Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Two Very Different Reviews

Recently two bloggers wrote reviews of Leland Ryken’s new book on translation: Understanding English Bible Translation (which I cannot link to for purchase with a good conscience).

One of them is written by Tim Challies, a self-employed web-designer with a degree in history from McMaster University, whose also done some interesting writing on culture & the church.

The other is written by Joel M. Hoffman, who has “a PhD in theoretical linguistics and has taught Bible in religious settings and translation theory at Brandeis University and at HUC-JIR in New York City”

Very different views of the same book.

Challies writes:

Though not quite an academic book, neither was it particularly easy reading. Still, it did a good of presenting arguments for what Ryken calls an “essentially literal” approach to translating the Bible.

And Hoffman writes:

Unfortunately, Ryken’s work is marred by a disdain for scholarship, rhetoric disguised as argument, and a lack of attention to the very biblical text he claims to be investigating.

I’ll let you read the rest…

(HT: Bryan Lilly – I don’t actually read Challies’ blog…)

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