Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

In the last paragraph of Part I of this series, I presented several facts about Nida that would seem to have made it highly unlikely that he would be able to revolutionize Bible translation. Towards the end of Part II, I quoted Nida in which he could only claim on the slightest technicality that he did not use the term, “functional equivalence,” prior to his coining of “dynamic equivalence” (he interchangeably used “functional equivalent,” “functional significance,” and “functional substitutes”  for at least thirteen years prior to his first published use of “dynamic equivalence”), foreshadowing the focus of this article and which I explicitly stated in the last paragraph of Part III, namely by quoting Charles Taber’s reference to Nida’s “manipulativeness” and being “devious.”

Nida’s lack of transparency regarding his plan to undermine the authority of Scripture and thus how it is translated by means of his anthropological commitments was essential in effecting his revolution. It was only by resorting to devious means that he was able to thoroughly transform the goal of Bible translation from being fidelity to its Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts into that of the “creativity” ¹ of the translators based on their understanding of the biblical text as well as of the “culture” of the “target language” (or, “receptor language,” that is, the language into which a translation is made). This change of focus has led to an increasing amount of paraphrasing Scripture to the point of its perversion under the guise of “translation.” Such is the ongoing legacy of Nida which shows no abatement but increasing acceleration. ²

Robert Bratcher, Nida’s Unwitting Fall Guy?

A very interesting admission by Nida, and key to understanding how he went about transforming the world of Bible translation into his own image is found in Fascinated By Languages, in which he wrote, “I have never translated a chapter of the Bible for publication, nor have I ever been a member of a translating committee.” ³ Rather than lead by example, Nida chose to influence and steer, if not fully control, outcomes from behind the scenes. By operating in the shadows, one is less likely to be detected, and when ideas emanating from such places encounter valid criticisms, it is usually the people who openly espouse them who take the blame while the source of those ideas often goes unscathed, allowing for the continuing propagation of said ideas. Consider the testimony of Robert Bratcher, one of Nida’s hand-picked Translation Consultants, who agreed to “translate” the New Testament (and later, the entire Bible with help from other Nida-approved consultants) according to Nida’s “dynamic equivalence” in the following interview:

BRATCHER: …the New Testament at that time was called Good News for Modern Man or Today’s English Version. It came out in September of 1966. And this was a first for the Bible Society. It had never published its own translation of Scripture. And so they weren’t quite sure what the reaction would be. And there was something else, the answer to which I didn’t get until many years later. Exceptionally, in this New Testament, my name appeared as the translator. And the United Bible Societies’ and nearly all national Bible societies’ policy is not to give the names of the translators along with the translation. But my name appeared, and years later, Gene Nida [i.e Eugene Nida] said to a group when he was asked why was Bratcher’s name included, and I have to assume he’s telling the truth, that they weren’t sure what the reaction would be, and should it be very adverse, you see, (laughs) there would be the convenient person to take the blame. Whether true or not, that’s the only answer I’ve ever gotten.

STRICKLIN [i.e. the interviewer]: (laughs) Wait a second. Wait a second. Let’s talk about that. Now this was your friend.

BRATCHER: Yeah, that’s right.

STRICKLIN: Gene Nida, one of your old buddies.

BRATCHER: Indeed, indeed he was. And this was very surprising to me. ⁴

Nida’s involvement with TEV was not merely extensive, but he was the one who approached Bratcher to undertake this project. In December 1961, Nida asked Bratcher to “consider doing a translation of the New Testament for Southern Baptists.” ⁵. Bratcher accepted Nida’s proposal and “worked on the translation between 1962 and 1965.” ⁶ Nida wanted this “translation” to be published “in 1966 to mark the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Bible Society,” ⁷ Nida’s willingness to make a “fall guy” out of one of his closest colleagues for championing his (i.e. Nida’s) ideas while protecting himself is rather Machiavellian and subject to the judgment of James 3:15, “This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.”

Versión Popular (Dios Habla Hoy) Spanish New Testament As Guinea Pig

Almost two decades after Nida joined the American Bible Society in 1943 ⁸ he still feared negative reactions from the board of the American Bible Society (ABS) regarding the publication of Scripture that employed his “dynamic equivalence.” According to Philip Stine, another of Nida’s hand-picked Translation Consultants:

Nida had initiated the Versión Popular [a.k.a. Dios Habla Hoy] in Spanish before the English because he thought that a “radical” new translation in a language other than English would meet less opposition from the ABS [i.e. the American Bible Society] Board. Since the Spanish translation would be ready for publication in early 1966, it would be possible to publish the English translation later in the year. ⁹

