Difference between revisions of "Hist Trans EN 18"
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| − | = | + | =Bible Translation in Christian History= |
| + | Benjamin Wellsand, Hunan Normal University, China | ||
| + | ==Abstract== | ||
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| + | The history of Christianity is rich in translations. Why is this the case? What is the motivation behind all this translation effort? The present work will explain the rationale behind the perceived need for translation. It will describe the multicultural context that aided the church in communicating in a heart language. An awkward struggle in the Middle Ages will leave the future of the church in question. What created this polar shift in the West from the church's original course bearings? How and why did the church recover? What remains of centuries of Christian diligence to get the Word into the words of the other? Through historical events, life experiences of translators, and the tales that live on in the translations themselves will answer these questions and encourage the reader to enter the exciting and vast history of Bible translation. | ||
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| + | ==Key Words== | ||
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| + | Aramaic language—refers to the Semitic dialect of a Middle Eastern people written in a Phoenician alphabet and first appearing in the 11th century B.C.E and growing to the peak of prominence in the 8th century B.C.E. | ||
| − | + | Free Translation—a translator’s decision to avoid as many target audience misunderstandings as possible due to linguistic and cultural differences with the source text’s culture | |
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| + | Functional or Dynamic Translation—a translator’s decision to focus more attention on communicating the meaning of the source text with concern for the target text | ||
| − | + | Grassroots theology—the lived experience of the church that then develops into a theological framework | |
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| − | + | Greek language—refers to that Greek developed in the 4th century B.C.E. and utilized by the Greco-Roman Empire | |
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| − | + | Heart language—the native language of a person from which the deepest emotional meanings are expressed | |
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| − | + | Hebrew language—refers to the ancient Jewish dialect spoken between the 10th century B.C.E. and the 4th century C.E. | |
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| − | + | Literal Translation—a translator’s decision to focus attention primarily on what the source text says | |
| − | + | Septuagint—the Greek translations of the Hebrew Old Testament | |
| − | + | Vernacular language—an expression or mode of expression that is a part of everyday communication and not yet in written form | |
| − | + | ==Introduction== | |
| − | + | Translation of the biblical text has been a practice of the Christian church since its very origin. The founding of the church during the Jewish festival of Pentecost, as recorded in the Bible itself, involved Jesus’ disciples communicating the gospel message in the language of Parthians, Medes, Mesopotamians, and Egyptians, among others. (cf. Acts 2.7-11) The final vision of the multitude of the saved in heaven are described as a “people of God from every tribe and language and people and nation." (Rev. 5.9) The New Testament, although authored by primarily Hebrew-speaking Jews, was first written in the lingua franca, koine Greek, of the day. Whereas Buddhists and Muslims identify their sacred texts and faiths inseparably from the original languages of Sanskrit, Pali and Arabic, the Christian faith has sought to translate the biblical texts immediately and directly into the vernacular language of the people to accelerate its global spread. | |
| − | + | On a historical basis, the Christian faith has been criticized regarding colonialism and the destruction of cultures. One such case occurred in the sixteenth-century with the Japanese. Giant ships (in comparison to the Japanese) came to dock on the island from Portugal. Many transactions were made between the Portuguese traders and the local Japanese damaiyo. When trade agreements went south, as it did in the case of Portugal and Japan, the Portuguese missionaries were associated with the politics and kicked out of the country. They were ousted under the accusations of encouraging Japanese to eat horses and cows, misleading people through science and medicine, and trading Japanese slaves. (Doughill 2012: l. 1064) Although the missionaries had done no such things, they were targeted along with the Portuguese government for these criminal acts. | |
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| − | + | There are cases where the colonial form of the church has not come to intentionally destroy but has assumed cultural superiority and inadvertently added to the host culture their own country of origin’s cultural forms. Late 19th century missionaries to Africa felt that the Western-style structure of a dwelling was an indicator of modern progress. In 1879, the magistrate of Gatberg declared: | |
| − | It is | + | It is not only that the requirement of modesty necessitates the providing of some sort of clothing, however simple; but Christian morality desires also a dwelling corresponding to human dignity, decency, and purity. Building plays an important part in the mission. First the missionary builds a simple small house for himself, to which he soon adds a school and a church. Generally, he must himself superintend this work; often enough, indeed, he must execute it with his own hand, and it stands him in good stead to have been a tradesman at home. But he induces the natives also to help him, and much patience as it requires on his part, he undertakes to instruct them. Gradually his word and his example produce their effect, and the converts from heathenism begin to build new and more decent dwellings for themselves. (Warneck 1888: 80) |
| − | + | There is no denying that the church has struggled to decontextualize the faith from their home culture and properly contextualize it into the host culture. This has led to the host culture’s Christianity looking eerily similar to the missionary’s, at best, or a faith that forever remains foreign to the host culture, at worst. Yet, as Lamin Sanneh notes, Christian missionaries have often played a key role in the preservation of cultures: | |
| − | + | The translation enterprise had two major steps. One was the creation of a vernacular alphabet for societies that lacked a literary tradition. The other step was to shake the existing literary tradition free of its esoteric, elitist predilection by recasting it as a popular medium. Both steps stimulated an indigenous response and encouraged the discovery of local resources for the appropriation of Christianity. (Sanneh 1987: 333) | |
| − | + | The translation of the biblical text into another language is not simply a greater convenience to the reader in the target culture but accomplishes far more as language extends much deeper than a mere form of communication. | |
| − | + | Benjamin L. Whorf’s theory of linguistic relativity holds that language influences thought and not thought that influences language. For him, “linguistics is essentially the quest of meaning." (Carroll 1956: 73) George C. Lichtenberg, another pioneer of linguistics, is famously quoted as saying, “Our false philosophy is incorporated in our whole language; we cannot talk, so to say, without talking incorrectly. We do not consider that speaking, irrespective of its content, presents a philosophy." (Loewenberg 1943-44: 102) Richard D. Lewis illustrated this point with an interaction between himself, an Englishman, and a former Zulu chief who received a doctorate in philology at Oxford as they discussed the color green. As the Zulu pointed to a leaf in the sun, a leaf in the shade, a wet leaf in the sun and one in the shade, bush leaves, leaves in the wind, rivers, pools, tree trunks, and crocodiles, all to which Lewis responded with a single answer: green. Yet his Zulu friend had reached thirty-nine different terms for green with no trouble at all (Lewis 2006, 9). Paul G. Hiebert writes, “We examine the language to discover the categories the people use in their thinking." (Hiebert 2008: 90) | |
