Bible English
One lasting bequest of the KJV is a sense of Bible English. It is all, largely, written in the same style and register. I presume the same is true of the Vulgate’s Latin, coming largely from one pen (I’m not enough of a Latinist to tell). It also seems to be true of contemporary English translations, so that you can take a guess at which translation a verse is from, and be somewhere in the ballpark.
Indeed, most new translations seek to describe the sort of English they’re aiming for, and most discussions of the English translations on, say, Better Bibles Blog, focus on whether the English is clear enough. One of the few that is explicit about trying to do more than that is the ESV:
The ESV is an “essentially literal” translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer. As such, its emphasis is on “word-for-word” correspondence, at the same time taking into account differences of grammar, syntax, and idiom between current literary English and the original languages. Thus it seeks to be transparent to the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the structure and meaning of the original.
It is questionable, surely, whether placing as much emphasis as it does on “word-for-word correspondence” will actually enable a sense of the “personal style of each Bible writer.” The lack of correspondence between the languages is too great, and the sense of a Bible English overcomes, to my ear, at least, a sense of different styles, except in the most dramatic cases. John’s gospel, for example, is linguistically idiosyncratic enough to stand out in any translation.
What I’d really like to know, from those who are better informed about translations than I am, whether people have tried, or indeed, whether there’s a case for trying, to work up translations that aim for equivalent styles as much as for equivalent meanings. How rough should a translation of Mark be? How poetic one of Job? Should one seek to write the opening of Luke in quite traditional Bible English and switch registers as it moves into the main story? What, in short, would be the result if one paid as much attention to equivalent style and affect as to equivalent meaning and effect?
July 24th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
This is a good topic, Doug. I believe that English Bible translators should reflect the varying styles among the biblical authors, and even varying styles among the writings of the same author. I believe that my co-bloggers at the Better Bibles Blog feel the same. There just is so much lack of clarity in English Bibles, making them more obscure than the original text, that that is what often gets focused on. But there are many other important Bible translation topics, including this one. Yes, Mark should sound rougher than Luke. Job and all the other Hebrew Bible poetic books should sound poetic (of course, recognizing that Hebrew poetry is not the same as English poetry).
July 25th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Yes, please! One of the really frustrating things about the UBS sponsored translations that (despite all the huge gains the Dynamic Equivalence approaches have offered us like the CEV being both simple and good to read aloud see PodBible) is that they risk making Isaiah and Jeremiah sound alike, and Mark and John sound quite similar! So I really hope that among all the English Bible translation projects out there some thought could be given to how to reflect both the register and personality of different writers and even as you remind us passages.
I’d differ from you a little as I think a more literal translation like NRSV does capture at laest a bit of these differences, despite the differing language systems. Just (a) it is not a good way to achieve this and (b) it does not make for easy good English!
What I’d like is a translation into English (not Hebrelish or Engreek) that tries to reflect the register, tone etc. of the original as well as the referential meaning.