Nida himself said:

the RSV[i.e. the Revised Standard Version] finally gave a stamp of approval on the part of the [ABS] Board for something more creative. Now, we had already been doing this type of thing, of course, in Spanish. It was very interesting. We could do all kinds of good things in all languages except English, because the Board was completely unaware of what was going on in these other languages. And of course, we always did it because the Church wanted it to be done in other parts of the world…But, you know, what people don’t know sometimes doesn’t bother them too much. But, nevertheless, the RSV was a watershed kind of development, in this kind of approach to a more realistic approach to translation. And, then, we did this experimenting in Spanish…[emphasis added] ¹⁰

Nida was deceptive with the board of the ABS regarding his involvement with the Versión Popular as well as his efforts in other languages even though he was employed by the ABS. Further, and even more importantly, Nida could not say as did the Apostle Paul, “but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor 4:2). Deception is neither according to love (1 Cor 13:6) nor a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) because it is completely antithetical to God who is the truth (e.g. Ps 31:5; Isa 65:16; John 14:6; 1 Tim 3:15). It is instead a mark of the devil (e.g. John 8:44; cf. Gen 3:1; Rev 12:9) whose ways we are to resist (e.g. Eph 4:27; 6:11-13; Jam 4:7; 1 Pet 5:8-9).

Ghostwriting for The Bible Translator

One of the most inconspicuous ways that Nida was able to bring about his “revolution” was through creating a false sense of consensus for his ideas by means of ghostwriting. In 1949, Nida, along with Herman C. Rutgers of the Netherlands Bible Society, proposed the creation of The Bible Translator, a new, specialized quarterly journal “for those engaged in translation.” ¹¹ According to Edwin H. Robertson, who wrote a history of the United Bible Societies:

Both [Nida and Rutgers] felt that the BFBS [i.e. the British and Foreign Bible Society] method was too dependent upon purely literal translation of the original text… together they designed ways of improving Bible translation procedures. It was clear that their intention was not merely to modify or gently reform existing procedures, but to undertake a revolutionary change… ¶[Nida] was convinced that, in most cases, [translators] did not know the problems they faced until someone who had special linguistic skills and training could point them out and offer help-from the beginning of the process…Nida changed the whole relationship with the translators in the field by his visits. But both he and Rutgers saw that more immediate and systematic help for the growing number of translators was desperately needed. It was for this reason that they proposed the publication of The Bible Translator. The BFBS was initially opposed to this, preferring as they said, the personal contact with the translators through correspondence that it had so carefully nurtured through the years. Despite BFBS reluctance, the ABS (Nida) and the NBS (Rutgers) won the day, and the UBS Council resolved to publish The Bible Translator which first appeared in January 1950. ¹²

Nida desired to create a journal that would help him achieve his goal of moving Bible translators away from more literal translations by being the “someone who had special linguistic skills and training could point them out and offer help from the beginning of the process.” In other words, he wanted to be the authority to determine “the problems” (namely, do not translate literally) and the one to “help” (namely, apply his theory of “dynamic equivalence”) by controlling the narrative “from the beginning of the process.” Such is the originally intended purpose of The Bible Translator.

Nida recounted how he overcame the BFBS opposition by resorting to subterfuge:

When the idea of The Bible Translator came up, they [i.e. the BFBS] were opposed to it. In fact, the head of the British and Foreign Bible Society said he would vote on it because he knew we couldn’t keep it going for more than six months. But of course, I did do a lot of ghost writing of articles for a while and in order to keep it running for several years… ¹³

A journal published by the United Bible Societies for translators [i.e. The Bible Translator] was crucial for keeping these new concepts alive and showing people how they work. Some persons, however, were so skeptical about such a journal that they voted for it only because they were sure that it could not be continued for more than six months. But that is when I became a prolific ghost-writer. ¶In checking manuscripts with translators, I frequently encountered fascinating solutions to widespread problems, but the local translators often did not have the time or thought that they did not have the experience to write about such matters. Accordingly, I asked them to tell me as much as they could about what they or we had discovered, and then I would write an article if they would permit the use of their names as authors. ¹⁴

A perusal of the earliest articles of The Bible Translator confirms that Nida did not acknowledge his contribution to articles not signed by him apart from an occasional editorial note indicating editorial comments. ¹⁵ Even though we cannot be sure of which articles he ghostwrote, to take examples of “fascinating solutions” and then construct entire articles around them allowed Nida to craft them in a way “for keeping these new concepts alive” (i.e. Nida’s views on language, culture, and how he felt Bible translation should be undertaken). This effective stratagem gave the appearance that these “authors” also held to his beliefs. Further, his ghostwriting gave the appearance that The Bible Translator attracted a sufficient number of authors as a way to show the BFBS that there was “sufficient demand” for the continuation of this journal.