| + | Christians, like Hiebert, recognize that true conversion of a person’s mind can only happen if it takes place on three levels of the individual: belief, behavior, and worldview. “Too often conversion takes place at the surface levels of behavior and beliefs; but if worldviews are not transformed, the gospel is interpreted in terms of pagan worldviews, and the result is Christo-paganism." (Hiebert 2008: 69) And, since worldview is linked to language, it goes without saying that the biblical text and Christian terminology must be placed in the language of the people in order for one to be truly Christian within their culture. | ||
| − | + | Grassroots theology is a term coined by Simon Chan. While it is true that theology is something that is viewed as coming down from God in the Christian faith, theology cannot be totally divorced from what happens on the physical earth among humanity. The idea behind grassroots theology is that theology takes place within the community of the faithful and will necessarily carry cultural characteristics of the host culture. The African context finds a great deal of suffering through poverty and illness and filial concerns extend to deceased ancestors. This has led African Christians to recognize Jesus as the Healer who can bring help for those suffering from disease. They will point to Messianic prophecies like, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy." (Isa. 35.5-6) They also find him to be the fulfillment for their need of an ancestral role as a mediator between the earthly and spiritual realms. They draw attention to Paul’s letter to Timothy, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2.5) The same can be said of Latin Americans attraction to the Holy Spirit and those giftings associated with him and South Asia’s attention to fear-power aspects of the gospel message coming from a culture steeped in animism and folk religions. | |
| − | + | Randy Dignan has learned from his own bilingual experience “that language isn’t understood only by the mind. Language can also be heard with the heart." (Dignan 2020: 13) The term heart language holds to the conviction that, while one can read and communicate in a second language, when in the most intimate and troubling circumstances an individual will automatically revert to his or her native tongue. This is since our native form of speech is not only natural but the language in which we communicate most deeply and freely. When the Japanese Christian, Shusaku Endo, reflected on the 250 years of suffering that the church in Japan had to endure and how the church was forced to recant their faith publicly and remove all religious symbols, he reverted to his native language to express his spiritual thoughts. The Japanese character chin (meaning silence) stood as a symbol as one “looks starkly into the darkness, but [creates] characters and language that somehow inexplicably move beyond” that darkness." (Fujimura 2016: 74) What in Shusaku Endo’s mind best describes the Japanese Christian’s experience of suffering? Chin. When speaking of things closest to us, humans, all of us, speak from the language closest to our heart—our native one. | |
| − | + | The early church set the pattern as it was birthed within a multilingual context and immediately entered translation efforts. Colonialism remains a constant threat as one culture takes the Christian faith into another foreign cultural context. Conversion is defined by the church as an experience that involves an individual who possesses a former way of life modeled after a specific pattern of behavior and a particular spiritual influence and then that way of life is abruptly interrupted and overturned by an encounter with Jesus. (cf. Eph. 2.1-7) That experience involves a love for God with all of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength. (cf. Mk. 12.30) What reaches to the depths of heart and soul is one’s language that reaches to worldview levels. Christianity is a faith that is intended to engulf the entire person from head to toe and from belief to action. The development of a grassroots theology involves the heart language of the people and has historically manifested the capacity to preserve cultures. This is a work on the history of translation in the church. | |
| − | + | [1] Papias’ writings are only available to us through the records kept by Eusebius. In these records, there are two extant quotes regarding authorship of the gospels. In regard to the gospel of Matthew, he writes, “Matthew composed the gospel in the Hebrew dialect and each translated them as best he could.” The early church understood this to mean that Matthew had originally written his gospel in Hebrew and it was soon after translated into Greek. However, scholars, such as D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, have brought the validity of this interpretation of Papias’ statement into question. (See 2005: 161-162) | |
| − | + | ==The Early Church And Translation== | |
| − | + | The early church was a multicultural and multilingual group of people. The church had its start within Jerusalem during a Jewish festival known as Pentecost. It was during this festival that Jews would converge within the city from the Jewish diaspora that had been created through centuries of occupation and exile. The Jews living among foreign lands had taken on the culture and languages of their captors and captive neighbors. When they came back to worship at the centralized Jerusalem Temple in 30 C.E., there was a complex and diverse representation of culture and a need for the Hebrew speakers to communicate in the languages of the diaspora. | |
| + | As noted above, Greek had long been the lingua franca by this time and translation of the church’s sacred text had already taken place. What is known as the Septuagint (LXX) was the Greek version(s) of the Hebrew Old Testament. Rather than referencing a specific translation, since there is no single identifiable text, the LXX is, in the words of Emanuel Tov, “the nature of the individual translation units” and “the nature of the Greek Scripture as a whole (p3).” The fictitious origins of the title Septuagint come from the tale of 70 translators who were said to have gathered in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II and the translation was miraculously accomplished within seventy-two days. Despite the fictitious tale of its beginning and the difficulty in identifying exactly what the Septuagint text contains, there is no doubt that the translations existed, and that Jesus’s apostles utilized them regularly in their writing of the New Testament text. | ||
| − | + | The New Testament does not qualify as a written translation of a Hebrew text, but it is a written Greek text that is translated from Jewish thought. The Jewish concepts of Temple, Levitical priesthood, Messiah, animal sacrifice, along with many other Old Testament imagery and thought are written down in Greek. It is interesting that there are assumptions made by biblical scholars that, since the biblical writers were writing in Greek, they must have been borrowing from Greek thought to communicate to a Greek audience. A common example can be found in the beginning of the gospel of John and its use of word (or logos). The text reads, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (Jn. 1.1) Many find the apostle John borrowing from Platonic philosophy and following in the footsteps of Hellenistic, Jewish philosopher, Philo who connected Greek Sophia (or Wisdom) with the logos, which was the knowledge, reason, and consciousness of the God of the Old Testament that assisted humans in life. | |
| − | + | Despite the face value validity of this being a moment of contextualization by the apostle John of Hebrew concepts into Greek thought, there may be a more reasonable explanation. Ronald A. Nash points out that it makes more sense to take logos not back to Greek philosophy primarily but to Hebrew thought in Genesis 1, since the writers had Jewish minds. In every activity of creation, as it is recorded in the Hebrew Old Testament, God is described as one who speaks all things into existence. “And God said, ‘Let there be light.'" (Gen. 1.3) It is the word of God that brought all of creation into existence. John takes the Hebrew thought regarding the spoken beginning of the cosmos and uses the Greek term logos as a title for Jesus to connect him with the origins of creation for the New Testament Greek audience. | |
