Communicating clearly the message of the New Testament
A collection and analysis of the potential difficulties
that translators face in communicating the Christian worldview
| The data is presently in MSWord documents. We plan to migrate it to a searchable database. Please bear with us. |
There are many ambiguities in the New Testament. It is important that translators be alert to those occurrences in which the ambiguities of the original text do not match with the ambiguities of a message in the receptor language. We hope that this database will facilitate translators knowing at what places they can best communicate the message with the information that the authors intended everyone to understand.
We have developed this resource to help oral translators communicate the Christian message accurately and effectively to their own people. Once the value of this resource has been proven in oral communications, those who are translating for printed and digital distribution might find it useful in many places.
This resource presents an analysis of the issues related to transferring the content of the New Testament to other languages. Thus, some might consider it to be a commentary. However, it is very different from other resources available to translators. It focuses on the meaning of whole message as expressed by the style and the context, as well as the words. We try to help translators transfer the whole message into the receptor language. We developers have considered that the form (words and grammar) of the text is the base of the original message, while the style shaped it so that audience desired to continue listening and learning. Thus, we facilitate the translators in communicating the meaning with the styles of the receptor language that will excite the desire in the new audience to listen and learn.
We are motivated by every translator’s desire to recognize and communicate the intended meaning of the speakers or authors. We assume that those communicators were not purposely ambiguous. Even in those places where it seems that a speaker might have intend the listeners to choose between two possible meanings, he or she intended ONLY those two choices, not several (as the commentaries seem to want us to believe).
When this database is completed and its worth is proven, it might be well that someone conduct a similar data search on the Old Testament. Such a task will be of monumental service to translators in many languages.
We perceive that this resource will be useful to:
Translation consultants (both for oral translators and for drafting translators)
Oral translators
Drafting translators
Scripture Engagement specialists
Pastors and Evangelists
Anyone can request an output indexed on:
Book of the New Testament
(All the issues in a certain document, with comments, alternative translations and warnings
of each occurrence)
Book + chapter
(All the issues in a certain chapter in a document, with comments, alternative translations
and warnings of each occurrence)
Book + pericope
(All the issues in a certain “section” of a document, with comments, alternative translations
and warnings of each occurrence)
Issues
(More than 77 categories of the types of translation problems—Lists, with comments,
translations and warnings of each occurrence)
Comments
(Comments on any of the occurrences of any issue)
Alternative translations
(A suggested translation in English for each occurrence of an issue)
Warnings
(Cautions about a particular possible misconception or mistranslation in any occurrence
of an issue)
Continue to
The list of categories of issues
for communicating the message
of the New Testament
