Nida School of Bible Translation - Contemporary Theory and Practice of Bible Translation

This workshop deepens the students’ understanding of and capacity for translation, probing beyond traditional approaches that defined translation as largely or even only a philological, linguistic exchange between source and target texts. Among other outcomes, the workshop will sharpen the students’ ability to measure the success of a translation by expanding on classic measurements of faithfulness and fidelity to include the valuation of similarity and difference and the role of translation as a mediator between these two poles. It will also give attention to the importance of increasing the visibility of the translator as a creative agent who negotiates between various interests while translating material for particular audiences.

While a number of biblical texts will be considered along the way, we will come back as often as possible to considering how the various topics discussed might be applied to the translation of particular books of the Old and New Testaments. Our focus texts for this seminar will be the first chapter of the book of Jonah and the first chapter of the Gospel of John. We hope this attempt to dedicate much of our seminar to these few select texts will give it a helpful focus and keep the workload more manageable than it would be otherwise.