| − | + | Regardless of how thoughts were communicated in translation, the fact remains that the early church was diligent from the start to ensure the biblical text made it into the hands of every people group encountered in their own language. The earliest translation of the Greek New Testament was either Syriac or Coptic. The Coptic version was translated by Egyptians of the north-western province in the third century. Today, there are five or six different identifiable Syriac versions that arise out of more than 350 extant manuscripts and the Peshitta is the earliest known translation following the LXX. By 200 C.E. there was an estimated seven translations, thirteen by the sixth century, and fifty-seven by the nineteenth century. In 2020, the Bible has been translated in whole into 704 languages, New Testament-only translations in 1,551 languages, and partial translations in another 1,160. | |
| − | + | [2] See D. Butler Pratt. 1907. “The Gospel of John from the Standpoint of Greek Tragedy.” The Biblical World. 30 (6): 448-459. The University of Chicago Press. and Ronald Williamson. 1970. Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Leiden: E. J. Brill. | |
| − | + | ==Motivation and Opposition to Translation in the Middle Ages== | |
| − | + | Emperor Diocletian had divided the Roman Empire into two sectors: the predominantly Latin-speaking western and the majority Greek-speaking eastern territories. Later in history with the weakening of the Roman Empire and a diversity of Germanic tribes occupying the west, the Eastern empire of Byzantium (led by a conviction as the rightful heirs of the Roman Empire) desired to reunite the former glory of Rome and, under the rule of Emperor Justinian I, successfully expanded its imperial authority from east to most of the former Roman western territory. There developed between Rome in the west and Constantinople in the east a politically driven religious rivalry after an alliance of the Frankish king, Pepin the Younger and the bishop of Rome. The political divide between the Franks and the Byzantines persisted to the point of the creation of two different leaders of the church, the Roman pope in the west and the Constantinian patriarch in the east. The Great Schism began in 1054 C.E. when the Byzantine patriarch Michael I Celarius sent a letter to the Roman bishop of Trani to debate the use of unleavened rather than leavened bread in the context of corporate worship with the claim of unleavened bread as a Jewish and not a Christian practice. The conflict was referred to the western capital city of Rome where pope Leo refused to make any concessions regarding the issue. | |
| − | + | In 1079 C.E. a letter was written by Vratislaus I, duke of Bohemia, requesting the pope of Rome allow his monks to do officiate in Slavonic recitations. Pope Gregory VII responded: | |
| − | + | Know that we can by no means favorably answer this your petition. For it is clear to those who reflect often upon it, that not without reason has it pleased Almighty God that holy scripture should be a secret in certain places, lest, if it were plainly apparent to all men, perchance it would be little esteemed and be subject to disrespect; or it might be falsely understood by those of mediocre learning, and lead to error … we forbid what you have so imprudently demanded of the authority of St. Peter, and we command you to resist this vain rashness with all your might, to the honor of Almighty God. (Deansely 1920: 24) | |
| − | + | One wonders if the recent signs of a schism and concern over who held church authority, either the patriarch or the pope, did not significantly influence such a verdict. In this case, it was likely not so much a concern over the misuse of the biblical text as it was a deterrent of Greek and Slavic influence from the eastern church having a hold on western adherents to the Christian faith. | |
| − | + | Vernacular translations did exist for royalty in nearly all European countries, such as those produced for John II of France or Charles V of Rome. Vernacular translations that were free adaptations, paraphrases, or rhymed verse were allowed among the laity for single books or portions of the Bible because such “a work was considered safer than the literal translation of the sacred text.” (Deansely 1920, 19) The fact that the Waldensians were early proponents of vernacular translation and viewed as a heretical group in the Roman church did not help the cause. This ascetic sect held that vows of apostolic poverty led to spiritual perfection. A native German and founder of the Waldensians, Peter Waldo, was a man with the will and financial means to have the New Testament translated into Franco-Provençal by a cleric from Lyon. The sect was not as keen on the Old Testament and so there was no completed translation work. The Lollards, or followers of Wycliffe, were viewed with theological suspicion by the church in Rome as well. John Wycliffe, an English philosopher and University of Oxford professor, believed that God was sovereign over all and that all men were on an equal footing under his reign and were not in submission to any other mediatory ecclesiastical power. Margaret Deansely claims that this “also led logically to the demand for a translated Bible” from the Latin vulgate to English. (Deansley 1920: 227) If everyone was under God and the divine mandate, then it is only fitting that each person be given that text in an understandable linguistic form. Wycliffe used the existence of translations among the nobility as a basis for a request for translations available to commoners. | |
| − | + | In 1412, the English archbishop Thomas Arundel wrote to pope John XXII charging that Wycliffe had “fill[ed] up the measure of his malice, he devised the expedient of a new translation of the scriptures into the mother tongue.” (Deansely 1920: 238) His Constitutions that were authored against Wycliffe post-humously and against the existing Lollard community, according to Shannon McSheffrey, “were probably responsible for a freeze on English translations of scripture” with only one surviving license for an English Bible in the fifteenth century, the Lollard translation remained the “most widely circulated of vernacular manuscripts.” (McSheffrey 2005: 63) Margaret Aston found that, despite the church in Rome’s crackdown on vernacular translation, the Lollards cause continued to influence the Reformers through their written publications. Martin Luther utilized the Commentarius in Apocalypsin ante Centum Annos æditus, Robert Redman produced a work heavily dependent on The Lanterne of light, and William Thynne’s The Plowman’s Tale has its source in an original fourteenth-century Lollard poem. The fires for vernacular translation had been rekindled in the church of the west. Jacob van Liesveldt published a Dutch translation in 1526; Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples completed the French Antwerp Bible in 1530; Luther’s German translation emerged in 1534; Maximus of Gallipoli printed a Greek translation of the New Testament in 1638; a completed Hungarian Bible immerged in 1590; Giovanni Diodati translated the Bible into Italian in 1607; João Ferreira d'Almeida printed a Portuguese New Testament in 1681; in 1550 a full translation arrived in Denmark; and Luther’s version of the New Testament was reprinted in part in the Swyzerdeutsch dialect by 1525. In 1953, Wycliffe Bible Translators was founded and currently has a global alliance of over 100 organizations that serve in Bible translation movements and language communities around the world and has been a part of vernacular translation in more than 700 languages. | |
| − | + | ==Defining Forms of Biblical Translation== | |
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| − | In the | + | In translation of the biblical text, the best possible translation scenario is one that comes from the original Hebrew-Aramaic Old Testament (including the later LXX translations) and Greek New Testament languages. There are Bible versions that are translated based on previous translations, but this is not ideal as it removes the translators from the linguistic source context. Ancient Greek has single words with multiple meanings, like bar in English that can refer to an establishment that serves alcohol and a metal object or hua in Chinese that can be read either as a verb or a noun. This can lead to inconsistencies in translation. For example, the Chinese Union Version (CUV), which is the most used Chinese version, translates the Greek word aletheia as chengshi (or honesty). John uses aletheia nineteen times in the Gospel of John and only once in John 16.7 does the word carry the meaning of honesty. It is clear in this passage that the meaning is honesty as it is a description of how Jesus speaks with his disciples. A single word in one language can also carry more information than in another. The Greek word hamartánein (or sin) in 1 John 1.9 is a present active verb for sin. The JMSJ Chinese version adds jixu (or continue) which is a word not found in Greek, but best expresses the original meaning with the addition of a word not found in the source text. |
