Recognizing the Otherness of the Text

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Recognizing the Otherness of the Text I. Introduction G.B. Caird warns of either contemporizing or archaizing in biblical interpretation. By the first he means ignoring the vast differences that exist between the world of the Bible and our modern world. By the second he means overlooking the substantial similarities which bind us to those ancient texts. Though archaizing tendencies exist in academic circles at times the problem in translation is usually that of contemporizing. 1 The tendency to bring the word and the world of the text near to us operates at many different levels, some of which are listed below. Each one of them (and even some of their sub-categories) could be expanded greatly, but this paper explores the over-arching tendency to accommodate. Different accommodating tendencies frequently operate together to produce a coherent, though exegetically invalid, whole. In examining such a phenomenon, therefore, the classification of the examples may at times seem arbitrary, as indeed it is when examples could as easily belong to one (related) category as the next. This paper does not question functional/dynamic equivalence or meaning-based translation. Still, any translation tends to bring the world of the text near to our own world, either for theological, cultural (sociological), personal (psychological / perceptual), or even translational reasons. Of course at one level this must be the case, if bringing the text near means making what it says understandable. There is even something to be said for trying to make a text acceptable to some degree to its intended audience, as long as this is done within the framework of fidelity to the text's meaning. 2 But if bringing the text near means changing what the text means to say in order to have it say something we are more familiar or comfortable with, this is no longer valid. The latter is simply an example of interpreters (sincerely, unconsciously, inadvertently) imposing themselves on the text. They (and we) do this usually by failing to recognize the often radically different concerns of those who produced the biblical texts, concerns from a different time and a foreign culture.

II. Types of Accommodation in Bible Translation A. Pious Leveling 1. Euphemisms There are usually three or four cultures at work in any translation of Scripture. First there is the culture of the text, different in different parts of the Bible, but more or less definable for any specific passage. Second there is the culture of the missionary and/or translation consultant, usually European or North American. Even as the Bible Societies recruit more translation consultants from different countries throughout the world, their attitudes toward the text of Scripture have usually been filtered through western academic experience and training. Third, there is often a common cultural medium which we use to communicate with native translators. In Latin America, for example, it is the Hispanic culture of the country being worked in at the time. Fourth, there is the culture of the translator(s). This very fact would no doubt discourage many from even attempting translation, but one point is important here. It is the principle of the veto. That is, if any of the four cultures is offended by something, the likelihood is that the offending matter will be blunted in translation. The actual receptor language should by all means have this right, but the other two Archaizing in academia often in reality is just another form of contemporizing--that of finding the latest radically different approach to a text. Dr. Nida has recently attempted to deal with this issue on the stylistic level in his 1987 TTW paper "Intelligibility and Acceptability in Bible Translating." 2 1

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or three should be made to give way in this kind of matter. With regard to euphemisms, this should even be the case for the original culture(s), unless a valid theological justification for maintaining the euphemism in translation can be found. Some examples of this tendency are Genesis 18:12, where "pleasure" is sexual, not in having another child, Genesis 24:2,9; 47:29, where what appears to be already a euphemism is often further altered due to discomfort over possible homosexual overtones, and many others, in the Old Testament usually having to do with covering the feet.3

2. Harmonization Harmonization in the interest of a certain theological position will be covered below, but a more common type of harmonization occurs whenever translators try to make the texts agree where they do not. Thus translation consultants are sometimes asked if numbers can be made to agree in Kings and Chronicles, for example, where there is no textual justification for it. More subtle are cases such as II Kings 17:33-34, where in verse 34 either "properly" should be understood to be implied before the phrase "do not worship the Lord" or else it remains in conflict with verse 33 where the subjects do worship the Lord, albeit along with other gods. This may be a seam (see below), but at the present level of the text it is hard to defend this kind of contradiction when such an obvious solution (implicit explicit) is at hand. The problem is that there are so many of these kinds of decisions, and translators tend to strive always for the solution which results in the easiest reading, rather than examining each case on its own merits. Another example of this type, but at the level of the logic of the text, is Genesis 21:14, in which Ishmael is either on Hagar's shoulders though he is about fourteen, or he walks away with her. This could be a seam, and it is tempting to place it as an example of theological tendentiousness (see below), but the Hebrew just barely is able to support the second reading. What is disturbing is not so much the example as such in this case and the previous one as the predictability of the accommodating solutions for all such problems.

