On Better Bibles Blog, Peter Kirk offers a practical reflection on the problem of unifying translations in response to my post yesterday. In it he relates the practical experience of working with a range of churches in seeking a unifying translation. It’s well worth reading, though I suspect that all the Protestant churches being willing to work together was helped by a sense of being a minority (and possibly a slightly precarious one) in the face of Russian Orthodoxy.
But Peter also suggests there were two areas I didn’t consider in yesterday’s post. First:
It is interesting that he does not mention translation principles, apart from the gender issue. It seems to me that there would be a very real problem, which Doug does not note, in getting all Christians to accept either a dynamically equivalent translation or a rather literal one. I think the best that can be hoped for in this area is agreement on a largely formal equivalence translation which makes real efforts to use natural modern English, as HCSB and TNIV do, for use as some kind of standard for formal public reading in church and for study purposes, while recognising that various dynamic equivalence translations, or perhaps a single one accepted by all, may be used privately and in informal situations.
I did wonder about this, but thought it was not a significant problem. (Lacking Pater’s experience, I may be naïve about this) It seemed to me that, precisely because dynamic equivalence necessarily introduces more scope for interpretation, any unifying translation would have to adopt the kind of approach Peter suggests, and that this could be easily and quickly agreed in theory. The NRSV and TNIV are not that far apart on this issue. (Though I have to confess myself amused at what I see as the prestidigitation of the HCSB’s invention of “optimal equivalence” as a way of describing this approach. It sounds much more impressive put that way.) However, I do see the gender-related language question as the sticking point in working out in practice exactly what this approach would mean. It is the proving ground for whether such an agreement can be put into practice.
Peter’s second point is acceptability:
Also Doug does not mention the problem of acceptability, the “not invented here” syndrome which leads to people rejecting something in which they do not feel they have had a personal stake. This would be a serious barrier to wide acceptance of a Bible translation like HCSB originating from a single denomination. Products of ecumenical bodies are likely to be more broadly acceptable - although perhaps not to hard line evangelicals who reject ecumenism.
I think I assumed that this was, as it were, built into the project in the first place. Only if enough people from enough diverse perspectives and churches could agree on the desirability of the project, would it be possible to go ahead. (But would the question of inclusion of Jewish scholars for the OT be a sticking point?) And yes, there would almost certainly be some who would regard any such project as something akin to supping with the devil. When it first appeared, the RSV was greeted by many evangelicals with great hostility, and ignored by Catholics (this was well before Vatican II). Over time it won its way on merit. It did, of course, have the advantage of a far less crowded market-place. However, if the initial group of translators was drawn from a deep enough pool, and backed with wide-ranging support, it is, I think, still possible for a translation to win people over by its quality.
