MAP — Modular Aggregation of Principles for Bible Translation

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/tbtd/73/1

Editorial

As the new editorial team, we would like to thank Stephen Pattemore for his kind words of welcome in the last issue and express our own pleasure at having been invited to take over. The Bible Translator is known both as a premier scholarly journal and as a resource for professional Bible translators across the world. Our commitment remains to both, and in addition to seeking the best technical papers in biblical studies, translation studies, and related fields, we invite practical papers, especially from colleagues currently translating into one of their own mother tongues. As active translation consultants who have spent decades working in places with the greatest Bible access needs, we will particularly pursue diversity in the Editorial Board composition, papers solicited, and papers accepted (including assisting authors unused to publishing in English).

Our new Managing Editor, Clare Knowles, has in the last four months not only taken over her role with TBT and completed her PhD, but, what is more, has just brought her first child into the world. We welcome little Sophie Kathryn and congratulate Clare and her husband, Sam. Clare's predecessor, Sarah Lind, has generously stepped back in to provide maternity cover, and has managed most of the current issue.

Our Editorial Board has said goodbye to a number of long-serving members, and we would like to acknowledge with appreciation the many years of service to TBT of Ruth Heeg, Eric Hermanson, Tim Meadowcroft, Christo van der Merwe, and Lourens de Vries. We trust that a new generation of scholar-practitioners will take their place in serving the Bible translation community with scholarly writing.

Several of the practical and technical papers in this issue address issues of audience. This has key importance for translation theory, as translators balance loyalty to the source text, to the church as the text's principal custodian and the most frequent commissioner of translations, and to those for whom translations are intended. But it also has distinct theological importance when translations are done for people of other faiths or none. And it has great practical importance for publishing and distribution. Not least, it may have great implications for how Bible translation organizations relate to international funding sources and their own sense of what constitute translation needs.

Practical papers relate to Bible translation in Zulu in South Africa, Mborena Kam and Apal in Papua New Guinea, Jamaican Creole, and Inuit languages. June Dickie describes the use of oral approaches in translation and engagement by Zulu people and the Burundian and Congolese refugees among them, and argues that this can result in a level of participation in the translated text which both corresponds better to the Sitz im Leben of the source texts, and best serves the churches. Martha Wade similarly describes a particular oral-aural approach to community translation checking using prepublication recording; this approach has proven successful in helping people identify many problems in orthography, reference, idiom, and naturalness. Byron Jones discusses the pursuit of naturalness, especially in the context of the acceptability of reference to aspects of sexuality; the many Bible translations currently being done in distinctly colloquial language may know well this tension between naturalness and a certain sacredness that the community may want to see expressed through a biblical idiom. Jeffrey Green then surveys the translation of ethnonyms in the last nearly 300 years of Inuit Bible translations, demonstrating how the use of gentilic suffixes may often have reflected foreign influences in both morphology and in the primacy given to a people's genetic or geographic origins; serving a translation's audience well may demand greater attention to natural ways of thinking and speaking of ethnicity.

Our technical papers have implications for how the Bible is translated for Muslims, islanders, among the Urak Lawoi' in Thailand, and in multilingual contexts.

Patrick Krayer argues that the translation of the angel's promise to Hagar in Gen 16.12 may have been distorted by the history of Christian–Muslim relations, and that a reading as blessing instead of curse is more in line with the פֶרֶא “wild donkey” metaphor and the context. Vincent Chukwuma Onwukwe argues for deliberate ambiguity and a specific narrative intent in Gen 21.9 for מְצַחֵק “laughing.”

The next two papers derive from the Nida Institute session on “Translation, Identity, and Community” at the SBL Annual Meeting in 2018. Brigitte Rabarijaona looks at distinctive considerations in Bible translation in the islander context of Madagascar, and Stephen Pattemore at the historical development of Bible translation among the Urak Lawoi’ in southern Thailand; both the past and people's present realities need to be understood if Bible translation products are to serve them well.

Finally, Timothy Hatcher and Sangsok Son discuss the implications of multilingualism for Scripture engagement.

Book reviews are offered by Richard Pleijel of Matthijs de Jong's presentation of the theory behind the Dutch Bijbel in Gewone Taal translation, and by Marlon Winedt of The Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media.

Our annual “List of UBS Publications” concludes this issue, and in this connection we would like to take the opportunity to draw our readers' attention to the new UBS resources website at https://translation.bible/.

Marijke de Lang and Andy Warren-Rothlin

The Bible Translator 73.1 (April 2022)

Editorial

Practical Papers

Technical Papers

Book Reviews

List of UBS Publications

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