Different kinds of Bible translations

Ross Woods, 2022

Literal translations

  1. Literal translations follow the original word for word, as closely as possible, and follow the thought forms of the original without consideration for modern readers. However, all literal English translations are forced to include some non-literalness so that they can be read in English.
  2. They tend to use very bland language as long as it is technically accurate.
  3. They preserve any ambiguities in the original.

Dynamic translations

  1. They express the thought forms of the original in a form that modern readers can understand. They do not follow the original word for word.
  2. They use colourful language when it elicits the same emotional reaction as the original.
  3. Where the original text is ambiguous, the dynamic translation usually presents the most probable form in the translation and gives alternative forms in footnotes.

Paraphrases

  1. Paraphrases are loose and include lots of interpretation. They almost never follow the original text word for word. (They are so loose that purists do not even call them translations.)
  2. Their primary concern is that modern readers find them easy to understand.
  3. They use colorful language when it elicits the same emotional reaction in readers as the original.
  4. Where the original text is ambiguous, paraphrases usually present the most probable meaning.
  5. They are helpful when you want to read larger Bible books in one sitting.
  6. Paraphrases quickly go out of fashion, no matter how good they are.

Interlinear Bibles

  1. The purpose of the English texts of Interlinear Bibles is to help expositors to understand the text in the original language.
  2. They give an exact word for word from the original. (When the grammar of the target language uses a different word order, the interlinear uses numbers to represent the word order in the target language.)
  3. They follow the thought forms of the original without consideration for modern readers.
  4. They tend to use very bland language as long as it is technically the most accurate.
  5. They preserve any ambiguities in the original.
  6. They do not easily go out of date.