Translation editor works to find apt words for new Holman Bible
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Translating Scripture from an ancient text is a lot like cooking from a foreign cookbook.
Sometimes you have to substitute words and ingredients to get the intended flavor.
That's the type of issue Dave Stabnow, Bible translation editor in Broadman & Holman's product development department, deals with every day as one of the translators of the Holman Christian Standard Bible.
"If it were up to me, I could translate something that's really convoluted, backwards, and it would look just fine to me," he said, referring to his familiarity with the inverted sentences of Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, the original languages of the Bible. "I need somebody around me to tell me that that's not good English."
Stabnow spends each day reviewing and perfecting the books of Kings and Chronicles. The books have already been translated and read over. David is working on the third draft, which will then be read by the HCSB's general editor, Ed Blum, and associate general editor, Ray Clendenen.
Stabnow's job is to review the work of previous translators, checking the accuracy of their Old Testament translation work with the original Hebrew language and bring it into the HCSB style.
For Stabnow, that process is a team effort in more ways than one.
Stabnow usually spends half his day working with English language stylist Sheila Moss, who makes suggestions about his and other translators' work in order to create the best English translation possible.
"We work together to get as good of an English style as we can that's faithful to the Hebrew," he said.
Stabnow then spends the second half of his day reviewing those suggestions and his translation, consulting the original Hebrew, dictionaries and commentaries. And every once in awhile, he gets a little help from his friends.
"It's fun when Dave bounces ideas off everyday people like me who don't have the same advanced theological education that he does," said David Schrader, Bible publicity administrator for B&H's marketing department. "He seems to value our opinions about word choices and the clarity of certain passages. That's a testament to how serious he and the rest of the team are about making the HCSB not only the most accurate, but the most readable translation available yet."
Interaction among different groups of people is vital to a good translation, Stabnow said. Because he is comfortable with popular Bible translations that do not showcase a particularly good English style and because he has good knowledge of ancient languages, he said getting his colleagues to help with the review process makes for a better translation.
"Our target audience is the person on the pew -- the person in church who studies his Bible," Stabnow said. "So it's important that the average Christian churchgoer can understand what we're writing."
In the end, Stabnow's work is just one component in the HCSB mix. Seven different committees have been working to complete the translation of the Old Testament manuscript, and each individual book has undergone a detailed, three-stage editing process.
Once translation is complete, the Old Testament manuscript will pass through a final proofreading stage and the entire Holman Bible will then be ready for release in the spring of 2004.
(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: WORDS WELL CHOSEN.