Dishonest Scholarship Encouraging the Islamization of Scripture

Nida’s deception included misrepresenting other authors. In my thesis, “Muslim Idiom Translation: Assessing So-Called Scripture Translation For Muslim Audiences With A Look Into Its Origins In Eugene A. Nida’s Theories Of Dynamic Equivalence And Cultural Anthropology,” I provide two examples of Nida encouraging translators of Scripture to not use “Son [of God]” in reference to Jesus with regard to Muslim audiences. ¹⁶ The first example concerns Nida’s work as part of the editorial board for the January 1953 issue of The Bible Translator. The article, “Should We Use the Terms ‘Isa’ and ‘Beta’?,” by D.A. Chowdhury, reprinted from the June 1927 issue of “News and Notes” of the Missionaries to Muslims League, is deceitfully presented in parentheses as “A question for translators in Muslim areas” followed by the sentence “The problem of approximation between Christian and Islamic religious and theological terminology is a perennial one.” None of this appears in the original article, yet it is made to appear in The Bible Translator that it was part of the original article, written in such a way that agreed with Nida’s ideas on language and “translation.” Further, the first paragraph in the original article is completely omitted which gives the salient details as to Chowdhury’s reasons for not using “beta” (i.e. “son”) and the honorific, “hazrat” before “Isa” (i.e. “Jesus”) in a Bengali translation of an English evangelistic booklet. By significantly altering the original article through these unwarranted insertions and significant omissions, and by not providing essential bibliographic details such as the publisher, volume, issue number, and date, it is virtually impossible for the reader to locate the original article and see these changes. As I wrote in my thesis, “Nida must be held at least partially responsible for these undisclosed alterations which agree with later statements of his about rendering ‘Son of God’ for Muslim audiences.” ¹⁷ In light of the previous section, one wonders if these insertions were part of Nida’s ghostwriting.

The second example concerns Nida’s reference to Jan Slomp’s article in The Bible Translator, “Are The Words ‘Son Of God’ In Mark 1.1 Original?,” ¹⁸ as if agreeing with Nida’s contention that “Son of God” should be omitted in Mark 1:1 because it is a “stumbling block…for an Islamic constituency.” ¹⁹ As I wrote in my thesis, “Slomp wrote that the inclusion or exclusion of ‘Son of God’ in Mark 1:1 should not be based on ‘apologetic concern for the Muslim reader…[but] has to be decided…on the basis of textual criticism.’” ²⁰ As with the altered Chowdhury reprint, Slomp is referenced as agreeing with Nida’s rationale for omitting “Son of God” in the “translation” of Scripture. Both of these examples constitute dishonest scholarship. Neither Chowdhury nor Slomp were arguing in favor of Nida’s belief in applying cultural relativism to the translation of Scripture.

Lying to His Mother

Resorting to deception was not confined to Nida’s goal of revolutionizing Bible translation but also evident in his personal relationships, including his mother. Elena Nida (a.k.a. María Elena Fernández-Miranda), Nida’s second wife, recalled the following story that he told her about taking care of his mother in her old age:

When my father passed away, [my mother] was already quite old; she felt very lonely, and her health was not good. I told her that it was indispensable to hire a woman to take care of her, because I had to travel constantly from one place to another and could visit her only twice a year. But she didn’t accept it. She didn’t want to spend any money on herself. Everything she owned was for people in need.

Then I had to have recourse to a stratagem: I told her that a lady from the neighborhood wanted to take care of her because she was a good Christian and liked to help old ladies. Somewhat confused, she welcomed the lady. I gave her instructions not to ask my mother for any money and told my mother that the woman came to visit for charity. I would then pay her. When coming back from my traveling and I visited my mother, she used to say to me, ‘What an incredible woman! She takes care of me with such a Christian spirit—and for free!’ (emphasis added) ²¹

While there may be those who would agree that Nida’s lying to his mother was warranted in light of the circumstances, it reveals that he was more than willing to disregard Ephesians 4:25, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE OF YOU WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another” (cf. Zech 8:16). One would think that Nida, who devoted so much of his life to language and communication, would have been able to come up with a way to help his mother without lying to her. The seeming absence of his desire to keep a clear conscience before God is also very troubling. ²²

Nida’s Duplicity with a Kenyan Missionary

Barclay Newman was another one of Nida’s handpicked translation consultants. He related a telling anecdote to the previously-referenced Philip Stine regarding a “translator’s institute that was being held in 1965 in Limuru, Kenya.” ²³ Stine summarized Newman’s anecdote as follows:

One evening after the workshop, Nida took the entire staff into Nairobi to see the movie My Fair Lady. The next day one of the missionaries attending the workshop remarked to Nida that all the staff had been gone the evening before. Knowing her conservative view of entertainment such as movies, Nida answered, “Yes, we all went to an audio-visual presentation on phonetics” (Barclay Newman, interview with author, 30 June 2000). ²⁴

While this story may seem to show Nida’s quick wit, in the same way that he was willing to use a “stratagem” with his mother to make her think that her caregiver was serving her for free, he resorted to duplicity with this missionary to avoid potential censure from her. Nida well understood that being discredited could have easily limited his influence and potentially undermined all that he was seeking to accomplish.