| − | + | When translation issues arise like the latter example given above, there are translator decisions that must be made on how to best translate a source text’s meaning into the target text. There are translators who make the decision to stay as close to the source language as possible. This is known as a literal translation of the source text. Leland Ryken states that a literal translation approach is concerned more with “what the original text says [than] what it means.” (Ryken 2009, l. 323) This may lead to a translator sacrificing ease of the recipient audience’s understanding for the sake of an aim to stay faithful to the text. However, there are cases where literal translation has worked best. Toshikazu Foley notes how the Chinese Union Version takes a literal approach in Philippians 1.8 when it translates the Greek word splagknois (or the most inward parts of a man where emotions are felt) as xinchang (or heart-intestines). This phrase carries the meaning of someone with a “good heart” or “merciful and kind.” While Today’s Chinese Version (TCV) takes a more dynamic approach and follows Today’s English Version’s (TEV) translation as heart. In this instance, what the Greek text says and what it means can transfer to the Chinese text. | |
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| − | + | Continuing with the Philippians 1.8 scenario, the Greek word splagknois (or the most inward parts of a man where emotions are felt) cannot be directly translated into English in the same way that it can with the Chinese term xinchang (or heart-intestines). For an English translator to take a literal translation approach and simply make a direct translation as “I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ,” it would lead to a great misunderstanding by the English audience. The TEV translator has made the decision to surrender a literal translation out of concern for the target audience. This is known as a dynamic or functional equivalence translation. Ryken gives the following description: “Functional equivalence seeks something in the receptor language that produces the same effect (and therefore allegedly serves the same function) as the original statement, no matter how far removed the new statement might be from the original.” (Ryken 2009: l. 263) | |
| − | + | There are varying degrees of helpfulness when a translator is forced to move into the realm of dynamic equivalence. A comparison of two translation results from 2 Timothy 2.3 can be used to illustrate. The Chinese Union Version reads, “You want to suffer with me, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” While the Today’s Chinese Version reads, “As a loyal soldier of Christ Jesus, you have to share in the suffering.” In the surrounding context, Paul has just explained his own suffering in chapter one and speaks intimately of Timothy as his son in chapter two and expects Timothy to propagate his message further. The CUV follows the context more closely as Timothy follows in the ministry of his spiritual “father” before him and, as he shares Paul’s message, will also share in his sufferings. | |
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| − | + | Those translators that are very target text oriented in avoidance of difficult language and cultural differences, can leave the realm of translation and enter that of interpretation. To pursue Ryken’s description further, the free translation approach is primarily concerned with what the text means in its communication. The Concise Bible (JMSJ) takes great liberty in its translation of 1 Corinthians 1.23. Where the Chinese New Version translates, “We preach the crucified Christ; a stumbling block to the Jews and stupidity to the foreigner”, the JMSJ reads: | |
| − | + | “But all we proclaim is the Christ who was nailed to the cross to atone for people's sin. Jews hate this kind of message [, because their hope is in a political, military leader leading them to break free from Roman rule, and not the crucified Jesus]. People of other races think this kind of message is very foolish [, because they don't believe Jesus becoming sin and dying on a cross for people is Savior and Lord.]” | |
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| − | + | A non-native speaker could examine the Chinese New Version and JMSJ and recognize just by the stark contrast in Chinese character counts between the two versions that the JMSJ has gone to great lengths to communicate the meaning of the source text to its Chinese target audience. | |
| − | + | ==Conclusion== | |
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| − | + | The Christian church was birthed in a multilingual environment that was the result of seemingly endless years of exile which the superior kingdoms of Babylon, Assyria, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome forced upon the Jewish population. The Christians believe, in the pen of the apostle Paul, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8.28) The kingdoms aggressively destroyed and pillaged and uprooted families, friends, and neighbors from their promised land and decimated the Temple. The Jews were left without a king, a name, and, from all outward appearances, a God. Yet this landless state of a people, that commonly struggled with ethnocentrism, propelled them into a crash course with foreign language studies. Genesis 31.47; Jeremiah 10.11; Ezra 4.8-6.18; 7.12-26; and Daniel 2.4-7.28 are all portions of the Old Testament that were not written in Hebrew, but in Aramaic. Aramaic was the official language used circa 700-200 B.C.E. and remnants of its widespread usage were found in parts of Babylon, Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, Assyria, and other ancient regions. The LXX translations quoted in the New Testament also attest to the Greco-Roman occupation and the Jews ability to adapt to their surrounding cultures. When the Holy Spirit descends with tongues of fire, the followers of Jesus tongues are alight with the diversity mirroring the surrounding effects of a melting pot of cultural diversity. The first Christians (primarily Jewish) were already equipped to communicate the gospel message of Jesus on a worldview level in the heart language of their former oppressors. | |
| − | + | The cultures that interacted, and at points even dominated the Palestinian culture, were the first ones to experience the early church’s fervent cross-cultural evangelistic efforts through the means of translation. Peter J. Williams gives this historical comment: “The oldest records in Syriac are pagan or secular, but from the mid-second century onward, the influence of Christianity could be felt in Syriac-speaking culture, and from the fourth century, this influence dominated literary output.” (Williams 2013: 143) The most notable of these early Christian texts is Tatian’s Diatessaron (the earliest known harmony of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) around 170 C.E. Philip Jenkins lists Syria among the Near Eastern places of origin where, “during the first few centuries [Christianity] had its greatest centers, its most prestigious churches and monasteries.” (Jenkins 2008: l. 47) It was the theological struggles of this church that led to the early articulation of key doctrines, like the hypostatic union of Christ that sets forth the relationship between his divine and human natures. | |
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| − | + | The utilization of koine Greek pressed the church outward with a global missional front. One that, as previously noted, preserves the languages of outlying and isolated cultures and plants the Christian faith firmly in the local cultural context to ensure its perseverance. Before the writings of the New Testament are even completed, the church is already seen in transition from a primarily Jewish body to a predominantly Greek one. The apostle Paul queried the apostle Peter, both of Jewish descent, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Gal. 2.14) And the church in its infancy is described in the midst of a racial dilemma: “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” (Acts 6.1) These were not signs of stagnation but were natural growing pains of a church that was oriented outward. Although the church seems to struggle or lose its focus from time to time, overall, it has been at the forefront of linguistic translation and has made the Bible the most popular and well-read text in all the world for centuries. | |
