Translations, Translations

I’ve recently been asked again about “the best” translation of the Greek NT.  The answer isn’t simple.  All translations of all texts involve multiple factors and decisions to be made.  There is the aim of conveying the source text in a different language, and a different culture.

Do you translate “woodenly”, repeating the sentence structure of the source text, which may sound strange to the target readers?  Or do you adjust the syntax to reflect the way that sentences are constructed in the target language?  Greek word-order, for example operates on different rules from English.  Because Greek is a more “inflected” language, word-order can serve for emphasis, whereas in English word-order often conveys the syntax of the sentence, and so meaning.

Do you translate literally the idioms and figures of speech of the source text, or try to give equivalents in the target language?  Here’s a vivid example:  In several OT texts, the Hebrew refers to “every one who pisses against a wall” (1 Sam 25:22, 24; 1 Kings 14:10; 16:11; 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8).  The King James translators boldly rendered this expression woodenly in all these texts.  But most more recent translations have chosen to render the expression as “every male” or something such (which, of course, is what the Hebrew expression means).

Or take the question of how to handle the NT references to “brothers,” e.g., in various epistles where the entire church is addressed.  The NRSV translators chose to render the term in these instances as “brothers and sisters”.  On the one hand, that’s not a “literal” translation.  On the other hand, in the Greek texts in question, the “brothers” addressed included many females as well as males.  In very recent English, we’ve begun to try to avoid the “androcentric” terminology of referring to the human race as “all men.”  The Greek NT reflects the androcentric linguistic practice of Koine Greek.  So, if we translate adelphoi “literally” as “brothers”, the erroneous impression might be taken by modern readers/hearers that the early churches were made up exclusively by males, or that only males were addressed.

I recall a “lay” person expressing dismay that a particular translation had rendered the reference to Jesus’ “precious blood” in 1 Peter 1:19 as Jesus’ “costly sacrifice.”  But, of course, in speaking of Jesus’ “precious blood,” the author didn’t mean the liquid coursing through Jesus’ veins, but his death.  So, “costly sacrifice” wasn’t an altogether bad translation.

I could give other examples, but these will serve to illustrate the main point.  Translation is never simple, and is all the more complex and demanding when translating a text from a very different time and culture.  And there are particular difficulties in translating a text that has been in translation for a long time and is familiar to at least some of the target readership.  Do you echo the traditional wording with which, e.g., regular church-goers will be familiar but may be a bit dated in terms of current language usage, or do you adjust the wording to reflect current idiomatic usage?

But, to give a brief answer to the question about particular Bible translations, overall, the NRSV is pretty good.  But there are some others that are also “pretty good.”   None of them completely without criticism, but none of them seriously misleading.