A Symposium on Bible Translating With Special Reference to NIV 2011 The Translation Evaluation Committee Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary January 3-5, 2012
2 Provisional schedule Tuesday, January 3 12:00 1:00 Lunch (Cafeteria) 1:00 1:15 Introductions and opening devotion (All plenary sessions will be in the multi-purpose room) 1:15 3:00 1. Our concerns 2. A good translation for whom? For what? 3:00 3:15 Break 3:15 4:45 3. Exegesis 5:00 6:00 Supper 6:00 7:30 4. Translation 7:30 10:30 Fellowship time Wednesday, January 4 7:00 8:00 Breakfast 8:00 8:15 Opening devotion 8:15 9:45 5. Translation comparison 9:45 10:15 Break 10:15 11:45 5. Translation comparison, continued. 12:00 1:00 Lunch 1:00 1:45 6. Gender 2:45 3:15 Break 3:15 4:45 6. Gender, continued. 7. Messianic prophecy 5:00 6:00 Supper 6:00 7:30 8. Additional passages 7:30 10:30 Fellowship time
3 Thursday, January 5 7:00 8:00 Breakfast 8:00 8:15 Opening devotion 8:15 9:45 8. Additional passages, continued 9:45 10:15 Break 10:15 11:45 9. The way forward 12:00 12:30 Lunch
4 1. Our concerns A. Write on a 3x5 card (distributed): One thing I hope the organizers of this event realize is On reverse: One thing we really need to talk about before we re finished is B. Share what you ve written with 1. A partner 2. The group (volunteers). We ll collect cards and return to them at symposium s end. 2. A good translation for whom? A good translation for what? A. At your table, read and react to he following excerpts from translation theorists and from the Translation Evaluation Committee Supplemental Report. B. Jot down what you consider applicable with regard to our target reader and target situation. The priority of the heard form of language over the purely written forms is particularly important for translations of the Bible. In the first place, the Holy Scriptures are often used liturgically, and this means that many more people will hear the Scriptures read than will read them for themselves. Second, the Scriptures are often read aloud to groups as a means of group instruction. Third, in some areas of the world people employ a kind of oral reading. That is to say, the people tend to read everything aloud, and listen to what they have said. Last, the Scriptures are employed increasingly in such media as radio and television, which means that the oral form must be intelligible if the audience is to comprehend. [Implications include:] Capitalization is not sufficient to correct the meaning of otherwise ambiguous or misleading translations. One must not depend upon the spelling to correct otherwise misleading pronunciations (e.g., lyres, 1 Ch 25:1). Terms which are vulgar in pronunciation should not be used in the text, even when the written form does not seem vulgar (e.g., ass ). The punctuation should not be employed in an arbitrary manner to correct otherwise misleading grammatical arrangements. Unintentional puns should be carefully avoided. Overloading of the translation should be carefully avoided. Eugene Nida & Charles Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translating (Leiden: Brill, 1974),29f
5 Language needs Non-Christians have priority over Christians. Not only is this principle important in making the translation of the Bible effective as an instrument of evangelism, but it is also necessary if the language of the church is to be kept from becoming an esoteric dialect a symbol of belonging and identification or a semimagical means of imploring God. Nida & Taber 1974: 32 The translators of the King James Version, on the other hand, used many words and expressions from a centuriesold language which quickly went out of use. Wherever you look in the English Bible, you come across words and expressions which at one time were perfectly good English but are no longer in common use (cf. the jaw-breaker "but nourisheth and cherisheth it," Eph 5). The English pastor preaches in a language different from his Bible. This shortcoming has found its way into the language of English worship. It is nothing less than torturing a language to pray: Heavenly Father, who inhabitest the high and holy place and wast justly wroth Thou abhorrest iniquity and lovest righteousness... world without end. Amen. Prayer language like that pushes God into the distance; it builds a wall between the believer and his God. Englishspeaking people all over the world have one kind of language in their Bible, their worship, and their prayers, but use a different language in their everyday life. And isolating one's "Sunday language" from the rest of his life