| − | + | ==References== | |
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| − | + | Aston, Margaret. 1964. “Lollardy and the Reformation: Survival or Revival.” in History. 49 (166): 149-170. Hoboken: Wiley. | |
| − | + | Carroll, John B., ed. 1956. ''Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf''. Cambridge: MIT Press. | |
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| − | + | Carson, D. A. & Douglas J. Moo. 2005. ''An Introduction to the New Testament''. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. | |
| − | + | Chan, Simon. 2014. ''Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground Up''. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. | |
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| − | + | CUV Bible (Heheben). 2006. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Bible Society. | |
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| − | The | + | Deansely, Margaret. 1920. ''The Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions''. Cambridge: University Press. |
| − | + | Dignan, Randy. 2020. ''Heart Language: Let’s Communicate Like Jesus and Change the World!'' Daphne: River Birch Press. | |
| − | + | Doughill, John. 2012. ''In Search of Japan’s Hidden Christians: A Story of Suppression, Secrecy, and Survival''. Rutland: Tuttle Publishing. | |
| − | + | ESV Study Bible. 2008. Wheaton: Crossway Books. | |
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| − | + | Foley, Toshikazu. 2009. ''Biblical Translation in Chinese and Greek: Verbal Aspect in Theory and Practice''. Leiden: Brill. | |
| − | + | Fujimura, Makoto. 2016. ''Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering''. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. | |
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| − | + | Hiebert, Paul G. 2008. ''Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change''. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. | |
| − | + | Jenkins, Philip. 2008. ''The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died''. New York: HarperCollins. | |
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| − | + | JMSJ Bible (Jianmingshengjing). 2012. Taipei: Taipei Daoshen Publishing House. | |
| − | + | Lewis, Richard D. 2010. ''When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures''. 3rd ed. Boston: Hachette Book Group. | |
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| − | + | Loewenberg, Richard D. “An Eighteenth Century Pioness of Semantics.” ETC: A Review of General Semantics. 1 (2): 99-104. Institute of General Semantics. | |
| − | + | McSheffrey, Shannon. 2005. “Heresy, Orthodoxy and English Vernacular Religion 1480-1525.” Past & Present. 186 (1): 47-80. Oxford University Press. | |
| − | + | Nash, Ronald A. 2003. ''The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought?'' Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing. | |
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| − | + | Ryken, Leland. 2009. ''Understanding English Bible Translation: The Case for an Essentially Literal Approach''. Wheaton: Crossway. | |
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| − | + | Sanneh, Lamin. 1987. “Christian Missions and the Western Guilt Complex.” The Christian Century. 104 (11): 331-334. The Christian Century Foundation. | |
| − | + | TCV Bible (Xiandaizhongwenyiben). 1979. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Bible Society. | |
| − | + | TEV Bible. 1976. New York: American Bible Society. | |
| − | + | Tov, Emanuel. 2010. “Reflections on the Septuagint with Special Attention Paid to the Post-Pentateuchal Translations,” in Die Septuaginta – Texte, Theologien, Einflusse, ed. Wolfgang Kraus and Martin Karrer, 3–22. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck. | |
| − | + | Warneck, Gustav. 1888. ''Modern Missions and Culture: Their Mutual Relations''. Edinburgh: James Gemmell. | |
| − | + | Williams, Peter J. 2013. “The Syriac Versions of the New Testament,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, eds. Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes, 143-166. Leiden: Brill. | |
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Bible Translation in Christian History
Benjamin Wellsand, Hunan Normal University, China
Abstract
The history of Christianity is rich in translations. Why is this the case? What is the motivation behind all this translation effort? The present work will explain the rationale behind the perceived need for translation. It will describe the multicultural context that aided the church in communicating in a heart language. An awkward struggle in the Middle Ages will leave the future of the church in question. What created this polar shift in the West from the church's original course bearings? How and why did the church recover? What remains of centuries of Christian diligence to get the Word into the words of the other? Through historical events, life experiences of translators, and the tales that live on in the translations themselves will answer these questions and encourage the reader to enter the exciting and vast history of Bible translation.
Key Words
Aramaic language—refers to the Semitic dialect of a Middle Eastern people written in a Phoenician alphabet and first appearing in the 11th century B.C.E and growing to the peak of prominence in the 8th century B.C.E.
Free Translation—a translator’s decision to avoid as many target audience misunderstandings as possible due to linguistic and cultural differences with the source text’s culture
Functional or Dynamic Translation—a translator’s decision to focus more attention on communicating the meaning of the source text with concern for the target text
Grassroots theology—the lived experience of the church that then develops into a theological framework
Greek language—refers to that Greek developed in the 4th century B.C.E. and utilized by the Greco-Roman Empire
Heart language—the native language of a person from which the deepest emotional meanings are expressed
Hebrew language—refers to the ancient Jewish dialect spoken between the 10th century B.C.E. and the 4th century C.E.
Literal Translation—a translator’s decision to focus attention primarily on what the source text says
Septuagint—the Greek translations of the Hebrew Old Testament
Vernacular language—an expression or mode of expression that is a part of everyday communication and not yet in written form
Introduction
Translation of the biblical text has been a practice of the Christian church since its very origin. The founding of the church during the Jewish festival of Pentecost, as recorded in the Bible itself, involved Jesus’ disciples communicating the gospel message in the language of Parthians, Medes, Mesopotamians, and Egyptians, among others. (cf. Acts 2.7-11) The final vision of the multitude of the saved in heaven are described as a “people of God from every tribe and language and people and nation." (Rev. 5.9) The New Testament, although authored by primarily Hebrew-speaking Jews, was first written in the lingua franca, koine Greek, of the day. Whereas Buddhists and Muslims identify their sacred texts and faiths inseparably from the original languages of Sanskrit, Pali and Arabic, the Christian faith has sought to translate the biblical texts immediately and directly into the vernacular language of the people to accelerate its global spread. On a historical basis, the Christian faith has been criticized regarding colonialism and the destruction of cultures. One such case occurred in the sixteenth-century with the Japanese. Giant ships (in comparison to the Japanese) came to dock on the island from Portugal. Many transactions were made between the Portuguese traders and the local Japanese damaiyo. When trade agreements went south, as it did in the case of Portugal and Japan, the Portuguese missionaries were associated with the politics and kicked out of the country. They were ousted under the accusations of encouraging Japanese to eat horses and cows, misleading people through science and medicine, and trading Japanese slaves. (Doughill 2012: l. 1064) Although the missionaries had done no such things, they were targeted along with the Portuguese government for these criminal acts.
