What's the Difference Between a Translation and a Version

[Rhondazvous]

This question could pertain to any of the Abrahamic religions.

When my uncle was proselytizing me for Islam, he told me there are no versions of the Quran.  Only the corrupted Bible has versions but the Quran is identical to the exact words spoken by the prophet Muhammad (may blessings be upon him). He encouraged me to read the Quran for myself. So I ordered a copy. Immediately, my uncle asked me which translation I'd bought. When I told him, he groaned. "You bought the wrong one. You should have asked me . I would have told you to get the other one." Upon my query, he launched into a convoluted explanation of the difference between a version and a translation.  I found this to be as unconvincing as Christian apologetics.

[robvalue]

I dunno!

What I do know is that there are no originals of the bible or the Quran, so everything is a "version" now, at best.

[Dystopia]

In regular books a version is edited while a translation is merely typing the exact same words in another language.

[Alex K]

I guess his claim is that for the Quran there is a unique source text in Arabic on which everyone agrees that it is the original (I don't know whether that can be realistically true, but that's what I would think he means), and so every translation into a different language is from the exact same source.

[Pyrrho]

The following comments are general comments about translations and versions of things, not about the Quran in particular.  There is sometimes a difference between a version and a translation, but "version" is a more generic term, so, in some instances, there may be no difference at all.  Sometimes, things are paraphrased, and that may be considered to be a version without being considered to strictly be a translation.  Even that distinction is imprecise, as a translation is always using other words for something, as otherwise it would be the original and not a translation of anything.  Usually, though, a paraphrase is less exact in following the original than a translation.

For an example of a paraphrase:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Living_Bible

Also, "version" can have a different meaning still, in that the Catholic Bible and the typical protestant Bibles are different versions of the Bible, in that they do not contain the same books, and there are some differences within some of the books that are in common.  For more on this, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible#Versi..._the_Bible

It is possible that your uncle had in mind this sense of the word "version," though that does not explain his problem with a specific translation that you selected of the Quran.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The following comments are general comments about translations and versions of things, not about the Quran in particular.  There is sometimes a difference between a version and a translation, but "version" is a more generic term, so, in some instances, there may be no difference at all.  Sometimes, things are paraphrased, and that may be considered to be a version without being considered to strictly be a translation.  Even that distinction is imprecise, as a translation is always using other words for something, as otherwise it would be the original and not a translation of anything.  Usually, though, a paraphrase is less exact in following the original than a translation.

For an example of a paraphrase:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Living_Bible

Also, "version" can have a different meaning still, in that the Catholic Bible and the typical protestant Bibles are different versions of the Bible, in that they do not contain the same books, and there are some differences within some of the books that are in common.  For more on this, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible#Versi..._the_Bible

It is possible that your uncle had in mind this sense of the word "version," though that does not explain his problem with a specific translation that you selected of the Quran.

Each version and translation is unique.  The Catholic Bibles may contain the same books as each other but their translations are different.  Likewise the Protestant Bibles may contain the same books but their translations are completely different from each other.  The main thing is the basic ideas are the same in all of them.  

[Rhondazvous]

Each version and translation is unique.  The Catholic Bibles may contain the same books as each other but their translations are different.  Likewise the Protestant Bibles may contain the same books but their translations are completely different from each other.  The main thing is the basic ideas are the same in all of them.  

Even a small change can drastically change the "basic idea.  Take the omission of a comma.

Paint the care red.
as opposed to
Paint the car, Red.

The differences in the various versions of the Bible do not all have the same idea. The protestant Bible doesn't have the Apocrypha, while the Catholic Bible does.

And that's just in the same language. Imagine the havoc one small change can make when translating between languages.  And we're not just talking different languages, Hebrew and English are in entirely different  linguistic families.

My uncle told me that the translation he wanted me to read was clearer.  Isn't that what a version does? I don't think it's possible to have a pure verbatim translation without doing some editing, deciding which words to use. Words that may have the same denotation may have quite divergent connotations.  Can a translator make such choices without reference to his personal beliefs or those of his denomination?  I doubt it very seriously.  

[robvalue]

If God wants to communicate with people, surely he is capable of doing it directly into their brain so that each individual cannot possibly misinterpret the meaning?

If he can't do that, and these Yellow Pages of Chinese whispers is really the best he can do, he's more of a "I'm gonna die on this island soon so I'll send out a message in a bottle" kind of God.

[Minimalist]

Your uncle has been sold a bill of goods.

http://www.muslimhope.com/QuranVariants.htm

Two common misconceptions taught by some is that one proof of the Qur’an being from Allah is that there are no manuscript variations, and the Qur’an today is identical to the Qur’an just after Mohammed.

However, a manuscript was discovered in Samarkand, and over 15,000 pages of old Koran text were discovered in Yemen. According to an article by in the Jan. 1999 Atlantic Monthly (p.43-56)

"Some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard seemed to date back to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., or Islam's first two centuries -- they were fragments, in other words, of perhaps the oldest Korans in existence. What's more, some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text. Such aberrations, though not surprising to textual historians, are troublingly at odds with the orthodox Muslim belief that the Koran as it has reached us today is quite simply the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God."

The point of this paper is not to try to say which variants are correct; it is simply to show that variants exist, and these cannot be swept under the rug.

I'm sure he was a willing purchaser.

[robvalue]

The rug is touching the ceiling.