Translating Key Words: God and Allah

If the discussion is broadened to include other key Bible words, what relevance do you think this discussion might have for the vocabulary used in Bible translations targeted to speakers of contemporary English?

The LHM devotional writer’s concern is that he senses the presence of the translator in the translation rather than hearing the voice of God: “Wow! I can’t speak for you, but I see a lot of translator and not a lot of God. Now I would not condemn this new translation. The Holy Spirit has managed to accomplish His purpose by using good translations and bad translations. He can do the same here. That being said, I would urge you to use a translation where the Lord shines clearly and without a translator’s filter.”

There is certainly something to be said for familiar, traditional wordings of the Bible as we read it in translation. I think there is also something to be said for starting afresh and saying things in a new way. The only way I can make sense of these comments about the problem of hearing the voice of the translator in the translation is that the wording is non-traditional. The Bible doesn’t sound here they way we are accustomed to hearing it sound.

You, too, can listen to this interview with Eugene Peterson:

http://www.qideas.org/practices/live/showing.aspx

You will need to register with your name, email address, and zip code before you can listen to the video. Actually, there are two videos, one on “Practicing Sabbath”, the other, the one I’m listening to, is titled “Immersed in Scripture.”

The RDWT app will play on any smart phone, electronic reader such as Kindle, as well as legacy computers.

Each of the best-selling English Bible versions will be available on the RDWT app. You may experience them individually, but your Bible experience will be greatly enhanced as you select additional versions to be experienced at the same time. On the app you will have a choice of synchronizing the same Bible reference for each version, or you can select the multitask version mode to experience different Bible passages at the same time.

The RDWT is currently being Beta tested. But the latest RDWT memo says they hope to launch this revolutionary new Bible product to the market by April 1, 2013. Until then, those who would like to get a taste of what Bible multitasking can be like can do so by checking out the new Google multitasking cursor function: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/multitask.html.

Have a good first day of April, and keep Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth!

However, that wasn’t what I was after. “Crafty fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery!”

The exercise gives us insight into ourselves and helps us understand some things a translator (and an exegete) needs to be conscious of.

1. With many foreign idioms, one cannot “make sense” of them. Take Énêhpoése ma’eno for example (Hi Wayne ) What’s a turtle have to do with fog? Literally rendered in English, the foreign idiom reads, “The turtle is shrouded.” In cases such as these, the reader cannot obtain the correct meaning. The Cheyenne simply means, “It’s foggy.” And that English expression would be the right translation.

   But, I picked the foreign idioms I did because I thought you could intuit the meaning (even from two different languages!). In the examples, the meaning garnered from the literal English turned out to be semantically close to the desired accuracy. Literally rendering Sääsest elevanti tegema as “To make an elephant out of a gnat” gets the reader relatively close. If the reader recognizes that they are reading an idiomatic expression—that is, they know the above expression isn’t some kind of recipe for elephants with gnats as the main ingredient[1]—then it’s possible they can intuit the correct meaning.

   You showed me your ability to achieve accuracy since you were able to take a guess at the appropriate English idiom and get the meaning right.

2. However, it was a guess. That means that you had to analyze the literal rendering—you couldn’t just read it. So, the comprehension of the text was a two step process for you, and not simply the normal, one step, reading effort. In this example you did this analysis quite quickly; however, it was still two steps, not one.

   What that means is the literal rendering was not natural for you. Not being natural may simply mean you need more exposure to the specific linguistic construction. It might simply mean you’re “out of the loop” as it were. It might be that the idiom, “To make an elephant out of a gnat,” is used by a majority of English speakers but not by you with your ideolect. So then, if that were the case, it would be just a matter of you learning an expression common to the larger audience to which you are a part.

   However, the expression is not natural in English. So, the vast majority of the audience would have had to analyze it, break it into smaller pieces, assess the relative merits of the different possibilities, filter out the ridiculous, and, finally, make a semantic decision. I know this is true since the comments evidenced a discussion around the meaning even though it was an idiomatic expression. If the discussion would have really got going, the comments would have overwhelmingly shown that the expression is not natural English. People would have torn it apart, wanted context (one commenter brought this out explicitly), offered alternatives, and much more I’m not thinking of. We would have heard people say, “Well, to me this means…” and offered a explanation that anyone “in the know” would have known was completely wrong.

   This is simply what happens when a reader is confronted with an unnatural expression. And it is esspecially true when a reader is reading a text they deem of very high worth–like a Bible.

   I should also point out here that an idiomatic expression triggers a single semantic concept. That is, the meaning of an idiom “snaps” into place for someone familiar with the idiom, even though the idiom uses many words. Many idioms, in fact, cannot be analyzed as a sum of parts so as to retrieve the single concept. Frequently, one can analyze the history of the idiom, or possibly intuit how someone can get from the pieces to the whole, but it’s still analysis. This is undoubtedly what many of you did to get from the foreign idiom to an accurate English one.

   The problem is, it’s this analysis into the details which leads the exegete away from the meaning of the whole.

   This kind of analysis is a natural process (and it really is a valuable one!). However, the use of it is strong evidence that the translation uses unnatural English.

So, on the one hand, you could get the accurate meaning. And, yet, on the other, it took you more effort than needed.

A frequent modus operandi for Bible translators is to go with the literal unless the literal obtains inaccurate meaning. But, the above example contradicts such a method. The best choice, in spite of the fact that accurate meaning CAN be obtained by the literal, is a non-literal translation.