3. Traditional Readings There are a number of texts which have traditionally been translated a certain way, so that it becomes difficult for the translator to depart from the tradition. It is Bible Society translation policy, as a matter of fact, not to innovate exegetically, and to look for support in other translations whenever possible. This is no doubt a good safeguard against pursuing fads in interpretation, but this policy does tend to keep certain texts from being translated accurately. Perhaps the best example is Psalm 23:6, where "forever" is actually "for length of days," which in turn is parallel to "all the days of my life" in the previous line. This text, however, seems to be too famous in its present form for many versions to correct to a more accurate translation (cf. the Good New Bible's accurate "as long as I live" vs. the New International Version's "forever"). In Genesis 49:10 the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project stands alone against all the modern versions with its "Shiloh" (= Shelah of Chapter 38) as opposed to "he/it comes to the one to whom it belongs," usually interpreted messianically. Modern translations translate the latter in spite of the fact that alternate spellings for names are quite common in the Old Testament, and even though Shiloh/Shelah would fit much better in this text than would a strangely veiled reference to a messiah nowhere else mentioned in all the patriarchal literature. The perceptive reader will notice that with euphemisms we actually are dealing with not recognizing the otherness of the receptor culture as well as at times not recognizing the otherness of the text. 3

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There are a number of places where the "power of God" fits better than the "Spirit of God," especially in the Old Testament. In fact, it can be argued quite nicely that the Holy Spirit as such has no place at all in the Old Testament. Yet the tendency is strong to keep the nearly explicit reference to the Holy Spirit wherever possible. In the New Testament, there are a number of cases where the Good News Bible has the much more intelligible "sacrificial death" as opposed to "blood" of Jesus Christ, yet this has been the cause of much opposition to this version from many quarters, and most other versions persist in keeping the blood. It would be as easy to place these last three examples under the classification of theological tendentiousness, except that the tendencies in these cases are so broadly based.

B. Different Systems of Thought and Expression 1. Keeping Secrets The infamous "Son of Man" translation problem has often been "solved" by a phrase like "the man (person, human) who comes/came from heaven." Thus "The Son of Man is to be delivered up to the Gentiles" becomes at times "I, the Man who came from Heaven, is to be turned over to the Roman soldiers to be killed." For many, such locutions focus too much on the messianic/Daniel aspects of the term and not enough on the incarnational/Ezekiel aspects, but for the purposes of this paper the problem is simply that they are too specific. It is doubtless important that the complexity or rather equal value of the two major components of meaning be preserved here: heavenly/messiah/triumphant vs. mortal/human/suffering. It is also apparent, however, that the "Son of Man" title was used by Jesus to avoid saying directly that he was the Messiah. As is already well known, Jesus' messianic identity (not to mention his heavenly origins!) is something of a secret (especially in Mark - cf. 8:27-30), or at least is not talked about openly. If we use terminology which is too exegetically explicit, we run the risk of ruining the tension of the story of Jesus' coming and of his rejection by those who did not recognize him for who he was. We make those people overly ridiculous if we make too explicit Jesus' messianic claims and/or claims to divine status. The same principle obtains in Luke 2:30,38 and other places where Jesus is spoken of in ways which later readers can see indicate his special nature but which apparently had very little of that effect on those round about. For example, "Now I have seen the Salvation of Israel" has been translated by some as "Now I have seen this little boy who will grow up to be the savior of his people." Readers (who are usually also presumed to be believers) are meant to see into the deeper level that the majority of the participants in the story did not see. Thus the reader should understand the code words, but it should not seem overly strange that the bystanders did not.

