Biblical metaphors and their translation

Abstract

It has generally been felt that the problems related to the translation of non-literal meanings of Biblical expressions have been insufficiently dealt with. In the otherwise remarkable study of Nida and Taber on the theory and practice of translation only a few pages are devoted to the problem of figurative meanings in the context of the chapter on referential meaning and still less attention has been paid to the problems of their transfer from the source to the target language. This is certainly in disproportion to the importance of the problem, for the thesis can be defended that the judgment of any translation in general will be deter- mined to a large extent by the particular evaluation of the efficiency or lack of efficiency with which non-literal meanings have been handled. Because of this void in the existing translation theory, study of the problems involved in the translation of figurative meanings has become a top priority in more recent research.