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Translating the Bible is a vexed task

economist.com

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Re: Translating the Bible is a vexed task

#11

Post by arp242 »

MonkeyClub wrote: post #4

“Traduttore, traditore” (“translator, you traitor!”). Translating ancient texts is hard enough given the complex historical and cultural contexts. When it comes to religious texts, though, the level of complexity grows exponentially, especially given how their contexts widen. On an unrelated note, this always vexes me: > By contrast, the two faiths’ cousin—Christianity I get how one can see a relation between Judaism…

Islam is generally considered an Abrahamic religion. There is a lot of continuity; the (very very) short version of the Islam perspective is "Abraham explained God's will to us, then Jesus was sent by God to explain God's will better, and then finally God sent Mohammed and he communicated God's will perfectly". Three time's the charm I guess? Many of the figures you know from the Bible make their appearance in the Quran as well, including Abraham of course (hence: Abrahamic religion).

Re: Translating the Bible is a vexed task

#12

Post by antihipocrat »

MonkeyClub wrote: post #4

“Traduttore, traditore” (“translator, you traitor!”). Translating ancient texts is hard enough given the complex historical and cultural contexts. When it comes to religious texts, though, the level of complexity grows exponentially, especially given how their contexts widen. On an unrelated note, this always vexes me: > By contrast, the two faiths’ cousin—Christianity I get how one can see a relation between Judaism…

The Koran literally begins by explaining how it is related to the other two religions that preceded it, and how it is also historically contiguous with them.

Re: Translating the Bible is a vexed task

#13

Post by MoSattler »

fjfaase wrote: post #10

Rather superficial article about the subject. Whole books are written about the subject or why one translation is better than another. (A quick search will find you people telling you not to use the King James translation.) The article does not even touch upon culture things, such like how to deal with a translation for a culture where pigs are kept as pets or cattle, while in the old testament they are considered as…

> Rather superficial article about the subject.

I liked the article because it gave a general idea on how hard it is to translate very old religious texts. I don't think it's trying to write a theological analysis, just giving a basic understanding of the subject.

For those who are more interested in the topic, they can do more research themselves, like checking out the book the economist is covering in the article.

Re: Translating the Bible is a vexed task

#14

Post by XorNot »

rippercushions wrote: post #7
Waterluvian wrote: post #5

Regarding “hard choices” when translating: what about not making them? If the goal isn’t to editorialize on purpose, could one just write, “[young girl|virgin]” when faced with what the “correct” translation is supposed to be?

There are some 1500 hapax legomena in the Old Testament, means words that appear only once and, by extension, whose exact meaning is often unknown. How do you translate them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon

Should they be translated then? Leaving then unchanged would communicate the fact that the word has no direct translation. English has borrowed and invented lots of words which have no direct meaning, they just are a subtle way to express a concept - e.g. "grok"

Re: Translating the Bible is a vexed task

#15

Post by MonkeyClub »

arp242 wrote: post #11
MonkeyClub wrote: post #4

“Traduttore, traditore” (“translator, you traitor!”). Translating ancient texts is hard enough given the complex historical and cultural contexts. When it comes to religious texts, though, the level of complexity grows exponentially, especially given how their contexts widen. On an unrelated note, this always vexes me: > By contrast, the two faiths’ cousin—Christianity I get how one can see a relation between Judaism…

Islam is generally considered an Abrahamic religion. There is a lot of continuity; the (very very) short version of the Islam perspective is "Abraham explained God's will to us, then Jesus was sent by God to explain God's will better, and then finally God sent Mohammed and he communicated God's will perfectly". Three time's the charm I guess? Many of the figures you know from the Bible make their appearance in the Qu…

Yep, I know that, but it doesn’t offer anything else than a claim to authenticity, by posing as a continuation, while the previous revelations are then discarded.

The mentions of Biblical persons and events, as I hinted in the previous comment, are cultural rather than theological, and can’t be used to establish theological continuity, no matter how hard the Ismaelite genealogy is pressed.