2. Aporias and Seams In John 4:44 Jesus makes a statement to the effect that a prophet has no honor in his own country. The next verse says that the Galileans welcomed him, when we would expect the opposite. This problem is part of a larger one, which has been debated by New Testament scholars over the years (particularly after the publication of R. Bultmann's commentary on John). The problem of course is that this is not the only place that John's gospel does not seem to flow as smoothly as one would like. As a matter of fact, the breaks in logic and chronological sequence are so prevalent that scholars have invented a technical termaporias (from Greek "perplexity" with English plural). There have been many solutions suggested for these problems, including wholesale reinterpretation of all of them so that they do make some kind of sense. If there were only one or two problems, we might have to admit that we just don't know Greek grammar well enough, and

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try to make the passages make sense as best we can. But with so many problems, and so many of a similar type, obscuring them all in John would be the equivalent to trying to take the messianic secret out of Mark. If there is some feature of the text as prominent as the aporias in John, it would seem reasonable that we must respect that feature and preserve it somehow (or at least not actively obscure it). This is true whether or not we come to feel that a given feature is a result of purposeful action or not (some scholars think the pages got shuffled and were put back together out of order!). In John's case an original (Synoptic-like) chronological sequence very likely has been rearranged in the interest of thematic unity, with some rough edges left over. Here as elsewhere in John the text seems to be constituted more by themes, motifs, and associations than by cohesion and coherence understood in modern categories. Thus Jesus' well-known saying in John 4:44 had to be connected with some mention of Galilee whether it fit there perfectly in every other way or not. In spite of tensions, however, the final text does make some kind of sense, and it is that sense which we will try to translate after all. The sense here seems to be that the statement finally refers in a general way to the unsatisfactory faith of the Galileans in spite of an initial warm welcome. In cases such as these, we should probably not try to make more sense than the text we are translating, particularly when the "nonsense" is a prominent feature of the text (e.g. through frequent occurrence, patterning, etc.). The implications here should be obviousmore reader's helps will be needed to explain what does not make sense. It would be wise to temper our use of methods which lead us to find textual unity with those which might favor disunity. Thus a certain use of discourse analysis can become an axiomatic basis for making sense of texts which really don't (or do in some unexpected way), just as some types of form criticism can become the basis for breaking up texts unnecessarily.4

3. Quoting The way ancient authors approached citations of other authors in general and of their own sacred traditions in particular finds its parallel in some present-day preaching, but hardly at all in modern academic circles. Ancients apparently felt free to change the text they were quoting to say new things, things even at times contradictory to the text from which they were quoting. Yet they had to use some of the original formulas or catchwords to make the quote work at all. Almost any New Testament quote of the Old Testament will do for an example. Quite the opposite is true today, at least in academic circles. We must either quote word-for-word with no changes, or produce a paraphrase which is defended by calling attention to its faithfulness to the original context and meaning. The irony of this situation is further compounded when we realize that for all the textual liberties of ancient writers, at least those who were involved in biblical interpretation agreed quite well on the general lines of interpretation, while today strict adherence to textual fidelity is coupled with interpretations of the texts and their contexts which constantly proliferate in ever-increasingly disparate directions.

4 This issue is already under discussion in the UBS, as evidenced by Noel Osborn's 1984 TTW paper on covering up redactional "seams" in translation. Noel followed up the theme recently in a TBT-P article entitled "Tent or Tabernacle?" (April 1990, vol. 41, No. 2).

