It is concerning that it seems common for theology and seminary students to be taught Biblical languages without corresponding teaching in linguistics and translation theory.
This leads to damaging views that translation is about finding one-to-one equivalents, that Biblical words just sat around with English equivalents tied to them and that it's Biblical and that it's viable to view scholarship as the sole or main entry way to spiritual knowledge, as if those who didn't go to seminary are less than those who did.
Sadly, I have come across people who have attended seminary and end up with those views. I hope they are less common than they seem.
Would it be possible for seminaries to pull in a linguistics and/or translation module and summarise what the Bible demonstrates about translation?
@multilingualchurch I have heard way too many talks based on not just proof-texting at the verse or phrase level, but picking out some convenient alternate translation of words in the Amplified Version by people who had a point to make and one way or another, they were going to make it.
@royal I have a few pet peeve views of how Bible translation is seen and used. Can we just agree that literal and accurate are two different things and that we will probably never agree on what either actually means?