Bible Translations.
There’s a
conversation running right now on the relative value of certain Bible
translations.
Depending
on who’s talking and for what purpose, it might strike some as tedious. I
happen to enjoy the discussion, and I think there’s one strain that’s worthy of
consideration for those interested in how language might affect their
spirituality.
In
discussing the recent republication of the Knox Bible, a mid-twentieth century
translation, Michael Brendan Dougherty mentions
one “fatal” flaw, the use of sacral language, such as thee’s and thou’s.
Apparently, translator Ronald Knox felt stuck using it in his day, but why not
change that for the contemporary edition, asks Dougherty?
My answer
is less about the Knox Bible than it is about the general loss of sacral
language in our culture. It’s stodgy, we’re told, and nobody talks that way,
right?
Yep. But
we should be wary about losing it nonetheless.
Why? For
starters, while the Bible may speak to our moment, it speaks across millennia.
There are perhaps good reasons to favor contemporary English in some settings,
but the overall loss of sacral language has, as Leroy Huizenga puts it,
“accommodat[ed] the language of the Scripture to the barbarism of contemporary
culture.” Instead of allowing the Bible its natural transcendence, sacrificing
the sacral sensibility limits the scripture’s ability to correct our current
perspectives because it’s too heavily reshaped by them.
Next,
translating a text involves more than rendering one language into another. It
involves rendering a mindset, rendering certain patterns of thought. This is
sometimes lost in oversimplified conversations about thought-for-thought
translations vs. word-for-word translations. To properly render the thought,
attention to vocabulary, phrasing, and flow is essential. A flatfooted rendering
of the Psalms, for instance, robs them of their power.
George Weigel
addresses
this issue relative to the new Roman Missal. While some object to its foreign-sounding
phrases, Weigel explains, “The language of the liturgy is . . . meant to
elevate us, to lift us out of the quotidian (
i.e. everyday; commonplace)
and the ordinary.” It’s not the patois (
i.e. speech) of the parking lot.
Rather, it’s “our privileged participation in the liturgy of saints and angels
around the Throne of Grace, and the way we address the Lord, and each other, in
those circumstances ought to reflect the awesome character of our baptismal
dignity.” Importantly, even when the masses spoke Latin, the mass wasn’t
everyday Latin.
Weigel’s observation applies to
the scripture as well. Even in its day, King James English was dated. David
Teems, author of Majestie and Tyndale: The Man Who Gave God an
English Voice, says that the translators chose the archaic style to
intentionally elevate the experience of its hearers. It was supposed to smack
of sacredness, hint at the holy in its very phrases and turns.
This is
true of the original text of the Bible itself. While Paul’s letters may
sometimes sound common and direct, much of the Bible is cast in more sacral
tones. As Robert Alter notes in the introduction to his translation of the
Pentateuch, “[T]he language of the biblical narrative in its own time was
stylized, decorous, dignified, and readily identified by it audience as . . .
distinct from the language of quotidian reality.”
And as he
says introducing his translation of 1 and 2 Samuel, “If one keeps in mind
the strong element of stylization of the ancient language even in its own time,
there is no good reason to render the biblical Hebrew as contemporary English,
either lexically or syntactically.”
I don’t
accept that there is no good reason, but neither do I disagree with
Alter’s main point. To encounter the scripture is to encounter the holy, and
therefore its translators should honor the intent of its writers. The text of
scripture communicates the grace of God to us. The language doesn’t have to be
off-putting and alien, but it must be up (to) that essential task.
I have no
trouble believing that modern translations have done a lot of good. I work at a
Bible publisher that publishes several different translations and see the value
every day. But I do worry that we are increasingly unable to meet God on the
scripture’s own terms. The text should enable the relationship, not handicap
it.
Too often
we want a plug-and-play Bible, but to recapture that sense of the holy, to
experience the elevation possible in word and phrase, perhaps we need to spend
time with a translation that lifts us out of ordinary life, instead of doubling
as an echo chamber for it.