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4. Verbs of Motion In Joshua 11:10 the text says that Joshua (= the army) "turned back" to go capture Hazor. This makes it look like the army conquered Hazor on their way back to their camp at Gilgal. On the map, however, it looks like they went away from Gilgal to get to Hazor, in which case "turned back" means "went in another direction, turned around," or might have a temporal meaning of "then," coinciding with the subsequent "at that time." It is even possible that the verb functions as a discourse marker to indicate a change of action or scene, depending on other verbs to specify the new action or situation. The suspicion of a possible use of some verbs of motion in a temporal sense or at a discourse level comes partly from noting the different uses of "enter" and "return" in the Old Testament, but mainly from the observation of the verb "rise" (qum) in various Old Testament contexts.5 Two or three examples will give the picture. In Exodus 32:6 the text states that the people "sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." Now "play" is well understood as a euphemism for orgiastic cultic rites, and the verb "rise" hardly fits the action required at that point. A similar problem occurs in Genesis 23:2,7 where Abraham rises from before his dead in verse 2, then rises again (had he sat down in the meantime?) in verse 7 only in order to again bow down! As translators try to figure out the spatial relationships in this passage, one is nearly forced to the conclusion that "rise" is functioning in a different way than the literal interpretation of the word would lead us to believe. Either temporal or discourse level functions with the general force of "then," or "after that" would work quite well for all the examples above, and many more like them. Somewhat related to the issue of verbs of motion above are those cases where actions and verbs go together grammatically, even though logically the result may seem awkward. In Luke 5:8-12, for example, while it may be necessary from a translational point of view to determine where everyone is in relation to everyone else, phrases such as "sat down" in verse 3 and "fell at his knees" in verse 8 are determined more by the actions of teaching and worshipping than by strict adherence to spatial relations. Certain verbs are required for certain actions, whether or not they make sense in every other way or not.6

5. Verbal Sequences Interestingly, while verbs of motion seem often to function in nonspatial ways, other verbal sequences (a series of words of phrases describing one basic event, situation, or theme) in Hebrew are often spatial, or more precisely centering or unfolding, rather than adhering to temporal, causal, or some other type of logical patterning. It appears that this may be even more true in poetry than in prose. Many have noted that parallel structures almost always intensify and heighten in some way, but more specific patterns of general specific, superficial profound, outer inner, distant close, common rare (vocabulary), and other such poetic (thematic, spatial, personal, relational, etc.) concerns often appear to be at work. This area needs more investigation, but a few examples can illustrate the point. The first example comes from I Samuel 1:8 where Elkanah asks Hannah why she is weeping, refusing to eat and sad-hearted. The movement is from the outside inward: that which is most noticeable is mentioned first, the root cause is mentioned last. This might well need to be reversed in some languages which require the reason for an action before

5 In spite of Basil Rebera's admirable work in dealing with qum ("rise") in his 1987 TTW paper "Is There Such a Thing as Semantic Vacancy?" more work still remains to be done on this and other related verbs of motion.

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See TBT-P October 1988 (vol. 39, No. 4) pp. 439-441 for a discussion of the problem of spatial relations in this text.

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describing that action. In fact in English we might more naturally say "Why are you so sad? Why don't you stop crying and eat something?"7 In Psalm 64:9 people will worship ("fear") God in two ways: they will tell what he has done, and they will meditate over it. Again the movement is from the surface to the profound, from effect to cause, from outside to inside in a gradually unfolding which is just backwards to western causal and temporal ways of thinking. Of course many receptor languages and cultures may well understand this kind of logic intuitively, but translation consultants must be aware of what is happening in any case to help decide the issue. In Psalm 69:7-8, verse 7 summarizes that the psalmist has borne reproach and shame, while verse 8 describes exactly what has happenedthe psalmist's own family has disowned him. Here the movement is from general to specific, which is perhaps the most common pattern of poetic sequences (cf. verse 22 "table ... snare; ... sacrificial feasts ... trap," and passim). Job 1:1 has a double movement within parallel structures of explication and intensification as follows: 1) From general ("perfect ... upright") to specific ("fearing God ... keeping from evil") in the first and second lines, and 2) a chiastic emphasis on "upright ... fearing God" in the middle, which forms the relational basis for action - being "perfect" and "keeping from evil." Though this is somewhat more complex with the addition of chiasm, it follows the general pattern described above.8 The idea of unfolding the specifics and/or "hiding" the ground or basis of your argument at the center or saving it until the end can appear to readers as anything ranging from obvious to sensitive and touchingly beautiful to downright complicated and evasive. In any case, translators must be aware of such structures in order to understand the text correctly before translating it.

