Grinding Another Man's Grain
10/20/2006 15:49 Filed in: Faith & Reason
Collecting translations of the Bible is an old hobby of mine, and I often write about the differences between them on THIS LAMP [yes, my series on my favorite translations will resume soon--next week, in fact, for the GNB). Different versions of the Bible use different translation philosophies and attempt to meet specific goals. One decision that any translation committee must make relates to how literal vs. how free to render a passage. As I suggested in my blog entry from earlier in the week, "This Is Why," often very literal translations have difficulty communicating metaphors, imagery and idioms because in these types of literary constructions, meaning is not always deducible merely from the individual words.
Consider, for example, a passage I came across today while preparing a talk I'll be giving tomorrow morning to the men at my church. Since we won't be in mixed company, I'm going to address the growing issue of internet pornography. I'm using Job 31:1-4 as my opening text. But in looking at that passage in the context of the whole chapter, I was struck by the way various translations handle Job 31:9-10:
The three translations shown above represent the translational scale from fairly literal on the left to fairly free on the right with the TNIV right in the middle. Notice that in the second line of v. 9, the metaphor is not only retained quite well in the NASB, but also in the TNIV which renders it almost identically. In regard to faithfulness to one's wife, what would it mean to "lurk at my neighbor's doorway"? The imagery is very specific because it's not the same as "entering my neighbor's house" which would imply something far more. The NLT, therefore, spells it out for the reader: "I have lusted for my neighbor's wife." This translation is not unfaithful to the meaning of the idiom, but the idiom itself has been lost.
Verse 10 is even more remarkable and also relates to my post from last Sunday. Job is essentially saying, "If I have even looked lustfully at another woman besides my wife..." (remember the context of Job 31:1), "may she be given to other men in turn." But would one get that meaning from the NASB's rendering, "May my wife grind for another / And let others kneel down over her"? The wording in the NASB is technically correct, but the over-literalness of the rendering may not communicate the meaning to the average reader. In fact, "May my wife grind for another," might even be inferred as lust, although the actual meaning is much stronger. "And let others kneel down over her" is certainly a very graphic idiom depicting the sexual act, but how clear is that to the modern reader? In fact, to utilize one our modern idioms, you would almost have to have your mind in the gutter to understand 10b at all in the NASB.
On the other extreme is the NLT's removal of the idiom altogether with "then let my wife belong to another man; let other men sleep with her." Again, this rendering is not incorrect, but it loses the cleverness of the phrase so skillfully captured in the TNIV's "then let my wife grind another man's grain." The way this is worded in the TNIV the reader can read it, perhaps read it a second time, and after raising an eyebrow or two, really get the picture of what Job was saying. Even though the idea of "grinding another man's grain" is not an idiom contemporary to our culture, it should still be understandable to the average reader today because of the way the TNIV words it. The NASB's "May my wife grind for another" is too obscure in its literalness.
Essentially, each line in 31:9-10 contains its own idiom--even v. 9a, but we use heart in connection with affection even today, so even the NLT essentially retains the original wording here and rightly so. The idiom in 9b is retained in the NASB and the TNIV, but not in the NLT. The idiom in 10a is kept in the NASB, TNIV, but not in the NLT, but is only clearly intelligible in the TNIV because the NASB is overly literal. 10b's idiom is only retained in the NASB, but because it is not an idiom used in our culture and because of the NASB's over-literalness, it's meaning is mostly lost.
Personally, I like the cleverness of idioms when I can use them in a Bible study setting. I can't fault the NLT for inaccuracy in these two verses, but I feel like something from the text's literary power is lost in making everything so plain to us. For Job to state the words about his wife seem harsh enough as it is (they didn't seem to have a lot of affection for each other throughout the whole story), but it's even colder in the NLT. The TNIV seems to find the best happy medium for this passage by leaving three of the four idioms intact and not translating them too literally.
Side note: to be fair to the NLT, the translators do not always flatten out the meaning of idioms. For instance, Judges 14:18, "If you hadn't plowed with my heifer, you wouldn't have solved my riddle!" will be understandable to most regardless of one's agricultural background!
Consider, for example, a passage I came across today while preparing a talk I'll be giving tomorrow morning to the men at my church. Since we won't be in mixed company, I'm going to address the growing issue of internet pornography. I'm using Job 31:1-4 as my opening text. But in looking at that passage in the context of the whole chapter, I was struck by the way various translations handle Job 31:9-10:
| Job 31:9-10 | ||
|---|---|---|
NASB |
TNIV |
NLT |
| If my heart has been enticed by a woman, Or I have lurked at my neighbor’s doorway, May my wife grind for another, And let others kneel down over her. |
If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s door, then may my wife grind another man’s grain, and may other men sleep with her. |
If my heart has been seduced by a woman, or if I have lusted for my neighbor’s wife, then let my wife belong to another man; let other men sleep with her. |
The three translations shown above represent the translational scale from fairly literal on the left to fairly free on the right with the TNIV right in the middle. Notice that in the second line of v. 9, the metaphor is not only retained quite well in the NASB, but also in the TNIV which renders it almost identically. In regard to faithfulness to one's wife, what would it mean to "lurk at my neighbor's doorway"? The imagery is very specific because it's not the same as "entering my neighbor's house" which would imply something far more. The NLT, therefore, spells it out for the reader: "I have lusted for my neighbor's wife." This translation is not unfaithful to the meaning of the idiom, but the idiom itself has been lost.
On the other extreme is the NLT's removal of the idiom altogether with "then let my wife belong to another man; let other men sleep with her." Again, this rendering is not incorrect, but it loses the cleverness of the phrase so skillfully captured in the TNIV's "then let my wife grind another man's grain." The way this is worded in the TNIV the reader can read it, perhaps read it a second time, and after raising an eyebrow or two, really get the picture of what Job was saying. Even though the idea of "grinding another man's grain" is not an idiom contemporary to our culture, it should still be understandable to the average reader today because of the way the TNIV words it. The NASB's "May my wife grind for another" is too obscure in its literalness.
Essentially, each line in 31:9-10 contains its own idiom--even v. 9a, but we use heart in connection with affection even today, so even the NLT essentially retains the original wording here and rightly so. The idiom in 9b is retained in the NASB and the TNIV, but not in the NLT. The idiom in 10a is kept in the NASB, TNIV, but not in the NLT, but is only clearly intelligible in the TNIV because the NASB is overly literal. 10b's idiom is only retained in the NASB, but because it is not an idiom used in our culture and because of the NASB's over-literalness, it's meaning is mostly lost.
Personally, I like the cleverness of idioms when I can use them in a Bible study setting. I can't fault the NLT for inaccuracy in these two verses, but I feel like something from the text's literary power is lost in making everything so plain to us. For Job to state the words about his wife seem harsh enough as it is (they didn't seem to have a lot of affection for each other throughout the whole story), but it's even colder in the NLT. The TNIV seems to find the best happy medium for this passage by leaving three of the four idioms intact and not translating them too literally.
Side note: to be fair to the NLT, the translators do not always flatten out the meaning of idioms. For instance, Judges 14:18, "If you hadn't plowed with my heifer, you wouldn't have solved my riddle!" will be understandable to most regardless of one's agricultural background!