Comments on: Verbosity in English Bible Translations

By: true54blue

true54blue — Fri, 23 May 2008 04:43:34 +0000

I must first thank you for the link to that very interesting article. I only had time to scan it but I saved a copy to read later in detail. Your question obviously needs an answer so I ran the counts myself using Logos. I used BHS with Westminster 4.2 first and came up with a total of 430,887 which is less than Jobes but still much more than what Clines and Andersen/Forbes provide. I then ran it on the Hebrew Bible: Andersen-Forbes Analyzed Text and came up with 473,956 which is very close to what Jobes got using Accordance (15). Herein lies the problem. I’m not sure how exactly these programs are counting “words” but obviously not in the same way even when using the same method in the same software with two different Hebrew Bibles. Jobes says that Helen Brown from Accordance explained how word counts work so it must be as accurate as possible. She does note that “Hebrew MT prefixed articles and pronominal suffixes counted as separate words” so perhaps Clines and Andersen/Forbes do not.
Thomas

By: David Griffith

David Griffith — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:34:44 +0000

I’ve seen reported Hebrew MT word counts much lower–305,500 and 300,932. Eg, http://www.shef.ac.uk/bibs/DJACcurrres/WhatRemains.pdf (and its citations)
The difference between those two numbers I can understand, and the difference between the two numbers you report–474,316 and 475,525–I can understand. The difference between those two groupings, however, seem too large to be anything other than a fundamental difference in counting. Any ideas on why the big difference?

By: Kevin Sam

Kevin Sam — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:19:18 +0000

It’s an interesting chart. With the NIRV and the CEV at both ends, it shows me that there is no correlation between verbosity and literalness/dynamic translations. The ease of reading and literalness have nothing to do with verbosity, so it shows that low verbosity is a real skill that translators must put into their work.

By: Biblical Studies on the Web in February (almost all of it) « Ben Byerly’s Blog

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 06:47:39 +0000

[...] Translation: Why Jobes is Only Half Right”. The Epistle of Thomas joined the discussion with “Verbosity in English Translations”. Wayne Leman at Better Bibles Blog has a short discussion that contains links to some additional [...]

By: Blue Cord » Biblical Studies Blog Carnival XXVII

Blue Cord » Biblical Studies Blog Carnival XXVII — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:25:15 +0000

By: Phil Gons

Phil Gons — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:45:39 +0000

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing, Tom.