6. Lists The system of thought associated with lists in the Bible is usually different from what western, modern, European interpreters would expect from such a structure. Lists in the Bible are rarely analytical / systematic / divisional / exhaustive, but more often are synthetic / additive / generalizing / heuristic. The key to understanding any particular list is of course to first find the basis for or the logic of the list. For example, in the list of unclean birds in Leviticus 11:13-19 the logic of the list is that all the members are either birds of prey or carrion birds (and not for example small and large birds). The reason they are unclean is either that they eat blood or have contact with the dead, both of which render one unclean. In Genesis 1:14 ("And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years"), the system of thought is astrological / religious / kairos-timing of important events (1. "signs"=portents, as in the Star of Bethlehem, 2. "religious festivals"), and only secondarily chronological marking of the passage of time (3. "years," 4. "days"). In some lists the general basis is clear enough but the differentiation of the members poses difficulty. Lists of laws, statutes, ordinances, decrees, etc., seem to pile up synonyms using terms which many receptor languages lack. Many times, however, looking at the members of the list in other contexts gives a clue as to the specificity of the different ideas 7 Tzeltal of southern Mexico, for example, uses a reciprocal verb for weeping which implies that Hannah is weeping over her own condition.

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Chiasm as such is not dealt with in this paper since it is so well known and has been treated extensively elsewhere.

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involved. Though there is a great deal of overlap in the usage of terms, several contexts can be recognized from a cursory glance at a concordance: 1) regulations pertaining to a certain people or clan or family in perpetuity, 2) principles by which the created world is governed, 3) God's specific commands to his people (either moral or cultic), 4) the moral universe applicable to all people, and so on. Chapter 1 of Proverbs provides us with another rich harvest of closely related terms, in this instance clustered around "wisdom." Terms such as knowledge, prudence, discernment, etc., shade off in English in several directions, indicating practical experience, moral judgement, intellectual acuity, social or artistic skill, or a combination of several at once. It may be that when closely related terms are used in abundance as in this and the previous example, we should look at the possible rhetorical function, such as we find in Pauline lists of vices and virtues in the New Testament. In that case the whole is in focus, and not the distinguishing of the parts. In any case we should not assume that such a list in the Bible automatically follows the logic which a similar list composed by ourselves might have.9

7. Miscellaneous Semitic hyperbole is both well known and well documented, yet most versions still tend to translate the pair "love ... hate" literally rather than expressing strong preference (the meaning of the hyperbole) in the receptor language in a way that is natural and meaningful. The fact that "father" and "son" are often expressions of some relationship other than biological is also well known, and one of the most common of those is "son" in the sense of disciple ("sons of the prophets"=prophetic bands). Yet this has not yet been applied to Amos' saying "I am not a prophet nor the disciple (son) of a prophet," or to I Samuel 10:12's "And who is their leader (father)?"10 Though not directly relevant for translation, many people have wondered why Cain's sacrifice in Genesis chapter 4 was rejected by God. Though the text does not tell us, one possibility which Jewish scholars have pointed out is that the ground was still under a curse (cf. Gen. 3:17) which was not lifted until after the flood (cf. Gen. 8:21). Taken at a symbolic level, this would have justified the Hebrew practice of animal sacrifice over against the agricultural products which the Canaanites were offering to their fertility gods. Within an Old Testament framework, the explanation makes good sense, and should be taken seriously, especially by translators using notes.