There are cases where the colonial form of the church has not come to intentionally destroy but has assumed cultural superiority and inadvertently added to the host culture their own country of origin’s cultural forms. Late 19th century missionaries to Africa felt that the Western-style structure of a dwelling was an indicator of modern progress. In 1879, the magistrate of Gatberg declared:
It is not only that the requirement of modesty necessitates the providing of some sort of clothing, however simple; but Christian morality desires also a dwelling corresponding to human dignity, decency, and purity. Building plays an important part in the mission. First the missionary builds a simple small house for himself, to which he soon adds a school and a church. Generally, he must himself superintend this work; often enough, indeed, he must execute it with his own hand, and it stands him in good stead to have been a tradesman at home. But he induces the natives also to help him, and much patience as it requires on his part, he undertakes to instruct them. Gradually his word and his example produce their effect, and the converts from heathenism begin to build new and more decent dwellings for themselves. (Warneck 1888: 80)
There is no denying that the church has struggled to decontextualize the faith from their home culture and properly contextualize it into the host culture. This has led to the host culture’s Christianity looking eerily similar to the missionary’s, at best, or a faith that forever remains foreign to the host culture, at worst. Yet, as Lamin Sanneh notes, Christian missionaries have often played a key role in the preservation of cultures:
The translation enterprise had two major steps. One was the creation of a vernacular alphabet for societies that lacked a literary tradition. The other step was to shake the existing literary tradition free of its esoteric, elitist predilection by recasting it as a popular medium. Both steps stimulated an indigenous response and encouraged the discovery of local resources for the appropriation of Christianity. (Sanneh 1987: 333)
The translation of the biblical text into another language is not simply a greater convenience to the reader in the target culture but accomplishes far more as language extends much deeper than a mere form of communication. Benjamin L. Whorf’s theory of linguistic relativity holds that language influences thought and not thought that influences language. For him, “linguistics is essentially the quest of meaning." (Carroll 1956: 73) George C. Lichtenberg, another pioneer of linguistics, is famously quoted as saying, “Our false philosophy is incorporated in our whole language; we cannot talk, so to say, without talking incorrectly. We do not consider that speaking, irrespective of its content, presents a philosophy." (Loewenberg 1943-44: 102) Richard D. Lewis illustrated this point with an interaction between himself, an Englishman, and a former Zulu chief who received a doctorate in philology at Oxford as they discussed the color green. As the Zulu pointed to a leaf in the sun, a leaf in the shade, a wet leaf in the sun and one in the shade, bush leaves, leaves in the wind, rivers, pools, tree trunks, and crocodiles, all to which Lewis responded with a single answer: green. Yet his Zulu friend had reached thirty-nine different terms for green with no trouble at all (Lewis 2006, 9). Paul G. Hiebert writes, “We examine the language to discover the categories the people use in their thinking." (Hiebert 2008: 90) Christians, like Hiebert, recognize that true conversion of a person’s mind can only happen if it takes place on three levels of the individual: belief, behavior, and worldview. “Too often conversion takes place at the surface levels of behavior and beliefs; but if worldviews are not transformed, the gospel is interpreted in terms of pagan worldviews, and the result is Christo-paganism." (Hiebert 2008: 69) And, since worldview is linked to language, it goes without saying that the biblical text and Christian terminology must be placed in the language of the people in order for one to be truly Christian within their culture.
Grassroots theology is a term coined by Simon Chan. While it is true that theology is something that is viewed as coming down from God in the Christian faith, theology cannot be totally divorced from what happens on the physical earth among humanity. The idea behind grassroots theology is that theology takes place within the community of the faithful and will necessarily carry cultural characteristics of the host culture. The African context finds a great deal of suffering through poverty and illness and filial concerns extend to deceased ancestors. This has led African Christians to recognize Jesus as the Healer who can bring help for those suffering from disease. They will point to Messianic prophecies like, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy." (Isa. 35.5-6) They also find him to be the fulfillment for their need of an ancestral role as a mediator between the earthly and spiritual realms. They draw attention to Paul’s letter to Timothy, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2.5) The same can be said of Latin Americans attraction to the Holy Spirit and those giftings associated with him and South Asia’s attention to fear-power aspects of the gospel message coming from a culture steeped in animism and folk religions.
Randy Dignan has learned from his own bilingual experience “that language isn’t understood only by the mind. Language can also be heard with the heart." (Dignan 2020: 13) The term heart language holds to the conviction that, while one can read and communicate in a second language, when in the most intimate and troubling circumstances an individual will automatically revert to his or her native tongue. This is since our native form of speech is not only natural but the language in which we communicate most deeply and freely. When the Japanese Christian, Shusaku Endo, reflected on the 250 years of suffering that the church in Japan had to endure and how the church was forced to recant their faith publicly and remove all religious symbols, he reverted to his native language to express his spiritual thoughts. The Japanese character chin (meaning silence) stood as a symbol as one “looks starkly into the darkness, but [creates] characters and language that somehow inexplicably move beyond” that darkness." (Fujimura 2016: 74) What in Shusaku Endo’s mind best describes the Japanese Christian’s experience of suffering? Chin. When speaking of things closest to us, humans, all of us, speak from the language closest to our heart—our native one.
The early church set the pattern as it was birthed within a multilingual context and immediately entered translation efforts. Colonialism remains a constant threat as one culture takes the Christian faith into another foreign cultural context. Conversion is defined by the church as an experience that involves an individual who possesses a former way of life modeled after a specific pattern of behavior and a particular spiritual influence and then that way of life is abruptly interrupted and overturned by an encounter with Jesus. (cf. Eph. 2.1-7) That experience involves a love for God with all of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength. (cf. Mk. 12.30) What reaches to the depths of heart and soul is one’s language that reaches to worldview levels. Christianity is a faith that is intended to engulf the entire person from head to toe and from belief to action. The development of a grassroots theology involves the heart language of the people and has historically manifested the capacity to preserve cultures. This is a work on the history of translation in the church.
[1] Papias’ writings are only available to us through the records kept by Eusebius. In these records, there are two extant quotes regarding authorship of the gospels. In regard to the gospel of Matthew, he writes, “Matthew composed the gospel in the Hebrew dialect and each translated them as best he could.” The early church understood this to mean that Matthew had originally written his gospel in Hebrew and it was soon after translated into Greek. However, scholars, such as D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, have brought the validity of this interpretation of Papias’ statement into question. (See 2005: 161-162)
The Early Church And Translation
The early church was a multicultural and multilingual group of people. The church had its start within Jerusalem during a Jewish festival known as Pentecost. It was during this festival that Jews would converge within the city from the Jewish diaspora that had been created through centuries of occupation and exile. The Jews living among foreign lands had taken on the culture and languages of their captors and captive neighbors. When they came back to worship at the centralized Jerusalem Temple in 30 C.E., there was a complex and diverse representation of culture and a need for the Hebrew speakers to communicate in the languages of the diaspora. As noted above, Greek had long been the lingua franca by this time and translation of the church’s sacred text had already taken place. What is known as the Septuagint (LXX) was the Greek version(s) of the Hebrew Old Testament. Rather than referencing a specific translation, since there is no single identifiable text, the LXX is, in the words of Emanuel Tov, “the nature of the individual translation units” and “the nature of the Greek Scripture as a whole (p3).” The fictitious origins of the title Septuagint come from the tale of 70 translators who were said to have gathered in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II and the translation was miraculously accomplished within seventy-two days. Despite the fictitious tale of its beginning and the difficulty in identifying exactly what the Septuagint text contains, there is no doubt that the translations existed, and that Jesus’s apostles utilized them regularly in their writing of the New Testament text.
The New Testament does not qualify as a written translation of a Hebrew text, but it is a written Greek text that is translated from Jewish thought. The Jewish concepts of Temple, Levitical priesthood, Messiah, animal sacrifice, along with many other Old Testament imagery and thought are written down in Greek. It is interesting that there are assumptions made by biblical scholars that, since the biblical writers were writing in Greek, they must have been borrowing from Greek thought to communicate to a Greek audience. A common example can be found in the beginning of the gospel of John and its use of word (or logos). The text reads, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (Jn. 1.1) Many find the apostle John borrowing from Platonic philosophy and following in the footsteps of Hellenistic, Jewish philosopher, Philo who connected Greek Sophia (or Wisdom) with the logos, which was the knowledge, reason, and consciousness of the God of the Old Testament that assisted humans in life.
