MAP — Modular Aggregation of Principles for Bible Translation

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/tbtd/74/2

Many Bible translation practitioners across the world, faced with accelerated methodologies such as related-language adaptation, oral drafting, the use of commercial translation service providers, and artificial intelligence, are asking what constitutes translation quality. Do these methods really engage with the Hebrew and Greek source texts or are they actually just retranslation? Can any of these methods produce a translation that is of a quality equal to or even better than conventional human, written translation? And even if so, is it just the product that counts, or are process and people important too? Ultimately, how do different methods impact ownership of and engagement with the translated text? The papers in this issue of The Bible Translator touch in various ways on these concerns.

Among our Practical Papers, T. Desmond Alexander argues that some English terms traditionally used in translations of Exod 713 should be reconsidered. The English word plague used to mean a strike or blow (and so was a good translation of the Hebrew מַגֵּפָה‎ maggpâ in these chapters), but today it means a disease, and so is no longer suitable in this context (compare Bainbridges discussion of Lord, which has similarly changed its meaning, in TBT 71.3). Other terms used in English translations of this story, the destroyer and armed for battle, have become integral to English readers interpretations, but they may perpetuate what are in fact misreadings. June Dickie builds on her previous work on translating psalms for performance, now bringing together oral drafting and performance strategies for greater naturalness and cultural engagement with the text; she offers case studies from Mozambique and Cameroon. Johannes Merz looks at the transmediation (translation between media, or intersemiotic translation) of biblical texts, both in terms of its theoretical context and as it is practised in Jesus films; audio-visual media have huge potential for communication and engagement, but require a whole new set of interpretive considerations.

Three Technical Papers relate to distinct translation problems in Genesis. Cassidy J. Gossage shows how a more careful contextual analysis of a term as simple as נַעַר‎ naar boy, slave, used of Joseph in Gen 37.2, may reveal how apparently unconnected comments fit together. Misheck Nyirenda compares the speeches by Reuben and Judah in Gen 4243, looking for contextual and linguistic features that may explain Reubens failure and Judahs success in persuading their father Jacob; African languages may allow the expression of emotional and social hints in such speeches in elegant ways. Raymond de Hoop investigates the term usually rendered unstable (as water), used by Jacob to describe Reuben in Gen 49.4, and concludes that it is better understood as meaning treacherous.

Ryan Kristopher Giffin argues that an expression attested in only a minority of manuscripts of Phil 3.12 and so generally considered a scribal addition in fact fits the discourse context so well that it should be considered primary, accidentally deleted by a later scribe.

Finally, John de Jong looks at two early nineteenth-century translations into Burmese; strikingly, he shows how a second translation, based on greatly superior scholarship, was able to supplant the first, which had been done hurriedly and without adequate biblical languages training. This should be an encouragement to serious translators who are bewildered at the flood of questionable-quality translations appearing today!

Book Reviews are offered by Graeme Auld of Steve Daleys The Textual Basis of English Translations of the Hebrew Bible and by Doug Liao of Anna Sui Hluans Silence in Translation: 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 in Myanmar and the Development of a Critical Contextual Hermeneutic.

Andy Warren-Rothlin
Marijke de Lang

Articles

The Bible Translator 74.2 (August 2023)

Articles

Practical Papers

Technical Papers

Book Reviews

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