Pretending to Be Married

Nida was first married on June 19, 1943, to Althea Sprague. ²⁵ They remained married until her passing on May 1, 1993 ²⁶ Nida remained a widower until his second marriage to María Elena Fernández-Miranda, on May 5, 1997. ²⁷ Prior to their marriage, however, with both of them living in Brussels, Belgium, Maria wrote that they began living together on February 3, 1996, ²⁸

According to Maria, they faced difficulty getting married because both she and Nida were not Belgian. ²⁹ They decided to get a “benediction” from a pastor:

I found out that the Church of Scotland was not very far away from our apartment, so we attended the services several times. Because it was so difficult to get the necessary documents to get married, on one occasion we talked to the minister of the church, and we asked him to give us a benediction to at least feel married before God while we were waiting to make our situation legal. When the minister gave us the benediction in his nice church, it was a very moving moment. He consented to do so because he knew about our difficult situation. Anyway, we had such a commitment to each other that we already considered ourselves married, but after that moment, we started wearing wedding rings. ³⁰

As already noted above, Nida was not averse to giving false impressions be it to a missionary, his mother, or in his lectures and writing. Pretending to be married by the wearing of wedding rings was consistent with his deceptive behavior which leads us to the disturbing testimonials of two people who knew him well.

June Bratcher’s Testimony

June Bratcher, the wife of Robert Bratcher (mentioned above), told me the following:

Nida was very careful with what he said…[he] didn’t “just talk.” Gene [i.e. Nida] was very enigmatic. I think he said what people would approve of. He could argue both sides of an argument when he needed to. In an intense conversation, he could go along with the person he wanted to press, control. He was slippery some times. Nida was not truthful in the way that I understand truthful. Nida told [my husband] Bob to never admit a mistake, never put anything in writing. If you change something, do not admit it. He was wily. ³¹

June’s unflattering comments provide us with a first-hand account of someone who, along with her husband, interacted with Nida for many years.

Charles R. Taber’s Testimony

Dr. Charles R. Taber, the co-author of The Theory and Practice of Translation (TAPOT), which provides us with the “official” definition for Nida’s theory of “dynamic equivalence” ³², described Nida as follows:

• • a genius at inspiring the best efforts of others and giving them credit
  • alternating between sensitivity and manipulativeness
  • charming, blunt, devious, persistent as the occasion seems to warrant
  • excellent sense of humor, keen sense of the ridiculous [emphasis added] ³³

Taber made these comments in response to a questionnaire from Stanley Woods, one of his students, who wrote his Master’s thesis on Nida’s contribution to missiology ³⁴.

What makes these comments so significant is Taber’s relationship with Nida. Woods wrote that Taber “worked closely with Nida from 1964 to 1973, first in the United States and later in Africa.” ³⁵ Taber wrote of himself, “I was approached by Eugene Nida of the American Bible Society (ABS) and did a couple of projects under his direction…chiefly coauthoring with Nida Theory and Practice of Translation.” ³⁶ Philip Stine, in his biography of Nida, noted that of all the translation consultants that Nida recruited, “Some collaborated directly with Nida, as Taber did with writing Theory and Practice of Translation, but most did not.” ³⁷

Because Taber worked very closely with Nida at the American Bible Society headquarters spanning parts or all of the calendar years of 1964-1969 before serving as a translation consultant in Africa, he was able to see both Nida’s strengths and weaknesses. Although Taber’s overall assessment of Nida was positive, describing him as “alternating between sensitivity and manipulativeness” and “devious” indicates some very negative traits, ones that he exhibited across the years in a number of personal interactions and in implementing his agenda to influence Bible translators to adhere to his views regarding language, culture, and how the text of Scripture should be rendered in the name of translation.

Conclusion

Nida had a troubling pattern of deception. He resorted to unprincipled pragmatism when he felt the need to do so. Accordingly, he presented his theory of “dynamic equivalence” as a type of “scientific” approach to translation when in reality it is nothing other than a mandate to paraphrase the text of Scripture based on subjective notions of receptor response. By not explicitly stating his commitment to American Structuralist views of language and cultural relativism, Nida’s agenda to revolutionize Bible translation through these unbiblical presuppositions went by and large undetected by many until his coup was complete and “dynamic equivalence” became (and remains) the prevailing “method” among the largest Bible translation organizations and societies. As all successful revolutions are not the result of a single individual, Nida built up his own cadre of carefully selected disciples to assist him which will be the focus of Part V of this series.