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positivism and dynamic equivalence

I certainly am learning more from these discussions than I am contributing, and
at the risk of further playing the fool I plunge in with some more questions.

I am puzzled by the linking of dynamic equivalence translation theory with
positivism, but I wonder if part of it isn't the idea that dynamic equivalence
theory assumes that human experience is uniform *enough* to permit the
"objective" content of a sentence in one language to be rendered closely enough
in the target language to be regarded as true.  Especially with the Bible,
there is a huge socio-cultural difference that is assumed to be "over-comable"
(yech, is that a word?) because there is assumed to be an objective content
underlying the surface form of the text.  Presumably, non-positivistic modern
thought rejects the distinction between form and content (was it Sennett or
Conrad that said this?), which calls into question whether this is a valid 
assumption.

My question, similar to one I posted earlier, is, why is the belief in an
objective content **necessarily** positivistic?  Might it not rather stem from
a rejection of the whole dialectical approach to knowledge, opting rather for
an objective content determined by a non-contingent, non-relativized
interpreter (God), as, for example, Calvin seems to have thought?

This, I would think, would allow one to recognize both the linguistic
and cultural relatiivity of statements and the subjective dimension of all
communication, while at the same time maintaining an objective standard of
meaning to stataments which a translation must endeavor to transfer.

Many thanks to the more knowledgeable folks on this forum who tolerate these
questions.  

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**  Dan G. McCartney                  |    I net: DMCCARTNEY@HSLC.ORG  **
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