C. Theological Tendentiousness Here much could be said and has been said already, but the recent popularity of the New International Version (NIV) has prompted a look at the way the translators of that version have seemingly tried to make Old Testament quotes agree with the New Testament, make texts agree with each other, and in general make texts make glib good sense even when there are problems which must be smoothed over in order to do so. In Isaiah 7:14, the NIV translates "virgin" in order to agree with Matthew 1:23, while neither the use of the word elsewhere nor the use of the word in this context warrants anything other than "young woman." The problem of the New 9 My colleague Carol Mock has recently brought to my attention what might be yet another category of list, which one might call the "merism" lists. They are brief lists which nevertheless attempt to be exhaustive within the ancient categories, such as "body, soul, and spirit," or "evening, morning, and noon" (Psalm 55.18). One is reminded here of the four elements of the universe in Greek philosophy, and of the four bodily humors of medieval alchemy/medicine.

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Cf. also II Kings 13:14, where "father" is a term of respect.

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Testament use of the Old Testament cannot be solved by making the Hebrew Old Testament agree in all cases with New Testament quotes, which are often expressly based on the Septuagint in order to make the point in the New Testament context (e.g. Mark 1:2-3). Genesis 47:31 states that Jacob "bowed himself upon the head of his bed" in thanks to God (or Joseph). In I Kings 1:47, where the same expression is used when David acknowledges his officials, or Solomon, or worships God. The NIV has made this agree with the New Testament quote of the Septuagint in Hebrews 11:21 ("bowed in worship upon the head of his staff"). Like the Isaiah example above, this is harmonizing, and should not be followed by translators. In I Samuel 13:1 there is a textual problem in that the first number seems to be missing, and the second seems impossible. The NIV supplies a solution to the second problem by borrowing "forty" from Acts 13:21. This would not be so bad except that this number does not work well in the Old Testament context, and the New Testament number is a "round" one, as the NIV note admits (all three Kings of the United Kingdom reigned forty years). A more plausible canonical solution (though somewhat imaginative itself) is given by the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, which suggests that this means Saul reigned two years (the number in the Hebrew text) with God's blessing, that is before David was anointed. The examples of Genesis 1:14 ("signs ...") and Genesis 21:14 (Ishmael on Hagar's shoulders), mentioned above, could as easily fit here as well, and support a general NIV pattern of making things fit at all costs.

D. Culturally Foreign and/or Offensive Values Many recent attempts to deal with inclusive language in Bible translation have brought this issue once again to the fore. The main problem in dealing with the biblical text is that it undoubtedly reflects patriarchal societies. This would seem to leave us a choice between exegetical accuracy and unoffensive language, at least in many cases.11 The issues are more complex historically than one might first imagine. We have texts from different times when different practices were in effect, exceptions to apparent rules, and much of the time we have insufficient evidence to make a strong claim one way or the other. Still, in the Old Testament it is usually men who are priests, leaders, soldiers, property owners, legal representatives, or in general anyone with significant social standing.12 Perhaps unfortunately, the Bible cannot be cleansed of its patriarchal biases any more than it can affirm a modern scientific cosmology. Polygamy, slavery, inhumane treatment of enemies, or any of a number of other issues are equally if not more problematic, yet we have to deal with them as part of the social structure of the times during which the Bible was produced and transmitted.