will play a major role in lessening the effect religion will have on a person. If the language of our Bible, of our worship services, of the sermon, of the catechism, of our hymns and prayers is to take hold of our heart and dominate our thinking, feeling, and will, then it dare not seem strange to us, or obscure, old-fashioned, and awkward. August Pieper, Our Transition to English, http://www.wlsessays.net/files/pieperenglish.pdf, p 5 Translation needs [For languages with a long literary tradition and in which the Scriptures have existed for some time] it is usually necessary to have three types of Scriptures: (1) a translation which will reflect the traditional usage and be used in the churches, largely for liturgical purposes (this may be called an ecclesiastical translation ), (2) a translation in the present-day literary language, so as to communicate to the well-educated constituency, and (3) a translation in the common or popular language, which is known to and used by the common people, and which is at the same time acceptable as a standard for published materials. Nida & Taber 1974:31 [There is also a need] for translations that can function in the liturgy and environment where the strangeness of culture and difficulties of the ancient text are acknowledged [ direct translating ]. The dilemma facing translators who are commissioned to prepare more source language oriented translations of the Bible is that there is no way to academically justify the old notion of formal equivalence. [ ] [Ernst August] Gutt fully acknowledges the myriad of impossibilities of this theoretical ideal [i.e. direct translating ]; however, these practical realities do not render positing the theoretical ideal invalid. Christo van der Merwe, The Bible in Afrikaans, A Direct Translation: A New Type of Church Bible, Paper presented to the Society of Biblical Literature, San Francisco, CA, 19 November 2011, 7f
We expect a translation to conform to the presuppositions of faith. These include a firm conviction that we are dealing with God s verbally-inspired, inerrant Word. Though speaking through many different human authors, one single divine Author addresses us in every word. The Scriptures find their center and beating heart in Jesus Christ, our Savior. The whole Bible testifies of him and in his name proclaims repentance and remission of sins. We expect, with Luther, that a translation will communicate in the language of the people, using idioms and expressions that are understandable and in common, current use. We expect that a translation will understand itself as a direct quotation of an ancient document, rather than merely supplying the gist of the original s meaning in a contemporizing paraphrase. We expect, with Luther, that when theologically necessary a translation will adhere closely to the exact wording of the original. We expect that the translation will be aimed at native English speakers who can handle Standard American English at a late-primary school or early high school level, people who are neither professional theologians nor biblical illiterates. They can appreciate the difference between texts that don t aim at literary beauty and those that do, and they have some appreciation for the latter. We expect that the primary way in which most WELS people experience most of the Bible most of the time is by hearing it read in the context of the public worship service. Consideration must therefore be given to a translation s suitability for being read aloud. Translation Evaluation Committee (TEC) Supplemental Report 6 Notes our target reader and target context:
7 3. Exegesis. At your table, study the passage assigned below. Table #1 Judges 17:1-6 Table #3 John 8:31-38 Table #5 Hebrews 1:1-4 Table #2 Psalm 118:1-7 Table #4 2 Corinthians 5:11-15 Table #6 Revelation 19:6-10 Note the exegetical issues in your passage and your group s preferred solutions. Do not write out a translation. Please do not consult prepared translations at any point in this exercise. List (as comprehensively as possible) the features of your passage (semantic, syntactical, contextual, structural, discursive, literary, pragmatic, theological, etc..). Rank them as either: A Crucially important. A translation for use by our target reader in our target context must make this feature visible. B. Significant. It would be advantageous for a translation for use by our target reader in our target context to make this feature visible. C. Significant, but not crucial. We will appreciate a translator s attempts to make this feature visible for our target reader in our target context, but we would not necessarily reject a translation that doesn t. Our passage: A partial list of features in 1 Kings 12:16 follows on page 7 for use as an example. Rank Feature
