Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.
翻译就是在译语中用最为贴切自然的对等语，首先在语义上、其次在风格上再现原语的信息。
——Eugene A. Nida （In The Theory and Practice of Translation, 1969）
Eugene A. Nida (November 11, 1914 – August 25, 2011) was a linguist who developed the dynamic-equivalence Bible-translation theory and one of the founders of the modern discipline of Translation Studies. Nida was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on November 11, 1914. He graduated from the University of California in 1936. In 1937, Nida undertook studies at the University of Southern California, where he obtained a Master's Degree in New Testament Greek in 1939. In 1943, Nida received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan. His dissertation, A Synopsis of English Syntax, was at that time, the only full-scale analysis of a major language according to the “immediate constituent” theory. The year 1943 was a busy one for Eugene Nida. In addition to completing his PhD, he was ordained in the Northern Baptist Convention. He married Althea Nida, nee Sprague, and joined the staff of the American Bible Society (ABS) as a linguist. Althea Nida died in 1992. In 1997 Nida married an important executive in the translations program of the European Union in Brussels, Dr. Elena Fernandez-Miranda. Although his initial hiring at the American Bible Society was experimental, Nida was made Associate Secretary for Versions from 1944-46, and from then until he retired in 1984, he was Executive Secretary for Translations. His contribution to Bible translation did not only include theoretical ones. He spearheaded efforts to create better source texts for the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Bible. He launched journals for practical discussions of translation and cultural problems. Nida is also remembered as a driving force that brought the United Bible Societies together with the Vatican to work out an agreed statement on Bible translation that would enable cooperative ventures from the 1960s onwards. Nida retired in the early 1980s, although he continued to give lectures in universities all around the world, and lived in Madrid, Spain and Brussels, Belgium. He died in Madrid on August 25, 2011 aged 96.