Thursday, August 01, 2002

On establishing an accurate text and making a good translation

Since the 1950s there has been a tremendous explosion in translations and paraphrases of the Bible.
 
Not a few people, who use one or another of these versions, do not wholly appreciate the difference between (a) a sound original text, and (b) a good translation of that original text. In fact, one can get the impression from reading the Prefaces to modern versions of the Bible, and the publicity material generated to sell them, that because we now have superior texts than did our forefathers (e.g., those who translated the texts of the King James Version) therefore our translations are (in fact must be) better.
 
If one considers this matter for a while, it is relatively easy to grasp that establishing the best texts of ancient books is one sort of thing, while translating ancient texts into a modern, living language is yet another thing. Two very different types of expertise are required.
 
Thus it would have been relatively straightforward to have preserved the idiom and style of say the King James Version at the same time as using the superior Greek texts that we now have of the books of the New Testament. In a sense this is what the Revised Version of the 19th century attempted to do. But this approach seems not to have been seriously contemplated since the 1960s. (The New King James does not dothis but changes archaisms and goes for “You” instead of “Thee/thou”.)
 
Instead the notion is abroad that a new text (that is improved original text) requires a radically new method of translation. “A new text requires a new idiom in the modern [or post-modern] world” seems to be the watchword. Such a position arises not from the act of translating but from a mindset or ideology brought to the act of translating.
 
Indeed, the invention of a new idiom for ideological reasons results in LESS accurate translations. So one can have a version of the Bible based upon the best known original texts and yet be a poor or bad translation because the ideology has got between the original text and the modern rendering of it.
 
This is probably the case with a whole series of modern versions of the Bible.
 
Take the example of the Revised Standard Version [RSV] from the 1950s and the New Revised Standard Version [NRSV] from the 1990s. In terms of modern textual scholarship it is everywhere admitted that the NRSV is based upon the better texts. Yet, at the same time, it can be argued and with good reasons that it is an inferior translation of the originals. As the Preface to the NRSV explains it is committed to the elimination “of masculine-oriented language.” In most cases this was achieved “by simply rephrasing or by introducing plural forms.” Thus the old “Blessed is the man” becomes “Happy are they” in Psalm 1, and “If any man will come after me” becomes “If any want to be my followers” at Matthew 16:24. While the NRSV may be said to be a more acceptable version of the Bible in modern western society committed to the equality of women (and thus the large denominations have adopted it), this does not mean that it is a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew and Greek originals than the RSV. Modern humankind may not like what old mankind was taught by God!
 
And the commitment to inclusive language is not the only problem with modern versions, which claim to be based upon the best available texts.
 
The New International Version (NIV) from the 1960s/1970s and the Bible of evangelicals, has been strongly influenced by the principles of dynamic equivalence in translation. This theory states that the words of the translation should make a similar impact on its readers today as the original did on its readers yesterday. This leads to paraphrasing rather than word for word translation, and where a text may be understood in several ways it excludes certain possibilities in the name of clarity.
 
It is the claim of the New English Standard Version of 2002 that it improves on the RSV without falling into the pitfalls of the NSRV, the Revised English Bible (REB) and the NIV. Yet when it comes to the addressing and naming of God, it has left behind the RSV (which retained Thee/Thou) and gone with the NSRV, REB & NIV. Thereby it has abandoned the long-established English idiom of prayer and submitted to the requirement from the 1960s that we address God in the same way that we address one another.
 
And what is true of the latest set of Protestant versions of the Bible is also true of those from Roman Catholic sources (e.g., the New Jerusalem Bible).
 
Aside from the slavery to ideological idols, one great danger of so-called contemporary translations is that they oversimplify the meaning of the original text. The Church has always recognized that large parts of Sacred Scripture are difficult to understand in a good translation because they are difficult to understand in the original. Their meaning is only yielded to those whose lives are holy and who are prepared to chew the text until its savour is released.
 
Then we cannot escape the fact that the biblical texts are, to the perception of most of our contemporaries, unbelievingly old. It does not help their appreciation of that fact if we translate them as if they were written in the 1960s. Their very antiquity makes for a certain difficulty of translation, and any such translation should at least take into account that the human world in which the scriptural text was written is very different from our own.
 
The use of "dynamic equivalents" (whether in symbolism or in words used in translation) to produce a result easier to understand often results in some of the original real meaning---and not infrequently the key part of the original meaning---being lost. It becomes quickly obvious how many misunderstandings, errors, even modern heresies come from or are abetted by oversimplified renderings of the sacred text.
 
For all these reasons and others, there are still good reasons for using the King James Version or the Revised Standard Version. Those who know the original languages are very impressed with the literal-type translation of these versions. If you do not believe me, make the comparison.
 
LITURGY
 
The problems and errors raised by modern attempts to translate the Bible are matched by the attempts to translate the classic Latin and Greek Liturgies as well as ancient Creeds, Canticles and Hymns. In this respect the translation guidelines set forth by the Roman Catholic Second Vatican Council and the Vatican immediately after the Council have not helped. They emphasized accessibility and comprehensibility and simplicity. That translators were not supposed to sacrifice accuracy to comprehensibility was not said clearly enough, and the Vatican Commission on Divine Worship has now – at this late stage- had to issue new guidelines to rectify the disastrous results of this. As yet there has not been the same recognition of past failures by the Protestant churches.
 
We need to be clear that in both Bible translation and in Liturgy translation (and creation) it is difficult to find a contemporary form of English that is not already the bearer of certain modern ideologies (especially human rights and feminist ones for example).
 
In modern times, pushed on by the Zeitgeist of the 1960s, the Church in the English-speaking countries has too quickly abandoned the inherited treasure of a long-established and refined language to and of God the Transcendent One; and has tried to create a modern contemporary idiom that is simple, comprehensible, accessible and informal. And we are probably no nearer in 2002 to finding or creating such a language now that we were in 1970. We seem not to be able to keep current ideologies out of the idiom!
 
Therefore it seems only right to allow those who wish to use the inherited classical idiom of public prayer and worship to continue to do so and thus to keep available such books as the King James Bible, the RSV and the Book of Common Prayer – not to mention the classic Latin Mass!
 
August 1st 2002.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
Minister of Christ Church, Biddulph Moor,
England & Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large
of The Prayer Book Society of America

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