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Good and bad translations of John 3:20-21

    Is it hard to translate the gospel of John? Not really. Its diction in the original is clean and terse. The author relies on a bundle of bright oppositions expressed through cascades of words that repeat. Why do so many modern translations take away from the text by adding to it? Why set aside repetends and parallelisms in the source text if they can be reproduced? It boggles the mind. A faithful translation does well to mirror the style of its source text.

Continue reading "Good and bad translations of John 3:20-21" »

March 20, 2011 in ESV, Greek, NLT, NRSV, Translation | | Comments (21)

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