8 Rank Feature
Vayyar V-c pf And. The verb is singular with a collective subject. The accent is conjunctive. English punctuation could reflect this. 9 Word choice. The previous verse is Rehoboam s response, in which Israel saw (i.e. mentally) that the king wasn t going to listen. Kol-yisra el The accent is disjunctive. English punctuation could reflect this. Although this is exclusive of Judah, the subject of the verb is called all Israel. Can be shorthand for the North. Lucian s recension and Vg read the people Israel. This could be translational, but a Kennicott & Rossi Hebrew manuscript does it, too. The complaint has not come from one individual (e.g. Jeroboam), but from all. Jeroboam s role in this exchange is enigmatic after 12:3. Lo -s ǝ m < a According to the Mp note this combination of words occurs 5 times. There is also an Mm note on this Mp note. The perfect says he didn t listen, or possibly that he hadn t listened, but not he wasn t listening. Earlier Rehoboam s wise counselors: he should serve the people, answer them, and speak to them good words (v 7). But Rehoboam doesn t even listen. Rehoboam s earlier decision involved which of 2 groups he would allow to advise him either the elders who had advised his father or the children with whom he had grown up (vv 12-13). Here the word choice implies (for the first time!) that Rehoboam had another option. He might at some point have considered listening directly to the people. Rehoboam is called the king and not by his name. Naming in biblical narrative is very important. In this verse he s the king, probably because he s the legitimate one, and because whether or not he will remain all Israel s king is precisely the point at issue. (masculine). A collective singular has become masculine plural All Israel saw that the king didn t listen to them א ל יה ם MP The form occurs 29 times in the prophets without yodh, 13 of of which are in this book (1 & 2 Kgs). See Mm note on this Mp note. Verbs of motion are key words in this narrative. Both people & words are constantly going away and coming back. Vayyasivu This is the reverse of what happened earlier. Now, a collective subject takes a plural verb. Ha < am -- Earlier they had been all Israel. Now they are the people. The people did not simply answer ( anah) the king. They brought him back word. Word can obviously mean more than one. A precise equivalent to Hebrew dabar would also have to be able to mean thing. The people s response is highly compressed and in parallelism. The poetry is not reflected in Leningradensis B19 a s stichography. Lanu--A Kennicott Hebrew manuscript, Syriac, and a Targum manuscript all have > eyn. This may be a harmonizing with 2 Samuel 20:1. If that s the right reading, then this is no longer a rhetorical question. Lit. What to us? Lamedh of possession. Biblical Hebrew has no equivalent of English have. V 16--Regardless of whether we adopt the variant, Sheba son of Bicri s cry in 2 Samuel 20:1 is very close. An allusion? Proverbial? The people s response is a rhetorical question that implies the answer, None! Hefetz and nahalah are often parallel. (See Dt 10:9, 12:12, 14:26 & 29, 18:1). A concordant translation could handle this consistently. >ohaleykha-- Israel is not literally living in tents at this time. LXX inserts a verb Go back to! as do some mss of the Vulgate. R >eh is the only verb in the people s response. -- Cryptic. See your house, David! See [what s left of] your house? Or See to your house? Change one consonant and you would have Pasture your house! (vid. LXX and Targum). Leningradensis B19 a leaves a gaping space here. Now the subject is Israel, singular. The next verse has a different subject and the chain of v-c imperfects is broken. Does the narrative episode end after 16 (more likely), or continue to the end of 17 (so the Masoretes)? In biblical narrative, a scene changes when the dramatis personae change. New paragraph?
10 4. Translation. Below, with your table, write out a translation suitable for use by our target group in our target situation of this section indicated below. Do not consult any prepared translations. Immediately upon finishing, e--mail your group s translation to: cherneyk@wls.wels.net Table #1 Revelation 19:6-10 Table #3 Psalm 118:1-7 Table #5 2 Corinthians 5:11-15 Table #2 Judges 17:1-6 Table #4 John 8:31-38 Table #6 Hebrews 1:1-4