MetaCatholic

Thanks to Better Bibles Blog for a set of links to some papers about Bible Translation from the Evangelical Theological Society. I’ve had a brief glance at them, and a skim-read so far of Form, Function, and the “Literal Meaning” Fallacy in Bible Translation. There’s more to interact with than I want to pick up right now, not least the question of authorial intention as something of a guide to translation (although the author Mark Strauss recognises he’s simplifying things at this point partly for the sake of the argument).

However, it did prompt a random thought, which I can’t remember seeing discussed recently or on a cursory search find a discussion of. Given that the aim of translation is to produce clear and good English (or other target language), and setting aside the debate between particular translation theories for the present purpose, how much should it be clear that the scriptures come to us from another culture, rather than originate in our own?

In one sense, the more the English is both clearly understandable, and clearly our language, the greater the danger that we shall assume we know what it means in its historical context, because we know what it means in our context, speaking our language. Is there room for seeking to maintain cultural distance at the same time as translating clearly, and can the two be combined?

I’m not at all sure what the answer to those questions should be, though I incline to wanting to have my cake and eat it here. One way to do this might be to maintain at least some, if not all the measurements, say, of the biblical cultures, and footnote their equivalent. I think there is value in something like this as some kind of Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt. The text, after all, is a text that, however well translated, needs to be seen as a text of the past as well as the present, and as one which needs historical as well as spiritual interpreting if it is to be heard in the round. The better a translation, the more difficult this problem may become.

I’d be very interested to know what others think, or to be pointed to previous discussions.