Ecclesiastes = How could the NIV and CSB screw this up so badly?

[danbuter]

Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books of the Old Testament. It's all about vanity and how trying to live without God will cause you to be miserable. I have several Bible translations, and almost every single one translates to the word vanity (ESV, RSV, and NRSV for sure).

However, for whatever reason, the NIV translates the same word to meaningless and the CSB translates it to futility. I don't really understand what the translators were thinking. Vanity has very specific connotations that are definitely not included with meaningless or futility.

This just irks me, as in general, both the NIV and CSB are pretty good. Changing a whole books focus (on vanity) just doesn't seem right.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Such meaningless, such futility, such emptiness, such vanity.....

no worries.

 

[com7fy8]

Well, let me look at what the word "vanity" means, in my Strong's Concordance Hebrew dictionary. Possibly, the original word is more related to any or all of the three you are talking about. According to this source the Hebrew word for "vanity" has to do with being empty, passing, and/or unsatisfactory.

But you say ones use words like "meaningless" and "futility".

I think each of these words can help to supplement the others, and each can help to bring out what empty and passing and unsatisfactory mean.

 

[Jon Osterman]

Huh? I would say meaningless and futility are better translations than vanity, which in our modern world is often used to mean preening in the mirror. The point in Ecclesiastes is that life has no meaning or purpose without God and will ultimately be empty and unfulfilling without Him, irrespective of your accumulation of gold or wives(!)

 

[SPF]

NIV is a "thought for thought" translation, not a word for word. It's called dynamic equivalence.

In other words, the NIV is never going to be as accurate, and shouldn't be used for formal study of Scripture.

 

[Sam91]

If something is in vain it is useless, meaningless. I have read both NIV and ESV versions. I took it to mean the same thing because they are synonyms.


VAIN
producing no result; useless.
"a vain attempt to tidy up the room"
synonyms: futile, useless, pointless, worthless, nugatory, to no purpose, in vain;
ineffective,ineffectual, inefficacious,impotent, powerless, unavailing,to no avail, fruitless, profitless,unproductive;
unsuccessful,failed, without success, abortive,misfired;
thwarted, baulked,frustrated, foiled;
archaicbootless
"a vain attempt to tidy up the room"

MEANINGLESS
having no purpose or reason.
"they'd rather live by begging than get a meaningless job"
synonyms: futile, pointless, aimless, empty, hollow, vain, purposeless, motiveless, valueless, useless, of no use, worthless, trivial, trifling, vacuous, unimportant, insignificant, inconsequential, insubstantial, nugatory, fruitless, profitless, barren, unproductive, unprofitable
"she felt her life was meaningless"

 

[Hank77]

Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books of the Old Testament. It's all about vanity and how trying to live without God will cause you to be miserable. I have several Bible translations, and almost every single one translates to the word vanity (ESV, RSV, and NRSV for sure).

However, for whatever reason, the NIV translates the same word to meaningless and the CSB translates it to futility. I don't really understand what the translators were thinking. Vanity has very specific connotations that are definitely not included with meaningless or futility.

This just irks me, as in general, both the NIV and CSB are pretty good. Changing a whole books focus (on vanity) just doesn't seem right.

John MacArthur is a stickler on a lot of things, he's not an easy pleasy type at all. Here's what he says about the NIV.

The most popular dynamic-equivalency translations, which dominate the evangelical world, are the New International Version (NIV), Today’s New International Version (TNIV), The Message (MSG), The Living Bible (TLB), the Good News Bible (GNB), and the New Living Translation (NLT). Of those, the NIV is the most reliable.


The NIV was completed in 1978. Its translators did not attempt to translate strictly word for word, but aimed more for equivalent ideas. As a result, the NIV doesn’t follow the exact wording of the original Greek and Hebrew texts as closely as the King James Version and New American Standard Bible versions do. Nevertheless, it can be considered a faithful translation of the original texts, and its lucid readability makes it quite popular, especially for devotional reading.

https://www.gty.org/library/questions/QA167/which-bible-translation-is-best

 

[RDKirk]

None of them really gets to the meaning as well as a direct translation from the Hebrew.

Directly translated, the Hebrew means "smoke or vapor." It's the way that word is translated in other OT contexts.

So what Solomon is saying is, "Everything is smoke."

Consider that for a moment. All that we are struggling to attain in this world is like smoke or vapor.

It looks like it's something, but it's really nothing. It's always changing--it's never the same from one moment to the next. We reach out to grab it, but our fingers clutch nothing. It drifts away and our hands are left empty.

That picture corresponds with the context of Ecclesiastes better than any of the other translations.

And, by the way, none of them is a "word-for-word" translation. If you understand other languages, you know that there is no such thing as an intelligible "word for word" translation, which is why computer translators seldom do a good job. The KJV is not a "word-for-word" translation either.

 

[Radagast]

Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books of the Old Testament. It's all about vanity and how trying to live without God will cause you to be miserable. I have several Bible translations, and almost every single one translates to the word vanity (ESV, RSV, and NRSV for sure).

However, for whatever reason, the NIV translates the same word to meaningless and the CSB translates it to futility.

The NIV and CSB are 100% correct. The other translations are using an older meaning of the word vanity, which means the same.

 

[Radagast]

The NIV and CSB are 100% correct. The other translations are using an older meaning of the word vanity, which means the same.

It survives in the term "Vanity Fair" (as in the novel of that name by Thackeray, or the scene in Pilgrim's Progress).

Ecclesiastes is one of the most frequently misunderstood books in the Bible precisely because people misunderstand the word "vanity" in this old sense.