are to do. We have no business creating things God did not say. Why should anyone think it right to invent new metaphors that God did not use (“Don’t throw me out with the trash”) and omit clear wording that he did use (“Cast me not away from your presence”)? This kind of material belongs in sermons; it does not belong in a book that says “Bible” on the cover.
   Are only some words of Scripture breathed out by God?

—Wayne Grudem, Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation (Crossway, 2005), 44–45.

Dynamic equivalence translations of the Bible, according to Leland Ryken, not only assume illiteracy in their readers, but also ensure that readers remain at a low literacy level.

   Further assumptions about modern readers fill out the picture of what I call a naive readership. Dynamic equivalence translations regularly assume that contemporary readers struggle with figurative language, so that, in the words of one translation, “at times we have chosen to translate or illuminate the metaphor” (NLT). Incidentally, translating the metaphor is exactly what equivalence translations do not do; they do not translate the metaphor but remove it from sight. Not only is figurative language said to be beyond the ability of modern readers, but so is the ability to enter the ancientness of foreignness of the biblical world. In the preface to the NIV, we read that the translators based two of their renderings on the premise that “for most readers today the phrases ‘the Lord of hosts’ and ‘God of hosts’ have little meaning.” An unstated and perhaps unrecognized assumption in all this is that readers cannot be educated beyond their current abilities—to me a naive and untenable premise. If this were not the operating premise, translation committees would not fix their translation at a lowest common denominator of reading ability and comprehension. In effect, “easy reading” translations ensure that readers will remain at a naive level of comprehension, even if the translators would disavow that this is their aim.
   This, then, is one way in which dynamic equivalence translations are naive: the translators producing them assume an audience with minimal linguistic and theological ability and then produce a translation adapted to the assumed needs of the audience. Essentially literal translations are not naive in this sense. They expect from their readers what we as a society expect of educated adults and even bright teenagers in other areas of life. The reply to the charge of elitism is simple: essentially literal translations make the Bible neither more nor less difficult than it was in the original. Faithfulness to the original is the goal of essentially literal translation; catering to the assumed wants and needs of the modern reader is the goal of dynamic equivalence translations.

—Leland Ryken, Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation (Crossway, 2005), 64–65.

Literate readers are not the only ones insulted by dynamic equivalence Bible translations.

   In the urge to relieve allegedly inexpert readers from the need to make interpretive decisions, and to guard readers from misinterpretation, dynamic equivalence translator overlooked one important thing: in the overwhelming number of instances where these translators believed that they need to change, explain, or clarify the original, the original authors could have said it that way and chose not to. The psalmist had the linguistic resources to say (in Ps. 78:33) that God ended the days of the wicked “in futility” (NIV) or “in emptiness” (REB) or “in failure” (NEB) instead of saying that “their days vanish like a breath” (RSV, ESV, NRSV). At the heart of the dynamic equivalence experiment is the attempt to fix the assumed inadequacies of the Bible for modern readers. This maneuver is not an example of sophistication as opposed to naivete; it is instead and unwarranted affront to the original authors (an extension of the “what the author was trying to say” fallacy that has become so prevalent).

—Leland Ryken, Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation (Crossway, 2005), 68.

And let’s be clear: the “original author” receiving this “unwarranted affront” is none other than God himself.

If I relay a message inaccurately, does it matter how plainly I speak?

   Several ideas ordinarily cluster around the charge [that essentially literal translations are obscure or opaque]. One is the assumption that whenever an English translation is difficult or unclear, the fault can be assumed to lie with the translation and its philosophy rather than being a property of the original text. Related to this is the assumption that when a colloquial or modernized translation is judged by reading tests to be more easily grasped by the population at large, this means that translations that require a higher reading level are obscure.
   It is my belief that all modern translations are accessible to a lower reading level than traditional translations are. Not only has readability been elevated to a status all out of proportion to its legitimate place, but it has also been misrepresented. I have moved among people for whom readability is apparently the primary aim of English Bible translation, an error reinforced by advertising for what I will call “easy reading Bibles.” I will state my critique of the readability fallacy very succinctly: what good is readability if what the reader reads is not what the original text of the Bible says? If it is not what the original text says, the so-called readable translation has actually removed the Bible from a reader, not, as it is claimed, brought the Bible close to the reader. [bold type added]

—Leland Ryken, Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation (Crossway, 2005), 73–74.

While practitioners of dynamic equivalence translation attempt to remove difficulty from Bible reading, Ryken points out that difficulty is, and always has been, a natural quality of Bible study.

