Although translation participates in the fluidity of all interpretation and can never provide an exact equivalence, it remains possible to distinguish a translation from a mistranslation -- where, for example, the translator of a New Testament text has failed to understand that the semantic range of a Greek term is quite different from that of its normal vernacular equivalent. Translation can at best provide inexact equivalence, which is why it can never be an adequate substitute for study of the texts in their original languages. And yet, although inexact and imperfect, it is still an equivalence that it offers, rather than an entirely new text. The translation presupposes and confirms the basic stability and meaningfulness of the original text; that is, it presupposes and confirms that the text has a basically stable and meaningful "literal sense."Francis Watson, "Toward a Literal Reading of the Gospels," pp 210-211 in The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (R. Bauckham, ed., Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998).
