Preface
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Greek word. Subjectivity and interpretive opinions are impossible to avoid in the translation process and do not necessarily have a negative impact on a translation. This leads to a second objection regarding the nature of words and thoughts. The strict distinction between “word” and “thought” must be questioned. After all, a word is merely an expressed thought, whether spoken or written. This becomes clear when dealing with people who are fluent in multiple languages. When they have a thought they wish to express, they must choose which language, then which word or words, then which word order. There may be line of distinction between a thought and a word, but it is not a hard and fast line; it is at best a dotted line. Third, words generally do not have a single meaning; they have a range of meanings—what linguists refer to as a semantic field. Even the translators of the King James Bible recognized that words do not carry the same sense every time they occur in a text (see preface to the 1611 edition). So, for example, how should one translate the Greek noun dikaiosunē? In one place the word might mean “justice,” in another “righteousness,” in another “equity” or “integrity,” yet in another something that is “true” or “right.” One must understand the context in which a word is used in order to render carefully its meaning in another language. This context is not just semantic but also historical and social. For example, our use of “God’s Anointed” or “the Anointed One” as a translation of the title “Christ”—and in selected places expanded to “God’s Anointed, the Liberating King”—captures something of the historical and social reality behind Jesus’ identity. He is God’s Anointed King who comes to liberate His people from sin, addiction, disease, oppression, and death. To press this point even further, words don’t just mean things, they do things. Words have both meaning and function; they function within clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and stories in ways that are different from the definition a person might find in a dictionary or lexicon. Beyond this, however, words also function in various ways to elicit emotions, actions, and responses from those who hear them. In order to translate a text well, one must consider not only what words mean but what they do. Fourth, a word-for-word correspondence is difficult to maintain because translators may need multiple words in one language to express the meaning of a single word in another. Take for instance the Greek word sōthēsetai (Romans 10:13). Because of the way the English language works, it takes no fewer than four words to translate this single Greek verb: “he/she will be saved.” Again, the context will reveal who will be saved, what salvation entails, and when it is realized. When all of these factors are taken into consideration, The Voice represents a hybrid of the word-for-word and thought-for-thought approaches. In some places The Voice follows a word-for-word translation; in others it expresses the meaning more in a thought-for-thought approach. This is necessitated contextually both by the original language and by our target language (English). Responsibility to render the biblical languages carefully and to create a readable translation for an audience is not an either/or pursuit; a “contextual equivalent” translation seeks to be faithful and realistic to both tasks. Another issue The Voice project team had to address involved inclusive language. Generally speaking, we have made no attempt to make The Voice gender neutral or gender inclusive. We have tried to follow the sense of the text and have made translation decisions based on the context. When, for
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