Despite the face value validity of this being a moment of contextualization by the apostle John of Hebrew concepts into Greek thought, there may be a more reasonable explanation. Ronald A. Nash points out that it makes more sense to take logos not back to Greek philosophy primarily but to Hebrew thought in Genesis 1, since the writers had Jewish minds. In every activity of creation, as it is recorded in the Hebrew Old Testament, God is described as one who speaks all things into existence. “And God said, ‘Let there be light.'" (Gen. 1.3) It is the word of God that brought all of creation into existence. John takes the Hebrew thought regarding the spoken beginning of the cosmos and uses the Greek term logos as a title for Jesus to connect him with the origins of creation for the New Testament Greek audience.
Regardless of how thoughts were communicated in translation, the fact remains that the early church was diligent from the start to ensure the biblical text made it into the hands of every people group encountered in their own language. The earliest translation of the Greek New Testament was either Syriac or Coptic. The Coptic version was translated by Egyptians of the north-western province in the third century. Today, there are five or six different identifiable Syriac versions that arise out of more than 350 extant manuscripts and the Peshitta is the earliest known translation following the LXX. By 200 C.E. there was an estimated seven translations, thirteen by the sixth century, and fifty-seven by the nineteenth century. In 2020, the Bible has been translated in whole into 704 languages, New Testament-only translations in 1,551 languages, and partial translations in another 1,160.
[2] See D. Butler Pratt. 1907. “The Gospel of John from the Standpoint of Greek Tragedy.” The Biblical World. 30 (6): 448-459. The University of Chicago Press. and Ronald Williamson. 1970. Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Motivation and Opposition to Translation in the Middle Ages
Emperor Diocletian had divided the Roman Empire into two sectors: the predominantly Latin-speaking western and the majority Greek-speaking eastern territories. Later in history with the weakening of the Roman Empire and a diversity of Germanic tribes occupying the west, the Eastern empire of Byzantium (led by a conviction as the rightful heirs of the Roman Empire) desired to reunite the former glory of Rome and, under the rule of Emperor Justinian I, successfully expanded its imperial authority from east to most of the former Roman western territory. There developed between Rome in the west and Constantinople in the east a politically driven religious rivalry after an alliance of the Frankish king, Pepin the Younger and the bishop of Rome. The political divide between the Franks and the Byzantines persisted to the point of the creation of two different leaders of the church, the Roman pope in the west and the Constantinian patriarch in the east. The Great Schism began in 1054 C.E. when the Byzantine patriarch Michael I Celarius sent a letter to the Roman bishop of Trani to debate the use of unleavened rather than leavened bread in the context of corporate worship with the claim of unleavened bread as a Jewish and not a Christian practice. The conflict was referred to the western capital city of Rome where pope Leo refused to make any concessions regarding the issue.
In 1079 C.E. a letter was written by Vratislaus I, duke of Bohemia, requesting the pope of Rome allow his monks to do officiate in Slavonic recitations. Pope Gregory VII responded:
Know that we can by no means favorably answer this your petition. For it is clear to those who reflect often upon it, that not without reason has it pleased Almighty God that holy scripture should be a secret in certain places, lest, if it were plainly apparent to all men, perchance it would be little esteemed and be subject to disrespect; or it might be falsely understood by those of mediocre learning, and lead to error … we forbid what you have so imprudently demanded of the authority of St. Peter, and we command you to resist this vain rashness with all your might, to the honor of Almighty God. (Deansely 1920: 24)
One wonders if the recent signs of a schism and concern over who held church authority, either the patriarch or the pope, did not significantly influence such a verdict. In this case, it was likely not so much a concern over the misuse of the biblical text as it was a deterrent of Greek and Slavic influence from the eastern church having a hold on western adherents to the Christian faith.
Vernacular translations did exist for royalty in nearly all European countries, such as those produced for John II of France or Charles V of Rome. Vernacular translations that were free adaptations, paraphrases, or rhymed verse were allowed among the laity for single books or portions of the Bible because such “a work was considered safer than the literal translation of the sacred text.” (Deansely 1920, 19) The fact that the Waldensians were early proponents of vernacular translation and viewed as a heretical group in the Roman church did not help the cause. This ascetic sect held that vows of apostolic poverty led to spiritual perfection. A native German and founder of the Waldensians, Peter Waldo, was a man with the will and financial means to have the New Testament translated into Franco-Provençal by a cleric from Lyon. The sect was not as keen on the Old Testament and so there was no completed translation work. The Lollards, or followers of Wycliffe, were viewed with theological suspicion by the church in Rome as well. John Wycliffe, an English philosopher and University of Oxford professor, believed that God was sovereign over all and that all men were on an equal footing under his reign and were not in submission to any other mediatory ecclesiastical power. Margaret Deansely claims that this “also led logically to the demand for a translated Bible” from the Latin vulgate to English. (Deansley 1920: 227) If everyone was under God and the divine mandate, then it is only fitting that each person be given that text in an understandable linguistic form. Wycliffe used the existence of translations among the nobility as a basis for a request for translations available to commoners.
In 1412, the English archbishop Thomas Arundel wrote to pope John XXII charging that Wycliffe had “fill[ed] up the measure of his malice, he devised the expedient of a new translation of the scriptures into the mother tongue.” (Deansely 1920: 238) His Constitutions that were authored against Wycliffe post-humously and against the existing Lollard community, according to Shannon McSheffrey, “were probably responsible for a freeze on English translations of scripture” with only one surviving license for an English Bible in the fifteenth century, the Lollard translation remained the “most widely circulated of vernacular manuscripts.” (McSheffrey 2005: 63) Margaret Aston found that, despite the church in Rome’s crackdown on vernacular translation, the Lollards cause continued to influence the Reformers through their written publications. Martin Luther utilized the Commentarius in Apocalypsin ante Centum Annos æditus, Robert Redman produced a work heavily dependent on The Lanterne of light, and William Thynne’s The Plowman’s Tale has its source in an original fourteenth-century Lollard poem. The fires for vernacular translation had been rekindled in the church of the west. Jacob van Liesveldt published a Dutch translation in 1526; Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples completed the French Antwerp Bible in 1530; Luther’s German translation emerged in 1534; Maximus of Gallipoli printed a Greek translation of the New Testament in 1638; a completed Hungarian Bible immerged in 1590; Giovanni Diodati translated the Bible into Italian in 1607; João Ferreira d'Almeida printed a Portuguese New Testament in 1681; in 1550 a full translation arrived in Denmark; and Luther’s version of the New Testament was reprinted in part in the Swyzerdeutsch dialect by 1525. In 1953, Wycliffe Bible Translators was founded and currently has a global alliance of over 100 organizations that serve in Bible translation movements and language communities around the world and has been a part of vernacular translation in more than 700 languages.
