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Re: Paraphrases vs. Translation

The following is a quotation from the preface to the first edition of 
_The Living Bible_:

"A word shold be said here about paraphrases.  What are they?  To 
paraphrase is to say something in different words than the author used.  
It is a restatement of an author's thoughts, using different words than 
he did.  This book is a paraphrase of the Old and New Testaments.  Its 
purpose is to say as exactly as possible what the writers of the 
Scriptures meant, and to say it simply expanding where necessary for a 
clear understanding by the modern reader."

Two points about this:

--It seems that Taylor is contrasting his "paraphrase" to a literal, 
word-equivalence type translation; otherwise his description of a 
paraphrase as saying something "in different words than the author used" 
makes no sense.  *Any* translation from one language to another will use 
different words from the author!  Apparently Taylor would regard a more 
word-equivalent translation (e.g., NASB) to be using the "same words" as 
the original author.

--The statement of purpose in the last sentence above sounds as close to 
a general description of dynamic equivalence theory as I've heard (though 
I do not for a moment suggest that Taylor's work has anything like the 
precision or other positive attributes of self-conscious DE translations 
like the GNB and the NEB).  Clearly Taylor is unaware of the distinction 
between DE and literal translation models, and is assuming that anything 
that departs from the latter must be less than a translation, and 
therefore he employs the title "paraphrase."

Happy May, everybody!

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"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."
--Groucho Marx

Prof. James F. Sennett
Asst. Professor of Philosophy         sennett@goliath.pbac.edu
Palm Beach Atlantic College                    andretg@aol.com
PO Box 24708                             voice: (407) 835-4431
West Palm Beach, FL  33416-4708            fax: (407) 835-4342
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