   Over against the claims of a naive modern audience that is in a special position in finding the Bible difficult, I incline to the view that there is much in the Bible that is inherently difficult and technical. Surely Anthony Nichols is correct when he writes, “One cannot escape the fact that the Bible contains many concepts and expressions which are difficult for the modern reader. There is no evidence that they were much less so for the original readers. They, too, had to cope with technical terminology, with thousands of OT allusions and Hebrew loan words, idioms and translation must have been very strange to them.”
   In a similar vein, Wayne Grudem pictures the situation thus: “Lest we think that understanding the Bible was somehow easier for first-century Christians than for us, it is important to realize that in many instances the New Testament epistles were written to churches that had large proportions of Gentile Christians. They were relatively new Christians who had no previous background in any kind of Christian society, and who had little or no understanding of the history and culture of Israel. The events of Abraham’s life . . . were as far in the past for them as the events of the New Testament are for us!”

—Leland Ryken, Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation (Crossway, 2005), 74–75.

Is it so unreasonable to expect difficulty in the study of an infinitely difficult subject? And if the difficulty is removed, has not the subject, by and large, also been removed?

During the last week, I’ve been sharing some excerpts from Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation. In Chapter 3, What the Reader Wants and the Translator Can Give: First John as a Test Case, C. John Collins demonstrates how dynamic equivalence translators, in their efforts to make the Bible easily readable and to translate the message, rather than the words, of Scripture, actually lose the message along with the words. The case he makes is quite good, but as it takes us to the outer limits of my ability to follow Greek, I’m not going to try to share it here. I will leave it to you to pick up the book and sort it out for yourselves.

What I would like to address, in an otherwise good chapter, is the idea that different types of translations, including dynamic equivalence translations, might be appropriate for different contexts. Collins distinguishes three different uses that might call for different translations:

(1) a Bible for church; (2) a Bible for family reading, which includes children, and personal study; (3) a Bible for the uninitiated. . . . these different contexts might be best served by different translation philosophies. What kind of translation might suit these various contexts for the English reader?*

Collins goes on to say, quite correctly, that a Bible translation for use in the church ought to be an accurate, essentially literal translation. Furthermore,

. . . I see no reason for the home version to be different from the one used in church . . . One might object, however, that the higher level of language in this version excludes children; but in my own experience I have not found this to be a viable objection. Children—mine, at least—live up to what is expected of them, and aim to expand their language capacity anyhow. I do not find them to be embarrassed to admit that they do not understand something, and the exercise of explaining a passage to young children has done me good. I admit that this puts more weight on parent’s shoulders, but then our churches ought to welcome this, and equip their families for the task.†

So far, so good; but then he continues:

The third category of translation is the one for outreach. Here we might indeed prefer a Bible version simpler than the ecclesiastical one; but if we use such a version, we should explain to people that its purpose is introductory.‡

Collins goes on to emphasize the need for disciples to be challenged intellectually to better things, quoting C. S. Lewis: “[Christ] wants a child’s heart, but a grown-up’s head” — which is quite correct. However, I seriously doubt the wisdom of using second rate translations “for the uninitiated.” My objections are:

1. It has the potential to create confusion, and undermine confidence in the Word of God. What are we saying if we give a Bible one day, only to return later with another, better Bible, explaining that “some of the stuff in the first Bible we gave you isn’t quite right, but this one can be trusted — honest”?
2. It diminishes the role of the Church in the proclamation of God’s Word. The Word of God is not meant to stand alone, outside of the Church. That is not what we mean by sola Scriptura. In addition to simply being read, it is to be explained and taught. Some of it is difficult. That is why we have pastors — preachers, teachers, shepherds — as well as congregations of mature believers: to disciple the young and immature. We are not simply to hand out Bibles and hope for the best; we are to preach it, teach it, and live it out among our neighbors. In the same vein, but far more importantly,
3. It fails to recognize the role of the Holy Spirit in illuminating God’s Word. God chose the words he wanted us — all of us, simple and wise — to read. If God doesn’t intend for us to receive the word independent of teachers, it is even more true that he does not intend for us to receive it independent of himself. “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Corinthians 2:14). No matter how simple the translation, none of us can understand it adequately unless we are filled with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit will make the Word understood, if we bring it accurately.

This particular point seems to contradict everything I’ve read in this book so far. In addition to these objections, I can’t help remembering and repeating Leland Ryken’s words from the previous chapter: “what good is readability if what the reader reads is not what the original text of the Bible says?” Accuracy has got to come first, regardless of the target audience.