The Word, On the Translation of the Bible: a wide-ranging and engaging study

In the beginning was the Word, the translated word, that is. When the teachings of Jesus were committed to writing, it was not in his native Aramaic, but in post-classical Greek. The Old Testament for centuries shaped the belief systems and cultures of the Christian world not in the form of the Hebrew original but in the Greek-language Septuagint translation.

For the more than two billion followers of Christianity on the planet today, the words of their founding figure are only available in languages he never spoke. John Barton, former Oriel and Laing professor of the interpretation of holy scripture at the University of Oxford, in his wide-ranging and engaging new work, explores the consequences of different approaches to Bible translation over the centuries.

As the most widely translated book in existence, available in over 700 languages, the Bible is something of a test case for what happens when translators take differing views of the translator’s task and for why it matters for believers and readers alike.

On June 24th, 1813, the German philosopher and biblical scholar, FDE Schleiermacher, gave a lecture in Berlin where he divided translations into two types: “Either the translator leaves the writer as far as possible in peace, and moves the reader towards him; or else he leaves the reader as far as possible in peace, and moves the writer towards him.”

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Using Schleiermacher’s binary distinction, Barton distinguishes between, on the one hand, those Bible translations which have favoured leaving the writer be, with close, more literal renderings of the source text (”formal equivalence”), and on the other, translations that have wanted to bring the writer closer to the reader through freer, more paraphrastic versions of the source text (”functional equivalence”).

Christian missionaries working with Inuit peoples in Arctic regions regularly rendered ‘Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world’... as ‘Seal Pup of God, who takes away the sins of the world’

Examples of formal equivalence would be William Tyndale’s exact translation in the 16th century of specific Hebrew adjectival phrases as “stiff-necked” and “long-suffering”. These would have initially sounded very strange to English ears but now, of course, are part of daily usage in the language.

Functional equivalence is most graphically illustrated by JB Phillips in his 1958 translation, The New Testament in Modern English, where Paul’s instruction that believers should greet each other with “a holy kiss” becomes “a hearty handshake all round” (Roman 16:16). Christian missionaries working with Inuit peoples in Arctic regions regularly rendered “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”, a meaningless notion in non-pastoral cultures, as “Seal Pup of God, who takes away the sins of the world”.

Functional equivalence, bringing the text closer to the target language and culture of the reader, has been the dominant, if not the exclusive, mode of biblical translation in the Christian world. Judaism and Islam, the other two Religions of the Book, have tended to see form and content much more tightly bound and are wary of the pitfalls of sacred texts composed in Biblical Hebrew or Classical Arabic venturing into other languages.

Hybrid collection

This is not to say that, at particular moments, words have not mattered greatly in Christian biblical translation. Protestant Reformers in their translations regularly substituted “repentance” for “penance” in reaction to the Catholic practice of selling indulgences. Depending on where you found yourself, translating “ekklesia” as “church”, “assembly” or “congregation”, or “episkopos” as “bishop”, “overseer” or “elder” could mean the difference between survival or a slow, painful and very public death.

Is there a sense in which the Bible should have the suggestive open-endedness of the novel or the poem rather than the declarative certainties of the press release?

One of the consequences of the Christian preoccupation with spreading the Good News – the focus on the message – is that the Bible as a hybrid collection of books, each with their own distinctive literary properties, can be lost sight of. Is it enough to know biblical languages? Should the Psalms not be translated by a poet rather than a scholar? Should parables, poetry, proverbs, letters, prophetic announcements, all be translated in what the critic Robert Alter has called the “style of a middlebrow novel” for the sake of communicative coherence? Is there a sense in which the Bible should have the suggestive open-endedness of the novel or the poem rather than the declarative certainties of the press release?

For Barton, one of the recurring difficulties for biblical translators is a certain confusion about the purposes of translation. Translating Paul’s Letters in the more informal, colloquial style of modern correspondence is to miss the point that these are not forms of private communication. They contain much more elaborate constructions than are to be found in personal letters of the period and are clearly destined to be read aloud to congregations. They demand a higher, more formal register in translation.

If purpose matters in translation (what for?) so also does audience (for whom?). The question of whom the Bible is meant to address has become particularly vexed around the question of inclusive language. If the Bible is manifestly the product of cultures deeply steeped in patriarchal and monarchical value systems, how should the text be adapted, if at all, to the values and belief systems of societies committed to the principles of diversity, equality, and inclusion? Evidence of tentative steps in this direction can be seen in certain liturgical changes where “Happy is the man” becomes “Happy are those”, or “Brothers in Christ” is routinely reformulated as “Brothers and Sisters in Christ”.

The German Bibel in gerechter Sprache (Bible in Inclusive Language) takes a more radical approach to feudal connotations of kingdoms and lordships, replacing the “Kingdom of God” with “God’s world”: “God’s world can be compared to a grain of mustard seed...” (Matthew 13:31). The intensity of the debates around inclusive language is its own testament to why translation continues to be such a live issue for Christian churches around the world. Christians may have started with translation but they are not likely to be finished with it any time soon.

Michael Cronin is professor of French at Trinity College Dublin.