Translation Debate by Eugene Glassman

We are in Texas to see Brandon in a play. I picked up Translation Debate by Eugene Glassman to read on the way over. He wrote this book in 1981, so many of the current versions are not included, but it is a fine piece of work that is nicely notated.

Glassman gives a brief history of how the modern Bible came to us. He discusses the differences in translation purposes - is the translator going to be truer to the original language or to the receiving language. He is not anti-paraphrase and discusses that all versions are paraphrased to some extent. Glassman does a good job of comparing a single scripture from various scripture to prove his points.

He brought up the Phillips Translation many times. I've got an old one on my shelf that I haven't pulled off in years that used to be one of my favorites to read. I need to go dust it off.

One of my favorite quotes was from the gentleman writing to the American Bible Society wanting to help translate Bibles for missionaries - he asked for a foreign language dictionary and grammar book and promised that in his spare time, he'd get the new testamant translated.