E. The HOTTP and "The Harder Reading." Not everyone even will agree about the usefulness or even the validity of the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project preliminary and interim report. It must be admitted to start with that the approach of the HOTTP is not geared for the layperson or even for the trained translator. The HOTTP attempts to establish the best text, however, not the correct

See the excellent note on this problem by Sarah Lind in the Spring 1990 edition of Tic Talk (No. 11), where she makes the useful distinction between androcentric readings and androcentric texts. The many exceptions which come to mind--Deborah, Ruth, Esther, the wives of the patriarchs, all simply prove the rule in the end. In most cases they are heroines in the story, but nevertheless take their appointed places in ancient near eastern society. 12

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translation, and if seen in that light, can be used profitably in spite of having been written for biblical academics and not translators.13 The point can be illustrated with an extended example from Psalm 49. At verse 14 the MT's "and the righteous will have dominion over them in the morning" has been seen by some as a problem, in that it does not seem to make any sense. Thus many emend (e.g. the Revised Standard Version and others) in order to come up with a more satisfactory meaning. Yet at verse 12 the RSV's "abide" is literally "to spend the night," which taken with 14 would mean (in figurative language, of course) that the proud person won't last long ("spend the night"), and will soon ("in the morning") be vanquished by the righteous. "Spending the night" / "in the morning" are a thematic pair which may well be lost in translation, but should not be ignored or overlooked as part of the underlying text. Furthermore, verse 20 complements verse 12 with a play on words in the following way: 49:12 "Proud people will not last long (yalin) ... they are like beasts that perish" 49:20 "Proud people do not understand (yabin) ... they are like beasts that perish" In this reading the proud people of verses 12 and 20 are like beasts (the repeated formula reinforces the connection of the two verses) in two different ways: they are mortal and they are stupid (here doubtless morally stupid but with a play on the stupidity of the animals). This is just the kind of play of words and ideas a Hebrew poet would love, and though no one can prove it is the original text (one never can), it works well and seems far better than a conjecture. The fact that in this interpretation verse 12's yalin ("spend the night") has connections within the Psalm in two different directions, one thematic (with verse 14's "in the morning") and the other semantic, phonological, and formulaic (with verse 20's "understand" = yabin / "like beasts that perish") may strike some people as rather far-fetched. Yet this it is precisely this kind of interplay we find elsewhere in biblical and other ancient literature as well. In fact we have in verse 12 (near the center) and echoed with a twist in verse 20 (at the end) the theme of the Psalm, that is, the transitoriness / foolishness of trusting in riches. Another example is from Zechariah 11:16 where the new leader figuratively "devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hooves." While many textual critics have emended the text to "tearing down and making breaches [in the walls]" because they could make no sense of it, most of the common people in the third world would immediately know that the choicest parts are the fat and marrow and gristle around the bones. Much of the issue in text criticism is simply whether we believe that scribes tend to simplify and explainthat is, accommodateor not. In any case translators should let the text stand at a distance, and try to understand it first on its own terms (which are doubtless quite different from ours) and then decide what will be attempted in translation. Ironically, we will take away in translation much of what we do in text criticism. That may not be so bad. That seems to be what even the ancient versions were doing much of the time. It is far worse to mix text criticism and translation together or, worse yet, to allow our search for a good translation to determine what our textual decision will be.

III. Conclusion The issue in this paper is not foreignness versus intelligibility in translation, but rather making the foreign intelligible while still allowing it to be foreign. The people who wrote the Old Testament (and the New Testament for that matter) The HOTTP's suggested translations, for example, turn out to be nothing more than transpositions of the chosen base text into English and French. 13

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were very different from ourselves, and had a different way of making sense of many things. We need to recognize the otherness of the text and its culture before we attempt to bridge the gap. From the point of view of translation, one critique of the theme of this paper could be that many of the features mentioned here tend to be formal anyway and thus difficult to do justice to in translation. Certainly this is true at times, as in the case of going form the common to the rare in vocabulary patterns, and these are unlikely to have much meaning in the receptor language and culture. But in other cases some meaningful equivalent pattern might be found in the discussion of the source language structure. In any case translation consultants would do well to tell translators in their consultations and helps what they think is going on in the text even when (maybe especially when) they think the translators will not be able to do much with it in translation. Translators may judge notes or extended introductions as the appropriate way to deal with the otherness of the text, or they may do nothing at all, but they should be given the data nonetheless.