The best choice is the one that obtains accurate meaning with the least processing effort.

—–
[1] Notice the slight humor in this is a natural result of your NOT thinking of an interpretation which, nonetheless, is syntactically and grammatically possible. I’ll talk about this more in another post.

Sääsest elevanti tegema
To make an elephant out of a gnat

Similarly, you’ve also been given a statement in Finnish. What is your guess for an English translation?

tehdä kärpäsestä härkänen
to make a bull out of a fly

See also: A simple idiomatic translation exercise (part 2).

The NIV translators sought to communicate clearly to their generation. But English stops for no one. Our language has continued to change, and it has changed much more rapidly during the past hundred years than it did in the seventeenth century. The swirling vortex of technological and social transformation that has surrounded us with increasingly swift winds of change has impacted our language. Our language has changed. Oh, perhaps you speak largely the same way you did in the middle of the twentieth century (at least if you are near my age or older). That is quite possible if you’ve lived in relatively conservative areas of our country or ministered in conservative churches that have long since celebrated their golden anniversary (and perhaps their centennial or even their bicentennial). But English has changed. That is undeniable. (I will return to this subject a bit later in this article.) That is why new translations appear periodically and older ones are revised. Whether we like it or not, we do not live in an era where a translation can reign as sole monarch for several centuries. Perhaps such a time will once again be enjoyed by our heirs should the Lord tarry; but it is not this day, and it does not appear to be tomorrow either.

I’m late to the party, but not too late to link to Rodney Decker’s thorough review of the NIV11 in Themelios.

Particularly informative is his description of a report on English language change based on the Collins Bank of English. I think that using such a data corpus is essential, and hope our other translations are similarly grounded in real language data. He also looks at gender issues in some detail, quite fairly in my opinion.

Thanks Rod for another quality review!

William Tierney and Stefani Relles, in a Washington Post guest blog,  posted four ways to teach students to write.  Of those four ways, one stood out to me as apropos to a Better Bible discussion.

Teach summarizing, not analyzing: Critical thinking in and of itself is not a precursor of good writing. Putting thinking into words, sentences and paragraphs is the endgame, and that crucially involves the ability to summarize material, a more concrete and therefore teachable skill. If students are able to summarize what they have read, they can better grasp how to put together their own arguments.

I think many English Bible translators have preconditioned the resulting text to support critical thinkers.  For me to suggest we question such a thing probably approaches heresy.  I can hear someone ask, “Come on, Mike, are you saying we shouldn’t teach critical thinking skills?”  No, not at all.  Perhaps it would be better to end that sentence with the phrase, “…resulting text to support analytical processes.”

But, the point I want to focus on is brought out by Tierney and Relles when they say that critical thinking and good writing are not necessarily concomitant.  Might I suggest that our English Bibles show anecdotal evidence to support this claim.  Many of our English translations make it easy to do word studies; and painfully difficult to grasp the meaning of a paragraph.  And since the hurdle of summarizing a paragraph is so high, the analytical, it seems to me, has not only fragmented the text, it has fragmented the body of readers who love that text.  When this whole body is taken as a whole, one is immediately confronted with the unmistakable reality that critical thinking has not resulted in a text that brings us together.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Bible translators should summarize the original text using the destination language.  Summarization is the responsibility of the reader.  But, I can’t help but think that a good text—that is, a well written one—enables a reader to summarize.  And I think the contrapositive also shows this to be true.  That not being able to summarize reflects a text that is not well written.  It’s like there is a distance between a text and a summary.  Good writing presents a shorter distance.  A poorly written text presents a greater distance.  I think that most English Bibles offer too great a distance for the vast majority of readers (and I fear that too much scholarship is buried in the weeds).

The other point gleaned from Tierney and Relles comes from their last sentence, “If students are able to summarize what they have read, they can better grasp how to put together their own arguments.”

Which if these two translations is easier for you to summarize?

And he was certain days with the disciples that were at Damascus.  And straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God.  And all that heard him were amazed, and said, Is not this he that in Jerusalem made havoc of them that called on this name? And he had come hither for this intent. That he might bring them bound before the chief priests.

And

Saul spent a few days getting acquainted with the Damascus disciples, but then went right to work, wasting no time, preaching in the meeting places that this Jesus was the Son of God.  They were caught off guard by this and, not at all sure they could trust him, they kept saying, “Isn’t this the man who wreaked havoc in Jerusalem among the believers?  And didn’t he come here to do the same thing—arrest us and drag us off to jail in Jerusalem for sentencing by the hight priests?”

This is from Acts 9 and is a narrative text. And, generally speaking, a narrative text doesn’t lead directly to theology which changes one’s life (narrative texts can, but some care needs to be taken).  However, let me ask you, if it is easier to summarize the one over the other, then wouldn’t it be more likely for such a summarizable translation to impact your life in real and relevant ways?  Isn’t it easier to “own” it?

If a student is better able to summarize what they have read, then it seems to me they are better equipped to own the text for themselves.  Obviously, there needs to be a profound submission to the authoritative text.  But, isn’t the effort and the process of summarization the very key to appropriating the text for one’s life?  Doesn’t summarization coupled with submission unavoidably lead to a changed life?  If the Bible is what I think the Bible is, then when I appropriate it, making it part of me, it positively impacts me—it does not go back to God empty.

If the Bible translation text battles against summarizing, then has not that translation to that degree failed in its God given charter to teach, rebuke, correct, and train?

What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx06mtApu8k