INFOGRAPHIC

1. Word - For - Word
Interlinear

NASB - New American Standard Bible
AMP - Amplified Bible
ESV - English Standard Version
RSV - Revised Standard Version
KJV - King James Version
NKJV - New King James Version

2. Thought - For - Thought

HCSB - Holman Christian Standard Bible
NRSV - New Revised Standard Version
NAB - New American Bible
NJB - New Jerusalem Bible
NIV - New International Version
TNIV - Today’s New International Version
NCV - New Century Version
NLT - New Living Translation

3. Paraphrase

NIrV - New International Reader’s Version
GNT - Good News Translation (also Good News Bible)
CEV - Contemporary English Version
TLB - The Living Bible
MSG - The Message

The examples of Bible translations is not meant to be all inclusive, but rather a listing of some of the more popular.

Wikipedia: Bible Translations

Bible Versions

Excerpt from a post by Caitlin Nicholson:

Who is the Patron Saint of Translators?

The Bible is, without question, the most translated text in the history of the world. Sections of the book have been translated into over 2,800 languages, and it has been read by more people than any other individual piece of writing. But who was the first to translate the Bible out of its original language? His name was Jerome, and he was canonized for it.

Continues:

Translating the Bible

After giving up the monastic life, he decided to travel to Antioch, where he continued his studies of Greek and Hebrew. Jerome was even a secretary to Pope Damasus I from 382 to 384, whereupon he acted as the spiritual director of a number of noble Roman ladies who had also indicated that they were interested in the monastic lifestyle.

It was during this time, when he was secretary to the Pope, that he started on the task of translating the Bible into Latin. It was the popular form of the language at the time, which is what gave the translation its name: The Vulgate, meaning “Of the Common People.”

There had been a translation prior to Jerome’s, a version that is now called the Old Latin Version. But Jerome’s version far surpassed it, not only in terms of literary quality, but also in terms of scholarship. He was well versed in classical Latin, but he specifically wrote in the style that was actually spoken and written by the people of his time.

THE FOLLOWING IS from a blog:

GETTING TO GRIPS WITH TRANSLATION THEORY: A (VERY) BRIEF INTRODUCTION.

Excerpt:

As thought on translation has developed over the centuries, there have always been prevailing ideas of the correct level of translation and correct method of translation and first of all we will cover the level of translation.

The passage from word to culture

From the idea of translating ‘sense-for-sense’ over ‘word-for-word’ put forward by Jerome (the patron saint of translators) which replaces the individual word as the unit of translation with the phrase, dualistic oppositions have often featured prominently in translation theory.

The bipolar ‘free vs. literal’ translation for example, which questions whether a translated text should remain close to the source text or be rendered in flowing prose, is widely known and Eugene Nida’s idea of formal equivalence vs. dynamic equivalence (which roughly equates to retention of original form (FE) against naturalness of expression (DE)) follows along similar lines.

Today, the most widely cited theoretical idea is Lawrence Venuti’s thought based on deviation from domestic norms. This sees him develop a methodology in which he attempts to overturn the standard translation practice of ‘domestication’ – making a text fit in with the dominant norms of the target culture – with a method labelled as ‘foreignisation’ which involves avoiding standard usage and allowing the ‘foreignness of the text to shine through’.

In this way translation theory has moved from the level of the sentence to the level of textor indeed culture as a whole, emphasising context, and this ‘cultural turn’ is the area of preoccupation for many contemporary scholars.

Origins of the discipline and different theoretical stances

The discipline name ‘translation studies’ was first coined by poet and translator James Holmes, who was one of the first scholars to really explore the science of translation. His precocious and comprehensive map of the discipline is still quite widely used in translation literature today due to its wide scope and its accuracy in addressing both practical and theoretical issues. Indeed, his ‘Applied translation’-‘Translation Aids’ designation still provides one of the only links between translation theory and modern translation technology.

Moving on from this general map of the discipline as a whole, scholars have tended to focus their attention on specific areas of translation, each pertaining to certain established schools of thought. There are those who focus on linguistic ideas, seeing the way that language works as the key to understanding the process of translation. Meanwhile, there are others who follow Gideon Toury’s descriptive translation studies with its ideas of polysystems (which is praised for taking social contexts into account) and translation norms, claiming that the methodological study of translations over a period of time and within particular contexts will show patterns that can lead to a better understanding of the translation process.