The reality is that translation is a very complex process and is, to an extent, a mixture of both techniques. This approach, in many ways, makes for a smoother and more elegant translation, but it also carries the danger of missing nuances from the original text.
It is more concerned with what the original text meant than with the specifics of what it said. A functional-equivalence approach, on the other hand, is more concerned with how the translation flows in the receptor language than with how it was written in the original language. But one only needs to use a basic computer translation program to realize that this approach can sometimes lead to a stilted translation. The construction of Hebrew and Greek words and sentences are maintained, as much as possible, in the translation. If a word has numerous meanings, as most do, how does the translator decide which one to use? Should the translation reflect a word-for-word translation (i.e., formal equivalence), or should it reflect the idiomatic language of the receptor language (i.e., functional/ dynamic equivalence)? The major benefit of a formal-equivalence approach is that the translation maintains a feel for the language and format of the original text. The work of translation from one language to another is always fraught with difficulties-philological, contextual, and even procedural difficulties.