That is not a literal translation at all, the text actually says “Helel son of Shachar” not Lucifer (a name for the planet Venus, the morning star.) Now if Helel son of Shachar doesn’t mean anything to you, welcome to the club! We think this is a reference to the morning star in Canaanite mythology. Now a reason I used this is because while Lucifer would have been understood at the time as a reference to the planet Venus, it now is commonly used as a word for Satan. So you see modern translations changing it to a different paraphrase to avoid confusing the reader. From the NAB
12 How have you fallen from the heavens, O morning star, son of the dawn! How are you cut down to the ground, you who mowed down the nations!
A more specific example of linguistic study would be usage of the word unicorn. If you find someone who insists Christ was hung on a stake and not a cross it goes right to that word. Psa 92:10 DRB
(10) (92:11) But my horn shall be exalted like that of the unicorn: and my old age in plentiful mercy.
Now again language has changed, people tend to first think of the mythical horse with one horn, but when this was written it was intending it to be the single horn rhinocerous. The reference to the single horn actually goes all the way back to the Septuagint. People did not know the animal so they followed previous translations that they could understand the word. Now study has shown that it is a reference to an extinct oxen. And so the horns of the oxen now again give us the correct vision which is bascically a “T” instead of an “I”. And so we see again the advance in linguistics as
Psa 92:10 ESV
(10) But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox; you have poured over me fresh oil.
So anyway, there is the need for various translations as scholarship changes and as the language changes.
We also have the worldly reasons. If you are a publisher. It is a very handy thing to own the rights to a translation.
And then you sometimes get translations done in reaction to another. For instance the major push for the HCSB seem to be a reaction to the gender neutrality of TNIV going what they felt was too far.
So that’s some of the reasons for the many translations. I don’t know of a translation that doesn’t “miss” a few verses based of course on how I would read them. That doesn’t mean they are wrong actually, often it’s just a matter of my English versus the target English. And I have to admit too, that more than once, what I use to judge them is my understanding based on an older translation. And it’s very possible the older translation is the one that’s off, or at least the way I understood it.
Probably the greatest linguistic debate at this time is the Greek word monogenes. Translated “only begotten” in verses like John 3:16. Now it’s pretty clear to me that is a mistake. Why? Let’s take another place where it is used.
Heb 11:17 DRB
(17) By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
See the problem? Isaac was clearly not Abraham’s only begotten son. Remember Ishmael? What he was was the only son of the promise, one of a kind, unique. And so we see newer translations moving in that direction. Many have tried using only, which creates problems of it’s own, because Isaac wasn’t Abraham’s only son either. The ISV has gone to trying to use unique which I think is really very good. But the uproar is so loud they are seriously considering changing back. It’s get’s mixed up in things like Creeds and Commentaries and so on. For instance if you translate monogenes as unique or one of a kind, the begatting of Jesus before all time disappears from the Bible. It would say he always was but speak nothing of how he always was. That would be fine with me because the Creed that use begatting, then instantly try to correct the misunderstanding that naturally results as Jesus was not made. But groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons and such look and say, begotten, hmm I guess that makes Jesus a created being. And actually on what the word begotten would mean, they are right. But it’s the mistranslation that takes you there. Of course if you try to understand all this, someone while rather quickly condemn you for being some sort of heretic.
JJ
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How many people think that “there isn’t room to swing a cat” has something to do with felines ? Jokes & translation may not have much in common, but they do rely on ambiguities of various kinds.