Defining Forms of Biblical Translation
In translation of the biblical text, the best possible translation scenario is one that comes from the original Hebrew-Aramaic Old Testament (including the later LXX translations) and Greek New Testament languages. There are Bible versions that are translated based on previous translations, but this is not ideal as it removes the translators from the linguistic source context. Ancient Greek has single words with multiple meanings, like bar in English that can refer to an establishment that serves alcohol and a metal object or hua in Chinese that can be read either as a verb or a noun. This can lead to inconsistencies in translation. For example, the Chinese Union Version (CUV), which is the most used Chinese version, translates the Greek word aletheia as chengshi (or honesty). John uses aletheia nineteen times in the Gospel of John and only once in John 16.7 does the word carry the meaning of honesty. It is clear in this passage that the meaning is honesty as it is a description of how Jesus speaks with his disciples. A single word in one language can also carry more information than in another. The Greek word hamartánein (or sin) in 1 John 1.9 is a present active verb for sin. The JMSJ Chinese version adds jixu (or continue) which is a word not found in Greek, but best expresses the original meaning with the addition of a word not found in the source text.
When translation issues arise like the latter example given above, there are translator decisions that must be made on how to best translate a source text’s meaning into the target text. There are translators who make the decision to stay as close to the source language as possible. This is known as a literal translation of the source text. Leland Ryken states that a literal translation approach is concerned more with “what the original text says [than] what it means.” (Ryken 2009, l. 323) This may lead to a translator sacrificing ease of the recipient audience’s understanding for the sake of an aim to stay faithful to the text. However, there are cases where literal translation has worked best. Toshikazu Foley notes how the Chinese Union Version takes a literal approach in Philippians 1.8 when it translates the Greek word splagknois (or the most inward parts of a man where emotions are felt) as xinchang (or heart-intestines). This phrase carries the meaning of someone with a “good heart” or “merciful and kind.” While Today’s Chinese Version (TCV) takes a more dynamic approach and follows Today’s English Version’s (TEV) translation as heart. In this instance, what the Greek text says and what it means can transfer to the Chinese text.
Continuing with the Philippians 1.8 scenario, the Greek word splagknois (or the most inward parts of a man where emotions are felt) cannot be directly translated into English in the same way that it can with the Chinese term xinchang (or heart-intestines). For an English translator to take a literal translation approach and simply make a direct translation as “I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ,” it would lead to a great misunderstanding by the English audience. The TEV translator has made the decision to surrender a literal translation out of concern for the target audience. This is known as a dynamic or functional equivalence translation. Ryken gives the following description: “Functional equivalence seeks something in the receptor language that produces the same effect (and therefore allegedly serves the same function) as the original statement, no matter how far removed the new statement might be from the original.” (Ryken 2009: l. 263)
There are varying degrees of helpfulness when a translator is forced to move into the realm of dynamic equivalence. A comparison of two translation results from 2 Timothy 2.3 can be used to illustrate. The Chinese Union Version reads, “You want to suffer with me, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” While the Today’s Chinese Version reads, “As a loyal soldier of Christ Jesus, you have to share in the suffering.” In the surrounding context, Paul has just explained his own suffering in chapter one and speaks intimately of Timothy as his son in chapter two and expects Timothy to propagate his message further. The CUV follows the context more closely as Timothy follows in the ministry of his spiritual “father” before him and, as he shares Paul’s message, will also share in his sufferings.
Those translators that are very target text oriented in avoidance of difficult language and cultural differences, can leave the realm of translation and enter that of interpretation. To pursue Ryken’s description further, the free translation approach is primarily concerned with what the text means in its communication. The Concise Bible (JMSJ) takes great liberty in its translation of 1 Corinthians 1.23. Where the Chinese New Version translates, “We preach the crucified Christ; a stumbling block to the Jews and stupidity to the foreigner”, the JMSJ reads:
“But all we proclaim is the Christ who was nailed to the cross to atone for people's sin. Jews hate this kind of message [, because their hope is in a political, military leader leading them to break free from Roman rule, and not the crucified Jesus]. People of other races think this kind of message is very foolish [, because they don't believe Jesus becoming sin and dying on a cross for people is Savior and Lord.]”
A non-native speaker could examine the Chinese New Version and JMSJ and recognize just by the stark contrast in Chinese character counts between the two versions that the JMSJ has gone to great lengths to communicate the meaning of the source text to its Chinese target audience.
Conclusion
The Christian church was birthed in a multilingual environment that was the result of seemingly endless years of exile which the superior kingdoms of Babylon, Assyria, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome forced upon the Jewish population. The Christians believe, in the pen of the apostle Paul, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8.28) The kingdoms aggressively destroyed and pillaged and uprooted families, friends, and neighbors from their promised land and decimated the Temple. The Jews were left without a king, a name, and, from all outward appearances, a God. Yet this landless state of a people, that commonly struggled with ethnocentrism, propelled them into a crash course with foreign language studies. Genesis 31.47; Jeremiah 10.11; Ezra 4.8-6.18; 7.12-26; and Daniel 2.4-7.28 are all portions of the Old Testament that were not written in Hebrew, but in Aramaic. Aramaic was the official language used circa 700-200 B.C.E. and remnants of its widespread usage were found in parts of Babylon, Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, Assyria, and other ancient regions. The LXX translations quoted in the New Testament also attest to the Greco-Roman occupation and the Jews ability to adapt to their surrounding cultures. When the Holy Spirit descends with tongues of fire, the followers of Jesus tongues are alight with the diversity mirroring the surrounding effects of a melting pot of cultural diversity. The first Christians (primarily Jewish) were already equipped to communicate the gospel message of Jesus on a worldview level in the heart language of their former oppressors.
The cultures that interacted, and at points even dominated the Palestinian culture, were the first ones to experience the early church’s fervent cross-cultural evangelistic efforts through the means of translation. Peter J. Williams gives this historical comment: “The oldest records in Syriac are pagan or secular, but from the mid-second century onward, the influence of Christianity could be felt in Syriac-speaking culture, and from the fourth century, this influence dominated literary output.” (Williams 2013: 143) The most notable of these early Christian texts is Tatian’s Diatessaron (the earliest known harmony of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) around 170 C.E. Philip Jenkins lists Syria among the Near Eastern places of origin where, “during the first few centuries [Christianity] had its greatest centers, its most prestigious churches and monasteries.” (Jenkins 2008: l. 47) It was the theological struggles of this church that led to the early articulation of key doctrines, like the hypostatic union of Christ that sets forth the relationship between his divine and human natures.
The utilization of koine Greek pressed the church outward with a global missional front. One that, as previously noted, preserves the languages of outlying and isolated cultures and plants the Christian faith firmly in the local cultural context to ensure its perseverance. Before the writings of the New Testament are even completed, the church is already seen in transition from a primarily Jewish body to a predominantly Greek one. The apostle Paul queried the apostle Peter, both of Jewish descent, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Gal. 2.14) And the church in its infancy is described in the midst of a racial dilemma: “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” (Acts 6.1) These were not signs of stagnation but were natural growing pains of a church that was oriented outward. Although the church seems to struggle or lose its focus from time to time, overall, it has been at the forefront of linguistic translation and has made the Bible the most popular and well-read text in all the world for centuries.
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