Re: Translating the Bible is a vexed task

#16

Post by bentley »

Since the article is kind of shallow, here are a few atypical approaches to Biblical translation I’ve found interesting over the years:

• The Five Books of Moses, by Everett Fox, who attempts to retain in English the underlying poetry of the Hebrew like alliteration, meter, wordplay, and so on. (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/55160/the-five-book...)

• The Books of the Bible: not a new translation (it’s just the NIV), but rather than a typical modern Bible which is laid out for easy referencing, instead cuts out chapters and verses completely, formatting it instead in the way the books were originally written, and eliminating a few historical artifacts of translation like the splitting of the Book of Chronicles, the order of books relative to each other, and so on. (https://www.christianbook.com/niv-books-of-the-bible-volumes...)

• Alpha: A Translation of Genesis 1. (https://llamasandmystegosaurus.blogspot.com/2017/05/alpha.ht...)

Re: Translating the Bible is a vexed task

#18

Post by shakna »

antihipocrat wrote: post #12
MonkeyClub wrote: post #4

“Traduttore, traditore” (“translator, you traitor!”). Translating ancient texts is hard enough given the complex historical and cultural contexts. When it comes to religious texts, though, the level of complexity grows exponentially, especially given how their contexts widen. On an unrelated note, this always vexes me: > By contrast, the two faiths’ cousin—Christianity I get how one can see a relation between Judaism…

The Koran literally begins by explaining how it is related to the other two religions that preceded it, and how it is also historically contiguous with them.

So does "The Divine Authority of Holy Scripture Asserted" by self-professed Messiah, John Miller. There are plenty of cults that spring out of every major religion, but that doesn't necessarily mean that relationship is anything more than tenuous.

This isn't a statement on Islam - depending how you examine certain things and weigh them, it could be either Abrahamic or maybe a little bit more distant. But you need to make a judgement call.

Re: Translating the Bible is a vexed task

#19

Post by bentley »

XorNot wrote: post #14
rippercushions wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some 1500 hapax legomena in the Old Testament, means words that appear only once and, by extension, whose exact meaning is often unknown. How do you translate them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon

Should they be translated then? Leaving then unchanged would communicate the fact that the word has no direct translation. English has borrowed and invented lots of words which have no direct meaning, they just are a subtle way to express a concept - e.g. "grok"

A lot of work in Bible translation over the millennia has been motivated by translators’ desire to make the most important document in history, the stuff of salvation and life itself, accessible to the common man.

Luckily, there is room in the world for (and demand for) countless approaches to Biblical translation, from the hyper‐literal to the simple paraphrase.

Any person who’s participated in a group Bible study (except in those kooky KJV‐only cults) has experienced reading Bible passages out loud in a circle of people, each of whom happens to be quoting a different translation of the same text.

Re: Translating the Bible is a vexed task

#20

Post by wizofaus »

XorNot wrote: post #14
rippercushions wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some 1500 hapax legomena in the Old Testament, means words that appear only once and, by extension, whose exact meaning is often unknown. How do you translate them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon

Should they be translated then? Leaving then unchanged would communicate the fact that the word has no direct translation. English has borrowed and invented lots of words which have no direct meaning, they just are a subtle way to express a concept - e.g. "grok"

"Grok" isn't really a good example - it was invented by a recent English speaker and used quite enough that it was clear enough what it meant (I'm not sure if Heinlein explained it outright but I don't believe he objected to various definitions published. Further if you do consider it a word in another language it translates reasonably directly into "understand intuitively" in standard English, not much different to how the word "get" is often used.)

Leaving a word untranslated (but transliterated into modern English orthography as best as possible), with footnotes explaining possible meanings is seemingly sensible enough but the Bible is meant to be the "word of God", and leaving it sprinkled with words that nobody's sure about the meaning of would tend to undermine its attempt to sound authoritative on matters spiritual.

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